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Embrace VILPA: Unlock the Power of Short Bursts of Exercise for Lifelong FitnessEver stumbled upon a trend that made you chuckle and think, “Hang on, I’ve been doing this for yonks without even realising it was a ‘thing’?” Well, pull up a chair and let me spill the beans on Vigorous Intermittent Lifestyle Physical Activity, or VILPA, as the cool kids are calling it. It’s like discovering you’ve been a secret agent of fitness in your daily life without the official title.
For a few years now, every day without fail, just before tucking into my main meal, I’ve been engaging in energetic skipping followed by a bout on the rebounder. Little did I know, my little pre-dinner routine was me tipping my hat to VILPA – before I even knew VILPA was a thing! This cheeky bit of VILPA movement might just be the secret sauce to my vibrant health and energy.
So, let’s dive into the world of VILPA, shall we? It’s about squeezing in short bursts of vigorous activity into your daily life, no gym membership required. Think of it as the health hack that’s been hiding in plain sight. And who knows, by the end of this, you might realise you’re already part of the VILPA club, too!
VILPA Explained: Micro-workouts, Not GymsLet’s get to the heart of the matter: what on Earth is VILPA? Vigorous Intermittent Lifestyle Physical Activity, or VILPA for short, is not your traditional jog around the park or the gruelling hour-long session at the gym. No, it’s sneakier than that. VILPA is all about integrating short, sharp bursts of high-intensity activity into your daily routine. Think power-walking to the shops, taking the stairs two at a time, or, in my case, a quick session of skipping and rebounding before dinner. It’s about making the activities of daily living a bit more…vigorous.
VILPA is adaptable and can be modified for any fitness level, making it safe for beginners.
Start with low-intensity activities like
squats in the kitchen
brisk walking
or bodyweight exercises
and gradually increase intensity and duration as you get fitter.
Now, how does this differ from the usual suspects in the exercise lineup? Traditional exercise regimes often come with a side of “I really can’t be bothered today,” requiring dedicated chunks of time, specific equipment, and sometimes even a level of solemnity that can be off-putting. HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training), while closer in spirit to VILPA with its emphasis on intensity over duration, still usually demands a more structured approach and a readiness to don workout attire and sweat profusely.
Pump Up Your Heart: How VILPA Improves Cardiovascular HealthVILPA, on the other hand, is the undercover agent of the fitness world. It’s about seizing those little moments throughout the day to elevate your heart rate and strengthen your body without needing to block out time in your diary. It’s HIIT without the need for a gym, and traditional exercise without the monotony.
For folks in their 40s-60s realising health should be a priority, VILPA is a godsend.. It’s practical, adaptable, and joint-friendly compared to more intense workouts..
The benefits? Oh, they’re as plentiful as the biscuits in a British pantry. Improved cardiovascular health, better glucose management, enhanced mental well-being, and a more robust metabolism are just the start. Incorporating VILPA into your daily life can lead to improvements in overall health, energy levels, and even your outlook on life.
So, for those of us who thought our best metabolic rate days were behind us, VILPA offers a glimmer of hope. It whispers, “Focus not on time lost but moments you can seize now.” And honestly, who can resist such a charming proposition?
The Science and Benefits of VILPALet’s don the lab coat and peek through the microscope at the science behind VILPA, shall we? While the idea of injecting short, vigorous activities into our day might sound as simple as adding milk to tea, there’s a heap of scientific backing that makes it even more compelling.
First off, studies have shown that high-intensity interval training (HIIT), which shares DNA with VILPA, can significantly improve aerobic and anaerobic fitness, lower blood pressure, and reduce body fat more effectively than more prolonged, moderate forms of micro workouts. But here’s where VILPA dances to its own beat: it suggests that these vigorous activities can be woven into the fabric of our daily lives, without the need for a dedicated workout session.
VILPA's Impact on Muscle Mass and Calorie BurningThis can be a powerful strategy for increasing muscle mass. Why is this important? Because muscle tissue burns more calories than fat tissue, even when you’re at rest. Incorporating VILPA into your daily routine, through activities like quick, intense bouts of stair climbing or carrying heavy groceries, can help build and maintain muscle. This, in turn, boosts your metabolic rate, making it easier to manage your weight and improve overall body composition.
Improvements in mental health tooThis approach has been linked to not only physical health benefits but also improvements in mental health and mood. Engaging in physical activity can release endorphins, those feel-good hormones that brighten our outlook on life.
The benefits of VILPA for ages 40-65 are extensive and impressive.
How to improve Cardiovascular Health with VILPAFirst, it improves cardiovascular health. Engaging in activities that get the heart pumping at higher intensities has been linked to reduced risks of heart disease and stroke. The heart becomes more efficient at pumping blood, and blood vessels improve their ability to manage blood flow, reducing the risk of plaque build-up.
Can VILPA help me lose weight?Next up, better metabolic rates take the stage. VILPA helps in It manages weight better than steady-state exercise by boosting calorie burn during and after the activity through the ‘afterburn’ effect. This can lead to improvements in body composition, reducing fat mass while preserving or even increasing muscle mass.
Enhanced moodAnd let’s not forget the encore performance: enhanced mood. Regular participation in VILPA-like activities can combat feelings of depression and anxiety, improve self-esteem, and even enhance cognitive function. It’s like giving your brain a workout, resulting in sharper thinking and a more positive mental state.
The science is clear: incorporating VILPA into your daily routine could lead to significant health benefits, making it a worthy addition to your lifestyle playlist. So, whether you’re bounding up the stairs, having a mini disco in the kitchen, or engaging in a spot of vigorous gardening, you’re not just having a bit of fun; you’re conducting a symphony of health benefits that could lead to a longer, happier life. Now, if that’s not a reason to get moving, I don’t know what is!
Personal Journey with VILPALet me take you through a whirlwind tour of my own escapades with Vigorous Intermittent Lifestyle Physical Activity, or VILPA, as we’ve affectionately come to know it. It’s been a journey of discovery, experimentation, and, dare I say, a fair bit of fun along the way.
My dalliance with VILPA began as an unwitting adventure, rooted in my daily pre-dinner ritual: a spirited session of skipping followed by a lively bounce on the rebounder. Little did I know, this routine was my first handshake with VILPA.
On the reboundOver time, I began to spice up the mix with a variety of rebounding techniques—twisting my body side to side with each jump, leaning forward in a mock sprint, and then leaning back to bring my knees up as high as they’d go. Each variation brought its own flavour to the workout, keeping the excitement alive and my body guessing.
But why stop there? Inspired by the concept of rucking (that’s carrying a weighted pack on your back for the uninitiated), I decided to up the ante. Some days, I’d hold a dumbbell in each hand while rebounding, or strap on a backpack filled with weights before skipping and using the rebounder. The added weight not only increased the physical challenge but also amplified the benefits, turning a simple activity into a full-body workout.
ResultsNow, let’s talk results. Since incorporating VILPA into my daily life and those of my clients, the changes have been both felt and seen. Cardiovascular health has soared to heights people hadn’t reached in years, making those brisk walks in the Cotswolds feel like a stroll in the park.
One person’s energy levels have seen a significant uptick, with the mid-afternoon slumps becoming a thing of the past. Perhaps most importantly, overall mood and mental clarity have improved, making the daily rigmaroles more manageable and enjoyable.
It’s in the puddingBut the proof, as they say, is in the pudding. Regular health check-ups have shown significant improvements across the board: reduced body fat percentage, better blood pressure readings, and more stable blood sugar levels.. It’s as if VILPA has turned back the clock, gifting my clients not just a fitter body but a rejuvenated spirit to match.
Incorporating VILPA into my own life has been a revelation, a testament to the idea that it’s never too late to transform your health and metabolic rate. It’s shown me that exercise doesn’t have to be a chore or a time-consuming affair but can instead be a joyful, integrated part of everyday life.
Reignite Your Fitness: How VILPA Benefits Midlife HealthIf you’re a midlife maverick navigating your 40s, 50s or 60s, see VILPA as a beacon of hope. As you stand reflecting with your morning tea, it’s easy to notice the toll career and family duties have taken on your health and wellness over the years.
But fear not! VILPA offers a bridge back to vitality, a chance to rectify past neglect without magic potions. Here’s a dollop of motivation and a few tips on how VILPA can be seamlessly woven into the rich tapestry of your bustling life:
Recognize and RectifyFirstly, it’s crucial to acknowledge the elephants in the room – those years of prioritising everything but your wellbeing. Recognising is the first step to rectifying.
This means making peace with the past and understanding that today is the perfect day to start anew. Your health journey is not a sprint; it’s a scenic stroll through the countryside of life, with VILPA as your loyal companion.
Seamless IntegrationVILPA’s beauty lies in its simplicity and adaptability. It doesn’t ask for your life to be put on pause but rather to turn mundane moments into opportunities for movement. While waiting for the kettle to boil, why not throw in a mini-session of squats? Or take the stairs two at a time, feeling the burn and smiling because you can. In essence making the most of what you’ve got, when you’ve got it.
Make It EnjoyableRemember, the aim is to sprinkle a bit of joy into your day. If dancing in the kitchen while your pasta boils brings a smile to your face and your heart rate up, you’re doing VILPA right. The goal is to find activities that you enjoy, that make you laugh, and that you look forward to. This isn’t about punishing yourself; it’s celebrating what your body can do, one burst of activity at a time.
Build a Support NetworkEmbarking on this journey with like-minded individuals can make all the difference. Whether it’s a spouse keen to join in on your living room disco or a friend up for a challenge of who can do more garden sprints, having a support network can turn VILPA into a shared adventure. Plus, a bit of friendly competition never hurt anyone.
Celebrate Every VictoryCelebrate every step, skip, and jump. Managed to do ten minutes of vigorous gardening? Bravo! Opted to run up the stairs over the lift? Splendid! Each decision to move is a victory, a testament to your commitment to reclaiming your health and fitness.
To my fellow midlife mavericks, let VILPA be your guide back to a life brimming with energy and zest. It’s time to reclaim the narrative, to show that health and vitality aren’t just the domain of the young but a lifelong journey worth embarking on, no matter the starting point. So, lace up those trainers (or don’t, if you’re about to skip in the living room) and let’s embrace the VILPA way together.
Start Your VILPA Journey: Easy Tips for Daily MovementDiving into VILPA doesn’t require a swanky gym membership or fancy equipment; all you need is a dash of enthusiasm and a sprinkle of creativity. Here’s a friendly guide to get you started on your VILPA journey, packed with practical tips and simple movements to weave into your daily routine. Let’s turn those mundane moments into opportunities for health and vitality!
Tip #1: Start Small and Build GraduallyBegin with activities that don’t feel too daunting. A brisk walk around the block, a few flights of stairs, or even a spirited session of vacuuming can kickstart your VILPA journey. As you grow more comfortable, increase the intensity and duration of these activities. Remember, the key is consistency, not intensity, to start.
Tip #2: Use What You've GotLook around your home and daily environment for VILPA opportunities. A sturdy chair can be your station for step-ups or tricep dips. Those grocery bags? They’re now weights for a few sets of arm curls before you pack them away. Get creative and make your surroundings work for you.
Starting Micro-Workouts: Skipping: A fantastic way to get your heart rate up. Start with just 30 seconds and gradually increase as you feel more comfortable. No skipping rope? No problem! Imaginary skipping can be just as effective. * Rebounding: If you have access to a mini-trampoline, fantastic! If not, simulating the motion on the ground by bouncing on the balls of your feet can mimic the activity. * Stair Climbing: Find a set of stairs and challenge yourself to take them two at a time or simply speed up your ascent. Start with one or two flights and increase as you build stamina. Tip #3: Keep It VariedVariety isn’t just the spice of life; it’s also a fantastic way to keep VILPA engaging and effective. Mix up your activities to challenge different muscle groups* and keep boredom at bay. Today, you might focus on lower body with some vigorous stair climbing; tomorrow, you could switch to upper body with some light dumbbell work or push-ups.
Tip #4: Listen to Your BodyWhile VILPA is about incorporating more activity into your life, it’s also crucial to heed your body’s signals. Start at an intensity that feels challenging but doable, and always allow for recovery time. If something hurts in a not-so-good way, pull back and consider a different activity.
Tip #5: Make It a HabitThe ultimate goal of VILPA is to integrate these bursts of activity into your lifestyle so seamlessly that they become second nature. Pairing VILPA activities with daily tasks can help. For instance, doing a few squats while waiting for the kettle to boil or opting for a brisk walk while chatting on the phone are excellent strategies to make VILPA a part of your daily routine.
By following these tips and gradually incorporating more VILPA into your day, you’ll be on your way to a healthier, more active lifestyle without the need for drastic changes. Remember, every bit of movement counts, and it’s the accumulation of these efforts that will lead to significant health benefits.
VILPA workout Plans for Busy MumsFor busy mums looking to incorporate VILPA into their daily routine, the key is finding quick, effective workouts that can be easily slotted into a hectic schedule. Here are some VILPA-inspired ideas:
Morning Madness: Start the day with a 5-minute burst of activity. This could be a quick skipping session, high knees, or fast stair climbing before the day kicks off.
Playtime Plyometrics: Turn playtime with the kids into a workout. Engage in activities like hopscotch, jumping jacks, or even a mini dance-off to get your heart rate up.
Chores with a Twist: Make household chores work for you. For instance, lunges while vacuuming or squatting while picking up toys. It’s about making every movement count.
Park Bench Workout: Use a park visit as an opportunity to incorporate some VILPA. Try step-ups on the bench, push-ups, and tricep dips for a quick full-body workout while the kids play.
Evening Wind Down: Before dinner, take a few minutes for some high-intensity activities like burpees, mountain climbers, or a brisk walk around the block.
These plans are designed to be flexible, allowing busy mums to fit in VILPA without it feeling like a burden. The aim is to integrate these activities into daily life, making fitness both fun and achievable.
Why Choose Health Coaching for VILPAEmbarking on the VILPA journey, while exhilarating, can sometimes feel like charting unfamiliar waters. This is where enlisting the support of a health coach can be akin to having your very own fitness compass, guiding you through the maze of making these lifestyle changes stick. Allow me to illuminate why choosing health coaching services, especially for integrating VILPA into your life, could be the game-changer you’ve been seeking.
Personalised VILPA GuidanceThe beauty of VILPA lies in its flexibility, but the question of “Where do I begin?” can be daunting. A health coach provides tailored advice, crafting a routine that aligns with your current fitness level, preferences, and life circumstances. This bespoke approach ensures the activities you engage in are not only effective but also enjoyable, increasing the likelihood of long-term adherence.
Overcoming BarriersEach of us faces unique challenges when trying to incorporate more physical activity into our lives. A health coach is like a skilled navigator, helping you identify potential obstacles and devising strategies to overcome them. A health coach helps you overcome barriers like limited time, physical limitations, or lack of motivation with practical, sustainable solutions.
Accountability and SupportOne of the most valuable aspects of health coaching is the accountability it provides. Knowing you have someone to report back to can be a powerful motivator. Health coaches offer encouragement and celebrate your victories, no matter how small, while also providing a gentle nudge when needed. This support system can make all the difference in transforming VILPA from a fleeting interest to a permanent fixture in your life.
Expert Insights and ResourcesHealth coaches are treasure troves of knowledge, offering insights into the latest health and fitness research, including VILPA. They can provide resources, tools, and techniques to enhance your understanding and execution of VILPA activities, ensuring you’re not just moving more but also moving smarter.
Holistic Approach to HealthFinally, health coaching addresses more than just physical activity. Coaches look at the big picture, including nutrition, sleep, stress management, and more, offering a holistic approach to wellbeing. This comprehensive view ensures that your VILPA efforts are supported by other pillars of health, leading to more profound and far-reaching benefits.
In conclusion, choosing health coaching is about investing in a partnership that nurtures your journey towards better health and fitness. It’s gaining a mentor, motivator, and guide all rolled into one, ensuring your path to a more active lifestyle is as smooth and enjoyable as possible. So, if you’re ready to take your health to the next level with VILPA, consider health coaching your secret weapon in achieving those goals.
A spark of excitement?As we wrap up our exploration of Vigorous Intermittent Lifestyle Physical Activity (VILPA), I hope you’re feeling a spark of excitement, perhaps a bubbling curiosity to give this approach a go. VILPA isn’t just another wellness fad; it’s a realistic, adaptable way to weave more activity into your life, no matter your age or fitness level. Here’s turning intention into action, one vigorous burst at a time.
The balls in your courtNow, the ball’s in your court. The first step towards a healthier, more vibrant life is just a skip, jump, or bounce away. Why not make today the day you start? Remember, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, or in the case of VILPA, a single burst of activity.
For those hungry for more insights into leading a healthier, happier life, I invite you to dive deeper into my blog. Each post is a treasure trove of tips, tales, and tidbits designed to inspire and inform. And for real-time updates and nuggets of wisdom, don’t forget to follow on LinkedIn.
But perhaps you’re craving a more tailored approach to your health and wellness journey? My health coaching services offer personalised guidance, support, and accountability to help you navigate the path to wellness with confidence. Whether you’re looking to integrate VILPA into your routine or seeking a holistic overhaul of your lifestyle, I’m here to support you every step of the way.
So, dear reader, are you ready to jump, skip, and bounce back to health? The VILPA way is not just a path to better physical health; it’s a journey towards rediscovering the joy of movement, the exhilaration of pushing your limits, and the satisfaction of achieving your health goals.
Cheerio, and here’s to taking that first exhilarating step on your VILPA journey. Remember, every burst of activity brings you closer to the healthiest version of yourself. Let’s embark on this adventure together, with hearts full of hope and trainers ready for action.
Get in touchReady to transform your health with VILPA? Dive deeper into my world of fitness and wellness by reading more blog posts and articles. Follow me on LinkedIn for the latest tips and insights. Consider enlisting for my personalised health coaching services to guide you every step of the way on your VILPA journey. Start today!
Contact me here
FAQ What is VILPA?Vigorous Intermittent Lifestyle Physical Activity (VILPA) involves integrating short bursts of high-intensity activity into your daily routine, without the need for structured workout sessions.
How does VILPA compare to traditional workouts?Unlike traditional workouts, VILPA doesn’t require dedicated time slots or equipment. It’s more about making the most of everyday activities and turning them into opportunities for exercise.
Can VILPA really improve my health?Absolutely! VILPA can enhance cardiovascular health, boost metabolic rates, improve mood, and contribute to overall physical and mental well-being.
Is VILPA suitable for everyone?Yes, VILPA is adaptable to all fitness levels and ages, particularly beneficial for individuals aged 40 to 65 looking to improve their health and wellness.
How can I start incorporating VILPA into my routine?Begin with activities you enjoy and can easily integrate into your daily life, like taking the stairs, skipping, or even gardening vigorously. The key is to start small and gradually increase intensity.
Further Reading and resources on VILPA SciTechDaily discusses the potential life-extending benefits of one-minute bursts of activity during daily tasks, highlighting research on the impact of VILPA on mortality reduction and the importance of integrating such activities into daily life for adults over 40. It emphasises the accessibility of VILPA, requiring no special skills or memberships. * Barriers and enablers of vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity (VILPA) in physically inactive adults: a focus group study – This study explores the barriers and enablers of VILPA among physically inactive adults, providing insights into the design of future interventions * Vigorous Intermittent Lifestyle Physical Activity and Cancer Incidence Among Nonexercising Adults: The UK Biobank Accelerometry Study – This research evaluates the dose-response association of device-measured daily vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity (VILPA) with incident cancer, shedding light on the health benefits of VILPA * VILPA, the technique that will slash your risk of having cancer – An article from the Times of India that discusses activities qualifying as VILPA, such as climbing stairs, carrying heavy groceries, completing physical household chores, and brisk walking * Vigorous Intermittent Lifestyle Physical Activity and Cancer Among Nonexercising Adults – This study investigates the association of VILPA with cancer among nonexercising adults, providing detailed analyses and results related to VILPA and its impact on cancer incidence * January Kickstarter: could this everyday alternative to exercise be the ultimate fitness hack?* – An article from Stylist discussing the health benefits of vigorous everyday activities like walking and carrying shopping, highlighting VILPA as a key to better health The post Jump Into VILPA: Short Bursts of Exercise for Lifelong Health appeared first on Tony Winyard.
Welcome to a special milestone episode of The Art of Living Proactively podcast, where host Tony Winyard dives into an insightful conversation with Helena Holrick. In this 250th episode, Tony shares his journey, talking about his dedication to fostering whole person health and his new vision, “360 Degrees of Healthspan”. They discuss the impactful centenarian decathlon, the importance of breathing for overall health, and Tony’s passion for habit formation and confidence-building. From exploring diverse countries to cycling for a cause, the episode is a captivating blend of personal stories and health insights. Join us as we celebrate this milestone and gain an enriching perspective on proactive living and holistic health.What if there was a way to not just live a long life, but to also enjoy every moment of it in the best of health? Join us on a journey of exploration as we delve into the compelling world of “360 Degrees to Healthspan” with Tony Winyard and guest, Helena Holrick.
Action Steps and Call to Action:Are you ready to take control of your health and vitality? Here are some actionable steps inspired by “360 Degrees to Healthspan” to get you started on your journey to better living:
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Embrace a Balanced Lifestyle:Prioritise nutrition, quality sleep, stress management, regular movement, and mindful breathing.
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Explore Coherent Breathing:Try the box breathing technique to foster focus and tranquillity in your daily life.
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Stay Informed:Keep an eye out for Tony Winyard’s new vision, “360 Degrees of Healthspan”, for valuable insights and diverse perspectives on holistic health.
It’s time to embark on your proactive journey towards healthspan. Join us as we navigate the art of living a proactive life in the pursuit of holistic well-being.
Remember, the power is in your choices.
Stay tuned for “360 Degrees to Healthspan” – a podcast episode that might just transform the way you perceive health and longevity.
Are you ready to embrace proactive living and unlock the secrets to a long, fulfilling life?
The power lies within you.
Chapters:01:09 Introduction and Episode Overview
01:29 Introducing the Guest Host: Helena Holrick
02:21 The Journey of the Podcast
03:47 The Art of Interviewing
04:20 Tony’s Radio Career and Interviewing Celebrities
05:06 The Evolution of Tony’s Interviewing Style
05:33 The Impact of Confidence in Interviewing
06:35 The Importance of Curiosity in Conversations
06:59 Tony’s Favorite Interview Experiences
08:16 Tony’s Work Outside Podcasting
08:38 The Importance of Habits in Achieving Goals
11:20 The Role of Health in Tony’s Life
11:31 The Impact of Family Health History
13:01 The Importance of Nutrition in Health
15:51 The Centenarian Olympics: A Health Mission
19:14 The Importance of Breathing in Health
20:29 Understanding Dysfunctional Breathing
22:36 The Role of Breathing in Stress Management
26:00 The Future of the Podcast: 360 Degrees of Health Span
26:45 Podcast Frequency and Format
27:17 Content Strategy: Blogs and E-books
27:46 Storytelling and Humor in Podcasts
28:08 The Importance of Health Education
28:41 Sharing Personal Stories
29:09 A Life-Changing Cycling Adventure
33:45 Lessons from Living in Different Countries
34:28 The Power of People and Connections
37:14 The Influence of Eastern Medicine
38:09 The Impact of Age and Attitude
45:19 The Importance of Sleep
46:57 The Power of Quotes
48:36 The Space Between Stimulus and Response
49:13 Breathwork as a Tool for Response
49:54 Developing Healthy Habits
50:25 Closing Remarks and Gratitude
Guest Bio:Helena Holrick is a dynamic individual who dedicates her life to teaching, coaching, guiding, writing, and learning. These activities form the core of her joy and inspiration, driving her to create and contribute meaningfully. She possesses a unique gift for enlightening and encouraging people to grow and fulfill their potential. Helena views training as a crucial thread connecting her past experiences. From her early years, she has been naturally inclined towards teaching and sharing knowledge to enhance understanding and enable informed choices. Her career milestones include opening 17 restaurants with TGI Friday’s, contributing significantly to The Video Meeting company, and managing training at the London Fire Brigade. Additionally, Helena thrives when speaking to audiences or conducting workshops, where she focuses on skill development and professional advancement. On a personal note, Helena enjoys a countryside lifestyle, loves music, and owns a vast collection of books. She has diverse life experiences, including building a house in Chile and training thousands of people
Watch this episode on YouTube TranscriptTony Winyard – 250Greetings. This is your host, Tony Winyard welcoming you to a very special 250th episode of The Art of Living Proactively podcast. Today I hathee a delightful privilege of being the interviewee, rather than the interviewer, with the talented Helena Holrick taking the reigns. She will be gently grilling me about the Genesis of this podcast, my approach to interviewing and the habits I’m cultivating. I’ll also reveal an exciting rebrand happening in episode 251 next week.
So strap in for an enthralling ride into the future of this podcast. There may even be some surprising stories from my globe- trotting past sprinkled into give a glimpse into what shaped my perspectives. So hope you enjoy this celebratory episode. It promises to be a riveting and rewarding one. When it finishes
I would love for you to leave comments on the YouTube channel about what most intrigued or inspired you. And now without further delay, let’s hand. The mic over to Halena and dive right in.
[00:01:09] Introduction and Episode Overview[00:01:11] Tony Winyard: Welcome to The Art of Living Proactively, and today is a very different episode. It’s episode 250, for one thing. I’m not actually the guest on this episode, where usually I’m the host. Oh, sorry, I’m not actually the host on this episode, rather, where usually I am. I’m the guest today.
[00:01:29] Helena Holrick: Yay!
[00:01:29] Introducing the Guest Host: Helena Holrick[00:01:29] Tony Winyard: And the host is, well, let me introduce you to Helena Holrick. And any of you who’ve been listening to my podcast for quite a few years, or if you’ve been listening since the beginning, I don’t know how many people there still are. But Helena was a guest about four years ago, and in probably around episode 30 ish or something along those
lines. So, um, hello Helena.
[00:01:53] Helena Holrick: Hello! It’s so nice to be here and it’s so fantastic to be able to turn the tables. And just facilitate everyone listening. You know, for those of you who are long term fans of Tony, welcome. And you’re gonna find out some, some things about Tony that you may never have known. And yet he may well have, introduced you to.
For those of you who are fairly new to Tony, hello and welcome to you as well.
[00:02:21] The Journey of the Podcast[00:02:21] Helena Holrick: You’re about to find out something about, the, the direction that this podcast is actually taking because, Tony, you’ve been doing podcasts now for how long?
[00:02:33] Tony Winyard: It’s coming up to six years I guess, it’s over five years anyway,
[00:02:37] Helena Holrick: Yeah,
for sure. And, this episode, which starts the whole new thing, which we’ll talk about in a minute, this episode is going to be the 250th episode, which is really quite some going. Your passion and dedication to finding and then sharing with your audience, some really diverse characters is, it kind of knows no bounds.
So tell us a little bit about what inspires you to reach out to someone to put them on the show, whichever iteration of the show we’ve been going through.
[00:03:14] Tony Winyard: It’s just the whole scratch my own itch thing, you know, I just, I’m I’m so incredibly curious about so many different things. And I’ll be reading something. I mean, I just read loads and loads of books and often it will be, I’ll be reading a book and I think, ah, I should have an episode about that. And then I’ll either reach out to the author of that book, which I’ve done many times and I’ve had many authors on, or I’ll reach out to an author of another book, maybe on the same topic, or, you know, I’ve done that many a time.
[00:03:47] The Art of Interviewing[00:03:47] Helena Holrick: And you have a particular style around how you interview people. Can you say more? Because I, I know for a fact from listening, and I know that others tell you this as well, that they just, you seem to extract quite a lot out of your guests. That just allows them to share possibly more than they anticipated.
And most of them, I know this because you and I have been in conversation, turn around and say, That was a really good interview. What, what’s your knack.
[00:04:20] Tony’s Radio Career and Interviewing Celebrities[00:04:20] Tony Winyard: Well, so I did radio for eight years in the 90s. And I was working on a big station in Jakarta, Indonesia, which was their equivalent, of Capital radio. So it was a very big station. And there was a lot of major stars used to go and do, shows in Jakarta and like making appearances to sell their books and films.
And when I say major stars, I mean A list celebrities. And because I was the only native English speaking person on this radio station. They asked me to do these interviews. So I was interviewing people along the lines of Cindy Crawford and Steven Segal and Bon Jovi and Take That and George Benson. I mean, like some huge, huge
names, loads and loads of them.
[00:05:06] The Evolution of Tony’s Interviewing Style[00:05:06] Tony Winyard: And initially in the early days of doing these interviews, I would do loads of research on every person and I’d come to the interview with this whole list of questions. And it, it soon, I soon realized no one actually said anything to me because they gave me complete control. The radio station were really cool with me, but I realized there wasn’t, the interviews weren’t really flowing.
It was just me asking lots of questions and it was just kind of a bit stuttery almost.
[00:05:33] The Impact of Confidence in Interviewing[00:05:33] Tony Winyard: And then one day I was just, I don’t know, I was just sort of, I just guess confident with myself. I had enough confidence in myself. I’m not going to do any into, I’m not going to do any research for this episode. I’m just going to have a conversation and see where it goes. It was amazing. The difference was incredible. I remember that very first interview. It was a guy, any jazz aficionados may know of a guy called Bob James, who was really big in the jazz fusion world in the 70s and 80s. And I was interviewing this guy. And I really like Bob James, as it goes. And we went down all sorts of paths and, and I remember him saying to me at one point, wow, you, and actually what you just said is it basically what he said. We’ve, we’ve covered some stuff here. I haven’t, cause all he was doing all day long and many of the people I was speaking to were just doing interviews all day long with different radio stations, TV stations, newspapers, and so on. We’ve been talking about some stuff that I haven’t spoken about in any other interviews.
[00:06:35] The Importance of Curiosity in Conversations[00:06:35] Tony Winyard: It’s, I’ve really enjoyed it and and I have had many people say that and it, I don’t, I just have a conversation with people. I don’t know where it’s going to go. I, a lot of what I ask depends on what they say.
[00:06:48] Helena Holrick: It makes complete and utter sense. And it’s great that you’ve just said that because, because, you know, well, two things pop for me and I’m like, who was your favorite?
[00:06:59] Tony’s Favorite Interview Experiences[00:06:59] Helena Holrick: If you got free and easy with the conversations, who was your favorite? Or what was your best kind of like. question that then opens someone up in a way that you never thought it would.
[00:07:12] Tony Winyard: Oh wow, that’s a really hard question. So many. Um, who’s my favorite? I guess, oh actually no, I can answer this. My favorite. Was a guy called Bluey Maunick, who is the lead singer of Incognito.
[00:07:28] Helena Holrick: Uh huh.
[00:07:29] Tony Winyard: And he was a guest on my show when I was in Jakarta. And it’s definitely favoritism because I love his music. I love Incognito. And we also had a lot of fun, um, kind of ribbing each other because he’s a Tottenham supporter and I’m an Arsenal supporter. So we were giving each other lots of, like, ribbing as well. And it was just a real fun interview. So yeah, I really enjoyed that. So
[00:07:57] Helena Holrick: Oh, good for you. And it’s interesting because you also mentioned kind of what gives you confidence and there’s a point at which, um, one, a person gains confidence in something after having done it for a little while or having built kind of a habit around it.
[00:08:16] Tony’s Work Outside Podcasting[00:08:16] Helena Holrick: Can you tell us a little bit about how you help?
people get confidence because I think a lot of people know you as a podcast host, but they might not know what you do outside of it. So, so expand everyone’s world a little bit around what you do and why habits are important to you and how that leads to confidence.
[00:08:38] The Importance of Habits in Achieving Goals[00:08:38] Tony Winyard: yeah, I realized, um, we all… Every person listening to this has so many things that they want to do, but they’re not doing. And I don’t think there’s a person on earth who that doesn’t apply to. And, and so that’s, you know, there’s many habits that we wish that we were doing on a regular basis, but we’re not doing. And I’m as guilty of that as anyone, probably more so. And I was in many books. I was, well, a few years ago, I got really into deep into, I was just reading so many books around different aspects of health and nutrition and sleep and stress and so on. And as I was putting all this together and I started doing various courses, I did a breathwork course and a nutrition coach course and so on, and as I was doing all these courses and I started to sort of coach people and I realized that. People were struggling to make these into habits. They weren’t actually following through on the things that we were talking about. And I was trying to understand why. And then I happened to be reading a book called Tiny Habits. And then literally I think a light bulb went off. Ah, this is the missing piece. And what was quite strange about that was… It was almost, actually thinking about it, it was almost three years ago to this day, because what happened was, I was reading the book, it was the day before my birthday, so it would have been December the 2nd, 2020. And I was reading the book and I thought, and then it mentioned in the book, we do courses to train people to be Tiny Habits coaches. So I went online and I saw there was a course starting, oh it would have been December the 1st, because the course started the following day, which was December the 2nd. So I signed up for the course, they happened to have one space left, I went on the course, started December the 2nd. And one of the first questions they asked during the course was, um, we, we want you to answer some questions. So we’re going to start off with the, the oldest person will speak first. So, oh no, sorry, not oldest, whoever’s birthday is nearest. So we all had to say our birthdates. And I said, well, I think it’s probably going to be me, because in four hours time, it’s my birthday. So, yeah, so it’s almost exactly three years ago that, that was, yeah.
[00:11:06] Helena Holrick: Wow. And, and, you know, sort of, I, I really hear in that, that, that with the breath work, with the nutrition, I know you’ve done a whole bunch of other sort of integrative trainings around health.
[00:11:20] The Role of Health in Tony’s Life[00:11:20] Helena Holrick: Why is health so important to you? And why is it so important for you to kind of share what you know, kind of learn about it and share?
[00:11:29] Tony Winyard: I think there’s a few things.
[00:11:31] The Impact of Family Health History[00:11:31] Tony Winyard: One is, um, my health history in my family. A lot of people have died young in my family. Um, My, um, both my brothers died in their sort of early 50s, my dad did, my mum had, well she went blind in the, in the late 90s, and then she had various sort of cancers, she had breast cancer, it went, came back, she had to have a, a mastectomy, it went, came back, had a double mastectomy, and then she had terminal cancer, and then she passed away. One of my uncles had testicular, uh, prostate cancer, sorry. My granddad died of lung cancer, my nan died of, so cancer was very prevalent in the family. Lots of people have died and then other people have died from, from various things and so I guess it, it was just always in, you know, am I gonna die young as well?
I would, at one point I was thinking, well it’s obviously, it’s just a matter of time until I get cancer
because everyone was having cancer. So that was kind of set me off reading a lot about cancer. Initially, I was reading a lot about cancer, and the more I read, then I started sort of learning about epigenetics, which, uh, which means, no, I’m not destined to get cancer.
It’s about, it’s not just about our genes, it’s about how the environment that we’re living in and the food that we’re eating and the toxins we’re exposed to and many, many other things. So yeah, so now I know I’m not destined to get cancer. But that, initially, just reading all those books on cancer, led me to reading books on many other, many other things.
[00:13:01] The Importance of Nutrition in Health[00:13:01] Helena Holrick: And, you know, lots of us read lots of things because we get interested in it, but you’ve taken it kind of one step further and you’ve actually placed it at the heart of Not just this podcast, but also, you know, especially because you’ve been talking about proactivity for quite some time during this particular series, but you’ve really taken the whole health effort into something that matters to you personally.
Why is that?
[00:13:31] Tony Winyard: I think that was because of the way my mum was treated by, um, the doctors who were treating her. Um, as I was learning more and more about cancer and I saw how important nutrition was, and they never ever spoke to her about nutrition. All they ever did was offer her more and more chemotherapy. and aggressive chemotherapy.
And there was all sorts of side effects, you know, losing her hair, getting flu constantly, just lots of, it just so affected her quality of life. Her quality of life just went, really went downhill. And, and it was really frustrating that she wouldn’t listen to me because I kept talking to her about nutrition, but she had that, um, that, uh, white coat syndrome.
[00:14:19] Helena Holrick: Uh huh.
[00:14:20] Tony Winyard: You know, you’d only listen to someone who’s got a white coat. And I, she’s no, I had no training in medicine. So why should she listen to me? That was kind of her
approach. And it wasn’t that she was ignoring me because my mom loved me, but I, it, it, I just found it really frustrating that the doctors would never mention anything about nutrition.
So not once did they say, you know, ask her about the food that she’s and, and it was down to the food she was eating and her diet was terrible. And, and yeah, they, they never mentioned that. And I guess it just. I don’t want anyone else to go through this. Like what are, I mean, um, a medical system in many ways, the NHS is, is amazing, but not when it comes, I mean, I’ve since met so many doctors and I’ve had loads of doctors as guests on my podcast. Um, and every doctor I’ve spoken to admits the same thing. They don’t get any training in nutrition in their seven years of medical study. Um, and yeah, it’s so important.
And so I guess that one of the main reasons is I want to help people. I don’t want people to go through the same thing that my mum went through, I guess, you know.
[00:15:29] Helena Holrick: And, and because it’s not actually necessary, you know, sort of, or rather that there is a, a wider, I know you well enough to know that you have a belief that the wider holistic area allows people to have a much better quality of life. So I’m going to bring us back to what you just said around quality of life.
Um, cause I know you’ve got a joyful kind of mission that’s been brewing over time.
[00:15:51] The Centenarian Olympics: A Health Mission[00:15:51] Helena Holrick: Um, can you tell us a little bit about these Octogenarian Olympics? The Centenarian Olympics? What’s all this about, Tony?
[00:16:03] Tony Winyard: There’s, there’s a guy called Peter Attia, who I really like. I’ve got, I’ve almost got a man crush on him, I guess. And he’s a, he’s a doctor or an MD in, in America. He’s been doing a podcast for six or seven years. Um, and he’s, he’s coined a term called the centenarian decathlon. Which is all, and he’s all about healthspan and the difference between our healthspan and our lifespan is we may live to 90 But most people in those last 10 years won’t have much quality of life because they’ll just be so chronically ill They’ll be in a home probably or maybe in a hospital on Lots of different drugs can hardly move have no dignity because they can’t go to toilet on their own and so on and so so so their lifespan is 90, but their health span probably ended at 80.
So they, the last 10 years of their life, there’s no health at all.
So it’s all about, so his, what he talks about, the centenarian decathlon is if you. Um, at the age of 100, what state of health would you like to be able to be in? What would you like to still be able to do at 100, should you live to
[00:17:13] Helena Holrick: that’s a great question.
[00:17:14] Tony Winyard: to be able to, would you like to be playing with your great, great grandkids? Would you like to be able to do your own shopping, like bring your own shopping home? And reach for things from cupboards and, you know, and, so if you want to have that level of health at the age of 100. Therefore, you would need to be at this level at 90 and this level at 80 and 70 and so on. And it just made so much sense to me. And I’ve been listening to probably in the last six years, I think probably every single episode of his weekly podcast, which is, I don’t know what number he’s on now. And he released a book earlier this year called Outlive, which is just absolutely superb.
I’ve read it numerous times. And I really, I really, he’s very agnostic when it comes to like sort of diets and he doesn’t care what diet you eat. You know, he, he actually did keto for quite a few years and then eventually realized actually no, keto is not the magic pill. Same thing with intermittent fasting and various other forms of fasting.
He’s tried all of those. Much like I’ve tried all of those. And I, yeah, I came to the same conclusion. It doesn’t really matter about the diet so much, or it’s more about, well, there’s so many other factors. It’s never one thing, and it’s always a combination of many different things.
[00:18:30] Helena Holrick: And, and what’s that combination? Because it’s fascinating, you know, for, you know, I’m, I’m certainly taking on board that… Huh, as a woman in my mid 50s, I can actively, what I do now, what I’m hearing from you is, what I do now is going to impact the quality of life that I have for years to come. That’s essentially what you’re saying, right?
[00:18:55] Tony Winyard: Mm hmm, absolutely.
[00:18:56] Helena Holrick: then, and then in terms of the combination of those factors, what are some of the factors that I should or could be absolutely focused on that I might not think of as something that would be impacting?
[00:19:10] Tony Winyard: Well, there’s five main things that I put it down to.
[00:19:14] The Importance of Breathing in Health[00:19:14] Tony Winyard: So it’s nutrition, sleep, stress, movement, and breathing. And then, and then there’s various offshoots of all of those.
[00:19:24] Helena Holrick: Right.
[00:19:25] Tony Winyard: Breathing is a really interesting one because it’s a lot of people when it comes to nutrition, they know a lot more than they realize, even if they’re not doing what they know. So they know they should be eating this or shouldn’t be eating that, but they’re not able to stop themselves. But they still know, even if they’re not actually
doing it. And in many ways, you know, we all know we probably should be sleeping seven, eight hours, even if we’re only sleeping six or whatever the case may be. Everyone knows they should be exercising more, even if they’re not. And I think everyone realizes, you know, it’s not good to be too, have too much stress. But the breathing one is the really fascinating one because hardly anyone knows that they’re breathing wrong. And it’s something like the figures. It’s something like 80% of the UK are dysfunctional breathers.
80% of people are breathing dysfunctionally. And what does breathing
[00:20:17] Helena Holrick: dysfunctionally mean?
Yeah. So tell us so that people are like, and if you’re driving in a car, listening to this, don’t do too many of the things, but listen to Tony. Like, tell us what that means.
[00:20:29] Understanding Dysfunctional Breathing[00:20:29] Tony Winyard: So breathing dysfunctionally means you are, you are breathing in a way that’s actually detrimental to your health. And usually that means we’re breathing too fast, we’re breathing too shallow, um, and we’re, and so there’s, there’s lots of consequences from that. Um, that generally means we’re not really oxygenated, oxygenating our blood properly because we’re breathing so shallow. Um, we’re not getting a good gas exchange between CO2 and oxygen. And I don’t want to get too, too deep into the science, but, and also, and the worst thing is most people are breathing through their mouth rather than through their nose, which causes all sorts of other issues. Um, and so the more you go into the world of breathwork, and I’ve only just touched the surface of some of the things I said there, because I don’t want to start getting really nerdy about all of this sort of stuff. But the more you learn about breathwork, there’s so much to it. Like, for example, nitric oxide. Which is, uh, our nasal passages are around here. And for those of you listening, I’m just sort of pointing to the area around to the left and right of my nose. And when we breathe through our nose, we activate this gas nitro, or this molecule rather, nitric oxide. And, and it’s only activated when we breathe in through our nose, not if we breathe in through our mouth. And nitric oxide is so important, it dilates the airways. It helps with the autoimmune system. It fights viruses and pathogens and bacteria and so on. It does so many other things in the body. It helps the whole process with carbon dioxide and oxygen. It’s just like an amazing, it actually, Won the peop. There’s three guys won, uh, the Nobel Prize because of the discovery of, of nitric oxide. I, I think it was like 15 years ago or something. It’s like an amazing molecule. And as I said, you only get this by breathing in, by na nasal breathing rather than mouth breathing. And, and as I said, I’ve just touched the tip of the iceberg. When you go into breathing, there’s so much more to it and it can really. Improve your health in so many ways just by focusing on your breathing.
[00:22:36] The Role of Breathing in Stress Management[00:22:36] Tony Winyard: And, and one simple thing, for example, is we, many people spend most of their time in a para, uh, in a sympathetic, uh, in a sympathetic nervous system, which means we’re the, the, the fight or flight, uh, situation.
So we are breathing quite sort of, um, too fast. And we’re not completely relaxed. We’re, we’re always maybe a little bit sort of stressed. And, and then that closes down many organs in the body. We don’t digest food properly when we’re in that state. Um, there’s, there’s many other things happen when we’re in that state. And so there’s, when it comes to your breathing, if you’re, when you’re breathing sort of short and shallow, that tends to put you in a, in a sympathetic state. And sympathetic sounds like a really nice word, but when it comes to the sympathetic nervous system, you don’t want to be in a sympathetic nervous system all the time. That’s what’s known as being upregulated. If you can breathe so your exhale is longer than your inhale, that will put you into the parasympathetic and parasympathetic is the opposite. So parasympathetic is when you’re completely relaxed and you’re nice and refreshed. You just feel really calm. However, and it sounds like, well, that’s the place where you want to be all the time. Well, not really. And so in between those. So you’ve got sympathetic, you’ve got parasympathetic, and in between those, it’s sort of known as coherent or it’s also known as resonant, like resonant breathing or coherent breathing.
In heart math, they call it, uh, coherent breathing. And that’s when you do that sort of box breathing technique, you know, when you, like four, you inhale for the count of four, pause for the count of four, exhale for the count of four, pause again for four, and you just keep doing that. And that state means you’re much more focused, you’re much more cognitively sharp, you’re, that’s, that’s a better state for when you’re working and you need to be like on the ball, you know, so you don’t always want to be in that parasympathetic state because then you’re too chilled. So when you’re, when you’ve got work to do, you don’t want to be too chilled. So you could say, if you want to make it really simplified, when you do short, sharp breaths, um, and where the inhale is longer than the exhale, that puts you in sympathetic. When you do, when the exhale is much longer than the inhale, that puts you in the parasympathetic. When they’re both the same, that sort of puts you in the middle.
[00:25:10] Helena Holrick: Good to know. How many people listening might well be counting their breath at this moment? Um, I suspect that that’s probably true and thank you for sharing. Um, uh, you, you said in there, I, I, I love that you’ve just shared this because this is almost like a little bit of a secret. snippet because you’re of what’s coming, isn’t it?
Like, because you’ve gotten very nerdy through all the books. I don’t even know how many books you’ve read over time, but you’ve gotten very nerdy and specifically around habits and health and, um, and all things, uh, helpful to us reaching this centenarian decathlon, right? So tell us about what’s coming for this podcast because you’re going to switch the tables a little bit, aren’t you?
So
starting
[00:26:00] The Future of the Podcast: 360 Degrees of Health Span[00:26:00] Tony Winyard: week is, so this is series four, you know, The Art of Living Proactively. Starting next week is then series five, episode, well, it’ll be episode 251, but it’ll be episode one of series five. And that’s, that’s called, 360 degrees of health span. And I forgot what the tagline is, but essentially it’s going to be a very different format. I’m not doing guest interviews anymore. So this is the last guest interview as such. So it’s going to be much shorter episodes. So I’m only going to be about 10 minutes, but I’m going to drill down into a particular topic, so it, it could be protein. It could be sort of about humming or it could be, you know, I’ve already, I’ve already penciled out 323 different topics that I’m going to be covering.
[00:26:45] Podcast Frequency and Format[00:26:45] Helena Holrick: is going to be daily, Tony.
[00:26:48] Tony Winyard: Well, it’s going to start off weekly. So at the moment, every episode is released at 12 o’clock on a Saturday afternoon, UK time. It’s going to start off weekly. Once I’ve got my processes down to sort of down to a T, I’m going to probably start doing two or three a week. And then I’m looking to probably do between Monday and Friday one a day, every day, Monday to Friday, probably by, I guess, March.
[00:27:17] Content Strategy: Blogs and E-books[00:27:17] Tony Winyard: Because I also plan to for each episode… There will be an accompanying blog post and the blog post won’t have the same content as the podcast episode. But there’ll also be an e book on each episode as well about that particular topic. So there’s going to be a whole collection of different e books, which are not going to be too long. They’re going to give you enough information about that topic and notes and it will also each episode I’ll give you three habits you can use to implement the information in the episode.
[00:27:46] Storytelling and Humor in Podcasts[00:27:46] Tony Winyard: It’s going to be very story based. I’m going to bring in a lot of stories from from my life but I’m also going to bring in stories from like from some of the famous philosophers and and from films and tv and all sorts of stuff. I’m going to definitely going to make it Story led, but there’s going to be quite a bit of humor in there as well.
[00:28:05] Helena Holrick: Oh, how wonderful.
[00:28:07] Tony Winyard: a different style.
[00:28:08] The Importance of Health Education[00:28:08] Helena Holrick: You know, it’s really wonderful because I really hear your dedication to educating people around the fact that they can be in charge of their own health span, in charge of their own health, in charge of their own, uh, wellness and beingness in the world. And, and, and I hear that this is a perfect marriage for you around all the films, all the podcasts.
All the books that you’ve ever read. So, so, um, you mentioned stories, uh, and I know you to be a master storyteller.
[00:28:41] Sharing Personal Stories[00:28:41] Helena Holrick: I know you from the podcast to be a master listener to other people’s stories, but wanna share a story from your life that might just help us get you, get to know you even better. Mm-Hmm.
[00:28:55] Tony Winyard: There’s so many, I mean, I lived in the Far East for 10 years. Um, I worked around Europe for a few years. I worked around the Middle East. I mean, I have so many stories, like trying to pick one is, oh wow, which one do I start with?
[00:29:09] A Life-Changing Cycling Adventure[00:29:09] Tony Winyard: Um, a story that comes to mind, the first one that comes to mind, and I don’t know why, I, I did, in the early 2000s, I did quite a few bike rides across, across different countries, raising money for guide dogs, because I, I mentioned earlier that my mum lost her eyesight, she went blind, she got a guide dog. I started finding out the guide dogs didn’t receive any money from, from the government. And so they just had to raise all their own money to train these, you know, these guide dogs, which give blind people so much independence. And, and I was on a trip, uh, cycling across New Zealand, the South, South Island of New Zealand. And I don’t know why this story came into my head, but anyway, so there was this, this guy called Murray, this Scottish guy, he was 18. He lost his eyesight when he was 14. He was. built, he was really big, massive guy, probably twice my size. He was, you know, like a rugby player, he was built, and his attitude was incredible.
You’d think he’d be bitter at being completely blind, you know, just within four years. At the age of 14. But he wasn’t at all. He had such an amazing attitude to life. He was so curious about things. He was always smiling and happy. And he just had a great attitude to life. Anyway, he’d done the trip the year before. This is my first trip on, you know, and we’re cycling from Queenstown, uh, Christchurch to Queenstown. On the third day, so he was riding on the back of a tandem, obviously he can’t ride a bike on his own, but well, and actually that’s not completely true, but he did, but That’s
[00:30:46] Helena Holrick: That’s a different story.
[00:30:48] Tony Winyard: The third day, we’re in the, having breakfast and he said, Tony, would you go in the front of my tandem today? I said, yeah, okay. I, and I just figured he just wanted to have a chat with me and get to know me. Cause obviously when you’re riding along, you can be chatting about all sorts of things. And I’d never ridden a tandem before. And the tandem is so different to a normal bike, especially when you’ve got a guy on the back who’s twice your weight.
Yeah. And when you’re trying to turn, oh, it’s really, it’s really difficult. Anyway. So for the first few hours I was getting used to it. And then at lunch time he said, did you, uh, did you wonder why I asked you to be on the, yeah. To be riding with me today. And I said, well, I just figured you just want to have a chat.
He said, well, yeah, that, that was part of it, but there was another reason. I said, okay, yeah, go on. What’s that? He said, well, I know that you’re the fastest rider here and this afternoon, we’re coming up to, I forget the name of the hill. There was some like crazy hill that we were coming up to. And he said, and last year when we went down this hill, we managed to get to 85 kilometers an hour. I wanna beat that. And I think that you are gonna be able to help me beat that 85 kilometers an hour on a
bike.
[00:32:00] Helena Holrick: lot.
[00:32:02] Tony Winyard: So it, and this, the hill was like this. And again, for those of you listening who can’t see the video, it was really steep, this hill, and the, the Tandem had a speedometer on it, so anyway so we started and, but the bottom of the hill was a T junction. So we started going down this hill and we’ve got to like 70, 75. 80. We’ve got to 85 and I can see the bottom approaching really quickly. And if it was just me, I would have probably gone a little bit quicker, but I’ve got this blind guy in the back, I can’t wipe out. So I had to start putting on the brakes.
And so we got, we matched 85, but we didn’t get to 86, which is what he was hoping for. But he was fine about it, but it was just, wow, that was hairy. I’ve never, yeah, to be 85 on a bike was kind of crazy.
[00:32:54] Helena Holrick: And isn’t that, I mean, in, in, in many ways, I mean, thank you for sharing. In many ways, that’s, that’s sort of a metaphor for life, isn’t it? Like, it’s, it’s like if we really let ourselves, whatever the obstacles or perceived obstacles that we might actually have, if we let ourselves, we could really go for it in all sorts of ways.
Whether that is in our health, in our reading, in our connections, in, in all of the different areas of our lives. We need to make a choice, don’t we? And, and I love the choice that you had. Like I could push it or I could just begin to slow down. And that is the choice that we have so much of the time, right?
[00:33:36] Tony Winyard: Absolutely. Yeah, if he hadn’t have been on the back, I would have definitely have gone faster.
But there’s no way I could have wiped him out.
[00:33:43] Helena Holrick: Yeah. Well, how, how wonderful.
[00:33:45] Lessons from Living in Different Countries[00:33:45] Helena Holrick: And, uh, you know, I, I know that as you’ve just sort of hinted at, you’ve lived in a lot of countries, right?
[00:33:52] Tony Winyard: Yeah, 14.
[00:33:55] Helena Holrick: That’s quite a lot of cultural input. Because they’ve all been quite diverse as well. It’s not like you’ve just hopped around Europe, is it?
[00:34:04] Tony Winyard: Now I’ve had really extremes. I mean, from very rich countries like Japan and Switzerland, to, well, Japan was very rich at the time I was there anyway, to very poor countries like Indonesia and Syria. And so, I mean, they were complete opposites, you know, and then many countries in
[00:34:21] Helena Holrick: between.
Yeah. And what’s the one thing that you’ve seen that sort of unites people?
[00:34:28] The Power of People and Connections[00:34:28] Tony Winyard: I, I think it doesn’t matter what country you go to, it’s the, it’s the people you’re with. Um, it’s the people you meet. Every country in some ways is the same. Every country has people that are great and really friendly and really hospitable and so on. And, I mean, like for example, when I was in Syria in the late 70s, late 80s rather, and At the time, Britain closed our embassy with Syria because of the Lockerbie, um, the shoe bomb and so on. And Britain had accused a Syrian guy of doing it. I can’t remember the whole story, but anyway, we didn’t have an embassy there. And the Daily Mail, as is their want, were daily painting Syrians as being really horrible people, and it was a horrible country, and it was full of terrorists and so on. They could not have been further from the truth because my experience there, they were so warm and friendly and people always invited me into their homes for, you know, to, and wouldn’t let me spend a penny.
I was playing for a football team there of the hotel I was working for. I was working for the most luxurious hotel in the whole of Syria. It was Sheraton Damascus at the time. And I played football for the hotel football team. Which was made up of the bellboys and cooks and, you know, and I was, it’s not an exaggeration to say I was probably earning more than all of them put together, probably three times more than all of them put together. And every time we would go to play football, it’s like, it’s really hot there. And, you know, it was sometimes it was, it’d be 45 degrees in, you know, um, fahrenheit or centigrade?
, I got mixed up, but it’s very hot anyway. And they’d bring loads of water and picnic and, yeah, it was like, it was like a feast every game. And after a couple of games, I said, look, you know, can I contribute towards it? And I remember one of the guys said, no, no, Tony, you’re our guest. And I said, yeah, yeah, okay, but I would still like to contribute. And then he started getting a little bit sterner. No, Tony, you’re our guest. I made one more effort and then he got really angry.
No, you are our guest. You do not pay. And it was just, you know, they were, they knew I was earning a lot more than them, but they’re, you know, they had the way they’re painted
by our press. It’s just so untrue. And, and every country I went to, I found, I think people everywhere are really friendly.
[00:36:45] Helena Holrick: yeah.
It’s, it’s… It’s amazing what you, you know, sort of opening and expanding your eyes to culture, to ideas, to just things that you can do or the ways that you can experience life is, is absolutely amazing. And I, I think that’s what you are about to sort of do with this next series, isn’t it, really? It’s, it’s, um, you’re about to get a little bit nerdy.
I think you’re about to share some stories.
[00:37:13] Tony Winyard: Yeah.
[00:37:14] The Influence of Eastern Medicine[00:37:14] Tony Winyard: And also I just realized that my Being in the Far East for so long, because I was in the Far East for 10 years, and the way they, their approach to medicine and to health is very different to how we approach it in the West. And I didn’t realize how much it had affected me that, seeing that firsthand. And it’s only recently I realized, oh yeah, there’s a lot of those things that I was doing when I was there has affected my kind of approach and how I see I like, in many ways, their approach to health far more than our approach to health over here.
[00:37:50] Helena Holrick: Yeah, and I think, I think that may well be responsible for the fact that, uh, you mentioned birthdays and you mentioned that, you know, this is airing literally the day before your… Wanna tell people how old you are?
[00:38:05] Tony Winyard: The day this comes out, I’m going to be 60 tomorrow.
[00:38:09] The Impact of Age and Attitude[00:38:09] Tony Winyard: And that always seems to amaze people when I meet them and say, Oh, people seem to think that I’m in my mid forties or even younger. Some people have got very bad eyesight. But, um, yeah, so I’m, I, I mean, I do, I play a lot of sport. I’m still faster than many guys, 20, 30 years younger than me when I’m playing football.
And I. A few, few months ago I discovered weightlifting for the first time and you, I don’t, I’m not really into wearing tight clothes but I’m, for the first time in my life, I’m really ripped. I’ve never ripped before. It’s crazy. And so, um, yeah, I seem to be, and it’s all about, it’s all in the mind anyway, age, isn’t it? And I’ve never had, because I’ve been a DJ most of my life, and I’ve been crazy about music, I obviously, I’m still friends with many people that I went to school with, like far more than most people. I, there’s probably about 30 or 40 people from my school, from my school year, who we meet up regularly. We meet, I meet up with many of them next week. But there’s many people who are the same age as me. Who think in a way that’s much older.
And they, they, uh, they have so many aches and pains and they’ve, they’ve almost accepted that, Oh, I’m in my sixties now. Um, that means I’m an old person and I don’t think like that at all. And I, I, um, and I don’t have any aches or pains.
And I think that’s a lot because I do just, I guess, so much sport and movement and yoga and Pilates and
[00:39:44] Helena Holrick: and you sleep well and I
think you are one of the walking, talking role models that I know of, you know, when you see someone who is so passionate about what they do and who’s thrown so so much attention into learning their craft, you know, the, the, the, the, the health and the habits and the way in which you hold them, you’re a walking, talking billboard for doing the things that you are saying that, that you’ve not only picked up on your travels, but that you’ve then kind of extensively trained on.
And I think there’s a lot to be said for just listening to someone. So I’m going to go back to you getting really nerdy and deep diving into the the tiniest things that that make a difference because it is like the little things that make a difference make a massive difference or have the potential to make a massive difference and again if we’re back to that scenario and I think a lot of people are I’ve certainly had to do this you know look after parents in their older age and just watching that happen you know which is which can be heartbreaking for some, you know, if we can, if you can actively start that revolution of It doesn’t have to be like that.
I know that’s really close to your heart. Is, is that fair to say? Is that kind of putting you up on a thing or just setting you a good challenge?
[00:41:07] Tony Winyard: yeah, I mean, well, I’ve got a one of the challenges that I’ve sort of set myself or and a tagline I’m gonna be using is I want to help a hundred people reach to be centenarians. Yeah So yeah, I do want to help people. It’s not actually about people getting to a hundred. That’s just a number It’s more about helping people be healthy for as long as possible So I mean like, you know, so that they’re only In a, maybe an unhealthy state for the last few weeks or months of their life, rather than as many people now, it’s like a decade or even more for most people in, in chronic disease and just having no dignity or freedom, you know, independence or whatever.
So yeah, so I want to help people with that. Um, and I, there was something I was just about to say and I can’t remember what it was, but
[00:42:01] Helena Holrick: Take your time. It’s all good because life is there to be enjoyed.
[00:42:07] Tony Winyard: Yeah, absolutely.
I go and watch quite a lot of comedy. I’m very much into stand up comedy, though. And I’ve performed quite a bit of stand up comedy, but I prefer to watch stand up comedy. But
[00:42:18] Helena Holrick: Well, so, so it sounds like, you know, sort of in the upcoming episodes, not only will there be a bunch of education, you deep diving and getting slightly nerdy around the things that you’ve got, probably sharing. One or three stories. And
[00:42:34] Tony Winyard: humorous way. Because I think that’s the difference.
[00:42:36] Helena Holrick: a
[00:42:37] Tony Winyard: some of these… Topics I’m very aware can be very dry. So I want to try and make them much more appealing to people and have, and try and integrate or bring a little bit of humor into each episode if I can.
[00:42:52] Helena Holrick: I could talk to you for a long, long while and I suspect that all I’m going to do instead is actually listen to what’s coming up. For those of you who are slightly newer to this, I would highly recommend, you know, the The tiny tips. So, so Tony has definitely helped me on a health level, uh, just live my life that little bit better.
Oddly enough, or not, through the breathing more than anything. So, um, I think there are lots of little things we can all do to set us on the road to that health span that you are talking about.
[00:43:30] Tony Winyard: I’ve remembered what it was I was going to
[00:43:32] Helena Holrick: I could see that.
[00:43:34] Tony Winyard: so, one of the things that I found very interesting in the last few years as I’ve done all these different courses. And for example, when I was doing the breathing course, um, And, and I know lots of breathwork instructors and, and there’s a particular group I’m on, uh, sort of, uh, an internet group for all these different breathing instructors. And no matter what problem someone has, breathing is the answer. And then I’m on this nutrition group for all these nutrition coaches. It doesn’t matter what problem someone has, nutrition is the answer. Same thing for sleep. Um, and what I’ve realized is, you know, it’s that man with a hammer, you know, everything’s in it.
for a man with a hammer, everything is a nail, or if it’s something like that.
[00:44:16] Helena Holrick: that’s the
[00:44:16] Tony Winyard: And in all of these different, it doesn’t matter what it is you learn, you think whatever it is that you’ve learned, that is the answer to everything when it comes to health anyway. But what I’ve realized is no, it’s not, it’s never any one thing.
It’s always, it’s many things. You can’t just address the one thing. It’s, it’s. You have to, you have to look at all these different things. You have to look at not just your nutrition, but your sleep, and your stress, and your movement, and your breathing, and so on.
[00:44:47] Helena Holrick: It’s wonderful.
So, Yeah, isn’t it just? And how, how wonderful that we get to live it and live it well, right?
Um, so I’m gonna turn the tables on you for one last time before you sort of begin to do this again. So I believe you always finish with a book that’s moved you. So with all the hundreds and thousands of books that you’ve read, what’s a book that’s moved you, Tony?
[00:45:14] Tony Winyard: This is crazy that I’m going to struggle to answer this when I ask people this every week.
[00:45:19] Helena Holrick: Now you know how they feel!
[00:45:19] The Importance of Sleep[00:45:19] Tony Winyard: guess, I’ve read, I’ve literally read hundreds of books in the last few years, but I guess the one that stands out, and so it must be this is Matthew Walker, um, Why We Sleep. And, and I guess the reason why I’m saying this is because it’s the, the first book, or is the book that, as I read it more, and I read it a few times, and I realized just how important sleep is to our overall health.
I mean, I just went and said that it’s not one thing, it’s a combination of things. Sleep, I think, is the most important. And I remember I actually said to them, and I wrote it down, I am now making sleep my number one priority. And that was in 2020. I remember that. And since then I have, and even though I’m still DJing sometimes, and so sometimes I’m not getting home till very late, but I’m still, Um, sleep is my number one priority.
I mean, well, my daughter Bonnie is my number one priority, but as far as health is concerned, sleep is my number one priority. And I think because I make that such a priority, it’s one of the reasons why I am so healthy and I, I, I’m never ill. I don’t really, and I seemed, I’m, I’m usually, I don’t ever get depressed or in a bad mood, and I think sleep has got something to do with that. Um, you know, I’m charging my brain well.
[00:46:44] Helena Holrick: Yeah, I’m looking forward to the episode in which you talk about that is all I can say. So we’ve heard about the book. What about a quote that really resonates for you?
[00:46:57] The Power of Quotes[00:46:57] Tony Winyard: Well, interestingly enough, and there’s a few people who have said this quote, who have been guests on this show. And it’s a quote that says there’s a space between stimulus and response, and in that space is our room for growth and freedom. And it’s always attributed to, uh, Viktor Frankl, but actually it wasn’t Viktor Frankl that said it. And it’s not clear who actually said it. And when, there’s, there’s a great website and I’ll put this in the show notes, there’s a great website called Quote Investigator, who goes really nerdy on these. There’s so many Einstein, there’s so many quotes attributed to Einstein, for example, which Einstein never said any of them.
[00:47:39] Helena Holrick: You mean he wasn’t as clever as we think he is?
[00:47:41] Tony Winyard: yeah, so this is one of those, those quotes. It’s always attributed to Viktor Frankl. But in Man’s Search for Meaning, he had an amazing book. He did say some things which are very similar to that, but he didn’t actually say those words. And in, uh, Stephen Covey’s book, Seven, uh, Habits of Highly Successful People, that’s where it seems to be first attributed to Viktor Frankl, because he says in that book, uh, Viktor Frankl said, but, and so when you look at this, um, article by Quote Investigator, he goes very deep into, who was it who actually said this?
And so anyway, it doesn’t, in some ways it doesn’t matter who said it, because it’s a fantastic quote.
[00:48:23] Helena Holrick: Yeah.
[00:48:24] Tony Winyard: since first reading that quote, I don’t know how many years ago it was, I think about it, I wouldn’t say daily, that’s not true, but I do think about it regularly and I am now.
[00:48:36] The Space Between Stimulus and Response[00:48:36] Tony Winyard: I’ve worked on myself to make that pause much longer so I don’t have the default reaction I used to have. Because I used to do what most people do, you know, you’re driving and someone cuts you up and you start swearing at them as if they can hear you, you know. And all these things that you just do on a default, I don’t do on a default anymore. I now give myself time to think. and I’ll react differently.
[00:49:00] Helena Holrick: And do you have a tip? I’m sure there are a lot of people listening that are sort of going, how do you do that? What’s your tip for, for increasing the space between stimulus and response?
[00:49:13] Breathwork as a Tool for Response[00:49:13] Tony Winyard: Well, it comes down to breathwork really, because the more you can be downregulated and more in that sort of parasympathetic state and more like more relaxed, you’re able to think more coherently. And that allows you to, that thing, how the stimulus happens and where you would normally just respond, actually. No. Was it, is, was that as bad as I, you know, do I need to be offended by that? Do I need to be angry about that? Do I, you actually give yourself time to think about your reaction rather than just having a reaction. And it’s not easy. It does take time.
[00:49:54] Developing Healthy Habits[00:49:54] Tony Winyard: But if you, if you think about this a lot, and, but this is how it’s been for me anyway, I thought about this a lot for the last probably seven, eight years. And, and I, my. I do have a much bigger gap now between the stimulus and the response.
[00:50:10] Helena Holrick: So you’ve developed that habit beautifully.
[00:50:12] Tony Winyard: Yeah, I guess so. Yeah.
Yeah,
[00:50:14] Helena Holrick: how wonderful. Well, as I say, you’re a walking, talking example of all that you talk about. And I am definitely looking forward to hearing much more.
[00:50:25] Closing Remarks and Gratitude[00:50:25] Helena Holrick: So I wish you all the best with the new series. Long may it continue.
[00:50:31] Tony Winyard: Well, and thank you, Helena, for all that you’ve done for me. And you’ve done so much for me over the last, was it five years, I think, since we first
met. And yeah, you were a guest four years ago. So I really want to give a big thank you to you because you’ve been a massive help. So thank you.
[00:50:47] Helena Holrick: you are so welcome,
[00:50:49] Tony Winyard: Thank you, Helena.
Well listeners, we’ve reached the final episode of The Art of Living Proactively I can’t quite believe this marvelous journey is drawing to an end, after 250 thought provoking installments. But don’t despair. I return next week, with an exhilarating new vision. Welcome 360 degrees of health span, where I provide practical pearls to optimize your longevity.
We’ll be exploring every angle of whole person health, not just the physical, but also mental, emotional, social, and spiritual. I’m overflowing with fervour to share this fresh focus with you all culminates years of researching lifestyle medicine, and seeing firsthand how small, consistent actions reap massive rewards. So do join me on this quest to help you sculpt sustainable habits across all facets of life. Let’s revel together in the adventure of becoming our best selves.
I sincerely believe these bite-sized episodes will prove invaluable. They’ll be around about 10 minutes, each something along those lines. Please do subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. Leave sparkling reviews. Share posts with friends and comment on our YouTube channel. Your support means the world to me. So one last time, I thank you profoundly for making this such a special community to nurture. Here’s to many more mutually meaningful moments on the road ahead.
Hope you have a great weekend.
LInks: Helena Holrick website * Quote investigator article about the quote attributed to Viktor Frankl Recommended book:Why We Sleep by Matthew WalkerFavourite Quote
"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."
Attributed to Viktor Frankl*Tweet
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TranscriptEmailDownloadNew TabTony Winyard – 250
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Greetings. This is your host, Tony Winyard welcoming you to a very special 250th episode of The Art of Living Proactively podcast. Today I hathee a delightful privilege of being the interviewee, rather than the interviewer, with the talented Helena Holrick taking the reigns. She will be gently grilling me about the Genesis of this podcast, my approach to interviewing and the habits I’m cultivating. I’ll also reveal an exciting rebrand happening in episode 251 next week.
So strap in for an enthralling ride into the future of this podcast. There may even be some surprising stories from my globe- trotting past sprinkled into give a glimpse into what shaped my perspectives. So hope you enjoy this celebratory episode. It promises to be a riveting and rewarding one. When it finishes
I would love for you to leave comments on the YouTube channel about what most intrigued or inspired you. And now without further delay, let’s hand. The mic over to Halena and dive right in.
[00:01:09] Introduction and Episode Overview
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[00:01:11] Tony Winyard: Welcome to The Art of Living Proactively, and today is a very different episode. It’s episode 250, for one thing. I’m not actually the guest on this episode, where usually I’m the host. Oh, sorry, I’m not actually the host on this episode, rather, where usually I am. I’m the guest today.
[00:01:29] Helena Holrick: Yay!
[00:01:29] Introducing the Guest Host: Helena Holrick
—
[00:01:29] Tony Winyard: And the host is, well, let me introduce you to Helena Holrick. And any of you who’ve been listening to my podcast for quite a few years, or if you’ve been listening since the beginning, I don’t know how many people there still are. But Helena was a guest about four years ago, and in probably around episode 30 ish or something along those
lines. So, um, hello Helena.
[00:01:53] Helena Holrick: Hello! It’s so nice to be here and it’s so fantastic to be able to turn the tables. And just facilitate everyone listening. You know, for those of you who are long term fans of Tony, welcome. And you’re gonna find out some, some things about Tony that you may never have known. And yet he may well have, introduced you to.
For those of you who are fairly new to Tony, hello and welcome to you as well.
[00:02:21] The Journey of the Podcast
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[00:02:21] Helena Holrick: You’re about to find out something about, the, the direction that this podcast is actually taking because, Tony, you’ve been doing podcasts now for how long?
[00:02:33] Tony Winyard: It’s coming up to six years I guess, it’s over five years anyway,
[00:02:37] Helena Holrick: Yeah,
for sure. And, this episode, which starts the whole new thing, which we’ll talk about in a minute, this episode is going to be the 250th episode, which is really quite some going. Your passion and dedication to finding and then sharing with your audience, some really diverse characters is, it kind of knows no bounds.
So tell us a little bit about what inspires you to reach out to someone to put them on the show, whichever iteration of the show we’ve been going through.
[00:03:14] Tony Winyard: It’s just the whole scratch my own itch thing, you know, I just, I’m I’m so incredibly curious about so many different things. And I’ll be reading something. I mean, I just read loads and loads of books and often it will be, I’ll be reading a book and I think, ah, I should have an episode about that. And then I’ll either reach out to the author of that book, which I’ve done many times and I’ve had many authors on, or I’ll reach out to an author of another book, maybe on the same topic, or, you know, I’ve done that many a time.
[00:03:47] The Art of Interviewing
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[00:03:47] Helena Holrick: And you have a particular style around how you interview people. Can you say more? Because I, I know for a fact from listening, and I know that others tell you this as well, that they just, you seem to extract quite a lot out of your guests. That just allows them to share possibly more than they anticipated.
And most of them, I know this because you and I have been in conversation, turn around and say, That was a really good interview. What, what’s your knack.
[00:04:20] Tony’s Radio Career and Interviewing Celebrities
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[00:04:20] Tony Winyard: Well, so I did radio for eight years in the 90s. And I was working on a big station in Jakarta, Indonesia, which was their equivalent, of Capital radio. So it was a very big station. And there was a lot of major stars used to go and do, shows in Jakarta and like making appearances to sell their books and films.
And when I say major stars, I mean A list celebrities. And because I was the only native English speaking person on this radio station. They asked me to do these interviews. So I was interviewing people along the lines of Cindy Crawford and Steven Segal and Bon Jovi and Take That and George Benson. I mean, like some huge, huge
names, loads and loads of them.
[00:05:06] The Evolution of Tony’s Interviewing Style
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[00:05:06] Tony Winyard: And initially in the early days of doing these interviews, I would do loads of research on every person and I’d come to the interview with this whole list of questions. And it, it soon, I soon realized no one actually said anything to me because they gave me complete control. The radio station were really cool with me, but I realized there wasn’t, the interviews weren’t really flowing.
It was just me asking lots of questions and it was just kind of a bit stuttery almost.
[00:05:33] The Impact of Confidence in Interviewing
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[00:05:33] Tony Winyard: And then one day I was just, I don’t know, I was just sort of, I just guess confident with myself. I had enough confidence in myself. I’m not going to do any into, I’m not going to do any research for this episode. I’m just going to have a conversation and see where it goes. It was amazing. The difference was incredible. I remember that very first interview. It was a guy, any jazz aficionados may know of a guy called Bob James, who was really big in the jazz fusion world in the 70s and 80s. And I was interviewing this guy. And I really like Bob James, as it goes. And we went down all sorts of paths and, and I remember him saying to me at one point, wow, you, and actually what you just said is it basically what he said. We’ve, we’ve covered some stuff here. I haven’t, cause all he was doing all day long and many of the people I was speaking to were just doing interviews all day long with different radio stations, TV stations, newspapers, and so on. We’ve been talking about some stuff that I haven’t spoken about in any other interviews.
[00:06:35] The Importance of Curiosity in Conversations
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[00:06:35] Tony Winyard: It’s, I’ve really enjoyed it and and I have had many people say that and it, I don’t, I just have a conversation with people. I don’t know where it’s going to go. I, a lot of what I ask depends on what they say.
[00:06:48] Helena Holrick: It makes complete and utter sense. And it’s great that you’ve just said that because, because, you know, well, two things pop for me and I’m like, who was your favorite?
[00:06:59] Tony’s Favorite Interview Experiences
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[00:06:59] Helena Holrick: If you got free and easy with the conversations, who was your favorite? Or what was your best kind of like. question that then opens someone up in a way that you never thought it would.
[00:07:12] Tony Winyard: Oh wow, that’s a really hard question. So many. Um, who’s my favorite? I guess, oh actually no, I can answer this. My favorite. Was a guy called Bluey Maunick, who is the lead singer of Incognito.
[00:07:28] Helena Holrick: Uh huh.
[00:07:29] Tony Winyard: And he was a guest on my show when I was in Jakarta. And it’s definitely favoritism because I love his music. I love Incognito. And we also had a lot of fun, um, kind of ribbing each other because he’s a Tottenham supporter and I’m an Arsenal supporter. So we were giving each other lots of, like, ribbing as well. And it was just a real fun interview. So yeah, I really enjoyed that. So
[00:07:57] Helena Holrick: Oh, good for you. And it’s interesting because you also mentioned kind of what gives you confidence and there’s a point at which, um, one, a person gains confidence in something after having done it for a little while or having built kind of a habit around it.
[00:08:16] Tony’s Work Outside Podcasting
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[00:08:16] Helena Holrick: Can you tell us a little bit about how you help?
people get confidence because I think a lot of people know you as a podcast host, but they might not know what you do outside of it. So, so expand everyone’s world a little bit around what you do and why habits are important to you and how that leads to confidence.
[00:08:38] The Importance of Habits in Achieving Goals
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[00:08:38] Tony Winyard: yeah, I realized, um, we all… Every person listening to this has so many things that they want to do, but they’re not doing. And I don’t think there’s a person on earth who that doesn’t apply to. And, and so that’s, you know, there’s many habits that we wish that we were doing on a regular basis, but we’re not doing. And I’m as guilty of that as anyone, probably more so. And I was in many books. I was, well, a few years ago, I got really into deep into, I was just reading so many books around different aspects of health and nutrition and sleep and stress and so on. And as I was putting all this together and I started doing various courses, I did a breathwork course and a nutrition coach course and so on, and as I was doing all these courses and I started to sort of coach people and I realized that. People were struggling to make these into habits. They weren’t actually following through on the things that we were talking about. And I was trying to understand why. And then I happened to be reading a book called Tiny Habits. And then literally I think a light bulb went off. Ah, this is the missing piece. And what was quite strange about that was… It was almost, actually thinking about it, it was almost three years ago to this day, because what happened was, I was reading the book, it was the day before my birthday, so it would have been December the 2nd, 2020. And I was reading the book and I thought, and then it mentioned in the book, we do courses to train people to be Tiny Habits coaches. So I went online and I saw there was a course starting, oh it would have been December the 1st, because the course started the following day, which was December the 2nd. So I signed up for the course, they happened to have one space left, I went on the course, started December the 2nd. And one of the first questions they asked during the course was, um, we, we want you to answer some questions. So we’re going to start off with the, the oldest person will speak first. So, oh no, sorry, not oldest, whoever’s birthday is nearest. So we all had to say our birthdates. And I said, well, I think it’s probably going to be me, because in four hours time, it’s my birthday. So, yeah, so it’s almost exactly three years ago that, that was, yeah.
[00:11:06] Helena Holrick: Wow. And, and, you know, sort of, I, I really hear in that, that, that with the breath work, with the nutrition, I know you’ve done a whole bunch of other sort of integrative trainings around health.
[00:11:20] The Role of Health in Tony’s Life
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[00:11:20] Helena Holrick: Why is health so important to you? And why is it so important for you to kind of share what you know, kind of learn about it and share?
[00:11:29] Tony Winyard: I think there’s a few things.
[00:11:31] The Impact of Family Health History
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[00:11:31] Tony Winyard: One is, um, my health history in my family. A lot of people have died young in my family. Um, My, um, both my brothers died in their sort of early 50s, my dad did, my mum had, well she went blind in the, in the late 90s, and then she had various sort of cancers, she had breast cancer, it went, came back, she had to have a, a mastectomy, it went, came back, had a double mastectomy, and then she had terminal cancer, and then she passed away. One of my uncles had testicular, uh, prostate cancer, sorry. My granddad died of lung cancer, my nan died of, so cancer was very prevalent in the family. Lots of people have died and then other people have died from, from various things and so I guess it, it was just always in, you know, am I gonna die young as well?
I would, at one point I was thinking, well it’s obviously, it’s just a matter of time until I get cancer
because everyone was having cancer. So that was kind of set me off reading a lot about cancer. Initially, I was reading a lot about cancer, and the more I read, then I started sort of learning about epigenetics, which, uh, which means, no, I’m not destined to get cancer.
It’s about, it’s not just about our genes, it’s about how the environment that we’re living in and the food that we’re eating and the toxins we’re exposed to and many, many other things. So yeah, so now I know I’m not destined to get cancer. But that, initially, just reading all those books on cancer, led me to reading books on many other, many other things.
[00:13:01] The Importance of Nutrition in Health
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[00:13:01] Helena Holrick: And, you know, lots of us read lots of things because we get interested in it, but you’ve taken it kind of one step further and you’ve actually placed it at the heart of Not just this podcast, but also, you know, especially because you’ve been talking about proactivity for quite some time during this particular series, but you’ve really taken the whole health effort into something that matters to you personally.
Why is that?
[00:13:31] Tony Winyard: I think that was because of the way my mum was treated by, um, the doctors who were treating her. Um, as I was learning more and more about cancer and I saw how important nutrition was, and they never ever spoke to her about nutrition. All they ever did was offer her more and more chemotherapy. and aggressive chemotherapy.
And there was all sorts of side effects, you know, losing her hair, getting flu constantly, just lots of, it just so affected her quality of life. Her quality of life just went, really went downhill. And, and it was really frustrating that she wouldn’t listen to me because I kept talking to her about nutrition, but she had that, um, that, uh, white coat syndrome.
[00:14:19] Helena Holrick: Uh huh.
[00:14:20] Tony Winyard: You know, you’d only listen to someone who’s got a white coat. And I, she’s no, I had no training in medicine. So why should she listen to me? That was kind of her
approach. And it wasn’t that she was ignoring me because my mom loved me, but I, it, it, I just found it really frustrating that the doctors would never mention anything about nutrition.
So not once did they say, you know, ask her about the food that she’s and, and it was down to the food she was eating and her diet was terrible. And, and yeah, they, they never mentioned that. And I guess it just. I don’t want anyone else to go through this. Like what are, I mean, um, a medical system in many ways, the NHS is, is amazing, but not when it comes, I mean, I’ve since met so many doctors and I’ve had loads of doctors as guests on my podcast. Um, and every doctor I’ve spoken to admits the same thing. They don’t get any training in nutrition in their seven years of medical study. Um, and yeah, it’s so important.
And so I guess that one of the main reasons is I want to help people. I don’t want people to go through the same thing that my mum went through, I guess, you know.
[00:15:29] Helena Holrick: And, and because it’s not actually necessary, you know, sort of, or rather that there is a, a wider, I know you well enough to know that you have a belief that the wider holistic area allows people to have a much better quality of life. So I’m going to bring us back to what you just said around quality of life.
Um, cause I know you’ve got a joyful kind of mission that’s been brewing over time.
[00:15:51] The Centenarian Olympics: A Health Mission
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[00:15:51] Helena Holrick: Um, can you tell us a little bit about these Octogenarian Olympics? The Centenarian Olympics? What’s all this about, Tony?
[00:16:03] Tony Winyard: There’s, there’s a guy called Peter Attia, who I really like. I’ve got, I’ve almost got a man crush on him, I guess. And he’s a, he’s a doctor or an MD in, in America. He’s been doing a podcast for six or seven years. Um, and he’s, he’s coined a term called the centenarian decathlon. Which is all, and he’s all about healthspan and the difference between our healthspan and our lifespan is we may live to 90 But most people in those last 10 years won’t have much quality of life because they’ll just be so chronically ill They’ll be in a home probably or maybe in a hospital on Lots of different drugs can hardly move have no dignity because they can’t go to toilet on their own and so on and so so so their lifespan is 90, but their health span probably ended at 80.
So they, the last 10 years of their life, there’s no health at all.
So it’s all about, so his, what he talks about, the centenarian decathlon is if you. Um, at the age of 100, what state of health would you like to be able to be in? What would you like to still be able to do at 100, should you live to
[00:17:13] Helena Holrick: that’s a great question.
[00:17:14] Tony Winyard: to be able to, would you like to be playing with your great, great grandkids? Would you like to be able to do your own shopping, like bring your own shopping home? And reach for things from cupboards and, you know, and, so if you want to have that level of health at the age of 100. Therefore, you would need to be at this level at 90 and this level at 80 and 70 and so on. And it just made so much sense to me. And I’ve been listening to probably in the last six years, I think probably every single episode of his weekly podcast, which is, I don’t know what number he’s on now. And he released a book earlier this year called Outlive, which is just absolutely superb.
I’ve read it numerous times. And I really, I really, he’s very agnostic when it comes to like sort of diets and he doesn’t care what diet you eat. You know, he, he actually did keto for quite a few years and then eventually realized actually no, keto is not the magic pill. Same thing with intermittent fasting and various other forms of fasting.
He’s tried all of those. Much like I’ve tried all of those. And I, yeah, I came to the same conclusion. It doesn’t really matter about the diet so much, or it’s more about, well, there’s so many other factors. It’s never one thing, and it’s always a combination of many different things.
[00:18:30] Helena Holrick: And, and what’s that combination? Because it’s fascinating, you know, for, you know, I’m, I’m certainly taking on board that… Huh, as a woman in my mid 50s, I can actively, what I do now, what I’m hearing from you is, what I do now is going to impact the quality of life that I have for years to come. That’s essentially what you’re saying, right?
[00:18:55] Tony Winyard: Mm hmm, absolutely.
[00:18:56] Helena Holrick: then, and then in terms of the combination of those factors, what are some of the factors that I should or could be absolutely focused on that I might not think of as something that would be impacting?
[00:19:10] Tony Winyard: Well, there’s five main things that I put it down to.
[00:19:14] The Importance of Breathing in Health
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[00:19:14] Tony Winyard: So it’s nutrition, sleep, stress, movement, and breathing. And then, and then there’s various offshoots of all of those.
[00:19:24] Helena Holrick: Right.
[00:19:25] Tony Winyard: Breathing is a really interesting one because it’s a lot of people when it comes to nutrition, they know a lot more than they realize, even if they’re not doing what they know. So they know they should be eating this or shouldn’t be eating that, but they’re not able to stop themselves. But they still know, even if they’re not actually
doing it. And in many ways, you know, we all know we probably should be sleeping seven, eight hours, even if we’re only sleeping six or whatever the case may be. Everyone knows they should be exercising more, even if they’re not. And I think everyone realizes, you know, it’s not good to be too, have too much stress. But the breathing one is the really fascinating one because hardly anyone knows that they’re breathing wrong. And it’s something like the figures. It’s something like 80% of the UK are dysfunctional breathers.
80% of people are breathing dysfunctionally. And what does breathing
[00:20:17] Helena Holrick: dysfunctionally mean?
Yeah. So tell us so that people are like, and if you’re driving in a car, listening to this, don’t do too many of the things, but listen to Tony. Like, tell us what that means.
[00:20:29] Understanding Dysfunctional Breathing
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[00:20:29] Tony Winyard: So breathing dysfunctionally means you are, you are breathing in a way that’s actually detrimental to your health. And usually that means we’re breathing too fast, we’re breathing too shallow, um, and we’re, and so there’s, there’s lots of consequences from that. Um, that generally means we’re not really oxygenated, oxygenating our blood properly because we’re breathing so shallow. Um, we’re not getting a good gas exchange between CO2 and oxygen. And I don’t want to get too, too deep into the science, but, and also, and the worst thing is most people are breathing through their mouth rather than through their nose, which causes all sorts of other issues. Um, and so the more you go into the world of breathwork, and I’ve only just touched the surface of some of the things I said there, because I don’t want to start getting really nerdy about all of this sort of stuff. But the more you learn about breathwork, there’s so much to it. Like, for example, nitric oxide. Which is, uh, our nasal passages are around here. And for those of you listening, I’m just sort of pointing to the area around to the left and right of my nose. And when we breathe through our nose, we activate this gas nitro, or this molecule rather, nitric oxide. And, and it’s only activated when we breathe in through our nose, not if we breathe in through our mouth. And nitric oxide is so important, it dilates the airways. It helps with the autoimmune system. It fights viruses and pathogens and bacteria and so on. It does so many other things in the body. It helps the whole process with carbon dioxide and oxygen. It’s just like an amazing, it actually, Won the peop. There’s three guys won, uh, the Nobel Prize because of the discovery of, of nitric oxide. I, I think it was like 15 years ago or something. It’s like an amazing molecule. And as I said, you only get this by breathing in, by na nasal breathing rather than mouth breathing. And, and as I said, I’ve just touched the tip of the iceberg. When you go into breathing, there’s so much more to it and it can really. Improve your health in so many ways just by focusing on your breathing.
[00:22:36] The Role of Breathing in Stress Management
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[00:22:36] Tony Winyard: And, and one simple thing, for example, is we, many people spend most of their time in a para, uh, in a sympathetic, uh, in a sympathetic nervous system, which means we’re the, the, the fight or flight, uh, situation.
So we are breathing quite sort of, um, too fast. And we’re not completely relaxed. We’re, we’re always maybe a little bit sort of stressed. And, and then that closes down many organs in the body. We don’t digest food properly when we’re in that state. Um, there’s, there’s many other things happen when we’re in that state. And so there’s, when it comes to your breathing, if you’re, when you’re breathing sort of short and shallow, that tends to put you in a, in a sympathetic state. And sympathetic sounds like a really nice word, but when it comes to the sympathetic nervous system, you don’t want to be in a sympathetic nervous system all the time. That’s what’s known as being upregulated. If you can breathe so your exhale is longer than your inhale, that will put you into the parasympathetic and parasympathetic is the opposite. So parasympathetic is when you’re completely relaxed and you’re nice and refreshed. You just feel really calm. However, and it sounds like, well, that’s the place where you want to be all the time. Well, not really. And so in between those. So you’ve got sympathetic, you’ve got parasympathetic, and in between those, it’s sort of known as coherent or it’s also known as resonant, like resonant breathing or coherent breathing.
In heart math, they call it, uh, coherent breathing. And that’s when you do that sort of box breathing technique, you know, when you, like four, you inhale for the count of four, pause for the count of four, exhale for the count of four, pause again for four, and you just keep doing that. And that state means you’re much more focused, you’re much more cognitively sharp, you’re, that’s, that’s a better state for when you’re working and you need to be like on the ball, you know, so you don’t always want to be in that parasympathetic state because then you’re too chilled. So when you’re, when you’ve got work to do, you don’t want to be too chilled. So you could say, if you want to make it really simplified, when you do short, sharp breaths, um, and where the inhale is longer than the exhale, that puts you in sympathetic. When you do, when the exhale is much longer than the inhale, that puts you in the parasympathetic. When they’re both the same, that sort of puts you in the middle.
[00:25:10] Helena Holrick: Good to know. How many people listening might well be counting their breath at this moment? Um, I suspect that that’s probably true and thank you for sharing. Um, uh, you, you said in there, I, I, I love that you’ve just shared this because this is almost like a little bit of a secret. snippet because you’re of what’s coming, isn’t it?
Like, because you’ve gotten very nerdy through all the books. I don’t even know how many books you’ve read over time, but you’ve gotten very nerdy and specifically around habits and health and, um, and all things, uh, helpful to us reaching this centenarian decathlon, right? So tell us about what’s coming for this podcast because you’re going to switch the tables a little bit, aren’t you?
So
starting
[00:26:00] The Future of the Podcast: 360 Degrees of Health Span
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[00:26:00] Tony Winyard: week is, so this is series four, you know, The Art of Living Proactively. Starting next week is then series five, episode, well, it’ll be episode 251, but it’ll be episode one of series five. And that’s, that’s called, 360 degrees of health span. And I forgot what the tagline is, but essentially it’s going to be a very different format. I’m not doing guest interviews anymore. So this is the last guest interview as such. So it’s going to be much shorter episodes. So I’m only going to be about 10 minutes, but I’m going to drill down into a particular topic, so it, it could be protein. It could be sort of about humming or it could be, you know, I’ve already, I’ve already penciled out 323 different topics that I’m going to be covering.
[00:26:45] Podcast Frequency and Format
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[00:26:45] Helena Holrick: is going to be daily, Tony.
[00:26:48] Tony Winyard: Well, it’s going to start off weekly. So at the moment, every episode is released at 12 o’clock on a Saturday afternoon, UK time. It’s going to start off weekly. Once I’ve got my processes down to sort of down to a T, I’m going to probably start doing two or three a week. And then I’m looking to probably do between Monday and Friday one a day, every day, Monday to Friday, probably by, I guess, March.
[00:27:17] Content Strategy: Blogs and E-books
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[00:27:17] Tony Winyard: Because I also plan to for each episode… There will be an accompanying blog post and the blog post won’t have the same content as the podcast episode. But there’ll also be an e book on each episode as well about that particular topic. So there’s going to be a whole collection of different e books, which are not going to be too long. They’re going to give you enough information about that topic and notes and it will also each episode I’ll give you three habits you can use to implement the information in the episode.
[00:27:46] Storytelling and Humor in Podcasts
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[00:27:46] Tony Winyard: It’s going to be very story based. I’m going to bring in a lot of stories from from my life but I’m also going to bring in stories from like from some of the famous philosophers and and from films and tv and all sorts of stuff. I’m going to definitely going to make it Story led, but there’s going to be quite a bit of humor in there as well.
[00:28:05] Helena Holrick: Oh, how wonderful.
[00:28:07] Tony Winyard: a different style.
[00:28:08] The Importance of Health Education
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[00:28:08] Helena Holrick: You know, it’s really wonderful because I really hear your dedication to educating people around the fact that they can be in charge of their own health span, in charge of their own health, in charge of their own, uh, wellness and beingness in the world. And, and, and I hear that this is a perfect marriage for you around all the films, all the podcasts.
All the books that you’ve ever read. So, so, um, you mentioned stories, uh, and I know you to be a master storyteller.
[00:28:41] Sharing Personal Stories
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[00:28:41] Helena Holrick: I know you from the podcast to be a master listener to other people’s stories, but wanna share a story from your life that might just help us get you, get to know you even better. Mm-Hmm.
[00:28:55] Tony Winyard: There’s so many, I mean, I lived in the Far East for 10 years. Um, I worked around Europe for a few years. I worked around the Middle East. I mean, I have so many stories, like trying to pick one is, oh wow, which one do I start with?
[00:29:09] A Life-Changing Cycling Adventure
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[00:29:09] Tony Winyard: Um, a story that comes to mind, the first one that comes to mind, and I don’t know why, I, I did, in the early 2000s, I did quite a few bike rides across, across different countries, raising money for guide dogs, because I, I mentioned earlier that my mum lost her eyesight, she went blind, she got a guide dog. I started finding out the guide dogs didn’t receive any money from, from the government. And so they just had to raise all their own money to train these, you know, these guide dogs, which give blind people so much independence. And, and I was on a trip, uh, cycling across New Zealand, the South, South Island of New Zealand. And I don’t know why this story came into my head, but anyway, so there was this, this guy called Murray, this Scottish guy, he was 18. He lost his eyesight when he was 14. He was. built, he was really big, massive guy, probably twice my size. He was, you know, like a rugby player, he was built, and his attitude was incredible.
You’d think he’d be bitter at being completely blind, you know, just within four years. At the age of 14. But he wasn’t at all. He had such an amazing attitude to life. He was so curious about things. He was always smiling and happy. And he just had a great attitude to life. Anyway, he’d done the trip the year before. This is my first trip on, you know, and we’re cycling from Queenstown, uh, Christchurch to Queenstown. On the third day, so he was riding on the back of a tandem, obviously he can’t ride a bike on his own, but well, and actually that’s not completely true, but he did, but That’s
[00:30:46] Helena Holrick: That’s a different story.
[00:30:48] Tony Winyard: The third day, we’re in the, having breakfast and he said, Tony, would you go in the front of my tandem today? I said, yeah, okay. I, and I just figured he just wanted to have a chat with me and get to know me. Cause obviously when you’re riding along, you can be chatting about all sorts of things. And I’d never ridden a tandem before. And the tandem is so different to a normal bike, especially when you’ve got a guy on the back who’s twice your weight.
Yeah. And when you’re trying to turn, oh, it’s really, it’s really difficult. Anyway. So for the first few hours I was getting used to it. And then at lunch time he said, did you, uh, did you wonder why I asked you to be on the, yeah. To be riding with me today. And I said, well, I just figured you just want to have a chat.
He said, well, yeah, that, that was part of it, but there was another reason. I said, okay, yeah, go on. What’s that? He said, well, I know that you’re the fastest rider here and this afternoon, we’re coming up to, I forget the name of the hill. There was some like crazy hill that we were coming up to. And he said, and last year when we went down this hill, we managed to get to 85 kilometers an hour. I wanna beat that. And I think that you are gonna be able to help me beat that 85 kilometers an hour on a
bike.
[00:32:00] Helena Holrick: lot.
[00:32:02] Tony Winyard: So it, and this, the hill was like this. And again, for those of you listening who can’t see the video, it was really steep, this hill, and the, the Tandem had a speedometer on it, so anyway so we started and, but the bottom of the hill was a T junction. So we started going down this hill and we’ve got to like 70, 75. 80. We’ve got to 85 and I can see the bottom approaching really quickly. And if it was just me, I would have probably gone a little bit quicker, but I’ve got this blind guy in the back, I can’t wipe out. So I had to start putting on the brakes.
And so we got, we matched 85, but we didn’t get to 86, which is what he was hoping for. But he was fine about it, but it was just, wow, that was hairy. I’ve never, yeah, to be 85 on a bike was kind of crazy.
[00:32:54] Helena Holrick: And isn’t that, I mean, in, in, in many ways, I mean, thank you for sharing. In many ways, that’s, that’s sort of a metaphor for life, isn’t it? Like, it’s, it’s like if we really let ourselves, whatever the obstacles or perceived obstacles that we might actually have, if we let ourselves, we could really go for it in all sorts of ways.
Whether that is in our health, in our reading, in our connections, in, in all of the different areas of our lives. We need to make a choice, don’t we? And, and I love the choice that you had. Like I could push it or I could just begin to slow down. And that is the choice that we have so much of the time, right?
[00:33:36] Tony Winyard: Absolutely. Yeah, if he hadn’t have been on the back, I would have definitely have gone faster.
But there’s no way I could have wiped him out.
[00:33:43] Helena Holrick: Yeah. Well, how, how wonderful.
[00:33:45] Lessons from Living in Different Countries
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[00:33:45] Helena Holrick: And, uh, you know, I, I know that as you’ve just sort of hinted at, you’ve lived in a lot of countries, right?
[00:33:52] Tony Winyard: Yeah, 14.
[00:33:55] Helena Holrick: That’s quite a lot of cultural input. Because they’ve all been quite diverse as well. It’s not like you’ve just hopped around Europe, is it?
[00:34:04] Tony Winyard: Now I’ve had really extremes. I mean, from very rich countries like Japan and Switzerland, to, well, Japan was very rich at the time I was there anyway, to very poor countries like Indonesia and Syria. And so, I mean, they were complete opposites, you know, and then many countries in
[00:34:21] Helena Holrick: between.
Yeah. And what’s the one thing that you’ve seen that sort of unites people?
[00:34:28] The Power of People and Connections
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[00:34:28] Tony Winyard: I, I think it doesn’t matter what country you go to, it’s the, it’s the people you’re with. Um, it’s the people you meet. Every country in some ways is the same. Every country has people that are great and really friendly and really hospitable and so on. And, I mean, like for example, when I was in Syria in the late 70s, late 80s rather, and At the time, Britain closed our embassy with Syria because of the Lockerbie, um, the shoe bomb and so on. And Britain had accused a Syrian guy of doing it. I can’t remember the whole story, but anyway, we didn’t have an embassy there. And the Daily Mail, as is their want, were daily painting Syrians as being really horrible people, and it was a horrible country, and it was full of terrorists and so on. They could not have been further from the truth because my experience there, they were so warm and friendly and people always invited me into their homes for, you know, to, and wouldn’t let me spend a penny.
I was playing for a football team there of the hotel I was working for. I was working for the most luxurious hotel in the whole of Syria. It was Sheraton Damascus at the time. And I played football for the hotel football team. Which was made up of the bellboys and cooks and, you know, and I was, it’s not an exaggeration to say I was probably earning more than all of them put together, probably three times more than all of them put together. And every time we would go to play football, it’s like, it’s really hot there. And, you know, it was sometimes it was, it’d be 45 degrees in, you know, um, fahrenheit or centigrade?
, I got mixed up, but it’s very hot anyway. And they’d bring loads of water and picnic and, yeah, it was like, it was like a feast every game. And after a couple of games, I said, look, you know, can I contribute towards it? And I remember one of the guys said, no, no, Tony, you’re our guest. And I said, yeah, yeah, okay, but I would still like to contribute. And then he started getting a little bit sterner. No, Tony, you’re our guest. I made one more effort and then he got really angry.
No, you are our guest. You do not pay. And it was just, you know, they were, they knew I was earning a lot more than them, but they’re, you know, they had the way they’re painted
by our press. It’s just so untrue. And, and every country I went to, I found, I think people everywhere are really friendly.
[00:36:45] Helena Holrick: yeah.
It’s, it’s… It’s amazing what you, you know, sort of opening and expanding your eyes to culture, to ideas, to just things that you can do or the ways that you can experience life is, is absolutely amazing. And I, I think that’s what you are about to sort of do with this next series, isn’t it, really? It’s, it’s, um, you’re about to get a little bit nerdy.
I think you’re about to share some stories.
[00:37:13] Tony Winyard: Yeah.
[00:37:14] The Influence of Eastern Medicine
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[00:37:14] Tony Winyard: And also I just realized that my Being in the Far East for so long, because I was in the Far East for 10 years, and the way they, their approach to medicine and to health is very different to how we approach it in the West. And I didn’t realize how much it had affected me that, seeing that firsthand. And it’s only recently I realized, oh yeah, there’s a lot of those things that I was doing when I was there has affected my kind of approach and how I see I like, in many ways, their approach to health far more than our approach to health over here.
[00:37:50] Helena Holrick: Yeah, and I think, I think that may well be responsible for the fact that, uh, you mentioned birthdays and you mentioned that, you know, this is airing literally the day before your… Wanna tell people how old you are?
[00:38:05] Tony Winyard: The day this comes out, I’m going to be 60 tomorrow.
[00:38:09] The Impact of Age and Attitude
—
[00:38:09] Tony Winyard: And that always seems to amaze people when I meet them and say, Oh, people seem to think that I’m in my mid forties or even younger. Some people have got very bad eyesight. But, um, yeah, so I’m, I, I mean, I do, I play a lot of sport. I’m still faster than many guys, 20, 30 years younger than me when I’m playing football.
And I. A few, few months ago I discovered weightlifting for the first time and you, I don’t, I’m not really into wearing tight clothes but I’m, for the first time in my life, I’m really ripped. I’ve never ripped before. It’s crazy. And so, um, yeah, I seem to be, and it’s all about, it’s all in the mind anyway, age, isn’t it? And I’ve never had, because I’ve been a DJ most of my life, and I’ve been crazy about music, I obviously, I’m still friends with many people that I went to school with, like far more than most people. I, there’s probably about 30 or 40 people from my school, from my school year, who we meet up regularly. We meet, I meet up with many of them next week. But there’s many people who are the same age as me. Who think in a way that’s much older.
And they, they, uh, they have so many aches and pains and they’ve, they’ve almost accepted that, Oh, I’m in my sixties now. Um, that means I’m an old person and I don’t think like that at all. And I, I, um, and I don’t have any aches or pains.
And I think that’s a lot because I do just, I guess, so much sport and movement and yoga and Pilates and
[00:39:44] Helena Holrick: and you sleep well and I
think you are one of the walking, talking role models that I know of, you know, when you see someone who is so passionate about what they do and who’s thrown so so much attention into learning their craft, you know, the, the, the, the, the health and the habits and the way in which you hold them, you’re a walking, talking billboard for doing the things that you are saying that, that you’ve not only picked up on your travels, but that you’ve then kind of extensively trained on.
And I think there’s a lot to be said for just listening to someone. So I’m going to go back to you getting really nerdy and deep diving into the the tiniest things that that make a difference because it is like the little things that make a difference make a massive difference or have the potential to make a massive difference and again if we’re back to that scenario and I think a lot of people are I’ve certainly had to do this you know look after parents in their older age and just watching that happen you know which is which can be heartbreaking for some, you know, if we can, if you can actively start that revolution of It doesn’t have to be like that.
I know that’s really close to your heart. Is, is that fair to say? Is that kind of putting you up on a thing or just setting you a good challenge?
[00:41:07] Tony Winyard: yeah, I mean, well, I’ve got a one of the challenges that I’ve sort of set myself or and a tagline I’m gonna be using is I want to help a hundred people reach to be centenarians. Yeah So yeah, I do want to help people. It’s not actually about people getting to a hundred. That’s just a number It’s more about helping people be healthy for as long as possible So I mean like, you know, so that they’re only In a, maybe an unhealthy state for the last few weeks or months of their life, rather than as many people now, it’s like a decade or even more for most people in, in chronic disease and just having no dignity or freedom, you know, independence or whatever.
So yeah, so I want to help people with that. Um, and I, there was something I was just about to say and I can’t remember what it was, but
[00:42:01] Helena Holrick: Take your time. It’s all good because life is there to be enjoyed.
[00:42:07] Tony Winyard: Yeah, absolutely.
I go and watch quite a lot of comedy. I’m very much into stand up comedy, though. And I’ve performed quite a bit of stand up comedy, but I prefer to watch stand up comedy. But
[00:42:18] Helena Holrick: Well, so, so it sounds like, you know, sort of in the upcoming episodes, not only will there be a bunch of education, you deep diving and getting slightly nerdy around the things that you’ve got, probably sharing. One or three stories. And
[00:42:34] Tony Winyard: humorous way. Because I think that’s the difference.
[00:42:36] Helena Holrick: a
[00:42:37] Tony Winyard: some of these… Topics I’m very aware can be very dry. So I want to try and make them much more appealing to people and have, and try and integrate or bring a little bit of humor into each episode if I can.
[00:42:52] Helena Holrick: I could talk to you for a long, long while and I suspect that all I’m going to do instead is actually listen to what’s coming up. For those of you who are slightly newer to this, I would highly recommend, you know, the The tiny tips. So, so Tony has definitely helped me on a health level, uh, just live my life that little bit better.
Oddly enough, or not, through the breathing more than anything. So, um, I think there are lots of little things we can all do to set us on the road to that health span that you are talking about.
[00:43:30] Tony Winyard: I’ve remembered what it was I was going to
[00:43:32] Helena Holrick: I could see that.
[00:43:34] Tony Winyard: so, one of the things that I found very interesting in the last few years as I’ve done all these different courses. And for example, when I was doing the breathing course, um, And, and I know lots of breathwork instructors and, and there’s a particular group I’m on, uh, sort of, uh, an internet group for all these different breathing instructors. And no matter what problem someone has, breathing is the answer. And then I’m on this nutrition group for all these nutrition coaches. It doesn’t matter what problem someone has, nutrition is the answer. Same thing for sleep. Um, and what I’ve realized is, you know, it’s that man with a hammer, you know, everything’s in it.
for a man with a hammer, everything is a nail, or if it’s something like that.
[00:44:16] Helena Holrick: that’s the
[00:44:16] Tony Winyard: And in all of these different, it doesn’t matter what it is you learn, you think whatever it is that you’ve learned, that is the answer to everything when it comes to health anyway. But what I’ve realized is no, it’s not, it’s never any one thing.
It’s always, it’s many things. You can’t just address the one thing. It’s, it’s. You have to, you have to look at all these different things. You have to look at not just your nutrition, but your sleep, and your stress, and your movement, and your breathing, and so on.
[00:44:47] Helena Holrick: It’s wonderful.
So, Yeah, isn’t it just? And how, how wonderful that we get to live it and live it well, right?
Um, so I’m gonna turn the tables on you for one last time before you sort of begin to do this again. So I believe you always finish with a book that’s moved you. So with all the hundreds and thousands of books that you’ve read, what’s a book that’s moved you, Tony?
[00:45:14] Tony Winyard: This is crazy that I’m going to struggle to answer this when I ask people this every week.
[00:45:19] Helena Holrick: Now you know how they feel!
[00:45:19] The Importance of Sleep
—
[00:45:19] Tony Winyard: guess, I’ve read, I’ve literally read hundreds of books in the last few years, but I guess the one that stands out, and so it must be this is Matthew Walker, um, Why We Sleep. And, and I guess the reason why I’m saying this is because it’s the, the first book, or is the book that, as I read it more, and I read it a few times, and I realized just how important sleep is to our overall health.
I mean, I just went and said that it’s not one thing, it’s a combination of things. Sleep, I think, is the most important. And I remember I actually said to them, and I wrote it down, I am now making sleep my number one priority. And that was in 2020. I remember that. And since then I have, and even though I’m still DJing sometimes, and so sometimes I’m not getting home till very late, but I’m still, Um, sleep is my number one priority.
I mean, well, my daughter Bonnie is my number one priority, but as far as health is concerned, sleep is my number one priority. And I think because I make that such a priority, it’s one of the reasons why I am so healthy and I, I, I’m never ill. I don’t really, and I seemed, I’m, I’m usually, I don’t ever get depressed or in a bad mood, and I think sleep has got something to do with that. Um, you know, I’m charging my brain well.
[00:46:44] Helena Holrick: Yeah, I’m looking forward to the episode in which you talk about that is all I can say. So we’ve heard about the book. What about a quote that really resonates for you?
[00:46:57] The Power of Quotes
—
[00:46:57] Tony Winyard: Well, interestingly enough, and there’s a few people who have said this quote, who have been guests on this show. And it’s a quote that says there’s a space between stimulus and response, and in that space is our room for growth and freedom. And it’s always attributed to, uh, Viktor Frankl, but actually it wasn’t Viktor Frankl that said it. And it’s not clear who actually said it. And when, there’s, there’s a great website and I’ll put this in the show notes, there’s a great website called Quote Investigator, who goes really nerdy on these. There’s so many Einstein, there’s so many quotes attributed to Einstein, for example, which Einstein never said any of them.
[00:47:39] Helena Holrick: You mean he wasn’t as clever as we think he is?
[00:47:41] Tony Winyard: yeah, so this is one of those, those quotes. It’s always attributed to Viktor Frankl. But in Man’s Search for Meaning, he had an amazing book. He did say some things which are very similar to that, but he didn’t actually say those words. And in, uh, Stephen Covey’s book, Seven, uh, Habits of Highly Successful People, that’s where it seems to be first attributed to Viktor Frankl, because he says in that book, uh, Viktor Frankl said, but, and so when you look at this, um, article by Quote Investigator, he goes very deep into, who was it who actually said this?
And so anyway, it doesn’t, in some ways it doesn’t matter who said it, because it’s a fantastic quote.
[00:48:23] Helena Holrick: Yeah.
[00:48:24] Tony Winyard: since first reading that quote, I don’t know how many years ago it was, I think about it, I wouldn’t say daily, that’s not true, but I do think about it regularly and I am now.
[00:48:36] The Space Between Stimulus and Response
—
[00:48:36] Tony Winyard: I’ve worked on myself to make that pause much longer so I don’t have the default reaction I used to have. Because I used to do what most people do, you know, you’re driving and someone cuts you up and you start swearing at them as if they can hear you, you know. And all these things that you just do on a default, I don’t do on a default anymore. I now give myself time to think. and I’ll react differently.
[00:49:00] Helena Holrick: And do you have a tip? I’m sure there are a lot of people listening that are sort of going, how do you do that? What’s your tip for, for increasing the space between stimulus and response?
[00:49:13] Breathwork as a Tool for Response
—
[00:49:13] Tony Winyard: Well, it comes down to breathwork really, because the more you can be downregulated and more in that sort of parasympathetic state and more like more relaxed, you’re able to think more coherently. And that allows you to, that thing, how the stimulus happens and where you would normally just respond, actually. No. Was it, is, was that as bad as I, you know, do I need to be offended by that? Do I need to be angry about that? Do I, you actually give yourself time to think about your reaction rather than just having a reaction. And it’s not easy. It does take time.
[00:49:54] Developing Healthy Habits
—
[00:49:54] Tony Winyard: But if you, if you think about this a lot, and, but this is how it’s been for me anyway, I thought about this a lot for the last probably seven, eight years. And, and I, my. I do have a much bigger gap now between the stimulus and the response.
[00:50:10] Helena Holrick: So you’ve developed that habit beautifully.
[00:50:12] Tony Winyard: Yeah, I guess so. Yeah.
Yeah,
[00:50:14] Helena Holrick: how wonderful. Well, as I say, you’re a walking, talking example of all that you talk about. And I am definitely looking forward to hearing much more.
[00:50:25] Closing Remarks and Gratitude
—
[00:50:25] Helena Holrick: So I wish you all the best with the new series. Long may it continue.
[00:50:31] Tony Winyard: Well, and thank you, Helena, for all that you’ve done for me. And you’ve done so much for me over the last, was it five years, I think, since we first
met. And yeah, you were a guest four years ago. So I really want to give a big thank you to you because you’ve been a massive help. So thank you.
[00:50:47] Helena Holrick: you are so welcome,
[00:50:49] Tony Winyard: Thank you, Helena.
Well listeners, we’ve reached the final episode of The Art of Living Proactively I can’t quite believe this marvelous journey is drawing to an end, after 250 thought provoking installments. But don’t despair. I return next week, with an exhilarating new vision. Welcome 360 degrees of health span, where I provide practical pearls to optimize your longevity.
We’ll be exploring every angle of whole person health, not just the physical, but also mental, emotional, social, and spiritual. I’m overflowing with fervour to share this fresh focus with you all culminates years of researching lifestyle medicine, and seeing firsthand how small, consistent actions reap massive rewards. So do join me on this quest to help you sculpt sustainable habits across all facets of life. Let’s revel together in the adventure of becoming our best selves.
I sincerely believe these bite-sized episodes will prove invaluable. They’ll be around about 10 minutes, each something along those lines. Please do subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. Leave sparkling reviews. Share posts with friends and comment on our YouTube channel. Your support means the world to me. So one last time, I thank you profoundly for making this such a special community to nurture. Here’s to many more mutually meaningful moments on the road ahead.
Hope you have a great weekend.
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Have you ever wondered how you can take charge of your own health and make proactive choices that lead to lasting wellbeing? In this eye-opening episode of “The Art of Living Proactively,” we explore the transformative power of health coaching with the incredible Izabella Natrins. Join us as we delve into her inspiring journey and discover how health coaching can revolutionize your approach to wellness.Action Steps and Call to Action:Ready to embark on your own wellness journey? Here are some action steps inspired by Izabella Natrins’ conversation:
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Educate Yourself:Invest time in understanding your own health and wellbeing. Seek reliable sources, like the resources provided by the UK and International Health Coaching Association, to enhance your health literacy.
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Embrace Real Food:Explore the power of nourishing your body with whole, sustainable foods. Check out Izabella Natrins’ book, “The Real Food Solution,” for practical recipes and insights into the importance of sustainable farming.
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Engage with a Health Coach:Consider working with a health coach who can guide you towards sustainable lifestyle changes. Health coaching is not clinical treatment but a partnership that empowers you to make informed decisions about your health.
Chapters:01:43 Introduction to Guest Izabella Natrins
02:11 The Evolution of the Health Coaching Association
02:58 The Global Impact of Health Coaching
03:18 The Expansion of Health Coaching
03:43 The Role of Health Coaches in Healthcare
04:16 The Rebranding of the Health Coaching Association
04:47 The Membership Criteria for Health Coaches
06:25 The Global Approach to Health Coaching
06:40 Understanding What a Health Coach Does
12:50 The Impact of Health Coaching on Healthcare Professionals
18:03 The Release of the White Paper
21:23 The Impact of Health Literacy
22:22 The Motivation Behind the White Paper
23:09 The Role of Health Coaching in Prevention
24:08 The Importance of Cross-Sector Collaboration
28:26 The Future of Health Coaching
29:53 The Importance of Health Coaching
30:17 Promoting Health Coaching Through White Paper
30:57 How to Advocate for Health Coaching
31:25 Upcoming Webinars on Health Coaching
31:55 Promoting Health Coaching in Business
32:17 Health Coaching in Education
32:49 The Role of Social Media in Health Coaching
33:10 The Importance of Reading the White Paper
33:57 The Role of Health Coaches in Gyms
34:54 The Impact of Health Coaching on Personal Health
35:04 The Journey to Becoming a Health Coach
36:12 The Impact of Real Food on Health
36:47 The Importance of Traditional Food Preparation
38:10 The Role of Food in Health
39:42 The Impact of Diet on Health
41:59 The Future of Health Coaching
42:34 The Role of Health Coaching in Healthcare
45:51 The Importance of Real Food
49:00 The Impact of Real Food on the Planet
53:23 The Role of Health Coaching in the Future
54:53 Preview of the Next Episode
Izabella Natrins’ journey from arthritis sufferer to CEO of the UK and International Health Coaching Association exemplifies the transformative potential of health coaching. By harnessing the power of lifestyle choices, we can navigate our wellness journey from the inside out. If you’re inspired to explore health coaching and its potential benefits, head over to ukihca.com to find out more. Follow their social media channels for informative updates and webinars that further promote the positive impact health coaching can have on your life. Remember, the future belongs to those who see it coming. Take the proactive step towards your wellbeing and unlock the power of your choices. Get ready to embark on a wellness journey like no other!
Guest Bio:Izabella is CEO at the UK & International Health Coaching Association and was formerly the Director of Director of Standards and Professional Development at the Association. Standing for professionalism, community and enterprise, she continues to build the very first, pioneering professional body for Health Coaching in the world. She is committed to advancing the discipline and profession of health coaching and to making the case that skilled health coaches are not only changing lives, but that a health coaching approach is the beating heart that transforms patients’ and clients health outcomes, health professionals’ practice and will transform healthcare delivery systems– nationally and globally.As a former Health Research Psychologist and a qualified Nutrition & Lifestyle Medicine Health Coach, Izabella takes a whole-health perspective on the bio-psycho-emotional-social-spiritual-environmental influences that make up an individual’s unique lived experience.With over 30 years’ experience in the health, wellness and executive management space, her roles have included: Health Research Psychologist in Public Health Medicine, NHS/Department of Health Programme Manager and Managing Director of a Management & Organisational Development Consultancy. Izabella is an international speaker and is the author of THE REAL FOOD SOLUTION in support of the British Association of Holistic Medicine and Healthcare’s (BHMA) Real Food Campaign UK.Watch this episode on YouTube TranscriptIzabella Natrins – 249[00:00:00] Introduction and WelcomeToday I have the pleasure of welcoming the captivating CEO of the UK and international health coaching association, Izabella Natrins. Izabella passionately enlightens us on the power of health coaching to empower people, to take control of their wellbeing.
WE delve deeply into how health coaching goes beyond merely providing information, it Facilitates lasting behavior change. Izabella compellingly conveys how health coaching works synergistically with medicine, nutrition, fitness, and more to support whole person healing. You’ll be fascinated to hear how Izabella’s own health crisis. Catalyzed her transition from high powered consultant to health coach and eventually C E O of this pioneering organization. Her ambitions to accelerate the integration of health coaching into public health. To proactively tackle today’s chronic disease epidemic.
I found myself nodding along vigorously as Izabella spelled out a bold vision for a preventative health creation woven throughout society. This is an episode brimming with insight from an influential leader, blazing the trail for health coaching as a crucial key to empowering, healthy, happy living. So hope you enjoy this episode and you will be inspired to take charge of your vitality.
Please leave your reactions in the comments below. I appreciate all your thoughtful feedback.
[00:01:43] Introduction to Guest Izabella Natrins[00:01:43] Tony Winyard: Welcome to another edition of The Art of Living Proactively, and my guest today, Izabella Natrins. How are you doing, Izabella? I’m
[00:01:50] Izabella Natrins: I’m good, thank you. I’m good.
[00:01:53] Tony Winyard: And Isabella is the, I’m trying to remember your role, is it Chairperson? CEO. CEO.
[00:02:00] Izabella Natrins: got a chairperson, but we will. I’m the CEO. Yes, I am.
[00:02:05] Tony Winyard: I always still think of it as the UK Health Coach Association, but it’s International Health Coach Association?
[00:02:11] Izabella Natrins: it is.
[00:02:11] The Evolution of the Health Coaching Association[00:02:11] Tony Winyard: And so what was the reason for the change?
[00:02:14] Izabella Natrins: Well, since our inception in 2018, We were the UK Health Coaches Association or Health Coaches Association, but we have always
approved
schools abroad internationally. So many of the American schools, the big American schools, we approved their courses and admitted graduates from different countries.
there came
there came a point where we were having so many people and so many more courses that were being approved internationally that it just felt like it wasn’t quite the right. Name for us. So we decided to become international and really make a point of saying, we are based
in UK,
you know, those are our roots.
[00:02:58] The Global Impact of Health Coaching[00:02:58] Izabella Natrins: But, um, actually health coaching is a global issue. It’s a global solution to, to a lot of the problems that we have and are seeing it being experienced. You know, these days around the globe. So we wanted to encourage
a professionalism,
community, and enterprise around the globe.
[00:03:18] The Expansion of Health Coaching[00:03:18] Izabella Natrins: And we also changed the name slightly from Health Coaches Association to Health Coaching Association.
And the reason for that was because we saw that the growth of this discipline
this of
wasn’t just going to confined to
Coaches who were being
trained to be professional coaches and that’s their maiN
[00:03:43] The Role of Health Coaches in Healthcare[00:03:43] Izabella Natrins: job of work, but also all healthcare practitioners at every level really needed to understand that if they really were to make a difference in the way that they were delivering their specialist care to patients and their clients, they needed some coaching skills.
Themselves to open those conversations with their patients and then hopefully to be working with, um, a professionally trained coach who would take the patient or client onwards through their journey.
[00:04:16] The Rebranding of the Health Coaching Association[00:04:16] Izabella Natrins: So we took a step a couple of years ago to, um.
re
brand ourselves, uh, in that way. And I have to say it was a really good and timely move.
Um, and we have a lot of support
from a
huge variety of professions around, around the world, but also, you know, within the UK, uh, disciplines who are joining us, as clinical health coaches, if you will., but they need to satisfy the membership criteria.
[00:04:47] The Membership Criteria for Health Coaches[00:04:47] Izabella Natrins: So we have they can come through an approved course.
Nine, 12 month course, increasing number actually of doctors
And
very busy health professionals are taking that route. But we also recognize that actually there are a lot more who are, um, very, very obviously very skilled and knowledgeable about the health piece, but maybe they have done their own training, their own reading, their, you know, self directed learning, or maybe they’ve taken a series of courses that, on the health coaching side, on the coaching approach, which we haven’t,
uh, endorsed as one
we
approved courses, but nevertheless are very relevant.
So we created a portfolio route for those professionals who could bring their qualifications, their experience to the table and be assessed
process
in a portfolio.
upon
a process which is based upon our standards and which then if they, you know, if they’re above the line and they meet the requirements, then we welcome them with open arms
into the
into the association to begin their journey with us.
And if they don’t quite You know, get over the line. We offer them, a personal CPD, direction where we point them to the gaps that, you know, they have and
have um, welcome them back when they’ve gone off and done a bit more a and come back to us.
So that’s the reason really, we wanted to recognise
[00:06:25] The Global Approach to Health Coaching[00:06:25] Izabella Natrins: The globality,
recognise the there a word? is there a word
global approach. Um, and also the, you know, the depth
know,
health coaching as well as
Coaches.
[00:06:40] Understanding What a Health Coach Does[00:06:40] Tony Winyard: How often, there’s a lot of people, I mean, I’ve been a health coach now for a couple of years and I sometimes still get asked, well, what is a health coach? There seems to be a real lack of, well, I guess it’s such a new thing still in the UK.
[00:06:52] Izabella Natrins: Hmm.
[00:06:52] Tony Winyard: So, how would you answer that question? What
[00:06:59] Izabella Natrins: I probably would start by saying what a health coach is not, you know, and a health coach is not a clinician unless they have another scope of practice. Many do. So they could also be a nurse or a physiotherapist, or indeed a doctor or an oncologist, uh,
What they’re not, they don’t, they’re not an expert
In our treatment. They don’t treat, they don’t diagnose, they don’t offer advice. This is the role of the expert. If they have an additional scope or scopes of practice, then they can, are free to do that. But we want, and we make a Big point of making sure that our members and coaches understand the difference between the coaching role and the expert role.
So as an expert, I’m wearing my hat.
I’m offering advice, I might
might recommend treatments. I might refer people to, you know, onwards and upwards for, for treatments.
As a
As a coach, I wouldn’t do any
of that.
What I would do is open a conversation with that same client, asking
what is
what is important for them in their health.
What is it that they want their
they health health for?
I would Uh, talk to them about how they’re living their life. I’d explore with them whether they can see within their own lifestyle, elements
which might be impacting
which might be impacting on the way they
health, and on their health, if they’ve come with a health condition, for instance.
I wouldn’t treat that health condition, but I would hope to be working with a primary, uh, practitioner who would be, maybe a nutritionist, maybe a GP, maybe, um, a consultant. who is actually treating that person. My job is to empower them, self empower them, to see that by looking into their own lives and the way that they’re living, their motivation, their feelings about their position, they have answers.
And my job is to help them explore those answers and create, co create with them, a plan of how they might make changes in their lifestyle, uh, how they might, uh, address challenges to making changes very hard for people. We like our habits, you know, even though we know our habits are not great and they may be contributing to The way, you know, we’re not living our best lives.
and
hard to change and it’s hard to be consistent. If you have a coach, they’re an ally, a health coach particularly, because they bring their coaching skills to your health to the health landscape. rather than an executive landscape or a business or a, you know,
whatever career coach.
coach.
We bring our skills to that health landscape and we help those people understand, people that come to us, whether they’re patients or in the private sector, clients or in the employment sector,
the employment sector, employees, how
how do I become more self reliant, more resourceful?
What steps can I take? What can I do to?
plan
and prepare for challenges. How can I keep my motivation going? And we don’t want that motivation to come from the coach. Initially, maybe so, but we want them to find their own intrinsic motivation, which is why the question, what is it that you want your health for?
It’s so important.
important.
I mean, we try and
Help
keep that front of mind so that when there are lapses or they come back for another session and things haven’t gone so well, we can go back and say, okay, why are we here? What is it that you’re really, really here for? You know, what can I say? It works.
That’s what coaches do. You know, it’s very skilled. It’s not just about changing behaviour. It’s not just about saying, don’t do this, do that,
Let’s
let’s put some steps in along the way. It’s much deeper. Skilled health coaching
Transformational.
transformational.
It transforms that person’s approach to their lifestyle to themselves, to the way they see themselves as a, um, an autonomous agent in society.
And my goodness, we get all of that very much socialized out of us, don’t we? You’re, you know, in the process, especially around health. You know, we, we kind of give our health to somebody else to take care of
not about
It’s not about blaming, but it is about saying, My God, you can not only be, take an equal part in your relationship with your healthcare
you can
but you can actually lead it in many ways.
And that’s what I think health coaching is about. It’s also about the whole person. So it’s not just about diet or sleep or um, you know, making a few recommendations, but it’s, we all know
know that lifestyle, what that are some.
we eat, how we move a lot, we rest, how we, um, have, you know, our relationships, our ability, uh, and skills to manage stress in our lives, um, our sense of community.
All of those things all interact at every level with each
other
to create our lived experience and the coach’s job is to help us get to the nitty gritty of those elements that might be impacting
health and help
us make changes. It’s a long answer Tony but it’s a deep, deep discipline.
[00:12:50] The Impact of Health Coaching on Healthcare Professionals[00:12:50] Tony Winyard: the last few years, and I’ve been doing this podcast for about five years, and during that time I’ve had many doctors, psychologists, um, many, many different healthcare professionals as guests, and it’s really surprised me how many of them are also health coaches.
And you sometimes, I mean, when I, when I first came across it, I was thinking, why would a GP become a health coach? But I mean, and you’ve mentioned it when you were talking before about the, you know, the international aspect of, of the association. So what, what is your, why do you think so many healthcare professionals are also becoming health coaches as well?
[00:13:34] Izabella Natrins: Well, I suppose
a big, big
it’s a big, big question and then each individual have their own reasons, but
you
what I can, I can’t tell you why I think they are, but I can tell you what happens when they do. And, um, as I’ve said, we have an increasing number
of GPs and
and clinicians generally, but not just GPs and primary physicians, but actually. Oncologists, rheumatologists, anaesthesiologists, I can’t say that,
say
anaesthesiologists, um,
uh,
uh, surgeons are trained as coaches
not
so they’re not just using health coaching
they’re only using health coaching skills,
but they’ve elected to actually do
do professional training. And I think
My understanding for when they report, when I talk to them, uh, is that they see that giving people information is not enough. Telling people what to do doesn’t work.
Okay.
Um, writing prescriptions or treatment protocols and plans is only part of the story. What they really want to do is make, help that individual to better health.
help.
And they see that that involves that coaching approach where they’re both an expert.
and
very powerfully, um, making recommendations for what that person can do in terms of treatments or surgeries.
And them
them really make the change and become that self empowered individual who isn’t just give, as a clinician say, giving me all the responsibility, but they’re in that conversation with me. I’m helping them to understand that as a doctor, Or a nurse or a physio. I don’t know everything. I might be an expert in my field, but I’m not omnipotent.
There are so, there’s so much that we don’t know, so much that we do know. And together, you and I, as a, as a therapeutic, in that therapeutic relationship can make a huge
huge difference. So, their
experience then is that they are, um, their job satisfaction goes up, the outcomes that they get for their patients go up, their patients get
up.
very different experience of
very different of care.
Um, system that
The system that they’re working in changes slowly over time.
And we always say that health coaching is transformational. It transforms a patient’s outcomes. It transforms their experience of
care
trans It transforms you as a clinician, your experience of giving that care and your job satisfaction. And it transforms the health system that you’re working
in.
as we see now, we’re…
Seeing, um, uh, NHS Health and Wellbeing coaches coming into the system in, in quite huge numbers, and it’s 1, 500, so a plan for many,
many And, these are, these are full time health coaches. How wonderful it is that they will be working with an increasing number of doctors who get it.
it,
know, and there’s nothing more powerful than a doctor that gets health coaching is able to open
open
a consultation, whether they’re a GP or a, you
a, you a
with coaching, with a coaching approach. And we at the association do a lot of role plays so that we show clinicians how this is done. And the role plays are done by clinicians themselves, um, you know, oncologists,
a whole, you know, GPs. And then they can give, um, you know, they, they go on to, uh, refer to a health coach that’s working with them, uh, so that that person really gets that joined up care.
up care.
I
think that’s why they, they want to do it. And when they do it, they see how powerful it
do it, and when they do it,
[00:18:03] The Release of the White Paper[00:18:03] Tony Winyard: One of the things you just talked about, I know this week you released; was The White Paper, what was the reason for it, and what do you hope it’ll achieve?
[00:18:16] Izabella Natrins: What was the reason for it? Um,
honest, a deep sense
if I’m honest, deep sense frustration.
that we
That we have a powerful solution
many,
to the many, many problems that we, that our health is failing. Well, it’s failing globally, really, in developed countries. And many of us who, who are interested field understand the reasons why.
our
But our population in Britain, particularly, you know, that our health is failing.
failing. Um,
That failing health is impacting on every sector of society. So it’s health impacting not only on those individuals are suffering failing
who are suffering failing health
it’s impacting on It’s
impacting on health system health services. It’s impacting on the people who are delivering those health.
those health services because they’re exhausted and
It’s impacting on, um, the economy through people not being able to work because they’re either off sick or they’re on long term sick or they’re struggling to work with one or two or three health conditions. It’s impacting on a sense of well being at work. So we see all of this plethora of
of um, um,
reports coming out the importance employee well being and its impact on productivity.
Well, you tell me you can have well being work when physically you’re not well. When you’re struggling with those issues and the whole social thing that comes around with a diagnosis of diabetes
and cancer, one in
one two of us will have that diagnosis, we know
Um, of those. huge number of us will be of working age. Of those, the fastest growing trend, you will, for cancer diagnosis is amongst younger people now of, I don’t know, I believe it’s something like 35 to mid 50s, that kind age group. These frightening statistics, you know, and they keep coming out keep coming out. The solution seems to be, um, do more testing.
Or, um, give more information or,
of
um, have bigger and better gizmos that are going to treat people once. So we’re always at point treating
going to treat
We’re saying stop. We need primary prevention. We need to give people a much better sense health literacy. We need to, you know, our population.
average reading age of adults in the
UK is 9 years
years old.
Nine years old. People with lower literacy have more health issues.
adult,
Every adult, no matter how well
[00:21:23] The Impact of Health Literacy[00:21:23] Izabella Natrins: they
they read, how
educated they
has difficulty in understanding, processing health information. So we know that not only literacy, but health literacy is… Hugely important. If you don’t know how your body works, you don’t know key things that, you know,
you know, we
would like to know and understand, how can you be an active agent your own
in your own care?
You’re a recipient of yet another thing that’s being done to you. Yeah. We don’t want people be in that position going
forward.
[00:21:59] Tony Winyard: Well that’s made much worse by all the misinformation and disinformation around as well, isn’t it?
[00:22:04] Izabella Natrins: Exactly, yeah. Exactly.
Dr Google, um, were…
it
Were it a real person be, you know, Elon Musk, forget it, because, you know, people would be really, really, really
really on there all time there Um, I, yeah, so your
so your question,
[00:22:22] The Motivation Behind the White Paper[00:22:22] Izabella Natrins: what motive, so that’s, that’s the landscape.
There
lots and lots of, um, very good papers that are, uh, that have been published that, uh, we’ve looked at such a range And they’re all saying the same thing. Things need to change. We need to move to prevention. We can’t afford the, the human cost of this, the misery, you of,
people being ill facing a future not, you know, of, of… you know, a quite depressing future really chronic health and long
major conditions.
The economy can’t afford it. Human society can’t afford
afford it.
So we say, well, why aren’t we using
a
a different, let’s look fresh thinking.
[00:23:09] The Role of Health Coaching in Prevention[00:23:09] Izabella Natrins: Let’s look at how do we stop this.
this rot, so to
so to speak. How do we get in at the point of supporting people not to have that diagnosis? And if they do have it, let’s look at how we can stop that condition from escalating or getting worse.
And we know it’s not giving people more information. We know It’s actually getting them to understand how to change and sustain
and sustain behaviour. And, um, so
that’s the point of the, um, you know, the report really. So we looked at a whole bunch of
papers. We looked
We look to say, well, what is it about the approaches that those papers are
looking at
that are congruent with our position as health coaches?
And there is such a lot of congruence,
the language
the language is slightly different. So I wanted to say, look, here’s policy framework.
[00:24:08] The Importance of Cross-Sector Collaboration[00:24:08] Izabella Natrins: It’s got to be cross sector. It’s got to include all the sectors where humans operate, because human health doesn’t stop when you get to work, you know. So we have the physical activity sector, employment sector,
sector,
social prescribers, um, the whole clinical medicine, the whole the health education sector, if you like.
All of us join hands, step out of our silos and say We need to work together and there is a common denominator and it is health coaching. So it’s not necessarily, although love it to UKIHCA,
UKIHCA, the health
Health Coaching Association. It is health coaching and we stand for both
stand for
So that’s what that’s
that’s
Uh, that’s what motivated
Policy framework,
policy framework, um, an exploration how health coaching could support all these sectors and a whole bunch of recommendations of
recommendations
what can be done.
can be done. So,
I
[00:25:13] Tony Winyard: know your aim is to get it out to, to as many people as possible. Um, so what do you hope will come from this paper?
[00:25:20] Izabella Natrins: Well, we hope to open conversations. Um, our launch strategy, I mean, we, we are a nonprofit. Um, we, We don’t have huge budgets, you we, we, we do this to, to really support our members and to open the doors health coaching to be accepted as profession, as powerful discipline. we hope to get, um, We will get support, we already have got support, from the political arena.
Lord James Bethel, who is a member the House Lords, when he understood what we wanted to do, quickly offered a forward. We know that James is very, very active in the preventive…
space. Um,
Um, he has written, uh, or is part of a team that’s, uh, writtea n paper, which we’ve,
um, profiled really in our
our report.
uh,
And, uh, we hope, know that James will open doors at the political
political level,
of course, this is about policy, about lobbying, it’s about saying,
about saying, know, come on,
we need you, you need us, desperately need us, and here are some solutions.
. Uh, social media campaign will go on throughout. 2024
24, the
thing back to the table.
We have, um, a series of internal campaigns to help our health coaches get behind this. We have our schools who are going get behind this. When I say our schools, the approved schools that are producing health coach graduates. We have… all the medical and um, uh, clinical professions who we’re drawing their attention to there’ll be articles
and
co authored articles.
Already we have kind of in the pipeline coming. So we plan to make a noise about this to everybody that is implicated in white paper, all those different sectors. We know the physical activity sector
has
been beating at the door of health for many years saying, let us in, we’re part of health.
of course, everybody understands but somehow in
in our
psyche, we see, uh, at the physical activity sports sector.
sector, PTs,
you know, personal trainers being something that happens over there when people to a club or a leisure centre or whatever, you know. It’s not really to do with health, it’s to do fitness
to do with fitness and,
whatever the word is, how fit, how stoked be.
But actually it’s about health and we don’t need any more information to tell us that we’re not moving and it’s killing us. So here’s a sector saying, well let us in and we say, come through the door with us.
[00:28:26] The Future of Health Coaching[00:28:26] Izabella Natrins: with us.
Because we believe that, um, that health coach working
with
physical activity professional in whatever context will make powerful to the people
that that they work with.
So we know we’ve got their support
And we’ve conversations with great and the good, from their sector who are saying, yeah, let’s really make noise this. so it’s wonderful have that.
have that. Um,
Social prescribing too. We know that social prescribing has a lot of support in the
in the UK.
GPs love it because it’s helping people back into their communities. But social prescribers are not. experts in behavioral change. not experts in that kind of, much deeper level of conversation. But those two roles need to work together very closely. And we know in the NHS,
um,
the ARS roles, the, um, additional,
um,
what are they Additional roles scheme, ARS scheme. Uh, uh, The NHS supports, um,
support
salaries social
prescribers and for health health coaches.
believe that these two,
roles need to work together much, much closely to get the benefit for
the people they’re supporting. So, we think
So we think that this is going to be a game changer.
[00:29:53] The Importance of Health Coaching[00:29:53] Izabella Natrins: It’s not going to change the world tomorrow, it would, but it means that we’re saying very clearly, here’s our stake in the ground
stake in the
Health coaching is at the… epicentre paradigm shift towards
towards prevention, towards proactive care, health creation. That’s what we want to achieve by it.
I
[00:30:17] Tony Winyard:
[00:30:17] Promoting Health Coaching Through White Paper[00:30:17] Tony Winyard: mean, as you were saying that, I was thinking, right, so I’m going to, I want to attach the white paper in the show notes to this episode. And I know there’s a number of health coaches, PTs, many people across the board listen to this, this podcast. So I wonder if we should ask everyone listening to download that whitepaper and to distribute it to as many people especially to PTs, to other PTs in their gyms and health coaches to Send it to doctors Maybe they’re working with and or maybe everyone should to download it and send it to people they know But but if they were to do that, what?
[00:30:57] How to Advocate for Health Coaching[00:30:57] Tony Winyard: What would they say to the person they send it to? Why should they read this?
[00:31:03] Izabella Natrins: Well, um, there are some, I mean, the rationale, the introduction,
sets
actually sets scene so so just
reading that in itself will give somebody the words, the vocabulary, the ammunition, you like, to say,
I’d love
I’d love you to read this because.
[00:31:25] Upcoming Webinars on Health Coaching[00:31:25] Izabella Natrins: But we’re also having a series webinars. So I
I think,
oh dear, let me see the dates.
It’s kind of mid December. Um, we will, we have, um,
have,
uh, a Members Only, a UKIHCA Members Webinar, where we’re going to be explaining. It’s a briefing on white paper,
the
explaining how it how it works
it. What to do with it. We’ve got a webinar in January which will take themes from that
[00:31:55] Promoting Health Coaching in Business[00:31:55] Izabella Natrins: paper and show members how they um, use it to, uh, promote paper, promote health coaching, and indeed, if they’re work independently, to promote their businesses.
you know, pitch if you like, to exactly what you’re saying. Here’s paper, this is what I do, this why I read it, and this why I value me. That kind stuff.
[00:32:17] Health Coaching in Education[00:32:17] Izabella Natrins: We have a briefing for schools to do the same thing with their students who will be coaches in any number of months time when they’ve graduated.
And I think it’s towards the end of January, we have an open webinar briefing for everybody um, that wants to sign on, you know, to register for it, to explain exactly that. This is what the White Paper about
White this is why important. And this why you should read it.
And I suppose the other
thing I recommend
[00:32:49] The Role of Social Media in Health Coaching[00:32:49] Izabella Natrins: your listeners is to follow us on our social media.
know, find us, follow us, and look out for our posts, because exactly what you’ve said, we’ll be coming in our posts again and No good. Just telling people, look, here it is. worked hard,
We’ve worked You
love it. We have to,
we have
[00:33:10] The Importance of Reading the White Paper[00:33:10] Izabella Natrins: persuade them to read it. Persuade them with some of the, um, copy from it, you know, some of the quotes, some of the statistics, some of the rationales and arguments for why somebody in the physical activity sector really needs to understand how health coaching can help them as
as a PT, a Um,
my son, one of my sons is a PT. He gets coaching, he uses a coaching approach, but Everybody can use a coaching approach. You don’t have to do full training. If you do, it gives fabulous, deep skill set.
But your, if your focus is on personal training, then why not hook up with health coach?
[00:33:57] The Role of Health Coaches in Gyms[00:33:57] Izabella Natrins: Why not petition in your gym?
David
David Lloyd, Virgin, to employ health coaches to work
with you and get better results.
And this is how we get people going back to gyms, isn’t it? You know, not just because, oh, like haven’t been for three weeks and my trainer’s going to get cross with me and the cat’s got cold and, you know, little Johnny needs football on that particular session that I’m booked in for, so now they fall away.
You know, it’s the motivation of going back and having those two, um, Frameworks really, one which is around your physical getting well and
the kind
well being
person
physical person you to be. The health coaching supports that the behavior change, the mental health aspect you like, of understanding why it’s so important to be that person that you really want to be.
[00:34:54] The Impact of Health Coaching on Personal Health[00:34:54] Tony Winyard: Your passion for health coaching is very evident in everything you’ve said over the last half hour, so I’m wondering what was it that got you into it in the first place?
[00:35:03] Izabella Natrins: More because
[00:35:04] The Journey to Becoming a Health Coach[00:35:04] Izabella Natrins: Because my health was falling over, let me tell you. Um, so I,
in,
uh, in, you know, I’ve had a career in health generally, uh, for many years, many, many years, too many years really. um, I got to a point where I
working
was working so hard, um, uh, that I knew I was becoming ill
And ultimately I got, um,
I got a diagnosis of arthritis and then psoriatic arthritis, which is an autoimmune condition.
And I just thought I’ve got to stop this, you know, 45 thousand, miles a year as as a, as consultant management consultant, both in the health space and in other sectors was really taking its toll. So I stopped and I thought, well, I want to do something I really love. Which was, you know, I’ve got a huge, um, history, uh, um, of cooking in our family.
You know, so we chefs and, um, food has always been, my parents are European
here, so, um, the food
has always been
good.
I raised And, book
[00:36:12] The Impact of Real Food on Health[00:36:12] Izabella Natrins: I thought, well, I’m going, I’d like to learn too. I’m a reasonable cook, I like to go and learn professionally, so I chose Ballymalu Cookery School in Ireland, um, uh, because, uh, it was an organic, farm.
It was set on an organic farm
in a a kind
and it’s about traditional French culinary techniques, but it’s taught in kind of family.
Table. So we don’t do sauces one week
all
meat another week something else another week it’s all about menu.
[00:36:47] The Importance of Traditional Food Preparation[00:36:47] Izabella Natrins: It’s all how to put food together on the table that is nutritious, delicious, beautiful and how to learn all classical techniques getting it there.
I, I
And, um.
went because I I suppose I went because I wanted be smart. I didn’t want be a chef. think would employ me to be chef,
a chef,
um, at all, but I just wanted to learn. And when I got there, guess I kind of wanted the plating up, you know, presentation. And thought, I want to do those smears that, know, do.
the Heston style thing, when you take the,
the, the the cover
off, you’ve got fish that’s kind of smoking something, you know, and.
Or,
Anyway, January the something, fifth it was, found me in Ireland. Worst winter they’d ever had.
Two feet of snow
snow everywhere.
Digging a hole in a field to get soil so that we could be taught about this is where our health starts in this soil.
thought, oh
And I thought, oh my god, why have I come here? This is not what I want. I want the smears and the smoking fish. But believe me, Tony, within
few days, I
I thought, wow, what have I come to? This is life
changing. And
and it did, it changed my life.
[00:38:10] The Role of Food in Health[00:38:10] Izabella Natrins: So I did my training, came back and thought,
thought, um, I
uh, I actually did training with, I’d had knee surgery arthritis and it was all bit, uh, it was all a bit painful.
But coming back,
back, I
I thought, right, I’m going to change everything about what I do. started a small
cookery cookery school of my own for real
food, you know, what to do with the real chicken, not the
Not the little, you know,
cutlets that you get, know, from the supermarket, where to source it, why that real
chicken traditionally bred table? Might be
might be bit more expensive, but the meat to bone ratio is out
of this world.
So you’ve got great big supermarket chicken with great big bones it needs them because it’s produced in environment where if it doesn’t stand it’s going get trodden on. And so it needs strong big bones, whereas outdoor raised And then. They are a bit more expensive, but my worth it So said, right, you and there’s so much you can do with a chicken So I said, right, you know, let’s have a session chicken. Let’s show how, uh, looks like
what looks like a small, you know, modest chicken can serve family of four three days.
days. Sorted. But
It worked. But my health condition, my own, you arthritis stopped me from going down that path And then,
was, it’s
standing up it was, very physical, know.
And then over time,
saying, people can,
and saying, How can, um, can you advise me on this?
[00:39:42] The Impact of Diet on Health[00:39:42] Izabella Natrins: you advise me It was all about diet health. And I thought, well, I’d like to train in this. So, um, I did, um, I did training course
in,
nutrition lifestyle medicine health coaching in Ireland again, became a health coach, and slowly and over time stopped taking any medications.
I don’t, I’ll take occasionally, know, maybe
an aspirin or some paracetamol, but I don’t take any. I was facing methotrexate, which is a
chemotherapy medication which is very
Well, you know, life doesn’t really happen very well after methotrexate. And I couldn’t have any more surgeries. I didn’t want to have that.
So I’m very happy to say
say you know,
that my training and my understanding real food has changed my life.
life and,
um, when I, uh, when we had the beginning of, um, COVID, the, uh, Association asking for volunteers to help with some initiatives there. I put my hand
up,
they looked at my CV and And asked me to come in as Director Standards Professional Development.
which I did with some trepidation.
And subsequently, we brought in current director, Faye Hall, is wonderful.
was wonderful. And, um,
a hugely experienced lady with,
know, with passion
that equals mine for
health coaching And I,
And I, um, I moved into the CEO’s, into seat and I feel I’m stuck here 99 percent my time. Um, and, uh, that’s, that’s what me into it.
What keeps me here is that
is vision,
that, and
knowledge that if you’ve trained as a health coach you know,
power
the of it and the central importance of it
in the health care systems
going forward. So, does that answer the question?
it
[00:41:53] Tony Winyard: makes me wonder… So it’s, we’re almost in 2024.
[00:41:59] The Future of Health Coaching[00:41:59] Tony Winyard: So, let’s say we fast forward in, it’s the year 2030. How do you hope things will have changed by then?
[00:42:08] Izabella Natrins: I I hope that,
the governments and the policymakers read our reports, read our white paper, read towards
a healthier, happier, Britain, the case
Britain, the case health coaching.
think,
I think, I hope that they prioritise primary
that, um, every
[00:42:34] The Role of Health Coaching in Healthcare[00:42:34] Izabella Natrins: who deals with people with
individual, every professional who deals with people with health conditions and failing health, understands the difference between giving treatment and giving hope and equipping people to become self empowered architects, as Rangan Chatterjee would say, architects in own health. I
I hope that we will have a
um, a younger population, young people, children. hope health
I hope health coaching will be education all the way through.
We know that, uh, you know, if you
if take a child before the age of whatever it is, nine,
is, 9, 10,
you know, you create very different mindsets. So important begin
to begin early so important to keep that throughout the system, uh, throughout the life cycle.
So it’s, you know, our, we talk about whole
whole health, um, throughout a lifetime.
throughout a
what I would hope to
That’s what I would hope to see, we take health, creation, seriously. We move from that reactive model
waiting until everyone falls over, and then trying to treat them, and failing. And I suppose if I were to make a very bold statement
politicians
that, um,
the, politicians and the policy makers
and policy
will
will look very carefully
about
into process of lobbying, because we
know that lobbyists
have a very, very
important
disproportional,
disproportional impact
on political decision making.
We know that the wider determinants and the, particularly now commercial determinants of
health, um, manipulate that.
manipulate people’s decisions and people’s mindsets, and that has to stop. So I would like to see that really, really taken very aggressively. And I know that we will get support for that. And more and more of us calling for it, just within the association
it, not just within the
in political spaces.
So let’s hope that have, uh, courage comes.
you know,
Courage comes and we say, actually, as doctors, as politicians, as,
as, um,
as, as physicians, teachers, at every level, we stand for people.
stand
We stand for people’s health for health improvements and for health creation. And you watch, you know, it’s a, it will be a different world.
So that’s what, that’s the vision that we think, or certainly that
I think
colleagues share it
it with me.
[00:45:36] Tony Winyard: I asked you just a few minutes ago about your, your passion for health. So I was wondering what, is there, can you think of a book that’s really moved you for any reason?
[00:45:47] Izabella Natrins: Um, um, a, when I got back
[00:45:51] The Importance of Real Food[00:45:51] Izabella Natrins: I can actually.
realised the of
when I back from Ireland,
were eating, um, and
quite the state
eating
the food that most people were eating, um, and had been eating for decades and kind of food and the prep, you know, traditional preparation growing techniques that I’d experienced in Ireland, which really opened eyes.
And this is not artisan, it’s not fancy artisan,
ways
stuff. It’s actually traditional ways of growing and producing food
which retain the and the nutrition that
the health and the
to
so available to
theirs
our grandparents and theirs and our ancestors. Um, it moved me to think, well, I kept writing recipes for
for people, and I thought, you you I could
a recipe book.
And then I thought, actually… We need a book about real food and so I did write one of my own,
I just happen to have here to because
because it’s always on my desk to remind me that, you know, this is the reason why I’m, um, uh, you know, I’m here. So it’s The Real Food Solution and it is a treasury of wisdom for energy, vitality and better health for you and your planet.
And this book. Um, it’s some three, four hundred
pages long. It looks at why why the food we’re eating isn’t what it used to used to
It looks at what we do about that as individual consumers by
by becoming
conscious consumers. And it gives…
40,
recipes for creating, um,
delicious and nutritious
dishes.
It,
It’s, um, it looks at every food group.
It’s not a book on nutrition, although it has been endorsed by,
endorsed
Bantz, the British Association Nutrition and Lifestyle Medicine. Uh, and it is. All of
profits go to
the British Association for Holistic Medicine Healthcare, BHMA, to their Real Food campaign, with which I am, I’m one of the, one of the people on the steering group and an
was
supporter and I was a trustee of
trustee of the
And so, um, I, that for me is book that
that changed my life
that’s made deepest
the deepest impression
not only. because of what led up to writing
to
during course of it, it just reinforced
just um, commitment to
commitment to helping people understand that
real food, Real
starts in soil.
soil, it’s nurtured in the kitchen, and
whether we eat it, if we are eating real food that is properly grown without all the pesticides and insecticides every other side, then we’re not damaging
damaging the planet
[00:49:00] The Impact of Real Food on the Planet[00:49:00] Izabella Natrins: We’re not polluting waterways. We’re not doing the stuff that is
you know, being done now.
So it, it preceded, um, you know, ultra processed people. It preceded Mark Hyman’s commentary. Actually just, I managed you know, uh, uh, actually publish mine just before
Mark Hyman did.
did on his, um, very similar, but his kind of much more political space.
This book is focused for people. Everybody, people out there, please, you know, read it, enjoy it
and learn from
and actually make changes. So, it changed my life. It’s changed, I know,
from feedback, um,
people who bought the book from others who have endorsed it as a, you as a useful,
um,
tool, really.
It’s changing their lives and, um, I hope if any of your listeners
are, know, are minded to
to go and have a look it, it will change their lives in the way they see food
And we know ultra processed food. We don’t need to know any more about it.
any more about it. Real is the opposite of it’s too
People think it’s too hard. It’s not.
[00:50:17] Tony Winyard: Well, we’ll include that within the links, you know, in the show notes. And also, I’d like to include your, how can people find out about you, your social media and so on.
[00:50:28] Izabella Natrins: Okay, so, um, well, we’re all over social media. So, we’re on, um, uh, www. ukihca. com. We’re on, uh, we’re on all the social channels. So please look, you know, just, uh, Google,
International
put, uh, UK Health Coaching Association or UK and International Health Coaching Associate all comes into Google and we’ll share the links in your
show
notes in your show notes. So yeah, please reach out
uh,
get in touch with me if you’ve got questions. And the team is, loves to talk to everybody and share our excitement about this wonderful profession and this wonderful discipline. So yeah, please do reach out. Um, and always open for conversations.
[00:51:21] Tony Winyard: Well, I’ll also put the links in for the webinars you mentioned.
I’ll put those links in the show notes as well. So, for anyone listening who’s interested in those, just check the show notes and you can, uh, sign on to those.
[00:51:31] Izabella Natrins: Thank you.
[00:51:32] Tony Winyard: So, just before we finish, Izabella , is there, um, can you think of a quotation that resonates with you?
[00:51:38] Izabella Natrins: Um, well, funnily enough, um,
the paper, in the white paper towards, um, a healthier, happier Britain, the case for health coaching, um, I have, I looked at lots of quotes, uh, that could be relevant to
um,
chapters, if you will, in the Paper
I love
love And I love that device of using quotations, which I’ve used in, you know, the, in the Real Food Solution.
Um, the one that, and there are some wonderful ones, but the one that really kind of stuck with me because
with me
it’s simple and very powerful and it really does epitomize what that white paper is about
and the of guiding principle
the kind of guiding principle that I believe all health coaches have
in their own
investing in their own training
and
because they see it and I’d like to say it’s a quote by David Bowie called
David Bowie called The future belongs to those that see it coming.
[00:52:49] Tony Winyard: That’s a great quote, isn’t it?
[00:52:53] Izabella Natrins: Yeah. It is, it? You
it is, isn’t it? You know, and, and, and actually, let’s, You know, let’s hope picture that I painted for you, one of your previous questions, actually, that is the
is the future. A
A population of people who self empowered
to participate in
in their own health,
health, to create health, and thrive in life, and a
[00:53:23] The Role of Health Coaching in the Future[00:53:23] Izabella Natrins: A health coach in every GP practice, every healthcare practice, in the private and public sector, in education, in the workplace, in communities, in the physical space.
Yeah,
Well, and also that quote actually sums up the title of this podcast as well, it’s uh, exactly what the whole, this podcast is all about. Yeah, absolutely. Smart guy, wasn’t
guy, wasn’t he David Bowie,
[00:53:57] Tony Winyard: Absolutely he was, yeah.
[00:53:58] Izabella Natrins: Quite a wordsmith generally, but I just thought, Oh God, you know, this, this quote is
powerful. So I’ve used
I’ve used it to end the, um, conclude the white
[00:54:09] Tony Winyard: Well, and you’ve also used it to conclude this podcast as well. So, Isabella, thank you for your time. Um, I really wish you the best of luck on your mission because it’s an, it’s an amazing mission. And I, well, it’s not that I hope you will get there, I know you will get there. So, um, yeah, best of luck on that.
[00:54:28] Izabella Natrins: well I’ve got a great team
great
we work together and,
you
you know, our team is fabulous. Absolutely
we
and we are all equal in that team. Everybody
contributes to
Everybody contributes to everything. So, yeah, we’ll get there and we have great support outside as well. And thank you yours, Tony.
[00:54:50] Tony Winyard: No problem at all. Thank you Isabella.
Thank you.
[00:54:53] Preview of the Next EpisodeI’m thrilled to give you a tantalising taste of next week’s very special season finale episode. For the first time ever, I’ll be the guest. While the charming Helena Holrick, a past guest from four years ago, takes the reins as host. We’ll be reminiscing about my fascination with health and delving deeply into the origins of my passion for empowering people to proactively optimize their wellbeing. Helena will be probing me on my background, interests and what drives me to keep shining a spotlight on living life fully through enhancing health span. I’ll also be unveiling some enticing insider insight into my vision for the forthcoming fifth series. The new series has the catchy title, 360 degrees of health span, optimizing your health from every angle. and will spotlight the various dimensions of the wheel of health model in bite-size 10 minute episodes. Each installment will feature a laser focus on one area, along with an in depth, downloadable ebook companion guide, full of practical tips and strategies. So be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. And on the art of living proactively YouTube channel, so you don’t miss this exciting new phase of the show. And please do leave us glowing reviews while you eagerly await next week’s fleeting glimpse behind the scenes. Share this episode with health conscious friends too. I appreciate you tuning in for the finale and can’t wait to embark on series five’s comprehensive quest to optimize health span through a 360 degree perspective.
LInks:* Izabella Natrins on Linkedin * UK & International Health Coaching Association Facebook Group * UK & International Health Coaching Association on Instagram * UKIHCA Website * UK White Paper * Webinar on December 6 * Webinar on January 24, 2024 * UKIHCA Blog Izabella's book:The Real Food Solution: A treasury of wisdom for energy, vitality and better health for you AND the planet - Izabella NatrinsThe White Paper:Towards a Healthier, Happier Britain:The Case for Health CoachingFavourite Quote
“Tomorrow belongs to those who can hear it coming.”
David BowieTweet
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TranscriptEmailDownloadNew TabIzabella Natrins – 249
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[00:00:00] Introduction and Welcome
—
Today I have the pleasure of welcoming the captivating CEO of the UK and international health coaching association, Izabella Natrins. Izabella passionately enlightens us on the power of health coaching to empower people, to take control of their wellbeing.
WE delve deeply into how health coaching goes beyond merely providing information, it Facilitates lasting behavior change. Izabella compellingly conveys how health coaching works synergistically with medicine, nutrition, fitness, and more to support whole person healing. You’ll be fascinated to hear how Izabella’s own health crisis. Catalyzed her transition from high powered consultant to health coach and eventually C E O of this pioneering organization. Her ambitions to accelerate the integration of health coaching into public health. To proactively tackle today’s chronic disease epidemic.
I found myself nodding along vigorously as Izabella spelled out a bold vision for a preventative health creation woven throughout society. This is an episode brimming with insight from an influential leader, blazing the trail for health coaching as a crucial key to empowering, healthy, happy living. So hope you enjoy this episode and you will be inspired to take charge of your vitality.
Please leave your reactions in the comments below. I appreciate all your thoughtful feedback.
[00:01:43] Introduction to Guest Izabella Natrins
—
[00:01:43] Tony Winyard: Welcome to another edition of The Art of Living Proactively, and my guest today, Izabella Natrins. How are you doing, Izabella? I’m
[00:01:50] Izabella Natrins: I’m good, thank you. I’m good.
[00:01:53] Tony Winyard: And Isabella is the, I’m trying to remember your role, is it Chairperson? CEO. CEO.
[00:02:00] Izabella Natrins: got a chairperson, but we will. I’m the CEO. Yes, I am.
[00:02:05] Tony Winyard: I always still think of it as the UK Health Coach Association, but it’s International Health Coach Association?
[00:02:11] Izabella Natrins: it is.
[00:02:11] The Evolution of the Health Coaching Association
—
[00:02:11] Tony Winyard: And so what was the reason for the change?
[00:02:14] Izabella Natrins: Well, since our inception in 2018, We were the UK Health Coaches Association or Health Coaches Association, but we have always
approved
schools abroad internationally. So many of the American schools, the big American schools, we approved their courses and admitted graduates from different countries.
there came
there came a point where we were having so many people and so many more courses that were being approved internationally that it just felt like it wasn’t quite the right. Name for us. So we decided to become international and really make a point of saying, we are based
in UK,
you know, those are our roots.
[00:02:58] The Global Impact of Health Coaching
—
[00:02:58] Izabella Natrins: But, um, actually health coaching is a global issue. It’s a global solution to, to a lot of the problems that we have and are seeing it being experienced. You know, these days around the globe. So we wanted to encourage
a professionalism,
community, and enterprise around the globe.
[00:03:18] The Expansion of Health Coaching
—
[00:03:18] Izabella Natrins: And we also changed the name slightly from Health Coaches Association to Health Coaching Association.
And the reason for that was because we saw that the growth of this discipline
this of
wasn’t just going to confined to
Coaches who were being
trained to be professional coaches and that’s their maiN
[00:03:43] The Role of Health Coaches in Healthcare
—
[00:03:43] Izabella Natrins: job of work, but also all healthcare practitioners at every level really needed to understand that if they really were to make a difference in the way that they were delivering their specialist care to patients and their clients, they needed some coaching skills.
Themselves to open those conversations with their patients and then hopefully to be working with, um, a professionally trained coach who would take the patient or client onwards through their journey.
[00:04:16] The Rebranding of the Health Coaching Association
—
[00:04:16] Izabella Natrins: So we took a step a couple of years ago to, um.
re
brand ourselves, uh, in that way. And I have to say it was a really good and timely move.
Um, and we have a lot of support
from a
huge variety of professions around, around the world, but also, you know, within the UK, uh, disciplines who are joining us, as clinical health coaches, if you will., but they need to satisfy the membership criteria.
[00:04:47] The Membership Criteria for Health Coaches
—
[00:04:47] Izabella Natrins: So we have they can come through an approved course.
Nine, 12 month course, increasing number actually of doctors
And
very busy health professionals are taking that route. But we also recognize that actually there are a lot more who are, um, very, very obviously very skilled and knowledgeable about the health piece, but maybe they have done their own training, their own reading, their, you know, self directed learning, or maybe they’ve taken a series of courses that, on the health coaching side, on the coaching approach, which we haven’t,
uh, endorsed as one
we
approved courses, but nevertheless are very relevant.
So we created a portfolio route for those professionals who could bring their qualifications, their experience to the table and be assessed
process
in a portfolio.
upon
a process which is based upon our standards and which then if they, you know, if they’re above the line and they meet the requirements, then we welcome them with open arms
into the
into the association to begin their journey with us.
And if they don’t quite You know, get over the line. We offer them, a personal CPD, direction where we point them to the gaps that, you know, they have and
have um, welcome them back when they’ve gone off and done a bit more a and come back to us.
So that’s the reason really, we wanted to recognise
[00:06:25] The Global Approach to Health Coaching
—
[00:06:25] Izabella Natrins: The globality,
recognise the there a word? is there a word
global approach. Um, and also the, you know, the depth
know,
health coaching as well as
Coaches.
[00:06:40] Understanding What a Health Coach Does
—
[00:06:40] Tony Winyard: How often, there’s a lot of people, I mean, I’ve been a health coach now for a couple of years and I sometimes still get asked, well, what is a health coach? There seems to be a real lack of, well, I guess it’s such a new thing still in the UK.
[00:06:52] Izabella Natrins: Hmm.
[00:06:52] Tony Winyard: So, how would you answer that question? What
[00:06:59] Izabella Natrins: I probably would start by saying what a health coach is not, you know, and a health coach is not a clinician unless they have another scope of practice. Many do. So they could also be a nurse or a physiotherapist, or indeed a doctor or an oncologist, uh,
What they’re not, they don’t, they’re not an expert
In our treatment. They don’t treat, they don’t diagnose, they don’t offer advice. This is the role of the expert. If they have an additional scope or scopes of practice, then they can, are free to do that. But we want, and we make a Big point of making sure that our members and coaches understand the difference between the coaching role and the expert role.
So as an expert, I’m wearing my hat.
I’m offering advice, I might
might recommend treatments. I might refer people to, you know, onwards and upwards for, for treatments.
As a
As a coach, I wouldn’t do any
of that.
What I would do is open a conversation with that same client, asking
what is
what is important for them in their health.
What is it that they want their
they health health for?
I would Uh, talk to them about how they’re living their life. I’d explore with them whether they can see within their own lifestyle, elements
which might be impacting
which might be impacting on the way they
health, and on their health, if they’ve come with a health condition, for instance.
I wouldn’t treat that health condition, but I would hope to be working with a primary, uh, practitioner who would be, maybe a nutritionist, maybe a GP, maybe, um, a consultant. who is actually treating that person. My job is to empower them, self empower them, to see that by looking into their own lives and the way that they’re living, their motivation, their feelings about their position, they have answers.
And my job is to help them explore those answers and create, co create with them, a plan of how they might make changes in their lifestyle, uh, how they might, uh, address challenges to making changes very hard for people. We like our habits, you know, even though we know our habits are not great and they may be contributing to The way, you know, we’re not living our best lives.
and
hard to change and it’s hard to be consistent. If you have a coach, they’re an ally, a health coach particularly, because they bring their coaching skills to your health to the health landscape. rather than an executive landscape or a business or a, you know,
whatever career coach.
coach.
We bring our skills to that health landscape and we help those people understand, people that come to us, whether they’re patients or in the private sector, clients or in the employment sector,
the employment sector, employees, how
how do I become more self reliant, more resourceful?
What steps can I take? What can I do to?
plan
and prepare for challenges. How can I keep my motivation going? And we don’t want that motivation to come from the coach. Initially, maybe so, but we want them to find their own intrinsic motivation, which is why the question, what is it that you want your health for?
It’s so important.
important.
I mean, we try and
Help
keep that front of mind so that when there are lapses or they come back for another session and things haven’t gone so well, we can go back and say, okay, why are we here? What is it that you’re really, really here for? You know, what can I say? It works.
That’s what coaches do. You know, it’s very skilled. It’s not just about changing behaviour. It’s not just about saying, don’t do this, do that,
Let’s
let’s put some steps in along the way. It’s much deeper. Skilled health coaching
Transformational.
transformational.
It transforms that person’s approach to their lifestyle to themselves, to the way they see themselves as a, um, an autonomous agent in society.
And my goodness, we get all of that very much socialized out of us, don’t we? You’re, you know, in the process, especially around health. You know, we, we kind of give our health to somebody else to take care of
not about
It’s not about blaming, but it is about saying, My God, you can not only be, take an equal part in your relationship with your healthcare
you can
but you can actually lead it in many ways.
And that’s what I think health coaching is about. It’s also about the whole person. So it’s not just about diet or sleep or um, you know, making a few recommendations, but it’s, we all know
know that lifestyle, what that are some.
we eat, how we move a lot, we rest, how we, um, have, you know, our relationships, our ability, uh, and skills to manage stress in our lives, um, our sense of community.
All of those things all interact at every level with each
other
to create our lived experience and the coach’s job is to help us get to the nitty gritty of those elements that might be impacting
health and help
us make changes. It’s a long answer Tony but it’s a deep, deep discipline.
[00:12:50] The Impact of Health Coaching on Healthcare Professionals
—
[00:12:50] Tony Winyard: the last few years, and I’ve been doing this podcast for about five years, and during that time I’ve had many doctors, psychologists, um, many, many different healthcare professionals as guests, and it’s really surprised me how many of them are also health coaches.
And you sometimes, I mean, when I, when I first came across it, I was thinking, why would a GP become a health coach? But I mean, and you’ve mentioned it when you were talking before about the, you know, the international aspect of, of the association. So what, what is your, why do you think so many healthcare professionals are also becoming health coaches as well?
[00:13:34] Izabella Natrins: Well, I suppose
a big, big
it’s a big, big question and then each individual have their own reasons, but
you
what I can, I can’t tell you why I think they are, but I can tell you what happens when they do. And, um, as I’ve said, we have an increasing number
of GPs and
and clinicians generally, but not just GPs and primary physicians, but actually. Oncologists, rheumatologists, anaesthesiologists, I can’t say that,
say
anaesthesiologists, um,
uh,
uh, surgeons are trained as coaches
not
so they’re not just using health coaching
they’re only using health coaching skills,
but they’ve elected to actually do
do professional training. And I think
My understanding for when they report, when I talk to them, uh, is that they see that giving people information is not enough. Telling people what to do doesn’t work.
Okay.
Um, writing prescriptions or treatment protocols and plans is only part of the story. What they really want to do is make, help that individual to better health.
help.
And they see that that involves that coaching approach where they’re both an expert.
and
very powerfully, um, making recommendations for what that person can do in terms of treatments or surgeries.
And them
them really make the change and become that self empowered individual who isn’t just give, as a clinician say, giving me all the responsibility, but they’re in that conversation with me. I’m helping them to understand that as a doctor, Or a nurse or a physio. I don’t know everything. I might be an expert in my field, but I’m not omnipotent.
There are so, there’s so much that we don’t know, so much that we do know. And together, you and I, as a, as a therapeutic, in that therapeutic relationship can make a huge
huge difference. So, their
experience then is that they are, um, their job satisfaction goes up, the outcomes that they get for their patients go up, their patients get
up.
very different experience of
very different of care.
Um, system that
The system that they’re working in changes slowly over time.
And we always say that health coaching is transformational. It transforms a patient’s outcomes. It transforms their experience of
care
trans It transforms you as a clinician, your experience of giving that care and your job satisfaction. And it transforms the health system that you’re working
in.
as we see now, we’re…
Seeing, um, uh, NHS Health and Wellbeing coaches coming into the system in, in quite huge numbers, and it’s 1, 500, so a plan for many,
many And, these are, these are full time health coaches. How wonderful it is that they will be working with an increasing number of doctors who get it.
it,
know, and there’s nothing more powerful than a doctor that gets health coaching is able to open
open
a consultation, whether they’re a GP or a, you
a, you a
with coaching, with a coaching approach. And we at the association do a lot of role plays so that we show clinicians how this is done. And the role plays are done by clinicians themselves, um, you know, oncologists,
a whole, you know, GPs. And then they can give, um, you know, they, they go on to, uh, refer to a health coach that’s working with them, uh, so that that person really gets that joined up care.
up care.
I
think that’s why they, they want to do it. And when they do it, they see how powerful it
do it, and when they do it,
[00:18:03] The Release of the White Paper
—
[00:18:03] Tony Winyard: One of the things you just talked about, I know this week you released; was The White Paper, what was the reason for it, and what do you hope it’ll achieve?
[00:18:16] Izabella Natrins: What was the reason for it? Um,
honest, a deep sense
if I’m honest, deep sense frustration.
that we
That we have a powerful solution
many,
to the many, many problems that we, that our health is failing. Well, it’s failing globally, really, in developed countries. And many of us who, who are interested field understand the reasons why.
our
But our population in Britain, particularly, you know, that our health is failing.
failing. Um,
That failing health is impacting on every sector of society. So it’s health impacting not only on those individuals are suffering failing
who are suffering failing health
it’s impacting on It’s
impacting on health system health services. It’s impacting on the people who are delivering those health.
those health services because they’re exhausted and
It’s impacting on, um, the economy through people not being able to work because they’re either off sick or they’re on long term sick or they’re struggling to work with one or two or three health conditions. It’s impacting on a sense of well being at work. So we see all of this plethora of
of um, um,
reports coming out the importance employee well being and its impact on productivity.
Well, you tell me you can have well being work when physically you’re not well. When you’re struggling with those issues and the whole social thing that comes around with a diagnosis of diabetes
and cancer, one in
one two of us will have that diagnosis, we know
Um, of those. huge number of us will be of working age. Of those, the fastest growing trend, you will, for cancer diagnosis is amongst younger people now of, I don’t know, I believe it’s something like 35 to mid 50s, that kind age group. These frightening statistics, you know, and they keep coming out keep coming out. The solution seems to be, um, do more testing.
Or, um, give more information or,
of
um, have bigger and better gizmos that are going to treat people once. So we’re always at point treating
going to treat
We’re saying stop. We need primary prevention. We need to give people a much better sense health literacy. We need to, you know, our population.
average reading age of adults in the
UK is 9 years
years old.
Nine years old. People with lower literacy have more health issues.
adult,
Every adult, no matter how well
[00:21:23] The Impact of Health Literacy
—
[00:21:23] Izabella Natrins: they
they read, how
educated they
has difficulty in understanding, processing health information. So we know that not only literacy, but health literacy is… Hugely important. If you don’t know how your body works, you don’t know key things that, you know,
you know, we
would like to know and understand, how can you be an active agent your own
in your own care?
You’re a recipient of yet another thing that’s being done to you. Yeah. We don’t want people be in that position going
forward.
[00:21:59] Tony Winyard: Well that’s made much worse by all the misinformation and disinformation around as well, isn’t it?
[00:22:04] Izabella Natrins: Exactly, yeah. Exactly.
Dr Google, um, were…
it
Were it a real person be, you know, Elon Musk, forget it, because, you know, people would be really, really, really
really on there all time there Um, I, yeah, so your
so your question,
[00:22:22] The Motivation Behind the White Paper
—
[00:22:22] Izabella Natrins: what motive, so that’s, that’s the landscape.
There
lots and lots of, um, very good papers that are, uh, that have been published that, uh, we’ve looked at such a range And they’re all saying the same thing. Things need to change. We need to move to prevention. We can’t afford the, the human cost of this, the misery, you of,
people being ill facing a future not, you know, of, of… you know, a quite depressing future really chronic health and long
major conditions.
The economy can’t afford it. Human society can’t afford
afford it.
So we say, well, why aren’t we using
a
a different, let’s look fresh thinking.
[00:23:09] The Role of Health Coaching in Prevention
—
[00:23:09] Izabella Natrins: Let’s look at how do we stop this.
this rot, so to
so to speak. How do we get in at the point of supporting people not to have that diagnosis? And if they do have it, let’s look at how we can stop that condition from escalating or getting worse.
And we know it’s not giving people more information. We know It’s actually getting them to understand how to change and sustain
and sustain behaviour. And, um, so
that’s the point of the, um, you know, the report really. So we looked at a whole bunch of
papers. We looked
We look to say, well, what is it about the approaches that those papers are
looking at
that are congruent with our position as health coaches?
And there is such a lot of congruence,
the language
the language is slightly different. So I wanted to say, look, here’s policy framework.
[00:24:08] The Importance of Cross-Sector Collaboration
—
[00:24:08] Izabella Natrins: It’s got to be cross sector. It’s got to include all the sectors where humans operate, because human health doesn’t stop when you get to work, you know. So we have the physical activity sector, employment sector,
sector,
social prescribers, um, the whole clinical medicine, the whole the health education sector, if you like.
All of us join hands, step out of our silos and say We need to work together and there is a common denominator and it is health coaching. So it’s not necessarily, although love it to UKIHCA,
UKIHCA, the health
Health Coaching Association. It is health coaching and we stand for both
stand for
So that’s what that’s
that’s
Uh, that’s what motivated
Policy framework,
policy framework, um, an exploration how health coaching could support all these sectors and a whole bunch of recommendations of
recommendations
what can be done.
can be done. So,
I
[00:25:13] Tony Winyard: know your aim is to get it out to, to as many people as possible. Um, so what do you hope will come from this paper?
[00:25:20] Izabella Natrins: Well, we hope to open conversations. Um, our launch strategy, I mean, we, we are a nonprofit. Um, we, We don’t have huge budgets, you we, we, we do this to, to really support our members and to open the doors health coaching to be accepted as profession, as powerful discipline. we hope to get, um, We will get support, we already have got support, from the political arena.
Lord James Bethel, who is a member the House Lords, when he understood what we wanted to do, quickly offered a forward. We know that James is very, very active in the preventive…
space. Um,
Um, he has written, uh, or is part of a team that’s, uh, writtea n paper, which we’ve,
um, profiled really in our
our report.
uh,
And, uh, we hope, know that James will open doors at the political
political level,
of course, this is about policy, about lobbying, it’s about saying,
about saying, know, come on,
we need you, you need us, desperately need us, and here are some solutions.
. Uh, social media campaign will go on throughout. 2024
24, the
thing back to the table.
We have, um, a series of internal campaigns to help our health coaches get behind this. We have our schools who are going get behind this. When I say our schools, the approved schools that are producing health coach graduates. We have… all the medical and um, uh, clinical professions who we’re drawing their attention to there’ll be articles
and
co authored articles.
Already we have kind of in the pipeline coming. So we plan to make a noise about this to everybody that is implicated in white paper, all those different sectors. We know the physical activity sector
has
been beating at the door of health for many years saying, let us in, we’re part of health.
of course, everybody understands but somehow in
in our
psyche, we see, uh, at the physical activity sports sector.
sector, PTs,
you know, personal trainers being something that happens over there when people to a club or a leisure centre or whatever, you know. It’s not really to do with health, it’s to do fitness
to do with fitness and,
whatever the word is, how fit, how stoked be.
But actually it’s about health and we don’t need any more information to tell us that we’re not moving and it’s killing us. So here’s a sector saying, well let us in and we say, come through the door with us.
[00:28:26] The Future of Health Coaching
—
[00:28:26] Izabella Natrins: with us.
Because we believe that, um, that health coach working
with
physical activity professional in whatever context will make powerful to the people
that that they work with.
So we know we’ve got their support
And we’ve conversations with great and the good, from their sector who are saying, yeah, let’s really make noise this. so it’s wonderful have that.
have that. Um,
Social prescribing too. We know that social prescribing has a lot of support in the
in the UK.
GPs love it because it’s helping people back into their communities. But social prescribers are not. experts in behavioral change. not experts in that kind of, much deeper level of conversation. But those two roles need to work together very closely. And we know in the NHS,
um,
the ARS roles, the, um, additional,
um,
what are they Additional roles scheme, ARS scheme. Uh, uh, The NHS supports, um,
support
salaries social
prescribers and for health health coaches.
believe that these two,
roles need to work together much, much closely to get the benefit for
the people they’re supporting. So, we think
So we think that this is going to be a game changer.
[00:29:53] The Importance of Health Coaching
—
[00:29:53] Izabella Natrins: It’s not going to change the world tomorrow, it would, but it means that we’re saying very clearly, here’s our stake in the ground
stake in the
Health coaching is at the… epicentre paradigm shift towards
towards prevention, towards proactive care, health creation. That’s what we want to achieve by it.
I
[00:30:17] Tony Winyard: [00:30:17] Promoting Health Coaching Through White Paper
—
[00:30:17] Tony Winyard: mean, as you were saying that, I was thinking, right, so I’m going to, I want to attach the white paper in the show notes to this episode. And I know there’s a number of health coaches, PTs, many people across the board listen to this, this podcast. So I wonder if we should ask everyone listening to download that whitepaper and to distribute it to as many people especially to PTs, to other PTs in their gyms and health coaches to Send it to doctors Maybe they’re working with and or maybe everyone should to download it and send it to people they know But but if they were to do that, what?
[00:30:57] How to Advocate for Health Coaching
—
[00:30:57] Tony Winyard: What would they say to the person they send it to? Why should they read this?
[00:31:03] Izabella Natrins: Well, um, there are some, I mean, the rationale, the introduction,
sets
actually sets scene so so just
reading that in itself will give somebody the words, the vocabulary, the ammunition, you like, to say,
I’d love
I’d love you to read this because.
[00:31:25] Upcoming Webinars on Health Coaching
—
[00:31:25] Izabella Natrins: But we’re also having a series webinars. So I
I think,
oh dear, let me see the dates.
It’s kind of mid December. Um, we will, we have, um,
have,
uh, a Members Only, a UKIHCA Members Webinar, where we’re going to be explaining. It’s a briefing on white paper,
the
explaining how it how it works
it. What to do with it. We’ve got a webinar in January which will take themes from that
[00:31:55] Promoting Health Coaching in Business
—
[00:31:55] Izabella Natrins: paper and show members how they um, use it to, uh, promote paper, promote health coaching, and indeed, if they’re work independently, to promote their businesses.
you know, pitch if you like, to exactly what you’re saying. Here’s paper, this is what I do, this why I read it, and this why I value me. That kind stuff.
[00:32:17] Health Coaching in Education
—
[00:32:17] Izabella Natrins: We have a briefing for schools to do the same thing with their students who will be coaches in any number of months time when they’ve graduated.
And I think it’s towards the end of January, we have an open webinar briefing for everybody um, that wants to sign on, you know, to register for it, to explain exactly that. This is what the White Paper about
White this is why important. And this why you should read it.
And I suppose the other
thing I recommend
[00:32:49] The Role of Social Media in Health Coaching
—
[00:32:49] Izabella Natrins: your listeners is to follow us on our social media.
know, find us, follow us, and look out for our posts, because exactly what you’ve said, we’ll be coming in our posts again and No good. Just telling people, look, here it is. worked hard,
We’ve worked You
love it. We have to,
we have
[00:33:10] The Importance of Reading the White Paper
—
[00:33:10] Izabella Natrins: persuade them to read it. Persuade them with some of the, um, copy from it, you know, some of the quotes, some of the statistics, some of the rationales and arguments for why somebody in the physical activity sector really needs to understand how health coaching can help them as
as a PT, a Um,
my son, one of my sons is a PT. He gets coaching, he uses a coaching approach, but Everybody can use a coaching approach. You don’t have to do full training. If you do, it gives fabulous, deep skill set.
But your, if your focus is on personal training, then why not hook up with health coach?
[00:33:57] The Role of Health Coaches in Gyms
—
[00:33:57] Izabella Natrins: Why not petition in your gym?
David
David Lloyd, Virgin, to employ health coaches to work
with you and get better results.
And this is how we get people going back to gyms, isn’t it? You know, not just because, oh, like haven’t been for three weeks and my trainer’s going to get cross with me and the cat’s got cold and, you know, little Johnny needs football on that particular session that I’m booked in for, so now they fall away.
You know, it’s the motivation of going back and having those two, um, Frameworks really, one which is around your physical getting well and
the kind
well being
person
physical person you to be. The health coaching supports that the behavior change, the mental health aspect you like, of understanding why it’s so important to be that person that you really want to be.
[00:34:54] The Impact of Health Coaching on Personal Health
—
[00:34:54] Tony Winyard: Your passion for health coaching is very evident in everything you’ve said over the last half hour, so I’m wondering what was it that got you into it in the first place?
[00:35:03] Izabella Natrins: More because
[00:35:04] The Journey to Becoming a Health Coach
—
[00:35:04] Izabella Natrins: Because my health was falling over, let me tell you. Um, so I,
in,
uh, in, you know, I’ve had a career in health generally, uh, for many years, many, many years, too many years really. um, I got to a point where I
working
was working so hard, um, uh, that I knew I was becoming ill
And ultimately I got, um,
I got a diagnosis of arthritis and then psoriatic arthritis, which is an autoimmune condition.
And I just thought I’ve got to stop this, you know, 45 thousand, miles a year as as a, as consultant management consultant, both in the health space and in other sectors was really taking its toll. So I stopped and I thought, well, I want to do something I really love. Which was, you know, I’ve got a huge, um, history, uh, um, of cooking in our family.
You know, so we chefs and, um, food has always been, my parents are European
here, so, um, the food
has always been
good.
I raised And, book
[00:36:12] The Impact of Real Food on Health
—
[00:36:12] Izabella Natrins: I thought, well, I’m going, I’d like to learn too. I’m a reasonable cook, I like to go and learn professionally, so I chose Ballymalu Cookery School in Ireland, um, uh, because, uh, it was an organic, farm.
It was set on an organic farm
in a a kind
and it’s about traditional French culinary techniques, but it’s taught in kind of family.
Table. So we don’t do sauces one week
all
meat another week something else another week it’s all about menu.
[00:36:47] The Importance of Traditional Food Preparation
—
[00:36:47] Izabella Natrins: It’s all how to put food together on the table that is nutritious, delicious, beautiful and how to learn all classical techniques getting it there.
I, I
And, um.
went because I I suppose I went because I wanted be smart. I didn’t want be a chef. think would employ me to be chef,
a chef,
um, at all, but I just wanted to learn. And when I got there, guess I kind of wanted the plating up, you know, presentation. And thought, I want to do those smears that, know, do.
the Heston style thing, when you take the,
the, the the cover
off, you’ve got fish that’s kind of smoking something, you know, and.
Or,
Anyway, January the something, fifth it was, found me in Ireland. Worst winter they’d ever had.
Two feet of snow
snow everywhere.
Digging a hole in a field to get soil so that we could be taught about this is where our health starts in this soil.
thought, oh
And I thought, oh my god, why have I come here? This is not what I want. I want the smears and the smoking fish. But believe me, Tony, within
few days, I
I thought, wow, what have I come to? This is life
changing. And
and it did, it changed my life.
[00:38:10] The Role of Food in Health
—
[00:38:10] Izabella Natrins: So I did my training, came back and thought,
thought, um, I
uh, I actually did training with, I’d had knee surgery arthritis and it was all bit, uh, it was all a bit painful.
But coming back,
back, I
I thought, right, I’m going to change everything about what I do. started a small
cookery cookery school of my own for real
food, you know, what to do with the real chicken, not the
Not the little, you know,
cutlets that you get, know, from the supermarket, where to source it, why that real
chicken traditionally bred table? Might be
might be bit more expensive, but the meat to bone ratio is out
of this world.
So you’ve got great big supermarket chicken with great big bones it needs them because it’s produced in environment where if it doesn’t stand it’s going get trodden on. And so it needs strong big bones, whereas outdoor raised And then. They are a bit more expensive, but my worth it So said, right, you and there’s so much you can do with a chicken So I said, right, you know, let’s have a session chicken. Let’s show how, uh, looks like
what looks like a small, you know, modest chicken can serve family of four three days.
days. Sorted. But
It worked. But my health condition, my own, you arthritis stopped me from going down that path And then,
was, it’s
standing up it was, very physical, know.
And then over time,
saying, people can,
and saying, How can, um, can you advise me on this?
[00:39:42] The Impact of Diet on Health
—
[00:39:42] Izabella Natrins: you advise me It was all about diet health. And I thought, well, I’d like to train in this. So, um, I did, um, I did training course
in,
nutrition lifestyle medicine health coaching in Ireland again, became a health coach, and slowly and over time stopped taking any medications.
I don’t, I’ll take occasionally, know, maybe
an aspirin or some paracetamol, but I don’t take any. I was facing methotrexate, which is a
chemotherapy medication which is very
Well, you know, life doesn’t really happen very well after methotrexate. And I couldn’t have any more surgeries. I didn’t want to have that.
So I’m very happy to say
say you know,
that my training and my understanding real food has changed my life.
life and,
um, when I, uh, when we had the beginning of, um, COVID, the, uh, Association asking for volunteers to help with some initiatives there. I put my hand
up,
they looked at my CV and And asked me to come in as Director Standards Professional Development.
which I did with some trepidation.
And subsequently, we brought in current director, Faye Hall, is wonderful.
was wonderful. And, um,
a hugely experienced lady with,
know, with passion
that equals mine for
health coaching And I,
And I, um, I moved into the CEO’s, into seat and I feel I’m stuck here 99 percent my time. Um, and, uh, that’s, that’s what me into it.
What keeps me here is that
is vision,
that, and
knowledge that if you’ve trained as a health coach you know,
power
the of it and the central importance of it
in the health care systems
going forward. So, does that answer the question?
it
[00:41:53] Tony Winyard: makes me wonder… So it’s, we’re almost in 2024.
[00:41:59] The Future of Health Coaching
—
[00:41:59] Tony Winyard: So, let’s say we fast forward in, it’s the year 2030. How do you hope things will have changed by then?
[00:42:08] Izabella Natrins: I I hope that,
the governments and the policymakers read our reports, read our white paper, read towards
a healthier, happier, Britain, the case
Britain, the case health coaching.
think,
I think, I hope that they prioritise primary
that, um, every
[00:42:34] The Role of Health Coaching in Healthcare
—
[00:42:34] Izabella Natrins: who deals with people with
individual, every professional who deals with people with health conditions and failing health, understands the difference between giving treatment and giving hope and equipping people to become self empowered architects, as Rangan Chatterjee would say, architects in own health. I
I hope that we will have a
um, a younger population, young people, children. hope health
I hope health coaching will be education all the way through.
We know that, uh, you know, if you
if take a child before the age of whatever it is, nine,
is, 9, 10,
you know, you create very different mindsets. So important begin
to begin early so important to keep that throughout the system, uh, throughout the life cycle.
So it’s, you know, our, we talk about whole
whole health, um, throughout a lifetime.
throughout a
what I would hope to
That’s what I would hope to see, we take health, creation, seriously. We move from that reactive model
waiting until everyone falls over, and then trying to treat them, and failing. And I suppose if I were to make a very bold statement
politicians
that, um,
the, politicians and the policy makers
and policy
will
will look very carefully
about
into process of lobbying, because we
know that lobbyists
have a very, very
important
disproportional,
disproportional impact
on political decision making.
We know that the wider determinants and the, particularly now commercial determinants of
health, um, manipulate that.
manipulate people’s decisions and people’s mindsets, and that has to stop. So I would like to see that really, really taken very aggressively. And I know that we will get support for that. And more and more of us calling for it, just within the association
it, not just within the
in political spaces.
So let’s hope that have, uh, courage comes.
you know,
Courage comes and we say, actually, as doctors, as politicians, as,
as, um,
as, as physicians, teachers, at every level, we stand for people.
stand
We stand for people’s health for health improvements and for health creation. And you watch, you know, it’s a, it will be a different world.
So that’s what, that’s the vision that we think, or certainly that
I think
colleagues share it
it with me.
[00:45:36] Tony Winyard: I asked you just a few minutes ago about your, your passion for health. So I was wondering what, is there, can you think of a book that’s really moved you for any reason?
[00:45:47] Izabella Natrins: Um, um, a, when I got back
[00:45:51] The Importance of Real Food
—
[00:45:51] Izabella Natrins: I can actually.
realised the of
when I back from Ireland,
were eating, um, and
quite the state
eating
the food that most people were eating, um, and had been eating for decades and kind of food and the prep, you know, traditional preparation growing techniques that I’d experienced in Ireland, which really opened eyes.
And this is not artisan, it’s not fancy artisan,
ways
stuff. It’s actually traditional ways of growing and producing food
which retain the and the nutrition that
the health and the
to
so available to
theirs
our grandparents and theirs and our ancestors. Um, it moved me to think, well, I kept writing recipes for
for people, and I thought, you you I could
a recipe book.
And then I thought, actually… We need a book about real food and so I did write one of my own,
I just happen to have here to because
because it’s always on my desk to remind me that, you know, this is the reason why I’m, um, uh, you know, I’m here. So it’s The Real Food Solution and it is a treasury of wisdom for energy, vitality and better health for you and your planet.
And this book. Um, it’s some three, four hundred
pages long. It looks at why why the food we’re eating isn’t what it used to used to
It looks at what we do about that as individual consumers by
by becoming
conscious consumers. And it gives…
40,
recipes for creating, um,
delicious and nutritious
dishes.
It,
It’s, um, it looks at every food group.
It’s not a book on nutrition, although it has been endorsed by,
endorsed
Bantz, the British Association Nutrition and Lifestyle Medicine. Uh, and it is. All of
profits go to
the British Association for Holistic Medicine Healthcare, BHMA, to their Real Food campaign, with which I am, I’m one of the, one of the people on the steering group and an
was
supporter and I was a trustee of
trustee of the
And so, um, I, that for me is book that
that changed my life
that’s made deepest
the deepest impression
not only. because of what led up to writing
to
during course of it, it just reinforced
just um, commitment to
commitment to helping people understand that
real food, Real
starts in soil.
soil, it’s nurtured in the kitchen, and
whether we eat it, if we are eating real food that is properly grown without all the pesticides and insecticides every other side, then we’re not damaging
damaging the planet
[00:49:00] The Impact of Real Food on the Planet
—
[00:49:00] Izabella Natrins: We’re not polluting waterways. We’re not doing the stuff that is
you know, being done now.
So it, it preceded, um, you know, ultra processed people. It preceded Mark Hyman’s commentary. Actually just, I managed you know, uh, uh, actually publish mine just before
Mark Hyman did.
did on his, um, very similar, but his kind of much more political space.
This book is focused for people. Everybody, people out there, please, you know, read it, enjoy it
and learn from
and actually make changes. So, it changed my life. It’s changed, I know,
from feedback, um,
people who bought the book from others who have endorsed it as a, you as a useful,
um,
tool, really.
It’s changing their lives and, um, I hope if any of your listeners
are, know, are minded to
to go and have a look it, it will change their lives in the way they see food
And we know ultra processed food. We don’t need to know any more about it.
any more about it. Real is the opposite of it’s too
People think it’s too hard. It’s not.
[00:50:17] Tony Winyard: Well, we’ll include that within the links, you know, in the show notes. And also, I’d like to include your, how can people find out about you, your social media and so on.
[00:50:28] Izabella Natrins: Okay, so, um, well, we’re all over social media. So, we’re on, um, uh, www. ukihca. com. We’re on, uh, we’re on all the social channels. So please look, you know, just, uh, Google,
International
put, uh, UK Health Coaching Association or UK and International Health Coaching Associate all comes into Google and we’ll share the links in your
show
notes in your show notes. So yeah, please reach out
uh,
get in touch with me if you’ve got questions. And the team is, loves to talk to everybody and share our excitement about this wonderful profession and this wonderful discipline. So yeah, please do reach out. Um, and always open for conversations.
[00:51:21] Tony Winyard: Well, I’ll also put the links in for the webinars you mentioned.
I’ll put those links in the show notes as well. So, for anyone listening who’s interested in those, just check the show notes and you can, uh, sign on to those.
[00:51:31] Izabella Natrins: Thank you.
[00:51:32] Tony Winyard: So, just before we finish, Izabella , is there, um, can you think of a quotation that resonates with you?
[00:51:38] Izabella Natrins: Um, well, funnily enough, um,
the paper, in the white paper towards, um, a healthier, happier Britain, the case for health coaching, um, I have, I looked at lots of quotes, uh, that could be relevant to
um,
chapters, if you will, in the Paper
I love
love And I love that device of using quotations, which I’ve used in, you know, the, in the Real Food Solution.
Um, the one that, and there are some wonderful ones, but the one that really kind of stuck with me because
with me
it’s simple and very powerful and it really does epitomize what that white paper is about
and the of guiding principle
the kind of guiding principle that I believe all health coaches have
in their own
investing in their own training
and
because they see it and I’d like to say it’s a quote by David Bowie called
David Bowie called The future belongs to those that see it coming.
[00:52:49] Tony Winyard: That’s a great quote, isn’t it?
[00:52:53] Izabella Natrins: Yeah. It is, it? You
it is, isn’t it? You know, and, and, and actually, let’s, You know, let’s hope picture that I painted for you, one of your previous questions, actually, that is the
is the future. A
A population of people who self empowered
to participate in
in their own health,
health, to create health, and thrive in life, and a
[00:53:23] The Role of Health Coaching in the Future
—
[00:53:23] Izabella Natrins: A health coach in every GP practice, every healthcare practice, in the private and public sector, in education, in the workplace, in communities, in the physical space.
Yeah,
Well, and also that quote actually sums up the title of this podcast as well, it’s uh, exactly what the whole, this podcast is all about. Yeah, absolutely. Smart guy, wasn’t
guy, wasn’t he David Bowie,
[00:53:57] Tony Winyard: Absolutely he was, yeah.
[00:53:58] Izabella Natrins: Quite a wordsmith generally, but I just thought, Oh God, you know, this, this quote is
powerful. So I’ve used
I’ve used it to end the, um, conclude the white
[00:54:09] Tony Winyard: Well, and you’ve also used it to conclude this podcast as well. So, Isabella, thank you for your time. Um, I really wish you the best of luck on your mission because it’s an, it’s an amazing mission. And I, well, it’s not that I hope you will get there, I know you will get there. So, um, yeah, best of luck on that.
[00:54:28] Izabella Natrins: well I’ve got a great team
great
we work together and,
you
you know, our team is fabulous. Absolutely
we
and we are all equal in that team. Everybody
contributes to
Everybody contributes to everything. So, yeah, we’ll get there and we have great support outside as well. And thank you yours, Tony.
[00:54:50] Tony Winyard: No problem at all. Thank you Isabella.
Thank you.
[00:54:53] Preview of the Next Episode
—
I’m thrilled to give you a tantalising taste of next week’s very special season finale episode. For the first time ever, I’ll be the guest. While the charming Helena Holrick, a past guest from four years ago, takes the reins as host. We’ll be reminiscing about my fascination with health and delving deeply into the origins of my passion for empowering people to proactively optimize their wellbeing. Helena will be probing me on my background, interests and what drives me to keep shining a spotlight on living life fully through enhancing health span. I’ll also be unveiling some enticing insider insight into my vision for the forthcoming fifth series. The new series has the catchy title, 360 degrees of health span, optimizing your health from every angle. and will spotlight the various dimensions of the wheel of health model in bite-size 10 minute episodes. Each installment will feature a laser focus on one area, along with an in depth, downloadable ebook companion guide, full of practical tips and strategies. So be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. And on the art of living proactively YouTube channel, so you don’t miss this exciting new phase of the show. And please do leave us glowing reviews while you eagerly await next week’s fleeting glimpse behind the scenes. Share this episode with health conscious friends too. I appreciate you tuning in for the finale and can’t wait to embark on series five’s comprehensive quest to optimize health span through a 360 degree perspective.
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Have you ever felt your energy drained, your vitality sapped? Do you feel disconnected from your true self and potential? The ancient Chinese practices of Qi-gong and Tai Chi offer a profound path to reclaiming your power.Unlocking the Secrets of Qi-Gong: Harnessing Your Vital Lifeforce
In this episode of The Art of Living Proactively podcast, expert instructor Andrew Kenneth Fretwell provides fascinating insights into the ancient Chinese practices of Qi-gong and Tai Chi. These time-tested systems offer powerful tools for realizing our human potential—if we can learn to tap into the lifeforce energy that flows within us.
Key takeaways from unlocking the wisdom of Qi-Gong:* Conserving your “jing” – your essential lifeforce energy – is key, especially when young. Careful management of your sexual energy and overall vitality pays dividends as you age. * Techniques like “bone breathing” and special meditations strengthen the organs, clear trauma stored in the body, and activate the flow of Qi for greater wellbeing. * The mind and body are deeply connected. Imbalances in organ health manifest in your thoughts and emotions. Healing the organs is key to personal growth. * Consistent daily practice allows you to embody the teachings and reap the most rewards in terms of health, emotional balance, and spiritual awakening. * Qi-Gong’s graceful movements attune you to nature’s energy and awaken your energy body or soul. It facilitates living from a higher state of consciousness.
This fascinating episode provides a glimpse into a beautiful ancient system for mastering your energy and realising your full potential as a human being. Learn more by listening to the full conversation!
Chapters:01:10 Introduction and Guest Welcome
01:24 Living in Ubud, Bali
02:05 The Power of Qigong
02:31 The Importance of Conserving Energy
02:58 Sexual Energy and Life Force
04:01 Understanding Qigong and Tai Chi
04:27 The Benefits of Qigong
05:29 The Challenges of Learning Tai Chi
06:16 The Connection Between Qigong and Nature
06:40 Personal Experience with Tai Chi
07:40 The Connection to Dao De Ching
08:38 Personal Journey into Qigong and Tai Chi
11:24 The Impact of Diet on Health
12:49 Teaching Qigong and Tai Chi
13:48 The Importance of Emotional Balance
20:18 The Role of Women in Qigong and Tai Chi
23:05 The Process of Becoming a Qigong and Tai Chi Teacher
24:58 The Importance of Emotional Health in Qigong and Tai Chi
32:06 The Cultural Differences in Emotion Perception
34:19 Conclusion and Farewell
Guest Bio:Andrew Kenneth Fretwell is a native of the United Kingdom who spent his early years as a professional musician. At age 21, he had a powerful spiritual experience that changed his perception of the world. Seeking to ground this experience in daily life led him to different teachers and self-cultivation systems.
In 1983, Fretwell met his main Taoist teacher Mantak Chia, who transmitted the Seven Alchemical Formulas for spiritual immortality. Studying with Chia, Fretwell realized the importance of refining the physical and emotional bodies to contain the soul’s high frequencies.
Since then, Fretwell has dedicated his life to simplifying and integrating soul and personality. His passion is sharing practical applications to unify these aspects of being. The Wu Ji School of Inner Alchemy serves this intent. Fretwell’s latest book “Emotional Alchemy” details transforming painful feelings into love and freedom. He is also an experienced Evolutionary Astrologer and Gene Keys Expert, providing a unique, deep, and profound soul-oriented approach.
Watch this episode on YouTube TranscriptAndrew Kenneth Fretwell – 248[00:00:00] Tony Winyard: Can you feel that? There’s energy in the air. An ancient power ready to be harnessed. I’m Tony Winyard and in this electrifying episode of the Art of Living Proactively podcast, we’ll be unlocking the secrets of Qigong, China’s time tested system for tapping into your vital life force.
My guest today, Andrew Kenneth Fretwell, an expert guide to energizing and enlightening practices of Qigong and Tai Chi. Andrew will reveal how techniques like bone breathing and organ strengthening meditations can sharpen your mind, strengthen your body and awaken your spirit. We will discover the Taoist path to balance, emotional mastery and realising your potential by harnessing Jing, your essential energy..
From movement to mindfulness, it promises to be an inspirational and informative show. So relax, hit subscribe and join me on this journey to the proactive side of life. When you’ve listened, please share your impressions in YouTube comments. For now, let’s begin unlocking the power within.
[00:01:10] Introduction and Guest Welcome[00:01:10] Tony Winyard: Welcome to another edition of The Art of Living Proactively. My guest today, Andrew Kenneth Fretwell. How are you doing, Andrew? I’m doing amazing. And we’re in a pretty amazing place today, aren’t we?
[00:01:24] Living in Ubud, Bali[00:01:24] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: Yes, I live in
[00:01:25] Tony Winyard: Ubud Bali. And, we were speaking before the recording started, but Indonesia is a place I lived in for seven years, so I know well, and I know how beautiful Bali is.
It’s quite
[00:01:39] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: magical. It’s one of the reasons I moved here. The energy of nature here is so powerful. Especially where I live, in the woods, which is more up in the mountains. Breeze and,
[00:01:58] Tony Winyard: a lot more green. In the popular places, which is… Absolutely.
[00:02:05] The Power of Qigong[00:02:05] Tony Winyard: it’s something I tell all my students.
[00:02:12] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: I’ve been teaching Qigong for many years, and I tell my students, if I’d known this when I was young, I would have been much more proactive. I think one of the things that we have to understand is that when we’re young, especially in our 20s and 30s, we have a lot of what the Daoists call Jing, which is equivalent to like adrenal energy, if you like.
[00:02:31] The Importance of Conserving Energy[00:02:31] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: And what I would have liked a mentor to tell me all those years ago is, be careful with your Jing, it’s very precious. And if you want to live a really healthy life, you need to conserve it. So that would be my analogy for anyone, is to learn how to conserve your dream, especially when you’re young. Because
[00:02:53] Tony Winyard: it will pay dividends for you, when you’re older.
[00:02:58] Sexual Energy and Life Force[00:02:58] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: if you’re a man, you have to, make sure you don’t ejaculate too much. That’s really important. And to transform that energy into life force, men and women are a little bit different, okay? So men lose most of their energy through ejaculation. That’s how we lose our life force, right? And women lose it through their period and through giving birth.
Sexually, women are much more, we could say, from the Taoist point of view, which is my tradition, they’re much more, at a sexual level, they’re much more, they don’t waste energy when they have sex. one of the things that I teach is, I teach men how to have orgasm without ejaculation. And that’s a really important factor.
The Chinese master this.
and The Empress used to have more than one wife.
[00:03:46] Tony Winyard: So you, let’s, to, for explanation for listeners who maybe aren’t aware. an instructor for Qigong and also for Tai Chi I believe as well, aren’t you?
[00:03:56] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: yes. So basically any of the Chinese arts, the Taoist arts. So
[00:04:01] Understanding Qigong and Tai Chi[00:04:01] Tony Winyard: some people probably aren’t really so familiar with, what is Qigong?
What is Tai Chi? can you explain? sure.
[00:04:09] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: So Qigong is not like exercise. If you watch anyone doing Qigong on the park, Very graceful movements. And they are. They’re very graceful, very beautiful. And basically, Qigong is older than Tai Chi. And there are literally thousands of different forms.
[00:04:27] The Benefits of Qigong[00:04:27] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: And the whole purpose of Qigong, not only is it for health and vitality, but it’s for your internal, to make your internal energy a mirror of nature. This is the main key with Qigong. You have to make your internal, because basically the Taoists say, That nature is connected to the Tao, is connected to the source.
There’s no separation. But us human beings, because we have a mind, and because we can interpret life, and make stories up about neutral experiences of life, then what we do is we basically change our energy. We restrict our energy. we get old quicker than we should do. And things like this, right?
the Taoist arts are really directed at really Developing yourself spiritually. So even though the health benefits are enormous, the real reason is to develop your consciousness, what the Daoists call your energy body or your soul, and to make it more real in your life. That’s the real purpose.
[00:05:29] The Challenges of Learning Tai Chi[00:05:29] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: And then Tai Chi is much more difficult to learn because it’s very structured and it’s very much about martial arts.
It’s a fighting form actually. But Tai Chi is, it takes a lot of discipline and it takes many years to really be good in Tai Chi. Whereas Qigong, I teach this very simple form, and people can learn it in 2 3 hour sessions, and it’s very powerful as well, so that’s one of the reasons I teach something that’s more simple.
[00:05:57] Tony Winyard: Qigong is more about breathing and the breath work?
[00:06:00] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: no. Ok. Qigong is about moving your body. Okay. In alignment with nature. So it looks very similar to Tai Chi, it’s just that it’s not so structured and it’s easier to learn.
Okay. sometimes they say Qigong is the mother of Tai Chi.
[00:06:16] The Connection Between Qigong and Nature[00:06:16] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: Basically, these Taoist monks and, these adepts, they looked at the way birds moved, and animals moved, and they said, oh, if we start to move like that, maybe we’ll be more connected to nature. And so the Taoists were responsible for things like acupuncture, herbalism Tai Chi, Feng Shui, an incredible rich culture.
Okay.
[00:06:40] Personal Experience with Tai Chi[00:06:40] Tony Winyard: In the early 90s I lived in Hong Kong and I remember one night I was coming back from a club and it was about 5, 5. 30, 6 o’clock in the morning and it was dawn and I was walking through a park with a friend and I saw hundreds of old people. All moving really slowly. And I’d never come across Tai Chi before.
I was in my, I think I was in my mid twenties or something and it was like something outta some like horror film. I thought, what the hell is going on? It was hundreds of old people moving really slowly and I didn’t know what they were doing. But obviously now I know it was Tai Chi, but it was an amazing site.
Yeah.
[00:07:22] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: and I was in China in 2019
masters in Beijing and many of them in their health really
see. True. Those cultivating your energy is
[00:07:37] Tony Winyard: something we should all learn as kids.
[00:07:39] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: so does this
[00:07:40] The Connection to Dao De Ching[00:07:40] Tony Winyard: relate back to the Tao de Ching and Lao Tzu and so on, or no? Yes it does.
[00:07:44] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: Exactly. Exactly. The Tao de ching is the pre- eminent, all the scholars in China agree that the Dao route that says that right at the beginning, the Dao that can be spoken is not the Dao know. So it’s a very mystical Have you read that book?
Have you
[00:08:02] Tony Winyard: read or, yeah. I’ve, I read, , Dr. Wayne Dyer did a book,about the Tao, which I found absolutely fascinating. And I remember when I was reading it and I was on a tube in London and I went five stops past where I was supposed to get off ’cause I was so engrossed in the book and I realized, oh, I was supposed to get off.
I stops. Yeah, it’s an amazing book.
[00:08:24] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: It’s just full of wisdom that we need now. The leader is not known by his, followers because there’s so much good in the land.
let’s go back
[00:08:38] Tony Winyard: then.
[00:08:38] Personal Journey into Qigong and Tai Chi[00:08:38] Tony Winyard: What was it that first got you into all this? How did you come across this in the first place? Ah, that’s a great
[00:08:45] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: question. when I was
[00:08:47] Tony Winyard: 21
[00:08:48] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: experiencing, I had basically a friend, a yoga teacher. She wanted me to go up to London to support her because she had to give a talk at this ashram. I went, not knowing what I was letting myself in for. It was this Indian ashram, and like you when you saw those people in the park, I walk into this place and there’s an incense and…
I’m like, what the hell, where am I, you know? Anyway, I was there for my friend, so I was just being a friendly person, you know. So I sat down on the floor. The teacher, that she, wasn’t there. It was his ashram, but he was in India. And as soon as I sat down, I had this, it felt like I
was full of love. You know, full of this love that was just It’s really hard to describe. Just And I had it for three days and three nights. It was just sort of classic awakening, you know. And I’ll be walking around the street, you know, loving everyone, loving the insects, loving the grass, loving my enemies.
I just had so much love, And I was like, oh my god. And then I spent the next ten years trying to recreate that. So I was serving this particular teacher. I actually ran an ashram. But what happened for me was a very interesting journey. What happened was that I suddenly had this split. Because I was a professional musician at the time, you have to remember.
So I had this split between my worldly life and my spiritual life. When I was at the ashram and I was meditating and chanting, I felt great. But when I went into my life, I couldn’t. And eventually, after about 10 years, this, maybe a little bit longer, 12 years,it manifested as a physical problem. I was going to India regularly to see my teacher, and I got amoebae dyssentry.
Basically, I was in pain, and it was horrible.
Anyway, I was trying everything to get rid of it. Western medicine, chiropractor, Chinese herbs. I tried everything. Everything. Nothing would get rid of it. It was driving me nuts. And my girlfriend at the time, we were living in London, she said, hey, why don’t you try a microbiotic consultation? so there’s this place in London, you might remember it, I don’t know if you’re old street, but it’s called the Community Health Foundation.
I went there, and the owner of the, the consultant looked at me, and he knew I had this problem, and He says, here we are the most evolved species on the planet and we’re blaming all these single celled organisms for all our problems. And I’ll never forget that statement. It just blew me away. I was like, yeah, of course.
And he looked at me and he said, look, you just make your system stronger, and you’ll easily get rid of the amoebas and everything will be fine. And he was dead right.
[00:11:24] The Impact of Diet on Health[00:11:24] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: And up to then I hadn’t worked on my diet or anything. So, microbiosis really comes from China. It’s more, originally Japan, but the influence is China.
So I just changed my diet. And within three months, not only did I heal my amoebas, but my whole outlook on life changed. I went on, and so I decided then, to move away from the immune system and study my colitis. And I took a training course. On that training course was a friend of mine, and he introduced me to someone called Mantak Chia.
He’s very proficient in those things.
And I became his student, basically. I actually became a senior student in his organisation I lived in. And when I was there, people invited me to come and teach in different places. So that’s how I started, basically. It’s a very interesting journey, you know. And now I can honestly say that since that experience of that opening, now I can ground that experience.
That experience is still pretty constant for me these days. I really feel my heart very open, but that I’m very grounded as well. And that’s what I want to teach people, because I see people on the spiritual path, or any sort of exercise path, oftentimes they go up, and they go down, and up. So I’m trying to teach people how to make it consistent.
Mission. It’s a long story, but I hope it puts across the journey. So
[00:12:49] Teaching Qigong and Tai Chi[00:12:49] Tony Winyard: the people you’re working with in Bali, is that locals? Is it expats? Is it online? Or
[00:12:56] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: how is it? Most of my training, because of COVID, I moved online. I was travelling a lot before COVID. And
actually it was a very good thing for me because I could spend more time with people. So since then I’ve been mentoring international students all over the world. I teach a little bit, but not too much. Every month for a couple of sessions, because I haven’t really put energy into it yet, but I’m planning to do more.
And so from what you said before, is it that you would
[00:13:31] Tony Winyard: start people off with Qigong and then maybe move them into Tai Chi? No, I start
[00:13:37] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: them with Qigong and then we move into the Taoist internal alchemy, which is all about, it’s a meditation practice but it’s not a head centred meditation.
[00:13:48] The Importance of Emotional Balance[00:13:48] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: It’s not about stilling the mind. It’s about getting the body really healthy. for example, in, in Daoism, we say that the mind is the body mind.
So when I first met Mantak Chia, he looked at me, and he didn’t give me any spiritual advice. He just said, strengthen your lungs, Andrew. That’s all he said to me, strengthen your lungs. So it’s a very unique way of looking at life. And it’s very proactive, actually. So if you take care of the body, your spiritual life actually takes care of itself
that’s what I learned. And so
[00:14:19] Tony Winyard: how did you go about strengthening your lungs through DAO
[00:14:24] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: practice? Okay. Dao practice through, for example, smiling at them, releasing toxins out of them. There’s a very famous Taoist thing called the
smile in the soul, and you open up the, to bring in these, these qualities that the lungs can actually embody, which is strength. The lungs have a
connection
[00:14:45] Tony Winyard: to inner strength,
[00:14:47] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: and every, every organ has a spiritual quality to. for example, the kidneys
[00:14:51] Tony Winyard: give you wisdom.
[00:14:52] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: But also, those organs store a lot of what we consider, especially these days, after everyone’s so expressive on social media, but those organs also contain what we call, distortions of those virtues. So the liver can get very angry and frustrated, the lungs can get sad and depressed, and so it’s wonderful for people once they start to see that their emotions are directly connected to their organ systems.
And it’s so powerful. It makes such a difference. I have so many people coming to me who have done all these meditation practices, but they never touch their organs. And once they do their organs, they see, Oh my God, I bypassed all this stuff, I bypassed all this anger, I bypassed my sexuality, because I wanted to have this spiritual awakening.
I mean, I’m 66 now, but…
So, would this… I…
[00:15:44] Tony Winyard: My intuition, and this is probably wrong, it’s saying that I’m, it may be, this is going to be more difficult for younger people than older people or how, what is your experience?
[00:15:55] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: my students, I’m lucky I have a whole range of students, I have young students and veterans as well, I think your intuition’s right, I think most young people, their adrenal energy, their kidney energy, their sexual energy, it’s like, they’re not thinking about spirituality, they’re not thinking proactively, they’re not thinking about that.
So I think your intuition is right about that. It’s just that I’ve been around a long time and people know about me and so I tend to attract all sorts of people. One of my students is very young. And does
it
[00:16:27] Tony Winyard: make any difference, obviously, you said you’ve transitioned to working online whereas before you were working face to face. Is it, is there anything, if you were learning this online, is there anything that you would miss by not being, interacting with the teacher? It’s
[00:16:47] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: Because what I noticed when I was teaching, I’d be teaching weekends with people. Of course they have that interaction with me, but they don’t have that ongoing reaction with me. So I’m mentoring people, I’m working with people constantly. One training that I do we meet every week, you know, so people are meeting for six months.
Really
helpful for people to have someone to meet with every week.
[00:17:13] Tony Winyard: can you think of any sort of examples, case studies or whatever, where someone’s come to you, they know nothing about Qigong, and they’ve… Experience some things which they just weren’t expecting. Oh yeah,
[00:17:26] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: that’s just, if you look on my website, you can see all the beginnings.
It’s a form, wuji gong, it’s a living form, it’s very special. When people practice that, they feel energy, and they feel their hearts starting to open. And so they start to have these experiences, spiritual experiences. I’m just doing this for, so if you go on my website, there’s so many stories written.
[00:17:51] Tony Winyard: And is it something that you would just do, for people who are learning? Is it something you would do once a week, or would you have a session with you, say, and then practice it on a daily basis? How would
[00:18:02] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: people start this?
[00:18:11] Tony Winyard: ith wuji gong they can either learn with me in person.. and they have it for life W
And so do you teach people Tai Chi as well? I
[00:18:16] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: haven’t for a long time. Okay. I haven’t for a long time. The last time I taught Tai Chi was in this form, this Fuji Gong form. I just think that people don’t have the time, they’re so busy. They want something really simple, they want to learn it fast and they want to get results.
So,So, Tai Chi, you need a good three years. So I’m more interested in trying to really help people make a breakthrough in their life. What I’ve done is I’ve tested, and this
Wuji Gong that I teach is
there’s
[00:18:55] Tony Winyard: lots of places around, virtually anywhere in the world where you go and there’s people teaching Tai Chi. So if someone just goes and starts learning Tai Chi, but they haven’t learned Qi Gong first, what is it that they’ll be missing?
[00:19:12] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: I don’t think they’ll be missing anything, because they don’t know, right? And and sure, just slowing their body down and learning that it’s going to have benefits. It’s not going to not. It is, it’s just that it’s much slower in my experience than this. It’s actually called Tai Chi for Enlightenment.
So the story behind this form is that the original founder of Tai Chi, his name is Zhang Sanfeng still this semi legendary figure about a thousand years ago, but he’s accredited with teaching the original Tai Chi form.
And, as far as we know, he also taught a
And,
[00:19:54] Tony Winyard: if I remember rightly, isn’t there something, women have more difficulty, something about their hormonal system with this?
[00:20:00] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: Uh, uh, generally, I would say, in life, most,
I would say most,
probably you don’t get women having hormonal issues.
[00:20:18] The Role of Women in Qigong and Tai Chi[00:20:18] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: Most of the women that I’ve dealt with, so many of them have hormonal issues, it’s real.
And it’s accepted as normal now, to have periods. Or to have endometriosis, or to have, like, when you have your period to be really super tired, or, all of those things are not natural. And you would go to a Chinese doctor and they would give you herbs that can address it. But this is a very deep issue.
I have a programme that addresses it. It’s about women not feeling safe in the world, actually. The truth that we live in a world where women, for thousands of years, they’ve been abused by
the patriarchy in their cells, of not feeling safe. And then they have to live in this world, and so unconsciously they make this decision. Oh yeah, I don’t really feel safe here, but I’m gonna do it anyway. And that’s what causes, that’s the root of the hormonal issue. So I have this program on my website, it’s called, Hormonal Balance for Women, or Bone Breathing.
And all the women that go through that program, everyone is there. Heals their period pain, all their emotions. Heals, uh, uh, osteoporosis. it’s unbelievable, this program. And it’s not about taking herbs, it’s not about, hormone replacement therapy. They don’t have to take anything, it’s all within themselves. They have to learn a very simple massage of the breasts, and activate the hormone glands, and they have to learn and start to do that.
I’m very proud of that program. And
how
[00:21:58] Tony Winyard: long does that program
[00:21:59] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: last? It’s a, it’s a four, three hour, four, three, no, three, three hour training.
[00:22:15] Tony Winyard: And I guess we should mention Telegram as in WhatsApp rather than like Telegrams.
[00:22:22] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: Yeah, Telegram,the group.
[00:22:24] Tony Winyard: Yeah.
[00:22:25] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: Telegram chat. yeah. Similar to WhatsApp, but I like Telegram because I can put videos there, I can put articles. It’s really quite good for teaching this.
yeah.
[00:22:36] Tony Winyard: have you got many people who have been working with you for a long time?
[00:22:40] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: Yes, most of my students. I have this reputation, I mean, this reputation, I mean, people come to me through word of mouth. And
then when they come, they usually stay for a long time. But many of them become teachers. Right. I’m still I’m still mentoring them and helping them.
[00:23:00] Tony Winyard: And so if someone wanted to become a teacher, how long would that take?
[00:23:05] The Process of Becoming a Qigong and Tai Chi Teacher[00:23:05] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: There’s a six month program that I have on my website. It’s called Alchemy School.
It’s, I say six months, you’re not busy for that whole six months. You do meet with me once a week for the six weeks and we do all the other… And then there’s also intensive weekend trainings where I’m teaching the formulas. The formulas of sexual alchemy. So
that is a progressive training that people go through. But they can also do the Wu Ji Gong teaching training. That’s easier. There’s not so much commitment. Or online exam
Or online exam There’s many options for
[00:23:56] Tony Winyard: people to become teachers. Yeah, with my
[00:24:03] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: school. so the wuji gong is like easier to qualify for because it’s simple to teach and you still have to connect to it, So there are two levels, yeah, there’s the wuji gong and then most of the people that do the wuji gong teacher training, they then come into my deeper system.
[00:24:24] Tony Winyard: And obviously by learning to teach that, they’re also going to develop so much within themselves, just in that whole process. They have to.
[00:24:33] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: In my school, they certify themselves. And that’s wonderful.
[00:24:43] Tony Winyard: in that training, would they be learning aspects of, breathing and nutrition and so on, and maybe stress management, or what, would they be covering
[00:24:52] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: things along those lines? not so much nutrition. Uh, you know, diet sorts itself out when you heal yourself.
[00:24:58] The Importance of Emotional Health in Qigong and Tai Chi[00:24:58] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: Organs. It’s simple as that.
Okay. But usually an imbalance in eating is related to the organ systems not being, so I don’t really teach too much something else. We are also different in that respect, No, mostly it’s about where
that is rising. Okay. So the basic teaching here, and this is the big difference between what pushes and the Western psychological approach only focuses on,
focuses on what’s creating thoughts and feelings. So if we get our energy really clear and healthy, our thoughts and feelings naturally take care of themselves. And naturally become more loving. But you have to dig down, because there’s so much childhood wounding, ancestral wounding, stored in our organs.
So part of the training with me is first of all, let’s clear out those wounds. And then amazing things happen, you know, we start to feel more energy, sleep better, all sorts of things. A proven system.
[00:26:09] Tony Winyard: Oh, and on that, isn’t there? my understanding is in China there was a period, I think it was sometime in the 20th century where some of this was suppressed, but now it seems to be resurgent. is that correct? Yeah,
[00:26:21] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: that’s exactly right. So basically what happened during the cultural revolution, they took everything that was spiritual outta the medicine, outta traditional.
So it was no longer classical because they removed all of the spiritual reference. So I called TC. Traditional Chinese medicine. And basically, all of the real masters, they all fled to Taiwan and other places like Hong Kong. Because they were being killed, basically. Because they were, they had special powers. they could see things.
One of them, I remember very specifically, he predicted mass incarceration in the prison. And he actually went into a very deep meditation. and the guards thought he was dead dead and they thrown out stories
[00:27:13] Tony Winyard: like that. Wow. but now it is really resurgent in China though, isn’t it?
[00:27:17] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: yes and no. And it’s, but listen, China is a little bit like Japan.
It’s very split. Okay? So there’s all these big cities and this neon and and those people in those cities, they have no idea of the Taoist culture. And how do I know that? Because I’ve spoken to some monks when they go to the city and they’re dressed in the typical Taoist wear. The young Chinese, or even the older Chinese, will look at them and say, Oh, which country do you come from?
You must be somewhere from very strange. And they realise it’s their culture, there’s definitely a split in China. the scientific, and the western values, and then there’s tradition. And there’s still a lot of very beautiful, spiritual places.
[00:28:07] Tony Winyard: Are there
Are there any myths around Qi Gong you would like to dispel? The things that people think, which is simply incorrect.
[00:28:21] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: I mean maybe this, Mantak Chia is really famous for sexual energy cultivation. His first book was called Cultivating Male Sexual Energy. And I would say that maybe one of the myths is that if you, that you can do that without spiritually developing, and I say you can’t, because actually many men, they did that approach.
And they got into all sorts of trouble because they weren’t emotionally mature enough to deal with the increase of energy that practice brings. So now, for example, I never teach men the sexual practice until I’ve done it. So that would
be one myth,
In fact, to be emotional, to be multi orgasmic, you have to really have opened your heart. Because you can’t just do it through physical.
[00:29:23] Tony Winyard: I imagine, look, let me go back and change. You know the book Meditations by Marcus Aurelius? Yes. Now I remember I was reading this with a few other people and then it became apparent that we were reading different translations and it made a massive difference depending on which translation we were reading and we weren’t necessarily reading the same thing.
So is the same thing, true for Dao De Qing as well?
which would you recommend?
[00:29:53] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: I think the one by Clary is really good, Thomas Clary. Okay.
[00:30:01] Tony Winyard: And, and let’s stay with books. is there a book that’s really moved you at any point in your life?
[00:30:06] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: Yeah, I, and it’s Nourishing Destiny, that’s the inner tradition of Chinese people. here is a master, he’s a western master.
Because he meets Chinese, because he can understand it, he’s written this amazing book about constitutional medicine. It’s a big book. okay. Yeah. But that book is…
Yeah, it’s my favourite book. It’s very easy to read actually. Um,website, my
[00:30:42] Tony Winyard: own website is called woojee.
[00:30:54] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: com
Website at the bottom is my Facebook. The book called Emotional Alchemy I can get on Amazon is Hidden Within Painful People. And
[00:31:07] Tony Winyard: who is the
[00:31:08] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: book aimed at?
This is what the mind does. The rational mind cannot understand the irrational. You have to build your earth strong enough to build a center where you can hold your
mind, your thoughts, and also hold your feelings. That takes size. So my book teaches you how to do that. It also teaches you how to… Go into very painful feelings and draw the energy that’s trapped and reclaim them. That’s the one area that all the humanity is very immature. We’re very advanced scientifically.
We’re very advanced mentally, intellectually, with emotionally we’re very bad. This
[00:32:06] The Cultural Differences in Emotion Perception[00:32:06] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: is all to do with emotional body. People just don’t like how they feel, so they project that out.
[00:32:13] Tony Winyard: What would you say about the way people think of emotion in the West compared to the east??
[00:32:21] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: Oh, that’s a great question. I mean,that’s a fascinating question. in the West, we, we take everything personally, right?
But in the East, they, they, they don’t. they don’t. They suppress their personal feelings, and they try and make the outer world, the family, the job, it’s terrible. They completely suppress their feelings. And they make the group or the family, more important than their personal feelings.
So it’s very different. very different.
They both
[00:32:48] Tony Winyard: we’re about to finish Andrew. So have you got, that’s okay. Have you got a quote that resonates with you for any reason? Oh yeah.
[00:32:55] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: This is my favorite Heaven, no, heaven and Earth code words in, earth is everything we can see.
Anything that has, and then heaven for the Taoists, the invisible, so like our soul. And the scientists will tell you, yeah, yeah, it’s all happening here, but we feel it in our bodies, right? So what this means is that when we embrace our earthly life, when we accept all of our, all of the bad things, the things that we miss, we accept that all of these experiences in our life, that’s when heaven will come.
And do you know who it was that said that? Well,
[00:34:19] Conclusion and Farewell[00:34:19] Tony Winyard: Andrew, it’s been fascinating. It’s been very educational and yeah, fascinating. so thank you. Yeah, thank you for sharing your wisdom and experience and everything. It’s been, really, yeah, really enjoyed it. Thank you.
Join me on next week’s edition of the Art of Living proactively for an illuminating interview with pioneering healer, dr. Ellen Cutler. Dr. Cutler’s revolutionary E C M method targets, food sensitivities, improper digestion, and other overlooked root causes behind countless chronic health conditions.
We will discover how conditions from obesity to auto immunity can often be traced back to hidden reactivities wreaking havoc, and learn dr. Cutler’s science-based yet natural approach to gently reboot the body’s ability to self heal. With over 40 years, clinical experience and thousands of patients helped worldwide.
Dr. Ellen Cutler is an incredible wealth of wisdom on empowering vitality. Tune in to learn about optimizing your microbiome, clearing traumas, and embracing longevity through her breakthrough protocols. It promises to be an eyeopening and inspirational show. So hit subscribe on your podcast, player and YouTube, and be sure to leave us a review.
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And I look forward to having you join us next week, as we uncover a new vision of health with the brilliant Dr. Ellen Cutler.
LInks:* Andrew Kenneth Fretwell on Facebook * Tao Alchemy on Instagram * Wu Ji School of Inner Alchemy Andrew's book:Emotional Alchemy: The Love & Freedom Hidden Within Painful FeelingsRecommended books:Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao by Wayne W. DyerNourishing Destiny: The Inner Tradition of Chinese Medicine by Lonny S. JarrettFavourite Quote
"Embrace the Earth and Heaven will Chase You"
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TranscriptEmailDownloadNew TabAndrew Kenneth Fretwell – 248 –
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Can you feel that? There’s energy in the air. An ancient power ready to be harnessed. I’m Tony Winyard and in this electrifying episode of the Art of Living Proactively podcast, we’ll be unlocking the secrets of Qigong, China’s time tested system for tapping into your vital life force.
My guest today, Andrew Kenneth Fretwell, an expert guide to energizing and enlightening practices of Qigong and Tai Chi. Andrew will reveal how techniques like bone breathing and organ strengthening meditations can sharpen your mind, strengthen your body and awaken your spirit. We will discover the Taoist path to balance, emotional mastery and realising your potential by harnessing Jing, your essential energy..
From movement to mindfulness, it promises to be an inspirational and informative show. So relax, hit subscribe and join me on this journey to the proactive side of life. When you’ve listened, please share your impressions in YouTube comments. For now, let’s begin unlocking the power within.
[00:01:10] Introduction and Guest Welcome
—
[00:01:10] Tony Winyard: Welcome to another edition of The Art of Living Proactively. My guest today, Andrew Kenneth Fretwell. How are you doing, Andrew? I’m doing amazing. And we’re in a pretty amazing place today, aren’t we?
[00:01:24] Living in Ubud, Bali
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[00:01:24] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: Yes, I live in
[00:01:25] Tony Winyard: Ubud Bali. And, we were speaking before the recording started, but Indonesia is a place I lived in for seven years, so I know well, and I know how beautiful Bali is.
It’s quite
[00:01:39] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: magical. It’s one of the reasons I moved here. The energy of nature here is so powerful. Especially where I live, in the woods, which is more up in the mountains. Breeze and,
[00:01:58] Tony Winyard: a lot more green. In the popular places, which is… Absolutely.
[00:02:05] The Power of Qigong
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[00:02:05] Tony Winyard: it’s something I tell all my students.
[00:02:12] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: I’ve been teaching Qigong for many years, and I tell my students, if I’d known this when I was young, I would have been much more proactive. I think one of the things that we have to understand is that when we’re young, especially in our 20s and 30s, we have a lot of what the Daoists call Jing, which is equivalent to like adrenal energy, if you like.
[00:02:31] The Importance of Conserving Energy
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[00:02:31] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: And what I would have liked a mentor to tell me all those years ago is, be careful with your Jing, it’s very precious. And if you want to live a really healthy life, you need to conserve it. So that would be my analogy for anyone, is to learn how to conserve your dream, especially when you’re young. Because
[00:02:53] Tony Winyard: it will pay dividends for you, when you’re older.
[00:02:58] Sexual Energy and Life Force
—
[00:02:58] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: if you’re a man, you have to, make sure you don’t ejaculate too much. That’s really important. And to transform that energy into life force, men and women are a little bit different, okay? So men lose most of their energy through ejaculation. That’s how we lose our life force, right? And women lose it through their period and through giving birth.
Sexually, women are much more, we could say, from the Taoist point of view, which is my tradition, they’re much more, at a sexual level, they’re much more, they don’t waste energy when they have sex. one of the things that I teach is, I teach men how to have orgasm without ejaculation. And that’s a really important factor.
The Chinese master this.
and The Empress used to have more than one wife.
[00:03:46] Tony Winyard: So you, let’s, to, for explanation for listeners who maybe aren’t aware. an instructor for Qigong and also for Tai Chi I believe as well, aren’t you?
[00:03:56] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: yes. So basically any of the Chinese arts, the Taoist arts. So
[00:04:01] Understanding Qigong and Tai Chi
—
[00:04:01] Tony Winyard: some people probably aren’t really so familiar with, what is Qigong?
What is Tai Chi? can you explain? sure.
[00:04:09] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: So Qigong is not like exercise. If you watch anyone doing Qigong on the park, Very graceful movements. And they are. They’re very graceful, very beautiful. And basically, Qigong is older than Tai Chi. And there are literally thousands of different forms.
[00:04:27] The Benefits of Qigong
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[00:04:27] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: And the whole purpose of Qigong, not only is it for health and vitality, but it’s for your internal, to make your internal energy a mirror of nature. This is the main key with Qigong. You have to make your internal, because basically the Taoists say, That nature is connected to the Tao, is connected to the source.
There’s no separation. But us human beings, because we have a mind, and because we can interpret life, and make stories up about neutral experiences of life, then what we do is we basically change our energy. We restrict our energy. we get old quicker than we should do. And things like this, right?
the Taoist arts are really directed at really Developing yourself spiritually. So even though the health benefits are enormous, the real reason is to develop your consciousness, what the Daoists call your energy body or your soul, and to make it more real in your life. That’s the real purpose.
[00:05:29] The Challenges of Learning Tai Chi
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[00:05:29] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: And then Tai Chi is much more difficult to learn because it’s very structured and it’s very much about martial arts.
It’s a fighting form actually. But Tai Chi is, it takes a lot of discipline and it takes many years to really be good in Tai Chi. Whereas Qigong, I teach this very simple form, and people can learn it in 2 3 hour sessions, and it’s very powerful as well, so that’s one of the reasons I teach something that’s more simple.
[00:05:57] Tony Winyard: Qigong is more about breathing and the breath work?
[00:06:00] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: no. Ok. Qigong is about moving your body. Okay. In alignment with nature. So it looks very similar to Tai Chi, it’s just that it’s not so structured and it’s easier to learn.
Okay. sometimes they say Qigong is the mother of Tai Chi.
[00:06:16] The Connection Between Qigong and Nature
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[00:06:16] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: Basically, these Taoist monks and, these adepts, they looked at the way birds moved, and animals moved, and they said, oh, if we start to move like that, maybe we’ll be more connected to nature. And so the Taoists were responsible for things like acupuncture, herbalism Tai Chi, Feng Shui, an incredible rich culture.
Okay.
[00:06:40] Personal Experience with Tai Chi
—
[00:06:40] Tony Winyard: In the early 90s I lived in Hong Kong and I remember one night I was coming back from a club and it was about 5, 5. 30, 6 o’clock in the morning and it was dawn and I was walking through a park with a friend and I saw hundreds of old people. All moving really slowly. And I’d never come across Tai Chi before.
I was in my, I think I was in my mid twenties or something and it was like something outta some like horror film. I thought, what the hell is going on? It was hundreds of old people moving really slowly and I didn’t know what they were doing. But obviously now I know it was Tai Chi, but it was an amazing site.
Yeah.
[00:07:22] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: and I was in China in 2019
masters in Beijing and many of them in their health really
see. True. Those cultivating your energy is
[00:07:37] Tony Winyard: something we should all learn as kids.
[00:07:39] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: so does this
[00:07:40] The Connection to Dao De Ching
—
[00:07:40] Tony Winyard: relate back to the Tao de Ching and Lao Tzu and so on, or no? Yes it does.
[00:07:44] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: Exactly. Exactly. The Tao de ching is the pre- eminent, all the scholars in China agree that the Dao route that says that right at the beginning, the Dao that can be spoken is not the Dao know. So it’s a very mystical Have you read that book?
Have you
[00:08:02] Tony Winyard: read or, yeah. I’ve, I read, , Dr. Wayne Dyer did a book,about the Tao, which I found absolutely fascinating. And I remember when I was reading it and I was on a tube in London and I went five stops past where I was supposed to get off ’cause I was so engrossed in the book and I realized, oh, I was supposed to get off.
I stops. Yeah, it’s an amazing book.
[00:08:24] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: It’s just full of wisdom that we need now. The leader is not known by his, followers because there’s so much good in the land.
let’s go back
[00:08:38] Tony Winyard: then.
[00:08:38] Personal Journey into Qigong and Tai Chi
—
[00:08:38] Tony Winyard: What was it that first got you into all this? How did you come across this in the first place? Ah, that’s a great
[00:08:45] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: question. when I was
[00:08:47] Tony Winyard: 21
[00:08:48] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: experiencing, I had basically a friend, a yoga teacher. She wanted me to go up to London to support her because she had to give a talk at this ashram. I went, not knowing what I was letting myself in for. It was this Indian ashram, and like you when you saw those people in the park, I walk into this place and there’s an incense and…
I’m like, what the hell, where am I, you know? Anyway, I was there for my friend, so I was just being a friendly person, you know. So I sat down on the floor. The teacher, that she, wasn’t there. It was his ashram, but he was in India. And as soon as I sat down, I had this, it felt like I
was full of love. You know, full of this love that was just It’s really hard to describe. Just And I had it for three days and three nights. It was just sort of classic awakening, you know. And I’ll be walking around the street, you know, loving everyone, loving the insects, loving the grass, loving my enemies.
I just had so much love, And I was like, oh my god. And then I spent the next ten years trying to recreate that. So I was serving this particular teacher. I actually ran an ashram. But what happened for me was a very interesting journey. What happened was that I suddenly had this split. Because I was a professional musician at the time, you have to remember.
So I had this split between my worldly life and my spiritual life. When I was at the ashram and I was meditating and chanting, I felt great. But when I went into my life, I couldn’t. And eventually, after about 10 years, this, maybe a little bit longer, 12 years,it manifested as a physical problem. I was going to India regularly to see my teacher, and I got amoebae dyssentry.
Basically, I was in pain, and it was horrible.
Anyway, I was trying everything to get rid of it. Western medicine, chiropractor, Chinese herbs. I tried everything. Everything. Nothing would get rid of it. It was driving me nuts. And my girlfriend at the time, we were living in London, she said, hey, why don’t you try a microbiotic consultation? so there’s this place in London, you might remember it, I don’t know if you’re old street, but it’s called the Community Health Foundation.
I went there, and the owner of the, the consultant looked at me, and he knew I had this problem, and He says, here we are the most evolved species on the planet and we’re blaming all these single celled organisms for all our problems. And I’ll never forget that statement. It just blew me away. I was like, yeah, of course.
And he looked at me and he said, look, you just make your system stronger, and you’ll easily get rid of the amoebas and everything will be fine. And he was dead right.
[00:11:24] The Impact of Diet on Health
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[00:11:24] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: And up to then I hadn’t worked on my diet or anything. So, microbiosis really comes from China. It’s more, originally Japan, but the influence is China.
So I just changed my diet. And within three months, not only did I heal my amoebas, but my whole outlook on life changed. I went on, and so I decided then, to move away from the immune system and study my colitis. And I took a training course. On that training course was a friend of mine, and he introduced me to someone called Mantak Chia.
He’s very proficient in those things.
And I became his student, basically. I actually became a senior student in his organisation I lived in. And when I was there, people invited me to come and teach in different places. So that’s how I started, basically. It’s a very interesting journey, you know. And now I can honestly say that since that experience of that opening, now I can ground that experience.
That experience is still pretty constant for me these days. I really feel my heart very open, but that I’m very grounded as well. And that’s what I want to teach people, because I see people on the spiritual path, or any sort of exercise path, oftentimes they go up, and they go down, and up. So I’m trying to teach people how to make it consistent.
Mission. It’s a long story, but I hope it puts across the journey. So
[00:12:49] Teaching Qigong and Tai Chi
—
[00:12:49] Tony Winyard: the people you’re working with in Bali, is that locals? Is it expats? Is it online? Or
[00:12:56] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: how is it? Most of my training, because of COVID, I moved online. I was travelling a lot before COVID. And
actually it was a very good thing for me because I could spend more time with people. So since then I’ve been mentoring international students all over the world. I teach a little bit, but not too much. Every month for a couple of sessions, because I haven’t really put energy into it yet, but I’m planning to do more.
And so from what you said before, is it that you would
[00:13:31] Tony Winyard: start people off with Qigong and then maybe move them into Tai Chi? No, I start
[00:13:37] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: them with Qigong and then we move into the Taoist internal alchemy, which is all about, it’s a meditation practice but it’s not a head centred meditation.
[00:13:48] The Importance of Emotional Balance
—
[00:13:48] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: It’s not about stilling the mind. It’s about getting the body really healthy. for example, in, in Daoism, we say that the mind is the body mind.
So when I first met Mantak Chia, he looked at me, and he didn’t give me any spiritual advice. He just said, strengthen your lungs, Andrew. That’s all he said to me, strengthen your lungs. So it’s a very unique way of looking at life. And it’s very proactive, actually. So if you take care of the body, your spiritual life actually takes care of itself
that’s what I learned. And so
[00:14:19] Tony Winyard: how did you go about strengthening your lungs through DAO
[00:14:24] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: practice? Okay. Dao practice through, for example, smiling at them, releasing toxins out of them. There’s a very famous Taoist thing called the
smile in the soul, and you open up the, to bring in these, these qualities that the lungs can actually embody, which is strength. The lungs have a
connection
[00:14:45] Tony Winyard: to inner strength,
[00:14:47] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: and every, every organ has a spiritual quality to. for example, the kidneys
[00:14:51] Tony Winyard: give you wisdom.
[00:14:52] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: But also, those organs store a lot of what we consider, especially these days, after everyone’s so expressive on social media, but those organs also contain what we call, distortions of those virtues. So the liver can get very angry and frustrated, the lungs can get sad and depressed, and so it’s wonderful for people once they start to see that their emotions are directly connected to their organ systems.
And it’s so powerful. It makes such a difference. I have so many people coming to me who have done all these meditation practices, but they never touch their organs. And once they do their organs, they see, Oh my God, I bypassed all this stuff, I bypassed all this anger, I bypassed my sexuality, because I wanted to have this spiritual awakening.
I mean, I’m 66 now, but…
So, would this… I…
[00:15:44] Tony Winyard: My intuition, and this is probably wrong, it’s saying that I’m, it may be, this is going to be more difficult for younger people than older people or how, what is your experience?
[00:15:55] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: my students, I’m lucky I have a whole range of students, I have young students and veterans as well, I think your intuition’s right, I think most young people, their adrenal energy, their kidney energy, their sexual energy, it’s like, they’re not thinking about spirituality, they’re not thinking proactively, they’re not thinking about that.
So I think your intuition is right about that. It’s just that I’ve been around a long time and people know about me and so I tend to attract all sorts of people. One of my students is very young. And does
it
[00:16:27] Tony Winyard: make any difference, obviously, you said you’ve transitioned to working online whereas before you were working face to face. Is it, is there anything, if you were learning this online, is there anything that you would miss by not being, interacting with the teacher? It’s
[00:16:47] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: Because what I noticed when I was teaching, I’d be teaching weekends with people. Of course they have that interaction with me, but they don’t have that ongoing reaction with me. So I’m mentoring people, I’m working with people constantly. One training that I do we meet every week, you know, so people are meeting for six months.
Really
helpful for people to have someone to meet with every week.
[00:17:13] Tony Winyard: can you think of any sort of examples, case studies or whatever, where someone’s come to you, they know nothing about Qigong, and they’ve… Experience some things which they just weren’t expecting. Oh yeah,
[00:17:26] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: that’s just, if you look on my website, you can see all the beginnings.
It’s a form, wuji gong, it’s a living form, it’s very special. When people practice that, they feel energy, and they feel their hearts starting to open. And so they start to have these experiences, spiritual experiences. I’m just doing this for, so if you go on my website, there’s so many stories written.
[00:17:51] Tony Winyard: And is it something that you would just do, for people who are learning? Is it something you would do once a week, or would you have a session with you, say, and then practice it on a daily basis? How would
[00:18:02] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: people start this?
[00:18:11] Tony Winyard: ith wuji gong they can either learn with me in person.. and they have it for life W
And so do you teach people Tai Chi as well? I
[00:18:16] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: haven’t for a long time. Okay. I haven’t for a long time. The last time I taught Tai Chi was in this form, this Fuji Gong form. I just think that people don’t have the time, they’re so busy. They want something really simple, they want to learn it fast and they want to get results.
So,So, Tai Chi, you need a good three years. So I’m more interested in trying to really help people make a breakthrough in their life. What I’ve done is I’ve tested, and this
Wuji Gong that I teach is
there’s
[00:18:55] Tony Winyard: lots of places around, virtually anywhere in the world where you go and there’s people teaching Tai Chi. So if someone just goes and starts learning Tai Chi, but they haven’t learned Qi Gong first, what is it that they’ll be missing?
[00:19:12] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: I don’t think they’ll be missing anything, because they don’t know, right? And and sure, just slowing their body down and learning that it’s going to have benefits. It’s not going to not. It is, it’s just that it’s much slower in my experience than this. It’s actually called Tai Chi for Enlightenment.
So the story behind this form is that the original founder of Tai Chi, his name is Zhang Sanfeng still this semi legendary figure about a thousand years ago, but he’s accredited with teaching the original Tai Chi form.
And, as far as we know, he also taught a
And,
[00:19:54] Tony Winyard: if I remember rightly, isn’t there something, women have more difficulty, something about their hormonal system with this?
[00:20:00] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: Uh, uh, generally, I would say, in life, most,
I would say most,
probably you don’t get women having hormonal issues.
[00:20:18] The Role of Women in Qigong and Tai Chi
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[00:20:18] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: Most of the women that I’ve dealt with, so many of them have hormonal issues, it’s real.
And it’s accepted as normal now, to have periods. Or to have endometriosis, or to have, like, when you have your period to be really super tired, or, all of those things are not natural. And you would go to a Chinese doctor and they would give you herbs that can address it. But this is a very deep issue.
I have a programme that addresses it. It’s about women not feeling safe in the world, actually. The truth that we live in a world where women, for thousands of years, they’ve been abused by
the patriarchy in their cells, of not feeling safe. And then they have to live in this world, and so unconsciously they make this decision. Oh yeah, I don’t really feel safe here, but I’m gonna do it anyway. And that’s what causes, that’s the root of the hormonal issue. So I have this program on my website, it’s called, Hormonal Balance for Women, or Bone Breathing.
And all the women that go through that program, everyone is there. Heals their period pain, all their emotions. Heals, uh, uh, osteoporosis. it’s unbelievable, this program. And it’s not about taking herbs, it’s not about, hormone replacement therapy. They don’t have to take anything, it’s all within themselves. They have to learn a very simple massage of the breasts, and activate the hormone glands, and they have to learn and start to do that.
I’m very proud of that program. And
how
[00:21:58] Tony Winyard: long does that program
[00:21:59] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: last? It’s a, it’s a four, three hour, four, three, no, three, three hour training.
[00:22:15] Tony Winyard: And I guess we should mention Telegram as in WhatsApp rather than like Telegrams.
[00:22:22] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: Yeah, Telegram,the group.
[00:22:24] Tony Winyard: Yeah.
[00:22:25] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: Telegram chat. yeah. Similar to WhatsApp, but I like Telegram because I can put videos there, I can put articles. It’s really quite good for teaching this.
yeah.
[00:22:36] Tony Winyard: have you got many people who have been working with you for a long time?
[00:22:40] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: Yes, most of my students. I have this reputation, I mean, this reputation, I mean, people come to me through word of mouth. And
then when they come, they usually stay for a long time. But many of them become teachers. Right. I’m still I’m still mentoring them and helping them.
[00:23:00] Tony Winyard: And so if someone wanted to become a teacher, how long would that take?
[00:23:05] The Process of Becoming a Qigong and Tai Chi Teacher
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[00:23:05] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: There’s a six month program that I have on my website. It’s called Alchemy School.
It’s, I say six months, you’re not busy for that whole six months. You do meet with me once a week for the six weeks and we do all the other… And then there’s also intensive weekend trainings where I’m teaching the formulas. The formulas of sexual alchemy. So
that is a progressive training that people go through. But they can also do the Wu Ji Gong teaching training. That’s easier. There’s not so much commitment. Or online exam
Or online exam There’s many options for
[00:23:56] Tony Winyard: people to become teachers. Yeah, with my
[00:24:03] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: school. so the wuji gong is like easier to qualify for because it’s simple to teach and you still have to connect to it, So there are two levels, yeah, there’s the wuji gong and then most of the people that do the wuji gong teacher training, they then come into my deeper system.
[00:24:24] Tony Winyard: And obviously by learning to teach that, they’re also going to develop so much within themselves, just in that whole process. They have to.
[00:24:33] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: In my school, they certify themselves. And that’s wonderful.
[00:24:43] Tony Winyard: in that training, would they be learning aspects of, breathing and nutrition and so on, and maybe stress management, or what, would they be covering
[00:24:52] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: things along those lines? not so much nutrition. Uh, you know, diet sorts itself out when you heal yourself.
[00:24:58] The Importance of Emotional Health in Qigong and Tai Chi
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[00:24:58] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: Organs. It’s simple as that.
Okay. But usually an imbalance in eating is related to the organ systems not being, so I don’t really teach too much something else. We are also different in that respect, No, mostly it’s about where
that is rising. Okay. So the basic teaching here, and this is the big difference between what pushes and the Western psychological approach only focuses on,
focuses on what’s creating thoughts and feelings. So if we get our energy really clear and healthy, our thoughts and feelings naturally take care of themselves. And naturally become more loving. But you have to dig down, because there’s so much childhood wounding, ancestral wounding, stored in our organs.
So part of the training with me is first of all, let’s clear out those wounds. And then amazing things happen, you know, we start to feel more energy, sleep better, all sorts of things. A proven system.
[00:26:09] Tony Winyard: Oh, and on that, isn’t there? my understanding is in China there was a period, I think it was sometime in the 20th century where some of this was suppressed, but now it seems to be resurgent. is that correct? Yeah,
[00:26:21] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: that’s exactly right. So basically what happened during the cultural revolution, they took everything that was spiritual outta the medicine, outta traditional.
So it was no longer classical because they removed all of the spiritual reference. So I called TC. Traditional Chinese medicine. And basically, all of the real masters, they all fled to Taiwan and other places like Hong Kong. Because they were being killed, basically. Because they were, they had special powers. they could see things.
One of them, I remember very specifically, he predicted mass incarceration in the prison. And he actually went into a very deep meditation. and the guards thought he was dead dead and they thrown out stories
[00:27:13] Tony Winyard: like that. Wow. but now it is really resurgent in China though, isn’t it?
[00:27:17] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: yes and no. And it’s, but listen, China is a little bit like Japan.
It’s very split. Okay? So there’s all these big cities and this neon and and those people in those cities, they have no idea of the Taoist culture. And how do I know that? Because I’ve spoken to some monks when they go to the city and they’re dressed in the typical Taoist wear. The young Chinese, or even the older Chinese, will look at them and say, Oh, which country do you come from?
You must be somewhere from very strange. And they realise it’s their culture, there’s definitely a split in China. the scientific, and the western values, and then there’s tradition. And there’s still a lot of very beautiful, spiritual places.
[00:28:07] Tony Winyard: Are there
Are there any myths around Qi Gong you would like to dispel? The things that people think, which is simply incorrect.
[00:28:21] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: I mean maybe this, Mantak Chia is really famous for sexual energy cultivation. His first book was called Cultivating Male Sexual Energy. And I would say that maybe one of the myths is that if you, that you can do that without spiritually developing, and I say you can’t, because actually many men, they did that approach.
And they got into all sorts of trouble because they weren’t emotionally mature enough to deal with the increase of energy that practice brings. So now, for example, I never teach men the sexual practice until I’ve done it. So that would
be one myth,
In fact, to be emotional, to be multi orgasmic, you have to really have opened your heart. Because you can’t just do it through physical.
[00:29:23] Tony Winyard: I imagine, look, let me go back and change. You know the book Meditations by Marcus Aurelius? Yes. Now I remember I was reading this with a few other people and then it became apparent that we were reading different translations and it made a massive difference depending on which translation we were reading and we weren’t necessarily reading the same thing.
So is the same thing, true for Dao De Qing as well?
which would you recommend?
[00:29:53] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: I think the one by Clary is really good, Thomas Clary. Okay.
[00:30:01] Tony Winyard: And, and let’s stay with books. is there a book that’s really moved you at any point in your life?
[00:30:06] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: Yeah, I, and it’s Nourishing Destiny, that’s the inner tradition of Chinese people. here is a master, he’s a western master.
Because he meets Chinese, because he can understand it, he’s written this amazing book about constitutional medicine. It’s a big book. okay. Yeah. But that book is…
Yeah, it’s my favourite book. It’s very easy to read actually. Um,website, my
[00:30:42] Tony Winyard: own website is called woojee.
[00:30:54] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: com
Website at the bottom is my Facebook. The book called Emotional Alchemy I can get on Amazon is Hidden Within Painful People. And
[00:31:07] Tony Winyard: who is the
[00:31:08] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: book aimed at?
This is what the mind does. The rational mind cannot understand the irrational. You have to build your earth strong enough to build a center where you can hold your
mind, your thoughts, and also hold your feelings. That takes size. So my book teaches you how to do that. It also teaches you how to… Go into very painful feelings and draw the energy that’s trapped and reclaim them. That’s the one area that all the humanity is very immature. We’re very advanced scientifically.
We’re very advanced mentally, intellectually, with emotionally we’re very bad. This
[00:32:06] The Cultural Differences in Emotion Perception
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[00:32:06] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: is all to do with emotional body. People just don’t like how they feel, so they project that out.
[00:32:13] Tony Winyard: What would you say about the way people think of emotion in the West compared to the east??
[00:32:21] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: Oh, that’s a great question. I mean,that’s a fascinating question. in the West, we, we take everything personally, right?
But in the East, they, they, they don’t. they don’t. They suppress their personal feelings, and they try and make the outer world, the family, the job, it’s terrible. They completely suppress their feelings. And they make the group or the family, more important than their personal feelings.
So it’s very different. very different.
They both
[00:32:48] Tony Winyard: we’re about to finish Andrew. So have you got, that’s okay. Have you got a quote that resonates with you for any reason? Oh yeah.
[00:32:55] Andrew Kenneth Fretwell: This is my favorite Heaven, no, heaven and Earth code words in, earth is everything we can see.
Anything that has, and then heaven for the Taoists, the invisible, so like our soul. And the scientists will tell you, yeah, yeah, it’s all happening here, but we feel it in our bodies, right? So what this means is that when we embrace our earthly life, when we accept all of our, all of the bad things, the things that we miss, we accept that all of these experiences in our life, that’s when heaven will come.
And do you know who it was that said that? Well,
[00:34:19] Conclusion and Farewell
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[00:34:19] Tony Winyard: Andrew, it’s been fascinating. It’s been very educational and yeah, fascinating. so thank you. Yeah, thank you for sharing your wisdom and experience and everything. It’s been, really, yeah, really enjoyed it. Thank you.
Join me on next week’s edition of the Art of Living proactively for an illuminating interview with pioneering healer, dr. Ellen Cutler. Dr. Cutler’s revolutionary E C M method targets, food sensitivities, improper digestion, and other overlooked root causes behind countless chronic health conditions.
We will discover how conditions from obesity to auto immunity can often be traced back to hidden reactivities wreaking havoc, and learn dr. Cutler’s science-based yet natural approach to gently reboot the body’s ability to self heal. With over 40 years, clinical experience and thousands of patients helped worldwide.
Dr. Ellen Cutler is an incredible wealth of wisdom on empowering vitality. Tune in to learn about optimizing your microbiome, clearing traumas, and embracing longevity through her breakthrough protocols. It promises to be an eyeopening and inspirational show. So hit subscribe on your podcast, player and YouTube, and be sure to leave us a review.
Visit the video in YouTube to share your comments and insights after listening.
And I look forward to having you join us next week, as we uncover a new vision of health with the brilliant Dr. Ellen Cutler.
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How often do we stop to consider the impact of light on our wellbeing? The Art of Living Proactively podcast recently explored the intriguing world of red light therapy with Wes Pfiffner, an expert from Joovv, and the insights shared were nothing short of illuminating. Join us as we delve into the power of light and its profound effects on our health and vitality.The Power of Choice:In this riveting episode, Wes Pfiffner advocates for a proactive approach to health and self-discovery. He emphasizes the significance of making informed choices, particularly when it comes to harnessing the benefits of red light therapy. From the selection of products to understanding the science behind light and its impact on our bodies, the episode serves as a catalyst for empowering individuals to take charge of their health and explore what works best for them.
Action Steps and Call to Action:Armed with the knowledge shared in this episode, listeners are encouraged to take proactive steps in their wellness journey. Whether it’s exploring the potential benefits of red light therapy, diving into literature on circadian rhythms and posture, or simply making more informed choices about their health, embracing a proactive mindset can be truly transformative. The call to action is clear – embrace the power of choice and embark on a journey towards holistic wellbeing.
Chapters:02:06 What Wes thinks about being proactive
04:22 What is red light therapy?
06:41 Science behind red light
07:48 Difference between rel light therapy and red light saunas
11:34 How long would you use it for?
12:37 How red lights effects inflammation
14:29 Chronic inflammation
16:10 What is the difference between all the red light panals?
18:26 What potential dangers are there?
21:04 Tell me more about increasing nitric oxide
23:21 Is there a recommended amount of time per week?
25:17 Does time of day matter?
27:12 Would it work well with meditation?
28:53 Hormesis
30:18 Myths about red light therapy
33:21 Fave books
As we draw the curtains on this enlightening episode, we are reminded of the transformative potential that lies within our choices. The power of light, when harnessed correctly, can be a driving force in our pursuit of holistic health. Armed with newfound knowledge and a proactive mindset, we can chart a course towards a more vibrant, energised, and resilient way of living. The Art of Living Proactively awaits those who dare to embrace the power of their choices.
Guest Bio:Wes Pfiffner is a member of Joovvs leadership team, and leads all their marketing efforts. Wes has a background in marketing and is a complete nerd when it comes to all things health and fitness related.Watch this episode on YouTube Transcript247 – Wes PfiffnerCan light lead you to a lighter, brighter, more energized life. Stay tuned to find out.
This is Tony Winyard welcoming you to an illuminating episode. guaranteed to shine a light on improving your health and wellbeing. My very special guest today is Wes Pfiffner, an expert on harnessing the power of red and near infrared light. to give our bodies, an energizing boost. If you think light is only good for helping you see, think again. We’ll be delving into the science showing how red light therapy could be the missing link in your health and performance. Reducing inflammation accelerating recovery, stimulating mitochondria and more Wes will help cut through the fuzzy misconceptions Around red light and ensure you avoid any dodgy products You’ll also get practical tips on soaking up more natural sunlight and creating healthy habits at home i’m sure you’ll be dazzled And motivated to take control of light for whole body benefits Get ready to flip the switch on feeling lighter and brighter. Please do leave your enlightened comments on youtube after tuning in. Now let’s shine a light on living proactively.
[00:01:25] Tony Winyard: Welcome to The Art of Living Proactively. My guest today, Wess Ner. How you doing Wes?
[00:01:30] Wes Pfiffner: Good Tony, how are you?
[00:01:31] Tony Winyard: I’m doing well. And we’re California today.
[00:01:34] Wes Pfiffner: That’s right. That’s right. Sunny California.
[00:01:36] Tony Winyard: California love. Good to see So Wes works for a company called Joovv and they do red light therapy. Now, I know that there’s gonna be a lot of people listening.
Probably you have no idea what red light therapy is. And equally, maybe a number of people . Who they’ve heard of it, but they’re not really sure. So we are gonna dig in to find out, we’re gonna find out a lot more about what it is, and clear up all the sort of myths and so on. But let’s start off with what are your thoughts around being proactive?
[00:02:06] What Wes thinks about being proactive[00:02:06] Wes Pfiffner: I think when I think of being proactive, I think of a lot of things of like self discovery and when we get into this topic of health, since the launch of social media, . the last decade or two we’ve really seen a lot of people gravitating towards, influencers and seeing people like what are they mixing into their routine, what works and some people being so definitive on this is the answer to health. And health’s very fluid, it’s always moving.
And so what I, how I look at health is really like self-discovery and the more things you can implement and try. The more times you’ll fail, but the more times you’ll find answers. And so I think that’s one of the best ways to be proactive with your health is try different things. Don’t stay in a rutt.
If it’s not working for you, change it. don’t keep, going on. If something’s not working, change it. Change up your routine, change up your diet. See what works for you. But ultimately. It’s about self-discovery and what works best for you. Because, and a lot of times, Tony, how you live your life and how you do your daily routine, that may not work for me.
And now we know there’s science to that, right? Some people have different circadian rhythms where they’re more awake in the morning, right? As soon as they’re out of bed, they’re ready to go. They’re, their brain is alert, like they’re ready to chomp at the bit for the day. Some people, they don’t hit that till two in the afternoon.
One in the afternoon, right? Those are more your night owls. We used to look at those people as being really lazy. They just, they don’t get enough sleep. But if you paid attention to new science that’s coming out about circadian rhythm and specifically, sleep, some people are wired to where their brain doesn’t turn on until the afternoon, And going into what works best for you and me, like there’s a lot of people that’ll say, you gotta start at 5:00 AM in the morning and do this and that. No, I’m not a believer in that. I’m a believer in . Find out what works best for you, try different things, fail and learn from it.
And I think that’s the best way You’re gonna figure out how you as a person, your body responds and how, and how you can,really thrive, in the world and for your health. So that’s how I look at being proactive is really a lot of self-discovery.
[00:04:11] Tony Winyard: Yeah, I agree completely with everything you’ve just said.
and I’m wondering, as you were speaking, how does Red Light therapy fit into to being proactive? What, well maybe explain first what it is,
[00:04:22] What is red light therapy?[00:04:22] Wes Pfiffner: Yeah. Yeah. It’s, I’ll be the first one. If you’re listening to this for the first time and you’re hearing about red light therapy or light therapy, most likely you’ve seen it. Online,or somewhat. But, I was a super big skeptic when I first saw Red light therapy. I was like, I’ve never seen anybody talk about this before.
And this was back in, oh geez. Before the company had been started. So 2015. So nobody was talking about red light. It, the only place you would’ve seen red light would’ve been like esthetician offices. skincare stuff. there’s been a lot of science behind skincare with red light therapy.
so you would’ve seen it in that regard, maybe a face mask, but still, like most people’s knowledge of light, very little. Most people looked at it as just something that can help you see. but when, when you when you break down light, it’s energy. And most of us growing up, how we learned about light is it just helps us see.
Right? But when you actually start to look at light from a scientific perspective, it’s energy and the sun, which is our primary source. Of light and really in this universe that we live in, light is powering everything. it gives the earth heat, it, the plants and all and everything.
respond to those wavelengths of light that hit the earth and grow, provides energy. And us as humans, we really aren’t any different. a lot of people know the benefits of the sun from a vitamin D perspective, but the sun is full spectrum and it’s giving off thousands of different wavelengths.
And one of those just happens to be red and near infrared. And what those wavelengths have been shown,to do through countless, clinical studies is it actually helps, our cells function properly. And so it, it helps them produce more energy, known as ATP. And so it stimulates, an organelle in the cell called, mitochondria, which is, which helps produce, energy for the body.
And in, in a . and to button that up is red and near infrared light is specific wavelengths that your body can absorb that allows the cells to function at, at their peak and produce energy. the body can thrive. And that’s just really our makeup.
When you look at a lot of things of how we get sick, when we’re not doing well, our cells are typically struggling. and so red light therapy is a way to help support healthy cellular function.
[00:06:31] Tony Winyard: So on a bright sunny day, if someone’s, I don’t know, lying on a beach, for example, on a bright sunny day, how much red light would they be taking in, for example?
Yeah.
[00:06:41] Science behind red light[00:06:41] Wes Pfiffner: Well, that, that’s a tough question because the sun goes through seasons, right? As the earth rotates, we get further away from the sun. And so that’s why we experienced different seasons, right? We got summer, fall, winter, spring, and during the . during the fall and winter, the sun’s further away, right?
It’s still gonna be a sunny day, it can be a sunny day in, in the fall, but the sun’s impact is much less. that’s ’cause the earth is further away. and so it’s a tough question to ask specifically, like what the time of day, ’cause there’s, there can be clouds, et cetera, but. typically at peak day, that’s when the sun’s gonna be at, its at its strongest.
And if you’ve noticed most people have during a sunrise and sunset, what colors are primarily, active from the sun? It’s red and near infrared. I. And because red is the longest color visible wavelength, that’s the only thing that’s making it through the atmosphere. That’s why you typically see like a red orangey tint or every sunrise and sunset because those other wavelengths are not reaching the surface of the earth.
[00:07:40] Tony Winyard: ’cause as well as red light therapy. Something else that many people have been talking about the last couple of years is red light saunas and so on, and, but they’re not the same thing, are they?
[00:07:48] Difference between rel light therapy and red light saunas[00:07:48] Wes Pfiffner: no, they’re not. And they’re actually quite different. So you will see, some people will incorporate in saunas red light, like lighting above them, like a fixture. And that’s really more light to help with mood, different colors to help with mood. but saunas and a lot of people know ’em, there’s different types of saunas, but the one you’re referring to is like an infrared sauna.
Is that the same thing as red light? And they’re actually very different. When you look at infrared specifically there, there’s three types. There’s near, mid, and far and near infrared is what you typically see in, in red light panels, or red light beds, . It’s a shorter wavelength. It’s just after,red light therapy when you’re looking at the light spectrum.
And then you got mid and far infrared is a much longer wavelength and it’s got a lot of heat to it. And so what happens is those wavelengths, in a sauna far infrared, they get, they, your body absorbs them and it’s primarily affecting the water in your tissues. And so it’s almost like cooking.
You. from the inside out. So it’s designed to generate heat. And far infrared saunas actually heat your body. So you activate heat shock proteins, you start to, you start to sweat detox. Lots of benefits for far infrared. But when you’re looking at it as how are they different far, infrared provides heat and stress on the body.
And then near infrared is a minor little stress that you typically won’t even feel. and it’s generating energy. So you got red and near infrared light therapy providing energy, and then a far infrared sauna. it’s putting stress on the body to help detox, so we actually recommend a lot of people use both the therapies together and,by doing a sauna session first and then following up with a red light therapy session after, because your body’s going through a workout in a sauna.
it’s putting a lot of stress on if anybody’s actually done a good sauna session, whether it’s a . a dry sauna, a wet sauna, or far infrared sauna, you feel, you feel good after, but your body definitely went through a workout, right? And ’cause it’s try, it’s fighting to keep its core temperature stable.
That’s why you’re sweating, et cetera. so they’re great therapies to use in conjunction with one another, doing a sauna. And then we like to use, use Joovv red light therapy after.
[00:10:01] Tony Winyard: So people are probably wondering, well, how would you use that Joovv? I mean, and what is it that you would do?
Are you holding something or how does it work?
[00:10:09] Wes Pfiffner: another great question. So we, when we looked at first creating Joovv, there was a lot of, targeted devices out there. And so what I mean by targeted is people were wearing face masks, they had more handheld stuff, whether you could, to treat different areas around your body.
And when you look at the clinical data, there is a tremendous amount and for various areas around your body for treating skin. issues for,treating, joint pain and inflammation, treating wounds. now you’re seeing stuff for eyes. You’re seeing stuff for hair. You’re seeing stuff for muscle recovery.
it’s just all around the body. They’re showing where, when, where. You shine this light on the body, those cells respond really well. and so we looked at that and thought, well, no one’s really, no one’s really providing solutions to treat your entire body. And so that’s really the, the start of where Joovv developed these panels.
And so there we have red light panels that you can put in your home that can treat. sections of your body or if you’re gonna create a bigger setup can treat your entire body. and you would stand at a distance, 12 to or 16 to 24 inches away, and just expose as much skin as you can and let your body absorb that light energy.
And so that’s what kind of separated you. We were the first company to launch this panel concept. and from there it’s really taken off and a lot of people are benefiting from. Putting this healthy light, in their home and having access to it, on, on a daily basis.
[00:11:34] How long would you use it for?[00:11:34] Tony Winyard: And so how long would you just sit in front of it or how, I mean, how long would you do that?
[00:11:40] Wes Pfiffner: Yeah. So treatments are typically 10, 10 to 20 minutes per treatment area. So let’s say I’m in front of a device that’s,we have a modular system and so you can, you can buy one panel, you, or you can connect them to another panel and . Ideally treat your entire body and,it’s 10 to 20 minutes per treatment or so you just need to expose, si similar.
How I’m sure most folks have experienced a tanning bed, right? You’d go into a tanning bed, set the timer, and just expose your skin and relax. and your body actually absorbs this light and it penetrates fairly deep into the body, especially near infrared. and that’s where you’ll see the differences of red and near infrared.
Red light is primarily absorbed by the outer tissues like your skin, and then near infrared, penetrates a little deeper and can actually stimulate, muscles, can provide healing on, on, on a deeper level. So both wavelengths are very good in conjunction with one another. And so that’s typically how a treatment is just exposing your skin and letting, letting your body absorb the light.
[00:12:37] How red lights effects inflammation[00:12:37] Tony Winyard: So when you say, for example, it helps with inflammation, so inflammation’s quite important for the body, isn’t it?
We don’t necessarily want to stop inflammation happening. So how does it help inflammation?
[00:12:48] Wes Pfiffner: I think Tony, that’s a such a critical question because . You see that a lot, and we actually have a great article on our site that’s called Less Ice, more Light. And in fact, most people are starting to pull it back as far as the inflammation out there of using ice. and a big thing there is what does ice do?
Ice cuts off blood flow. And so when it cuts off blood flow,your body’s not able to really form that bubble. Around that injury and, because that’s essentially what an inflammation is. It’s like a, it’s like an internal bandaid. and when you cut off the blood flow, you can reduce the inflammation.
But does that accelerate the recovery because you actually want that brief acute response of a, of inflammation. and what, so what red light therapy does is part of the mechanism of action is there’s a brief . uptake in nitric oxide, released into the bloodstream. So you actually see an increase in blood flow.
So what it happens is it, so your question, does it, Inflammation, right? Is it stopping it or is it just accelerating? And it’s really just accelerating that process naturally, right? It’s getting more blood flow there more,more of, the blood, like the white blood cells, et cetera, that, that repair damaged tissues.
It’s getting more of that there. And it’s also helping those cells that are under oxidated stress in that area. let’s say an example. I went and did like a, a leg workout and I did a bunch of squats. I did a bunch of lunges. My legs are shot, right? They’re gonna, you’re gonna fill up with lactic acid, they’re gonna fill up with brief acute inflammation, red and near infrared, helps that recover just faster by healing those cells and giving those cells, shifting them from oxidative stress back to homeostasis.
And then you see a brief uptick in, in ATP. and so it just accelerates that pro na, that natural process faster.
[00:14:29] Chronic inflammation[00:14:29] Tony Winyard: Right. And so what about then if someone has say chronic inflammation?
[00:14:36] Wes Pfiffner: That’s a good question. that’s a good question. There’s a very good meta-analysis on, the different mechanisms of red and near infrared four for inflammation. So it’s probably that’s a tough question to answer because the body is so complex and there’s many different issues of maybe why somebody’s dealing with
With chronic inflammation, right? is it arthritis? is it,is it, is it fibromyalgia? what are, is it their, is it diet related? is it some sort of a supplement they’re taking? is it a living environment, right? is it mold or is it, who knows?
what is causing that? So it’s always tough to say what it could do for chronic, but if you look at what just light does in general, it’s providing your cells, . With energy to function A as they’re designed to. So anytime you can support healthy cellular function, you’re giving your body the tools.
just like you would want to take vitamins or eat a good, healthy diet, you’re giving your body the tools. For it to run, as it wants to run. And anytime you can set yourself up for that, like what, like we’re talking about being proactive, you’re gonna, you’re gonna build a stronger body,that’s better prepared to take on, the stresses of the day or, or maybe it, maybe you’re supporting like you’re sick with something.
Or, just if I was to roll an ankle, like I’m gonna, I’m gonna deliver light to that, damaged area to give my body the tools to help prepare itself.
[00:15:52] Tony Winyard: And so as far as the actual panels, I mean you, you mentioned it’s modular and so on, and there seems to be quite a few different companies selling or, they’ve got various types of red light therapy, panels.
I guess is there much difference between ’em? I know there’s lots of stuff coming outta China, for example.
[00:16:10] What is the difference between all the red light panals?[00:16:10] Wes Pfiffner: yeah. There is that, that really goes into any type when you see a successful . product category be developed. You always see a lot of fast followers and a lot, you’ll, you’ll see a lot of, let’s say, janky products on Amazon, right? Just it goes with the industry. I mean, if you, if anybody can remember when massage guns came onto the market, like now there’s probably a thousand of ’em on Amazon, right?
And so one, we’re the original creators of the Red Light panel per se. and so we work with a lot of individuals in the research space. and we’ve really designed our products to give the body, a safe dosage of light. You see a lot of products out there saying, oh, we deliver more power.
We’re this really, there’s no validation for that, especially with, you’ll see companies delivering multiple different wavelengths of red light, but your body responds the same to any different type of red wavelength. It’s so close that it’s not really making a significant difference.
So you see a lot of smoke and mirrors. In the red light industry with companies trying to pull a leg up. And the other part is, what separates Joovv is we actually design and develop our own products. most of what you’ll see on the market is just white labeled . products, like you mentioned, China.
they really don’t, they really don’t own those products or haven’t, designed them. They don’t really know what’s in those products. when you’re creating a product, especially here in the States, you have to follow fairly strict guidelines because it is a class two medical device. And differences with our product is the quality components are just a higher standard.
we’ve actually gone through independent safety testing, to make sure it’s safe and effective for folks at home. And so the components are just that much on a higher level. and we’re delivering a safe dosage. you wouldn’t want to just expose your body to anything out there, especially naked, not knowing if it’s been safety tested, different things like that.
So we take a lot of pride in really creating. A safe, effective device and creating and designing our own products and not just simply buying something off, Alibaba as an example because you just see that now nowadays, folks just, and some countries especially, you mentioned China, that kind of flood the market with copycat devices.
and so we do everything. We, we do everything the right way and really try to create a great product for consumers that, that can really, affect their health in a positive way.
[00:18:26] What potential dangers are there?[00:18:26] Tony Winyard: So what could be a potential danger of someone buying, a product from somewhere? they’ve, there’s no, the manufacturer isn’t established.
Some what could be a possible danger from using a product like that?
[00:18:38] Wes Pfiffner: well, there could be many things. One, it, I mean, it could shock them. If it’s not, it, how safe it is. Has it been tested to, to go through all of that stuff. another one could be,maybe you’re delivering way too high of power to your body,in the, the photo medicines,research, there’s a known effect called the biphasic dosage response.
And it’s when you actually deliver too much light, too fast can actually cause damage to your cells. It’s almost like an overload. and so you want to make sure that dosages is safe and effective, but if you deliver too much light, for example, so there’s lots of products out there too that don’t deliver enough light.
So if you’ve ever seen something like a little flashlight, something like that’s not gonna do . Do the job. you need to make sure it’s delivering a high enough dosage to stimulate the cells, but, but not too high to where you’re gonna cause damage to the cells. So there, I mean, there’s many things, especially if you’re not like, with our products, we provide,eye protection.
our, we’ve gone through testing that are glasses. They do block that certain wavelength of light that there is a potential to, maybe overheat. the tissues in your eyes. And so there’s just many little nuances like that to where you know you’re gonna be exposing your body no different than your ti if you’re to take a supplement.
Like you’re exposing this to your body and radiating light on it. you want to make sure it’s just, it, it’s been safety tested.
[00:19:54] Tony Winyard: And so are there areas of the body you need to be more careful with then? It’s, I mean, obviously you just mentioned the eyes. Is there any other areas,
[00:20:01] Wes Pfiffner: not really. in fact, there’s been pretty cool research. we’ve participated in some small pilot studies. I. showing benefits for hormones. So like another sensitive area you would think like for a male is the testes or the private area. and actually there’s some science in animal models, but also we’ve seen it in some research we’ve participated in with an increase in testosterone.
it’s not anything that we can make like a, a strong claim about, but it just goes down to that mechanism of ranier infrared light stimulates healthy cellular function well. there’s mitochondria,in the testes, right? The late cells, there’s cells there that, that require energy, right?
To create. to create testosterone, different things of those functions. and when they receive energy, they can work properly. And so that’s what’s really fascinating about it is, what we’ve seen. There isn’t any sensitive areas. Now, if you’re delivering too high of a power down there, you , that may not be such a pleasant response.
but, but yeah, so that, that could potentially be something. But in general, . when you’re delivering a safe dosage, you can radiate the entire body.
[00:21:04] Tell me more about increasing nitric oxide[00:21:04] Tony Winyard: And you mentioned about it increases nitric oxide. So that suggests to me, I guess it would be good for people with like asthma and respiratory issues.
[00:21:13] Wes Pfiffner: it could be. I mean, it’s, we’re always blown away with when somebody buys one of our products and they start using it, they may have bought it for X, but then all of a sudden they, they’ll leave a review or they’ll send an email and be like, Hey, I’m experiencing this type of a benefit.
is that normal? one of ’em, one of ’em, that I can think of that’s on the top of my head is . There was this gal who was doing a review of our product. I can’t remember what media outlet she wrote for, but, she has, I think it’s, where is it? Is it Bell’s Palsy where some of your face can go numb?
is that the right? I can’t remember. anybody that, that’s listening can fact check that. But there is a,an effect with, I think it’s a Bell’s Palsy that where half of your face can go, like numb. you just don’t, you don’t, you can’t feel anything.
And when she started using the red light, she was using it for skin benefits. Her Bells palsy cleared up 98% is what she, what she stated to us in an email. And she’s is that normal? Can that happen? And it’s I don’t, I mean, we don’t know, but like apparently that’s happening. And so that’s where the science is with red and ear and redline now.
It’s very fluid and it’s very evolving. most of what we’re able to say as far as a benefit is it, it can mildly reduce like pain and inflammation, relax, sore muscles, and then their skin health benefits. But it’s starting to evolve like way beyond that. and which is very exciting.
It’s a very exciting field to be in. and so we’re seeing that in the literature be proved out. There was, I know I mentioned the eyes, but there was a very exciting study. just a, just about a year and a half ago where they were using red light, not the near infrared light, red light. And it was actually help improving,vision for folks, 40 and, and over just a three minute treatment in the morning.
They were, they noted significant, benefits in improving their vision.
[00:22:49] Tony Winyard: vision
[00:22:50] Wes Pfiffner: And then one of ’em just to release this month. Very exciting study. folks that did a red light treatment after eating. it reduced blood glucose levels up to 28% versus, versus the placebo. and so that’s another one. We were scratching your head and you’re like, how could it do that?
But that kind of goes into the theme of what we’re talking about of how it just, your body takes that energy and it just starts functioning a as it’s designed to. Right. And so we don’t know the limits of it yet, which is very exciting.
[00:23:21] Is there a recommended amount of time per week?[00:23:21] Tony Winyard: with a regular sauna. I mean, they say that if you can get accumulated 60 minutes a week, there’s like enormous benefit. So is it something similar you would need so many minutes per week, for example, or,
[00:23:34] Wes Pfiffner: great question. So typically we look at daily treatments. But most of the research that we’ve personally participated in, we saw jumps at six weeks, 12 weeks. So it’s something you need to be doing on a regular basis. It’s not a super immediate effect. Some people will see immediate, effects of maybe reducing pain in a joint because of that increase in blood flow, different things like that.
Or short-term muscle recovery. Hey, I feel a little bit less sore. After this. But I think some of those really long-term benefits, that really can improve the core of your health, it’s probably gonna be somewhere longer in, into the couple weeks. and and no different than when you’re introducing like a new supplement, maybe a multivitamin or maybe something you’re probably not gonna see.
The greatest, benefit the first time you take that supplement, but maybe when you’re looking at it over several weeks. but that’s not to say someone couldn’t see benefits right away, And because again, all of our bodies are different. Maybe we’re dealing with different stresses.
some people are super big into fitness, right? They put a lot of stress on their body. So implementing it right away like that, they could see a difference in their, in, in their recovery. So that’s something we see as an example with, a professional sports team that we’ve partnered with, the San Francisco 49 ERs.
So they’re an NFL team, right? And anybody that knows . American football, it’s a brutal sport, right? Those guys are running into each other like missiles and so they’re, it’s not uncommon for an NFL player to be like, after a game. They feel like they went through a car accident.
and so those like player, individuals like those who are putting a lot of stress on their body. they can see the benefits of it fairly quickly right after a game, and using it several days after a game, et cetera. So it depends on individual base. But from the research we’ve participated in, usually takes a couple weeks.
[00:25:17] Does time of day matter?[00:25:17] Tony Winyard: And is there, have you noticed any difference whether. Is it better to, for example, to use it in the morning, afternoon, evening, or, I guess again, it depends on the person.
[00:25:29] Wes Pfiffner: Yeah, I mean, it depends on the person. Depends how they’re wired. we’ll, we’re split there from a customer base. Some customers, that’s part of their morning ritual, right? They get up. first thing they do is start, like a meditation routine, breathwork routine. It really helps wake them up.
It helps, give them some clarity energy throughout the day. and that’s one thing I personally do. I love to use it right in the morning. And, I’ve noticed firsthand, I. I know everyone can probably relate to this that time where you wake up some of those mornings and you just feel that brain fog.
It’s like you just woke up out of a deep sleep. Maybe suddenly maybe your alarm went off or something like that, and you just feel lethargic, right? for whatever reason, I, right after a treatment I do in the morning, that’s gone, like I just don’t experience that brain fog in the morning or that,that, that haziness that can be there.
and so a lot of people, like in the morning, me personally. but then there’s a large group that they like doing it at night. It really helps relax them. most likely shifts them into,like a parasympathetic state. And a lot of people will just rave about how they get great sleep,when they start using it at night before bed as a wind down tool, et cetera.
So it’s split there. And there’s also . A cool feature on our products that you can use through our app we call ambient mode. And it’s not delivering a, like a clinical dosage, it’s just delivering red ambient lighting. And so a lot of people will turn that setting on. ’cause at night, red is not very intrusive on your circadian rhythm, so it really doesn’t halt melatonin production.
and so it’s a great wind down tool to maybe put on in the bedroom, right? Maybe you’re gonna read a book or you’re gonna, you’re gonna do something as a wind down routine. Turn off all the blue light. it can be a great way to help and do sleep just from that ambient lighting perspective.
split there and really,depends on, what works best for you.
[00:27:12] Would it work well with meditation?[00:27:12] Tony Winyard: And it sounds, well something that went through my mind as you were saying that it sounds like something that would be great to pair it together with say meditation, doing it at the same time as you meditate.
[00:27:23] Wes Pfiffner: Yeah. We see that a lot. We see a lot of people starting their day with that or their nighttime routine with that of breath work and meditation. Just, I think we live in such a world now that we’re so overstimulated. and if you think about us as humans right now, we’ve never had more information than any other humans on earth.
And we’ve never had it that fast. I mean, you can learn something with an instant and your brain can be constantly bouncing. I mean, how many of us, I’m sure . I’m gonna raise my hand. How many of us have, they maybe stumble across something, they’ve been scrolling and then they’re off learning about that, and then they’re clicking here, and then they’re doing, and it’s boom.
but think about your brain. It’s going, it’s like bouncing like boom. And that stimulation, right? And it can be very hard to turn that off and then go to bed. and so I think. When you’re, when we’re talking about something that can help relax you, calm you.
I think that’s a big thing in our day and age. you look at, you look at just the average, and this is the states, so I imagine it’s probably the same in the uk, but, a hundred years ago the average American slept about nine and a half hours. and now, we’re under six, the average American.
So that’s just significantly different in a hundred year span. We’re sleeping,over two hours less a night. and just that alone, like getting a good night’s sleep versus not getting a good night’s sleep. Like you’re not gonna, function the next day. yeah, I think, back to your question of it’s if IFD really good to pair it with things that can calm you, not stimulating, relaxing, so definitely great to pair with breath work or meditation.
[00:28:53] Hormesis[00:28:53] Tony Winyard: Early on, you talked about how it. Stimulates production of mitochondria and ATP and everything.
And I wondered, something went through my mind as you were saying that does it, when you do hormesis and cold showers and saunas and so on, you are accumulating, you are building up more brown fat. Does this have anything to do with that whole sort of process?
[00:29:17] Wes Pfiffner: I, there you’ll see some folks promoting a lot of I know you’re not specifically talking about fat loss, but . There are some people that are promoting like high powered lasers of almost stimulating fat loss or burning fat loss, not really with our products.
You’re gonna, you’re gonna see that. Now, I will put a caveat in there that, and something we’ve seen through a research partner of ours and the study hasn’t been published yet, but, it helped assist. In, in, in someone, trying to, lose weight, with exercise and diet. Because if we, if you,if you go back to that study that I mentioned about blood glucose and how it lowered at 28%.
So if it has the ability to help your metabolic system, and that function better, it could help support, weight loss, different things. So it’s tough to put like a, an actual . yes or no on, on some of the stuff with like fat burning, et cetera. because it’s just so overall supporting with your body in nearly every function.
And that’s why we really encourage full body, to help try to get that systemic benefits.
[00:30:18] Myths about red light therapy[00:30:18] Tony Winyard: are there any myths about red light therapy that you’d like to quash?
[00:30:24] Wes Pfiffner: Yeah, I’d say one of the bigger myths out there is it like, is it snake oil? and no,it’s definitely not. I mean, there’s a lot of scientific IT literature now. I mean, you can go to PubMed right now and just type in red light therapy, just type in the year 2023, you’re gonna see hundreds of studies.
it, it’s, so from that standpoint, like it’s really, it’s pretty solidified, that it, there is lots and lots of benefits to it. wavelengths do matter. the other thing I would probably say is it’s,you can’t get these benefits from, draping yourself in red Christmas lights.
It’s just, there’s not gonna be a high enough power, so power matters. and the science is legitimate when you’re looking at what this therapy can do for folks.
[00:31:04] Tony Winyard: And so when, if people are considering buying these products, I mean, obviously they should get Joovv products, but if they’re looking for things, what should they look out for?
What should they be looking to avoid?
[00:31:18] Wes Pfiffner: Yeah,I would avoid a couple things. I would really avoid,companies promoting,like when they promote, let’s say medical claims. ’cause a lot of companies, they’re trying to follow our route of being a legitimate medical product and simply stating it doesn’t mean you’re a medical product.
So I would always look at the company to show validation for that. So one, one tricky thing we’ve seen in the industry is folks saying, Hey, we’ve been through, safety testing and medical testing. But then when you ask, and they’ll show like a safety mark. But if you look up that safety mark, it’ll show it’s safe for horticulture use.
So like plant use, it’s a grow, like a grow light. So it’s very tricky. which is why we’re pretty transparent with all of that. we have,lots of articles on our website of things to really look out for and we, I believe it’s called, misleading Marketing Claims in the red light therapy industry.
And we call a lot of that out with power. Wavelengths, safety testing, misleading marks, all of that sort of stuff. so I mean, even if you’re looking for maybe something locally around your area, I would highly encourage you to read, read that article on our website because it really points out some of the lack of, I.
industry, enforcement, in that area. And so we’re just a company that chooses to do that ourselves because we believe in providing, a really good quality product for folks that when they’re investing in it, they’re getting exactly what they’re paying for.
And do you sell internationally? We do, yeah, we do ship internationally. and we actually have some, some good in incentives coming up as Black Friday is a, typically a really big time of year. So if anybody is looking at that,for the holidays, we will have some great promos,coming up here in the next, month or two.
[00:32:58] Tony Winyard: and something that I can’t get outta my head.
I, I lived in Amsterdam for a while and obviously they’re famous for their red light district, so it’s
[00:33:06] Wes Pfiffner: that’s true. That, and a lot of people talk about that sound, that, that song, Roxanne,where they me where they mention a lot of the red light in there.
[00:33:13] Tony Winyard: Yeah. So changing the subject Wes.
Is there, is there a book you can think of that’s really moved you for any reason?
[00:33:21] Fave books[00:33:21] Wes Pfiffner: Yeah, there was one I’ll mention two. . and I’m actually, I’ll mention three that really changed my outlook on some things. One of ’em would be, he, Dr. Satchin Panda is his name and it’s called Circadian Codes. I’m not sure if you’ve ever heard of it, Tony, but it’s a really great book just to see that I.
how circadian works and how it affects our biology and, that timing matters. And one of, one of the analogies in that book is really cool of your stomach’s not just a dumpster to shove stuff down at, every, moment of the day. you need to train, almost train the stomach as, Hey, these are the times we eat.
You can expect that. And when your body expects it, it starts preparing. The right acids, the right enzymes to break that food down. So just different stuff like that, I, they don’t teach you that in school. I don’t know how much they teach now about circadian rhythm, but, it’s fairly new,in, in the health industry.
so that, that was a really exciting book to read. the other one was, I think it’s called Why We Sleep by Dr. Matthew Walker. It’s an incredible book. it’ll like . I don’t know. It makes you fall in love with sleep when you read it. it’s maybe one of the best books you can read about sleep. And he’s also been on several big podcasts like Joe Rogan and different stuff where he’s just a great, he’s got a great,voice of explaining stuff.
so I’m sure his audio book is good, but I really enjoyed reading his book. it was really cool to learn that much about sleep and why we sleep. And it ju it just explains it in a really simple, digestible way that’s not too complicated. . and then the last one, was really cool. it’s called Pain-Free.
and it’s a book by Pete Egoscue and it’s something I personally struggled with for several years was just, I had just chronic pain. so I had a chronic shoulder pain, chronic lower back pain. I. and I realized for myself, like it was structural problems, my body wasn’t aligned, lined right. And so what he ask you, the book calls out,is really teaching you about postural alignment.
I’d went to chiropractors. I tried tons of stuff, I tried different stretches, everything. And it wasn’t until I could actually look at my body and especially from all sides of the front of it, the side of, at the back of it, and see Hey, . you are, you’re tilted forward, and all of your upper body.
your back is like holding all of that. And so that’s where, that’s why your pain is coming as you lower back. And that’s what the shoulder, it’s like all interconnected. there’s lots of great routines you can learn,from that book. and Pete actually, I. I mentioned the San Francisco 49 ERs.
The NFL team that we work with, they actually incorporated,his method. and they have a specialist there that is, is working these players through postural alignment. so it’s pretty cool. it’s a, it’s something that I’ve adopted and I work on a daily basis. So those are three, three really cool books.
so circadian rhythm. . Sleep and then a book about posture. and it’s really cool because I feel like it goes hand in hand really with what Joovv is like just putting your body into position of how it was designed to be. It’s amazing how much that can do for your health. and light’s a big part of it.
’cause there’s months that you’re gonna go through and you, everyone knows this in the uk. there’s months you go through where the sun’s just not there. And so can you supplement with something else that can provide. You know that, that energy to your body and thankfully there is, and same with, just putting your body in the right posture of alignment.
It can function as it’s intended. ’cause when you’re in pain, it’s your body signaling to you something’s wrong. And now we’re taught so much of a pain medicine. Do this, do that, put a brace on it. But no,and that goes into me saying at the beginning of the podcast, self-discovery.
it’s gonna take you . Caring about that pain and you diving in, because if you go to a specialist or anybody, they’re just gonna listen to what you’re telling them. So the more you can learn about you, the healthier you can become.
[00:37:00] Tony Winyard: And when you talked about the, I mean, we are quite far north here, you in the Northern hemisphere, and it’s starting to get darker earlier and earlier.
And I lived in the Arctic Circle for while in the north of Norway. and for, there’s times there where it’s 23 hours of darkness during the
[00:37:17] Wes Pfiffner: So some of those Northern Scandinavian countries and Canada and so on, they, I guess they could really benefit from things like this.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we have a, we have an article on our site now, where we go into a little bit of that research for like seasonal effective disorder, and how near infrared is showing a lot of promise to help boosting mood, et cetera. When it comes to light, I mean, all in all, when you read, if you read any of those books that I mentioned, we are very sensitive to light.
and, our body is very sensitive to it. we react to it. in, in a very, can be positive, but also negative way. right. if you’re exposing yourself to the wrong light at night, it’s really gonna jack up your sleep. but if you expose yourself to the right type of light, especially in the morning, can really give you, it can really wake you up.
It can activate, hormones like cortisol to, to kickstart the day of what you need to feel awake. So I like to say like, when, if you can . If you could start wielding light for your benefit, I think it can have a major impact, on your health.
[00:38:15] Tony Winyard: So if people want to find out more about Joovv, where would they go,
[00:38:19] Wes Pfiffner: our website, joovv.com and if you go there,I encourage you to not go look at the products. I would go to our science page. We have a great video. I. that, that gives you just an overview on how light impacts the body, specifically red and near infrared and your cells. and then I would, I’d look at the various articles we have a ton of articles on what red and near infrared can do as far as from a benefit standpoint, how it works.
So I would just encourage you to start there. And then, the next section I would potentially go to, is the reviews. go, just go read what people are saying. how it’s impacting their life, how they’re incorporating it in, into their life, their daily routine, et cetera. And then if you’re more curious after that, definitely feel free to go look at the products.
But I just encourage you to just do more reading. don’t be a skeptic like I was where I thought this was a joke. just see what it can do. And there’s ways you can even . and start implementing better light habits in your, into your own life, even from this podcast.
Like start mitigating bright light. As soon as the sun goes down, just use, it may be low Calvin incandescent bulbs, or start using a salt lamp, or you can get some com, some red light bulbs from your local hardware store. start seeing the sun first thing in the morning, getting out regular, into the sun throughout the day.
So there’s lots of things you can do to start benefiting from . from, implementing healthy light habits, and then implementing a red light panel like Joovv takes it to the next level but there’s lots of places you can start.
[00:39:44] Tony Winyard: And can people only buy products direct from Joovv or can you, can they get ’em from say, like Amazon and so on?
[00:39:51] Wes Pfiffner: So we, yeah, we just sell directly to the consumer. joovv.com is the only place you can currently buy our products.
[00:39:59] Tony Winyard: And just before we finish, Wes, is there a quotation you can think of that really resonates with you?
[00:40:04] Wes Pfiffner: Yeah, there’s a cool quote. I can’t, I think it’s by, it might be by Les Brown. he’s a known,motivational speaker and I can’t remember the exact of it, but people will get the gist of it. That, that if you fall down and you can look up, you can get up. . And so I think that’s just a cool quote to hear because life’s very fluid and there’s ups and downs and you’re not always gonna be up.
but you’re not always gonna be down either. And the only reason you know there’s ups and downs is because you know you’re going through ’em. And if it was good all the time, nobody would know, what bad was. so yeah, if you can, if you fall down, if you can look up, you can get up.
[00:40:40] Tony Winyard: Wess, really appreciate your time and for educating us on what red light therapy is and what to look out for as well. So thank you.
[00:40:47] Wes Pfiffner: Thanks, Tony. I really enjoyed the chat.
Join me next week on The Art of Living Proactively for a fascinating glimpse into the world of Qigong. I’ll be speaking with Andrew Kenneth Fretwell, an expert Qigong and Tai Chi instructor based in Bali, to unpack the secrets of this ancient Chinese practice. Andrew will reveal how harnessing your qi or life force energy is key to living a long and vital life.
We’ll dive deep into time tested Taoist techniques like bone breathing, and special meditations that strengthen your organs and awaken your spiritual essence. You’ll learn the difference between qigong and tai chi and why starting with qigong sets you on the fast track to well being. Plus Andrew will share his insights on overcoming emotional blocks, balancing hormones and achieving enlightenment.
It’s an info packed and inspirational episode you won’t want to miss. So be sure to hit subscribe, leave us a review and share this episode with friends. Join me next week for a proactive perspective on harnessing your energy and realising your potential with Andrew Kenneth Fretwell.
LInks:* Wes Pfiffner on Linkedin * Injuries: Ice vs red light therapy * The Truth About Power and Misleading Red Light Therapy Claims * Joovv: The Science * @joovvsocial Recommended books:The Circadian Code: Lose weight, supercharge your energy and sleep well every night by Dr. Satchin Panda Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams by Dr Matthew WalkerPain Free (Revised and Updated Second Edition): A Revolutionary Method for Stopping Chronic Pain by Pete Egoscue Favourite Quote
"When life knocks you down, try to land on your back. Because if you can look up, you can get up. Let your reason get you back up."
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Can light lead you to a lighter, brighter, more energized life. Stay tuned to find out.
This is Tony Winyard welcoming you to an illuminating episode. guaranteed to shine a light on improving your health and wellbeing. My very special guest today is Wes Pfiffner, an expert on harnessing the power of red and near infrared light. to give our bodies, an energizing boost. If you think light is only good for helping you see, think again. We’ll be delving into the science showing how red light therapy could be the missing link in your health and performance. Reducing inflammation accelerating recovery, stimulating mitochondria and more Wes will help cut through the fuzzy misconceptions Around red light and ensure you avoid any dodgy products You’ll also get practical tips on soaking up more natural sunlight and creating healthy habits at home i’m sure you’ll be dazzled And motivated to take control of light for whole body benefits Get ready to flip the switch on feeling lighter and brighter. Please do leave your enlightened comments on youtube after tuning in. Now let’s shine a light on living proactively.
[00:01:25] Tony Winyard: Welcome to The Art of Living Proactively. My guest today, Wess Ner. How you doing Wes?
[00:01:30] Wes Pfiffner: Good Tony, how are you?
[00:01:31] Tony Winyard: I’m doing well. And we’re California today.
[00:01:34] Wes Pfiffner: That’s right. That’s right. Sunny California.
[00:01:36] Tony Winyard: California love. Good to see So Wes works for a company called Joovv and they do red light therapy. Now, I know that there’s gonna be a lot of people listening.
Probably you have no idea what red light therapy is. And equally, maybe a number of people . Who they’ve heard of it, but they’re not really sure. So we are gonna dig in to find out, we’re gonna find out a lot more about what it is, and clear up all the sort of myths and so on. But let’s start off with what are your thoughts around being proactive?
[00:02:06] What Wes thinks about being proactive
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[00:02:06] Wes Pfiffner: I think when I think of being proactive, I think of a lot of things of like self discovery and when we get into this topic of health, since the launch of social media, . the last decade or two we’ve really seen a lot of people gravitating towards, influencers and seeing people like what are they mixing into their routine, what works and some people being so definitive on this is the answer to health. And health’s very fluid, it’s always moving.
And so what I, how I look at health is really like self-discovery and the more things you can implement and try. The more times you’ll fail, but the more times you’ll find answers. And so I think that’s one of the best ways to be proactive with your health is try different things. Don’t stay in a rutt.
If it’s not working for you, change it. don’t keep, going on. If something’s not working, change it. Change up your routine, change up your diet. See what works for you. But ultimately. It’s about self-discovery and what works best for you. Because, and a lot of times, Tony, how you live your life and how you do your daily routine, that may not work for me.
And now we know there’s science to that, right? Some people have different circadian rhythms where they’re more awake in the morning, right? As soon as they’re out of bed, they’re ready to go. They’re, their brain is alert, like they’re ready to chomp at the bit for the day. Some people, they don’t hit that till two in the afternoon.
One in the afternoon, right? Those are more your night owls. We used to look at those people as being really lazy. They just, they don’t get enough sleep. But if you paid attention to new science that’s coming out about circadian rhythm and specifically, sleep, some people are wired to where their brain doesn’t turn on until the afternoon, And going into what works best for you and me, like there’s a lot of people that’ll say, you gotta start at 5:00 AM in the morning and do this and that. No, I’m not a believer in that. I’m a believer in . Find out what works best for you, try different things, fail and learn from it.
And I think that’s the best way You’re gonna figure out how you as a person, your body responds and how, and how you can,really thrive, in the world and for your health. So that’s how I look at being proactive is really a lot of self-discovery.
[00:04:11] Tony Winyard: Yeah, I agree completely with everything you’ve just said.
and I’m wondering, as you were speaking, how does Red Light therapy fit into to being proactive? What, well maybe explain first what it is,
[00:04:22] What is red light therapy?
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[00:04:22] Wes Pfiffner: Yeah. Yeah. It’s, I’ll be the first one. If you’re listening to this for the first time and you’re hearing about red light therapy or light therapy, most likely you’ve seen it. Online,or somewhat. But, I was a super big skeptic when I first saw Red light therapy. I was like, I’ve never seen anybody talk about this before.
And this was back in, oh geez. Before the company had been started. So 2015. So nobody was talking about red light. It, the only place you would’ve seen red light would’ve been like esthetician offices. skincare stuff. there’s been a lot of science behind skincare with red light therapy.
so you would’ve seen it in that regard, maybe a face mask, but still, like most people’s knowledge of light, very little. Most people looked at it as just something that can help you see. but when, when you when you break down light, it’s energy. And most of us growing up, how we learned about light is it just helps us see.
Right? But when you actually start to look at light from a scientific perspective, it’s energy and the sun, which is our primary source. Of light and really in this universe that we live in, light is powering everything. it gives the earth heat, it, the plants and all and everything.
respond to those wavelengths of light that hit the earth and grow, provides energy. And us as humans, we really aren’t any different. a lot of people know the benefits of the sun from a vitamin D perspective, but the sun is full spectrum and it’s giving off thousands of different wavelengths.
And one of those just happens to be red and near infrared. And what those wavelengths have been shown,to do through countless, clinical studies is it actually helps, our cells function properly. And so it, it helps them produce more energy, known as ATP. And so it stimulates, an organelle in the cell called, mitochondria, which is, which helps produce, energy for the body.
And in, in a . and to button that up is red and near infrared light is specific wavelengths that your body can absorb that allows the cells to function at, at their peak and produce energy. the body can thrive. And that’s just really our makeup.
When you look at a lot of things of how we get sick, when we’re not doing well, our cells are typically struggling. and so red light therapy is a way to help support healthy cellular function.
[00:06:31] Tony Winyard: So on a bright sunny day, if someone’s, I don’t know, lying on a beach, for example, on a bright sunny day, how much red light would they be taking in, for example?
Yeah.
[00:06:41] Science behind red light
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[00:06:41] Wes Pfiffner: Well, that, that’s a tough question because the sun goes through seasons, right? As the earth rotates, we get further away from the sun. And so that’s why we experienced different seasons, right? We got summer, fall, winter, spring, and during the . during the fall and winter, the sun’s further away, right?
It’s still gonna be a sunny day, it can be a sunny day in, in the fall, but the sun’s impact is much less. that’s ’cause the earth is further away. and so it’s a tough question to ask specifically, like what the time of day, ’cause there’s, there can be clouds, et cetera, but. typically at peak day, that’s when the sun’s gonna be at, its at its strongest.
And if you’ve noticed most people have during a sunrise and sunset, what colors are primarily, active from the sun? It’s red and near infrared. I. And because red is the longest color visible wavelength, that’s the only thing that’s making it through the atmosphere. That’s why you typically see like a red orangey tint or every sunrise and sunset because those other wavelengths are not reaching the surface of the earth.
[00:07:40] Tony Winyard: ’cause as well as red light therapy. Something else that many people have been talking about the last couple of years is red light saunas and so on, and, but they’re not the same thing, are they?
[00:07:48] Difference between rel light therapy and red light saunas
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[00:07:48] Wes Pfiffner: no, they’re not. And they’re actually quite different. So you will see, some people will incorporate in saunas red light, like lighting above them, like a fixture. And that’s really more light to help with mood, different colors to help with mood. but saunas and a lot of people know ’em, there’s different types of saunas, but the one you’re referring to is like an infrared sauna.
Is that the same thing as red light? And they’re actually very different. When you look at infrared specifically there, there’s three types. There’s near, mid, and far and near infrared is what you typically see in, in red light panels, or red light beds, . It’s a shorter wavelength. It’s just after,red light therapy when you’re looking at the light spectrum.
And then you got mid and far infrared is a much longer wavelength and it’s got a lot of heat to it. And so what happens is those wavelengths, in a sauna far infrared, they get, they, your body absorbs them and it’s primarily affecting the water in your tissues. And so it’s almost like cooking.
You. from the inside out. So it’s designed to generate heat. And far infrared saunas actually heat your body. So you activate heat shock proteins, you start to, you start to sweat detox. Lots of benefits for far infrared. But when you’re looking at it as how are they different far, infrared provides heat and stress on the body.
And then near infrared is a minor little stress that you typically won’t even feel. and it’s generating energy. So you got red and near infrared light therapy providing energy, and then a far infrared sauna. it’s putting stress on the body to help detox, so we actually recommend a lot of people use both the therapies together and,by doing a sauna session first and then following up with a red light therapy session after, because your body’s going through a workout in a sauna.
it’s putting a lot of stress on if anybody’s actually done a good sauna session, whether it’s a . a dry sauna, a wet sauna, or far infrared sauna, you feel, you feel good after, but your body definitely went through a workout, right? And ’cause it’s try, it’s fighting to keep its core temperature stable.
That’s why you’re sweating, et cetera. so they’re great therapies to use in conjunction with one another, doing a sauna. And then we like to use, use Joovv red light therapy after.
[00:10:01] Tony Winyard: So people are probably wondering, well, how would you use that Joovv? I mean, and what is it that you would do?
Are you holding something or how does it work?
[00:10:09] Wes Pfiffner: another great question. So we, when we looked at first creating Joovv, there was a lot of, targeted devices out there. And so what I mean by targeted is people were wearing face masks, they had more handheld stuff, whether you could, to treat different areas around your body.
And when you look at the clinical data, there is a tremendous amount and for various areas around your body for treating skin. issues for,treating, joint pain and inflammation, treating wounds. now you’re seeing stuff for eyes. You’re seeing stuff for hair. You’re seeing stuff for muscle recovery.
it’s just all around the body. They’re showing where, when, where. You shine this light on the body, those cells respond really well. and so we looked at that and thought, well, no one’s really, no one’s really providing solutions to treat your entire body. And so that’s really the, the start of where Joovv developed these panels.
And so there we have red light panels that you can put in your home that can treat. sections of your body or if you’re gonna create a bigger setup can treat your entire body. and you would stand at a distance, 12 to or 16 to 24 inches away, and just expose as much skin as you can and let your body absorb that light energy.
And so that’s what kind of separated you. We were the first company to launch this panel concept. and from there it’s really taken off and a lot of people are benefiting from. Putting this healthy light, in their home and having access to it, on, on a daily basis.
[00:11:34] How long would you use it for?
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[00:11:34] Tony Winyard: And so how long would you just sit in front of it or how, I mean, how long would you do that?
[00:11:40] Wes Pfiffner: Yeah. So treatments are typically 10, 10 to 20 minutes per treatment area. So let’s say I’m in front of a device that’s,we have a modular system and so you can, you can buy one panel, you, or you can connect them to another panel and . Ideally treat your entire body and,it’s 10 to 20 minutes per treatment or so you just need to expose, si similar.
How I’m sure most folks have experienced a tanning bed, right? You’d go into a tanning bed, set the timer, and just expose your skin and relax. and your body actually absorbs this light and it penetrates fairly deep into the body, especially near infrared. and that’s where you’ll see the differences of red and near infrared.
Red light is primarily absorbed by the outer tissues like your skin, and then near infrared, penetrates a little deeper and can actually stimulate, muscles, can provide healing on, on, on a deeper level. So both wavelengths are very good in conjunction with one another. And so that’s typically how a treatment is just exposing your skin and letting, letting your body absorb the light.
[00:12:37] How red lights effects inflammation
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[00:12:37] Tony Winyard: So when you say, for example, it helps with inflammation, so inflammation’s quite important for the body, isn’t it?
We don’t necessarily want to stop inflammation happening. So how does it help inflammation?
[00:12:48] Wes Pfiffner: I think Tony, that’s a such a critical question because . You see that a lot, and we actually have a great article on our site that’s called Less Ice, more Light. And in fact, most people are starting to pull it back as far as the inflammation out there of using ice. and a big thing there is what does ice do?
Ice cuts off blood flow. And so when it cuts off blood flow,your body’s not able to really form that bubble. Around that injury and, because that’s essentially what an inflammation is. It’s like a, it’s like an internal bandaid. and when you cut off the blood flow, you can reduce the inflammation.
But does that accelerate the recovery because you actually want that brief acute response of a, of inflammation. and what, so what red light therapy does is part of the mechanism of action is there’s a brief . uptake in nitric oxide, released into the bloodstream. So you actually see an increase in blood flow.
So what it happens is it, so your question, does it, Inflammation, right? Is it stopping it or is it just accelerating? And it’s really just accelerating that process naturally, right? It’s getting more blood flow there more,more of, the blood, like the white blood cells, et cetera, that, that repair damaged tissues.
It’s getting more of that there. And it’s also helping those cells that are under oxidated stress in that area. let’s say an example. I went and did like a, a leg workout and I did a bunch of squats. I did a bunch of lunges. My legs are shot, right? They’re gonna, you’re gonna fill up with lactic acid, they’re gonna fill up with brief acute inflammation, red and near infrared, helps that recover just faster by healing those cells and giving those cells, shifting them from oxidative stress back to homeostasis.
And then you see a brief uptick in, in ATP. and so it just accelerates that pro na, that natural process faster.
[00:14:29] Chronic inflammation
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[00:14:29] Tony Winyard: Right. And so what about then if someone has say chronic inflammation?
[00:14:36] Wes Pfiffner: That’s a good question. that’s a good question. There’s a very good meta-analysis on, the different mechanisms of red and near infrared four for inflammation. So it’s probably that’s a tough question to answer because the body is so complex and there’s many different issues of maybe why somebody’s dealing with
With chronic inflammation, right? is it arthritis? is it,is it, is it fibromyalgia? what are, is it their, is it diet related? is it some sort of a supplement they’re taking? is it a living environment, right? is it mold or is it, who knows?
what is causing that? So it’s always tough to say what it could do for chronic, but if you look at what just light does in general, it’s providing your cells, . With energy to function A as they’re designed to. So anytime you can support healthy cellular function, you’re giving your body the tools.
just like you would want to take vitamins or eat a good, healthy diet, you’re giving your body the tools. For it to run, as it wants to run. And anytime you can set yourself up for that, like what, like we’re talking about being proactive, you’re gonna, you’re gonna build a stronger body,that’s better prepared to take on, the stresses of the day or, or maybe it, maybe you’re supporting like you’re sick with something.
Or, just if I was to roll an ankle, like I’m gonna, I’m gonna deliver light to that, damaged area to give my body the tools to help prepare itself.
[00:15:52] Tony Winyard: And so as far as the actual panels, I mean you, you mentioned it’s modular and so on, and there seems to be quite a few different companies selling or, they’ve got various types of red light therapy, panels.
I guess is there much difference between ’em? I know there’s lots of stuff coming outta China, for example.
[00:16:10] What is the difference between all the red light panals?
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[00:16:10] Wes Pfiffner: yeah. There is that, that really goes into any type when you see a successful . product category be developed. You always see a lot of fast followers and a lot, you’ll, you’ll see a lot of, let’s say, janky products on Amazon, right? Just it goes with the industry. I mean, if you, if anybody can remember when massage guns came onto the market, like now there’s probably a thousand of ’em on Amazon, right?
And so one, we’re the original creators of the Red Light panel per se. and so we work with a lot of individuals in the research space. and we’ve really designed our products to give the body, a safe dosage of light. You see a lot of products out there saying, oh, we deliver more power.
We’re this really, there’s no validation for that, especially with, you’ll see companies delivering multiple different wavelengths of red light, but your body responds the same to any different type of red wavelength. It’s so close that it’s not really making a significant difference.
So you see a lot of smoke and mirrors. In the red light industry with companies trying to pull a leg up. And the other part is, what separates Joovv is we actually design and develop our own products. most of what you’ll see on the market is just white labeled . products, like you mentioned, China.
they really don’t, they really don’t own those products or haven’t, designed them. They don’t really know what’s in those products. when you’re creating a product, especially here in the States, you have to follow fairly strict guidelines because it is a class two medical device. And differences with our product is the quality components are just a higher standard.
we’ve actually gone through independent safety testing, to make sure it’s safe and effective for folks at home. And so the components are just that much on a higher level. and we’re delivering a safe dosage. you wouldn’t want to just expose your body to anything out there, especially naked, not knowing if it’s been safety tested, different things like that.
So we take a lot of pride in really creating. A safe, effective device and creating and designing our own products and not just simply buying something off, Alibaba as an example because you just see that now nowadays, folks just, and some countries especially, you mentioned China, that kind of flood the market with copycat devices.
and so we do everything. We, we do everything the right way and really try to create a great product for consumers that, that can really, affect their health in a positive way.
[00:18:26] What potential dangers are there?
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[00:18:26] Tony Winyard: So what could be a potential danger of someone buying, a product from somewhere? they’ve, there’s no, the manufacturer isn’t established.
Some what could be a possible danger from using a product like that?
[00:18:38] Wes Pfiffner: well, there could be many things. One, it, I mean, it could shock them. If it’s not, it, how safe it is. Has it been tested to, to go through all of that stuff. another one could be,maybe you’re delivering way too high of power to your body,in the, the photo medicines,research, there’s a known effect called the biphasic dosage response.
And it’s when you actually deliver too much light, too fast can actually cause damage to your cells. It’s almost like an overload. and so you want to make sure that dosages is safe and effective, but if you deliver too much light, for example, so there’s lots of products out there too that don’t deliver enough light.
So if you’ve ever seen something like a little flashlight, something like that’s not gonna do . Do the job. you need to make sure it’s delivering a high enough dosage to stimulate the cells, but, but not too high to where you’re gonna cause damage to the cells. So there, I mean, there’s many things, especially if you’re not like, with our products, we provide,eye protection.
our, we’ve gone through testing that are glasses. They do block that certain wavelength of light that there is a potential to, maybe overheat. the tissues in your eyes. And so there’s just many little nuances like that to where you know you’re gonna be exposing your body no different than your ti if you’re to take a supplement.
Like you’re exposing this to your body and radiating light on it. you want to make sure it’s just, it, it’s been safety tested.
[00:19:54] Tony Winyard: And so are there areas of the body you need to be more careful with then? It’s, I mean, obviously you just mentioned the eyes. Is there any other areas,
[00:20:01] Wes Pfiffner: not really. in fact, there’s been pretty cool research. we’ve participated in some small pilot studies. I. showing benefits for hormones. So like another sensitive area you would think like for a male is the testes or the private area. and actually there’s some science in animal models, but also we’ve seen it in some research we’ve participated in with an increase in testosterone.
it’s not anything that we can make like a, a strong claim about, but it just goes down to that mechanism of ranier infrared light stimulates healthy cellular function well. there’s mitochondria,in the testes, right? The late cells, there’s cells there that, that require energy, right?
To create. to create testosterone, different things of those functions. and when they receive energy, they can work properly. And so that’s what’s really fascinating about it is, what we’ve seen. There isn’t any sensitive areas. Now, if you’re delivering too high of a power down there, you , that may not be such a pleasant response.
but, but yeah, so that, that could potentially be something. But in general, . when you’re delivering a safe dosage, you can radiate the entire body.
[00:21:04] Tell me more about increasing nitric oxide
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[00:21:04] Tony Winyard: And you mentioned about it increases nitric oxide. So that suggests to me, I guess it would be good for people with like asthma and respiratory issues.
[00:21:13] Wes Pfiffner: it could be. I mean, it’s, we’re always blown away with when somebody buys one of our products and they start using it, they may have bought it for X, but then all of a sudden they, they’ll leave a review or they’ll send an email and be like, Hey, I’m experiencing this type of a benefit.
is that normal? one of ’em, one of ’em, that I can think of that’s on the top of my head is . There was this gal who was doing a review of our product. I can’t remember what media outlet she wrote for, but, she has, I think it’s, where is it? Is it Bell’s Palsy where some of your face can go numb?
is that the right? I can’t remember. anybody that, that’s listening can fact check that. But there is a,an effect with, I think it’s a Bell’s Palsy that where half of your face can go, like numb. you just don’t, you don’t, you can’t feel anything.
And when she started using the red light, she was using it for skin benefits. Her Bells palsy cleared up 98% is what she, what she stated to us in an email. And she’s is that normal? Can that happen? And it’s I don’t, I mean, we don’t know, but like apparently that’s happening. And so that’s where the science is with red and ear and redline now.
It’s very fluid and it’s very evolving. most of what we’re able to say as far as a benefit is it, it can mildly reduce like pain and inflammation, relax, sore muscles, and then their skin health benefits. But it’s starting to evolve like way beyond that. and which is very exciting.
It’s a very exciting field to be in. and so we’re seeing that in the literature be proved out. There was, I know I mentioned the eyes, but there was a very exciting study. just a, just about a year and a half ago where they were using red light, not the near infrared light, red light. And it was actually help improving,vision for folks, 40 and, and over just a three minute treatment in the morning.
They were, they noted significant, benefits in improving their vision.
[00:22:49] Tony Winyard: vision
[00:22:50] Wes Pfiffner: And then one of ’em just to release this month. Very exciting study. folks that did a red light treatment after eating. it reduced blood glucose levels up to 28% versus, versus the placebo. and so that’s another one. We were scratching your head and you’re like, how could it do that?
But that kind of goes into the theme of what we’re talking about of how it just, your body takes that energy and it just starts functioning a as it’s designed to. Right. And so we don’t know the limits of it yet, which is very exciting.
[00:23:21] Is there a recommended amount of time per week?
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[00:23:21] Tony Winyard: with a regular sauna. I mean, they say that if you can get accumulated 60 minutes a week, there’s like enormous benefit. So is it something similar you would need so many minutes per week, for example, or,
[00:23:34] Wes Pfiffner: great question. So typically we look at daily treatments. But most of the research that we’ve personally participated in, we saw jumps at six weeks, 12 weeks. So it’s something you need to be doing on a regular basis. It’s not a super immediate effect. Some people will see immediate, effects of maybe reducing pain in a joint because of that increase in blood flow, different things like that.
Or short-term muscle recovery. Hey, I feel a little bit less sore. After this. But I think some of those really long-term benefits, that really can improve the core of your health, it’s probably gonna be somewhere longer in, into the couple weeks. and and no different than when you’re introducing like a new supplement, maybe a multivitamin or maybe something you’re probably not gonna see.
The greatest, benefit the first time you take that supplement, but maybe when you’re looking at it over several weeks. but that’s not to say someone couldn’t see benefits right away, And because again, all of our bodies are different. Maybe we’re dealing with different stresses.
some people are super big into fitness, right? They put a lot of stress on their body. So implementing it right away like that, they could see a difference in their, in, in their recovery. So that’s something we see as an example with, a professional sports team that we’ve partnered with, the San Francisco 49 ERs.
So they’re an NFL team, right? And anybody that knows . American football, it’s a brutal sport, right? Those guys are running into each other like missiles and so they’re, it’s not uncommon for an NFL player to be like, after a game. They feel like they went through a car accident.
and so those like player, individuals like those who are putting a lot of stress on their body. they can see the benefits of it fairly quickly right after a game, and using it several days after a game, et cetera. So it depends on individual base. But from the research we’ve participated in, usually takes a couple weeks.
[00:25:17] Does time of day matter?
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[00:25:17] Tony Winyard: And is there, have you noticed any difference whether. Is it better to, for example, to use it in the morning, afternoon, evening, or, I guess again, it depends on the person.
[00:25:29] Wes Pfiffner: Yeah, I mean, it depends on the person. Depends how they’re wired. we’ll, we’re split there from a customer base. Some customers, that’s part of their morning ritual, right? They get up. first thing they do is start, like a meditation routine, breathwork routine. It really helps wake them up.
It helps, give them some clarity energy throughout the day. and that’s one thing I personally do. I love to use it right in the morning. And, I’ve noticed firsthand, I. I know everyone can probably relate to this that time where you wake up some of those mornings and you just feel that brain fog.
It’s like you just woke up out of a deep sleep. Maybe suddenly maybe your alarm went off or something like that, and you just feel lethargic, right? for whatever reason, I, right after a treatment I do in the morning, that’s gone, like I just don’t experience that brain fog in the morning or that,that, that haziness that can be there.
and so a lot of people, like in the morning, me personally. but then there’s a large group that they like doing it at night. It really helps relax them. most likely shifts them into,like a parasympathetic state. And a lot of people will just rave about how they get great sleep,when they start using it at night before bed as a wind down tool, et cetera.
So it’s split there. And there’s also . A cool feature on our products that you can use through our app we call ambient mode. And it’s not delivering a, like a clinical dosage, it’s just delivering red ambient lighting. And so a lot of people will turn that setting on. ’cause at night, red is not very intrusive on your circadian rhythm, so it really doesn’t halt melatonin production.
and so it’s a great wind down tool to maybe put on in the bedroom, right? Maybe you’re gonna read a book or you’re gonna, you’re gonna do something as a wind down routine. Turn off all the blue light. it can be a great way to help and do sleep just from that ambient lighting perspective.
split there and really,depends on, what works best for you.
[00:27:12] Would it work well with meditation?
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[00:27:12] Tony Winyard: And it sounds, well something that went through my mind as you were saying that it sounds like something that would be great to pair it together with say meditation, doing it at the same time as you meditate.
[00:27:23] Wes Pfiffner: Yeah. We see that a lot. We see a lot of people starting their day with that or their nighttime routine with that of breath work and meditation. Just, I think we live in such a world now that we’re so overstimulated. and if you think about us as humans right now, we’ve never had more information than any other humans on earth.
And we’ve never had it that fast. I mean, you can learn something with an instant and your brain can be constantly bouncing. I mean, how many of us, I’m sure . I’m gonna raise my hand. How many of us have, they maybe stumble across something, they’ve been scrolling and then they’re off learning about that, and then they’re clicking here, and then they’re doing, and it’s boom.
but think about your brain. It’s going, it’s like bouncing like boom. And that stimulation, right? And it can be very hard to turn that off and then go to bed. and so I think. When you’re, when we’re talking about something that can help relax you, calm you.
I think that’s a big thing in our day and age. you look at, you look at just the average, and this is the states, so I imagine it’s probably the same in the uk, but, a hundred years ago the average American slept about nine and a half hours. and now, we’re under six, the average American.
So that’s just significantly different in a hundred year span. We’re sleeping,over two hours less a night. and just that alone, like getting a good night’s sleep versus not getting a good night’s sleep. Like you’re not gonna, function the next day. yeah, I think, back to your question of it’s if IFD really good to pair it with things that can calm you, not stimulating, relaxing, so definitely great to pair with breath work or meditation.
[00:28:53] Hormesis
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[00:28:53] Tony Winyard: Early on, you talked about how it. Stimulates production of mitochondria and ATP and everything.
And I wondered, something went through my mind as you were saying that does it, when you do hormesis and cold showers and saunas and so on, you are accumulating, you are building up more brown fat. Does this have anything to do with that whole sort of process?
[00:29:17] Wes Pfiffner: I, there you’ll see some folks promoting a lot of I know you’re not specifically talking about fat loss, but . There are some people that are promoting like high powered lasers of almost stimulating fat loss or burning fat loss, not really with our products.
You’re gonna, you’re gonna see that. Now, I will put a caveat in there that, and something we’ve seen through a research partner of ours and the study hasn’t been published yet, but, it helped assist. In, in, in someone, trying to, lose weight, with exercise and diet. Because if we, if you,if you go back to that study that I mentioned about blood glucose and how it lowered at 28%.
So if it has the ability to help your metabolic system, and that function better, it could help support, weight loss, different things. So it’s tough to put like a, an actual . yes or no on, on some of the stuff with like fat burning, et cetera. because it’s just so overall supporting with your body in nearly every function.
And that’s why we really encourage full body, to help try to get that systemic benefits.
[00:30:18] Myths about red light therapy
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[00:30:18] Tony Winyard: are there any myths about red light therapy that you’d like to quash?
[00:30:24] Wes Pfiffner: Yeah, I’d say one of the bigger myths out there is it like, is it snake oil? and no,it’s definitely not. I mean, there’s a lot of scientific IT literature now. I mean, you can go to PubMed right now and just type in red light therapy, just type in the year 2023, you’re gonna see hundreds of studies.
it, it’s, so from that standpoint, like it’s really, it’s pretty solidified, that it, there is lots and lots of benefits to it. wavelengths do matter. the other thing I would probably say is it’s,you can’t get these benefits from, draping yourself in red Christmas lights.
It’s just, there’s not gonna be a high enough power, so power matters. and the science is legitimate when you’re looking at what this therapy can do for folks.
[00:31:04] Tony Winyard: And so when, if people are considering buying these products, I mean, obviously they should get Joovv products, but if they’re looking for things, what should they look out for?
What should they be looking to avoid?
[00:31:18] Wes Pfiffner: Yeah,I would avoid a couple things. I would really avoid,companies promoting,like when they promote, let’s say medical claims. ’cause a lot of companies, they’re trying to follow our route of being a legitimate medical product and simply stating it doesn’t mean you’re a medical product.
So I would always look at the company to show validation for that. So one, one tricky thing we’ve seen in the industry is folks saying, Hey, we’ve been through, safety testing and medical testing. But then when you ask, and they’ll show like a safety mark. But if you look up that safety mark, it’ll show it’s safe for horticulture use.
So like plant use, it’s a grow, like a grow light. So it’s very tricky. which is why we’re pretty transparent with all of that. we have,lots of articles on our website of things to really look out for and we, I believe it’s called, misleading Marketing Claims in the red light therapy industry.
And we call a lot of that out with power. Wavelengths, safety testing, misleading marks, all of that sort of stuff. so I mean, even if you’re looking for maybe something locally around your area, I would highly encourage you to read, read that article on our website because it really points out some of the lack of, I.
industry, enforcement, in that area. And so we’re just a company that chooses to do that ourselves because we believe in providing, a really good quality product for folks that when they’re investing in it, they’re getting exactly what they’re paying for.
And do you sell internationally? We do, yeah, we do ship internationally. and we actually have some, some good in incentives coming up as Black Friday is a, typically a really big time of year. So if anybody is looking at that,for the holidays, we will have some great promos,coming up here in the next, month or two.
[00:32:58] Tony Winyard: and something that I can’t get outta my head.
I, I lived in Amsterdam for a while and obviously they’re famous for their red light district, so it’s
[00:33:06] Wes Pfiffner: that’s true. That, and a lot of people talk about that sound, that, that song, Roxanne,where they me where they mention a lot of the red light in there.
[00:33:13] Tony Winyard: Yeah. So changing the subject Wes.
Is there, is there a book you can think of that’s really moved you for any reason?
[00:33:21] Fave books
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[00:33:21] Wes Pfiffner: Yeah, there was one I’ll mention two. . and I’m actually, I’ll mention three that really changed my outlook on some things. One of ’em would be, he, Dr. Satchin Panda is his name and it’s called Circadian Codes. I’m not sure if you’ve ever heard of it, Tony, but it’s a really great book just to see that I.
how circadian works and how it affects our biology and, that timing matters. And one of, one of the analogies in that book is really cool of your stomach’s not just a dumpster to shove stuff down at, every, moment of the day. you need to train, almost train the stomach as, Hey, these are the times we eat.
You can expect that. And when your body expects it, it starts preparing. The right acids, the right enzymes to break that food down. So just different stuff like that, I, they don’t teach you that in school. I don’t know how much they teach now about circadian rhythm, but, it’s fairly new,in, in the health industry.
so that, that was a really exciting book to read. the other one was, I think it’s called Why We Sleep by Dr. Matthew Walker. It’s an incredible book. it’ll like . I don’t know. It makes you fall in love with sleep when you read it. it’s maybe one of the best books you can read about sleep. And he’s also been on several big podcasts like Joe Rogan and different stuff where he’s just a great, he’s got a great,voice of explaining stuff.
so I’m sure his audio book is good, but I really enjoyed reading his book. it was really cool to learn that much about sleep and why we sleep. And it ju it just explains it in a really simple, digestible way that’s not too complicated. . and then the last one, was really cool. it’s called Pain-Free.
and it’s a book by Pete Egoscue and it’s something I personally struggled with for several years was just, I had just chronic pain. so I had a chronic shoulder pain, chronic lower back pain. I. and I realized for myself, like it was structural problems, my body wasn’t aligned, lined right. And so what he ask you, the book calls out,is really teaching you about postural alignment.
I’d went to chiropractors. I tried tons of stuff, I tried different stretches, everything. And it wasn’t until I could actually look at my body and especially from all sides of the front of it, the side of, at the back of it, and see Hey, . you are, you’re tilted forward, and all of your upper body.
your back is like holding all of that. And so that’s where, that’s why your pain is coming as you lower back. And that’s what the shoulder, it’s like all interconnected. there’s lots of great routines you can learn,from that book. and Pete actually, I. I mentioned the San Francisco 49 ERs.
The NFL team that we work with, they actually incorporated,his method. and they have a specialist there that is, is working these players through postural alignment. so it’s pretty cool. it’s a, it’s something that I’ve adopted and I work on a daily basis. So those are three, three really cool books.
so circadian rhythm. . Sleep and then a book about posture. and it’s really cool because I feel like it goes hand in hand really with what Joovv is like just putting your body into position of how it was designed to be. It’s amazing how much that can do for your health. and light’s a big part of it.
’cause there’s months that you’re gonna go through and you, everyone knows this in the uk. there’s months you go through where the sun’s just not there. And so can you supplement with something else that can provide. You know that, that energy to your body and thankfully there is, and same with, just putting your body in the right posture of alignment.
It can function as it’s intended. ’cause when you’re in pain, it’s your body signaling to you something’s wrong. And now we’re taught so much of a pain medicine. Do this, do that, put a brace on it. But no,and that goes into me saying at the beginning of the podcast, self-discovery.
it’s gonna take you . Caring about that pain and you diving in, because if you go to a specialist or anybody, they’re just gonna listen to what you’re telling them. So the more you can learn about you, the healthier you can become.
[00:37:00] Tony Winyard: And when you talked about the, I mean, we are quite far north here, you in the Northern hemisphere, and it’s starting to get darker earlier and earlier.
And I lived in the Arctic Circle for while in the north of Norway. and for, there’s times there where it’s 23 hours of darkness during the
[00:37:17] Wes Pfiffner: So some of those Northern Scandinavian countries and Canada and so on, they, I guess they could really benefit from things like this.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we have a, we have an article on our site now, where we go into a little bit of that research for like seasonal effective disorder, and how near infrared is showing a lot of promise to help boosting mood, et cetera. When it comes to light, I mean, all in all, when you read, if you read any of those books that I mentioned, we are very sensitive to light.
and, our body is very sensitive to it. we react to it. in, in a very, can be positive, but also negative way. right. if you’re exposing yourself to the wrong light at night, it’s really gonna jack up your sleep. but if you expose yourself to the right type of light, especially in the morning, can really give you, it can really wake you up.
It can activate, hormones like cortisol to, to kickstart the day of what you need to feel awake. So I like to say like, when, if you can . If you could start wielding light for your benefit, I think it can have a major impact, on your health.
[00:38:15] Tony Winyard: So if people want to find out more about Joovv, where would they go,
[00:38:19] Wes Pfiffner: our website, joovv.com and if you go there,I encourage you to not go look at the products. I would go to our science page. We have a great video. I. that, that gives you just an overview on how light impacts the body, specifically red and near infrared and your cells. and then I would, I’d look at the various articles we have a ton of articles on what red and near infrared can do as far as from a benefit standpoint, how it works.
So I would just encourage you to start there. And then, the next section I would potentially go to, is the reviews. go, just go read what people are saying. how it’s impacting their life, how they’re incorporating it in, into their life, their daily routine, et cetera. And then if you’re more curious after that, definitely feel free to go look at the products.
But I just encourage you to just do more reading. don’t be a skeptic like I was where I thought this was a joke. just see what it can do. And there’s ways you can even . and start implementing better light habits in your, into your own life, even from this podcast.
Like start mitigating bright light. As soon as the sun goes down, just use, it may be low Calvin incandescent bulbs, or start using a salt lamp, or you can get some com, some red light bulbs from your local hardware store. start seeing the sun first thing in the morning, getting out regular, into the sun throughout the day.
So there’s lots of things you can do to start benefiting from . from, implementing healthy light habits, and then implementing a red light panel like Joovv takes it to the next level but there’s lots of places you can start.
[00:39:44] Tony Winyard: And can people only buy products direct from Joovv or can you, can they get ’em from say, like Amazon and so on?
[00:39:51] Wes Pfiffner: So we, yeah, we just sell directly to the consumer. joovv.com is the only place you can currently buy our products.
[00:39:59] Tony Winyard: And just before we finish, Wes, is there a quotation you can think of that really resonates with you?
[00:40:04] Wes Pfiffner: Yeah, there’s a cool quote. I can’t, I think it’s by, it might be by Les Brown. he’s a known,motivational speaker and I can’t remember the exact of it, but people will get the gist of it. That, that if you fall down and you can look up, you can get up. . And so I think that’s just a cool quote to hear because life’s very fluid and there’s ups and downs and you’re not always gonna be up.
but you’re not always gonna be down either. And the only reason you know there’s ups and downs is because you know you’re going through ’em. And if it was good all the time, nobody would know, what bad was. so yeah, if you can, if you fall down, if you can look up, you can get up.
[00:40:40] Tony Winyard: Wess, really appreciate your time and for educating us on what red light therapy is and what to look out for as well. So thank you.
[00:40:47] Wes Pfiffner: Thanks, Tony. I really enjoyed the chat.
Join me next week on The Art of Living Proactively for a fascinating glimpse into the world of Qigong. I’ll be speaking with Andrew Kenneth Fretwell, an expert Qigong and Tai Chi instructor based in Bali, to unpack the secrets of this ancient Chinese practice. Andrew will reveal how harnessing your qi or life force energy is key to living a long and vital life.
We’ll dive deep into time tested Taoist techniques like bone breathing, and special meditations that strengthen your organs and awaken your spiritual essence. You’ll learn the difference between qigong and tai chi and why starting with qigong sets you on the fast track to well being. Plus Andrew will share his insights on overcoming emotional blocks, balancing hormones and achieving enlightenment.
It’s an info packed and inspirational episode you won’t want to miss. So be sure to hit subscribe, leave us a review and share this episode with friends. Join me next week for a proactive perspective on harnessing your energy and realising your potential with Andrew Kenneth Fretwell.
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Have you ever wondered how the power of your choices can shape your life? How a simple shift in mindset, routine, or even your breathing can lead to profound healing and transformation? In this intriguing episode of “The Art of Living Proactively,” we explore the incredible journey of Vikki Jones, a long Covid survivor who found solace and healing through the power of breathwork. Are you ready to embark on a transformative adventure with us?The Journey Towards Healing:Vikki shares her remarkable story of resilience and adaptability, beginning with her life-altering surfing accident and leading to her encounter with Covid-19. Along the way, she discovered the power of breathing techniques to manage her long Covid symptoms. By enrolling in the STASIS breathing program, Vikki learned specific exercises that not only relieved her shortness of breath but also positively impacted her overall health and well-being.
Unveiling the Power of Breath:Long Covid can be incredibly unpredictable, with good and bad days challenging the body and mind. Vikki explains how managing one’s health and controlling stress is crucial for long Covid patients, and how breathing issues are prevalent among them. Even elite athletes often exhibit dysfunctional breathing patterns. Vikki’s journey has shown her the importance of breathing not just during exercise but in every aspect of life, including sleep, recovery, performance, and concentration.
Action Steps and Call to Action:If you’re seeking relief from long Covid symptoms or simply want to optimize your breathing, Vikki Jones has a wealth of knowledge to offer. She shares customized breathing exercises in her group programs and workshops, tailored specifically for long Covid sufferers. Visit her Facebook page (Long Covid Breathing) or find her on Instagram and YouTube (Long Covid Breathing) for valuable insights and resources. Additionally, you can contact her via email at longcovidbreathing@gmail.com to explore the possibilities of transforming your well-being through breathwork.
Chapters:30:11 Your BOLT scores varies greatly day to day?
31:06 How often do you need to practice your breathing exercises?
32:29 Do you track your HRV?
33:17 Does hormetic stress help?
34:23 What is the difference between an infra red sauna and a regular sauna?
35:41 Have you tried red light therapy?
37:00 How does living at altitude effect you?
38:30 When you’re at sea-level do you notice a difference?
38:43 Long COVID training programmes
42:28 Are there many resources for people with long COVID?
43:35 Fave book
44:17 How to get in contact
45:38 Fave quote
In this episode of “The Art of Living Proactively,” you’ve witnessed the remarkable story of Vikki Jones, a long Covid survivor who harnessed the power of breathwork to overcome her symptoms and regain control of her life. Through customised breathing exercises and a proactive approach, Vikki has proven that our choices hold the potential to shape our experiences, no matter how challenging they may be. Are you ready to embrace the power of your breath and take your own life to new heights?
Remember, you can always listen to the full episode for a deeper dive into Vikki’s journey, as well as gain insights from other experts in future episodes. Stay tuned, leave a review, and share this episode to spread the light of proactive living. Harness the power of your choices and live life proactively!
Guest Bio:Vikki Jones, President and Owner of Beyond Fitness, has been a personal trainer for 20 years. Her commitment is to help her clients reach optimum health by combining breathe work, exercise and fitness with nutrition advice and wellness coaching. Her clients have included celebrities, physicians, business executives, professional athletes, mothers and children.Watch this episode on YouTube Transcript246 – Vikki JonesWelcome to another captivating edition of the art of living proactively. I’m your host, Tony Winyard, back with an inspiring new guest. Today, I’ll be speaking with the brilliant Vikki Jones. A breathing expert who is using her vital knowledge to help long COVID sufferers. Vikki will share her incredible story of recovering from breaking her neck while surfing. And then later to contract COVID 19, which left her with debilitating long-term symptoms. She’ll explain how learning proper breathing techniques through the oxygen advantage program has been a lifesaver in managing her illness. Vikki is now paying it forward by teaching customized breathing exercises to others struggling with long Covids myriad of symptoms. She’ll provide powerful insights into taking control of your health when traditional medicine fails you. it’s an inspirational tale of overcoming adversity with grit and determination. Be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and YouTube. Great.
If you could leave us a review. And hope you enjoy this breath of fresh air conversation with the remarkable Vikki Jones. Remember, leave your comments on our YouTube channel and do share the episode with friends.
[00:01:26] Tony Winyard: Welcome to another episode of The Art of Living Proactively and my guest today, Vikki Jones. How are
[00:01:32] Vikki Jones: I’m feeling good this morning, so a little win.
[00:01:39] Tony Winyard: and so this morning, so where are you? Because I know you’re in the States, but I’m not sure which
[00:01:43] Vikki Jones: I am in Arizona, so it is sunrise here. Seven o’clock in the morning, it’s going to be a beautiful day. We get a lot of sunshine here. The other thing, we’re at altitude as well I’m at about 6, 000 feet. what they call the high desert. But just gorgeous scenery, lots of mountains. Great outdoor life here.
[00:02:09] Tony Winyard: I think that what you mentioned about altitude, we’ll come back to that later on, because obviously we’re going to be talking about breathing and so on. So we’ll definitely come back to that, but let’s get into, my guests always start with some sort of parable or metaphor. I believe you, you have
[00:02:22] Vikki Jones: I do. my little metaphor is you can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf. And that really hits with me. I’ve had two really major turning points in my life. And the first one was actually I broke my neck when I was surfing, of all things. and that taught me a lot about health. And the second one was getting COVID, which then turned into long COVID.
And both incidences changed the path of my life and made me really open my eyes to a lot of different therapies, to help me get better. So I am learning to surf on some very different waves right now. And, like I said, that’s my little metaphor.
[00:03:19] Tony Winyard: and do you still surf?
we’re living in a landlocked state. Yeah, you’re not so near
[00:03:29] Vikki Jones: not so near to water.
[00:03:30] Tony Winyard: so when that, the first incident happened, And it’s funny because, I’m not a surfer and I’m nowhere near the sea here, so I’ve never been a surfer, but my image of surfing is a very sort of relaxed thing. It’s on, beautiful weather and it’s all calm and relaxed.
I don’t think, it doesn’t, it wouldn’t cross my mind that you could break your neck while or surfing.
[00:03:51] Vikki Jones: If you fall off your board, you can, and hit your head on the bottom of the, on the bottom of the ocean floor, which is what happened to me. it was, but it is, it’s supposed to be relaxing. Of course, it’s all the things that we think of being healthy. We’re outside, we’re in the water, you’re with nature.
it’s usually sunny and,you think of it as a health. a healthy outdoor activity, but unfortunately on that particular day, it wasn’t the outcome for me wasn’t as good.
[00:04:26] Tony Winyard: So you said, I forget how you worded it, but you said that sort of was like a sort of changing direction for you. So what happened after that
[00:04:32] Vikki Jones: I broke my neck and that in itself was, very debilitating. And,I didn’t know, I knew that I was very lucky to be alive because I broke C1 and C2, which is right at the top of your neck. and my whole life had been about activity and working out and exercise and of course I was immobilized for a long time.
and… Afterwards, I was in a lot of pain,and I had to change the way of life because I live because my, the fracture was considered unstable, so they didn’t quite know whether it would stabilize and I would be able to have a regular life again, or whether I would need surgery and have it fused.
so you live in this sort of, seesaw of and then the pain that came along with it, was difficult to deal with and just, the things that we Take for granted in a life like I used to love to run and that was the first time in my life when I Was unable to run because of the pounding
[00:05:49] Tony Winyard: Right.
[00:05:50] Vikki Jones: and you just have to think more about your activity because things like falling and You know just impact Really could change you know what was happening to me, but you know the big thing was I It made me open my eyes to the fact that how lucky I was to have survived it and how lucky I was to be able to still be walking and for it and it also put me in a direction of natural health care.
I’d got into some chiropractic work to help me with the pain and I got in with a community that really took me in and started talking about, some alternative health options.
[00:06:48] Tony Winyard: And what age were you when this
[00:06:49] Vikki Jones: it was 2006, Not that long ago. actually, quite a long time ago. But I, I had children. I had children. I had three children who were honestly scared to death. they saw their mum who was active and they didn’t know what was going to happen and, as much as it happens to you, it also happens to your family and it really, I know it really scared them.
So yeah, I was a mother at the time. still am.
[00:07:23] Tony Winyard: Okay. and so one of the areas that we’ve got in common and how we got to know each other, we are both members of the Oxygen Advantage sort of community, I suppose you could say. And it’s interesting, we are speaking before the recording started, and I was asking you how did you get involved in Oxygen Advantage?
that’s a fascinating story. could you tell the listeners that
[00:07:43] Vikki Jones: I got involved, through contracting COVID. So I got COVID in July of 2020. which was the first variant. and I didn’t get, I didn’t get bad symptoms, just a mild COVID with pneumonia, but I didn’t get better. So I was this healthy, what I thought was healthy, strong, fit, I was working as a trainer and I got COVID.
And then didn’t recover. And it was at a time when, there was a lot of COVID around, but the whole thing about long COVID was very quiet because it was something nobody saw happen, saw happening. and I started thinking, this isn’t right. I’m not, had incredible fatigue. I couldn’t think.
There were some days I couldn’t get out of bed. Of course, my mind was, oh, I’ll just, I can exercise through this. Probably not the right thing to do. But I had a lot of shortness of breath, and then I read an article in the Atlantic Magazine about a program that was coming out of Mount Sinai, which is in New York, and it was called STASIS.
It was a breathing program, and I enrolled in that. My husband helped me through it because, mentally I couldn’t comprehend a lot of things. And… It was a breathing program, but it was too difficult for me. So my breathing was so labored and, compromised. But as a trainer, I knew that the sort of the foundation of learning to breathe would help somebody like me.
And they recommended, the stasis people recommended that I reach out to Patrick. And he runs, or is the founder of the Oxygen Advantage in the Buteyko breathing courses, and I did both of them. and it’s funny, long COVID is strange in as much as it’s a very new issue that’s come into society and the people that are suffering with it are the people that are driving the, information about how, what the symptoms are and how we need to be treated and all that other stuff.
And Patrick was actually the first person who listened to me. He was compassionate. He was open to changing his ideas of what long COVID were and how breathing could help people with long COVID. So that’s how I met you, Tony. And I’d already met Patrick and got onto that,learning to breathe, to help people with long COVID.
[00:10:51] Tony Winyard: So you mentioned about how the long COVID was giving you problems cognitively and so on. So the oxygen advantage, some of the information or something, the course is not that easy to begin with, but I can’t imagine trying to do that course if I’m impaired cognitively. So that sounds well.
[00:11:10] Vikki Jones: I had to,
[00:11:11] Tony Winyard: Well done on
[00:11:12] Vikki Jones: yeah, I had to do it a couple, I think I’ve done it like three times because every time I learn something new, and often I would, often I’d sit and do the course and I’d have to just turn my video off and listen and go back and listen. just so that I could, learn the stuff.
but it has been, it has really changed my life. And it has really changed my, ability to deal with some of the… the symptoms and the long journey that long COVID puts you on, learning to breathe properly, having breathing techniques has made a big difference. it is my kind of pillar for health.
[00:11:59] Tony Winyard: getting through that. I guess at this point we should maybe, because there will be some people listening to this who probably will be unfamiliar with what the oxygen advantage is. I mean it has been mentioned on previous episodes but that doesn’t necessarily mean everyone will know what it is. So could you just explain what the oxygen advantage is, what Buteyko is, and
[00:12:19] Vikki Jones: Okay. the, I think the basic program or the medical program as I would call it is Buteyko. Buteyko is a breathing program that teaches people to breathe, to use breathing exercises to help, with things like anxiety, depression, pain, sleep issues, even things like COPD, asthma. So it really focuses on learning to nasal breathe in order to help.
certain, medical issues. And that was invented by Dr. Buteyko. He was a Russian doctor who saw that, a lot of people that were chronically sick were upper chest breathers and he had them all start nasal breathing and a lot of their symptoms changed almost overnight. And Patrick then developed, from the Buteyko, he then developed Oxygen Advantage, which is more learning to breathe for performance, for health.
and for, all the things that go with that. So there’s kind of two pillars to it, but they’re both focused on using your breath in the way that we should to make our bodies, the healthiest that they can be.
[00:13:59] Tony Winyard: And I guess what may surprise some people listening is there’s so little understanding in for many people in breathing properly and what is functional breathing or Most people aren’t even aware of what is dysfunctional breathing, but I guess some people might be trying to think Where does a long COVID come into this breathing?
How does that all match up? How does breathing help you with long COVID?
[00:14:25] Vikki Jones: all right. So before I got COVID, I didn’t know this. I didn’t know anything about breathing, even though I’d been, an international athlete, I’d done all this training for people, and I’d never focused on breath work. I think we talk about breath work for yoga, but when you get long COVID, one of the symptoms you get is you get very short of breath.
Very short of breath. And, our whole body’s changed, so I think there’s 300 symptoms that come along with long COVID. And… Many of them are, very serious symptoms, but they’re, it’s difficult to explain. you have things like heart palpitations, you have neurological issues, you have digestive issues, there’s a myriad of symptoms, and most of them are untreatable by conventional medicine.
So a lot of people with Long Covid have been gaslit. You go and you talk to a doctor and you say, I’m having these issues. They run the gamut of conventional western medicine tests. They all come back normal and you feel like it’s in your head. So when you learn to breathe properly, you can take…
Many of those symptoms, and give, we’re just trying to calm the body down, in all honesty, because we are in a heightened state of anxiety, so we’re in that sympathetic mode of fight or flight. We wake up with anxiety or we wake up feeling fatigued or you wake up in pain and your body is like always just in this state of And by using certain breathing exercises we can then take the body from this fight or flight. into the rest and digest. So we have to be very careful with the exercises that we do because some breathing exercises, you can, what we call stimulate the nervous system or upregulate. And the ones that we use for long COVID tend to be down regulations.
They tend to be calming exercises because we have enough of the upregulation with what’s going on with our bodies.
[00:17:02] Tony Winyard: yeah So once you learnt the oxygen advantage method and Buteyko and so on so were you initially? I’m guessing it sounds like you were just initially learning it just To help yourself and then it, what developed from there and what happened
[00:17:19] Vikki Jones: It, like I said, Patrick was so open to listening about the symptoms of long COVID. And when I was a trainer, one of the things that we do when we have clients is we have to modify exercises. We have to make them applicable to our clients. And that’s what happened with oxygen advantage. you have the basic nasal exercises that you’re doing, you’re inhaling and exhaling through your nose.
But for people with long COVID, you have to modify them because our breathing is so dysfunctional and what someone would normally consider a very achievable breathing exercise, people with long COVID cannot do. And so that’s when, A, I saw how much it helped me if I was having what we call a relapse or an episode that are, very scary.
Then, I could use the breathing exercises or my husband could talk to me about what I should be doing to calm myself down. So you go down this road of, Oh my gosh, here comes a neurological episode that I’m not going to be able to control. you can use your breath to help you get past that point of almost no return where you get into the upper chest hyperventilation and just being very scared.
and so when it helped me, I realized how much it would help other people with long COVID. So we have, with long COVID, we have an incredible support system on social media, because that’s the only way that we can support each other. so there’s Facebook groups and other groups and people in there suffering and you want to be able to help them because they’re not getting answers from Western medicine.
And so we go down, or I certainly went down a path of, I need to doctor myself. I need to find things that I can use on a daily basis that are going to help with my symptoms that don’t include going to the doctor. They include things that I have within my own control. that whole alternative medicine is to me what has helped with, this long COVID journey.
but the breath work is something, that’s something we do all the time, every day, constantly. So if we don’t change our breath… We’re never going to get a different outcome with our health.
[00:20:25] Tony Winyard: And so as you improved your breathing and you were downregulating and then your cognitive functions, just what improved a lot as well? I’m guessing,
[00:20:34] Vikki Jones: on good days, yes. the thing about long COVID is such a weird, is just very strange because you can have a good day and here I am, I’m having a good day. You can talk to me on a not so good day and I am not going to be with it at all. So it’s almost like we have to celebrate our good days.
We have to. be very grateful for them, but, and I, you have to be careful because you don’t want to live in that point in that place of thinking, when’s the next bad day going to come. But the thing that I do know is if I am going to have a bad day or COVID episode, long COVID episode, I have got the tools to get me through the difficult situations.
[00:21:29] Tony Winyard: one thing I didn’t realize, and I’ve just realized as you were speaking then, is. So it’s now, what, three years since you initially got the long COVID, and you’ve still got long COVID. So it sounds like this is something, what, that’s never going to go
[00:21:42] Vikki Jones: I’d hope that it will eventually go away. It, Tony, it’s one of those things we don’t really know. the, we don’t know if we’ll ever fully recover,
[00:21:54] Tony Winyard: Right.
[00:21:55] Vikki Jones: because, there are some people that have recovered, but there are some people that are also three years in, and they’re still getting episodes of, or relapses, that’s what we call them, relapses.
so it’s an unknown thing, and that in itself gives you a little bit of anxiety, but, once again I’m going to go back to that’s why we have to take control of our health, because One of the things that long COVID has taught me is how important it is that we control our health.
We take control of our health. We look for the solutions. because we don’t know how long it’s going to last. And, I want my good days to be really good. And, if I’m going to have a bad day, I want those to be as minimally bad as possible.
[00:22:52] Tony Winyard: So I’m wondering, it’s, so the reason I got into the oxygen advantage, I have a history, I’ve had asthma since I was a child. And this sounds like there’s some similarities. I will always be asthmatic and, until the day I die. Using the oxygen advantage has enabled me to have control over my asthma, but it will never cure my asthma.
But by doing regular breathing exercises, I’m able to keep it under control. There’ll be certain environmental triggers that will make me more likely to have an asthmatic episode, but by doing breathing exercises, I can again, control that. So it sounds like there’s some sort of similarities there.
Are there environmental triggers for you, say, for that? For this?
[00:23:38] Vikki Jones: I have tried to see if there’s a pattern of environmental triggers or any kind of triggers. So long COVID is triggered by, or episodes of long COVID are triggered by stress. Stress on the body. And we don’t know what stresses will cause a relapse. it could be environmental, it could be emotional, it could be physical, it could be chemical.
It’s all of those things. And, hence, I know, cleaning up your diet, making sure you are eating really good food. we all do a supplement routine. Exercise, which a lot of people use for, to decrease stress. is an incredible stressor on someone that has long COVID and managing your stress and pacing is important.
So there’s a lot of similarities and you look for a pattern. So often if I’ve had a relapse, my husband and I will look for a pattern. Was there something that happened that caused this? and usually there isn’t. It’s just, there’s something wrong with people with long term COVID. There’s something going on with our autonomic nervous system.
So the things that we take for granted, like digestion, and heart rate, and, neurology, being able to think, and, our body temperature, that’s all, and breathing, that all changes, we suddenly, it goes awry, and you’re left with, okay, what can I do? the only thing of, the only part of your autonomic nervous system that you can actually control is your breath.
The rest of it, you have to, it just, it happens.
[00:25:50] Tony Winyard: So is it a case of everyone with long COVID, one of the main issues they have is their breathing? Would that be true to
[00:25:58] Vikki Jones: I would say a lot of, let’s go back to a dysfunctional breather. I would imagine that most people with, Long COVID, prior to getting COVID, were probably dysfunctional
[00:26:11] Tony Winyard: Breathers.
Yeah, that
[00:26:14] Vikki Jones: breathers. you get that upper chest, breathing through the mouth, that hypervent, very fast breathing, so that’s a dysfunctional breather. Now, I was one of them and, and a lot of people So your question was about dysfunctional breathing. A lot of people have breathing issues. that’s one of the things that, COVID comes along with the COVID virus.
It has an effect on your lungs and your breathing function. The feeling of suffocation, which you know as an asthmatic is very real with people with long COVID. the fact that when I, on a bad day, my BOLT score, which is the measure of my, tolerance of oxygen was something like three.
[00:27:06] Tony Winyard: Wow.
[00:27:07] Vikki Jones: as a breath instructor, you know that’s, that, that makes you feel like someone has put a pillow over your face. you are having trouble, you’re having trouble breathing.
[00:27:20] Tony Winyard: Yeah. So something that was going through my mind as you were saying that in, about dysfunctional breathing and so on. And I wondered whether… The initial accident with the, when you broke your neck, is if that contributed towards your dysfunctional breathing.
[00:27:38] Vikki Jones: I don’t know. I’ve always thought of, I’ve always thought of myself as a very healthy person. But I think one of the things that we are learning now is we are not taught to breathe properly. And I don’t know what the number is, but I think in society probably it’s more than 60 percent of people dysfunctionally breathe. even as an athlete, I ran marathons and, reached a very high level of athletic achievement. achievement. Nobody ever talked to me about breathing. So I was a dysfunctional breather from early life. when I used to run races, you could hear me coming just by the fact that I was my mouth breathing.
and it’s one of those things I don’t even think we’re conscious about, we’re not conscious. about breathing until you can’t breathe. you probably weren’t conscious about how difficult, you’re breathing until you got asthma and felt that heaviness in your chest. And, when I got COVID, that was the first time I was like, I can’t breathe.
I was in an accident one time and I actually punctured my lung. And, I can remember then thinking, Oh my gosh, I can’t breathe. I still had one lung working. But, thinking, and that just, your, question just brought that back to me. The feeling of suffocation is, is incredible if you haven’t, it’s someone holding your head underwater,I think so many of us are dysfunctional breathers and it affects so much in our life, it affects our sleep, it affects our recovery, it, your performance.
day to day life. It affects your ability to concentrate. long COVID is, it’s been a very difficult time, I’m grateful every day that it has taught me so much about breathing and the other parts of things that we need to do to keep our health as optimum as possible in the situation we’ve been given.
[00:30:11] Your BOLT scores varies greatly day to day?[00:30:11] Tony Winyard: Would your BOLT score be very changeable day to day then? Right.
[00:30:17] Vikki Jones: Very changeable. And so is my HRV, so my heart rate variability changes day to day, and so does my BOLT score. And that was one of the things that, you know, when we, talked to our clients about, Breathing exercises for long COVID, a normal healthy person could depend on their BOLT score as an indication of whether their It, whether their breathing is improving.
Now, with long COVID, that’s not something that you can depend on. you can, it’s, it’s like a zig zag. it does tend to go in the right direction, but if you’re having a bad day, then it’s going to drop right down.
[00:31:06] How often do you need to practice your breathing exercises?[00:31:06] Tony Winyard: So what have you found other, The breathing exercises you need to do and how, often do you need to be doing them, multiple times a day or what is it for
[00:31:16] Vikki Jones: I do them multiple times a day. obviously my main focus is that I nasal breathe. If I’m not talking and I’m not eating. I am nasal breathing. and I usually wake up in the morning and I will do my breathing exercises before I get out of bed. And then, if I’m able to go for a walk or if I’m,doing some form of exercise, I’ll do some warm up breathing and,I’ll do the “Many small breath holds”.
it’s or just if I’m having a little bit of anxiety, I’ll do some cadence breathing or left nostril breathing. I use it throughout the day, just to down regulate my system. If, if my heart rate starts going up, it’s okay, I need to do some calming breathing or, and then I’ll definitely…
Always do, some breathing to down regulate before I go to sleep. And I tape my mouth every single night.
[00:32:29] Do you track your HRV?[00:32:29] Tony Winyard: And so would you, do you track your HRV? You mentioned HRV, so if your HRV is going down, would you start doing some breathing exercises then?
[00:32:38] Vikki Jones: your HRV, I only measure my HRV in the morning. So that usually, to me, indicates, how resilient I am to stress for that day. So if my HRV has changed a lot, I tend to have a much quieter day. but one of the things with long COVID is you get these bouncing around of your heart rate that comes on very suddenly.
So it can drop very low and then bounce very high. if that happens, I’ll sit and I know to do my breathing exercises.
[00:33:17] Does hormetic stress help?[00:33:17] Tony Winyard: Would this prevent you from doing, things to, hormetic stress, along like saunas and cold showers or anything with that?
[00:33:25] Vikki Jones: I actually use those to help.
[00:33:30] Tony Winyard: Okay,
[00:33:31] Vikki Jones: So I can get an immediate response with my HRV if I do a, like I’ll do a face immersion in ice water in the morning. That will increase my body’s resiliency to, stress. And cold showers. I’ve done a little bit of cold water swimming. I understand the benefit of those.
it helps reset your autonomic nervous system. And you can see in the background, we have a sauna here, an infrared sauna, which,I’ve used to try and detox our body because initially we thought we had,we, we don’t know, but, detoxing your body from spike proteins or some of the viruses that, and also to, it’s a great place to sit and do some nice calming breathing exercises.
[00:34:23] What is the difference between an infra red sauna and a regular sauna?[00:34:23] Tony Winyard: yeah. And actually while we’re on that topic of an infrared sauna and I think most people still don’t know really what is the difference between an infrared sauna and a regular sauna, so how would you answer that?
[00:34:36] Vikki Jones: that, the infrared sauna has panels that emit a slightly different light. So the regular, the Finnish saunas. is a dry heat, and they’re putting, you have those stones, you put water on it and you get a very dry heat. And the infrared saunas have a different heat source and the radio, I think the radio frequency or the light frequency is a little bit different.
the way that I was taught about it was that It gets right below that skin level. So some saunas are just, you’re sweating from initial part of your skin, but the infrared saunas get much deeper into your body and then you sweat that out. So it’s much more of a detoxification.
[00:35:41] Have you tried red light therapy?[00:35:41] Tony Winyard: And have you looked into things like red light therapy, would that be helpful at
[00:35:45] Vikki Jones: have, one of the things I do use is Rife therapy. using radio frequencies, to help heal certain areas. I have not done light thera red light therapy, and the other thing I haven’t done is like the hyperbaric chambers, the ozone therapy. But I think I’ve pretty much done everything else. I’ve done the acupuncture, done grounding, a lot of meditation, hypnosis, supplements, and…
keeping a very clean diet, but, I, I go back to that whole thing is we have to find things that work for us in our daily life, and I have, I’m very lucky that, my husband is my partner in this, we’re going to find solutions that are going to help me and we’ve got a little routine of, using certain modalities that are what I know is helping me get through the long COVID.
[00:37:00] How does living at altitude effect you?[00:37:00] Tony Winyard: And so living in altitude must make it more difficult as well,
[00:37:03] Vikki Jones: thankfully I was living, I’d already been living at altitude for, two years before I got long COVID. So when you live at altitude, you adapt. So I, initially when my husband and I moved here, it was like, you’d walk up an incline and just be good, breathlessness and, but it definitely does make a difference.
because you could go out and walk and you would feel, that feeling of suffocation, that air hunger that we talk about with. Oxygen Advantage. So I, it’s interesting because you think the people, that have trouble with asthma, the place we live in Arizona used to be a center that they would send people with asthma, because they thought that was a therapy that, or the high altitude is a therapy that they would, that would help them.
But I know we’re very close to Flagstaff, and a lot of the world’s top marathon runners come to Flagstaff to train because they’re at altitude, and it, what it means is you get that adaptive, reaction, and then when you go back and do a race at sea level, it’s like a performance enhancer.
[00:38:30] When you’re at sea-level do you notice a difference?[00:38:30] Tony Winyard: and so when you’re at sea level, do you notice any difference,
[00:38:32] Vikki Jones: do.
[00:38:33] Tony Winyard: right?
[00:38:34] Vikki Jones: yeah. It’s yeah, like I said, it’s, it is different here. We, you definitely feel that you’re at altitude.
[00:38:43] Long COVID training programmes[00:38:43] Tony Winyard: So moving on to, you mentioned before about the sort of training and so on, stuff that you do, I know you’ve got some, I think it was some group programs or workshops coming up.
[00:38:53] Vikki Jones: We do, we’ve got some breathing techniques for long COVID, which actually focuses more on the Buteyko exercises. So the people, that are… Okay, so I would consider myself a high functioning long COVID sufferer. It means that I can go out and walk on some days. I can go and do a certain level of exercise.
And then there are people that are literally horizontal. their exercise for the day is getting out of bed. Their exercise for the day is getting a shower. they have incredible fatigue and shortness of breath. So when we developed the courses, we realized that, we’ve got two very distinct groups of people with long COVID.
You’ve got people that are horizontal and you’ve got people that are vertical. So the people that are bedridden and less ambulatory, we did Breathing Techniques for Long Covid and then we’ve also got a course that is Breathing Techniques for Long Covid Athletes. Because the athletes among us have had That kind of pillar of, support, meaning exercise taken away by long COVID and it’s our hope that, by learning to breathe properly, those people can then start exercising and at least when they recover from long COVID, they’ll be able to have that nasal breathing to help their performance.
So yes, I’m offering.
[00:40:42] Tony Winyard: it
[00:40:43] Vikki Jones: Yeah, two separate courses, but they are both 100 percent focused on people with long COVID.
[00:40:50] Tony Winyard: And are they face to face or are they online, or how are
[00:40:53] Vikki Jones: We’re going to be doing them on Zoom, so we’re going to do them actually twice a week for six weeks. they’ll all be recorded because we all know when you’ve got long COVID sometimes you just are having a bad day and it’s probably better that you listen to a recording. So that’s, and we’re going to keep the course, the, groups very small because we want to be able to offer individual support because we’re all so very different in the symptoms that come along with long COVID.
We wanted to be able to offer people, individual support with their specific issues.
[00:41:36] Tony Winyard: And so you mentioned, I think you said what, twice a week for six weeks, did you say? And that
[00:41:42] Vikki Jones: it begins, November 6th, the week of November 6th. So I think we’ve,
[00:41:49] Tony Winyard: or. This is coming out on November
[00:41:51] Vikki Jones: oh!
[00:41:52] Tony Winyard: 4th, so in two days time.
[00:41:54] Vikki Jones: Two days before the course starts. you know what? We’re gonna offer, we’re gonna offer more courses. So this is our first course that we’ve put together, that we’re offering, and then we’ll do another six week course in January, and we’re just gonna keep offering six week courses, and then eventually You know, there’ll be a course available online that people can do at their own pace with specific breathing exercises for people with long COVID.
[00:42:28] Are there many resources for people with long COVID?[00:42:28] Tony Winyard: are you, are there many resources like books and so on for long COVID?
[00:42:35] Vikki Jones: No. It’s, Tony, it’s such a new, it’s been out three years,there’s very few, there’s very few studies, there’s very few books, there was very few guides. It’s, it really is, something that has been driven by the people that have it. And obviously the people that have had it the longest are, the three year plus when that initial COVID variant came out.
Those are the people, there are still some of us that have still, got long COVID. And,once again, it’s been driven by those that are suffering because it is stumping the medical community.
[00:43:24] Tony Winyard: Absolutely, yeah. Time is moving on. So staying with books, but moving away from COVID. Is there a, can you think of a book that’s moved you for any reason, at any time in your
[00:43:35] Fave book[00:43:35] Vikki Jones: you before the podcast, it was going to be Charlie at the Chocolate Factory. That’s my favorite childhood book. but I think The Secret, the book The Secret, I read, and it talks so much about, taking control of your life and, whatever your life happens to be at the time, we have to, as people, realize that we have a lot of control.
over the outcome of our day to day feelings and mind space and all of that. So I think the secret was, something that I’ve read over and over again.
[00:44:17] How to get in contact[00:44:17] Tony Winyard: Okay. if people want to find out more about you and the courses that you offer and so on, obviously all that’s going to be in the show notes, but just for people who only listen and don’t read, what, how would they
[00:44:27] Vikki Jones: we have a Facebook page. It’s called Long COVID Breathing. We have Instagram and I’m not a great social media person, so I don’t know what the tag is. And there’s a YouTube channel. I think that’s also long COVID breathing. all they, all we have a, an email. If people have questions about the courses, we have an email, long COVID breathing.
at gmail. com so they can shoot us an email we’ll get back to them with answers, about the courses, and I think I, I dropped you some information, you said you’d put it in the show notes.
[00:45:11] Tony Winyard: Yeah, all of everything you just said and the other stuff you said, all of that will be in the show notes
Yeah, and the other thing is Oxygen Advantage, because we’re both instructors, and if you go to the Oxygen Advantage site, and,type in my name, and it will come up as I think that, I think there’s a link there as well. Okay. finally, just before we finish, Vikki, what, have you got a quotation that resonates with you
[00:45:38] Fave quote[00:45:38] Vikki Jones: I’ve got a healthy quotation and it’s, good health is above wealth. another one applicable to, especially to me, because, it’s not until you lose your health that you realize that, it is probably the most important thing that we have in our life, good health. And that’s why You know, it’s so important.
The takeaway is that we need to doctor ourselves. There’s no one more interested in me feeling good than me. And, like I said, long COVID is tough, but it has taught me so many things. I am, I feel actually lucky to have had it. Because it has taught me so much. It’s taught me so much gratitude.
It’s taught me to look for modalities that will keep me healthy now and for the rest of my life. And it’s also taught me something that I can pass on and help other people with. I’m, in a very small way, very grateful for, the long COVID journey that I’ve, That I’m still on.
[00:46:59] Tony Winyard: Okay. And what you just said there about being, doctoring yourself. that is a sort of proactive attitude.
[00:47:05] Vikki Jones: it absolutely is. It’s, it, we all have, we’re all responsible ultimately for our own health and there are answers out there. We just have to look for them. We have to be open enough to think, you know what, there is an answer, but I have to be invested enough in my own health to, to go out and look for it.
And like I said, that’s why,I feel grateful for the journey that I’m on right now because it’s opened my eyes to so many modalities that, help us.
[00:47:45] Tony Winyard: Yeah. I think that’s a great way to end the episode. So thank you for, I think, really educating our listeners on what is long COVID because it’s something you hear about but don’t really know what it is, especially if it’s not affecting you. So yeah, thank you for that.
[00:47:58] Vikki Jones: Thank you for having me.
Get ready to be enlightened next week as I shine the spotlight on the captivating world of red light therapy with special guest Wes Pfiffner. Wes will illuminate the illuminating benefits of red and near infrared light. Busting myths and clearing up misconceptions around this proactive health treatment. We’ll discuss how light as energy can power your cells, stimulate mitochondria, reduce inflammation and accelerate recovery. Discover how to implement red light therapy into your daily wellness ritual, for enhanced energy, performance, sleep and more. Wes will spotlight the importance of dosage, wavelength, and power when sourcing your red light devices and steer you away from dubious products. You’ll also hear Wes’ insights on maximizing your natural light exposure. Implementing healthy light habits and the impressive benefits of combining red light therapy with saunas. Don’t miss this radiant conversation that will brighten your outlook on harnessing light for whole body health. Tune in next week. Your cells will thank you. And please leave us a review. Share this episode to spread the light.
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TranscriptEmailDownloadNew Tab246 – Vikki Jones
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Welcome to another captivating edition of the art of living proactively. I’m your host, Tony Winyard, back with an inspiring new guest. Today, I’ll be speaking with the brilliant Vikki Jones. A breathing expert who is using her vital knowledge to help long COVID sufferers. Vikki will share her incredible story of recovering from breaking her neck while surfing. And then later to contract COVID 19, which left her with debilitating long-term symptoms. She’ll explain how learning proper breathing techniques through the oxygen advantage program has been a lifesaver in managing her illness. Vikki is now paying it forward by teaching customized breathing exercises to others struggling with long Covids myriad of symptoms. She’ll provide powerful insights into taking control of your health when traditional medicine fails you. it’s an inspirational tale of overcoming adversity with grit and determination. Be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and YouTube. Great.
If you could leave us a review. And hope you enjoy this breath of fresh air conversation with the remarkable Vikki Jones. Remember, leave your comments on our YouTube channel and do share the episode with friends.
[00:01:26] Tony Winyard: Welcome to another episode of The Art of Living Proactively and my guest today, Vikki Jones. How are
[00:01:32] Vikki Jones: I’m feeling good this morning, so a little win.
[00:01:39] Tony Winyard: and so this morning, so where are you? Because I know you’re in the States, but I’m not sure which
[00:01:43] Vikki Jones: I am in Arizona, so it is sunrise here. Seven o’clock in the morning, it’s going to be a beautiful day. We get a lot of sunshine here. The other thing, we’re at altitude as well I’m at about 6, 000 feet. what they call the high desert. But just gorgeous scenery, lots of mountains. Great outdoor life here.
[00:02:09] Tony Winyard: I think that what you mentioned about altitude, we’ll come back to that later on, because obviously we’re going to be talking about breathing and so on. So we’ll definitely come back to that, but let’s get into, my guests always start with some sort of parable or metaphor. I believe you, you have
[00:02:22] Vikki Jones: I do. my little metaphor is you can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf. And that really hits with me. I’ve had two really major turning points in my life. And the first one was actually I broke my neck when I was surfing, of all things. and that taught me a lot about health. And the second one was getting COVID, which then turned into long COVID.
And both incidences changed the path of my life and made me really open my eyes to a lot of different therapies, to help me get better. So I am learning to surf on some very different waves right now. And, like I said, that’s my little metaphor.
[00:03:19] Tony Winyard: and do you still surf?
we’re living in a landlocked state. Yeah, you’re not so near
[00:03:29] Vikki Jones: not so near to water.
[00:03:30] Tony Winyard: so when that, the first incident happened, And it’s funny because, I’m not a surfer and I’m nowhere near the sea here, so I’ve never been a surfer, but my image of surfing is a very sort of relaxed thing. It’s on, beautiful weather and it’s all calm and relaxed.
I don’t think, it doesn’t, it wouldn’t cross my mind that you could break your neck while or surfing.
[00:03:51] Vikki Jones: If you fall off your board, you can, and hit your head on the bottom of the, on the bottom of the ocean floor, which is what happened to me. it was, but it is, it’s supposed to be relaxing. Of course, it’s all the things that we think of being healthy. We’re outside, we’re in the water, you’re with nature.
it’s usually sunny and,you think of it as a health. a healthy outdoor activity, but unfortunately on that particular day, it wasn’t the outcome for me wasn’t as good.
[00:04:26] Tony Winyard: So you said, I forget how you worded it, but you said that sort of was like a sort of changing direction for you. So what happened after that
[00:04:32] Vikki Jones: I broke my neck and that in itself was, very debilitating. And,I didn’t know, I knew that I was very lucky to be alive because I broke C1 and C2, which is right at the top of your neck. and my whole life had been about activity and working out and exercise and of course I was immobilized for a long time.
and… Afterwards, I was in a lot of pain,and I had to change the way of life because I live because my, the fracture was considered unstable, so they didn’t quite know whether it would stabilize and I would be able to have a regular life again, or whether I would need surgery and have it fused.
so you live in this sort of, seesaw of and then the pain that came along with it, was difficult to deal with and just, the things that we Take for granted in a life like I used to love to run and that was the first time in my life when I Was unable to run because of the pounding
[00:05:49] Tony Winyard: Right.
[00:05:50] Vikki Jones: and you just have to think more about your activity because things like falling and You know just impact Really could change you know what was happening to me, but you know the big thing was I It made me open my eyes to the fact that how lucky I was to have survived it and how lucky I was to be able to still be walking and for it and it also put me in a direction of natural health care.
I’d got into some chiropractic work to help me with the pain and I got in with a community that really took me in and started talking about, some alternative health options.
[00:06:48] Tony Winyard: And what age were you when this
[00:06:49] Vikki Jones: it was 2006, Not that long ago. actually, quite a long time ago. But I, I had children. I had children. I had three children who were honestly scared to death. they saw their mum who was active and they didn’t know what was going to happen and, as much as it happens to you, it also happens to your family and it really, I know it really scared them.
So yeah, I was a mother at the time. still am.
[00:07:23] Tony Winyard: Okay. and so one of the areas that we’ve got in common and how we got to know each other, we are both members of the Oxygen Advantage sort of community, I suppose you could say. And it’s interesting, we are speaking before the recording started, and I was asking you how did you get involved in Oxygen Advantage?
that’s a fascinating story. could you tell the listeners that
[00:07:43] Vikki Jones: I got involved, through contracting COVID. So I got COVID in July of 2020. which was the first variant. and I didn’t get, I didn’t get bad symptoms, just a mild COVID with pneumonia, but I didn’t get better. So I was this healthy, what I thought was healthy, strong, fit, I was working as a trainer and I got COVID.
And then didn’t recover. And it was at a time when, there was a lot of COVID around, but the whole thing about long COVID was very quiet because it was something nobody saw happen, saw happening. and I started thinking, this isn’t right. I’m not, had incredible fatigue. I couldn’t think.
There were some days I couldn’t get out of bed. Of course, my mind was, oh, I’ll just, I can exercise through this. Probably not the right thing to do. But I had a lot of shortness of breath, and then I read an article in the Atlantic Magazine about a program that was coming out of Mount Sinai, which is in New York, and it was called STASIS.
It was a breathing program, and I enrolled in that. My husband helped me through it because, mentally I couldn’t comprehend a lot of things. And… It was a breathing program, but it was too difficult for me. So my breathing was so labored and, compromised. But as a trainer, I knew that the sort of the foundation of learning to breathe would help somebody like me.
And they recommended, the stasis people recommended that I reach out to Patrick. And he runs, or is the founder of the Oxygen Advantage in the Buteyko breathing courses, and I did both of them. and it’s funny, long COVID is strange in as much as it’s a very new issue that’s come into society and the people that are suffering with it are the people that are driving the, information about how, what the symptoms are and how we need to be treated and all that other stuff.
And Patrick was actually the first person who listened to me. He was compassionate. He was open to changing his ideas of what long COVID were and how breathing could help people with long COVID. So that’s how I met you, Tony. And I’d already met Patrick and got onto that,learning to breathe, to help people with long COVID.
[00:10:51] Tony Winyard: So you mentioned about how the long COVID was giving you problems cognitively and so on. So the oxygen advantage, some of the information or something, the course is not that easy to begin with, but I can’t imagine trying to do that course if I’m impaired cognitively. So that sounds well.
[00:11:10] Vikki Jones: I had to,
[00:11:11] Tony Winyard: Well done on
[00:11:12] Vikki Jones: yeah, I had to do it a couple, I think I’ve done it like three times because every time I learn something new, and often I would, often I’d sit and do the course and I’d have to just turn my video off and listen and go back and listen. just so that I could, learn the stuff.
but it has been, it has really changed my life. And it has really changed my, ability to deal with some of the… the symptoms and the long journey that long COVID puts you on, learning to breathe properly, having breathing techniques has made a big difference. it is my kind of pillar for health.
[00:11:59] Tony Winyard: getting through that. I guess at this point we should maybe, because there will be some people listening to this who probably will be unfamiliar with what the oxygen advantage is. I mean it has been mentioned on previous episodes but that doesn’t necessarily mean everyone will know what it is. So could you just explain what the oxygen advantage is, what Buteyko is, and
[00:12:19] Vikki Jones: Okay. the, I think the basic program or the medical program as I would call it is Buteyko. Buteyko is a breathing program that teaches people to breathe, to use breathing exercises to help, with things like anxiety, depression, pain, sleep issues, even things like COPD, asthma. So it really focuses on learning to nasal breathe in order to help.
certain, medical issues. And that was invented by Dr. Buteyko. He was a Russian doctor who saw that, a lot of people that were chronically sick were upper chest breathers and he had them all start nasal breathing and a lot of their symptoms changed almost overnight. And Patrick then developed, from the Buteyko, he then developed Oxygen Advantage, which is more learning to breathe for performance, for health.
and for, all the things that go with that. So there’s kind of two pillars to it, but they’re both focused on using your breath in the way that we should to make our bodies, the healthiest that they can be.
[00:13:59] Tony Winyard: And I guess what may surprise some people listening is there’s so little understanding in for many people in breathing properly and what is functional breathing or Most people aren’t even aware of what is dysfunctional breathing, but I guess some people might be trying to think Where does a long COVID come into this breathing?
How does that all match up? How does breathing help you with long COVID?
[00:14:25] Vikki Jones: all right. So before I got COVID, I didn’t know this. I didn’t know anything about breathing, even though I’d been, an international athlete, I’d done all this training for people, and I’d never focused on breath work. I think we talk about breath work for yoga, but when you get long COVID, one of the symptoms you get is you get very short of breath.
Very short of breath. And, our whole body’s changed, so I think there’s 300 symptoms that come along with long COVID. And… Many of them are, very serious symptoms, but they’re, it’s difficult to explain. you have things like heart palpitations, you have neurological issues, you have digestive issues, there’s a myriad of symptoms, and most of them are untreatable by conventional medicine.
So a lot of people with Long Covid have been gaslit. You go and you talk to a doctor and you say, I’m having these issues. They run the gamut of conventional western medicine tests. They all come back normal and you feel like it’s in your head. So when you learn to breathe properly, you can take…
Many of those symptoms, and give, we’re just trying to calm the body down, in all honesty, because we are in a heightened state of anxiety, so we’re in that sympathetic mode of fight or flight. We wake up with anxiety or we wake up feeling fatigued or you wake up in pain and your body is like always just in this state of And by using certain breathing exercises we can then take the body from this fight or flight. into the rest and digest. So we have to be very careful with the exercises that we do because some breathing exercises, you can, what we call stimulate the nervous system or upregulate. And the ones that we use for long COVID tend to be down regulations.
They tend to be calming exercises because we have enough of the upregulation with what’s going on with our bodies.
[00:17:02] Tony Winyard: yeah So once you learnt the oxygen advantage method and Buteyko and so on so were you initially? I’m guessing it sounds like you were just initially learning it just To help yourself and then it, what developed from there and what happened
[00:17:19] Vikki Jones: It, like I said, Patrick was so open to listening about the symptoms of long COVID. And when I was a trainer, one of the things that we do when we have clients is we have to modify exercises. We have to make them applicable to our clients. And that’s what happened with oxygen advantage. you have the basic nasal exercises that you’re doing, you’re inhaling and exhaling through your nose.
But for people with long COVID, you have to modify them because our breathing is so dysfunctional and what someone would normally consider a very achievable breathing exercise, people with long COVID cannot do. And so that’s when, A, I saw how much it helped me if I was having what we call a relapse or an episode that are, very scary.
Then, I could use the breathing exercises or my husband could talk to me about what I should be doing to calm myself down. So you go down this road of, Oh my gosh, here comes a neurological episode that I’m not going to be able to control. you can use your breath to help you get past that point of almost no return where you get into the upper chest hyperventilation and just being very scared.
and so when it helped me, I realized how much it would help other people with long COVID. So we have, with long COVID, we have an incredible support system on social media, because that’s the only way that we can support each other. so there’s Facebook groups and other groups and people in there suffering and you want to be able to help them because they’re not getting answers from Western medicine.
And so we go down, or I certainly went down a path of, I need to doctor myself. I need to find things that I can use on a daily basis that are going to help with my symptoms that don’t include going to the doctor. They include things that I have within my own control. that whole alternative medicine is to me what has helped with, this long COVID journey.
but the breath work is something, that’s something we do all the time, every day, constantly. So if we don’t change our breath… We’re never going to get a different outcome with our health.
[00:20:25] Tony Winyard: And so as you improved your breathing and you were downregulating and then your cognitive functions, just what improved a lot as well? I’m guessing,
[00:20:34] Vikki Jones: on good days, yes. the thing about long COVID is such a weird, is just very strange because you can have a good day and here I am, I’m having a good day. You can talk to me on a not so good day and I am not going to be with it at all. So it’s almost like we have to celebrate our good days.
We have to. be very grateful for them, but, and I, you have to be careful because you don’t want to live in that point in that place of thinking, when’s the next bad day going to come. But the thing that I do know is if I am going to have a bad day or COVID episode, long COVID episode, I have got the tools to get me through the difficult situations.
[00:21:29] Tony Winyard: one thing I didn’t realize, and I’ve just realized as you were speaking then, is. So it’s now, what, three years since you initially got the long COVID, and you’ve still got long COVID. So it sounds like this is something, what, that’s never going to go
[00:21:42] Vikki Jones: I’d hope that it will eventually go away. It, Tony, it’s one of those things we don’t really know. the, we don’t know if we’ll ever fully recover,
[00:21:54] Tony Winyard: Right.
[00:21:55] Vikki Jones: because, there are some people that have recovered, but there are some people that are also three years in, and they’re still getting episodes of, or relapses, that’s what we call them, relapses.
so it’s an unknown thing, and that in itself gives you a little bit of anxiety, but, once again I’m going to go back to that’s why we have to take control of our health, because One of the things that long COVID has taught me is how important it is that we control our health.
We take control of our health. We look for the solutions. because we don’t know how long it’s going to last. And, I want my good days to be really good. And, if I’m going to have a bad day, I want those to be as minimally bad as possible.
[00:22:52] Tony Winyard: So I’m wondering, it’s, so the reason I got into the oxygen advantage, I have a history, I’ve had asthma since I was a child. And this sounds like there’s some similarities. I will always be asthmatic and, until the day I die. Using the oxygen advantage has enabled me to have control over my asthma, but it will never cure my asthma.
But by doing regular breathing exercises, I’m able to keep it under control. There’ll be certain environmental triggers that will make me more likely to have an asthmatic episode, but by doing breathing exercises, I can again, control that. So it sounds like there’s some sort of similarities there.
Are there environmental triggers for you, say, for that? For this?
[00:23:38] Vikki Jones: I have tried to see if there’s a pattern of environmental triggers or any kind of triggers. So long COVID is triggered by, or episodes of long COVID are triggered by stress. Stress on the body. And we don’t know what stresses will cause a relapse. it could be environmental, it could be emotional, it could be physical, it could be chemical.
It’s all of those things. And, hence, I know, cleaning up your diet, making sure you are eating really good food. we all do a supplement routine. Exercise, which a lot of people use for, to decrease stress. is an incredible stressor on someone that has long COVID and managing your stress and pacing is important.
So there’s a lot of similarities and you look for a pattern. So often if I’ve had a relapse, my husband and I will look for a pattern. Was there something that happened that caused this? and usually there isn’t. It’s just, there’s something wrong with people with long term COVID. There’s something going on with our autonomic nervous system.
So the things that we take for granted, like digestion, and heart rate, and, neurology, being able to think, and, our body temperature, that’s all, and breathing, that all changes, we suddenly, it goes awry, and you’re left with, okay, what can I do? the only thing of, the only part of your autonomic nervous system that you can actually control is your breath.
The rest of it, you have to, it just, it happens.
[00:25:50] Tony Winyard: So is it a case of everyone with long COVID, one of the main issues they have is their breathing? Would that be true to
[00:25:58] Vikki Jones: I would say a lot of, let’s go back to a dysfunctional breather. I would imagine that most people with, Long COVID, prior to getting COVID, were probably dysfunctional
[00:26:11] Tony Winyard: Breathers.
Yeah, that
[00:26:14] Vikki Jones: breathers. you get that upper chest, breathing through the mouth, that hypervent, very fast breathing, so that’s a dysfunctional breather. Now, I was one of them and, and a lot of people So your question was about dysfunctional breathing. A lot of people have breathing issues. that’s one of the things that, COVID comes along with the COVID virus.
It has an effect on your lungs and your breathing function. The feeling of suffocation, which you know as an asthmatic is very real with people with long COVID. the fact that when I, on a bad day, my BOLT score, which is the measure of my, tolerance of oxygen was something like three.
[00:27:06] Tony Winyard: Wow.
[00:27:07] Vikki Jones: as a breath instructor, you know that’s, that, that makes you feel like someone has put a pillow over your face. you are having trouble, you’re having trouble breathing.
[00:27:20] Tony Winyard: Yeah. So something that was going through my mind as you were saying that in, about dysfunctional breathing and so on. And I wondered whether… The initial accident with the, when you broke your neck, is if that contributed towards your dysfunctional breathing.
[00:27:38] Vikki Jones: I don’t know. I’ve always thought of, I’ve always thought of myself as a very healthy person. But I think one of the things that we are learning now is we are not taught to breathe properly. And I don’t know what the number is, but I think in society probably it’s more than 60 percent of people dysfunctionally breathe. even as an athlete, I ran marathons and, reached a very high level of athletic achievement. achievement. Nobody ever talked to me about breathing. So I was a dysfunctional breather from early life. when I used to run races, you could hear me coming just by the fact that I was my mouth breathing.
and it’s one of those things I don’t even think we’re conscious about, we’re not conscious. about breathing until you can’t breathe. you probably weren’t conscious about how difficult, you’re breathing until you got asthma and felt that heaviness in your chest. And, when I got COVID, that was the first time I was like, I can’t breathe.
I was in an accident one time and I actually punctured my lung. And, I can remember then thinking, Oh my gosh, I can’t breathe. I still had one lung working. But, thinking, and that just, your, question just brought that back to me. The feeling of suffocation is, is incredible if you haven’t, it’s someone holding your head underwater,I think so many of us are dysfunctional breathers and it affects so much in our life, it affects our sleep, it affects our recovery, it, your performance.
day to day life. It affects your ability to concentrate. long COVID is, it’s been a very difficult time, I’m grateful every day that it has taught me so much about breathing and the other parts of things that we need to do to keep our health as optimum as possible in the situation we’ve been given.
[00:30:11] Your BOLT scores varies greatly day to day?
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[00:30:11] Tony Winyard: Would your BOLT score be very changeable day to day then? Right.
[00:30:17] Vikki Jones: Very changeable. And so is my HRV, so my heart rate variability changes day to day, and so does my BOLT score. And that was one of the things that, you know, when we, talked to our clients about, Breathing exercises for long COVID, a normal healthy person could depend on their BOLT score as an indication of whether their It, whether their breathing is improving.
Now, with long COVID, that’s not something that you can depend on. you can, it’s, it’s like a zig zag. it does tend to go in the right direction, but if you’re having a bad day, then it’s going to drop right down.
[00:31:06] How often do you need to practice your breathing exercises?
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[00:31:06] Tony Winyard: So what have you found other, The breathing exercises you need to do and how, often do you need to be doing them, multiple times a day or what is it for
[00:31:16] Vikki Jones: I do them multiple times a day. obviously my main focus is that I nasal breathe. If I’m not talking and I’m not eating. I am nasal breathing. and I usually wake up in the morning and I will do my breathing exercises before I get out of bed. And then, if I’m able to go for a walk or if I’m,doing some form of exercise, I’ll do some warm up breathing and,I’ll do the "Many small breath holds".
it’s or just if I’m having a little bit of anxiety, I’ll do some cadence breathing or left nostril breathing. I use it throughout the day, just to down regulate my system. If, if my heart rate starts going up, it’s okay, I need to do some calming breathing or, and then I’ll definitely…
Always do, some breathing to down regulate before I go to sleep. And I tape my mouth every single night.
[00:32:29] Do you track your HRV?
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[00:32:29] Tony Winyard: And so would you, do you track your HRV? You mentioned HRV, so if your HRV is going down, would you start doing some breathing exercises then?
[00:32:38] Vikki Jones: your HRV, I only measure my HRV in the morning. So that usually, to me, indicates, how resilient I am to stress for that day. So if my HRV has changed a lot, I tend to have a much quieter day. but one of the things with long COVID is you get these bouncing around of your heart rate that comes on very suddenly.
So it can drop very low and then bounce very high. if that happens, I’ll sit and I know to do my breathing exercises.
[00:33:17] Does hormetic stress help?
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[00:33:17] Tony Winyard: Would this prevent you from doing, things to, hormetic stress, along like saunas and cold showers or anything with that?
[00:33:25] Vikki Jones: I actually use those to help.
[00:33:30] Tony Winyard: Okay,
[00:33:31] Vikki Jones: So I can get an immediate response with my HRV if I do a, like I’ll do a face immersion in ice water in the morning. That will increase my body’s resiliency to, stress. And cold showers. I’ve done a little bit of cold water swimming. I understand the benefit of those.
it helps reset your autonomic nervous system. And you can see in the background, we have a sauna here, an infrared sauna, which,I’ve used to try and detox our body because initially we thought we had,we, we don’t know, but, detoxing your body from spike proteins or some of the viruses that, and also to, it’s a great place to sit and do some nice calming breathing exercises.
[00:34:23] What is the difference between an infra red sauna and a regular sauna?
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[00:34:23] Tony Winyard: yeah. And actually while we’re on that topic of an infrared sauna and I think most people still don’t know really what is the difference between an infrared sauna and a regular sauna, so how would you answer that?
[00:34:36] Vikki Jones: that, the infrared sauna has panels that emit a slightly different light. So the regular, the Finnish saunas. is a dry heat, and they’re putting, you have those stones, you put water on it and you get a very dry heat. And the infrared saunas have a different heat source and the radio, I think the radio frequency or the light frequency is a little bit different.
the way that I was taught about it was that It gets right below that skin level. So some saunas are just, you’re sweating from initial part of your skin, but the infrared saunas get much deeper into your body and then you sweat that out. So it’s much more of a detoxification.
[00:35:41] Have you tried red light therapy?
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[00:35:41] Tony Winyard: And have you looked into things like red light therapy, would that be helpful at
[00:35:45] Vikki Jones: have, one of the things I do use is Rife therapy. using radio frequencies, to help heal certain areas. I have not done light thera red light therapy, and the other thing I haven’t done is like the hyperbaric chambers, the ozone therapy. But I think I’ve pretty much done everything else. I’ve done the acupuncture, done grounding, a lot of meditation, hypnosis, supplements, and…
keeping a very clean diet, but, I, I go back to that whole thing is we have to find things that work for us in our daily life, and I have, I’m very lucky that, my husband is my partner in this, we’re going to find solutions that are going to help me and we’ve got a little routine of, using certain modalities that are what I know is helping me get through the long COVID.
[00:37:00] How does living at altitude effect you?
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[00:37:00] Tony Winyard: And so living in altitude must make it more difficult as well,
[00:37:03] Vikki Jones: thankfully I was living, I’d already been living at altitude for, two years before I got long COVID. So when you live at altitude, you adapt. So I, initially when my husband and I moved here, it was like, you’d walk up an incline and just be good, breathlessness and, but it definitely does make a difference.
because you could go out and walk and you would feel, that feeling of suffocation, that air hunger that we talk about with. Oxygen Advantage. So I, it’s interesting because you think the people, that have trouble with asthma, the place we live in Arizona used to be a center that they would send people with asthma, because they thought that was a therapy that, or the high altitude is a therapy that they would, that would help them.
But I know we’re very close to Flagstaff, and a lot of the world’s top marathon runners come to Flagstaff to train because they’re at altitude, and it, what it means is you get that adaptive, reaction, and then when you go back and do a race at sea level, it’s like a performance enhancer.
[00:38:30] When you’re at sea-level do you notice a difference?
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[00:38:30] Tony Winyard: and so when you’re at sea level, do you notice any difference,
[00:38:32] Vikki Jones: do.
[00:38:33] Tony Winyard: right?
[00:38:34] Vikki Jones: yeah. It’s yeah, like I said, it’s, it is different here. We, you definitely feel that you’re at altitude.
[00:38:43] Long COVID training programmes
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[00:38:43] Tony Winyard: So moving on to, you mentioned before about the sort of training and so on, stuff that you do, I know you’ve got some, I think it was some group programs or workshops coming up.
[00:38:53] Vikki Jones: We do, we’ve got some breathing techniques for long COVID, which actually focuses more on the Buteyko exercises. So the people, that are… Okay, so I would consider myself a high functioning long COVID sufferer. It means that I can go out and walk on some days. I can go and do a certain level of exercise.
And then there are people that are literally horizontal. their exercise for the day is getting out of bed. Their exercise for the day is getting a shower. they have incredible fatigue and shortness of breath. So when we developed the courses, we realized that, we’ve got two very distinct groups of people with long COVID.
You’ve got people that are horizontal and you’ve got people that are vertical. So the people that are bedridden and less ambulatory, we did Breathing Techniques for Long Covid and then we’ve also got a course that is Breathing Techniques for Long Covid Athletes. Because the athletes among us have had That kind of pillar of, support, meaning exercise taken away by long COVID and it’s our hope that, by learning to breathe properly, those people can then start exercising and at least when they recover from long COVID, they’ll be able to have that nasal breathing to help their performance.
So yes, I’m offering.
[00:40:42] Tony Winyard: it
[00:40:43] Vikki Jones: Yeah, two separate courses, but they are both 100 percent focused on people with long COVID.
[00:40:50] Tony Winyard: And are they face to face or are they online, or how are
[00:40:53] Vikki Jones: We’re going to be doing them on Zoom, so we’re going to do them actually twice a week for six weeks. they’ll all be recorded because we all know when you’ve got long COVID sometimes you just are having a bad day and it’s probably better that you listen to a recording. So that’s, and we’re going to keep the course, the, groups very small because we want to be able to offer individual support because we’re all so very different in the symptoms that come along with long COVID.
We wanted to be able to offer people, individual support with their specific issues.
[00:41:36] Tony Winyard: And so you mentioned, I think you said what, twice a week for six weeks, did you say? And that
[00:41:42] Vikki Jones: it begins, November 6th, the week of November 6th. So I think we’ve,
[00:41:49] Tony Winyard: or. This is coming out on November
[00:41:51] Vikki Jones: oh!
[00:41:52] Tony Winyard: 4th, so in two days time.
[00:41:54] Vikki Jones: Two days before the course starts. you know what? We’re gonna offer, we’re gonna offer more courses. So this is our first course that we’ve put together, that we’re offering, and then we’ll do another six week course in January, and we’re just gonna keep offering six week courses, and then eventually You know, there’ll be a course available online that people can do at their own pace with specific breathing exercises for people with long COVID.
[00:42:28] Are there many resources for people with long COVID?
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[00:42:28] Tony Winyard: are you, are there many resources like books and so on for long COVID?
[00:42:35] Vikki Jones: No. It’s, Tony, it’s such a new, it’s been out three years,there’s very few, there’s very few studies, there’s very few books, there was very few guides. It’s, it really is, something that has been driven by the people that have it. And obviously the people that have had it the longest are, the three year plus when that initial COVID variant came out.
Those are the people, there are still some of us that have still, got long COVID. And,once again, it’s been driven by those that are suffering because it is stumping the medical community.
[00:43:24] Tony Winyard: Absolutely, yeah. Time is moving on. So staying with books, but moving away from COVID. Is there a, can you think of a book that’s moved you for any reason, at any time in your
[00:43:35] Fave book
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[00:43:35] Vikki Jones: you before the podcast, it was going to be Charlie at the Chocolate Factory. That’s my favorite childhood book. but I think The Secret, the book The Secret, I read, and it talks so much about, taking control of your life and, whatever your life happens to be at the time, we have to, as people, realize that we have a lot of control.
over the outcome of our day to day feelings and mind space and all of that. So I think the secret was, something that I’ve read over and over again.
[00:44:17] How to get in contact
—
[00:44:17] Tony Winyard: Okay. if people want to find out more about you and the courses that you offer and so on, obviously all that’s going to be in the show notes, but just for people who only listen and don’t read, what, how would they
[00:44:27] Vikki Jones: we have a Facebook page. It’s called Long COVID Breathing. We have Instagram and I’m not a great social media person, so I don’t know what the tag is. And there’s a YouTube channel. I think that’s also long COVID breathing. all they, all we have a, an email. If people have questions about the courses, we have an email, long COVID breathing.
at gmail. com so they can shoot us an email we’ll get back to them with answers, about the courses, and I think I, I dropped you some information, you said you’d put it in the show notes.
[00:45:11] Tony Winyard: Yeah, all of everything you just said and the other stuff you said, all of that will be in the show notes
Yeah, and the other thing is Oxygen Advantage, because we’re both instructors, and if you go to the Oxygen Advantage site, and,type in my name, and it will come up as I think that, I think there’s a link there as well. Okay. finally, just before we finish, Vikki, what, have you got a quotation that resonates with you
[00:45:38] Fave quote
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[00:45:38] Vikki Jones: I’ve got a healthy quotation and it’s, good health is above wealth. another one applicable to, especially to me, because, it’s not until you lose your health that you realize that, it is probably the most important thing that we have in our life, good health. And that’s why You know, it’s so important.
The takeaway is that we need to doctor ourselves. There’s no one more interested in me feeling good than me. And, like I said, long COVID is tough, but it has taught me so many things. I am, I feel actually lucky to have had it. Because it has taught me so much. It’s taught me so much gratitude.
It’s taught me to look for modalities that will keep me healthy now and for the rest of my life. And it’s also taught me something that I can pass on and help other people with. I’m, in a very small way, very grateful for, the long COVID journey that I’ve, That I’m still on.
[00:46:59] Tony Winyard: Okay. And what you just said there about being, doctoring yourself. that is a sort of proactive attitude.
[00:47:05] Vikki Jones: it absolutely is. It’s, it, we all have, we’re all responsible ultimately for our own health and there are answers out there. We just have to look for them. We have to be open enough to think, you know what, there is an answer, but I have to be invested enough in my own health to, to go out and look for it.
And like I said, that’s why,I feel grateful for the journey that I’m on right now because it’s opened my eyes to so many modalities that, help us.
[00:47:45] Tony Winyard: Yeah. I think that’s a great way to end the episode. So thank you for, I think, really educating our listeners on what is long COVID because it’s something you hear about but don’t really know what it is, especially if it’s not affecting you. So yeah, thank you for that.
[00:47:58] Vikki Jones: Thank you for having me.
Get ready to be enlightened next week as I shine the spotlight on the captivating world of red light therapy with special guest Wes Pfiffner. Wes will illuminate the illuminating benefits of red and near infrared light. Busting myths and clearing up misconceptions around this proactive health treatment. We’ll discuss how light as energy can power your cells, stimulate mitochondria, reduce inflammation and accelerate recovery. Discover how to implement red light therapy into your daily wellness ritual, for enhanced energy, performance, sleep and more. Wes will spotlight the importance of dosage, wavelength, and power when sourcing your red light devices and steer you away from dubious products. You’ll also hear Wes’ insights on maximizing your natural light exposure. Implementing healthy light habits and the impressive benefits of combining red light therapy with saunas. Don’t miss this radiant conversation that will brighten your outlook on harnessing light for whole body health. Tune in next week. Your cells will thank you. And please leave us a review. Share this episode to spread the light.
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Have you ever wondered what it takes to truly live life to the fullest? How do you make choices that empower you and lead you towards a fulfilling life? In this week’s episode of “The Art of Living Proactively,” host Tony Winyard sits down with Dan Roberts, a seasoned coach with over 30 years of experience, to delve into the secrets of living life to its fullest potential. Get ready to embark on a journey of self-discovery as we uncover the power of your choices!Meet Dan Roberts:
Dan Roberts is not only an accomplished coach but also a highly sought-after consultant. He has two consulting roles – working with Hollywood films on cast needs and performance, and advising hotels on improving their wellbeing strategies. Dan’s experience in these diverse fields highlights the difference between coaching and consulting, shedding light on their distinctive roles in empowering individuals and organizations to reach their goals.
Action Steps and Call to Action:1. Embrace the Power of Coaching: Consider hiring a coach who can guide you on your journey towards self-improvement and personal growth. A skilled coach can help you unlock your potential, enhance your skills, and navigate life’s challenges with confidence.
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Focus on Being a Kind and Supportive Person: Remember that being a good coach goes beyond expertise. It’s equally important to empathize, listen, and support those around you. Nurture your relationships and cultivate a culture of kindness and positivity.
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Seek Knowledge and Learn from Others: Don’t be afraid to admit that you don’t know everything. Seek out experts in your field of interest and learn from their experiences. Read books, take courses, and tap into the wealth of knowledge available to expand your understanding and unlock new possibilities.
Chapters:03:09 Began coaching at 16
04:45 Running 3 companies
05:04 What do you prefer doing?
05:59 What are the differences between coaching, mentoring and consulting?
08:11 Do you feel online or face to face is better?
10:08 What are the pros and cons of online and face to face?
11:50 What style of coaching do you prefer?
14:01 What is the hardest part of coaching?
15:37 Where do you feel coaches go wrong?
18:47 What do you think about coaches who don’t have a coach?
21:34 What led to Tony becoming a DJ
24:02 The White Coat syndrome
24:57 Evidence led, not evidence based
27:14 Dan’s thoughts on being proactive
29:07 Having a coach signifies you are proactive
31:23 How might AI impact coaching
32:52 What should someone look for in a good coach?
33:50 It’s a big adventure
36:16 “The reason that I do what I do”
37:50 “On the road”
41:24 Tony, let me ask you a question?
45:23 Fave quote
Dan Roberts’ insights in this episode of “The Art of Living Proactively” provide a valuable roadmap for navigating life’s challenges and pursuing personal fulfillment. By harnessing the power of choice, being a kind and compassionate person, and seeking knowledge from others, we can unlock our full potential and lead lives that are truly enriching.
So, are you ready to take the first steps towards living life to the fullest? Tune in to this insightful episode, and let the wisdom of Dan Roberts guide you on your journey. Remember, life is a grand adventure waiting to be explored!
Guest Bio:Dan Roberts is a British coach who has been in the industry for over 30 years. His coaching journey began at the young age of 16 and since then, he has traveled to various countries, setting up base and coaching there. His work has allowed him to explore different parts of the world, as he constantly seeks new challenges and experiences. While his career path may not have directly led him to these international opportunities, Dan’s desire to see the world and his skill in coaching have intertwined beautifully, shaping his successful career. He believes that if given the chance, everyone should take the opportunity to explore and appreciate the beauty of the world.
Watch this episode on YouTube TranscriptDan Roberts – 245[00:00:00] Tony Winyard: I’m thrilled to share an adventurous conversation with Dan Roberts in today’s show. Dan is an accomplished Explorer and avid athlete pursuing astonishing accomplishments and in our lively chat he shares his contagious enthusiasm for travel. and boldly seizing opportunities. You’ll hear how reading “On the road” as a teen sparked Dans Intrepid attitude. Propelling him to solo backpacking adventures worldwide. And this instilled a lifelong adventurous mindset.
Learn how Dan transitioned from tennis coaching at 16 into a prolific 30 year coaching career across fitness film, and more. And he now runs retreats and works with elite athletes and actors. Dan believes being proactive means confidently taking action and getting out of your comfort zone. He explains why having a coach signifies a proactive mindset. Yet ego often prevents people from utilizing coaches.
I hope you enjoy this uplifting episode about living life as a bold adventure with Dan Roberts. Please subscribe to the art of living proactively on your favorite podcast platform or on YouTube. Leave us a sparkling five star review and share this episode with friends.
Welcome to The Art of Living Proactively. My guest today, Dan Roberts. How are you doing, Dan?
[00:01:29] Dan Roberts: I’m doing great. How are you, Tony?
[00:01:30] Tony Winyard: I’m pretty good. And, we’re back in the UK today. Recently, a lot of my guests have been, in the States. but we’re in Surrey today.
[00:01:37] Dan Roberts: We are leafy Surrey. Very domesticated.
[00:01:42] Tony Winyard: Have you always lived around there?
[00:01:43] Dan Roberts: No, I’m from Manchester and, I’ve traveled around a bit and, getting in my late forties now and like everybody, I end up moving out to the country and it’s as far as I can handle because I was still in London for years. And, this is about as far out of London as I can manage before I go mad.
So that’s why we chose Surrey.
[00:02:01] Tony Winyard: You don’t have any Mancunian accent at all.
[00:02:03] Dan Roberts: I’ve moved around a lot. I’ve lived in lots of different, I’ve lived in America, Australia, Asia. I’ve lived all over the place, so over the years it’s been pushed out of me. So yeah, I still say grass and master. That’s very Mancunian.
yeah, apart from that,
[00:02:16] Tony Winyard: and I know what you mean, actually, because I lived abroad for 12 years, and in that 12 years, I had to get rid of my London accent because people couldn’t understand what I was saying. So I had to teach myself to speak slowly and clearly and so on. But when I went back to London, yeah, then it came back
[00:02:32] Dan Roberts: Yeah, when I go back up north, it takes me like two days. Then it will come back again, but. I went to a university down south and no one can understand what I said. So I made a really conscious effort to slow down to not swear so much to speak more clearly. And just over the years, just by hanging out in the south and not going back home that much, it’s it slowly went back to more neutral, which I guess I am today.
But yeah, I haven’t really thought about it that much.
[00:02:59] Tony Winyard: you just mentioned that you’ve, you’ve lived in quite a few places. And was that in connection, because I know that you’re, you’re a trainer and as you mentioned, you’ve been a coach for a long time. Is that what you were doing when you were traveling abroad?
[00:03:09] Began coaching at 16[00:03:09] Dan Roberts: yeah, I started coaching when I was 16, which is 30, just over 30 years ago, so it’s been a long time and, I, yeah, I traveled with my work. I went to different countries and set up base there and I was coaching, and then I get bored and moved to a different country. So pretty much it was related to work.
if I’m honest, it’s it wasn’t like my career led me there. It’s like I wanted to go abroad and I had a skill and my kind of career developed. but yeah, it’s nice to see the world when you can, if you’re lucky enough to see the world, I think we should.
[00:03:40] Tony Winyard: Absolutely. I couldn’t agree with you more. So how did you manage to start coaching at 16?
[00:03:45] Dan Roberts: I was a tennis coach. I was good at tennis. That helps . I was good at tennis and I,I just did some qualifications because it . I was always a person. I was like, from age, oh God, as long as back as I remember, I was always one. People used to go to, to ask advice. Like even at school, people would always ask me advice about stuff.
Not that I’d give good advice, but I was just one of those people who liked, I liked hanging out with people and I liked giving advice, I guess. So when I would, I was pretty good at tennis when I was younger, and I just decided to do some courses and work at my local tennis club to do coaching and, just ’cause I like the idea of hanging out with people, talking with people teaching.
It always appealed to me at that young age. and I’m a much better coach than I’m an athlete, so it worked out well. and my career evolved. Obviously, I’m into fitness now. my career quickly changed to fitness in my early twenties, but, it’s still the same stuff. Hanging out with people, giving advice, essentially not having a proper job.
[00:04:41] Tony Winyard: So you’ve, your main income, you’ve always been a coach?
[00:04:45] Running 3 companies[00:04:45] Dan Roberts: Yeah. Yeah. I run three different companies now, all related to coaching, but my, I’m essentially a fitness instructor, but I sell programs, do retreats, do consulting and all the other stuff people do. But essentially I’m a coach, so I make my money via giving people advice, but it’s just different kind of forms of doing it.
[00:05:04] What do you prefer doing?[00:05:04] Tony Winyard: So what is your, what do you prefer to do? What is your preferred? What are you happy, what are you happiest doing?
[00:05:10] Dan Roberts: I love what I’m doing now. I like the variety. I never stopped one-to-one. One-to-one. Coaching, I guess is my favorite thing. So I think I’ve done, I worked it out a couple of years ago. When I worked it out, I was on like 31, I think it was 31,000 hours, so I must be on like 33, 30 4,000 hours of one-to-one coaching.
So I wouldn’t have got that far. If I didn’t enjoy it. So that has to be my first love. But I think if I only did one-to-one, I think I would’ve been bored by the time I hit 35 or something. I think having, building up, having employees and building up brands and writing programs, writing qualifications, going on retreats and building a brand as it were, has been quite exciting.
And now I do quite a few things in my day. I don’t just do one-to-one coaching and I think that keeps me, . Stimulated and it keeps things interesting and it means I don’t get bored. ’cause that’s like the worst feeling for me being bored.
[00:05:59] What are the differences between coaching, mentoring and consulting?[00:05:59] Tony Winyard: What are the differences between coaching, mentoring and consulting?
[00:06:05] Dan Roberts: really good question. I. And I think, I don’t know if there’s a right answer to this, everyone’s got a different take, but in my view, mentoring is when you’ve been there and done that. I do. For example, I mentor a lot of businesses like gyms and coaches who want to build their brand, and I work as a business mentor.
When I do that, I give them advice and I share my own experience. . . So it’s been there, done that. So I was like, oh, don’t do this, because I’ve, I know what it’s like. So you hold them accountable and you, yeah, you hold ’em accountable, which I guess you do in coaching too. But I think it comes from a place where you really have been there and done it before.
In coaching, I think it’s actually less about your knowledge and more about actually the way you communicate and the way you hold people accountable. I think obviously it would help if you have a background of knowing your stuff. But I do think the best coaches aren’t necessarily the best experts. there’s a lot of people with PhDs in kinesiology who aren’t very good coaches.
it’s it’s, I think actually being able to communicate, break things down, have empathy and leadership. I think coaching is about that balance of empathy and leadership. And if you do that well, you’re a great coach. And consulting is just when people pay you to find a solution to something, whatever it may be.
So when I consult with, I, I have two different consulting sort of roles, as it were. I work a lot on, films, on Hollywood films, and then it’s a very specific problem in terms of the cast needs to look a certain way or the, there needs to be a certain amount of performance, and I advise about that.
Or I work for hotels and they pay me to basically come in and look after their wellbeing strategy. So the Four Seasons or Shangri-La will ask me and my company to come in and overview, change the way they do wellbeing. So we’ll look at their food menu, their running club, their gym, lay out, all that stuff. So it’s a very specific problem and they’ll, I know it might be a contract for three months and they pay my company to create a solution, and then I go, There’s no ongoing stuff where coaching is very much ongoing.
[00:08:05] Tony Winyard: And do you have a preference, whether it’s face to face or remote?
[00:08:11] Do you feel online or face to face is better?[00:08:11] Dan Roberts: originally I always preferred face-to-face, but like a lot of people, I was like, I had to pivot during the pandemic and suddenly. , I wasn’t like, my entire, 90% of my business was face-to-face before the pandemic. now, as I speak right now, it’s 90% online, so completely shift. And I quite like it.
I quite like the, I quite like the online stuff now. maybe, ’cause it’s still novel. It’s only been a few years, but I see private clients over Zoom. we, yeah, a lot of the consulting I do now is over Zoom and over phone calls and, I, maybe I’m just getting old and I quite working from home, but I like it at the moment, but I think maybe in another year I’ll probably go back and do a bit more work in London.
It’s nice to, it’s nice sometimes not to have a complete plan and to see what happens in work. And now what do you think? What do you like?
[00:09:02] Tony Winyard: like you, before the pandemic, all of my work was face to face, 100%. I had to pivot like many other people did, and now I’m the opposite. Now 100 percent of my work is
[00:09:15] Dan Roberts: And do you like it more?
[00:09:16] Tony Winyard: want to go
[00:09:16] Dan Roberts: Oh.
[00:09:17] Tony Winyard: I want to go back to face. I mean I like doing the online stuff, but I prefer the face to face stuff.
But I haven’t made as much effort as I should have to go back to doing face to face stuff.
[00:09:28] Dan Roberts: it’s quite easy to be online. that’s the problem. , it’s quite easy, like in terms of like scheduling, like clients and stuff, you can do a lot when people come to you, but I have found that I have to work harder to build rapport and to because normally like I, I, one of my biggest strengths is I can get on with people very quickly and I find like face-to-face normally in 20 seconds, 30 seconds.
I know I’m set online, takes me like 20 minutes. , but I’m better than I used to be. But it’s, it’s still, I think when you’re with people, you can pick up on body language and things a bit better maybe.
[00:10:02] Tony Winyard: and that was, I was just thinking about what would you say are the pros and cons of both for face to face and online?
[00:10:08] What are the pros and cons of online and face to face?[00:10:08] Dan Roberts: for who? For the client or for the, for someone like me.
[00:10:12] Tony Winyard: For both, from your point of view and from a client’s point
[00:10:14] Dan Roberts: from the client’s point of view, which I guess is the most important,the convenience of of being able to see me wherever they are in the world is really handy. ’cause my clients tend to travel around a bit. So the ones who like it love it.
And the ones who don’t like it, I don’t see because they really don’t like it. So that’s where it’s gone. in terms of me, the benefits are definitely in terms of actually scheduling, like I can . Because I’ve got, ’cause I’m just, let’s take the online business, like the online like personal training side of things.
I have far more people who wanna work with me than I have space for. So I can plan out my day from, I can see someone at 6:00 AM 7.30, 9, and this morning I saw someone from Indonesia than America, Australia, like all over the world because I know quite a lot of people. It’s like I’m always booked up and if it, that’s quite nice and it’s a lot easier Where in London.
It takes about, if I went back to London now, it would take me about six months to get that kind of back-to-back appointments. And then it’s a couple of people leave, it takes another few weeks to get that back. So there’s always a bit of, it’s never perfectly like fully booked. I always have to work a little bit harder, but online it’s it’s easy.
[00:11:25] Tony Winyard: So yeah, it’s definitely more convenient. So maybe I’m just being a bit lazy ’cause I’m like, I’m just hanging out online a lot ’cause it’s definitely easier for me. And the clients said, the clients who like it, love it. but it’s not for everyone, Yeah.
[00:11:37] Dan Roberts: but,
[00:11:38] Tony Winyard: And so in terms of the, you mentioned there like personal training, and I know you’ve talked about some other types of coaching that you do as well.
[00:11:46] Dan Roberts: Do you have a preference for any sort of particular type of coaching you do?
[00:11:50] What style of coaching do you prefer?[00:11:50] Dan Roberts: I, my job is quite varied. my private clients,I see a handful of private clients, I guess. looking after them. When I, the people I tend to work with, they tend to be on a project basis, so they have to get results like usually in six months or a year. For normally my clients, their career is slightly based on their body, so be there an athlete or model, an actor, they’re the three kind of sets of people I work with.
It’s usually pretty important that they make changes, . Being in charge of that is, is an honor. It’s a privilege and it’s a responsibility. So I like that. I like when you’re working with an athlete and they’re injured. They’ve got, I dunno, you’re doing a c l recovery and they’ve gotta get back and compete in six months time.
That’s really cool. Or if you’ve got a, an actor, then they’re the star of a big film starting in six months and they have to put on size and they’re tiny and they have to get big and you have to do it by a certain day. That’s exciting. So I like it when there’s a time pressure. Because then it focuses my mind.
It focuses their mind, and it feels like we’re on a mission together. And that’s cool. that’s really exciting, I think gets the best out of me as a coach when I’m emotionally involved. And it’s quite hard goal.
[00:12:57] Tony Winyard: So if you’re working with someone, like you just mentioned, they’ve got a specific role and they maybe need to bulk up or whatever the case might be. So are you giving them a, like a workout plan as such, and then holding them accountable and where, how would it work with a
[00:13:11] Dan Roberts: No, I physically,I work with them like if it’s like back when I was doing face-to-face, I’d be with them and I’d travel around with them. So I’d basically live with them, hang out with them, and do the workout with them. When it’s on online, I, every time they go to the gym, I’ll be with them.
On a Zoom call. so they don’t do stuff by themself because even though self-accountability is important and like for long term, that’s a really good strategy to have. But when the stakes are high and you have to get results, we can’t leave anything to chance. So I need to be in control of what they’re eating, what they’re, when they’re gonna bed, when they, what time they wake up, what training, all of it.
When I’m in complete control, then they get the results. and that’s what I’m paid for.
[00:13:52] Tony Winyard: What would you say is, I wonder if there is, what is the hardest part of coaching or is there nothing that’s hard?
[00:14:01] What is the hardest part of coaching?[00:14:01] Dan Roberts: It’s a really good question. what’s the hardest part of coaching? I don’t think it, no, I don’t think it is hard if you keep your, . If you stay on the ball in terms of that you particularly when you’ve been a coach for a long time, it’s really important to remember that your client is the star, not you. And sometimes we get so obsessed with our own, like building our brands and building our companies and trying to get in magazines or whatever it be.
And we sometimes, I try not to, but I’ve seen it where sometimes coaches forget that. They’re supposed to be supportive. They’re not supposed to be well known. They’re not supposed to be Instagram stars, . It’s I think the client is a star. And I think if you, as long as you remember that, that keeps you grounded, it keeps you rightly humble as we should be, because they’re the people paying us, and we’re helping them.
And then, and then there’s, and then there’s no danger of getting ego involved. And actually you’re there for the right reasons and you’re helping them. Technically, there’s always things as you grow older as a coach, things you might do differently in terms of understanding how the body works, how the mind works.
But I think as long as your intention is pure and you’re like a nice person and you’re kind, and you’re truly thinking about your clients like best wishes, then even if you’re not that skilled, it’s still okay. It’s still, you’re still doing a nice job. so I think, yeah, sorry it’s a convoluted answer, I apologize, but I think as long as you, as long as you stay
Remain clear, like what your role is to support your client or clients, then I think it’s actually incredible. it’s easy and it’s fun, and actually I think it’s the best job in the world. I can’t think of anything better than coaching people. As long as you like people, , then it’s fine.
[00:15:34] Tony Winyard: That’s quite
[00:15:34] Dan Roberts: isn’t it?
yeah.
[00:15:37] Where do you feel coaches go wrong?[00:15:37] Tony Winyard: Where do you think maybe coaches go wrong when they first come into the business?
[00:15:42] Dan Roberts: I don’t think everyone gets into coaching for what I would say the right reasons are. It’s a bit arrogant to say what’s right and wrong, but I don’t think, I know when I started, like I really wanted to help people and it wasn’t like I wanted to train celebrities or I didn’t wanna make money, that was irrelevant.
It was like the, those things come in slightly, I guess in terms of secondary goals, but I really wanted to make a difference to individuals who worked with me. And I do see sometimes with, when I do lecturing, when I mentor younger coaches, that when I ask what their goals are, it’s not always, I wanna be really good sometimes, I wanna be rich, I wanna be, I wanna train Hollywood stars, I wanna do this.
It’s that’s all about you. Maybe you should focus about how you can, how much you can offer, how you can serve. ’cause the more you can serve, the more value you can get and your career will naturally raise up. So I think people are a bit too switched on with like branding and marketing and success nowadays.
And I’m not against all that stuff, but I don’t, I think sometimes coaches forget that the main role is, the main thing is to focus on their clients and just do a really good job and take pride in your work. And when you do that, . Nice things tend to happen in careers. if you are kind and good at what you do, you tend to get talked about behind your back and nice things happen and you can build a career very successfully without screwing people over, without being like a hardcore salesperson just by doing your job properly.
but it’s not very sexy to tell people that they want,they want to go viral immediately or they wanna have something their usps and it’s yeah. I don’t know. What do you think? Let me ask you, you’ve done this for a while, haven’t you?
[00:17:17] Tony Winyard: in terms of what do I, where do people go wrong?
[00:17:20] Dan Roberts: In terms of coaches,
[00:17:22] Tony Winyard: I would say, I’m obviously much newer to the game than you are because my background was not as a coach. I was, I did something quite different when I lived abroad. and just in case you’re probably wondering, what the hell was that
[00:17:32] Dan Roberts: I’m waiting to hear. Yeah. what did you do?
[00:17:35] Tony Winyard: I was a DJ.
[00:17:36] Dan Roberts: You are a dj, you look a bit
[00:17:38] Tony Winyard: Yeah, so I lived abroad as a DJ for many years. yeah. So coach, I’m much newer to coaching. I’ve been doing it five years or so, really, so I would see, and obviously I know a lot of coaches who are a similar boat to me have only been doing it for a, a couple of years, few years or whatever.
I think one of the hardest things when you first start is not telling clients what to do and actually coaching them rather than
[00:18:03] Dan Roberts: Oh yeah. Like facilitating change rather than telling. Yeah. Yeah. that comes with experience. So surely after you realize that it doesn’t work when you tell people what to do,
[00:18:13] Tony Winyard: in you, it’s difficult at first to, to stop yourself from doing that.
[00:18:16] Dan Roberts: Yeah. Or when you go on a, you read a new book or you go on a new course and suddenly you change, you pivot the way you check change and that gets . Beaten out of you after about 10 years of coaching , I think, or maybe five years , it gets easier. I think. Like I say, as long as you like look at, as long as you remember, the clients are like the star and everyth think you’re doing is to help your clients get better results.
Then everything you absorb in life, the experiences, life experiences, or books you read or whatever, they will help make you like a better mentor or better coach.
[00:18:47] What do you think about coaches who don’t have a coach?[00:18:47] Tony Winyard: What are your thoughts on coaches who don’t have a coach themselves?
[00:18:51] Dan Roberts: do you mean not have any kind of coach or do you mean Yeah, I think it’s odd. I think it’s very strange, because if you believe in the coaching process and you believe, like it makes sense to have someone to tell you stuff you don’t know and maybe, or at least hold you accountable. if you don’t really believe in it, if you don’t have any skin in the game and believe that makes sense.
It feels a bit like lack of integrity to then offer it to other people. So I find it very bizarre. I guess that, I’m a, essentially, I’m a strength and conditioning coach, personal trainer. I don’t have a personal trainer working with me. But when I wanna learn. Gymnastics. I go to gymnastics coach.
When I wanna learn how to do Muay Hai, I go to Muay Thai coach. So I have loads of coaches for things I wanna learn. I don’t have someone looking after my overall fitness, but I have specific people I would go to always. I have done all my life because it’s the quickest way of learning stuff.
It’s by finding someone who knows more than you who can communicate and they can, it saves you loads of time. it, to me, it’s like a no brainer. Like every athlete out there has a coach. it’s it’s, and I’ve being a coach for 30 years, I’ve seen how amazing results you can have when you have a good relationship with a client and you give good advice and you hold ’em accountable, and you push them, and, you, you’ve worked with them, not just like pampered to them, but you really challenge them, push them.
It’s amazing what people can do. yeah, no, I find it very strange as I’m sure you do. I’m guessing you do too. That’s why you asked that question.
[00:20:17] Tony Winyard: Yeah, I’ve got a couple of coaches and I’ve had coaches for many years. And I guess one of the reasons for asking that is because one thing coming from the DJ world and the DJ mindset is very different to many other industries. I don’t know what the right word is, but DJs really rail against having a coach.
You should be good enough. You should be able to do it. Many DJs don’t have a mentor or a coach or. They might have been a roadie for someone when they first started doing it and then after that you’ve got to do it on your own. I’m not saying, obviously, I’m generalizing. Obviously not everyone thinks like that, but you’d be amazed at how many do
[00:20:54] Dan Roberts: Why do you think that is? Is it a co, is it because it’s mainly like young guys bit, a bit of e, bit of ego. Like they don’t like admitting
[00:21:02] Tony Winyard: You’ve got to have an ego to be a DJ
[00:21:04] Dan Roberts: gotta stand in front of thousands of people and everyone listen to me. There’s gotta be some kind of self-confidence in there, which is linked to ego, particularly when you’re younger.
Right.
[00:21:13] Tony Winyard: yeah, but the problem with DJing is ego is imperative, as you said, because you’re, you’re in front of that many people, but it can very easily get out of control.
[00:21:23] Dan Roberts: Yeah.
[00:21:23] Tony Winyard: And it often does.
[00:21:24] Dan Roberts: That’s part of the fun though, isn’t it? when you’re young.
[00:21:28] Tony Winyard: Yeah,
[00:21:29] Dan Roberts: to be a
[00:21:30] Tony Winyard: it can, when it goes,
[00:21:32] Dan Roberts: So there must have been. So which led you that path.
[00:21:34] What led to Tony becoming a DJ[00:21:34] Tony Winyard: well for me it was different. I fell into it by accident. I was crazy about music as a kid. I was always buying records all the time. And one day I was doing a friend’s party. I was like 14 or something and the manager of the venue, it was upstairs in a function room in a pub, and the manager of the pub said, How much do you charge?
And I was like, a charge for what? He says for DJing. I said, I’m not a DJ. He said, what have you just been doing? And then so I fell into it. It wasn’t something that I aspired to, I just
[00:22:00] Dan Roberts: Yeah.
And then my whole thinking changed because then I thought, oh wow, I’m a DJ. Whereas before, I just loved music, Wow. what made you change from a DJ to doing what you’re doing now?
[00:22:12] Tony Winyard: I still DJ. It’s, I’ll still be doing it when they’re putting me under probably because I’ve done it my whole life, but I’m getting a lot older now. It’s not something… I could, can do for the rest of my
[00:22:25] Dan Roberts: way. Yeah. When I’m 80, in parties. And I look a lot younger than I am.
[00:22:32] Tony Winyard: I’m 60 in a few weeks time. So I now I’m 60 in a few weeks time.
[00:22:40] Dan Roberts: Yeah. I get that reaction all the time.
crazy.
[00:22:44] Tony Winyard: Yeah. And so I guess one of the reasons why I started coaching is because I’ve had so many people ask me, how is it you’re able to like, cause I’m pretty fit. and I do, I’m like way faster when I play football, I’m way faster than people 20 years younger than me.
And so I often get people asking me about how is it I’m able to stay so, so healthy, fit, whatever the case may be. And so that’s how I got into coaching in one way, but the bigger part really was a lot of my family died young, like my brothers, my dad all died in their fifties. My mom went through a long time of sort of chronic illness and she wouldn’t.
listen to changes in lifestyle or nutrition. She just trusted the doctors who never suggested changing nutrition or doing anything about her lifestyle. And so it was those are the main reasons I got into it,
[00:23:38] Dan Roberts: Yeah, I was watching your video actually on your website. I’m sorry to hear about your mum, but it’s it’s, it’s very powerful how these kind of horrible events really shape us and, I. No, I, my mom and dad passed away a couple of years ago from cancer, so I get it. And it’s it’s so frustrating at times when you see how, like, how doctors are one way and it’s there’s so much information out there, but yeah.
[00:24:02] The White Coat syndrome[00:24:02] Tony Winyard: And it was more my mum had the white coat syndrome thing, she would only listen to someone who’s got a white coat
[00:24:08] Dan Roberts: Yeah.
[00:24:09] Tony Winyard: and it was a shame because she, yeah, last few years of her life weren’t great. Yeah.
[00:24:13] Dan Roberts: I think culturally, maybe it’s a slight age thing, like nowadays less, I think people are a little bit more, I don’t know, a little bit more cynical about . I dunno, maybe they’re not, I’m thinking like people I know my age wouldn’t necessarily just automatically listen to one doctor.
They’d always get a second opinion or explore alternatives. definitely my kind of group of friends. Anyway. It wouldn’t, if an expert said something, it wouldn’t be like, okay, then it’s and I think there’s more, slightly more, critical thinking going on maybe than 30 years ago. I don’t know.
What do you think?
[00:24:45] Tony Winyard: that’s such a good. Yeah, no, I agree and it needs to be because yeah, you can’t just accept just because one doctor says something that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s right. You have to get a
[00:24:57] Evidence led, not evidence based[00:24:57] Dan Roberts: and science is always a little bit slow to catch. I mean, I’m in my work in terms of particularly like the fitness training side of things. I’m definitely like evidence led, but I’m not evidence-based. I. So I, I look at science, I look at the latest studies. I try to keep up to date, but I know for a fact some things I’m doing haven’t been studied yet.
So of course there’s no evidence for it. There’s always time to catch up. it is we don’t need to find out that, I don’t know that vaping is bad for us, do we To realize it’s probably not a good idea to get into vaping now, or whatever. Or there’s all kind of things people do nowadays, which are obviously not good for.
[00:25:33] Tony Winyard: from toxin, toxins in our diet, all kinds of things, which seemed very like hippie like, eccentric stuff like 20 years ago now is considered like even organic, like organic food. Like in the seventies we’d be like, oh, that’s weird. Now it’s it’s weird not to eat organic. So I think people are getting more awake to looking after themselves, but maybe I’m in a bubble because I’m in Southern England and stuff.
[00:25:56] Dan Roberts: But I, I do feel like it’s changing a little bit. I.
[00:26:00] Tony Winyard: I think it is changing but slowly but yeah It is changing and hopefully that change will continue and I mean what you just said that just then about you know there’s some things that haven’t been proven yet and so on. I lived in the Far East for nearly 10 years and People’s approach to medicine and health is very different out there.
So I, I saw how their approach was, and I think that definitely had an influence on me. And there was many things that in the West we would say were not proven. But they were working for everyone out there, so they just did it. They didn’t care that the West didn’t believe in some of those things,
[00:26:36] Dan Roberts: yeah, Chinese medicine is like a whole completely different system. And even like I used to live in Thailand, for a while and I remember having a headache and straight away. Like some local guy was like massaging my head. It’s this is what they do to get rid of headaches. No one pops in Nurofen, , everyone just like head massage.
I was like, why wasn’t used to that, but that’s much better. And it’s just yeah, every different cultures, different parts of the world have different ways of dealing with things. And I think,Western Medicine I’m a fan of, but it’s I think it’s a bit, it’s a bit naive to think that’s the only thing, particularly because there’s new stuff coming out all the time.
[00:27:09] Tony Winyard: yeah. What are your thoughts on,yeah, podcast is about, being proactive. What are your thoughts on that?
[00:27:14] Dan’s thoughts on being proactive[00:27:14] Dan Roberts: About being proactive? in the sense that I think it’s very, in, I think life is more fun when you are take confident and bold actions, rather than letting things happen to you. I think sometimes life is tough, like you’ve dealt with loss and stuff like I think we all do at some point and deal with bad things happen in our lives and sometimes shit happens.
But we can, to a certain degree, control how we react to things in life and having put positive spin on stuff. And just in terms of like our careers, our love life, our social life, our kind of adventure life is so much more fun when you just make decisions and take bold action, I suppose.
And I’ve also found over the years that. You can create a habit of being proactive and then it becomes just part of who you are. And it’s a lot easier, I think if you’re stuck in a rutt for 20 years, it’s very scary, like of going out of your comfort zone. But once you do it once, it’s like a little bit and then you just think else maybe a little bit more before you know it.
it’s like life has opened up. It’s, beautiful opportunities to you. yeah, I always encourage people to take control as much as they can. And, And also get outta the comfort zone. It can be a bit scary when you’re doing things which feel well, which feel a bit sort of foreign to you, I guess.
Or it’s a fear of failure, which is a big thing, which holds people back. And it’s such a shame because who cares? . It’s know if you try something, it doesn’t work. At least you tried. You know what I mean? It’s like I failed in my work. I fail constantly, And like in the pandemic, I have a few companies, the pandemic had to shut one.
I had a, one of my companies is a retreat business. That obviously did terribly in the pandemic, but I also had a business which did online like fitness training, which did really well, and it’s it wasn’t like I was happy or because How was the pandemic for you financially? I was like, something was good, things were bad.
It’s it’s just part of the adventure, you know what I mean? It’s like, you know, there’s always good and bad. It’s always yin and yang to everything, so you might as well just take control as much as you can and try and enjoy the process of it all.
[00:29:07] Having a coach signifies you are proactive[00:29:07] Tony Winyard: It just occurred to me as you were speaking and I never thought about this way before but if you’re, if you have a coach that signifies you’ve got a proactive attitude in many ways because you
[00:29:18] Dan Roberts: Yeah.
[00:29:19] Tony Winyard: otherwise you wouldn’t have a coach would
[00:29:20] Dan Roberts: it shows you’re proactive. It also shows you’ve got a little bit of humility because if you’re completely like overridden of ego, you won’t like, like a lot of like young alpha male types, They will never get a coach. A lot of 25 year old guys would never go to a personal trainer because they’re like, I know what I’m doing.
And it’s that’s why most personal trainers work with women because there’s less ego. I talk to most personal trainers, nearly all of them work with more women because it’s easier because it’s not, there’s not a competitive element. With guys it tends to be, not always, but there tends to be a bit more of a I know what I’m doing.
And it’s like you have to look after their ego , which is like exhausting. now I think it shows a bit of humility. it shows maturity, like accepting and saying I don’t, I don’t know about this particular subject, so I wanna learn more. I. and it shows a bit of intelligence.
It’s a lot quicker to learn something of someone who’s been there, done that, and if you wanna learn about something, you read a book or hire a coach, that makes much more sense than working out by yourself. that’s a very odd way of living to figure it all out by ourselves. When we’ve got all this amazing information out there, we’ve got people who’ve dedicated their careers to whatever medicine or yoga or Pilates or dance or whatever, there’s so many experts out there.
Why not? people who love what they do and are passionate about it and spend hours and hours researching things. why on earth wouldn’t you use them to enrich your life? It just seems,it seems odd, but I think most people look how many coaches there are. There must, there must be more of a general exception of coaches because there’s more life coaches out there.
There’s more business coaches out there, there’s more trainers out there. it is gr as an industry. Like in the West particularly, it is growing massively compared to like when I started 30 years ago, like you go to a park in Central London, there was no personal trainer like in a park. Now you go to any park in London, there’s 40 personal trainers there.
There’s gyms everywhere, So it’s and people have business mentors now. That’s not that weird, where 20 years ago, no one would have a business mentor. Now it’s standard, So it’s. I do think it’s growing in an industry which proves that actually people are more open to it, which is a good thing.
[00:31:23] How might AI impact coaching[00:31:23] Tony Winyard: How do you think AI might impact things?
[00:31:26] Dan Roberts: That’s a very specific question. I don’t know. , I don’t know. I don’t think, I think with AI and machine learning it comes to, like, when I’ve seen . Early ai and I’ve seen machine learning on apps like fitness and wellbeing apps. it can do a better job than bad coaches, but nothing can beat a good coach.
A good coach who actually works with someone who actually really thinks about that person. I definitely can be beaten by any kind of technology, but someone who’s a bit rubbish. They can be, I think a clever computer program can probably do more in terms of sending emails for accountability and all that stuff.
But when you really, when you talk to someone who’s like a coach and they know you and they pick up on your like body language and say, you okay Tony what’s going on today? And like they listen to you, that, that’s invaluable, And you know when someone comes in a bit upset, you push them hard, you.
You let ’em have a little cry, do you go, do you stop the session, take ’em out, have a coffee? It’s very hard to have an algorithm to decide what to do, but when you’re a human, we can pick up on these things and with our life experience, we can kinda go, actually, I think the best thing to do in this situation is this, which may not be part of their program, but it’s the right thing to do for that person.
And I dunno how a computer program could ever do that.
[00:32:39] Tony Winyard: If someone’s listening to this and maybe they don’t have a coach and they’re Something they’re considering and they’re not quite sure how to go about it. What would you say, what should someone look for in a good coach?
[00:32:52] What should someone look for in a good coach?[00:32:52] Dan Roberts: I’ll preface that by saying if you find someone who’s a really good coach, regardless of what they’re teaching, I think you should hire them. Regardless, because I think being around someone who’s really knowledgeable and passionate and can communicate, which are the three things you need to coach, I mentioned earlier about having that balance of empathy and leadership as well.
When you meet someone who has these characteristics and they talk about what they do with passion, you should be around that. Even if you don’t, even if they’re teaching knitting and you don’t care about knitting, it’s important to be around like enthusiastic, like passionate people. Because that’s how we should be, I think in life.
And sometimes life can get tough, and it’s important to remind yourself that it’s like we need bits of joy, we need enthusiasm, we need, it’s so easy to be cynical, particularly as you get older, and I think it’s very well at all ages now. It’s easy to be cynical and you, I think you need to do anything you can to fight against that and to remind yourself that life is fun.
[00:33:50] It’s a big adventure[00:33:50] Dan Roberts: It’s a big adventure. There’s lots of amazing things to learn, lots of really fascinating people out there. And you wanna be around those people. and it’s also nice to learn new shit, whatever it may be. Yeah. Be it whatever, like gymnastic or be it, gymnastics or Kung fu or Tai Chi or Pilates or learning how to sing, learning how to dance, whatever.
There’s millions of things to do. I’m biased because I love the world of physical stuff and I have a belief that we are all designed to be athletes and life is more fun and more enriched and more natural and more authentic. When we live closer to our athletic selves. So I think regardless of our age or disabilities, whatever, we should always strive to jump and twist and pull and punch and run and climb and all these things because that’s how we’re designed to be.
We’re not designed to be what . Both of us are doing now sitting in front of a screen. It’s unnatural, we’re not designed to sit on chairs again, which both of us are doing now. Chairs. How long have they been around? A hundred years. That’s not natural. No wonders. Everyone in the west has got tight hit flexors and weak glutes.
So we sit down all day, So I think the more we yeah, move back to our natural athletic self, the better. So I’m obviously biased towards that, but going back to your question, just find someone who’s passionate and knows, and has studied stuff and just . even if they’re not a proper coach, just ask to hang out with them.
it’s infectious.
[00:35:11] Tony Winyard: Have you written a book?
[00:35:12] Dan Roberts: Have I written a book? I’m writing one at the moment,
[00:35:17] Tony Winyard: I can.
[00:35:18] Dan Roberts: and I keep getting told off by my literary agent, Dory. She’s lovely, but it was supposed to be out two years ago and I didn’t finish it, so it was a bone of contention. so I’ll let you know when it’s out, but,No, I actually, I, I try to give a lot of free resources away.
I think like you are doing your podcast, which by the way, I was looking at how many episodes you’ve done. I’m so impressed how consistent you’ve been. it’s so difficult to do all the way through. but I have various resources and stuff I try and give away for free to help people, which is like the next best thing I guess.
But I’d love to write a book. And I’m doing it. I’m just, I guess I’m just lazy. ’cause it should, because it’s not finished yet.
[00:35:58] Tony Winyard: And what are your thoughts on, who is it aimed at? What will it be about?
[00:36:02] Dan Roberts: I’m not allowed to tell anyone I’m afraid ’cause I’ve already got a publishing deal. hopefully it will be a, it’ll be good , but I’ll be told off they were, I’ll let you know when that’s out and I’m just setting myself up to failure if I tell you exactly what it’s about and it comes out and it’s different.
[00:36:16] “The reason that I do what I do”[00:36:16] Dan Roberts: but. Look, my, my main thing is I, the reason I do what I do, not my private clients, yes, but also the qualifications and the courses and the consulting and the retreats is just to help people connect their mind and body more. That’s essentially what I do. it, on the outside it looks like I give people these dramatic transformations and that is a part of what I do, but that gets the people in.
But what I really do, Yes, I help people dramatically change their body for films and stuff, but inside of that, I help them like really feel what it’s like to be an athlete. And that’s what, that’s the most fun part of what I do. Problem is if I just said, Hey, I’m just like a mind body connection, coach, coach, I’d have no clients.
it’s, I have to like also help people change their body, get fit, lose weight, all that stuff. but that’s their goal. But my goal is to help ’em connect their mind and body and we work together and I’m very open about it when I meet them. I’m like, yeah, fine. I’ll get you this. But also if you work with me, I also want you to learn how to do a pull up.
I want you to learn how to, learn about proper eating. I want you to learn how to fight, like how to do kungfu or Muy Thai. Like it’s my responsibility as a coach, not just to give you results. ’cause you don’t always know what you want. My, my responsibility is give you results, part one, but also.
I give you things, which I think are good for you because I’m the expert. I’ve done this for 30 years, so you know that’s the deal I give to all my clients. And it’s if you want that, then we’ll work together if not, and go with someone else. and that, that’s how I do things nowadays.
[00:37:42] Tony Winyard: we talked about, I asked you about a book just now, so staying on the same topic, would you, is there a book you can think of that’s moved you for any reason?
[00:37:50] “On the road”[00:37:50] Dan Roberts: Yeah, I can think very clearly. It’s a bit cliched, but I read this book when I was 16. it was Jack Kerouac book called On the Road, and it was a part of the Beat Generation. So you know, Neil Cassady Lawrence Ferlinghetti,, Allan Ginsberg, all those guys. for those listeners who don’t know, there was like a bunch of writers in the mid forties to like late fifties in America.
and they were the first people to really, one of the first people to really write about their own experience and to find out what truth is. Kind of a little bit existentialist in a way, but they’re trying to figure out what’s important in life. And there were being young guys decided it was about travel, sex, women, experimentation with religion, everything.
Quite nowadays, quite basic, I guess, but back in the fifties no one did that kind of stuff. No one traveled the world and experimented with drugs and sexuality and stuff. No one did that back then. there were Buddhists, no one was Buddhists in 1948, people were Buddhists in the seventies, so it was really ahead of its time.
And, this book on the road, the, it’s the main character is basically it’s about two best friends. Jack Kerouac. The author and Neil Cassady his best mate, and they just travel through America and they just, it’s a conversations they have between them and it’s about life and it’s about travel. And he, the way he writes a bit like a.
Like a jazz pianist, and it kind of flows. He Wrote the whole book in like three days, apparently. it just like flow, like a stream of consciousness. And when you read it at a certain age, both of us, particularly you’re too old to read it now. . You have to read it when you’re young, when you’re impressionable, and when you’re that you’ve got that beautiful and that naivety when you’re young, that anything’s possible.
so you read it when you’re like 15 or 16, even maybe 20 and . All you wanna do is give up life and see the world and travel and read about Buddhism and try different things out. and I read that book and exactly what I did and I was like, I wanna travel and see the world. So when I was 17, yeah, I was 17, I backpacked around America by myself and that I did that for four months and that gave me so much confidence and it gave me so much joy that I.
I went to at least, I think it was like 45, 50 countries by the time I was 24, 25 by myself. just traveling around like learning languages and doing different bits and that’s why, I wasn’t, I was coaching, but that wasn’t really my life. I was just like a young hippie and that definitely affected how I look at life now even, I see life as an adventure.
and I see talk about being proactive. I was proactive when I was young. I bought that one-way ticket to Lima. I bought that one-way ticket to Bangkok and with a little bit of money in my pocket and to see what happened. And when you do shit like that and good stuff happens, and adventures happen and good memories happen, it makes you do it again and again.
so yeah, if you’re young, listen to this. Read on the road. and if you’re old, try and remember what it’s like to be young. . Read it. But that’s my answer.
[00:40:38] Tony Winyard: If people want to find out more about you, where would they go?
[00:40:42] Dan Roberts: they, I guess like everyone else that I’ve got a website,danrobertsgroup.com. If you head over there, I have all kinds of free resources. I’ve got a really interesting course I wrote about a year ago called High Performance Living, which is a 30 day online course completely for free. I think that’s worth checking out because, Obviously we do slightly different things, but I think it’s very aligned with the way you talk about, from what I’ve heard in your podcasts and reading your blogs, it’s definitely aligned with what you talk about.
So I think your listeners will probably, enjoy that and I think it’ll resonate with that about how to look after your body and how to look after your mind. so I think that’s, yeah, I think that’s worth checking out.
[00:41:20] Tony Winyard: I’ll put your links to all of that in the show notes.
[00:41:22] Dan Roberts: buddy.
[00:41:23] Tony Winyard: So anyone looking,
[00:41:24] Tony, let me ask you a question?[00:41:24] Dan Roberts: Let me ask you, you’ve asked me questions. Let me ask you a question. so Go on with your work, what’s your, with your podcast, you’ve done so many podcasts. Do you have a, did you have a clear plan at the start of when you did your podcast or has it evolved? So
[00:41:38] Tony Winyard: Yeah. Oh, it’s evolved very much.
[00:41:40] Dan Roberts: me about it.
what’s the
[00:41:41] Tony Winyard: initially, The first hundred episodes, it was called Exceeding Expectations.
[00:41:46] Dan Roberts: Okay.
[00:41:47] Tony Winyard: And then it was, yeah, it was very different. I was talking to people who had the mindset of just loving to surprise people and give them far more than they thought they were going to get.
[00:42:00] Dan Roberts: And so I spoke to many authors, speakers, just people I found who just loved to… To surprise people in a really good way and just like over deliver to such an extent that it just amazed people. So that was the first 100 episodes. The next 25 episodes, I changed the name again, so then it became sort of Series 2, I suppose.
[00:42:26] Tony Winyard: And then it was called Happiness vs. Flourishing. And you talked about Buddhism, I got quite into sort of Stoicism. There’s a lot of crossover between Buddhism and Stoicism. And one of the things about Stoicism, Aristotle and Socrates and many of the Stoics, Always used the word eudaimonia, which is like an ancient Greek word.
And it’s often badly translated as happiness into English and it’s not happy. There isn’t a word really you can translate it to, but flourishing is probably as close as it gets.
[00:42:56] Dan Roberts: Yeah.
[00:42:57] Tony Winyard: So I was actually looking at what is the difference between happiness and flourishing and I was interviewing, I was having conversations with people around that kind of concept.
[00:43:05] Dan Roberts: So how would you define flourishing?
[00:43:08] Tony Winyard: that’s the thing. Flourishing is something that you can be living a good life and you’re happy, you’re not happy all the time, because that’s ridiculous, no one’s happy all the time, but You’re enjoying life, you’re trying new things, and you’re, it’s the, as I say, it’s close to eudaimonia, it’s not quite the same, but it’s not happiness.
It’s not just trying to be happy all the time because that’s a pointless
[00:43:32] Dan Roberts: Yeah, it’s a very odd thing to strive for happiness. It’s just 70 many percent. I just wanna be happy. it’s like it’s such an odd thing, so you can’t really grasp it. It just happens when you’re doing something else. Usually more meaningful. Or try, that it’s like the Maslow’s hierarchy needs when you try and aim for that self-actualization or you aim for, flourishing or whatever, like being, fulfilling your potential I guess in some way in life.
then you get all moments of happiness, which is nice, but it’s, yeah, I agree. It’s very odd thing to strive for.
[00:43:57] Tony Winyard: Yeah, so that was the series two. Series three was habits and health, and then series four just started a few months ago. yeah. The art of living proactively.
[00:44:07] Dan Roberts: And what’s, do you think it’s gonna change again? Or we Are we gonna stick with this?
[00:44:12] Tony Winyard: Almost
[00:44:12] Dan Roberts: Okay.
[00:44:14] Tony Winyard: Almost certainly. I have no idea how it will change, but it will probably change at some point. I’ll suddenly have a new inspiration, I think, ah, okay, maybe I could do that, And a lot of the people I talk to, it’s just scratching my own itch, it’s people I find fascinating for some reason.
And I just thought, okay, let me have a conversation with that person. And people seem to like listening to it.
[00:44:36] Dan Roberts: Yeah, it’s,I’ve got a podcast and it’s quite nice. It’s like it gives me an excuse just to talk to people I want to talk to occasionally , so I’m not like you, I just do episodes every so often, but we’ve got quite a lot of followers and just randomly, if I’ve got someone I want to talk to, I’ll just contact them and it’s it’s quite nice sometimes just to have a conversation.
But yeah, I don’t do it. Properly like you do. I do it like once every three, four weeks just when I’ve, fancied having a chat with someone, , but like today, . But, no, I’m very impressed how how regular it works. it’s so hard to be consistent, in anything in life. God, it’s really difficult.
So I’m, I am very impressed. It’s, it’s great work you’re doing.
[00:45:11] Tony Winyard: Cheers. Much appreciated. listen, we’re just about to finish Dan, but before we do, so how we usually end is I always ask, is there a quotation that resonates with you for any reason? I
[00:45:23] Fave quote[00:45:23] Dan Roberts: yeah. God, I think, I hope I’m not wrong. I think this is Voltaire. I may be wrong. The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. And I like that. Pretty self-explanatory because it’s about the way we see things. If you really wanna have an adventure, yeah, you could get a one-way ticket to Lima, but actually what’s more adventurous is by open your eyes and seeing the world in a new way by staying open-minded.
That’s the real adventure in life. That’s why I like that Voltaire quote.
[00:45:52] Tony Winyard: haven’t come across that one before, but yeah, that’s,
[00:45:55] Dan Roberts: You can keep that.
[00:45:56] Tony Winyard: a. It reminds me of what, sometimes you have a conversation with people and they’ll talk to you about, especially, I’ve been to about a hundred countries, similar to what you were saying, I lived in many countries, and the question I get asked so much, and I probably, you probably get asked the same thing, Oh, what’s your favorite country?
And I, it’s not, I always say, I can’t really answer that, because I love, there’s probably ten questions I could reel off that I absolutely love. But for me, it’s not about the country, it’s about the experience I was having with the people. And I could have had that same experience in a completely different
[00:46:29] Dan Roberts: and you can go back to the same country like three times. You can go with a partner. You can go with friends, you can go by yourself, completely different experience. So it’s no, it’s, you’re right. It’s a very, it’s very odd question, but yeah, I get that a lot. So I’m pleased you get annoyed by it too. Alright buddy. pleasure. Thank you for having me on. Been a real pleasure. Nice chatting with you and good luck with your, all your endeavors. Thank
[00:46:51] Tony Winyard: the same to you. .
Tune in next week for another enlightening episode of the art of living proactively. I’ll be speaking with Vikki Jones, breathing expert, who is using her knowledge to help long COVID sufferers. Vicki will share her incredible story of recovering from breaking her neck while surfing. Only to later contract COVID-19, which left her with debilitating long-term symptoms. She’ll explain how learning proper breathing techniques through the oxygen advantage program has been a lifesaver in managing her illness. Vikki’s now paying it forward by teaching customized breathing exercises to others struggling with long Covids myriad of symptoms. She’ll provide powerful insights into taking control of your health, when traditional medicine fails you. It’s an inspirational tale of overcoming adversity with grit and determination. Don’t miss this breath of fresh air. Be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share this podcast. And remember to leave your comments on our YouTube channel. Stay tuned for an uplifting conversation with the remarkable Vikki Jones. That’s next week.
LInks:* Free resources on Dan's site * Team Dan Roberts on Instagram * Dan Roberts on Instagram * Dan Roberts on LinkedIn Recommended book:On the Road: Jack Kerouac by Jack KerouacFavourite Quote
"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."
Marcel ProustTweet
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TranscriptEmailDownloadNew TabDan Roberts – 245
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[00:00:00] Tony Winyard: I’m thrilled to share an adventurous conversation with Dan Roberts in today’s show. Dan is an accomplished Explorer and avid athlete pursuing astonishing accomplishments and in our lively chat he shares his contagious enthusiasm for travel. and boldly seizing opportunities. You’ll hear how reading "On the road" as a teen sparked Dans Intrepid attitude. Propelling him to solo backpacking adventures worldwide. And this instilled a lifelong adventurous mindset.
Learn how Dan transitioned from tennis coaching at 16 into a prolific 30 year coaching career across fitness film, and more. And he now runs retreats and works with elite athletes and actors. Dan believes being proactive means confidently taking action and getting out of your comfort zone. He explains why having a coach signifies a proactive mindset. Yet ego often prevents people from utilizing coaches.
I hope you enjoy this uplifting episode about living life as a bold adventure with Dan Roberts. Please subscribe to the art of living proactively on your favorite podcast platform or on YouTube. Leave us a sparkling five star review and share this episode with friends.
Welcome to The Art of Living Proactively. My guest today, Dan Roberts. How are you doing, Dan?
[00:01:29] Dan Roberts: I’m doing great. How are you, Tony?
[00:01:30] Tony Winyard: I’m pretty good. And, we’re back in the UK today. Recently, a lot of my guests have been, in the States. but we’re in Surrey today.
[00:01:37] Dan Roberts: We are leafy Surrey. Very domesticated.
[00:01:42] Tony Winyard: Have you always lived around there?
[00:01:43] Dan Roberts: No, I’m from Manchester and, I’ve traveled around a bit and, getting in my late forties now and like everybody, I end up moving out to the country and it’s as far as I can handle because I was still in London for years. And, this is about as far out of London as I can manage before I go mad.
So that’s why we chose Surrey.
[00:02:01] Tony Winyard: You don’t have any Mancunian accent at all.
[00:02:03] Dan Roberts: I’ve moved around a lot. I’ve lived in lots of different, I’ve lived in America, Australia, Asia. I’ve lived all over the place, so over the years it’s been pushed out of me. So yeah, I still say grass and master. That’s very Mancunian.
yeah, apart from that,
[00:02:16] Tony Winyard: and I know what you mean, actually, because I lived abroad for 12 years, and in that 12 years, I had to get rid of my London accent because people couldn’t understand what I was saying. So I had to teach myself to speak slowly and clearly and so on. But when I went back to London, yeah, then it came back
[00:02:32] Dan Roberts: Yeah, when I go back up north, it takes me like two days. Then it will come back again, but. I went to a university down south and no one can understand what I said. So I made a really conscious effort to slow down to not swear so much to speak more clearly. And just over the years, just by hanging out in the south and not going back home that much, it’s it slowly went back to more neutral, which I guess I am today.
But yeah, I haven’t really thought about it that much.
[00:02:59] Tony Winyard: you just mentioned that you’ve, you’ve lived in quite a few places. And was that in connection, because I know that you’re, you’re a trainer and as you mentioned, you’ve been a coach for a long time. Is that what you were doing when you were traveling abroad?
[00:03:09] Began coaching at 16
—
[00:03:09] Dan Roberts: yeah, I started coaching when I was 16, which is 30, just over 30 years ago, so it’s been a long time and, I, yeah, I traveled with my work. I went to different countries and set up base there and I was coaching, and then I get bored and moved to a different country. So pretty much it was related to work.
if I’m honest, it’s it wasn’t like my career led me there. It’s like I wanted to go abroad and I had a skill and my kind of career developed. but yeah, it’s nice to see the world when you can, if you’re lucky enough to see the world, I think we should.
[00:03:40] Tony Winyard: Absolutely. I couldn’t agree with you more. So how did you manage to start coaching at 16?
[00:03:45] Dan Roberts: I was a tennis coach. I was good at tennis. That helps . I was good at tennis and I,I just did some qualifications because it . I was always a person. I was like, from age, oh God, as long as back as I remember, I was always one. People used to go to, to ask advice. Like even at school, people would always ask me advice about stuff.
Not that I’d give good advice, but I was just one of those people who liked, I liked hanging out with people and I liked giving advice, I guess. So when I would, I was pretty good at tennis when I was younger, and I just decided to do some courses and work at my local tennis club to do coaching and, just ’cause I like the idea of hanging out with people, talking with people teaching.
It always appealed to me at that young age. and I’m a much better coach than I’m an athlete, so it worked out well. and my career evolved. Obviously, I’m into fitness now. my career quickly changed to fitness in my early twenties, but, it’s still the same stuff. Hanging out with people, giving advice, essentially not having a proper job.
[00:04:41] Tony Winyard: So you’ve, your main income, you’ve always been a coach?
[00:04:45] Running 3 companies
—
[00:04:45] Dan Roberts: Yeah. Yeah. I run three different companies now, all related to coaching, but my, I’m essentially a fitness instructor, but I sell programs, do retreats, do consulting and all the other stuff people do. But essentially I’m a coach, so I make my money via giving people advice, but it’s just different kind of forms of doing it.
[00:05:04] What do you prefer doing?
—
[00:05:04] Tony Winyard: So what is your, what do you prefer to do? What is your preferred? What are you happy, what are you happiest doing?
[00:05:10] Dan Roberts: I love what I’m doing now. I like the variety. I never stopped one-to-one. One-to-one. Coaching, I guess is my favorite thing. So I think I’ve done, I worked it out a couple of years ago. When I worked it out, I was on like 31, I think it was 31,000 hours, so I must be on like 33, 30 4,000 hours of one-to-one coaching.
So I wouldn’t have got that far. If I didn’t enjoy it. So that has to be my first love. But I think if I only did one-to-one, I think I would’ve been bored by the time I hit 35 or something. I think having, building up, having employees and building up brands and writing programs, writing qualifications, going on retreats and building a brand as it were, has been quite exciting.
And now I do quite a few things in my day. I don’t just do one-to-one coaching and I think that keeps me, . Stimulated and it keeps things interesting and it means I don’t get bored. ’cause that’s like the worst feeling for me being bored.
[00:05:59] What are the differences between coaching, mentoring and consulting?
—
[00:05:59] Tony Winyard: What are the differences between coaching, mentoring and consulting?
[00:06:05] Dan Roberts: really good question. I. And I think, I don’t know if there’s a right answer to this, everyone’s got a different take, but in my view, mentoring is when you’ve been there and done that. I do. For example, I mentor a lot of businesses like gyms and coaches who want to build their brand, and I work as a business mentor.
When I do that, I give them advice and I share my own experience. . . So it’s been there, done that. So I was like, oh, don’t do this, because I’ve, I know what it’s like. So you hold them accountable and you, yeah, you hold ’em accountable, which I guess you do in coaching too. But I think it comes from a place where you really have been there and done it before.
In coaching, I think it’s actually less about your knowledge and more about actually the way you communicate and the way you hold people accountable. I think obviously it would help if you have a background of knowing your stuff. But I do think the best coaches aren’t necessarily the best experts. there’s a lot of people with PhDs in kinesiology who aren’t very good coaches.
it’s it’s, I think actually being able to communicate, break things down, have empathy and leadership. I think coaching is about that balance of empathy and leadership. And if you do that well, you’re a great coach. And consulting is just when people pay you to find a solution to something, whatever it may be.
So when I consult with, I, I have two different consulting sort of roles, as it were. I work a lot on, films, on Hollywood films, and then it’s a very specific problem in terms of the cast needs to look a certain way or the, there needs to be a certain amount of performance, and I advise about that.
Or I work for hotels and they pay me to basically come in and look after their wellbeing strategy. So the Four Seasons or Shangri-La will ask me and my company to come in and overview, change the way they do wellbeing. So we’ll look at their food menu, their running club, their gym, lay out, all that stuff. So it’s a very specific problem and they’ll, I know it might be a contract for three months and they pay my company to create a solution, and then I go, There’s no ongoing stuff where coaching is very much ongoing.
[00:08:05] Tony Winyard: And do you have a preference, whether it’s face to face or remote?
[00:08:11] Do you feel online or face to face is better?
—
[00:08:11] Dan Roberts: originally I always preferred face-to-face, but like a lot of people, I was like, I had to pivot during the pandemic and suddenly. , I wasn’t like, my entire, 90% of my business was face-to-face before the pandemic. now, as I speak right now, it’s 90% online, so completely shift. And I quite like it.
I quite like the, I quite like the online stuff now. maybe, ’cause it’s still novel. It’s only been a few years, but I see private clients over Zoom. we, yeah, a lot of the consulting I do now is over Zoom and over phone calls and, I, maybe I’m just getting old and I quite working from home, but I like it at the moment, but I think maybe in another year I’ll probably go back and do a bit more work in London.
It’s nice to, it’s nice sometimes not to have a complete plan and to see what happens in work. And now what do you think? What do you like?
[00:09:02] Tony Winyard: like you, before the pandemic, all of my work was face to face, 100%. I had to pivot like many other people did, and now I’m the opposite. Now 100 percent of my work is
[00:09:15] Dan Roberts: And do you like it more?
[00:09:16] Tony Winyard: want to go
[00:09:16] Dan Roberts: Oh.
[00:09:17] Tony Winyard: I want to go back to face. I mean I like doing the online stuff, but I prefer the face to face stuff.
But I haven’t made as much effort as I should have to go back to doing face to face stuff.
[00:09:28] Dan Roberts: it’s quite easy to be online. that’s the problem. , it’s quite easy, like in terms of like scheduling, like clients and stuff, you can do a lot when people come to you, but I have found that I have to work harder to build rapport and to because normally like I, I, one of my biggest strengths is I can get on with people very quickly and I find like face-to-face normally in 20 seconds, 30 seconds.
I know I’m set online, takes me like 20 minutes. , but I’m better than I used to be. But it’s, it’s still, I think when you’re with people, you can pick up on body language and things a bit better maybe.
[00:10:02] Tony Winyard: and that was, I was just thinking about what would you say are the pros and cons of both for face to face and online?
[00:10:08] What are the pros and cons of online and face to face?
—
[00:10:08] Dan Roberts: for who? For the client or for the, for someone like me.
[00:10:12] Tony Winyard: For both, from your point of view and from a client’s point
[00:10:14] Dan Roberts: from the client’s point of view, which I guess is the most important,the convenience of of being able to see me wherever they are in the world is really handy. ’cause my clients tend to travel around a bit. So the ones who like it love it.
And the ones who don’t like it, I don’t see because they really don’t like it. So that’s where it’s gone. in terms of me, the benefits are definitely in terms of actually scheduling, like I can . Because I’ve got, ’cause I’m just, let’s take the online business, like the online like personal training side of things.
I have far more people who wanna work with me than I have space for. So I can plan out my day from, I can see someone at 6:00 AM 7.30, 9, and this morning I saw someone from Indonesia than America, Australia, like all over the world because I know quite a lot of people. It’s like I’m always booked up and if it, that’s quite nice and it’s a lot easier Where in London.
It takes about, if I went back to London now, it would take me about six months to get that kind of back-to-back appointments. And then it’s a couple of people leave, it takes another few weeks to get that back. So there’s always a bit of, it’s never perfectly like fully booked. I always have to work a little bit harder, but online it’s it’s easy.
[00:11:25] Tony Winyard: So yeah, it’s definitely more convenient. So maybe I’m just being a bit lazy ’cause I’m like, I’m just hanging out online a lot ’cause it’s definitely easier for me. And the clients said, the clients who like it, love it. but it’s not for everyone, Yeah.
[00:11:37] Dan Roberts: but,
[00:11:38] Tony Winyard: And so in terms of the, you mentioned there like personal training, and I know you’ve talked about some other types of coaching that you do as well.
[00:11:46] Dan Roberts: Do you have a preference for any sort of particular type of coaching you do?
[00:11:50] What style of coaching do you prefer?
—
[00:11:50] Dan Roberts: I, my job is quite varied. my private clients,I see a handful of private clients, I guess. looking after them. When I, the people I tend to work with, they tend to be on a project basis, so they have to get results like usually in six months or a year. For normally my clients, their career is slightly based on their body, so be there an athlete or model, an actor, they’re the three kind of sets of people I work with.
It’s usually pretty important that they make changes, . Being in charge of that is, is an honor. It’s a privilege and it’s a responsibility. So I like that. I like when you’re working with an athlete and they’re injured. They’ve got, I dunno, you’re doing a c l recovery and they’ve gotta get back and compete in six months time.
That’s really cool. Or if you’ve got a, an actor, then they’re the star of a big film starting in six months and they have to put on size and they’re tiny and they have to get big and you have to do it by a certain day. That’s exciting. So I like it when there’s a time pressure. Because then it focuses my mind.
It focuses their mind, and it feels like we’re on a mission together. And that’s cool. that’s really exciting, I think gets the best out of me as a coach when I’m emotionally involved. And it’s quite hard goal.
[00:12:57] Tony Winyard: So if you’re working with someone, like you just mentioned, they’ve got a specific role and they maybe need to bulk up or whatever the case might be. So are you giving them a, like a workout plan as such, and then holding them accountable and where, how would it work with a
[00:13:11] Dan Roberts: No, I physically,I work with them like if it’s like back when I was doing face-to-face, I’d be with them and I’d travel around with them. So I’d basically live with them, hang out with them, and do the workout with them. When it’s on online, I, every time they go to the gym, I’ll be with them.
On a Zoom call. so they don’t do stuff by themself because even though self-accountability is important and like for long term, that’s a really good strategy to have. But when the stakes are high and you have to get results, we can’t leave anything to chance. So I need to be in control of what they’re eating, what they’re, when they’re gonna bed, when they, what time they wake up, what training, all of it.
When I’m in complete control, then they get the results. and that’s what I’m paid for.
[00:13:52] Tony Winyard: What would you say is, I wonder if there is, what is the hardest part of coaching or is there nothing that’s hard?
[00:14:01] What is the hardest part of coaching?
—
[00:14:01] Dan Roberts: It’s a really good question. what’s the hardest part of coaching? I don’t think it, no, I don’t think it is hard if you keep your, . If you stay on the ball in terms of that you particularly when you’ve been a coach for a long time, it’s really important to remember that your client is the star, not you. And sometimes we get so obsessed with our own, like building our brands and building our companies and trying to get in magazines or whatever it be.
And we sometimes, I try not to, but I’ve seen it where sometimes coaches forget that. They’re supposed to be supportive. They’re not supposed to be well known. They’re not supposed to be Instagram stars, . It’s I think the client is a star. And I think if you, as long as you remember that, that keeps you grounded, it keeps you rightly humble as we should be, because they’re the people paying us, and we’re helping them.
And then, and then there’s, and then there’s no danger of getting ego involved. And actually you’re there for the right reasons and you’re helping them. Technically, there’s always things as you grow older as a coach, things you might do differently in terms of understanding how the body works, how the mind works.
But I think as long as your intention is pure and you’re like a nice person and you’re kind, and you’re truly thinking about your clients like best wishes, then even if you’re not that skilled, it’s still okay. It’s still, you’re still doing a nice job. so I think, yeah, sorry it’s a convoluted answer, I apologize, but I think as long as you, as long as you stay
Remain clear, like what your role is to support your client or clients, then I think it’s actually incredible. it’s easy and it’s fun, and actually I think it’s the best job in the world. I can’t think of anything better than coaching people. As long as you like people, , then it’s fine.
[00:15:34] Tony Winyard: That’s quite
[00:15:34] Dan Roberts: isn’t it?
yeah.
[00:15:37] Where do you feel coaches go wrong?
—
[00:15:37] Tony Winyard: Where do you think maybe coaches go wrong when they first come into the business?
[00:15:42] Dan Roberts: I don’t think everyone gets into coaching for what I would say the right reasons are. It’s a bit arrogant to say what’s right and wrong, but I don’t think, I know when I started, like I really wanted to help people and it wasn’t like I wanted to train celebrities or I didn’t wanna make money, that was irrelevant.
It was like the, those things come in slightly, I guess in terms of secondary goals, but I really wanted to make a difference to individuals who worked with me. And I do see sometimes with, when I do lecturing, when I mentor younger coaches, that when I ask what their goals are, it’s not always, I wanna be really good sometimes, I wanna be rich, I wanna be, I wanna train Hollywood stars, I wanna do this.
It’s that’s all about you. Maybe you should focus about how you can, how much you can offer, how you can serve. ’cause the more you can serve, the more value you can get and your career will naturally raise up. So I think people are a bit too switched on with like branding and marketing and success nowadays.
And I’m not against all that stuff, but I don’t, I think sometimes coaches forget that the main role is, the main thing is to focus on their clients and just do a really good job and take pride in your work. And when you do that, . Nice things tend to happen in careers. if you are kind and good at what you do, you tend to get talked about behind your back and nice things happen and you can build a career very successfully without screwing people over, without being like a hardcore salesperson just by doing your job properly.
but it’s not very sexy to tell people that they want,they want to go viral immediately or they wanna have something their usps and it’s yeah. I don’t know. What do you think? Let me ask you, you’ve done this for a while, haven’t you?
[00:17:17] Tony Winyard: in terms of what do I, where do people go wrong?
[00:17:20] Dan Roberts: In terms of coaches,
[00:17:22] Tony Winyard: I would say, I’m obviously much newer to the game than you are because my background was not as a coach. I was, I did something quite different when I lived abroad. and just in case you’re probably wondering, what the hell was that
[00:17:32] Dan Roberts: I’m waiting to hear. Yeah. what did you do?
[00:17:35] Tony Winyard: I was a DJ.
[00:17:36] Dan Roberts: You are a dj, you look a bit
[00:17:38] Tony Winyard: Yeah, so I lived abroad as a DJ for many years. yeah. So coach, I’m much newer to coaching. I’ve been doing it five years or so, really, so I would see, and obviously I know a lot of coaches who are a similar boat to me have only been doing it for a, a couple of years, few years or whatever.
I think one of the hardest things when you first start is not telling clients what to do and actually coaching them rather than
[00:18:03] Dan Roberts: Oh yeah. Like facilitating change rather than telling. Yeah. Yeah. that comes with experience. So surely after you realize that it doesn’t work when you tell people what to do,
[00:18:13] Tony Winyard: in you, it’s difficult at first to, to stop yourself from doing that.
[00:18:16] Dan Roberts: Yeah. Or when you go on a, you read a new book or you go on a new course and suddenly you change, you pivot the way you check change and that gets . Beaten out of you after about 10 years of coaching , I think, or maybe five years , it gets easier. I think. Like I say, as long as you like look at, as long as you remember, the clients are like the star and everyth think you’re doing is to help your clients get better results.
Then everything you absorb in life, the experiences, life experiences, or books you read or whatever, they will help make you like a better mentor or better coach.
[00:18:47] What do you think about coaches who don’t have a coach?
—
[00:18:47] Tony Winyard: What are your thoughts on coaches who don’t have a coach themselves?
[00:18:51] Dan Roberts: do you mean not have any kind of coach or do you mean Yeah, I think it’s odd. I think it’s very strange, because if you believe in the coaching process and you believe, like it makes sense to have someone to tell you stuff you don’t know and maybe, or at least hold you accountable. if you don’t really believe in it, if you don’t have any skin in the game and believe that makes sense.
It feels a bit like lack of integrity to then offer it to other people. So I find it very bizarre. I guess that, I’m a, essentially, I’m a strength and conditioning coach, personal trainer. I don’t have a personal trainer working with me. But when I wanna learn. Gymnastics. I go to gymnastics coach.
When I wanna learn how to do Muay Hai, I go to Muay Thai coach. So I have loads of coaches for things I wanna learn. I don’t have someone looking after my overall fitness, but I have specific people I would go to always. I have done all my life because it’s the quickest way of learning stuff.
It’s by finding someone who knows more than you who can communicate and they can, it saves you loads of time. it, to me, it’s like a no brainer. Like every athlete out there has a coach. it’s it’s, and I’ve being a coach for 30 years, I’ve seen how amazing results you can have when you have a good relationship with a client and you give good advice and you hold ’em accountable, and you push them, and, you, you’ve worked with them, not just like pampered to them, but you really challenge them, push them.
It’s amazing what people can do. yeah, no, I find it very strange as I’m sure you do. I’m guessing you do too. That’s why you asked that question.
[00:20:17] Tony Winyard: Yeah, I’ve got a couple of coaches and I’ve had coaches for many years. And I guess one of the reasons for asking that is because one thing coming from the DJ world and the DJ mindset is very different to many other industries. I don’t know what the right word is, but DJs really rail against having a coach.
You should be good enough. You should be able to do it. Many DJs don’t have a mentor or a coach or. They might have been a roadie for someone when they first started doing it and then after that you’ve got to do it on your own. I’m not saying, obviously, I’m generalizing. Obviously not everyone thinks like that, but you’d be amazed at how many do
[00:20:54] Dan Roberts: Why do you think that is? Is it a co, is it because it’s mainly like young guys bit, a bit of e, bit of ego. Like they don’t like admitting
[00:21:02] Tony Winyard: You’ve got to have an ego to be a DJ
[00:21:04] Dan Roberts: gotta stand in front of thousands of people and everyone listen to me. There’s gotta be some kind of self-confidence in there, which is linked to ego, particularly when you’re younger.
Right.
[00:21:13] Tony Winyard: yeah, but the problem with DJing is ego is imperative, as you said, because you’re, you’re in front of that many people, but it can very easily get out of control.
[00:21:23] Dan Roberts: Yeah.
[00:21:23] Tony Winyard: And it often does.
[00:21:24] Dan Roberts: That’s part of the fun though, isn’t it? when you’re young.
[00:21:28] Tony Winyard: Yeah,
[00:21:29] Dan Roberts: to be a
[00:21:30] Tony Winyard: it can, when it goes,
[00:21:32] Dan Roberts: So there must have been. So which led you that path.
[00:21:34] What led to Tony becoming a DJ
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[00:21:34] Tony Winyard: well for me it was different. I fell into it by accident. I was crazy about music as a kid. I was always buying records all the time. And one day I was doing a friend’s party. I was like 14 or something and the manager of the venue, it was upstairs in a function room in a pub, and the manager of the pub said, How much do you charge?
And I was like, a charge for what? He says for DJing. I said, I’m not a DJ. He said, what have you just been doing? And then so I fell into it. It wasn’t something that I aspired to, I just
[00:22:00] Dan Roberts: Yeah.
And then my whole thinking changed because then I thought, oh wow, I’m a DJ. Whereas before, I just loved music, Wow. what made you change from a DJ to doing what you’re doing now?
[00:22:12] Tony Winyard: I still DJ. It’s, I’ll still be doing it when they’re putting me under probably because I’ve done it my whole life, but I’m getting a lot older now. It’s not something… I could, can do for the rest of my
[00:22:25] Dan Roberts: way. Yeah. When I’m 80, in parties. And I look a lot younger than I am.
[00:22:32] Tony Winyard: I’m 60 in a few weeks time. So I now I’m 60 in a few weeks time.
[00:22:40] Dan Roberts: Yeah. I get that reaction all the time.
crazy.
[00:22:44] Tony Winyard: Yeah. And so I guess one of the reasons why I started coaching is because I’ve had so many people ask me, how is it you’re able to like, cause I’m pretty fit. and I do, I’m like way faster when I play football, I’m way faster than people 20 years younger than me.
And so I often get people asking me about how is it I’m able to stay so, so healthy, fit, whatever the case may be. And so that’s how I got into coaching in one way, but the bigger part really was a lot of my family died young, like my brothers, my dad all died in their fifties. My mom went through a long time of sort of chronic illness and she wouldn’t.
listen to changes in lifestyle or nutrition. She just trusted the doctors who never suggested changing nutrition or doing anything about her lifestyle. And so it was those are the main reasons I got into it,
[00:23:38] Dan Roberts: Yeah, I was watching your video actually on your website. I’m sorry to hear about your mum, but it’s it’s, it’s very powerful how these kind of horrible events really shape us and, I. No, I, my mom and dad passed away a couple of years ago from cancer, so I get it. And it’s it’s so frustrating at times when you see how, like, how doctors are one way and it’s there’s so much information out there, but yeah.
[00:24:02] The White Coat syndrome
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[00:24:02] Tony Winyard: And it was more my mum had the white coat syndrome thing, she would only listen to someone who’s got a white coat
[00:24:08] Dan Roberts: Yeah.
[00:24:09] Tony Winyard: and it was a shame because she, yeah, last few years of her life weren’t great. Yeah.
[00:24:13] Dan Roberts: I think culturally, maybe it’s a slight age thing, like nowadays less, I think people are a little bit more, I don’t know, a little bit more cynical about . I dunno, maybe they’re not, I’m thinking like people I know my age wouldn’t necessarily just automatically listen to one doctor.
They’d always get a second opinion or explore alternatives. definitely my kind of group of friends. Anyway. It wouldn’t, if an expert said something, it wouldn’t be like, okay, then it’s and I think there’s more, slightly more, critical thinking going on maybe than 30 years ago. I don’t know.
What do you think?
[00:24:45] Tony Winyard: that’s such a good. Yeah, no, I agree and it needs to be because yeah, you can’t just accept just because one doctor says something that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s right. You have to get a
[00:24:57] Evidence led, not evidence based
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[00:24:57] Dan Roberts: and science is always a little bit slow to catch. I mean, I’m in my work in terms of particularly like the fitness training side of things. I’m definitely like evidence led, but I’m not evidence-based. I. So I, I look at science, I look at the latest studies. I try to keep up to date, but I know for a fact some things I’m doing haven’t been studied yet.
So of course there’s no evidence for it. There’s always time to catch up. it is we don’t need to find out that, I don’t know that vaping is bad for us, do we To realize it’s probably not a good idea to get into vaping now, or whatever. Or there’s all kind of things people do nowadays, which are obviously not good for.
[00:25:33] Tony Winyard: from toxin, toxins in our diet, all kinds of things, which seemed very like hippie like, eccentric stuff like 20 years ago now is considered like even organic, like organic food. Like in the seventies we’d be like, oh, that’s weird. Now it’s it’s weird not to eat organic. So I think people are getting more awake to looking after themselves, but maybe I’m in a bubble because I’m in Southern England and stuff.
[00:25:56] Dan Roberts: But I, I do feel like it’s changing a little bit. I.
[00:26:00] Tony Winyard: I think it is changing but slowly but yeah It is changing and hopefully that change will continue and I mean what you just said that just then about you know there’s some things that haven’t been proven yet and so on. I lived in the Far East for nearly 10 years and People’s approach to medicine and health is very different out there.
So I, I saw how their approach was, and I think that definitely had an influence on me. And there was many things that in the West we would say were not proven. But they were working for everyone out there, so they just did it. They didn’t care that the West didn’t believe in some of those things,
[00:26:36] Dan Roberts: yeah, Chinese medicine is like a whole completely different system. And even like I used to live in Thailand, for a while and I remember having a headache and straight away. Like some local guy was like massaging my head. It’s this is what they do to get rid of headaches. No one pops in Nurofen, , everyone just like head massage.
I was like, why wasn’t used to that, but that’s much better. And it’s just yeah, every different cultures, different parts of the world have different ways of dealing with things. And I think,Western Medicine I’m a fan of, but it’s I think it’s a bit, it’s a bit naive to think that’s the only thing, particularly because there’s new stuff coming out all the time.
[00:27:09] Tony Winyard: yeah. What are your thoughts on,yeah, podcast is about, being proactive. What are your thoughts on that?
[00:27:14] Dan’s thoughts on being proactive
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[00:27:14] Dan Roberts: About being proactive? in the sense that I think it’s very, in, I think life is more fun when you are take confident and bold actions, rather than letting things happen to you. I think sometimes life is tough, like you’ve dealt with loss and stuff like I think we all do at some point and deal with bad things happen in our lives and sometimes shit happens.
But we can, to a certain degree, control how we react to things in life and having put positive spin on stuff. And just in terms of like our careers, our love life, our social life, our kind of adventure life is so much more fun when you just make decisions and take bold action, I suppose.
And I’ve also found over the years that. You can create a habit of being proactive and then it becomes just part of who you are. And it’s a lot easier, I think if you’re stuck in a rutt for 20 years, it’s very scary, like of going out of your comfort zone. But once you do it once, it’s like a little bit and then you just think else maybe a little bit more before you know it.
it’s like life has opened up. It’s, beautiful opportunities to you. yeah, I always encourage people to take control as much as they can. And, And also get outta the comfort zone. It can be a bit scary when you’re doing things which feel well, which feel a bit sort of foreign to you, I guess.
Or it’s a fear of failure, which is a big thing, which holds people back. And it’s such a shame because who cares? . It’s know if you try something, it doesn’t work. At least you tried. You know what I mean? It’s like I failed in my work. I fail constantly, And like in the pandemic, I have a few companies, the pandemic had to shut one.
I had a, one of my companies is a retreat business. That obviously did terribly in the pandemic, but I also had a business which did online like fitness training, which did really well, and it’s it wasn’t like I was happy or because How was the pandemic for you financially? I was like, something was good, things were bad.
It’s it’s just part of the adventure, you know what I mean? It’s like, you know, there’s always good and bad. It’s always yin and yang to everything, so you might as well just take control as much as you can and try and enjoy the process of it all.
[00:29:07] Having a coach signifies you are proactive
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[00:29:07] Tony Winyard: It just occurred to me as you were speaking and I never thought about this way before but if you’re, if you have a coach that signifies you’ve got a proactive attitude in many ways because you
[00:29:18] Dan Roberts: Yeah.
[00:29:19] Tony Winyard: otherwise you wouldn’t have a coach would
[00:29:20] Dan Roberts: it shows you’re proactive. It also shows you’ve got a little bit of humility because if you’re completely like overridden of ego, you won’t like, like a lot of like young alpha male types, They will never get a coach. A lot of 25 year old guys would never go to a personal trainer because they’re like, I know what I’m doing.
And it’s that’s why most personal trainers work with women because there’s less ego. I talk to most personal trainers, nearly all of them work with more women because it’s easier because it’s not, there’s not a competitive element. With guys it tends to be, not always, but there tends to be a bit more of a I know what I’m doing.
And it’s like you have to look after their ego , which is like exhausting. now I think it shows a bit of humility. it shows maturity, like accepting and saying I don’t, I don’t know about this particular subject, so I wanna learn more. I. and it shows a bit of intelligence.
It’s a lot quicker to learn something of someone who’s been there, done that, and if you wanna learn about something, you read a book or hire a coach, that makes much more sense than working out by yourself. that’s a very odd way of living to figure it all out by ourselves. When we’ve got all this amazing information out there, we’ve got people who’ve dedicated their careers to whatever medicine or yoga or Pilates or dance or whatever, there’s so many experts out there.
Why not? people who love what they do and are passionate about it and spend hours and hours researching things. why on earth wouldn’t you use them to enrich your life? It just seems,it seems odd, but I think most people look how many coaches there are. There must, there must be more of a general exception of coaches because there’s more life coaches out there.
There’s more business coaches out there, there’s more trainers out there. it is gr as an industry. Like in the West particularly, it is growing massively compared to like when I started 30 years ago, like you go to a park in Central London, there was no personal trainer like in a park. Now you go to any park in London, there’s 40 personal trainers there.
There’s gyms everywhere, So it’s and people have business mentors now. That’s not that weird, where 20 years ago, no one would have a business mentor. Now it’s standard, So it’s. I do think it’s growing in an industry which proves that actually people are more open to it, which is a good thing.
[00:31:23] How might AI impact coaching
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[00:31:23] Tony Winyard: How do you think AI might impact things?
[00:31:26] Dan Roberts: That’s a very specific question. I don’t know. , I don’t know. I don’t think, I think with AI and machine learning it comes to, like, when I’ve seen . Early ai and I’ve seen machine learning on apps like fitness and wellbeing apps. it can do a better job than bad coaches, but nothing can beat a good coach.
A good coach who actually works with someone who actually really thinks about that person. I definitely can be beaten by any kind of technology, but someone who’s a bit rubbish. They can be, I think a clever computer program can probably do more in terms of sending emails for accountability and all that stuff.
But when you really, when you talk to someone who’s like a coach and they know you and they pick up on your like body language and say, you okay Tony what’s going on today? And like they listen to you, that, that’s invaluable, And you know when someone comes in a bit upset, you push them hard, you.
You let ’em have a little cry, do you go, do you stop the session, take ’em out, have a coffee? It’s very hard to have an algorithm to decide what to do, but when you’re a human, we can pick up on these things and with our life experience, we can kinda go, actually, I think the best thing to do in this situation is this, which may not be part of their program, but it’s the right thing to do for that person.
And I dunno how a computer program could ever do that.
[00:32:39] Tony Winyard: If someone’s listening to this and maybe they don’t have a coach and they’re Something they’re considering and they’re not quite sure how to go about it. What would you say, what should someone look for in a good coach?
[00:32:52] What should someone look for in a good coach?
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[00:32:52] Dan Roberts: I’ll preface that by saying if you find someone who’s a really good coach, regardless of what they’re teaching, I think you should hire them. Regardless, because I think being around someone who’s really knowledgeable and passionate and can communicate, which are the three things you need to coach, I mentioned earlier about having that balance of empathy and leadership as well.
When you meet someone who has these characteristics and they talk about what they do with passion, you should be around that. Even if you don’t, even if they’re teaching knitting and you don’t care about knitting, it’s important to be around like enthusiastic, like passionate people. Because that’s how we should be, I think in life.
And sometimes life can get tough, and it’s important to remind yourself that it’s like we need bits of joy, we need enthusiasm, we need, it’s so easy to be cynical, particularly as you get older, and I think it’s very well at all ages now. It’s easy to be cynical and you, I think you need to do anything you can to fight against that and to remind yourself that life is fun.
[00:33:50] It’s a big adventure
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[00:33:50] Dan Roberts: It’s a big adventure. There’s lots of amazing things to learn, lots of really fascinating people out there. And you wanna be around those people. and it’s also nice to learn new shit, whatever it may be. Yeah. Be it whatever, like gymnastic or be it, gymnastics or Kung fu or Tai Chi or Pilates or learning how to sing, learning how to dance, whatever.
There’s millions of things to do. I’m biased because I love the world of physical stuff and I have a belief that we are all designed to be athletes and life is more fun and more enriched and more natural and more authentic. When we live closer to our athletic selves. So I think regardless of our age or disabilities, whatever, we should always strive to jump and twist and pull and punch and run and climb and all these things because that’s how we’re designed to be.
We’re not designed to be what . Both of us are doing now sitting in front of a screen. It’s unnatural, we’re not designed to sit on chairs again, which both of us are doing now. Chairs. How long have they been around? A hundred years. That’s not natural. No wonders. Everyone in the west has got tight hit flexors and weak glutes.
So we sit down all day, So I think the more we yeah, move back to our natural athletic self, the better. So I’m obviously biased towards that, but going back to your question, just find someone who’s passionate and knows, and has studied stuff and just . even if they’re not a proper coach, just ask to hang out with them.
it’s infectious.
[00:35:11] Tony Winyard: Have you written a book?
[00:35:12] Dan Roberts: Have I written a book? I’m writing one at the moment,
[00:35:17] Tony Winyard: I can.
[00:35:18] Dan Roberts: and I keep getting told off by my literary agent, Dory. She’s lovely, but it was supposed to be out two years ago and I didn’t finish it, so it was a bone of contention. so I’ll let you know when it’s out, but,No, I actually, I, I try to give a lot of free resources away.
I think like you are doing your podcast, which by the way, I was looking at how many episodes you’ve done. I’m so impressed how consistent you’ve been. it’s so difficult to do all the way through. but I have various resources and stuff I try and give away for free to help people, which is like the next best thing I guess.
But I’d love to write a book. And I’m doing it. I’m just, I guess I’m just lazy. ’cause it should, because it’s not finished yet.
[00:35:58] Tony Winyard: And what are your thoughts on, who is it aimed at? What will it be about?
[00:36:02] Dan Roberts: I’m not allowed to tell anyone I’m afraid ’cause I’ve already got a publishing deal. hopefully it will be a, it’ll be good , but I’ll be told off they were, I’ll let you know when that’s out and I’m just setting myself up to failure if I tell you exactly what it’s about and it comes out and it’s different.
[00:36:16] "The reason that I do what I do"
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[00:36:16] Dan Roberts: but. Look, my, my main thing is I, the reason I do what I do, not my private clients, yes, but also the qualifications and the courses and the consulting and the retreats is just to help people connect their mind and body more. That’s essentially what I do. it, on the outside it looks like I give people these dramatic transformations and that is a part of what I do, but that gets the people in.
But what I really do, Yes, I help people dramatically change their body for films and stuff, but inside of that, I help them like really feel what it’s like to be an athlete. And that’s what, that’s the most fun part of what I do. Problem is if I just said, Hey, I’m just like a mind body connection, coach, coach, I’d have no clients.
it’s, I have to like also help people change their body, get fit, lose weight, all that stuff. but that’s their goal. But my goal is to help ’em connect their mind and body and we work together and I’m very open about it when I meet them. I’m like, yeah, fine. I’ll get you this. But also if you work with me, I also want you to learn how to do a pull up.
I want you to learn how to, learn about proper eating. I want you to learn how to fight, like how to do kungfu or Muy Thai. Like it’s my responsibility as a coach, not just to give you results. ’cause you don’t always know what you want. My, my responsibility is give you results, part one, but also.
I give you things, which I think are good for you because I’m the expert. I’ve done this for 30 years, so you know that’s the deal I give to all my clients. And it’s if you want that, then we’ll work together if not, and go with someone else. and that, that’s how I do things nowadays.
[00:37:42] Tony Winyard: we talked about, I asked you about a book just now, so staying on the same topic, would you, is there a book you can think of that’s moved you for any reason?
[00:37:50] "On the road"
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[00:37:50] Dan Roberts: Yeah, I can think very clearly. It’s a bit cliched, but I read this book when I was 16. it was Jack Kerouac book called On the Road, and it was a part of the Beat Generation. So you know, Neil Cassady Lawrence Ferlinghetti,, Allan Ginsberg, all those guys. for those listeners who don’t know, there was like a bunch of writers in the mid forties to like late fifties in America.
and they were the first people to really, one of the first people to really write about their own experience and to find out what truth is. Kind of a little bit existentialist in a way, but they’re trying to figure out what’s important in life. And there were being young guys decided it was about travel, sex, women, experimentation with religion, everything.
Quite nowadays, quite basic, I guess, but back in the fifties no one did that kind of stuff. No one traveled the world and experimented with drugs and sexuality and stuff. No one did that back then. there were Buddhists, no one was Buddhists in 1948, people were Buddhists in the seventies, so it was really ahead of its time.
And, this book on the road, the, it’s the main character is basically it’s about two best friends. Jack Kerouac. The author and Neil Cassady his best mate, and they just travel through America and they just, it’s a conversations they have between them and it’s about life and it’s about travel. And he, the way he writes a bit like a.
Like a jazz pianist, and it kind of flows. He Wrote the whole book in like three days, apparently. it just like flow, like a stream of consciousness. And when you read it at a certain age, both of us, particularly you’re too old to read it now. . You have to read it when you’re young, when you’re impressionable, and when you’re that you’ve got that beautiful and that naivety when you’re young, that anything’s possible.
so you read it when you’re like 15 or 16, even maybe 20 and . All you wanna do is give up life and see the world and travel and read about Buddhism and try different things out. and I read that book and exactly what I did and I was like, I wanna travel and see the world. So when I was 17, yeah, I was 17, I backpacked around America by myself and that I did that for four months and that gave me so much confidence and it gave me so much joy that I.
I went to at least, I think it was like 45, 50 countries by the time I was 24, 25 by myself. just traveling around like learning languages and doing different bits and that’s why, I wasn’t, I was coaching, but that wasn’t really my life. I was just like a young hippie and that definitely affected how I look at life now even, I see life as an adventure.
and I see talk about being proactive. I was proactive when I was young. I bought that one-way ticket to Lima. I bought that one-way ticket to Bangkok and with a little bit of money in my pocket and to see what happened. And when you do shit like that and good stuff happens, and adventures happen and good memories happen, it makes you do it again and again.
so yeah, if you’re young, listen to this. Read on the road. and if you’re old, try and remember what it’s like to be young. . Read it. But that’s my answer.
[00:40:38] Tony Winyard: If people want to find out more about you, where would they go?
[00:40:42] Dan Roberts: they, I guess like everyone else that I’ve got a website,danrobertsgroup.com. If you head over there, I have all kinds of free resources. I’ve got a really interesting course I wrote about a year ago called High Performance Living, which is a 30 day online course completely for free. I think that’s worth checking out because, Obviously we do slightly different things, but I think it’s very aligned with the way you talk about, from what I’ve heard in your podcasts and reading your blogs, it’s definitely aligned with what you talk about.
So I think your listeners will probably, enjoy that and I think it’ll resonate with that about how to look after your body and how to look after your mind. so I think that’s, yeah, I think that’s worth checking out.
[00:41:20] Tony Winyard: I’ll put your links to all of that in the show notes.
[00:41:22] Dan Roberts: buddy.
[00:41:23] Tony Winyard: So anyone looking,
[00:41:24] Tony, let me ask you a question?
—
[00:41:24] Dan Roberts: Let me ask you, you’ve asked me questions. Let me ask you a question. so Go on with your work, what’s your, with your podcast, you’ve done so many podcasts. Do you have a, did you have a clear plan at the start of when you did your podcast or has it evolved? So
[00:41:38] Tony Winyard: Yeah. Oh, it’s evolved very much.
[00:41:40] Dan Roberts: me about it.
what’s the
[00:41:41] Tony Winyard: initially, The first hundred episodes, it was called Exceeding Expectations.
[00:41:46] Dan Roberts: Okay.
[00:41:47] Tony Winyard: And then it was, yeah, it was very different. I was talking to people who had the mindset of just loving to surprise people and give them far more than they thought they were going to get.
[00:42:00] Dan Roberts: And so I spoke to many authors, speakers, just people I found who just loved to… To surprise people in a really good way and just like over deliver to such an extent that it just amazed people. So that was the first 100 episodes. The next 25 episodes, I changed the name again, so then it became sort of Series 2, I suppose.
[00:42:26] Tony Winyard: And then it was called Happiness vs. Flourishing. And you talked about Buddhism, I got quite into sort of Stoicism. There’s a lot of crossover between Buddhism and Stoicism. And one of the things about Stoicism, Aristotle and Socrates and many of the Stoics, Always used the word eudaimonia, which is like an ancient Greek word.
And it’s often badly translated as happiness into English and it’s not happy. There isn’t a word really you can translate it to, but flourishing is probably as close as it gets.
[00:42:56] Dan Roberts: Yeah.
[00:42:57] Tony Winyard: So I was actually looking at what is the difference between happiness and flourishing and I was interviewing, I was having conversations with people around that kind of concept.
[00:43:05] Dan Roberts: So how would you define flourishing?
[00:43:08] Tony Winyard: that’s the thing. Flourishing is something that you can be living a good life and you’re happy, you’re not happy all the time, because that’s ridiculous, no one’s happy all the time, but You’re enjoying life, you’re trying new things, and you’re, it’s the, as I say, it’s close to eudaimonia, it’s not quite the same, but it’s not happiness.
It’s not just trying to be happy all the time because that’s a pointless
[00:43:32] Dan Roberts: Yeah, it’s a very odd thing to strive for happiness. It’s just 70 many percent. I just wanna be happy. it’s like it’s such an odd thing, so you can’t really grasp it. It just happens when you’re doing something else. Usually more meaningful. Or try, that it’s like the Maslow’s hierarchy needs when you try and aim for that self-actualization or you aim for, flourishing or whatever, like being, fulfilling your potential I guess in some way in life.
then you get all moments of happiness, which is nice, but it’s, yeah, I agree. It’s very odd thing to strive for.
[00:43:57] Tony Winyard: Yeah, so that was the series two. Series three was habits and health, and then series four just started a few months ago. yeah. The art of living proactively.
[00:44:07] Dan Roberts: And what’s, do you think it’s gonna change again? Or we Are we gonna stick with this?
[00:44:12] Tony Winyard: Almost
[00:44:12] Dan Roberts: Okay.
[00:44:14] Tony Winyard: Almost certainly. I have no idea how it will change, but it will probably change at some point. I’ll suddenly have a new inspiration, I think, ah, okay, maybe I could do that, And a lot of the people I talk to, it’s just scratching my own itch, it’s people I find fascinating for some reason.
And I just thought, okay, let me have a conversation with that person. And people seem to like listening to it.
[00:44:36] Dan Roberts: Yeah, it’s,I’ve got a podcast and it’s quite nice. It’s like it gives me an excuse just to talk to people I want to talk to occasionally , so I’m not like you, I just do episodes every so often, but we’ve got quite a lot of followers and just randomly, if I’ve got someone I want to talk to, I’ll just contact them and it’s it’s quite nice sometimes just to have a conversation.
But yeah, I don’t do it. Properly like you do. I do it like once every three, four weeks just when I’ve, fancied having a chat with someone, , but like today, . But, no, I’m very impressed how how regular it works. it’s so hard to be consistent, in anything in life. God, it’s really difficult.
So I’m, I am very impressed. It’s, it’s great work you’re doing.
[00:45:11] Tony Winyard: Cheers. Much appreciated. listen, we’re just about to finish Dan, but before we do, so how we usually end is I always ask, is there a quotation that resonates with you for any reason? I
[00:45:23] Fave quote
—
[00:45:23] Dan Roberts: yeah. God, I think, I hope I’m not wrong. I think this is Voltaire. I may be wrong. The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. And I like that. Pretty self-explanatory because it’s about the way we see things. If you really wanna have an adventure, yeah, you could get a one-way ticket to Lima, but actually what’s more adventurous is by open your eyes and seeing the world in a new way by staying open-minded.
That’s the real adventure in life. That’s why I like that Voltaire quote.
[00:45:52] Tony Winyard: haven’t come across that one before, but yeah, that’s,
[00:45:55] Dan Roberts: You can keep that.
[00:45:56] Tony Winyard: a. It reminds me of what, sometimes you have a conversation with people and they’ll talk to you about, especially, I’ve been to about a hundred countries, similar to what you were saying, I lived in many countries, and the question I get asked so much, and I probably, you probably get asked the same thing, Oh, what’s your favorite country?
And I, it’s not, I always say, I can’t really answer that, because I love, there’s probably ten questions I could reel off that I absolutely love. But for me, it’s not about the country, it’s about the experience I was having with the people. And I could have had that same experience in a completely different
[00:46:29] Dan Roberts: and you can go back to the same country like three times. You can go with a partner. You can go with friends, you can go by yourself, completely different experience. So it’s no, it’s, you’re right. It’s a very, it’s very odd question, but yeah, I get that a lot. So I’m pleased you get annoyed by it too. Alright buddy. pleasure. Thank you for having me on. Been a real pleasure. Nice chatting with you and good luck with your, all your endeavors. Thank
[00:46:51] Tony Winyard: the same to you. .
Tune in next week for another enlightening episode of the art of living proactively. I’ll be speaking with Vikki Jones, breathing expert, who is using her knowledge to help long COVID sufferers. Vicki will share her incredible story of recovering from breaking her neck while surfing. Only to later contract COVID-19, which left her with debilitating long-term symptoms. She’ll explain how learning proper breathing techniques through the oxygen advantage program has been a lifesaver in managing her illness. Vikki’s now paying it forward by teaching customized breathing exercises to others struggling with long Covids myriad of symptoms. She’ll provide powerful insights into taking control of your health, when traditional medicine fails you. It’s an inspirational tale of overcoming adversity with grit and determination. Don’t miss this breath of fresh air. Be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share this podcast. And remember to leave your comments on our YouTube channel. Stay tuned for an uplifting conversation with the remarkable Vikki Jones. That’s next week.
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Have you ever wondered how you can regain control of your health and live a proactive life? In a world filled with endless options and choices, it can be overwhelming to navigate the path towards optimal well-being. However, there is hope. Join us on this episode of “The Art of Living Proactively” as we dive into the remarkable blueprint plan developed by the esteemed medical doctor, GP, functional medicine practitioner, and TEAM CBT practitioner, Dr. Tom Gedman. Discover how Dr. Gedman’s blueprint plan can help you overcome burnout and transform your health.Action Steps and Call to Action:1. Explore the Blueprint Plan: Dr. Gedman’s blueprint plan is a flexible framework that allows you to choose your starting point on the path to better health. Listen attentively as Dr. Gedman shares his expert insights and step-by-step guidance during this enlightening episode.
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Embrace the 80/20 Rule: Discover the transformative power of the 80/20 rule, which emphasizes the significance of making the right choices 80% of the time. Implement this principle in your daily life to create a sustainable and proactive approach to your well-being.
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Prioritize Thought Change: Gain a deeper understanding of the crucial role of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) in transforming your thoughts and mindset. Learn how TEAM CBT techniques can help you achieve significant breakthroughs and lead to lasting change in your health journey.
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Start with Lifestyle Changes: By making simple lifestyle adjustments, you can lay a solid foundation for improved health. Dr. Gedman encourages you to begin with lifestyle modifications before diving into extensive testing, fostering a proactive approach that focuses on the essentials.
Chapters:01:48 Tom’s driving metaphor on being proactive02:59 Tom’s thoughts on being proactive03:58 Why Tom burnt out as a GP05:12 What is the reason GP appointments are so short?06:20 Did you always want to be a doctor?07:13 Attending medical school07:59 How was it when you began working in a practice?08:50 How Tom discovered TEAM CBT09:55 When did you begin to learn TEAM CBT?13:11 How does TEAM CBT help you as a GP?14:34 Why did you decide to get into Functional Medicine?16:20 A unique blend16:51 Functional medicine is getting a lot more well known now17:43 The BLUEPRINT Plan18:45 B=Baseline testing and tracking20:00 L=Limiting toxins21:32 U=Understanding and changing habits21:59 E=Exercise22:40 P=Purpose and spirituality23:33 R=Rest and relaxation24:27 I=Interpersonal relationships24:49 N=Nutrition25:39 Thought change with TEAM CBT27:06 Group programme27:59 How is the programme delivered?28:28 Can the BLUEPRINT be done 1-2-1?29:21 Criticisms of Functional Medicine30:42 What do you think of wearables?32:35 Can someone be too proactive?34:33 What changes might we see with GPs?36:26 How will AI change things?37:56 Tom’s favourite book39:33 Get in touch with Tom40:20 Tom’s podcast40:52 Tom’s fave quote41:53 Final thoughts on being proactiveGuest Bio:Tom is an NHS GP with additional training in Functional Medicine and TEAM CBT psychological therapy working in Coventry, UK. He has used his experience and training to develop a framework to empower people to improve their own health called the BLUEPRINT plan. This comprehensive protocol allows people to make easy first steps, track progress towards goals over time and highlight hidden internal or external barriers to lifestyle change. He has taught this framework to groups of NHS patients with some amazing initial results in a short time frame.
Watch this episode on YouTube Transcript244 – Tom GedmanI’m thrilled to share a transformative conversation with Dr. Tom Gedman in today’s show. Tom is an impressive GP pioneering preventative health care with his ingenious blueprint model. This multi-faceted approach masterfully, mergers medicine, lifestyle changes, supplements, and cognitive behavioral therapy techniques. In our compelling chat, Tom eloquently explains how being proactive is like driving a car with your hands on the steering wheel. Anticipating turns, stops, and obstacles ahead rather than passively drifting. Discover how Tom is revolutionizing GP appointments, trimming, ineffective smalltalk, instead providing clear, concise lifestyle guidance in seconds. Before referring patients to his blueprint lifestyle groups for in-depth education and support. So listen in for Tom’s insights on burnout and how he overcame it along with the unusual way. He discovered the life-changing power of Team CBT therapy. So hope you enjoy this uplifting and educational episode with the pioneering Dr. Tom Gedman. Please subscribe to the art of living proactively on your favorite podcast platform or on YouTube. Leave us a sparkling five star review. That would be great. Share this episode with friends. So they too can be motivated by Tom’s message. As always I appreciate your listenership and hope you enjoy the show.
[00:01:34] Tony Winyard: Welcome to another edition of The Art of Living Proactively. My guest today is Tom Gedman. How are you, Tom?
[00:01:41] Tom Gedman: I’m good. Thanks, Tony. How are you?
[00:01:43] Tony Winyard: So Tom has got a metaphor about being proactive.
[00:01:48] Tom’s driving metaphor on being proactive[00:01:48] Tom Gedman: So this metaphor is a, driving metaphor. So proactivity is like driving a car with your hands on the steering wheel rather than letting it drift. You anticipate turns, stops, and obstacles.
now I like driving metaphors. I use them quite a lot. and I like this one because it almost… It allows you to take control of your own destiny rather than letting the car drive you, even though that’s where we’re heading as a society and technology. but really it’s important to be able to anticipate the hurdles in front of you.
And I think that’s a huge part of forming effective habits that are going to make a big difference in the longterm to your health it’s anticipating the, The potential setbacks in advance, just so you’re not phased by them. You’re expecting them and you know how to navigate.
[00:02:34] Tony Winyard: I like that.
[00:02:35] Tom Gedman: it.
[00:02:35] Tony Winyard: So there’s a number of things we can dig into there, but what are your general thoughts on being proactive? And actually, should say, bebecause you haven’t mentioned it, so Tom is a GP, he’s a functional medicine doctor, he’s a level two or three in TEAM CBT. Tom’s got an amazing background and we’re going to get into more of that during the episode.
Would you say you’ve got a bit of background? So yeah, what are your thoughts on being proactive?
[00:02:59] Tom’s thoughts on being proactive[00:02:59] Tom Gedman: my thoughts on being proactive, have probably changed over time as a doctor. Traditionally, when we were first trained, we were working a lot in hospital rotations, and we were mainly treating people who came in with a specific symptom of concern, and then just sending them on their way once we dealt with that.
but it’s only as I trained and became a general practitioner, that we realized that just treating people with just one issue usually means that they’ll come back either with the same issue or another issue, unless you start to add in certain lifestyle changes, to be able to prevent the illness from happening in the first place.
I think there’s many barriers to doing that, but, since. for the last three or four years, at least I’ve been really having a focus on preventative healthcare, just because it pays so much in terms of dividends with your investment.
[00:03:47] Tony Winyard: So as a GP, your hands are tied in many ways because, as far as I’m aware, typically a GP’s appointment is like 10, 15 minutes. There’s only so much you can do in that time, isn’t there?
[00:03:58] Why Tom burnt out as a GP[00:03:58] Tom Gedman: Absolutely. Yeah. It’s a real challenge. And I think that was probably contributed initially to why I burnt out within a year of being a GP. I was trying to do too much in one go. And actually a 10 minute appointment is what. It really is not fit for purpose, unless you’re going to deal with one problem.
we have a saying deal with one problem. two problems, averagely in three problems badly, but generally even after the pandemic, people seem to have saved up. Problems and that’s all credit to them because they didn’t want to bother doctors and GPs during the height of what they thought was a very, it was a very scary, unprecedented situation.
But now we’re feeling the effects of people, really living with problems and finding it difficult to be able to. reverse those ailments, with anything other than medicine. And sometimes you have to work a lot harder with lifestyle change to be able to deal with multiple symptoms, but that’s not to detract from the passion I have for doing it.
And I think I’ve seen a lot of people with quite advanced disease do very well with just even some simple lifestyle changes.
[00:05:04] Tony Winyard: So why is it that generally there’s only 10, 15 minute appointments? Is it a shortage of GPs or what is it?
[00:05:12] What is the reason GP appointments are so short?[00:05:13] Tom Gedman: generally the GP, all general practices, they’re small businesses, and they can determine their own appointment times based on their staffing levels. And I think 10 minutes is what they arrived on because they have to produce a certain amount of appointments per week for their patient population size.
and obviously you’d be able to, you will be able to, have that many appointments to be able to offer as part of the government contract. yeah, there is a shortage of GPs and I think that’s possibly as a result of. the profession not being as enticing to new doctors, who generally see the stress and the strain that established GPs are under because of the weight of responsibility, extra paperwork, long hours.
and that’s why I really want to change the landscape of this and add preventative healthcare, a form of lifestyle medicine or what we’ll talk about today as part of something that can really help reduce the burden on general practice and add, a bit of passion to general practitioners who want to get into the profession to be able to help people and know that they can do that with advice rather than just medicines.
[00:06:13] Tony Winyard: So when you were at university, did you already know that you wanted to be a doctor when you started university?
[00:06:20] Did you always want to be a doctor?[00:06:20] Tom Gedman: Yeah. you decide probably. Age 15, 16, I had a good,careers counsellor. I really didn’t know what I wanted to be. I think everyone says in their medical school interview that they, that they, had a doctor’s kit when they were two years old and that’s why they wanted to be a doctor. Me, I was really good at science.
I was good at maths. I was generally quite friendly and my careers counsellor said, why not become a doctor? And I thought that sounds like a good,reasonable aim. So then I did chemistry and biology, maths at A level, and then decided to be, join a medical school and actually really enjoyed it.
I enjoyed the rigor of it. I enjoyed, learning more about the body. The most, the biggest thing I enjoy about medicine is the fact that you learn stuff that helps yourself. So you’re in a business of helping yourself and then that can help other people. it’s tremendous.
[00:07:07] Tony Winyard: And so once you, so you left junior and then you’re at medical school and that’s what, like seven years or something, isn’t it?
[00:07:13] Attending medical school[00:07:13] Tom Gedman: Yeah, I did six years. Traditionally it’s five years in medical school, but I did six. I did an extra year to do, it’s a three year psychology degree in one year. It’s called an intercalated degree. So it’s a tough year, but it was really valuable because very early on in medical training, I realized that actually it’s not necessarily as much about just giving medicines and even doing certain behaviors.
There’s a lot of psychology. There’s a lot of mindset. That goes into improving people’s health. And that’s why I wanted to focus on that and, drive my career towards that.
[00:07:50] Tony Winyard: So once you started actually going on your own as such and working in a practice, was it what you expected or was it completely different?
[00:07:59] How was it when you began working in a practice?[00:07:59] Tom Gedman: It’s funny you should say that. I don’t know if you can really expect anything until you start doing the job. so I, I’d seen You know, mentors being GPs from afar and very established GPs make it look easy because they just have a sixth sense for what is happening to somebody and say, okay, you’re ill.
I’m going to take you seriously and, and, refer you on, or you don’t look ill. so I’m going to just be able to support you. And they’ve got a knack for having five minute appointments. it’s very difficult because I think the new age of doctors, myself included, we like to get to know people.
We like to use communication skills to be able to develop, a rapport with patients. We like to know that we’re doing a good job and helping. And actually I found that I wasn’t. Really helping people in 10 minutes. I was trying to do too much. I wasn’t really satisfying a person’s agenda who comes in.
[00:08:50] How Tom discovered TEAM CBT[00:08:50] Tom Gedman: I wasn’t tackling the important issues. And that’s even with the psychology degree, behind me, I realized I was, not doing enough. to be able to actually help. And it’s only when I started to realize that general practice is completely different to hospital medicine and you have to approach it very differently, that I started to give myself a little break, a little bit of a break and also had some quite transformational personal CBT counseling or TEAM CBT counseling.
that really just shone a light on my self defeating beliefs that I needed to be perfect all the time that I needed. needed to be able to help everyone all the time. And actually, when you start letting go of those beliefs and you start to replace them with, I don’t need to save someone all the time.
I just need to listen and I need to respect, and we’ve got more than just 10 minutes to be able to build a relationship and help someone through. I think that’s a, it was a huge weight off my shoulders and knowing we’ve got time to be able to do this. So I still use the. Self defeating beliefs to be able to motivate me, but I don’t get consumed by them anymore.
[00:09:50] Tony Winyard: cause I know you’ve done both TEAM CBT and also a functional medicine practitioner. So which came first?
[00:09:55] When did you begin to learn TEAM CBT?[00:09:55] Tom Gedman: I did TEAM CBT actually, so that I had personal therapy in TEAM CBT,
[00:10:02] Tony Winyard: some people won’t know what TEAM CBT is.
[00:10:05] Tom Gedman: Of course. Yeah. Yeah. And I know that you had Heather Clague on recently, and that was an excellent episode. So she will do a lot better summary of that than me, but TEAMCBT is basically a structured framework for cognitive behavioral therapy. Cognitive behavioural therapy is a psychological, treatment technique, treatment protocol that, Basically posits the idea that your thoughts affect your feelings, which then affect your behaviours and go in a bit of a circle.
So by changing your thoughts, you can change your feelings and change your behaviours. and CBT almost goes one step further, and it stands for T for testing, which gives people questionnaires about how they’re feeling before and after session. E is for empathy and developing, Very quick, rapport with people using a structured, empathic communication skills approach.
A is the transformational bit for me. It’s called assessment of resistance. and basically it plays to the idea that we all want to be able to change our thoughts, but we all cling to the familiar. We have almost one foot on land and one foot in the sea of change. and we never really want to let go of the good things that are holding us back.
And actually by bringing the resistance, which isn’t a bad thing, it’s a really good thing about yourself to conscious awareness. You’re able to work with it and weigh it up in a pros and cons decision and say, I can see that my depression and anxiety and guilt and inadequacy are serving me in lots of different beautiful and amazing ways, but actually the downside is that it really saps my energy and exhausts me and it causes frustration. And I’d like to really work hard to change it. And as soon as you’re able to get that buy in from a patient, a client, and definitely myself, you’re able to move on to M for methods, which is a hundred different cognitive and motivational, psychodynamic methods that can.
Basically change the thoughts that you had, which were causing your depression and anxiety. if they are distorted in a way, and you can reframe them and change them into a more helpful thought that allows you to basically address and achieve your goals quicker with less frustration.
[00:12:08] Tony Winyard: And it was quite from what I remember from what you said, it was quite lucky how you discovered TEAM CBT, wasn’t it? So
[00:12:15] Tom Gedman: Yeah, I had CBT before, and it didn’t really work, and then I felt a bit hopeless because it didn’t work. And I thought, I’ll never get better. And then I tried again. And the, it’s called the Practitioner Health Program. It’s an NHS run service for doctors in need. And they essentially said, okay,it’s unprecedented.
We’ll let you have a second go at therapy. And then I met, The only TEAM CBT therapists in the UK,called Peter Spuria, who’s an ex GP. So yeah, I Maybe I’d go as far as say, I owe my life. I owe my career definitely to him, because it just set me on a path to learn these techniques, master them in a way, and also help really frame what I think is going to be a hugely beneficial preventative approach that includes psychological and other lifestyle habits, together.
[00:13:07] Tony Winyard: how does TEAMCBT help you as a GP?
[00:13:11] How does TEAM CBT help you as a GP?[00:13:11] Tom Gedman: In many ways, the first thing is that it helps you to, create a rapport and create a relationship, because we have a framework called the five, skills of effective, the five secrets of effective communication, and those skills are going into more detail in the podcast with Heather, but just briefly, it’s, the, disarming, so agreeing with whatever the person the opposite of you saying, or finding some truth in that, even if it’s, Quite aggressive or, insulting to you as a person, getting your guard down and trying to get people on side, explaining what you’re hearing from them and almost making the assumption about how they might be feeling as a result of the thinking, say how you’re feeling about the situation and really assert if you feel a little bit awkward or a little bit sad to hear what’s going on and also ask for more insight from the person and really this can take about 30 seconds from a skilled practitioner, but in my view. from before I learned TEAM to afterwards, it allows the patient, the person in front of me to be able to really know that I’ve heard them really know that I’ve understood them and it gets you on to a more of an empathic relationship to allow your recommendations, your clinical recommendations to be better adhered to, rather than you just saying, do what I say, I’m the boss, it’s working with somebody rather than you.
[00:14:28] Tony Winyard: And so what was it then made you decide to look into functional medicine?
[00:14:34] Why did you decide to get into Functional Medicine?[00:14:34] Tom Gedman: It’s interesting you say that because I spoke to Peter because Peter’s an ex GP and I said I had this idea that I wanted to be a full time TEAM CBT therapist. And he actually said, you would be great. at this, but I think you should use the medicine as well. And I think you should use, the skills you have and the training you’ve had to be able to create some sort of new blend.
and I’m really glad that he told me that because it’s just set me, in the last year developing this. It’s protocol, this plan that I’ve created, and I owe that to functional medicine as well, because functional medicine, open my eyes to the ability to use lifestyle interventions to be able to improve or even reverse the pathology of chronic disease and definitely improve symptoms as well.
And the conventional training that we have didn’t really address that. It was only when I dug deeper into functional medicine that I get really exposed to the huge amounts of evidence, that supports these lifestyle interventions, making a big difference. It also trained me up in, how to use supplements and, whether it’s herbal and nutritional supplements, judiciously, I think a lot of the time people can use supplements, without a firm evidence base and having the medical knowledge as well as the supplement knowledge means that I’m, I’ll never be reckless and I understand the indications and interactions with them.
And I can speak openly about the benefits and the drawbacks. So functional medicine was great. TEAM CBT is great and conventional medicine. is great as well. And I think a blend of all three is, is hopefully what I’m, the unique value proposition that I’m giving people.
[00:16:14] Tony Winyard: that is a pretty unique blend, isn’t it? I wouldn’t imagine there’s any others in the UK that have got that blend.
[00:16:20] A unique blend[00:16:21] Tom Gedman: no, because I think the TEAM CBT is a bit more of a niche. I think there’s a lot of conventional medical doctors with functional medicine, but I think blending that with TEAM CBT, yeah, that, that gives me an unfair advantage, unfortunately, in this realm, hopefully.
[00:16:35] Tony Winyard: staying with functional medicine, I remember when I first started, when I sought out a functional medicine practitioner, and that would have been, wow, probably about seven years ago or seven or eight years ago, and there wasn’t that many in the UK. There’s a lot more now. The landscape’s really changed, hasn’t it?
[00:16:51] Functional medicine is getting a lot more well known now[00:16:51] Tom Gedman: Yeah, there’s some really amazing doctors and, nutritional therapists and osteopaths doing some amazing work, with people, some mentors that I’ve met, just fantastic, really caring, empathic people that just want to make a difference and functional medicine really comes into its own for people who have not found the answers to their health concerns with the conventional approach.
and that can lead to a huge amount of hopelessness, helplessness, huge amount of stress, and just being able to know that there might be some answers that, conventional tests can’t elicit. I think that’s tremendously powerful with the right person and the right combination of therapist or practitioner.
[00:17:32] Tony Winyard: So you were talking about, you were saying about your unique blend with TEAM CBT and Functional Medicine as a GP. And I know you’ve put together something called, is it the Blueprint Scheme or something?
[00:17:43] The BLUEPRINT Plan[00:17:43] Tom Gedman: Yeah, the blueprint plan,is basically an acronym and every single letter stands for a different element, which, you know, 10 years of, experience being a medical doctor, now a GP, functional medicine practitioner, and also a TEAM CBT practitioner. I found these are the things that are the common thread that help a lot of people with a lot of things.
there’s a lot. Being said recently about the personalization of medicine and everything has to be disease specific. And I would say, yes, for pharmaceuticals, you need to have disease specific agents, but in terms of lifestyle changes, the things in the blueprint model, they will work for most people.
And I think the good thing about it is it allows a bit more flexibility in terms of people can choose where they want to start on their health journey. and it can tailor to people who really have non negotiables within their health and really want to work around certain difficulties and obstacles by trying something new.
and I guess it’d be helpful to go through the actual plan, wouldn’t it, Tony?
[00:18:45] B=Baseline testing and tracking[00:18:45] Tom Gedman: I’ll give you a brief overview. so B is for baseline testing and tracking. So using questionnaire, self examination, and in the more advanced sense, if you see me in clinic, it would be using functional testing as well, biometric testing, to be able to work out what your baseline is for health.
And I like to use an analogy of being dropped into a forest in the middle of nowhere. That’s where you are at this time. If you have a health goal and you don’t know where you’re starting, it can be really quite challenging to navigate the dense forest. And you want to try and get out to the other side to a specific destination, which is your goal.
And if you don’t know where you’re starting from, if you don’t know your GPS kind of coordinates in detail, you could be walking in any sort of direction. You wouldn’t know where you’re heading. Likewise, if you’re not setting milestones, then you’re going to might be going in the wrong direction that you wouldn’t know about it until too late and you can’t change.
course. and sometimes setting your baseline and also setting a smart goal, and milestones towards that can just really take the frustration out of the process. And it allows you to, not jump too high. You can have dream goals, but not be frustrated if don’t reach them within a week because you may have met your first milestone there.
[00:20:00] L=Limiting toxins[00:20:00] Tom Gedman: So that’s B. L is for limiting toxins. so things like alcohol, smoking, recreational drugs for some people, even things like pesticides on foods, chemicals in cosmetic products, the chemicals that we are exposed to in daily life, all sorts of things. And I use the analogy, of a bathroom sink, not to be insulting to everybody, everybody is worth more than a bathroom sink, but it, you imagine that.
You are turning on a tap and the tap is the amount of toxic exposure you have of all of these different toxins and many more that we’ve mentioned, and your body has an exquisite ability to be able to drain and detoxify all of those toxins. Otherwise, we would just curl up in a heap and we wouldn’t be here, within a minute of, and actually sometimes those detoxification, that plug, it gets blocked up or it can only filter out so much and the water starts to fill up into the sink and it starts to spill over, over the sides. And what we see the spillover is akin to the symptoms and the disease states that we’re in. And what we do fantastically well in conventional medicine is being able to have big mops to be able to sweep up all of the, of the water.
And we’re fantastic at being able to do that. And that’s good enough for some people, but actually the better approach is either, getting a larger sink, getting a larger plug hole, so working on your detoxification pathways, but actually just limiting the tap, turning the tap off or turning it down.
and there’s really good ways of being able to do that, to be able to set intentions and be able to change habits with the TEAMCBT method and other methods that we’ve used as well. that’s L.
[00:21:32] U=Understanding and changing habits[00:21:32] Tom Gedman: U is for understanding and changing habits. Now I was really inspired by lots of different books.
one of the main ones is Atomic Habits by James Clear. I think he’s got a really exquisite framework that everyone should read to be able to just make small changes to make big difference, and I utilize that. but there’s also something called the COMB, C O M B model of behavior change, which is really fantastic.
It really assesses the barriers and the motivation that you have to change. And we can work on that using some CBT methods as well.
[00:21:59] E=Exercise[00:21:59] Tom Gedman: E is for exercise in different types. so going for a walk is great. Going through maybe, more faster paced cardiovascular exercise if it’s safe for you is better, but also blending the cardiovascular with the resistance training to be able to help muscle strength, size, bone health, but also having a firm eye on stability and balance training as well, which is so important for longevity.
As you all know, Tony, you’re a big fanatic about that and you work really hard to be able to condition your body. If you just walked every day, it wouldn’t be as good as if you did your resistance training and your balance and stability work. So really having the skills to be able to employ those sort of tactics safely is really important.
[00:22:40] P=Purpose and spirituality[00:22:40] Tom Gedman: P is for purpose and spirituality. I think if we were to try and engage with a health goal, and we were to say something like, I want to, lose 10 kilograms in weight. Now, you might get to the end of the first week and feel like it’s a little bit restrictive, or it’s a bit of a change, unless you’ve got a strong purpose for why you’re doing something.
Sometimes, you might not have the fuel for the fire to keep on going. Actually, if losing weight meant more to you, if you felt that actually you were losing weight because you wanted to reduce your risk of chronic disease to be able to live longer or protect your joints to be able to play with your grandkids when they’re older.
That’s more of a purpose to aim for rather than, some people are really driven by looking good and I don’t discount that. That could be a really strong purpose but just having something on paper to say this is why I’m doing it can really power people through the hard times.
[00:23:33] R=Rest and relaxation[00:23:33] Tom Gedman: R is for rest and relaxation, and that’s sleep optimization, with different protocols and also stress management.
and this is specifically for behavioural tools. So like you do Tony, excellently, your breath work is fantastic. I think, that they say that if you’re in a panic state, don’t try and control the mind with the mind. you’re better to control the mind with the body by. Being able to breathe in certain ways to be able to give you that edge off.
And then you can click your executive functioning part of your brain back online to be able to talk yourself out of a panic situation. And I think that is the same thing with stress. And I think we’re really good as a society of being able to turn on our stress response. We’re not very good at being able to turn it off and that can lead to lots of different downstream consequences for our health and our wellbeing.
there’s other tools, forest bathing, meditation, mindfulness, all of these different things are fantastic as well. So they’re all in the plan.
[00:24:27] I=Interpersonal relationships[00:24:27] Tom Gedman: I is for interpersonal relationships. So that’s finding your tribe that, suits your goals, but also, being able to nurture the people around you, your friends and your family,and even work colleagues or bosses to be able to use communication skills, to be able to get them on board.
And negotiate time to be able to do the things that you need to do. And we can teach you the skills and being able to do that.
[00:24:49] N=Nutrition[00:24:49] Tom Gedman: N is nutrition and supplements. and that’s a huge thing that people dedicate their lives to. That’s just one part of the framework. And you’ll know that, weight loss, people could think, Oh, it’s just about shifting calories, but all of these different things can help.
But nutrition is so important. I do believe, there’s ways to eat that can benefit our health. and then to be able to harm us as well. And there’s some simple ways. I never like to say that foods are never events. food, I think food is, it’s got so many links culturally, it’s links to society and being social with other people.
And I’m just allowing people and educating people to use food in a way that helps them. And on the 80 20 rule, so 80 percent of the time, if you’re doing something right, that’s better than if you’re doing it the other way around. And supplements, I’m blessed with the education to be able to give judicious advice about supplements in a tailored way.
[00:25:39] Thought change with TEAM CBT[00:25:39] Tom Gedman: and finally, T is for thought change with TEAM CBT, because bottom line, I think it’s probably the most important, but some people are just not in that position where they want to examine the thoughts and that I wanted to develop this whole protocol to be able to help those people and say.
Listen, if you’ve got some trauma, if you can’t access these memories, if you can’t access these thoughts, if you don’t want to work on that, don’t think that you’re a hopeless case. You can actually manage your feelings with all of these other lifestyle behaviors. And then when you’re in a, maybe in a better place, it might be a bit more suitable for you to be able to work on the thoughts.
Likewise, I’ve seen people that have got terrible lifestyle habits. They work on the thoughts and they feel happy even while they’re still eating McDonald’s, it’s a real balance. And it’s about where would you like to start? What’s your goal and what appeals to you first? It’s trying to be as inclusive as possible, without really ruling out or making anyone afraid to make that first step.
It’s a bit of a mouthful, isn’t it, Tony, to be fair. that’s my one drawback, but I think, people like to have simple answers to complex problems, and this isn’t complicated, it’s slightly complex, but when you dig deeper into it, it generally becomes a little bit more intuitive and the people I’ve been doing it with in these lifestyle clinics that I’m running with the NHS, they’re really enjoying it.
And they’ve got some remarkable results, even after four weeks, which I’m really pleased about.
[00:27:00] Tony Winyard: But I’m guessing doing something like that, there’s no way you can do all of that in a 10 minute appointment. so how do you do it?
[00:27:06] Group programme[00:27:06] Tom Gedman: It’s interesting because what I’m developing now, is a group program. So I pay lip service to the blueprint plan within a 10 minute consultation, but I would refer people to the group program that I’m, I’ve started in West Coventry, and that’s when they can learn a bit more about it. And within 10 minutes, no, you can’t explain the whole problem, it took me 10 minutes just to explain it.
And that’s before you’ve actually assessed the person in front of you and made sure they’re not dying of a heart attack. So it’s really important. I think the only way to be able to spread this word is in a group setting, and actually the benefit of the group setting is that you’ve got that eye for interpersonal relationships.
You’ve got that tribe that are on the same path as you, that’s going to be able to help you out, and you’ve got the accountability as well, which is really important.
[00:27:55] Tony Winyard: So is it all done face to face or is it remote as well?
[00:27:59] How is the programme delivered?[00:27:59] Tom Gedman: We’re looking to build a remote service on Zoom, but at the moment we’ve got some charitable funding from a wonderful charity called Think Active to be able to provide face to face groups. So it’s an hour of education and discussion and then half an hour of guided exercise. and the people who come to the groups, they’re really happy with both.
[00:28:21] Tony Winyard: And so say someone approached you and they wanted to do this whole blueprint but like one to one, so do you also do it one to one?
[00:28:28] Can the BLUEPRINT be done 1-2-1?[00:28:28] Tom Gedman: Oh, sure. Yeah. the only issue is having a functional medicine doctor. or a conventional medicine doctor privately. maybe you’ll know it can be very expensive, and I lament that. I, I don’t like the idea of being able to charge people a lot of money for, for just simple lifestyle advice.
So that’s why I endeavoured to be able to give as much away for free or low cost as possible to give people the education so that when they do see a functional medicine doctor, they are armed with that ability to say, I’ve tried so much stuff and now I’m still feeling poorly. So where do we go?
Rather than starting with the basics of, here’s how to eat better and here’s how to exercise in a sustainable way. so I really wanted to develop this model to be able to be more inclusive for people who, either couldn’t afford or maybe even could afford, but would just be wasting their money learning basic stuff that can make a big difference.
[00:29:21] Criticisms of Functional Medicine[00:29:21] Tony Winyard: What do you think of some, a criticism I’ve heard of functional medicine practitioners recently is that some of them recommend some tests that aren’t really necessary and people are spending money where they don’t really need to spend it.
[00:29:38] Tom Gedman: Yeah, no, I agree with that criticism. I think it has to be based on the Person in front of you is there, the, affordability, has to be based on what you think it’s going to achieve. I wouldn’t do a whole blanket set of tests without a good reason, because the tests you do in functional medicine, they’re not diagnostic, they’re not like the things that you get with your conventional medical doctor.
they just point their clues to be able to build a picture of where imbalances lie. and then you can work on those imbalances, but the secret is most of the stuff that you find within the blueprint plan that will get you most of the way to be able to reset your imbalances. And actually that’s when we start using, judicious supplements after that to be able to help people on their journey and even some medications as well.
so I think starting with lifestyle first and as, as little tests as you can, to be able to try and get the answers that you need is my philosophy really. I never liked to start with a huge whack of baseline tests.
[00:30:42] What do you think of wearables?[00:30:42] Tony Winyard: What about wearables like, like CGMs and HRV and Oura rings and all that kind of thing?
[00:30:49] Tom Gedman: Yeah. I think they have their use in being able to provide satisfaction to a habit loop. so if that’s what you need to be able to reduce your intake of simple carbohydrates, sugar, junk foods. You need to be able to see that on your CGM, then that will be helpful for you. If you find that actually you can do that on your own, you can feel better.
I think the jury’s still out as whether, as to whether there is a benefit of. non diabetic patients using CGMs, it’s still an emerging science. I think there’s a lot of companies like Zoe and Levels and Veri that are doing it. And I’d like to see more science come out of it, to be able to recommend it.
But at the moment, if you’re able to get most of the way there without using Yeah, complex trackers, I’d prefer that, but I’ll never turn anyone away if they want to use me as their coach and their clinician to help them guide with a CGM or a sleep ring or, HRV tracker, be very comfortable talking through the results and using that to feed into the program as well. there is a sign. I remember we were talking a little bit about before the, the show, Tony, about your. fear that sometimes you can do too much proactivity and you can know too much data. And I think that’s always my fear as well, especially with things like sleep trackers, if you wake up in the morning and you feel okay, but actually your sleep score says that you’re terrible, there’s something psychological about.
Saying, okay, do I feel terrible? Maybe I do feel a little bit bad. Whereas actually you wouldn’t have that information. You would just go on your basic instinct of saying, how do I feel? so sleep rings and all of these, trackers, they have their pros, but they do have the ability to cause more anxiety and I would use them in certain cases.
[00:32:35] Can someone be too proactive?[00:32:35] Tony Winyard: And also, that’s one element of being maybe too proactive. Do you, in your experience, do you get many I don’t know, hypochondriacs, or people who are trying to be way too proactive and they just think they’ve got all sorts of different things wrong with them?
[00:32:51] Tom Gedman: Yeah, having health anxiety, is a real issue because generally, doctors, unless people have got a set of tests that rule out very important, diagnoses or red flags, then sometimes that can feed into the cycle of anxiety because the doctor wants to be certain they’re not missing anything. And then the person in front of you, the patient says,I’m scared about this specific red flag symptom and this specific quite dangerous symptom and this specific injury symptom.
And it takes quite a bold doctor to be able to say, okay, this is just part of your health anxiety. So I see where things do escalate in that regard. but, in answer to your question, yeah, I see a lot of people who are very anxious about their health and this wave of proactivity can sometimes do more harm than good.
And that’s why I think, just being able to start with small habits and building up, if you feel better, and if you deal with the psychological aspect of health anxiety, which is often, Really, there’s a lot of levels, there’s a lot of layers to health anxiety that really aren’t addressed in a 10 minute consultation.
And I think that’s really important to be able to examine your own thoughts about what’s causing you to be anxious and really deal with that. And sometimes I even see health anxiety being as a result of an interpersonal conflict. if you’ve got some problems at home, it manifests as health anxiety or health anxiety could be due to the symptoms that are produced from a nutritional imbalance.
And actually you’re worried about something, but actually if you manage the symptoms and the physiological response to eating the wrong foods, then sometimes those symptoms can improve as well. So there’s different aspects and different ways to be able to treat depending on the person’s preferences.
[00:34:33] What changes might we see with GPs?[00:34:33] Tony Winyard: Do you see things, GPs generally in the UK, do you think things are changing? I know, for example, doctors like Rangan Chatterjee is trying to change things and he’s doing some sort of training schemes with GPs and so on, isn’t he?
[00:34:48] Tom Gedman: Yeah,I think there’s a lot of change,with GPs. And I think the only issue I would have is that doing extra training in lifestyle medicine or functional medicine, it generally gives you more knowledge to be able to empower patients. but then there’s the time to be able to do that. So what I don’t want is to be able to get in a situation where people are running late, They’re more stressed as general practitioners.
They have more workload because they’re spending 15 minutes and 20 minutes with people trying to go through these topics. And that’s why I think. being able to sell a patient or be able to motivate them to a, to join a group clinic where they can speak in more detail and actually you’ve got 60 minutes with one person for six patients.
That’s the same as 10 minutes per patient with a doctor or with a health coach. I think that’s why I’d like things to be leading to. So you would literally, instead of a 10 minute conversation about lifestyle change, you would have 15 seconds and say, here are the facts, here’s this program, if you’d like to change.
Please join it and then, educate yourself and be with some like minded people. And I think that’s the only way that, that really this lifestyle medicine movement is going to be sustainable for GPs. Because I know some GP partners who have actually said. where do I have time for this?
I’ve got three hours of paperwork waiting for me. I just need to get through things. And that’s being, even from the most empathic and considerate and kind and gentle, GPs, they still have families that they need to go and see. they still have lives that they need to lead. And actually it’s causing so much more burnout if you have to add something else to the plate of general practitioners at this time of crisis and overload.
[00:36:26] How will AI change things?[00:36:26] Tony Winyard: What are your thoughts on AI? Do you think AI can help any of this or in any aspect of a GP surgery, can it be helpful?
[00:36:34] Tom Gedman: Yeah. I think there’s loads of different things that could be optimized within a The NHS and with their GP surgery, I think those things are probably coming through now, but the NHS is the biggest organization in the UK, and it’s hard to make those changes. They have to go through rigorous protocols. So I feel sorry for anyone who tries to push change in the NHS, like AI driven things, I’ll never blame somebody.
Because it’s just a huge endeavour. but do I think AI will be useful in clinical practice? Yes, I think it can be useful, for triaging people. What I think it will never replace is clinical judgment. and I think, I think you’d be a bold AI developer to be able to create something that reassures people completely without seeing a GP.
I think what it could do is educate somebody to be able to know what they’re doing is the right way of going. And it can sometimes be helpful for a GP to be able to see a range of differential diagnoses on a screen based on what a person said. And it’s transcribed their audio to be able to say, here, have you considered this and this?
And also even transcribing the notes or writing up letters. I think that’s where AI. could really improve the lives of GPs by just improving the efficiency of note taking and differential diagnosis.
[00:37:46] Tony Winyard: Tom, we’re moving on. Time’s gone pretty fast. a question I always ask everyone is there a book that comes to mind that has moved you for any reason?
[00:37:56] Tom’s favourite book[00:37:56] Tom Gedman: Yeah, I was thinking about this and I was thinking, I’m big nonfiction reader. So I was thinking, do I try and sound clever with a really whimsical fiction novel, which may be like one of the only ones that I’ve read. Or do I go for what inspired me first?
And actually the first thing that inspired me for this whole movement of preventative and lifestyle medicine was Rangan Chatterjee’s first book, The Four Pillar Plan. I remember reading that and thinking, wow, this is just. He’s made it sound so simple, he’s made it so accessible and it basically, I used to refer it and I still do refer it to every patient that I think would benefit from it.
So in terms of something that would change my life, I think that, but also like you’ve read recently, Tony, Feeling Great by David Burns, is really the manual for TEAM CBT, and I think if everyone read that and did the exercises in there and really examined their own thoughts and how it made them feel and used it, it’s like a, it’s like neurosurgery for thoughts, I find.
You’re not just targeting the whole brain, you’re working on a very specific thought pattern and that makes it less overwhelming. And if you deal with one specific thought and you use multiple methods on that thought, you can change it often for good. And you learn how to be able to manage relapses when you inevitably start thinking in similar old ways, you can just get out of that hole quicker. And I think if the whole world read that book,I think it would make a big difference to people’s mental health and also physical health as well.
[00:39:25] Tony Winyard: Yeah, it’s a superb book. So if people want to find out more about you and Blueprint and everything else, where would they go?
[00:39:33] Get in touch with Tom[00:39:34] Tom Gedman: sure. So you can get to my website. it’s www. drtomgedman. com. That’s D R T O M. G E D m A n I imagine you’ll put it in the show notes. I have to spell my name every time. Golf Echo Delta, Mike Alpha. November is a strange one. dr tomgedman.com. you can also find me on Instagram, at Dr. Tom Gedman or Twitter at Dr.
Tom Gedman or LinkedIn. the blueprint plan is on the website, but, soon to be a kinda on-demand video course. but yeah, follow my journey. I’m trying to get over some performance anxiety, at the moment by doing 30 days of, LinkedIn and Instagram video posts about the project. So you can come along and join me and see me, either succeed or fail miserably in that task.
[00:40:20] Tom’s podcast[00:40:20] Tony Winyard: And I think it’s safe to say as well, sometime, we can’t say when, but there’s going to be a podcast coming at some point as well in the future.
[00:40:28] Tom Gedman: Do you know what, I’ve just spent a fortune on podcast equipment and, actually the first thing I bought was a microphone about six months ago and I realized it, I didn’t have the equipment to be able to actually do it. So it’s developed dust. So I’ve dusted it off. I’m going to sign up for a podcasting program and then get the equipment.
I’m going to get it done. So I’d love you to be on a, an episode of mine, as well in the near future, Tony.
[00:40:52] Tom’s fave quote[00:40:52] Tony Winyard: Absolutely. to finish off, Tom, is there a quotation that, resonates with you for any reason?
[00:40:58] Tom Gedman: I was thinking about this too, and that the only thing I can think of is, what is it? The, Henry Ford who said, “You can think you can, or You think you can’t, and you’re probably right”. I think there’s a lot to be said about mindset, and the way that you think about different things. so I like that quote as well.
There’s also a quote by, James Clear that sticks with me. I think it’s something about. identity and you, it’s not really a quote, but it’s just a, an idea that you can either cognitively and with thoughts, change your identity to be able to then suit a new habit, or you can just do that habit enough that it makes that identity a reality.
So you can work it in both ways. So the more you do healthful behaviours, the more you will. form that identity, or you could start by just saying I am somebody who looks after their health and then the habits might be a little bit easier for you to adhere to.
[00:41:53] Final thoughts on being proactive[00:41:53] Tony Winyard: Could you leave the listeners with any thoughts on being proactive around health?
[00:41:59] Tom Gedman: Absolutely, I think definitely it’s well worth the investment. I’m in a privileged position to be able to see lots of different people in clinic and what I do know is that Years and decades of treating yourself in an unhealthy way can lead to problems that can sometimes only be treated with medicines, like painkillers with side effects and surgery.
so the more you invest at any age, even as a teenager, early twenties, you can help to prevent lots of different chronic diseases. so I think it’s really worthwhile and actually you can have fun on the way. It’s not all deprivation and doom and gloom. It’s actually, when you feel fit, you feel better when you’re eating better, you feel better when you’re thinking better, you feel better.
So it’s only hard to start with. It generally gets easier and, just enjoy the process.
[00:42:54] Tony Winyard: Tom, it’s been an absolute pleasure. Thank you.
[00:42:58] Tom Gedman: Thanks so much, Tony. Love this opportunity. Thank you. And I look forward to seeing you soon.
Join me next week for an adventurous episode with Dan Roberts an accomplished Explorer and an avid athlete. In our lively chat. Dan shares his contagious enthusiam for travel and boldly seizing opportunities. Discover how reading “On the road” as a teen sparked Dan’s Intrepid attitude, propelling him to backpacking adventures worldwide. Learn how Dan transitioned from tennis coaching at 16 into a prolific coaching career across fitness, film, and more. His passion is helping people connect their mind and body to live more athletically. Dan believes being proactive means confidently taking action and getting out of your comfort zone. He explains why having a coach signifies a proactive mindset, yet many avoid it out of ego. So tune in next week to hear Dan’s insights on living life as a thrilling adventure. Please subscribe to the art of living proactively on your favorite podcast platform. Leave us a sparkling five star review. Share this episode with friends to spread the inspiration. I appreciate your listenership and look forward to seeing you next week.
LInks:* Tom Gedman on Linkedin * Tom Gedman on YouTube * Tom on Instagram Recommended books:The 4 Pillar Plan: How to Relax, Eat, Move and Sleep Your Way to a Longer, Healthier Life by Dr Rangan Chatterjee Feeling Great: The Revolutionary New Treatment for Depression and Anxiety by Dr David BurnsFavourite Quote
"Success in health and well-being is not a destination; it is a continuous, proactive journey fuelled by purpose and intention."
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TranscriptEmailDownloadNew Tab244 – Tom Gedman
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I’m thrilled to share a transformative conversation with Dr. Tom Gedman in today’s show. Tom is an impressive GP pioneering preventative health care with his ingenious blueprint model. This multi-faceted approach masterfully, mergers medicine, lifestyle changes, supplements, and cognitive behavioral therapy techniques. In our compelling chat, Tom eloquently explains how being proactive is like driving a car with your hands on the steering wheel. Anticipating turns, stops, and obstacles ahead rather than passively drifting. Discover how Tom is revolutionizing GP appointments, trimming, ineffective smalltalk, instead providing clear, concise lifestyle guidance in seconds. Before referring patients to his blueprint lifestyle groups for in-depth education and support. So listen in for Tom’s insights on burnout and how he overcame it along with the unusual way. He discovered the life-changing power of Team CBT therapy. So hope you enjoy this uplifting and educational episode with the pioneering Dr. Tom Gedman. Please subscribe to the art of living proactively on your favorite podcast platform or on YouTube. Leave us a sparkling five star review. That would be great. Share this episode with friends. So they too can be motivated by Tom’s message. As always I appreciate your listenership and hope you enjoy the show.
[00:01:34] Tony Winyard: Welcome to another edition of The Art of Living Proactively. My guest today is Tom Gedman. How are you, Tom?
[00:01:41] Tom Gedman: I’m good. Thanks, Tony. How are you?
[00:01:43] Tony Winyard: So Tom has got a metaphor about being proactive.
[00:01:48] Tom’s driving metaphor on being proactive
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[00:01:48] Tom Gedman: So this metaphor is a, driving metaphor. So proactivity is like driving a car with your hands on the steering wheel rather than letting it drift. You anticipate turns, stops, and obstacles.
now I like driving metaphors. I use them quite a lot. and I like this one because it almost… It allows you to take control of your own destiny rather than letting the car drive you, even though that’s where we’re heading as a society and technology. but really it’s important to be able to anticipate the hurdles in front of you.
And I think that’s a huge part of forming effective habits that are going to make a big difference in the longterm to your health it’s anticipating the, The potential setbacks in advance, just so you’re not phased by them. You’re expecting them and you know how to navigate.
[00:02:34] Tony Winyard: I like that.
[00:02:35] Tom Gedman: it.
[00:02:35] Tony Winyard: So there’s a number of things we can dig into there, but what are your general thoughts on being proactive? And actually, should say, bebecause you haven’t mentioned it, so Tom is a GP, he’s a functional medicine doctor, he’s a level two or three in TEAM CBT. Tom’s got an amazing background and we’re going to get into more of that during the episode.
Would you say you’ve got a bit of background? So yeah, what are your thoughts on being proactive?
[00:02:59] Tom’s thoughts on being proactive
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[00:02:59] Tom Gedman: my thoughts on being proactive, have probably changed over time as a doctor. Traditionally, when we were first trained, we were working a lot in hospital rotations, and we were mainly treating people who came in with a specific symptom of concern, and then just sending them on their way once we dealt with that.
but it’s only as I trained and became a general practitioner, that we realized that just treating people with just one issue usually means that they’ll come back either with the same issue or another issue, unless you start to add in certain lifestyle changes, to be able to prevent the illness from happening in the first place.
I think there’s many barriers to doing that, but, since. for the last three or four years, at least I’ve been really having a focus on preventative healthcare, just because it pays so much in terms of dividends with your investment.
[00:03:47] Tony Winyard: So as a GP, your hands are tied in many ways because, as far as I’m aware, typically a GP’s appointment is like 10, 15 minutes. There’s only so much you can do in that time, isn’t there?
[00:03:58] Why Tom burnt out as a GP
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[00:03:58] Tom Gedman: Absolutely. Yeah. It’s a real challenge. And I think that was probably contributed initially to why I burnt out within a year of being a GP. I was trying to do too much in one go. And actually a 10 minute appointment is what. It really is not fit for purpose, unless you’re going to deal with one problem.
we have a saying deal with one problem. two problems, averagely in three problems badly, but generally even after the pandemic, people seem to have saved up. Problems and that’s all credit to them because they didn’t want to bother doctors and GPs during the height of what they thought was a very, it was a very scary, unprecedented situation.
But now we’re feeling the effects of people, really living with problems and finding it difficult to be able to. reverse those ailments, with anything other than medicine. And sometimes you have to work a lot harder with lifestyle change to be able to deal with multiple symptoms, but that’s not to detract from the passion I have for doing it.
And I think I’ve seen a lot of people with quite advanced disease do very well with just even some simple lifestyle changes.
[00:05:04] Tony Winyard: So why is it that generally there’s only 10, 15 minute appointments? Is it a shortage of GPs or what is it?
[00:05:12] What is the reason GP appointments are so short?
—
[00:05:13] Tom Gedman: generally the GP, all general practices, they’re small businesses, and they can determine their own appointment times based on their staffing levels. And I think 10 minutes is what they arrived on because they have to produce a certain amount of appointments per week for their patient population size.
and obviously you’d be able to, you will be able to, have that many appointments to be able to offer as part of the government contract. yeah, there is a shortage of GPs and I think that’s possibly as a result of. the profession not being as enticing to new doctors, who generally see the stress and the strain that established GPs are under because of the weight of responsibility, extra paperwork, long hours.
and that’s why I really want to change the landscape of this and add preventative healthcare, a form of lifestyle medicine or what we’ll talk about today as part of something that can really help reduce the burden on general practice and add, a bit of passion to general practitioners who want to get into the profession to be able to help people and know that they can do that with advice rather than just medicines.
[00:06:13] Tony Winyard: So when you were at university, did you already know that you wanted to be a doctor when you started university?
[00:06:20] Did you always want to be a doctor?
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[00:06:20] Tom Gedman: Yeah. you decide probably. Age 15, 16, I had a good,careers counsellor. I really didn’t know what I wanted to be. I think everyone says in their medical school interview that they, that they, had a doctor’s kit when they were two years old and that’s why they wanted to be a doctor. Me, I was really good at science.
I was good at maths. I was generally quite friendly and my careers counsellor said, why not become a doctor? And I thought that sounds like a good,reasonable aim. So then I did chemistry and biology, maths at A level, and then decided to be, join a medical school and actually really enjoyed it.
I enjoyed the rigor of it. I enjoyed, learning more about the body. The most, the biggest thing I enjoy about medicine is the fact that you learn stuff that helps yourself. So you’re in a business of helping yourself and then that can help other people. it’s tremendous.
[00:07:07] Tony Winyard: And so once you, so you left junior and then you’re at medical school and that’s what, like seven years or something, isn’t it?
[00:07:13] Attending medical school
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[00:07:13] Tom Gedman: Yeah, I did six years. Traditionally it’s five years in medical school, but I did six. I did an extra year to do, it’s a three year psychology degree in one year. It’s called an intercalated degree. So it’s a tough year, but it was really valuable because very early on in medical training, I realized that actually it’s not necessarily as much about just giving medicines and even doing certain behaviors.
There’s a lot of psychology. There’s a lot of mindset. That goes into improving people’s health. And that’s why I wanted to focus on that and, drive my career towards that.
[00:07:50] Tony Winyard: So once you started actually going on your own as such and working in a practice, was it what you expected or was it completely different?
[00:07:59] How was it when you began working in a practice?
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[00:07:59] Tom Gedman: It’s funny you should say that. I don’t know if you can really expect anything until you start doing the job. so I, I’d seen You know, mentors being GPs from afar and very established GPs make it look easy because they just have a sixth sense for what is happening to somebody and say, okay, you’re ill.
I’m going to take you seriously and, and, refer you on, or you don’t look ill. so I’m going to just be able to support you. And they’ve got a knack for having five minute appointments. it’s very difficult because I think the new age of doctors, myself included, we like to get to know people.
We like to use communication skills to be able to develop, a rapport with patients. We like to know that we’re doing a good job and helping. And actually I found that I wasn’t. Really helping people in 10 minutes. I was trying to do too much. I wasn’t really satisfying a person’s agenda who comes in.
[00:08:50] How Tom discovered TEAM CBT
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[00:08:50] Tom Gedman: I wasn’t tackling the important issues. And that’s even with the psychology degree, behind me, I realized I was, not doing enough. to be able to actually help. And it’s only when I started to realize that general practice is completely different to hospital medicine and you have to approach it very differently, that I started to give myself a little break, a little bit of a break and also had some quite transformational personal CBT counseling or TEAM CBT counseling.
that really just shone a light on my self defeating beliefs that I needed to be perfect all the time that I needed. needed to be able to help everyone all the time. And actually, when you start letting go of those beliefs and you start to replace them with, I don’t need to save someone all the time.
I just need to listen and I need to respect, and we’ve got more than just 10 minutes to be able to build a relationship and help someone through. I think that’s a, it was a huge weight off my shoulders and knowing we’ve got time to be able to do this. So I still use the. Self defeating beliefs to be able to motivate me, but I don’t get consumed by them anymore.
[00:09:50] Tony Winyard: cause I know you’ve done both TEAM CBT and also a functional medicine practitioner. So which came first?
[00:09:55] When did you begin to learn TEAM CBT?
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[00:09:55] Tom Gedman: I did TEAM CBT actually, so that I had personal therapy in TEAM CBT,
[00:10:02] Tony Winyard: some people won’t know what TEAM CBT is.
[00:10:05] Tom Gedman: Of course. Yeah. Yeah. And I know that you had Heather Clague on recently, and that was an excellent episode. So she will do a lot better summary of that than me, but TEAMCBT is basically a structured framework for cognitive behavioral therapy. Cognitive behavioural therapy is a psychological, treatment technique, treatment protocol that, Basically posits the idea that your thoughts affect your feelings, which then affect your behaviours and go in a bit of a circle.
So by changing your thoughts, you can change your feelings and change your behaviours. and CBT almost goes one step further, and it stands for T for testing, which gives people questionnaires about how they’re feeling before and after session. E is for empathy and developing, Very quick, rapport with people using a structured, empathic communication skills approach.
A is the transformational bit for me. It’s called assessment of resistance. and basically it plays to the idea that we all want to be able to change our thoughts, but we all cling to the familiar. We have almost one foot on land and one foot in the sea of change. and we never really want to let go of the good things that are holding us back.
And actually by bringing the resistance, which isn’t a bad thing, it’s a really good thing about yourself to conscious awareness. You’re able to work with it and weigh it up in a pros and cons decision and say, I can see that my depression and anxiety and guilt and inadequacy are serving me in lots of different beautiful and amazing ways, but actually the downside is that it really saps my energy and exhausts me and it causes frustration. And I’d like to really work hard to change it. And as soon as you’re able to get that buy in from a patient, a client, and definitely myself, you’re able to move on to M for methods, which is a hundred different cognitive and motivational, psychodynamic methods that can.
Basically change the thoughts that you had, which were causing your depression and anxiety. if they are distorted in a way, and you can reframe them and change them into a more helpful thought that allows you to basically address and achieve your goals quicker with less frustration.
[00:12:08] Tony Winyard: And it was quite from what I remember from what you said, it was quite lucky how you discovered TEAM CBT, wasn’t it? So
[00:12:15] Tom Gedman: Yeah, I had CBT before, and it didn’t really work, and then I felt a bit hopeless because it didn’t work. And I thought, I’ll never get better. And then I tried again. And the, it’s called the Practitioner Health Program. It’s an NHS run service for doctors in need. And they essentially said, okay,it’s unprecedented.
We’ll let you have a second go at therapy. And then I met, The only TEAM CBT therapists in the UK,called Peter Spuria, who’s an ex GP. So yeah, I Maybe I’d go as far as say, I owe my life. I owe my career definitely to him, because it just set me on a path to learn these techniques, master them in a way, and also help really frame what I think is going to be a hugely beneficial preventative approach that includes psychological and other lifestyle habits, together.
[00:13:07] Tony Winyard: how does TEAMCBT help you as a GP?
[00:13:11] How does TEAM CBT help you as a GP?
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[00:13:11] Tom Gedman: In many ways, the first thing is that it helps you to, create a rapport and create a relationship, because we have a framework called the five, skills of effective, the five secrets of effective communication, and those skills are going into more detail in the podcast with Heather, but just briefly, it’s, the, disarming, so agreeing with whatever the person the opposite of you saying, or finding some truth in that, even if it’s, Quite aggressive or, insulting to you as a person, getting your guard down and trying to get people on side, explaining what you’re hearing from them and almost making the assumption about how they might be feeling as a result of the thinking, say how you’re feeling about the situation and really assert if you feel a little bit awkward or a little bit sad to hear what’s going on and also ask for more insight from the person and really this can take about 30 seconds from a skilled practitioner, but in my view. from before I learned TEAM to afterwards, it allows the patient, the person in front of me to be able to really know that I’ve heard them really know that I’ve understood them and it gets you on to a more of an empathic relationship to allow your recommendations, your clinical recommendations to be better adhered to, rather than you just saying, do what I say, I’m the boss, it’s working with somebody rather than you.
[00:14:28] Tony Winyard: And so what was it then made you decide to look into functional medicine?
[00:14:34] Why did you decide to get into Functional Medicine?
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[00:14:34] Tom Gedman: It’s interesting you say that because I spoke to Peter because Peter’s an ex GP and I said I had this idea that I wanted to be a full time TEAM CBT therapist. And he actually said, you would be great. at this, but I think you should use the medicine as well. And I think you should use, the skills you have and the training you’ve had to be able to create some sort of new blend.
and I’m really glad that he told me that because it’s just set me, in the last year developing this. It’s protocol, this plan that I’ve created, and I owe that to functional medicine as well, because functional medicine, open my eyes to the ability to use lifestyle interventions to be able to improve or even reverse the pathology of chronic disease and definitely improve symptoms as well.
And the conventional training that we have didn’t really address that. It was only when I dug deeper into functional medicine that I get really exposed to the huge amounts of evidence, that supports these lifestyle interventions, making a big difference. It also trained me up in, how to use supplements and, whether it’s herbal and nutritional supplements, judiciously, I think a lot of the time people can use supplements, without a firm evidence base and having the medical knowledge as well as the supplement knowledge means that I’m, I’ll never be reckless and I understand the indications and interactions with them.
And I can speak openly about the benefits and the drawbacks. So functional medicine was great. TEAM CBT is great and conventional medicine. is great as well. And I think a blend of all three is, is hopefully what I’m, the unique value proposition that I’m giving people.
[00:16:14] Tony Winyard: that is a pretty unique blend, isn’t it? I wouldn’t imagine there’s any others in the UK that have got that blend.
[00:16:20] A unique blend
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[00:16:21] Tom Gedman: no, because I think the TEAM CBT is a bit more of a niche. I think there’s a lot of conventional medical doctors with functional medicine, but I think blending that with TEAM CBT, yeah, that, that gives me an unfair advantage, unfortunately, in this realm, hopefully.
[00:16:35] Tony Winyard: staying with functional medicine, I remember when I first started, when I sought out a functional medicine practitioner, and that would have been, wow, probably about seven years ago or seven or eight years ago, and there wasn’t that many in the UK. There’s a lot more now. The landscape’s really changed, hasn’t it?
[00:16:51] Functional medicine is getting a lot more well known now
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[00:16:51] Tom Gedman: Yeah, there’s some really amazing doctors and, nutritional therapists and osteopaths doing some amazing work, with people, some mentors that I’ve met, just fantastic, really caring, empathic people that just want to make a difference and functional medicine really comes into its own for people who have not found the answers to their health concerns with the conventional approach.
and that can lead to a huge amount of hopelessness, helplessness, huge amount of stress, and just being able to know that there might be some answers that, conventional tests can’t elicit. I think that’s tremendously powerful with the right person and the right combination of therapist or practitioner.
[00:17:32] Tony Winyard: So you were talking about, you were saying about your unique blend with TEAM CBT and Functional Medicine as a GP. And I know you’ve put together something called, is it the Blueprint Scheme or something?
[00:17:43] The BLUEPRINT Plan
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[00:17:43] Tom Gedman: Yeah, the blueprint plan,is basically an acronym and every single letter stands for a different element, which, you know, 10 years of, experience being a medical doctor, now a GP, functional medicine practitioner, and also a TEAM CBT practitioner. I found these are the things that are the common thread that help a lot of people with a lot of things.
there’s a lot. Being said recently about the personalization of medicine and everything has to be disease specific. And I would say, yes, for pharmaceuticals, you need to have disease specific agents, but in terms of lifestyle changes, the things in the blueprint model, they will work for most people.
And I think the good thing about it is it allows a bit more flexibility in terms of people can choose where they want to start on their health journey. and it can tailor to people who really have non negotiables within their health and really want to work around certain difficulties and obstacles by trying something new.
and I guess it’d be helpful to go through the actual plan, wouldn’t it, Tony?
[00:18:45] B=Baseline testing and tracking
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[00:18:45] Tom Gedman: I’ll give you a brief overview. so B is for baseline testing and tracking. So using questionnaire, self examination, and in the more advanced sense, if you see me in clinic, it would be using functional testing as well, biometric testing, to be able to work out what your baseline is for health.
And I like to use an analogy of being dropped into a forest in the middle of nowhere. That’s where you are at this time. If you have a health goal and you don’t know where you’re starting, it can be really quite challenging to navigate the dense forest. And you want to try and get out to the other side to a specific destination, which is your goal.
And if you don’t know where you’re starting from, if you don’t know your GPS kind of coordinates in detail, you could be walking in any sort of direction. You wouldn’t know where you’re heading. Likewise, if you’re not setting milestones, then you’re going to might be going in the wrong direction that you wouldn’t know about it until too late and you can’t change.
course. and sometimes setting your baseline and also setting a smart goal, and milestones towards that can just really take the frustration out of the process. And it allows you to, not jump too high. You can have dream goals, but not be frustrated if don’t reach them within a week because you may have met your first milestone there.
[00:20:00] L=Limiting toxins
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[00:20:00] Tom Gedman: So that’s B. L is for limiting toxins. so things like alcohol, smoking, recreational drugs for some people, even things like pesticides on foods, chemicals in cosmetic products, the chemicals that we are exposed to in daily life, all sorts of things. And I use the analogy, of a bathroom sink, not to be insulting to everybody, everybody is worth more than a bathroom sink, but it, you imagine that.
You are turning on a tap and the tap is the amount of toxic exposure you have of all of these different toxins and many more that we’ve mentioned, and your body has an exquisite ability to be able to drain and detoxify all of those toxins. Otherwise, we would just curl up in a heap and we wouldn’t be here, within a minute of, and actually sometimes those detoxification, that plug, it gets blocked up or it can only filter out so much and the water starts to fill up into the sink and it starts to spill over, over the sides. And what we see the spillover is akin to the symptoms and the disease states that we’re in. And what we do fantastically well in conventional medicine is being able to have big mops to be able to sweep up all of the, of the water.
And we’re fantastic at being able to do that. And that’s good enough for some people, but actually the better approach is either, getting a larger sink, getting a larger plug hole, so working on your detoxification pathways, but actually just limiting the tap, turning the tap off or turning it down.
and there’s really good ways of being able to do that, to be able to set intentions and be able to change habits with the TEAMCBT method and other methods that we’ve used as well. that’s L.
[00:21:32] U=Understanding and changing habits
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[00:21:32] Tom Gedman: U is for understanding and changing habits. Now I was really inspired by lots of different books.
one of the main ones is Atomic Habits by James Clear. I think he’s got a really exquisite framework that everyone should read to be able to just make small changes to make big difference, and I utilize that. but there’s also something called the COMB, C O M B model of behavior change, which is really fantastic.
It really assesses the barriers and the motivation that you have to change. And we can work on that using some CBT methods as well.
[00:21:59] E=Exercise
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[00:21:59] Tom Gedman: E is for exercise in different types. so going for a walk is great. Going through maybe, more faster paced cardiovascular exercise if it’s safe for you is better, but also blending the cardiovascular with the resistance training to be able to help muscle strength, size, bone health, but also having a firm eye on stability and balance training as well, which is so important for longevity.
As you all know, Tony, you’re a big fanatic about that and you work really hard to be able to condition your body. If you just walked every day, it wouldn’t be as good as if you did your resistance training and your balance and stability work. So really having the skills to be able to employ those sort of tactics safely is really important.
[00:22:40] P=Purpose and spirituality
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[00:22:40] Tom Gedman: P is for purpose and spirituality. I think if we were to try and engage with a health goal, and we were to say something like, I want to, lose 10 kilograms in weight. Now, you might get to the end of the first week and feel like it’s a little bit restrictive, or it’s a bit of a change, unless you’ve got a strong purpose for why you’re doing something.
Sometimes, you might not have the fuel for the fire to keep on going. Actually, if losing weight meant more to you, if you felt that actually you were losing weight because you wanted to reduce your risk of chronic disease to be able to live longer or protect your joints to be able to play with your grandkids when they’re older.
That’s more of a purpose to aim for rather than, some people are really driven by looking good and I don’t discount that. That could be a really strong purpose but just having something on paper to say this is why I’m doing it can really power people through the hard times.
[00:23:33] R=Rest and relaxation
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[00:23:33] Tom Gedman: R is for rest and relaxation, and that’s sleep optimization, with different protocols and also stress management.
and this is specifically for behavioural tools. So like you do Tony, excellently, your breath work is fantastic. I think, that they say that if you’re in a panic state, don’t try and control the mind with the mind. you’re better to control the mind with the body by. Being able to breathe in certain ways to be able to give you that edge off.
And then you can click your executive functioning part of your brain back online to be able to talk yourself out of a panic situation. And I think that is the same thing with stress. And I think we’re really good as a society of being able to turn on our stress response. We’re not very good at being able to turn it off and that can lead to lots of different downstream consequences for our health and our wellbeing.
there’s other tools, forest bathing, meditation, mindfulness, all of these different things are fantastic as well. So they’re all in the plan.
[00:24:27] I=Interpersonal relationships
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[00:24:27] Tom Gedman: I is for interpersonal relationships. So that’s finding your tribe that, suits your goals, but also, being able to nurture the people around you, your friends and your family,and even work colleagues or bosses to be able to use communication skills, to be able to get them on board.
And negotiate time to be able to do the things that you need to do. And we can teach you the skills and being able to do that.
[00:24:49] N=Nutrition
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[00:24:49] Tom Gedman: N is nutrition and supplements. and that’s a huge thing that people dedicate their lives to. That’s just one part of the framework. And you’ll know that, weight loss, people could think, Oh, it’s just about shifting calories, but all of these different things can help.
But nutrition is so important. I do believe, there’s ways to eat that can benefit our health. and then to be able to harm us as well. And there’s some simple ways. I never like to say that foods are never events. food, I think food is, it’s got so many links culturally, it’s links to society and being social with other people.
And I’m just allowing people and educating people to use food in a way that helps them. And on the 80 20 rule, so 80 percent of the time, if you’re doing something right, that’s better than if you’re doing it the other way around. And supplements, I’m blessed with the education to be able to give judicious advice about supplements in a tailored way.
[00:25:39] Thought change with TEAM CBT
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[00:25:39] Tom Gedman: and finally, T is for thought change with TEAM CBT, because bottom line, I think it’s probably the most important, but some people are just not in that position where they want to examine the thoughts and that I wanted to develop this whole protocol to be able to help those people and say.
Listen, if you’ve got some trauma, if you can’t access these memories, if you can’t access these thoughts, if you don’t want to work on that, don’t think that you’re a hopeless case. You can actually manage your feelings with all of these other lifestyle behaviors. And then when you’re in a, maybe in a better place, it might be a bit more suitable for you to be able to work on the thoughts.
Likewise, I’ve seen people that have got terrible lifestyle habits. They work on the thoughts and they feel happy even while they’re still eating McDonald’s, it’s a real balance. And it’s about where would you like to start? What’s your goal and what appeals to you first? It’s trying to be as inclusive as possible, without really ruling out or making anyone afraid to make that first step.
It’s a bit of a mouthful, isn’t it, Tony, to be fair. that’s my one drawback, but I think, people like to have simple answers to complex problems, and this isn’t complicated, it’s slightly complex, but when you dig deeper into it, it generally becomes a little bit more intuitive and the people I’ve been doing it with in these lifestyle clinics that I’m running with the NHS, they’re really enjoying it.
And they’ve got some remarkable results, even after four weeks, which I’m really pleased about.
[00:27:00] Tony Winyard: But I’m guessing doing something like that, there’s no way you can do all of that in a 10 minute appointment. so how do you do it?
[00:27:06] Group programme
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[00:27:06] Tom Gedman: It’s interesting because what I’m developing now, is a group program. So I pay lip service to the blueprint plan within a 10 minute consultation, but I would refer people to the group program that I’m, I’ve started in West Coventry, and that’s when they can learn a bit more about it. And within 10 minutes, no, you can’t explain the whole problem, it took me 10 minutes just to explain it.
And that’s before you’ve actually assessed the person in front of you and made sure they’re not dying of a heart attack. So it’s really important. I think the only way to be able to spread this word is in a group setting, and actually the benefit of the group setting is that you’ve got that eye for interpersonal relationships.
You’ve got that tribe that are on the same path as you, that’s going to be able to help you out, and you’ve got the accountability as well, which is really important.
[00:27:55] Tony Winyard: So is it all done face to face or is it remote as well?
[00:27:59] How is the programme delivered?
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[00:27:59] Tom Gedman: We’re looking to build a remote service on Zoom, but at the moment we’ve got some charitable funding from a wonderful charity called Think Active to be able to provide face to face groups. So it’s an hour of education and discussion and then half an hour of guided exercise. and the people who come to the groups, they’re really happy with both.
[00:28:21] Tony Winyard: And so say someone approached you and they wanted to do this whole blueprint but like one to one, so do you also do it one to one?
[00:28:28] Can the BLUEPRINT be done 1-2-1?
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[00:28:28] Tom Gedman: Oh, sure. Yeah. the only issue is having a functional medicine doctor. or a conventional medicine doctor privately. maybe you’ll know it can be very expensive, and I lament that. I, I don’t like the idea of being able to charge people a lot of money for, for just simple lifestyle advice.
So that’s why I endeavoured to be able to give as much away for free or low cost as possible to give people the education so that when they do see a functional medicine doctor, they are armed with that ability to say, I’ve tried so much stuff and now I’m still feeling poorly. So where do we go?
Rather than starting with the basics of, here’s how to eat better and here’s how to exercise in a sustainable way. so I really wanted to develop this model to be able to be more inclusive for people who, either couldn’t afford or maybe even could afford, but would just be wasting their money learning basic stuff that can make a big difference.
[00:29:21] Criticisms of Functional Medicine
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[00:29:21] Tony Winyard: What do you think of some, a criticism I’ve heard of functional medicine practitioners recently is that some of them recommend some tests that aren’t really necessary and people are spending money where they don’t really need to spend it.
[00:29:38] Tom Gedman: Yeah, no, I agree with that criticism. I think it has to be based on the Person in front of you is there, the, affordability, has to be based on what you think it’s going to achieve. I wouldn’t do a whole blanket set of tests without a good reason, because the tests you do in functional medicine, they’re not diagnostic, they’re not like the things that you get with your conventional medical doctor.
they just point their clues to be able to build a picture of where imbalances lie. and then you can work on those imbalances, but the secret is most of the stuff that you find within the blueprint plan that will get you most of the way to be able to reset your imbalances. And actually that’s when we start using, judicious supplements after that to be able to help people on their journey and even some medications as well.
so I think starting with lifestyle first and as, as little tests as you can, to be able to try and get the answers that you need is my philosophy really. I never liked to start with a huge whack of baseline tests.
[00:30:42] What do you think of wearables?
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[00:30:42] Tony Winyard: What about wearables like, like CGMs and HRV and Oura rings and all that kind of thing?
[00:30:49] Tom Gedman: Yeah. I think they have their use in being able to provide satisfaction to a habit loop. so if that’s what you need to be able to reduce your intake of simple carbohydrates, sugar, junk foods. You need to be able to see that on your CGM, then that will be helpful for you. If you find that actually you can do that on your own, you can feel better.
I think the jury’s still out as whether, as to whether there is a benefit of. non diabetic patients using CGMs, it’s still an emerging science. I think there’s a lot of companies like Zoe and Levels and Veri that are doing it. And I’d like to see more science come out of it, to be able to recommend it.
But at the moment, if you’re able to get most of the way there without using Yeah, complex trackers, I’d prefer that, but I’ll never turn anyone away if they want to use me as their coach and their clinician to help them guide with a CGM or a sleep ring or, HRV tracker, be very comfortable talking through the results and using that to feed into the program as well. there is a sign. I remember we were talking a little bit about before the, the show, Tony, about your. fear that sometimes you can do too much proactivity and you can know too much data. And I think that’s always my fear as well, especially with things like sleep trackers, if you wake up in the morning and you feel okay, but actually your sleep score says that you’re terrible, there’s something psychological about.
Saying, okay, do I feel terrible? Maybe I do feel a little bit bad. Whereas actually you wouldn’t have that information. You would just go on your basic instinct of saying, how do I feel? so sleep rings and all of these, trackers, they have their pros, but they do have the ability to cause more anxiety and I would use them in certain cases.
[00:32:35] Can someone be too proactive?
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[00:32:35] Tony Winyard: And also, that’s one element of being maybe too proactive. Do you, in your experience, do you get many I don’t know, hypochondriacs, or people who are trying to be way too proactive and they just think they’ve got all sorts of different things wrong with them?
[00:32:51] Tom Gedman: Yeah, having health anxiety, is a real issue because generally, doctors, unless people have got a set of tests that rule out very important, diagnoses or red flags, then sometimes that can feed into the cycle of anxiety because the doctor wants to be certain they’re not missing anything. And then the person in front of you, the patient says,I’m scared about this specific red flag symptom and this specific quite dangerous symptom and this specific injury symptom.
And it takes quite a bold doctor to be able to say, okay, this is just part of your health anxiety. So I see where things do escalate in that regard. but, in answer to your question, yeah, I see a lot of people who are very anxious about their health and this wave of proactivity can sometimes do more harm than good.
And that’s why I think, just being able to start with small habits and building up, if you feel better, and if you deal with the psychological aspect of health anxiety, which is often, Really, there’s a lot of levels, there’s a lot of layers to health anxiety that really aren’t addressed in a 10 minute consultation.
And I think that’s really important to be able to examine your own thoughts about what’s causing you to be anxious and really deal with that. And sometimes I even see health anxiety being as a result of an interpersonal conflict. if you’ve got some problems at home, it manifests as health anxiety or health anxiety could be due to the symptoms that are produced from a nutritional imbalance.
And actually you’re worried about something, but actually if you manage the symptoms and the physiological response to eating the wrong foods, then sometimes those symptoms can improve as well. So there’s different aspects and different ways to be able to treat depending on the person’s preferences.
[00:34:33] What changes might we see with GPs?
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[00:34:33] Tony Winyard: Do you see things, GPs generally in the UK, do you think things are changing? I know, for example, doctors like Rangan Chatterjee is trying to change things and he’s doing some sort of training schemes with GPs and so on, isn’t he?
[00:34:48] Tom Gedman: Yeah,I think there’s a lot of change,with GPs. And I think the only issue I would have is that doing extra training in lifestyle medicine or functional medicine, it generally gives you more knowledge to be able to empower patients. but then there’s the time to be able to do that. So what I don’t want is to be able to get in a situation where people are running late, They’re more stressed as general practitioners.
They have more workload because they’re spending 15 minutes and 20 minutes with people trying to go through these topics. And that’s why I think. being able to sell a patient or be able to motivate them to a, to join a group clinic where they can speak in more detail and actually you’ve got 60 minutes with one person for six patients.
That’s the same as 10 minutes per patient with a doctor or with a health coach. I think that’s why I’d like things to be leading to. So you would literally, instead of a 10 minute conversation about lifestyle change, you would have 15 seconds and say, here are the facts, here’s this program, if you’d like to change.
Please join it and then, educate yourself and be with some like minded people. And I think that’s the only way that, that really this lifestyle medicine movement is going to be sustainable for GPs. Because I know some GP partners who have actually said. where do I have time for this?
I’ve got three hours of paperwork waiting for me. I just need to get through things. And that’s being, even from the most empathic and considerate and kind and gentle, GPs, they still have families that they need to go and see. they still have lives that they need to lead. And actually it’s causing so much more burnout if you have to add something else to the plate of general practitioners at this time of crisis and overload.
[00:36:26] How will AI change things?
—
[00:36:26] Tony Winyard: What are your thoughts on AI? Do you think AI can help any of this or in any aspect of a GP surgery, can it be helpful?
[00:36:34] Tom Gedman: Yeah. I think there’s loads of different things that could be optimized within a The NHS and with their GP surgery, I think those things are probably coming through now, but the NHS is the biggest organization in the UK, and it’s hard to make those changes. They have to go through rigorous protocols. So I feel sorry for anyone who tries to push change in the NHS, like AI driven things, I’ll never blame somebody.
Because it’s just a huge endeavour. but do I think AI will be useful in clinical practice? Yes, I think it can be useful, for triaging people. What I think it will never replace is clinical judgment. and I think, I think you’d be a bold AI developer to be able to create something that reassures people completely without seeing a GP.
I think what it could do is educate somebody to be able to know what they’re doing is the right way of going. And it can sometimes be helpful for a GP to be able to see a range of differential diagnoses on a screen based on what a person said. And it’s transcribed their audio to be able to say, here, have you considered this and this?
And also even transcribing the notes or writing up letters. I think that’s where AI. could really improve the lives of GPs by just improving the efficiency of note taking and differential diagnosis.
[00:37:46] Tony Winyard: Tom, we’re moving on. Time’s gone pretty fast. a question I always ask everyone is there a book that comes to mind that has moved you for any reason?
[00:37:56] Tom’s favourite book
—
[00:37:56] Tom Gedman: Yeah, I was thinking about this and I was thinking, I’m big nonfiction reader. So I was thinking, do I try and sound clever with a really whimsical fiction novel, which may be like one of the only ones that I’ve read. Or do I go for what inspired me first?
And actually the first thing that inspired me for this whole movement of preventative and lifestyle medicine was Rangan Chatterjee’s first book, The Four Pillar Plan. I remember reading that and thinking, wow, this is just. He’s made it sound so simple, he’s made it so accessible and it basically, I used to refer it and I still do refer it to every patient that I think would benefit from it.
So in terms of something that would change my life, I think that, but also like you’ve read recently, Tony, Feeling Great by David Burns, is really the manual for TEAM CBT, and I think if everyone read that and did the exercises in there and really examined their own thoughts and how it made them feel and used it, it’s like a, it’s like neurosurgery for thoughts, I find.
You’re not just targeting the whole brain, you’re working on a very specific thought pattern and that makes it less overwhelming. And if you deal with one specific thought and you use multiple methods on that thought, you can change it often for good. And you learn how to be able to manage relapses when you inevitably start thinking in similar old ways, you can just get out of that hole quicker. And I think if the whole world read that book,I think it would make a big difference to people’s mental health and also physical health as well.
[00:39:25] Tony Winyard: Yeah, it’s a superb book. So if people want to find out more about you and Blueprint and everything else, where would they go?
[00:39:33] Get in touch with Tom
—
[00:39:34] Tom Gedman: sure. So you can get to my website. it’s www. drtomgedman. com. That’s D R T O M. G E D m A n I imagine you’ll put it in the show notes. I have to spell my name every time. Golf Echo Delta, Mike Alpha. November is a strange one. dr tomgedman.com. you can also find me on Instagram, at Dr. Tom Gedman or Twitter at Dr.
Tom Gedman or LinkedIn. the blueprint plan is on the website, but, soon to be a kinda on-demand video course. but yeah, follow my journey. I’m trying to get over some performance anxiety, at the moment by doing 30 days of, LinkedIn and Instagram video posts about the project. So you can come along and join me and see me, either succeed or fail miserably in that task.
[00:40:20] Tom’s podcast
—
[00:40:20] Tony Winyard: And I think it’s safe to say as well, sometime, we can’t say when, but there’s going to be a podcast coming at some point as well in the future.
[00:40:28] Tom Gedman: Do you know what, I’ve just spent a fortune on podcast equipment and, actually the first thing I bought was a microphone about six months ago and I realized it, I didn’t have the equipment to be able to actually do it. So it’s developed dust. So I’ve dusted it off. I’m going to sign up for a podcasting program and then get the equipment.
I’m going to get it done. So I’d love you to be on a, an episode of mine, as well in the near future, Tony.
[00:40:52] Tom’s fave quote
—
[00:40:52] Tony Winyard: Absolutely. to finish off, Tom, is there a quotation that, resonates with you for any reason?
[00:40:58] Tom Gedman: I was thinking about this too, and that the only thing I can think of is, what is it? The, Henry Ford who said, "You can think you can, or You think you can’t, and you’re probably right". I think there’s a lot to be said about mindset, and the way that you think about different things. so I like that quote as well.
There’s also a quote by, James Clear that sticks with me. I think it’s something about. identity and you, it’s not really a quote, but it’s just a, an idea that you can either cognitively and with thoughts, change your identity to be able to then suit a new habit, or you can just do that habit enough that it makes that identity a reality.
So you can work it in both ways. So the more you do healthful behaviours, the more you will. form that identity, or you could start by just saying I am somebody who looks after their health and then the habits might be a little bit easier for you to adhere to.
[00:41:53] Final thoughts on being proactive
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[00:41:53] Tony Winyard: Could you leave the listeners with any thoughts on being proactive around health?
[00:41:59] Tom Gedman: Absolutely, I think definitely it’s well worth the investment. I’m in a privileged position to be able to see lots of different people in clinic and what I do know is that Years and decades of treating yourself in an unhealthy way can lead to problems that can sometimes only be treated with medicines, like painkillers with side effects and surgery.
so the more you invest at any age, even as a teenager, early twenties, you can help to prevent lots of different chronic diseases. so I think it’s really worthwhile and actually you can have fun on the way. It’s not all deprivation and doom and gloom. It’s actually, when you feel fit, you feel better when you’re eating better, you feel better when you’re thinking better, you feel better.
So it’s only hard to start with. It generally gets easier and, just enjoy the process.
[00:42:54] Tony Winyard: Tom, it’s been an absolute pleasure. Thank you.
[00:42:58] Tom Gedman: Thanks so much, Tony. Love this opportunity. Thank you. And I look forward to seeing you soon.
Join me next week for an adventurous episode with Dan Roberts an accomplished Explorer and an avid athlete. In our lively chat. Dan shares his contagious enthusiam for travel and boldly seizing opportunities. Discover how reading "On the road" as a teen sparked Dan’s Intrepid attitude, propelling him to backpacking adventures worldwide. Learn how Dan transitioned from tennis coaching at 16 into a prolific coaching career across fitness, film, and more. His passion is helping people connect their mind and body to live more athletically. Dan believes being proactive means confidently taking action and getting out of your comfort zone. He explains why having a coach signifies a proactive mindset, yet many avoid it out of ego. So tune in next week to hear Dan’s insights on living life as a thrilling adventure. Please subscribe to the art of living proactively on your favorite podcast platform. Leave us a sparkling five star review. Share this episode with friends to spread the inspiration. I appreciate your listenership and look forward to seeing you next week.
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What if I told you that your choices have the power to transform not just your personal experiences, but also your professional endeavours, relationships, and even hobbies? The key lies in living proactively and harnessing the potential of each decision we make. Today, we dive deep into the journey of mastery with Jeff Seckendorf, an accomplished adventurer, athlete, and coach, as we uncover the transformative power of commitment, purpose, and coaching in various aspects of life.Action Steps and Call to Action:Discovering the art of living proactively starts with embracing opportunities, even if they seem small. Just like Jeff’s dedication to cycling and scuba diving, find an activity – be it gardening, swimming, or dancing – that brings you joy, fulfillment, and a sense of purpose. Dedicate a few hours a week to this activity, allowing yourself to immerse in the moment and experience the transformative power of commitment.
Jeff Seckendorf’s journey of mastery showcases the potential for personal growth and transformation that lies within each one of us. Embracing the power of purposeful living and making proactive choices can ripple out into every area of our lives, enabling us to become not just better cyclists, divers, or professionals but better individuals overall. Take the first step towards harnessing the power of your choices today and dare to live your life proactively!
Chapters:02:06 Breaking the US hour record
02:56 What Jeff learned from triathlons
05:42 Are there many people in the 70-74 age range?
07:02 How much training is involved?
09:21 Will you compete in the centenarian decathlon?
11:04 You coach people?
12:32 Why did you feel a new approach was needed to train scuba diversTony Winyard?
15:14 You said this will make people better, what does that mean?
17:29 The coaches also learn?
19:24 Do you have many coaches?
19:39 Can you do this remotely?
20:39 What does proactive mean to you?
24:08 When did you develop this attitude?
25:09 As people turn 60 they get scared of injury
30:39 Is scuba diving maybe more suited for older people as less exertion is needed?
31:52 Is there any breathwork training included?
33:24 How can people find out more about you?
36:13 Favourite book
38:15 Favourite quote
Guest Bio:Jeff Seckendorf is a remarkable athlete who has dedicated his life to running and cycling. Having reached the age of 68, Jeff proudly boasts that he has never experienced any injuries throughout his running career. Surrounded by friends and acquaintances whose knees and hips are plagued with issues, Jeff made the decision to switch his focus solely to cycling – a choice he has never regretted.
Introduced to the exhilarating world of track cycling, Jeff fell head over heels in love with the sport. San Diego became his new playground, with its magnificent velodrome, while a separate one-hour journey led him to the Los Angeles track. Embracing track cycling as his passion, Jeff found solace and joy in riding his bike on these purpose-built circuits. Inspired by the popularity of the sport in the United Kingdom, Jeff continues to pursue his dreams and make a name for himself in the world of track cycling.
Watch this episode on YouTubeLInks:* Jeff Seckendorf on Linkedin * Jeff's Podcast * Institute of Purpose * Jeff's YouTube channel Transcript243 – Jeff Seckendorfwelcome to another edition of the Art of Living Proactively and I’m thrilled to share a captivating conversation with Jeff Seckendorf in today’s show. Jeff is an accomplished adventurer and avid athlete pursuing astonishing accomplishments after 60. He aims to attempt a grueling one hour track cycling record in the 70 to 74 age group in just a couple of years time.
You’ll hear how Jeff taps into tenacious training and techniques to build the physical and mental strength needed for this daunting feat. We discuss how he structures his training regimen for optimal performance without injury. And he also coaches scuba diving, bringing a transformative approach to certification.
His customised coaching model aims to create better divers and better lives. Listen to learn how Jeff is pioneering this innovative methodology. And in our lively discussion, he shares his perspective on living purposefully and proactively. Discover how he continuously seeks and seizes opportunities guided by his vision, yet remains flexible, pivoting when one door closes.
So join us for this uplifting episode with the dedicated and dynamic Jeff Seckendorf. Please subscribe, leave a review on your favourite podcast platform, share this episode with friends so they can be motivated by Jeff’s mindset, and don’t forget you can see it on YouTube as well. Now, let’s get started. welcome to another edition of The Art of Living Proactively. My guest today, Jeff Seckendorf.
[00:01:40] Tony Winyard: How are you doing, Jeff?
[00:01:41] Jeff Seckendorf: I’m doing great. Great. Great to see you Tony.
[00:01:44] Tony Winyard: we’re in San Diego today. Have you always lived there?
[00:01:49] Jeff Seckendorf: I’ve been here for, I’ve been in Southern California for about 20 years.
I came through the film industry, so I was living in New York, moved here, worked for a while, and then exited the film industry for a second or third career.
[00:02:06] Breaking the US hour record[00:02:06] Tony Winyard: Jeff recently, he attempted to break the US Hour record in cycling for the 70 to 74 age group. for a start, there’s no way you look anywhere near that kind of age,
[00:02:17] Jeff Seckendorf: Well, actually that record attempt is coming up in a year and a half.
[00:02:21] Tony Winyard: all right.
[00:02:22] Jeff Seckendorf: So I’m still training for it at 70, but yeah, I turned 68 yesterday, so we’re calling it Jeff, 6.8.
[00:02:30] Tony Winyard: Wow. Okay. I love it. so let’s start from there then. Have you been cycling a long time?
[00:02:35] Jeff Seckendorf: I’ve been cycling all my life. But competitively only since I was around 50, so maybe for the last 18 years or so I’ve been racing. I raced on cross country skis as a kid. I’ve been a competitor all my life in different sports. But then in my early fifties, I’ve found triathlon.
[00:02:56] Tony Winyard: Okay.
[00:02:56] What Jeff learned from triathlons[00:02:56] Jeff Seckendorf: And and what I learned in triathlon is I love to run and hate to swim. it was a short-lived three or four years of racing triathlons. and then on my 60th birthday, I decided no more running.
[00:03:10] Tony Winyard: Okay.
[00:03:11] Jeff Seckendorf: I just got, I got to 60 running my whole life and never got injured. And I’m like, everybody I know is their knees are screwed up, their hips are screwed up, whatever. So I just said, all right, I’m just going full on bike.
And then somebody introduced me to the track. and a velodrome, which we have here in San Diego and another one an hour away in Los Angeles. and, I just love riding my bike on the track. So that became my sport is track cycling. And I know in the UK it’s also a huge, huge thing. you’ve got velodromes all over the place.
You have this hugely famous velodrome in Manchester and yeah.
[00:03:45] Tony Winyard: there’s a few directions we could go from what you’ve just said.
I want to go back a little bit. So you’ve mentioned that you started doing triathlons at the age of 50. Did something happen health-wise that made you start doing that? Or how did that all come about?
[00:03:57] Jeff Seckendorf: No, it was just seemed like a natural thing. you, a lot of my life and career and all of that has been just following the serendipity that comes with, oh, that looks like fun. Let’s try it. And, I was looking to spread out from the bike because I’d been on the bike my whole life and I have friends who are, Really committed ocean swimmers.
And I thought, well, that might be fun. So I did a couple of ocean swims, ’cause the ocean is just, 10 minutes from my house. And, I didn’t hate it at that point. And, and I’m good on the bike and I was a really good runner. And so it seemed like a natural thing. Let’s just try it. So I got a coach and I learned how to do it and I did pretty well, in my age group in triathlon, at least here in San Diego, where it’s a huge sport.
We were always racing for third because one and two was almost always taken by pros who got old, right? Ex pros who just aged up into my age groups and these are guys who were beating me by 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and it’s but then three to six positions would all be really tightly packed.
So it was always a race for third. I did pretty well getting a bunch of thirds, But it was fun. And then as, like I said, I just never really liked to swim and which is funny ’cause I’m an avid scuba diver. But, and then I decided to stop running and it, somebody took me to the track one night to watch the races and what I saw was a group of really happy people talking, joking, sitting around the infield. And then they’d jump on their bikes and they’d race for six minutes or eight minutes or something like that. They’d finish the race, they’d go back to the infield and have some fun and joke around and I thought, oh, that’s my sport. so I, got very involved in the track.
[00:05:42] Are there many people in the 70-74 age range?[00:05:42] Tony Winyard: And so at the age, you mentioned that you are competing, well, you’re aiming for this 70 to 74 age group in a couple of years time. Yeah. is there a lot of people in that still cycling in that age group?
[00:05:53] Jeff Seckendorf: Oh my God, yes. Yeah, it’s just not slowing down. And these records, so the hour record is how far can you ride your bike in an hour? It sounds like the simplest thing to do, and it’s one of the most complex and difficult things you can do in cycling, but you know, every year people are just attacking these records.
Right now in the US, the 70 plus hour record. Is farther or faster than the 65 plus hour record.
[00:06:20] Tony Winyard: Okay.
[00:06:20] Jeff Seckendorf: and all of my friends who are aging up are always like, oh crap, these people are fast. this is a goal and it’s a good goal and,I’m gonna chase it with a vengeance and I have another, 18 months when I, or 19 months when, because you race in the age of your calendar year.
[00:06:39] Tony Winyard: Okay.
[00:06:39] Jeff Seckendorf: So my birthday’s in May, but all of this calendar year, I’m racing at my current age. So starting January of 2025, I’ll be racing at 70. And so anytime after that I can try the record. I did have this idea that I should do one in December and one in January if they’re the same. And I’m ready and try to get ’em both, but we’ll see what happens.
I’m just, it’s a project to, to chase this record.
[00:07:02] How much training is involved?[00:07:02] Tony Winyard: So how much training does it involve? Are you cycling every day?
[00:07:07] Jeff Seckendorf: I’m doing something every day. I’m probably on the bike five or six days a week, maybe 15 hours, something like that, a week. and very structured. I have this amazing coach. I get structured workouts. I do them religiously. I don’t miss workouts. I hit the targets, I hit my numbers, and One of those believers, that process begets outcome. So if you do the process, the outcome becomes inevitable. So we’re on a target for, this next past two years and this next year and a half to hit this number at this particular time. So it’s basically a two year peaking process to get there. but it’s all about structured training. it’s, none of my training is random.
It’s all very focused and precise, which doesn’t make it any less fun.
I have a personality that really rises to this whole idea of, my workout’s on my calendar. I write it down and put it on a piece of tape on my bike, and I go out and I do these workouts and I love it.
[00:08:16] Tony Winyard: So are the workouts short and intense or, how do you do
[00:08:19] Jeff Seckendorf: Oh, it very, everything, very, it’s a structured process. yesterday I had a moderate hour and a half today I’ve got, a strength workout on the bike, which is, these very short bursts of high power. tomorrow I’ve got like a two and a half hour road ride.
Friday I’m racing. Sunday, I’m racing. So it’s all kind of this, there’s a method to the madness that I happily don’t have to understand. For me. I can coach others just fine, on the bike and fitness and so on. But coaching me, myself, yeah, we need an external genius for that one.
So would you be keeping track of things like your V02 max and I’m keeping track of, basically power and heart rate.
VO2 max. I’m a mortal. I’m not a elite athlete. I didn’t come through those ranks, so some things you can only change slowly or not at all.
So I don’t too much worry about the things I can’t change. I just worry about the things I can change, which is get stronger, don’t get injured, and work really hard.
[00:09:21] Will you compete in the centenarian decathlon?[00:09:21] Tony Winyard: Okay, so you’ve got these goals and as you say, you are gonna go for that record in a couple of years time. So I’m wondering, are you also further from that, if a couple of decades from that, are you looking, for example, to compete in the Centenarian Olympics? Are you familiar with that?
[00:09:38] Jeff Seckendorf: I am, I would love that. I would love that. Because, it’s like last man standing or last woman standing, right? I. If I can make it to 85 on the bike, the field diminishes every year. we’re having our 50th high school reunion this year, and I’m thinking we shouldn’t wait.
We should better do it now because, it’s gonna be a smaller group. yeah. So I, my intent is to just continue the training, the record runs. See what happens. and it, it’s funny, Tony, it’s super hard. this is not for the faint of heart because, and this is not to blow my own horn at all, but the, these events are really difficult.
you’re out there, it’s almost like a one hour sprint. So the physical training is probably only 20% of it, right? The mental training is the other. 80% or Yogi Berra said, Baseball is, what’d he say it was? 90%?
[00:10:41] Tony Winyard: Is it perspiration and inspiration.
[00:10:43] Jeff Seckendorf: 90% physical on the other half is mental or
yeah. and I think that’s it, right? So my biggest barriers are overcoming the mental aspects of,being able to go harder than I think I can go
not quitting.
[00:11:00] Tony Winyard: So you mentioned just now that you coach other people,
[00:11:03] Jeff Seckendorf: I do.
[00:11:04] You coach people?[00:11:04] Tony Winyard: in what capacity are you coaching other
[00:11:06] Jeff Seckendorf: So my, my real day gig is that I own a scuba certification and training agency, a company called U T D Scuba Diving, and in that company, So this is a scuba certification and training agency of the 20 or 30 or 40 in the world.
What we were able to do in that, because you know our bureaucracy is, you’re basically looking at it, is that we created a coaching model for training scuba divers.
This was a really interesting thing where we took a four day transactional class and we used the exact same model that I’m using on the bike. So we call the students. Clients and we call the instructors coaches and we give the SCUBA students this long structured process on becoming either a new scuba diver or a more advanced scuba diver using the coaching model.
So that’s been a really interesting thing, is to develop out this program that is a mirror program to endurance athletics, but for something not specific to endurance athletics. So that’s been cool. Then within the scope of that, I’m also a U S A certified cycling coach. So we also have a fitness component in there if they want it.
So I coach, amateur athletes, and I coach low, medium and high level scuba divers. and a little tiny bit of business coaching, but not much.
[00:12:32] Why did you feel a new approach was needed to train scuba diversTony Winyard?[00:12:32] Tony Winyard: And so why did you feel there needed to be a different approach to teaching people scuba diving?
[00:12:39] Jeff Seckendorf: So that’s a really good question. What I know from the bike is when I look at my whole life, work, family, marriage, relationships, business relationships, all of that, the bike makes me better, right? the commitment to training, the commitment to living a lifestyle that’s full of, health and fitness and super hard work that makes me better in all the other aspects of my life.
Not just on the bike. The bike becomes so such a tiny part of it. When you look at, well, I’m doing all this hard training, but it’s not all for the bike. It’s also I can be a better small business owner, a better, grandfather, a better husband, a better friend. So one of the things we do with the scuba coaching program is make sure that it instills lifestyle elements.
Sometimes it sneaks up on people. ’cause we don’t market this, we don’t say, okay, we’re going to put you in a scuba coaching program and your life is gonna get magically better. This works best when people discover it on their own. And so being able to take a coaching model and your coach, you understand this either in sports, some educational thing like we do in scuba diving or in business, which is a very common
thing. Now what we know is that, like on the bike coaching doesn’t just make you faster, it makes you better. In scuba diving. Coaching doesn’t just make you certified, it makes you better. In business coaching doesn’t make you just more efficient, it makes you better, a better manager, a better, more efficient worker, and so on.
In the scuba thing, we were just looking for a way to make people better, not necessarily just make them certified, which is what the scuba model has been forever. and we’ve been doing it now for a couple of years. It’s been incredibly successful. And, but we’re a small company, right? We’re a small scuba training agency.
So my goal, my, my dream is that this program gets copied. There’s no trademarks on it. There’s no. Copyright on the concept. I want it to become a more mainstream model. I want people to copy it. I’m happy to be first, but you know, I want everybody knowing about this model, and the only way that’ll happen is if it gets ripped off.
I
[00:15:14] You said this will make people better, what does that mean?Tony Winyard
[00:15:15] Tony Winyard: did the PADI training many years ago for scuba diving, and I’m interested when you say that your training is to make people better, what do you mean by better?
[00:15:27] Jeff Seckendorf: Better in life,
[00:15:28] Tony Winyard: Okay.
[00:15:29] Jeff Seckendorf: better in scuba diving, but better in life. So one of the things about the training you did in scuba diving is that it was very fast. You probably had a weekend or two weekends, and basically all you can do in that timeframe is they taught you how to use the gear and hopefully not kill yourself.
[00:15:46] Tony Winyard: Yeah. Well, I’m still here.
[00:15:47] Jeff Seckendorf: You’re still here, which is awesome. what we’re saying is that using the gear, which is all you can really teach in a weekend class, is only like 5% of it. learning how to dive, learning how to breathe, learning how to manage your body in the weightless environment, learning how to, be kind and sensitive to the environment.
All of this is, there’s so much more to scuba diving than putting on a tank and a regulator and going under water and kicking up the coral and scaring the fish and swimming away from your buddy, and all the stuff that happens in normal recreational scuba training. We teach the opposite of all of that.
we teach a model where people are never touching the bottom. They’re neutrally buoyant, they’re kicking efficiently, they’re using their breathing to control themselves in the water. Basically, they’re diving their body instead of letting their body dive you.
[00:16:41] Tony Winyard: Okay.
[00:16:42] Jeff Seckendorf: yeah, so we’ve just decided to rework the model.
we can do it, right? We’re a small company, we don’t need, we don’t need a million students. To be profitable. it’s been a really interesting run to, to see this model start to take in and dig in and to see people’s excitement on how the rest of their life is going as they get into any, a model of any structured training could be a sport.
It could be education, could be business. you know when you start training, when you start coaching business leaders,
hopefully they become better business leaders, but hopefully they translate that into their lives, right? So they become better humans.
That’s really the goal.
[00:17:29] The coaches also learn?[00:17:29] Tony Winyard: And if I’m hearing you right from what you’ve described so far, not only is it better for the people that are actually learning it, but it sounds like it’s better for the people that are teaching it as well.
[00:17:40] Jeff Seckendorf: Oh God, yes. Oh my God. Yeah. Well, you again, you know that as a coach, right? We have, there’s this very common saying in education that when the student learns 10 things, the teacher learns a hundred. there are a million models at this, right? the martial artists say you start learning when you get your black belt.
it, the farther you go in your path to mastery, whatever that mastery is, my goal is always that it ends in teaching, right? we look at students and clients coming into the U T D SCUBA program and one out of 20 I see come in and say, oh my God, you’d be an amazing instructor. let’s tickle that path a little bit. Let’s see if that’s something that interests you and let’s see if we can get you on that path. and your goal becomes not so much becoming your own personal best, it becomes making, guiding others to become their personal best. And that mindset of.
Let me take something I’m good at and help other people get good at. It also is part of this thing of better. I think becoming better means you get to share it. Becoming better means you get to guide others. Becoming better means you get to be, a competent and efficient guide or coach or teacher or instructor, whatever it happens to be.
it’s one of my goals in coaching that we make new coaches. Not everybody’s cut out for it. I have, clients who I’ve brought this up with and they’re like, no, not interested. Don’t wanna do it. Working on my own thing. and that’s, awesome. But then we also have clients who say, never thought of that.
Let’s explore it. And that guides people into this ability to say, well, I can make my path solid and how can I make others’ paths solid.
[00:19:24] Do you have many coaches?[00:19:24] Tony Winyard: So do you have many coaches teaching your method?
[00:19:28] Jeff Seckendorf: Well, every instructor, yeah, hundreds. Hundreds. They’re not all coaching, but they’re all able to,
[00:19:35] Tony Winyard: and are they mostly around your kind of location or is it geographically spread
[00:19:39] Can you do this remotely?[00:19:39] Jeff Seckendorf: this company is very strong in Europe and Asia, and moderately strong in the us so we’re scattered everywhere. and and it’s, as you went through your training with an agency called PADI you can go through your training with an agency like ours called UTD Scuba diving, or there are dozens of others in the alphabet soup of SCUBA training agencies.
So
most people walk into a dive center and say, I wanna learn to dive. They don’t care what the agency is that is going to give them the certification card.
[00:20:09] Tony Winyard: Yeah.
[00:20:09] Jeff Seckendorf: So we’ve just come up with a training methodology that we think is better or different enough that it gives people a choice. Do you want to train in this method or do you want to train in this method?
And if you don’t know, and you walk into that shop, most of our instructors guide you to this training method that we’ve developed, whether or not it’s coaching or a transactional class. Because again, we’re conscious of the environment, we’re conscious of team diving, we’re trying to be safe, and so on.
[00:20:39] What does proactive mean to you?[00:20:39] Tony Winyard: This, the podcast is called The Art of Living Proactively. what in comes into your mind when you think about being proactive and health?
[00:20:50] Jeff Seckendorf: I think it’s pretty much exactly what I just said. It’s to me, proactive living is always saying yes. Something comes up, gets in front of you. Say yes first, right? If you say no, that just shuts the door. If you say yes and it doesn’t work, well that’s okay, but you gave it a shot. So living proactively to me is seeing opportunities where they may not be obvious, seeing opportunities where you may have a vision of something that’s clear, but there’s a spur.
A left turn off that, that looks really interesting, that maybe you explore that a little bit. So you use opportunities to find opportunities that lead to opportunities. And then you’ve got this wonderful,track of living, really interesting stuff. And they don’t all have to be successful and they don’t have to last forever.
again, we have people come into the scuba coach. I had a guy come in for a month. Yeah, no, it’s not what I expected. I wanna leave and we’re like, awesome. Great. Door’s always open if you want to come back, but hopefully you’ll learned enough that this is not for you. Find another direction.
there’s that line about, when one door closes, 15 windows fly open. So when you bump into that closed door, just take a, it’s, it’s metaphor time. Take a step back. And look and see what windows are open. If this didn’t work, try this. If this didn’t work, try this.
where’s the spinoff of the thing that didn’t work? And then of course, I think part of it is also know when to say, when.
I don’t really believe in quitting while you’re ahead, but I think you should definitely quit while you’re behind. if something’s just not working for you, find something else.
looking through your podcast series, everybody has a different version of what proactive living means, and you do also, I’m sure. but mine is really about, dig the opportunities, love the opportunities, and never close a door on something that might be fun, even if it’s small.
you don’t have to, like cycling has taken over my life. In a lot of ways, right? I have, it’s basically one of my several full-time jobs. don’t have, it doesn’t have to be that, it could be gardening. You do two hours a week, but you know, I’m not much of a gardener.
My wife planted a vegetable garden this year for the first time, and she’s walking in the door with two little tiny cherry tomatoes. It’s look at these beautiful tomatoes, and there’s two, and they weigh like a gram each. And, but it gives her so much joy, to go out there and to water and to take care of them and prune them and pick them.
It’s it’s a purposeful thing for her. It’s costing us way more than just going to the store and buying some tomatoes. But it’s, there’s such beauty in it and such joy and love and what she’s doing in this very small little window,
which stacks on top of her career and she’s a cyclist also and so on.
it doesn’t have to be this massive thing. You don’t have to cure cancer or fly to the moon.
You just have to do something that helps one other person, I think.
[00:24:08] When did you develop this attitude?[00:24:08] Tony Winyard: Do you think, have you had that attitude for a long time or was it, when do you think it, there was a sudden point where that kind of developed.
[00:24:17] Jeff Seckendorf: No, I think I’ve been blessed with that concept forever. whatever career moment I’ve been in, I’ve always had a teaching element in it. I spent 30 years in the film industry, had a pretty successful career before I retired from that. And of those 30 years, I spent 25 of them also teaching.
Workshop programs, mentoring programs, things like that. So this has been part of my life forever. and now with cycling again, there’s no point in me just doing it on my own.
that’s the, why climb a mountain? Well, because it’s there attitude. And I think that, if you’re gonna climb a mountain because it’s there, you’re missing so much that you can do to help others.
Find purpose, find reason, find a, something interesting or some other spinoff that they didn’t know about that makes their life better, which in turn makes others’ lives better.
It’s a circle.
[00:25:09] As people turn 60 they get scared of injury[00:25:09] Tony Winyard: The impression I have is a lot of people as they get older, especially once they pass 60, and 60 seems to be a real mental barrier for some people. They are then scared off by doing things such as cycling because of fear of injury or whatever. what would you say to, and I’m guessing you are coming across people who are that sort of age and maybe they haven’t considered cycling.
do you come across people like that and, how would you talk to someone who maybe does have a fear of being injured at, in they’re 60, 70, or whatever?
[00:25:41] Jeff Seckendorf: that’s a good question because one of the things in coaching is that you’re not the fitness police.
You have to be open to bringing people into a program where they are, which means if you bump into someone who’s just not ready or not able, then you just have to say, okay, well cool. But if you run into somebody who has a spark of interest and this
project, whatever you’re bringing to the table, be it cycling or expanding a business or whatever is just something they hadn’t bumped into prior. And you can open their eyes to, well, here’s an a way to explore this newer vision of yourself,
then maybe you can try it. which doesn’t mean, I’ve been on a bike for
50 years, right? I didn’t just come to this Thursday and say, oh, I’m gonna go break an hour record. Although there are people who do that, it’s rarely successful. so I think a lot of this, to answer your question, because this is like one long tangent, is you have to address people where they are and people have to be ready to make some
proactive engagement into whatever they’re about to start. Otherwise, you’re just forcing your vision on someone else. and you know from kids, you can’t tell them anything. Because they, I have a 12 year old grandson who just, he knows everything and we know nothing and we exist with a tremendous amount of fun in that environment.
And it’s fine. Oh, you don’t know anything. I was like, the other day, what’s TikTok? And he’s oh, you don’t know what TikTok is. It’s no, I don’t know what TikTok is. tell me what TikTok is. Train me, educate me. So we try to give him opportunities to teach us, to open the door there and say, well, I can help somebody else, even though it’s my crazy grandfather.
[00:27:42] Tony Winyard: I guess what I was getting at is, I think a lot of people, once, when they reach 60 and above, they well and understandably have much more fear of injury and yet it’s so important. Well, it’s more important for that age group to be doing regular training in strength and many other areas of physical exertion.
[00:28:00] Jeff Seckendorf: Yeah, so to be very specific about that question, get a guide. Get a coach, go in with a idea that I need to increase my fitness, I need to increase my strength, I need to not be injured.
[00:28:17] Tony Winyard: And I think the key there is find the coach who sets that as your priority. I’m in the gym.
[00:28:23] Jeff Seckendorf: I cycle through a personal trainer. One or two cycles a year. And the, he’s a good friend of mine. I’ve been with him for years and years. And I go in for six or eight weeks and I come out and I go back in. And it all starts with on both of our ends, right? Me as the client and him as the coach, it’s okay, we’re gonna start slow and we’re gonna build up again, and we’re gonna go backward first, and we’re gonna not get you injured.
I’m going to lift 10 pounds, five. Kilos less than my normal weight that I could lift because I’m gonna get 99% of the benefit and I’m gonna get 30% of the chance of injury. So that, it’s that risk reward thing on injury that is, is tricky. And if somebody comes to me and says, Hey, I wanna ride a bike and get stronger, but I’m scared to death of the road, it’s well, great.
Start on a Peloton. start on a home trainer. Start on the track where there are no cars. and no brakes, but that’s a different story. and do something only tiny bit outta your comfort zone, not, miles out of your comfort zone. And then all of a sudden things become manageable.
’cause you get into these small bite-sized pieces, which are much easier to manage and much safer to manage. and, it does. These things don’t have to be risky. They don’t have to be risky. I spent a long time as a competition aerobatic pilot flying little single engine airplanes, straight at the ground at 200 miles an hour.
And it, it’s not risky If you are in control and you understand the limits, your limits, the airplane’s limits. it’s just another thing to do carefully, diving’s like that. Also, I’m a well-trained cave diver
[00:30:09] Tony Winyard: Okay.
[00:30:10] Jeff Seckendorf: I don’t find that risky,
but I’m way within my limits, of training and of comfort and, pushing slowly and so on that.
so I think, you’ve asked me the same question twice, which means I’m not either paying attention or I’m just saying whatever I want, but I think that,Do exercise, do train, get a coach, don’t get injured. and the way you don’t get injured is to start out with that as a priority, and then you can move as far as you want.
[00:30:39] Is scuba diving maybe more suited for older people as less exertion is needed?[00:30:39] Tony Winyard: would I be right in thinking, so going back to the scuba diving. I haven’t done it for a long time, but it would seem to require a lot, a much lower level of fitness, certainly than the cycling. So therefore, would it be much, in some ways, a better form of exercise for older people?
[00:30:56] Jeff Seckendorf: Yeah, I don’t think scuba diving’s exercise, I think it’s anti, it’s anti exercise, right? it’s more like tai chi than
[00:31:04] Tony Winyard: right.
[00:31:05] Jeff Seckendorf: But it’s funny because also with scuba diving, you have to be able to carry all that junk around,
right? So you do need some level of strength. And we advocate strength training all the time because most of the injuries we see in scuba diving are back injuries, like picking stuff up or walking on a boat with a tank on, things like that.
but it, once you’re in the water, the idea is anti exercise. You’re trying to keep your heart rate as low as possible, keep your breathing rate, consistently steady and. Because you have a limited air supply.
so I don’t see scuba diving as a way to move yourself to fitness, but I do see scuba diving as a way to move yourself into a fascinating world of recreation.
It has to be with, if you’re gonna use it as fitness, then the strength in endurance and all that comes from other stuff. Bike, run, swim, all that.
[00:31:52] Is there any breathwork training included?[00:31:52] Tony Winyard: And so would you in the scuba training that you do, is there any sort of, breath work at all?
[00:31:59] Jeff Seckendorf: It’s funny you said that. We have one of our instructors who is actually developing a breathing class for us. We haven’t done it yet, and we haven’t incorporated yoga and all that other stuff because, we’re still a bit mainstream. but it is a good idea and we haven’t pursued it. she brought this to our attention last year and we haven’t actually done anything about it yet, but I do think it’s a good idea.
[00:32:20] Tony Winyard: yeah.
[00:32:21] Jeff Seckendorf: Yeah.
[00:32:23] Tony Winyard: We, if people wanna find out more about you, and I’m guessing for doing something, for the two things you do for the cycling and the scuba diving, it has to be face-to-face. It’s not something you can do online. And so I’m guessing people will have to come to you if they’d like to take part in some of this.
[00:32:38] Jeff Seckendorf: on the scuba coaching thing, we have a model that works really well, long distance.
[00:32:42] Tony Winyard: Okay.
[00:32:42] Jeff Seckendorf: So we bring people into the program. Their coach can be anywhere. We manage all of the academic training, the critiques on pool sessions, things like that. And then we get them to a local instructor,for the in water training.
So it does work really well as a long distance program, which is another reason I think it’s unique. You can work at home and get 80% of it done. Then you just jump in the water with a camera and a buddy, and we critique that. You’re not tied to somebody else’s schedule and things like that. yeah, no, it doesn’t have to.
Same on cycling. my, my coach lives in, in, Colorado, and I see him in person twice a year. But, we communicate almost daily.
[00:33:24] How can people find out more about you?[00:33:24] Tony Winyard: And so where, what website would people go to if they wanna find out more about either of those?
[00:33:29] Jeff Seckendorf: for Scuba it’s simple. It’s utd scuba diving.com, U T D as in Unified Team Diving, which was the original name of the company. utd scuba diving.com. And to learn more about what I’m doing and me, we have a website called theinstituteofpurpose.org and it takes everything we’ve talked about, since we started,this conversation.
And it packs it into sort of an, overview of how to live with purpose, how other people are living with purpose, get some guidance on what you could do. it’s basically content about living with purpose. 30 second clips from people about what they think their purpose is, and slightly longer videos, five to eight minutes on
hearing other people talk a little more in depth about what they consider to be their purpose. And I think, this purposeful living, which is another way I think of talking about proactive living, right? it’s just living purposefully and people do lose purpose all the time. Lose a job, quit a job, retire from a job, and all of a sudden that job was your purpose.
kids go off to college, you’re now an empty nester. So you get that purpose is gone.
[00:34:42] Tony Winyard: Yeah.
[00:34:43] Jeff Seckendorf: you become a care partner for somebody who becomes ill or injured and your purpose has to change. Some people get in that scenario and have to leave a job and they’re like, my purpose is taking care of one person, which I love, but that’s just not doing it for me.
So then you have to reset your purpose, whatever that is. and so that’s why we did the Institute of Purpose, and it’s been a really fun, passion project to actually get this content out there for people to say, well, we, there’s two of us who have created this company. We both have done a ton of interesting stuff, and we can bring that vision to guiding other people to live a purposeful. Or in, in your case,a proactive existence that helps people. And when we talk about purpose, we always talk about it in terms of you don’t have to help a million people.
[00:35:32] Tony Winyard: You don’t have to cure cancer. There’s people all over the world working on stuff like that. But can you help one person?
[00:35:39] Jeff Seckendorf: Can you guide two people? Can you do something that makes one person say, oh, that’s cool. Maybe I’ll try it. Or a vision of it, or a version of it. Then I think you’re, you’re living with purpose or proactively.
[00:35:56] Tony Winyard: and as you say, just helping one person by helping one, one person, and the thanks you get from that is so rewarding.
[00:36:03] Jeff Seckendorf: It’s huge. It’s huge. Yeah. It’s not anything about,
you don’t have to be global. You can be micro and it works just as well.
[00:36:13] Favourite book[00:36:13] Tony Winyard: Yeah. Yeah. Changing the subject. Jeff, if,I’ve primed you for this before, so now’s the time. So a book that’s really moved you for any reason. what comes to mind?
[00:36:24] Jeff Seckendorf: somebody recently, like really recently, like a couple of months ago, suggested I read a book called Quit. By a woman named Annie Duke. So you may remember Annie Duke, she was a world-class poker player, but she’s a really interesting researcher, psychological researcher. And poker is the purest place where know when to hold them, know when to fold them, all that
[00:36:49] Tony Winyard: stuff.
[00:36:50] Jeff Seckendorf: So she wrote this book called Quit and it is the psychology of quitting,
[00:36:54] Tony Winyard: right? So this was, Offered to me by somebody on my coaching team because as I’m learning about the mental aspects of cycling, one of the things that I have to overcome was, okay, right this second I’m going full gas
[00:37:10] Jeff Seckendorf: it’s too hard, I’m gonna back off. And what I’m learning and had to learn and I’m learning every day, is how not to back off. How to not quit. But this book is, it’s one of the most interesting reads I’ve ever done. ’cause she really discusses the psychology of quitting, staying in, knowing when to stay in, knowing when to quit.
And it’s not about poker. she brings in poker analogies once in a while, but it’s about business, life, sports. It’s a fascinating book. and I’ve recommended it to so many people now. So it’s quit by Annie Duke, d u k e.
[00:37:49] Tony Winyard: Have you read any of her previous books?
[00:37:51] Jeff Seckendorf: I haven’t, I just realized she’s written two or three other books around this subject and they’re next on my list.
[00:37:57] Tony Winyard: I can’t remember the titles now, but they are excellent. They really are.
[00:38:01] Jeff Seckendorf: No, she’s a brilliant writer and has a way of explaining, and it was fun. when I did quit, I listened to it. I, it’s on some eight hour drive and she read it. there’s even a tighter personal connection. You get to the end of the book and you feel like, you know this woman.
[00:38:15] Favourite quote[00:38:15] Tony Winyard: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, Jeff, we’re about to finish, but before we do, quotation, have you got one you really like and why
[00:38:23] Jeff Seckendorf: Yeah. Years, decades ago I saw this written on a board at a workshop program, and it was billed as a anonymous japanese quote and it goes, “Vision without action is a daydream, but action without vision is a nightmare”. And I think that’s wonderful, right? It really sums up my vision of structured training.
It sums up my vision of think before you act, but be sure to act
[00:38:53] Tony Winyard: right because thinking gets you nowhere without the action. So vision without action is a daydream, and action without vision is a nightmare.
That’s a really good quote. Jeff. It’s been a pleasure. So thank you for taking the time to come on the show and yeah, best of luck in everything you do.
[00:39:11] Jeff Seckendorf: yeah. Grateful for it. And it was fun to meet you and have this conversation and, I hope people find it interesting,
[00:39:17] Tony Winyard: Cheers, Jeff.
Tune in next week for an enlightening episode with Dr. Tom Gedman. An impressive GP who is pioneering preventative health care. In our compelling conversation, Tom eloquently explains his ingenious blueprint for proactivity. This multi-faceted model masterfully merges medicine, lifestyle changes, supplements, and cognitive behavioral therapy techniques. Tom talks transparently about how this approach can empower people to take control of their health destiny.
You’ll hear Tom’s insightful driving metaphor about grasping the steering wheel of your life, rather than drifting aimlessly. And how being proactive means anticipating obstacles ahead of you. Discover how Tom is revolutionising GP appointments. He’s trimming ineffective small talk to give clear, concise lifestyle guidance in seconds. Then referring patients to his Blueprint lifestyle groups for in-depth education and support. So don’t miss hearing about Tom’s unique blend of qualifications, combining conventional medicine, functional medicine, and advanced psycho therapy skills. This gives him an unfair advantage when tackling chronic diseases. So join me next week for an uplifting and educational episode with the pioneering, Dr. Tom Gedman. Please subscribe to the art of living proactively on your favorite podcast app. Leave us a sparkling five-star review. And share this episode with friends. I appreciate your listenership. And look forward to seeing you next time.
Recommended book:Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away by Annie DukeFavourite Quote
"True learning begins when you achieve a certain level of mastery. It is then, when you're ready to let go of the ego and embrace a beginner's mindset, that the journey truly begins."
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TranscriptEmailDownloadNew Tab243 – Jeff Seckendorf
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welcome to another edition of the Art of Living Proactively and I’m thrilled to share a captivating conversation with Jeff Seckendorf in today’s show. Jeff is an accomplished adventurer and avid athlete pursuing astonishing accomplishments after 60. He aims to attempt a grueling one hour track cycling record in the 70 to 74 age group in just a couple of years time.
You’ll hear how Jeff taps into tenacious training and techniques to build the physical and mental strength needed for this daunting feat. We discuss how he structures his training regimen for optimal performance without injury. And he also coaches scuba diving, bringing a transformative approach to certification.
His customised coaching model aims to create better divers and better lives. Listen to learn how Jeff is pioneering this innovative methodology. And in our lively discussion, he shares his perspective on living purposefully and proactively. Discover how he continuously seeks and seizes opportunities guided by his vision, yet remains flexible, pivoting when one door closes.
So join us for this uplifting episode with the dedicated and dynamic Jeff Seckendorf. Please subscribe, leave a review on your favourite podcast platform, share this episode with friends so they can be motivated by Jeff’s mindset, and don’t forget you can see it on YouTube as well. Now, let’s get started. welcome to another edition of The Art of Living Proactively. My guest today, Jeff Seckendorf.
[00:01:40] Tony Winyard: How are you doing, Jeff?
[00:01:41] Jeff Seckendorf: I’m doing great. Great. Great to see you Tony.
[00:01:44] Tony Winyard: we’re in San Diego today. Have you always lived there?
[00:01:49] Jeff Seckendorf: I’ve been here for, I’ve been in Southern California for about 20 years.
I came through the film industry, so I was living in New York, moved here, worked for a while, and then exited the film industry for a second or third career.
[00:02:06] Breaking the US hour record
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[00:02:06] Tony Winyard: Jeff recently, he attempted to break the US Hour record in cycling for the 70 to 74 age group. for a start, there’s no way you look anywhere near that kind of age,
[00:02:17] Jeff Seckendorf: Well, actually that record attempt is coming up in a year and a half.
[00:02:21] Tony Winyard: all right.
[00:02:22] Jeff Seckendorf: So I’m still training for it at 70, but yeah, I turned 68 yesterday, so we’re calling it Jeff, 6.8.
[00:02:30] Tony Winyard: Wow. Okay. I love it. so let’s start from there then. Have you been cycling a long time?
[00:02:35] Jeff Seckendorf: I’ve been cycling all my life. But competitively only since I was around 50, so maybe for the last 18 years or so I’ve been racing. I raced on cross country skis as a kid. I’ve been a competitor all my life in different sports. But then in my early fifties, I’ve found triathlon.
[00:02:56] Tony Winyard: Okay.
[00:02:56] What Jeff learned from triathlons
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[00:02:56] Jeff Seckendorf: And and what I learned in triathlon is I love to run and hate to swim. it was a short-lived three or four years of racing triathlons. and then on my 60th birthday, I decided no more running.
[00:03:10] Tony Winyard: Okay.
[00:03:11] Jeff Seckendorf: I just got, I got to 60 running my whole life and never got injured. And I’m like, everybody I know is their knees are screwed up, their hips are screwed up, whatever. So I just said, all right, I’m just going full on bike.
And then somebody introduced me to the track. and a velodrome, which we have here in San Diego and another one an hour away in Los Angeles. and, I just love riding my bike on the track. So that became my sport is track cycling. And I know in the UK it’s also a huge, huge thing. you’ve got velodromes all over the place.
You have this hugely famous velodrome in Manchester and yeah.
[00:03:45] Tony Winyard: there’s a few directions we could go from what you’ve just said.
I want to go back a little bit. So you’ve mentioned that you started doing triathlons at the age of 50. Did something happen health-wise that made you start doing that? Or how did that all come about?
[00:03:57] Jeff Seckendorf: No, it was just seemed like a natural thing. you, a lot of my life and career and all of that has been just following the serendipity that comes with, oh, that looks like fun. Let’s try it. And, I was looking to spread out from the bike because I’d been on the bike my whole life and I have friends who are, Really committed ocean swimmers.
And I thought, well, that might be fun. So I did a couple of ocean swims, ’cause the ocean is just, 10 minutes from my house. And, I didn’t hate it at that point. And, and I’m good on the bike and I was a really good runner. And so it seemed like a natural thing. Let’s just try it. So I got a coach and I learned how to do it and I did pretty well, in my age group in triathlon, at least here in San Diego, where it’s a huge sport.
We were always racing for third because one and two was almost always taken by pros who got old, right? Ex pros who just aged up into my age groups and these are guys who were beating me by 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and it’s but then three to six positions would all be really tightly packed.
So it was always a race for third. I did pretty well getting a bunch of thirds, But it was fun. And then as, like I said, I just never really liked to swim and which is funny ’cause I’m an avid scuba diver. But, and then I decided to stop running and it, somebody took me to the track one night to watch the races and what I saw was a group of really happy people talking, joking, sitting around the infield. And then they’d jump on their bikes and they’d race for six minutes or eight minutes or something like that. They’d finish the race, they’d go back to the infield and have some fun and joke around and I thought, oh, that’s my sport. so I, got very involved in the track.
[00:05:42] Are there many people in the 70-74 age range?
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[00:05:42] Tony Winyard: And so at the age, you mentioned that you are competing, well, you’re aiming for this 70 to 74 age group in a couple of years time. Yeah. is there a lot of people in that still cycling in that age group?
[00:05:53] Jeff Seckendorf: Oh my God, yes. Yeah, it’s just not slowing down. And these records, so the hour record is how far can you ride your bike in an hour? It sounds like the simplest thing to do, and it’s one of the most complex and difficult things you can do in cycling, but you know, every year people are just attacking these records.
Right now in the US, the 70 plus hour record. Is farther or faster than the 65 plus hour record.
[00:06:20] Tony Winyard: Okay.
[00:06:20] Jeff Seckendorf: and all of my friends who are aging up are always like, oh crap, these people are fast. this is a goal and it’s a good goal and,I’m gonna chase it with a vengeance and I have another, 18 months when I, or 19 months when, because you race in the age of your calendar year.
[00:06:39] Tony Winyard: Okay.
[00:06:39] Jeff Seckendorf: So my birthday’s in May, but all of this calendar year, I’m racing at my current age. So starting January of 2025, I’ll be racing at 70. And so anytime after that I can try the record. I did have this idea that I should do one in December and one in January if they’re the same. And I’m ready and try to get ’em both, but we’ll see what happens.
I’m just, it’s a project to, to chase this record.
[00:07:02] How much training is involved?
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[00:07:02] Tony Winyard: So how much training does it involve? Are you cycling every day?
[00:07:07] Jeff Seckendorf: I’m doing something every day. I’m probably on the bike five or six days a week, maybe 15 hours, something like that, a week. and very structured. I have this amazing coach. I get structured workouts. I do them religiously. I don’t miss workouts. I hit the targets, I hit my numbers, and One of those believers, that process begets outcome. So if you do the process, the outcome becomes inevitable. So we’re on a target for, this next past two years and this next year and a half to hit this number at this particular time. So it’s basically a two year peaking process to get there. but it’s all about structured training. it’s, none of my training is random.
It’s all very focused and precise, which doesn’t make it any less fun.
I have a personality that really rises to this whole idea of, my workout’s on my calendar. I write it down and put it on a piece of tape on my bike, and I go out and I do these workouts and I love it.
[00:08:16] Tony Winyard: So are the workouts short and intense or, how do you do
[00:08:19] Jeff Seckendorf: Oh, it very, everything, very, it’s a structured process. yesterday I had a moderate hour and a half today I’ve got, a strength workout on the bike, which is, these very short bursts of high power. tomorrow I’ve got like a two and a half hour road ride.
Friday I’m racing. Sunday, I’m racing. So it’s all kind of this, there’s a method to the madness that I happily don’t have to understand. For me. I can coach others just fine, on the bike and fitness and so on. But coaching me, myself, yeah, we need an external genius for that one.
So would you be keeping track of things like your V02 max and I’m keeping track of, basically power and heart rate.
VO2 max. I’m a mortal. I’m not a elite athlete. I didn’t come through those ranks, so some things you can only change slowly or not at all.
So I don’t too much worry about the things I can’t change. I just worry about the things I can change, which is get stronger, don’t get injured, and work really hard.
[00:09:21] Will you compete in the centenarian decathlon?
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[00:09:21] Tony Winyard: Okay, so you’ve got these goals and as you say, you are gonna go for that record in a couple of years time. So I’m wondering, are you also further from that, if a couple of decades from that, are you looking, for example, to compete in the Centenarian Olympics? Are you familiar with that?
[00:09:38] Jeff Seckendorf: I am, I would love that. I would love that. Because, it’s like last man standing or last woman standing, right? I. If I can make it to 85 on the bike, the field diminishes every year. we’re having our 50th high school reunion this year, and I’m thinking we shouldn’t wait.
We should better do it now because, it’s gonna be a smaller group. yeah. So I, my intent is to just continue the training, the record runs. See what happens. and it, it’s funny, Tony, it’s super hard. this is not for the faint of heart because, and this is not to blow my own horn at all, but the, these events are really difficult.
you’re out there, it’s almost like a one hour sprint. So the physical training is probably only 20% of it, right? The mental training is the other. 80% or Yogi Berra said, Baseball is, what’d he say it was? 90%?
[00:10:41] Tony Winyard: Is it perspiration and inspiration.
[00:10:43] Jeff Seckendorf: 90% physical on the other half is mental or
yeah. and I think that’s it, right? So my biggest barriers are overcoming the mental aspects of,being able to go harder than I think I can go
not quitting.
[00:11:00] Tony Winyard: So you mentioned just now that you coach other people,
[00:11:03] Jeff Seckendorf: I do.
[00:11:04] You coach people?
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[00:11:04] Tony Winyard: in what capacity are you coaching other
[00:11:06] Jeff Seckendorf: So my, my real day gig is that I own a scuba certification and training agency, a company called U T D Scuba Diving, and in that company, So this is a scuba certification and training agency of the 20 or 30 or 40 in the world.
What we were able to do in that, because you know our bureaucracy is, you’re basically looking at it, is that we created a coaching model for training scuba divers.
This was a really interesting thing where we took a four day transactional class and we used the exact same model that I’m using on the bike. So we call the students. Clients and we call the instructors coaches and we give the SCUBA students this long structured process on becoming either a new scuba diver or a more advanced scuba diver using the coaching model.
So that’s been a really interesting thing, is to develop out this program that is a mirror program to endurance athletics, but for something not specific to endurance athletics. So that’s been cool. Then within the scope of that, I’m also a U S A certified cycling coach. So we also have a fitness component in there if they want it.
So I coach, amateur athletes, and I coach low, medium and high level scuba divers. and a little tiny bit of business coaching, but not much.
[00:12:32] Why did you feel a new approach was needed to train scuba diversTony Winyard?
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[00:12:32] Tony Winyard: And so why did you feel there needed to be a different approach to teaching people scuba diving?
[00:12:39] Jeff Seckendorf: So that’s a really good question. What I know from the bike is when I look at my whole life, work, family, marriage, relationships, business relationships, all of that, the bike makes me better, right? the commitment to training, the commitment to living a lifestyle that’s full of, health and fitness and super hard work that makes me better in all the other aspects of my life.
Not just on the bike. The bike becomes so such a tiny part of it. When you look at, well, I’m doing all this hard training, but it’s not all for the bike. It’s also I can be a better small business owner, a better, grandfather, a better husband, a better friend. So one of the things we do with the scuba coaching program is make sure that it instills lifestyle elements.
Sometimes it sneaks up on people. ’cause we don’t market this, we don’t say, okay, we’re going to put you in a scuba coaching program and your life is gonna get magically better. This works best when people discover it on their own. And so being able to take a coaching model and your coach, you understand this either in sports, some educational thing like we do in scuba diving or in business, which is a very common
thing. Now what we know is that, like on the bike coaching doesn’t just make you faster, it makes you better. In scuba diving. Coaching doesn’t just make you certified, it makes you better. In business coaching doesn’t make you just more efficient, it makes you better, a better manager, a better, more efficient worker, and so on.
In the scuba thing, we were just looking for a way to make people better, not necessarily just make them certified, which is what the scuba model has been forever. and we’ve been doing it now for a couple of years. It’s been incredibly successful. And, but we’re a small company, right? We’re a small scuba training agency.
So my goal, my, my dream is that this program gets copied. There’s no trademarks on it. There’s no. Copyright on the concept. I want it to become a more mainstream model. I want people to copy it. I’m happy to be first, but you know, I want everybody knowing about this model, and the only way that’ll happen is if it gets ripped off.
I
[00:15:14] You said this will make people better, what does that mean?
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Tony Winyard
[00:15:15] Tony Winyard: did the PADI training many years ago for scuba diving, and I’m interested when you say that your training is to make people better, what do you mean by better?
[00:15:27] Jeff Seckendorf: Better in life,
[00:15:28] Tony Winyard: Okay.
[00:15:29] Jeff Seckendorf: better in scuba diving, but better in life. So one of the things about the training you did in scuba diving is that it was very fast. You probably had a weekend or two weekends, and basically all you can do in that timeframe is they taught you how to use the gear and hopefully not kill yourself.
[00:15:46] Tony Winyard: Yeah. Well, I’m still here.
[00:15:47] Jeff Seckendorf: You’re still here, which is awesome. what we’re saying is that using the gear, which is all you can really teach in a weekend class, is only like 5% of it. learning how to dive, learning how to breathe, learning how to manage your body in the weightless environment, learning how to, be kind and sensitive to the environment.
All of this is, there’s so much more to scuba diving than putting on a tank and a regulator and going under water and kicking up the coral and scaring the fish and swimming away from your buddy, and all the stuff that happens in normal recreational scuba training. We teach the opposite of all of that.
we teach a model where people are never touching the bottom. They’re neutrally buoyant, they’re kicking efficiently, they’re using their breathing to control themselves in the water. Basically, they’re diving their body instead of letting their body dive you.
[00:16:41] Tony Winyard: Okay.
[00:16:42] Jeff Seckendorf: yeah, so we’ve just decided to rework the model.
we can do it, right? We’re a small company, we don’t need, we don’t need a million students. To be profitable. it’s been a really interesting run to, to see this model start to take in and dig in and to see people’s excitement on how the rest of their life is going as they get into any, a model of any structured training could be a sport.
It could be education, could be business. you know when you start training, when you start coaching business leaders,
hopefully they become better business leaders, but hopefully they translate that into their lives, right? So they become better humans.
That’s really the goal.
[00:17:29] The coaches also learn?
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[00:17:29] Tony Winyard: And if I’m hearing you right from what you’ve described so far, not only is it better for the people that are actually learning it, but it sounds like it’s better for the people that are teaching it as well.
[00:17:40] Jeff Seckendorf: Oh God, yes. Oh my God. Yeah. Well, you again, you know that as a coach, right? We have, there’s this very common saying in education that when the student learns 10 things, the teacher learns a hundred. there are a million models at this, right? the martial artists say you start learning when you get your black belt.
it, the farther you go in your path to mastery, whatever that mastery is, my goal is always that it ends in teaching, right? we look at students and clients coming into the U T D SCUBA program and one out of 20 I see come in and say, oh my God, you’d be an amazing instructor. let’s tickle that path a little bit. Let’s see if that’s something that interests you and let’s see if we can get you on that path. and your goal becomes not so much becoming your own personal best, it becomes making, guiding others to become their personal best. And that mindset of.
Let me take something I’m good at and help other people get good at. It also is part of this thing of better. I think becoming better means you get to share it. Becoming better means you get to guide others. Becoming better means you get to be, a competent and efficient guide or coach or teacher or instructor, whatever it happens to be.
it’s one of my goals in coaching that we make new coaches. Not everybody’s cut out for it. I have, clients who I’ve brought this up with and they’re like, no, not interested. Don’t wanna do it. Working on my own thing. and that’s, awesome. But then we also have clients who say, never thought of that.
Let’s explore it. And that guides people into this ability to say, well, I can make my path solid and how can I make others’ paths solid.
[00:19:24] Do you have many coaches?
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[00:19:24] Tony Winyard: So do you have many coaches teaching your method?
[00:19:28] Jeff Seckendorf: Well, every instructor, yeah, hundreds. Hundreds. They’re not all coaching, but they’re all able to,
[00:19:35] Tony Winyard: and are they mostly around your kind of location or is it geographically spread
[00:19:39] Can you do this remotely?
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[00:19:39] Jeff Seckendorf: this company is very strong in Europe and Asia, and moderately strong in the us so we’re scattered everywhere. and and it’s, as you went through your training with an agency called PADI you can go through your training with an agency like ours called UTD Scuba diving, or there are dozens of others in the alphabet soup of SCUBA training agencies.
So
most people walk into a dive center and say, I wanna learn to dive. They don’t care what the agency is that is going to give them the certification card.
[00:20:09] Tony Winyard: Yeah.
[00:20:09] Jeff Seckendorf: So we’ve just come up with a training methodology that we think is better or different enough that it gives people a choice. Do you want to train in this method or do you want to train in this method?
And if you don’t know, and you walk into that shop, most of our instructors guide you to this training method that we’ve developed, whether or not it’s coaching or a transactional class. Because again, we’re conscious of the environment, we’re conscious of team diving, we’re trying to be safe, and so on.
[00:20:39] What does proactive mean to you?
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[00:20:39] Tony Winyard: This, the podcast is called The Art of Living Proactively. what in comes into your mind when you think about being proactive and health?
[00:20:50] Jeff Seckendorf: I think it’s pretty much exactly what I just said. It’s to me, proactive living is always saying yes. Something comes up, gets in front of you. Say yes first, right? If you say no, that just shuts the door. If you say yes and it doesn’t work, well that’s okay, but you gave it a shot. So living proactively to me is seeing opportunities where they may not be obvious, seeing opportunities where you may have a vision of something that’s clear, but there’s a spur.
A left turn off that, that looks really interesting, that maybe you explore that a little bit. So you use opportunities to find opportunities that lead to opportunities. And then you’ve got this wonderful,track of living, really interesting stuff. And they don’t all have to be successful and they don’t have to last forever.
again, we have people come into the scuba coach. I had a guy come in for a month. Yeah, no, it’s not what I expected. I wanna leave and we’re like, awesome. Great. Door’s always open if you want to come back, but hopefully you’ll learned enough that this is not for you. Find another direction.
there’s that line about, when one door closes, 15 windows fly open. So when you bump into that closed door, just take a, it’s, it’s metaphor time. Take a step back. And look and see what windows are open. If this didn’t work, try this. If this didn’t work, try this.
where’s the spinoff of the thing that didn’t work? And then of course, I think part of it is also know when to say, when.
I don’t really believe in quitting while you’re ahead, but I think you should definitely quit while you’re behind. if something’s just not working for you, find something else.
looking through your podcast series, everybody has a different version of what proactive living means, and you do also, I’m sure. but mine is really about, dig the opportunities, love the opportunities, and never close a door on something that might be fun, even if it’s small.
you don’t have to, like cycling has taken over my life. In a lot of ways, right? I have, it’s basically one of my several full-time jobs. don’t have, it doesn’t have to be that, it could be gardening. You do two hours a week, but you know, I’m not much of a gardener.
My wife planted a vegetable garden this year for the first time, and she’s walking in the door with two little tiny cherry tomatoes. It’s look at these beautiful tomatoes, and there’s two, and they weigh like a gram each. And, but it gives her so much joy, to go out there and to water and to take care of them and prune them and pick them.
It’s it’s a purposeful thing for her. It’s costing us way more than just going to the store and buying some tomatoes. But it’s, there’s such beauty in it and such joy and love and what she’s doing in this very small little window,
which stacks on top of her career and she’s a cyclist also and so on.
it doesn’t have to be this massive thing. You don’t have to cure cancer or fly to the moon.
You just have to do something that helps one other person, I think.
[00:24:08] When did you develop this attitude?
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[00:24:08] Tony Winyard: Do you think, have you had that attitude for a long time or was it, when do you think it, there was a sudden point where that kind of developed.
[00:24:17] Jeff Seckendorf: No, I think I’ve been blessed with that concept forever. whatever career moment I’ve been in, I’ve always had a teaching element in it. I spent 30 years in the film industry, had a pretty successful career before I retired from that. And of those 30 years, I spent 25 of them also teaching.
Workshop programs, mentoring programs, things like that. So this has been part of my life forever. and now with cycling again, there’s no point in me just doing it on my own.
that’s the, why climb a mountain? Well, because it’s there attitude. And I think that, if you’re gonna climb a mountain because it’s there, you’re missing so much that you can do to help others.
Find purpose, find reason, find a, something interesting or some other spinoff that they didn’t know about that makes their life better, which in turn makes others’ lives better.
It’s a circle.
[00:25:09] As people turn 60 they get scared of injury
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[00:25:09] Tony Winyard: The impression I have is a lot of people as they get older, especially once they pass 60, and 60 seems to be a real mental barrier for some people. They are then scared off by doing things such as cycling because of fear of injury or whatever. what would you say to, and I’m guessing you are coming across people who are that sort of age and maybe they haven’t considered cycling.
do you come across people like that and, how would you talk to someone who maybe does have a fear of being injured at, in they’re 60, 70, or whatever?
[00:25:41] Jeff Seckendorf: that’s a good question because one of the things in coaching is that you’re not the fitness police.
You have to be open to bringing people into a program where they are, which means if you bump into someone who’s just not ready or not able, then you just have to say, okay, well cool. But if you run into somebody who has a spark of interest and this
project, whatever you’re bringing to the table, be it cycling or expanding a business or whatever is just something they hadn’t bumped into prior. And you can open their eyes to, well, here’s an a way to explore this newer vision of yourself,
then maybe you can try it. which doesn’t mean, I’ve been on a bike for
50 years, right? I didn’t just come to this Thursday and say, oh, I’m gonna go break an hour record. Although there are people who do that, it’s rarely successful. so I think a lot of this, to answer your question, because this is like one long tangent, is you have to address people where they are and people have to be ready to make some
proactive engagement into whatever they’re about to start. Otherwise, you’re just forcing your vision on someone else. and you know from kids, you can’t tell them anything. Because they, I have a 12 year old grandson who just, he knows everything and we know nothing and we exist with a tremendous amount of fun in that environment.
And it’s fine. Oh, you don’t know anything. I was like, the other day, what’s TikTok? And he’s oh, you don’t know what TikTok is. It’s no, I don’t know what TikTok is. tell me what TikTok is. Train me, educate me. So we try to give him opportunities to teach us, to open the door there and say, well, I can help somebody else, even though it’s my crazy grandfather.
[00:27:42] Tony Winyard: I guess what I was getting at is, I think a lot of people, once, when they reach 60 and above, they well and understandably have much more fear of injury and yet it’s so important. Well, it’s more important for that age group to be doing regular training in strength and many other areas of physical exertion.
[00:28:00] Jeff Seckendorf: Yeah, so to be very specific about that question, get a guide. Get a coach, go in with a idea that I need to increase my fitness, I need to increase my strength, I need to not be injured.
[00:28:17] Tony Winyard: And I think the key there is find the coach who sets that as your priority. I’m in the gym.
[00:28:23] Jeff Seckendorf: I cycle through a personal trainer. One or two cycles a year. And the, he’s a good friend of mine. I’ve been with him for years and years. And I go in for six or eight weeks and I come out and I go back in. And it all starts with on both of our ends, right? Me as the client and him as the coach, it’s okay, we’re gonna start slow and we’re gonna build up again, and we’re gonna go backward first, and we’re gonna not get you injured.
I’m going to lift 10 pounds, five. Kilos less than my normal weight that I could lift because I’m gonna get 99% of the benefit and I’m gonna get 30% of the chance of injury. So that, it’s that risk reward thing on injury that is, is tricky. And if somebody comes to me and says, Hey, I wanna ride a bike and get stronger, but I’m scared to death of the road, it’s well, great.
Start on a Peloton. start on a home trainer. Start on the track where there are no cars. and no brakes, but that’s a different story. and do something only tiny bit outta your comfort zone, not, miles out of your comfort zone. And then all of a sudden things become manageable.
’cause you get into these small bite-sized pieces, which are much easier to manage and much safer to manage. and, it does. These things don’t have to be risky. They don’t have to be risky. I spent a long time as a competition aerobatic pilot flying little single engine airplanes, straight at the ground at 200 miles an hour.
And it, it’s not risky If you are in control and you understand the limits, your limits, the airplane’s limits. it’s just another thing to do carefully, diving’s like that. Also, I’m a well-trained cave diver
[00:30:09] Tony Winyard: Okay.
[00:30:10] Jeff Seckendorf: I don’t find that risky,
but I’m way within my limits, of training and of comfort and, pushing slowly and so on that.
so I think, you’ve asked me the same question twice, which means I’m not either paying attention or I’m just saying whatever I want, but I think that,Do exercise, do train, get a coach, don’t get injured. and the way you don’t get injured is to start out with that as a priority, and then you can move as far as you want.
[00:30:39] Is scuba diving maybe more suited for older people as less exertion is needed?
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[00:30:39] Tony Winyard: would I be right in thinking, so going back to the scuba diving. I haven’t done it for a long time, but it would seem to require a lot, a much lower level of fitness, certainly than the cycling. So therefore, would it be much, in some ways, a better form of exercise for older people?
[00:30:56] Jeff Seckendorf: Yeah, I don’t think scuba diving’s exercise, I think it’s anti, it’s anti exercise, right? it’s more like tai chi than
[00:31:04] Tony Winyard: right.
[00:31:05] Jeff Seckendorf: But it’s funny because also with scuba diving, you have to be able to carry all that junk around,
right? So you do need some level of strength. And we advocate strength training all the time because most of the injuries we see in scuba diving are back injuries, like picking stuff up or walking on a boat with a tank on, things like that.
but it, once you’re in the water, the idea is anti exercise. You’re trying to keep your heart rate as low as possible, keep your breathing rate, consistently steady and. Because you have a limited air supply.
so I don’t see scuba diving as a way to move yourself to fitness, but I do see scuba diving as a way to move yourself into a fascinating world of recreation.
It has to be with, if you’re gonna use it as fitness, then the strength in endurance and all that comes from other stuff. Bike, run, swim, all that.
[00:31:52] Is there any breathwork training included?
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[00:31:52] Tony Winyard: And so would you in the scuba training that you do, is there any sort of, breath work at all?
[00:31:59] Jeff Seckendorf: It’s funny you said that. We have one of our instructors who is actually developing a breathing class for us. We haven’t done it yet, and we haven’t incorporated yoga and all that other stuff because, we’re still a bit mainstream. but it is a good idea and we haven’t pursued it. she brought this to our attention last year and we haven’t actually done anything about it yet, but I do think it’s a good idea.
[00:32:20] Tony Winyard: yeah.
[00:32:21] Jeff Seckendorf: Yeah.
[00:32:23] Tony Winyard: We, if people wanna find out more about you, and I’m guessing for doing something, for the two things you do for the cycling and the scuba diving, it has to be face-to-face. It’s not something you can do online. And so I’m guessing people will have to come to you if they’d like to take part in some of this.
[00:32:38] Jeff Seckendorf: on the scuba coaching thing, we have a model that works really well, long distance.
[00:32:42] Tony Winyard: Okay.
[00:32:42] Jeff Seckendorf: So we bring people into the program. Their coach can be anywhere. We manage all of the academic training, the critiques on pool sessions, things like that. And then we get them to a local instructor,for the in water training.
So it does work really well as a long distance program, which is another reason I think it’s unique. You can work at home and get 80% of it done. Then you just jump in the water with a camera and a buddy, and we critique that. You’re not tied to somebody else’s schedule and things like that. yeah, no, it doesn’t have to.
Same on cycling. my, my coach lives in, in, Colorado, and I see him in person twice a year. But, we communicate almost daily.
[00:33:24] How can people find out more about you?
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[00:33:24] Tony Winyard: And so where, what website would people go to if they wanna find out more about either of those?
[00:33:29] Jeff Seckendorf: for Scuba it’s simple. It’s utd scuba diving.com, U T D as in Unified Team Diving, which was the original name of the company. utd scuba diving.com. And to learn more about what I’m doing and me, we have a website called theinstituteofpurpose.org and it takes everything we’ve talked about, since we started,this conversation.
And it packs it into sort of an, overview of how to live with purpose, how other people are living with purpose, get some guidance on what you could do. it’s basically content about living with purpose. 30 second clips from people about what they think their purpose is, and slightly longer videos, five to eight minutes on
hearing other people talk a little more in depth about what they consider to be their purpose. And I think, this purposeful living, which is another way I think of talking about proactive living, right? it’s just living purposefully and people do lose purpose all the time. Lose a job, quit a job, retire from a job, and all of a sudden that job was your purpose.
kids go off to college, you’re now an empty nester. So you get that purpose is gone.
[00:34:42] Tony Winyard: Yeah.
[00:34:43] Jeff Seckendorf: you become a care partner for somebody who becomes ill or injured and your purpose has to change. Some people get in that scenario and have to leave a job and they’re like, my purpose is taking care of one person, which I love, but that’s just not doing it for me.
So then you have to reset your purpose, whatever that is. and so that’s why we did the Institute of Purpose, and it’s been a really fun, passion project to actually get this content out there for people to say, well, we, there’s two of us who have created this company. We both have done a ton of interesting stuff, and we can bring that vision to guiding other people to live a purposeful. Or in, in your case,a proactive existence that helps people. And when we talk about purpose, we always talk about it in terms of you don’t have to help a million people.
[00:35:32] Tony Winyard: You don’t have to cure cancer. There’s people all over the world working on stuff like that. But can you help one person?
[00:35:39] Jeff Seckendorf: Can you guide two people? Can you do something that makes one person say, oh, that’s cool. Maybe I’ll try it. Or a vision of it, or a version of it. Then I think you’re, you’re living with purpose or proactively.
[00:35:56] Tony Winyard: and as you say, just helping one person by helping one, one person, and the thanks you get from that is so rewarding.
[00:36:03] Jeff Seckendorf: It’s huge. It’s huge. Yeah. It’s not anything about,
you don’t have to be global. You can be micro and it works just as well.
[00:36:13] Favourite book
—
[00:36:13] Tony Winyard: Yeah. Yeah. Changing the subject. Jeff, if,I’ve primed you for this before, so now’s the time. So a book that’s really moved you for any reason. what comes to mind?
[00:36:24] Jeff Seckendorf: somebody recently, like really recently, like a couple of months ago, suggested I read a book called Quit. By a woman named Annie Duke. So you may remember Annie Duke, she was a world-class poker player, but she’s a really interesting researcher, psychological researcher. And poker is the purest place where know when to hold them, know when to fold them, all that
[00:36:49] Tony Winyard: stuff.
[00:36:50] Jeff Seckendorf: So she wrote this book called Quit and it is the psychology of quitting,
[00:36:54] Tony Winyard: right? So this was, Offered to me by somebody on my coaching team because as I’m learning about the mental aspects of cycling, one of the things that I have to overcome was, okay, right this second I’m going full gas
[00:37:10] Jeff Seckendorf: it’s too hard, I’m gonna back off. And what I’m learning and had to learn and I’m learning every day, is how not to back off. How to not quit. But this book is, it’s one of the most interesting reads I’ve ever done. ’cause she really discusses the psychology of quitting, staying in, knowing when to stay in, knowing when to quit.
And it’s not about poker. she brings in poker analogies once in a while, but it’s about business, life, sports. It’s a fascinating book. and I’ve recommended it to so many people now. So it’s quit by Annie Duke, d u k e.
[00:37:49] Tony Winyard: Have you read any of her previous books?
[00:37:51] Jeff Seckendorf: I haven’t, I just realized she’s written two or three other books around this subject and they’re next on my list.
[00:37:57] Tony Winyard: I can’t remember the titles now, but they are excellent. They really are.
[00:38:01] Jeff Seckendorf: No, she’s a brilliant writer and has a way of explaining, and it was fun. when I did quit, I listened to it. I, it’s on some eight hour drive and she read it. there’s even a tighter personal connection. You get to the end of the book and you feel like, you know this woman.
[00:38:15] Favourite quote
—
[00:38:15] Tony Winyard: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, Jeff, we’re about to finish, but before we do, quotation, have you got one you really like and why
[00:38:23] Jeff Seckendorf: Yeah. Years, decades ago I saw this written on a board at a workshop program, and it was billed as a anonymous japanese quote and it goes, "Vision without action is a daydream, but action without vision is a nightmare". And I think that’s wonderful, right? It really sums up my vision of structured training.
It sums up my vision of think before you act, but be sure to act
[00:38:53] Tony Winyard: right because thinking gets you nowhere without the action. So vision without action is a daydream, and action without vision is a nightmare.
That’s a really good quote. Jeff. It’s been a pleasure. So thank you for taking the time to come on the show and yeah, best of luck in everything you do.
[00:39:11] Jeff Seckendorf: yeah. Grateful for it. And it was fun to meet you and have this conversation and, I hope people find it interesting,
[00:39:17] Tony Winyard: Cheers, Jeff.
Tune in next week for an enlightening episode with Dr. Tom Gedman. An impressive GP who is pioneering preventative health care. In our compelling conversation, Tom eloquently explains his ingenious blueprint for proactivity. This multi-faceted model masterfully merges medicine, lifestyle changes, supplements, and cognitive behavioral therapy techniques. Tom talks transparently about how this approach can empower people to take control of their health destiny.
You’ll hear Tom’s insightful driving metaphor about grasping the steering wheel of your life, rather than drifting aimlessly. And how being proactive means anticipating obstacles ahead of you. Discover how Tom is revolutionising GP appointments. He’s trimming ineffective small talk to give clear, concise lifestyle guidance in seconds. Then referring patients to his Blueprint lifestyle groups for in-depth education and support. So don’t miss hearing about Tom’s unique blend of qualifications, combining conventional medicine, functional medicine, and advanced psycho therapy skills. This gives him an unfair advantage when tackling chronic diseases. So join me next week for an uplifting and educational episode with the pioneering, Dr. Tom Gedman. Please subscribe to the art of living proactively on your favorite podcast app. Leave us a sparkling five-star review. And share this episode with friends. I appreciate your listenership. And look forward to seeing you next time.
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The Importance of Healthspan and LongevityHow would you like to get the benefits of healthy living now and for decades to come? That’s the beauty of focusing on your healthspan – the period spent in good health before chronic diseases kick in.
Unlike just striving for longevity, optimising your healthspan is about enjoying each day to the fullest. And the great news? The positive impacts start right away.
Read on to discover why you should focus on your healthspan, and how small steps today can lead to big rewards immediately and through your later years.
What is Healthspan and Why Does it Matter?Healthspan is all about maintaining quality of life as you age. It goes hand in hand with longevity, but it’s not just about piling up the years. Key markers like cardiovascular fitness, strength, and mental sharpness are true indicators of overall wellness.
Imagine being able to play actively with your grandkids into your 70s. Or having the vitality to travel the world freely in your 80s and 90s. That’s the type of fulfilling healthspan we should all aspire to.
And here’s a powerful fact: being in the top few percent in metrics like VO2Max has an even greater positive impact than negatives like obesity or high blood pressure.
So take care of your healthspan now and you’re far more likely to be blessed with mobility, independence and an active retirement later on
Why This Matters To MeThis topic holds special significance for me, because I have witnessed loved ones struggle with declining health that severely impacted their quality of life in later years. Both of my brothers and my father passed away in their fifties. And I helped care for my mother as she experienced great pain and loss of mobility and dignity in her final years, despite her unwavering faith in western medicine alone to help her, not once they they ever suggest she make changes to lifestyle or her nutrition..
Seeing the limitations of the current healthcare model through my family’s suffering fueled my passion for empowering people to take control of their healthspan. Small consistent changes to our daily habits can help us avoid or delay the onset of chronic disease and disability. We all deserve to thrive with strength, autonomy and purpose, not just survive. By taking action today, you can gift your future self the vitality to fully embrace each day.
The Immediate Payoff You’ll Get from Focusing on HealthspanUnlike some healthy practices that only provide delayed benefits, optimising your healthspan pays dividends now.
Just by starting to exercise, sleep better, reduce stress and make changes to your diet, you’ll likely experience:
– More energy and mental clarity
– Better mood and reduced anxiety
– Deeper, more restorative sleep
– Relief from aches and pains
– Improved lab test results
– Reduced risk of infections and acute illness
Imagine getting those rewards today, while also setting yourself up for the future. That’s the beauty of healthspan – you get immediate AND long-lasting benefits.
It’s like getting a “2 for 1” deal on healthy living!
4 Tips to Start Optimising Your Healthspan NowFocusing on healthspan doesn’t require radical overnight changes. Small steps add up over time. Here are 4 easy ways to get started:
- Incorporate More Movement Into Your Day
Take the stairs, park further away, walk during lunch – move more throughout your day. - Eat an Anti-Inflammatory Diet
Boost omega-3s, antioxidants, and fibre while limiting sugar and saturated fats. - Improve Your Sleep Habits
Go to bed 15 minutes earlier, limit electronics before bed, and sleep in a cool room. - Try a Relaxation Practice. Even 5 minutes of deep breathing or meditation can lower your stress levels. Want to Learn More?For more details on how to assess and optimise your healthspan for lifelong rewards, join my upcoming webinar.
Save your seat for the “Unlock the Secrets of Aging Gracefully” webinar on Monday, Oct 23rd at 7pm.
This webinar will sell out, so click here to register today and secure your spot!
Focus on your healthspan now for a rewarding journey ahead. Your future self will thank you!
In summary, focusing on both healthspan and longevity is not just about adding years to your life but adding life to those years. Take action today—your future self will thank you.
You can enjoy the first-order benefits today while investing in a healthier future. Healthspan is the best of both worlds
Additional ResourcesBooks:
- “The Longevity Diet” by Valter Longo
- “Lifespan” by David A. Sinclair
- “Outlive” by Dr Peter Attia
Articles:
- The Science of Longevity
- How to Increase Your Healthspan
Webinars and Courses:
- Unlocking the Secrets of Aging Gracefully
- The Science of Healthspan
Websites:
- The Longevity Forum
- The Healthspan Initiative
FootnotesSource for VO2 max and muscular strength metrics
Source for muscle health study
Source for mitochondrial health study
Source for benefits of focusing on healthspan
The post Feel Good Now and Later: Why Focusing on Your Healthspan Pays Off Big Time appeared first on Tony Winyard.
In this episode of “The Art of Living Proactively,” Tony Winyard engages in a conversation with Dr Catherine Steele, the behavioural sciences director and academic advisor at The Tree of Life, a program focused on sustainable wellness. Dr Steele shares her journey of discovering game-changing books that challenged traditional notions of health and promoted alternative approaches to wellness. The discussion revolves around behaviour change, nutrition education, the coaching market, and the importance of creating a healthy workplace. She emphasises the power of small steps and knowledge-sharing in making positive changes in personal health and the wider community.Action Steps and Call to Action:Ready to embrace the power of your choices and live proactively? Here are a few actionable steps inspired by Dr. Catherine Steele’s wisdom:
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Educate Yourself: Knowledge is power, especially when it comes to your health. Start by expanding your understanding of nutrition, lifestyle medicine, and alternative approaches to well-being. Seek out books and documentaries that challenge conventional wisdom and help you make informed choices.
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Take Small Steps: Rome wasn’t built in a day, and sustainable change doesn’t happen overnight. Start by making small, gradual changes to your daily habits. Whether it’s opting for fresh, whole foods over ultra-processed alternatives or incorporating daily movement into your routine, every small step brings you closer to a healthier, more vibrant life.
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Connect with Communities: Surround yourself with like-minded individuals who share your wellness journey. Join online forums, attend workshops or conferences, and engage with communities dedicated to holistic health. Learning from others’ experiences can be inspiring and provide valuable insights to fuel your own transformation.
Call to Action: Now is the time to take ownership of your health and well-being. Don’t wait for a wake-up call or a health crisis to motivate you to make positive changes. Start small, celebrate progress, and embrace the power of your choices.
Chapters:00:00 Intro
03:16 What led you to psychology?
06:00 Tell me about the book you are writing?
08:29 So the book sounds like it’s about being proactive?
09:50 What demographic is it aimed at?
11:23 What is your role at The Tree of Life?
12:55 The Tree of Life could be helpful to so many people?
15:01 Which countries have a better approach to health?
16:08 What attracted you to health coaching?
17:18 What is a health coach?
18:36 What myths are there about behaviour change?
20:23 Being kinder to our future selves
21:55 Peter Attia and the Centenarian Olympics
23:52 Sean Stevenson and junk food
25:50 A country which banned jumk food advertising
27:28 What changes would you like to see regarding children and processed foods?
29:26 How education might change because of AI
31:07 The UK & International Health Coach Association
31:36 Is the number of health coaches increasing in the UK?
32:52 Which book has really moved you?
36:14 How can people find out more about you?
36:37 What is your favourite quote
38:13 Quote investigator and the origin of that quote
39:49 Episode 239 next week with Steven Borden
Guest Bio:Dr Catherine Steele, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Leicester, is described by her friends as being similar to a Jack Russell due to her enthusiastic nature and diverse interests. She leads the university’s postgraduate program, which focuses on occupational psychology, general psychology, and coaching. In addition to her teaching and research responsibilities, she also serves as the behavioral sciences director and academic advisor for the cancer coach. Dr Steele is the research lead for the division of coaching psychology and runs her own small business, Turquoise Wellbeing, where she provides coaching and coaching supervision. Her work revolves around workplace health, coaching, and coaching psychology, which are subjects she is passionate about.
Watch this episode on YouTube Transcript238 – Catherine Steele[00:00:00] IntroWelcome to the Art of Living Proactively, episode 238 with Catherine Steele. And in this episode. I discussed with Dr. Catherine Steele about her background in psychology and occupational health, her current work in coaching, academic research and writing, and she provides an overview of what health coaching is as far as facilitating behaviour change and supporting clients in enacting sustainable habits. She emphasizes about empowering individuals to take charge of their health, regardless of workplace wellness programs. And she really advocates for a more proactive root cause approach to lifestyle medicine and stresses modeling, healthy living for children through education. And overall she conveys the importance of self-awareness, motivation, community support, and education in making incremental changes for longterm health. Catherine is also part of the Tree of Life. The Cancer Coach program. And we discuss many issues around that as well. So that’s this episode with Catherine Steele episode 238. I hope you enjoy this episode, if you do get some value from this please do share it with anyone who would really appreciate this. Remember the episode is also on youtube you can watch the actual video of Catherine and i discussing things Please do leave a review and hope you enjoy this episode.
[00:01:26] Tony Winyard: welcome to The Art of Living Proactively. My guest
today is Catherine Steele. How are you, Catherine?
[00:01:32] Catherine Steele: I’m good. Thanks, How are you?
[00:01:34] Tony Winyard: I’m good. Oh, actually, I, I guess, should I refer to
you as Dr. Catherine Steele?
[00:01:39] Catherine Steele: Yeah, I mean that’s the official, I suppose. I’m not particularly precious about it, but yeah. Won’t make you do it all the way through.
[00:01:46] Tony Winyard: Right. Okay. So, and, and Catherine and I know each other from, I did a course with the FMCA to Functional Medicine Coaching Academy a couple of years ago, and Catherine was my facilitator, wasn’t it? Yeah,
[00:01:59] Catherine Steele: facilitator.
[00:02:00] Tony Winyard: So that’s where we’ve, and then since then, we’ve sort of crossed paths a few different times and with the UK Health Coach Association and, and other, other ventures as well.
And you’ve got your, seems like you’ve got your hands in many pies what we’ve, what you’re doing in Leicester University and Cancer Coach and the UK Health Coach Association and so on. So do you, I was thinking, how do I introduce you because you do so many things, so I think it’s better you introduce yourself and what all the things you do.
[00:02:26] Catherine Steele: Yeah, I’ve got friends that describe, I’m a bit like a Jack Russell. You know, I kind of get, I’ve got sort of lots of enthusiasm for, for lots of different things. So my main role is I’m an associate professor of psychology at the University of Leicester and I lead their postgraduate program. So, That looks at sort of occupational psychology, general psychology, and also at coaching.
So that’s my main job, which is sort of teaching, research and practice. There, I’ve also got a role as behavioral sciences director and academic advisor for the cancer coach. And then, you know, again, I do sort of various things. So I’m currently the research lead for the division of coaching psychology.
So, yeah, lots of, lots of little bits and pieces. I run a small business called Turquoise Wellbeing, where I do my own coaching and coaching supervision. So it all falls under the remit really, of, workplace health, coaching and coaching psychology. So that’s the anything to do with those things I’m interested in.
[00:03:16] What led you to psychology?[00:03:16] Tony Winyard: Well, let’s start with psychology. So what. When did you, I’m presuming you did a like degree. Was that how you first got into psych? What? What was it that made you want to go into that in the first place?
[00:03:29] Catherine Steele: I think, you know, a long, long time ago, ’cause it was my, it was my first degree. I’ve always been really interested in people. I have a really curious nature in terms of strengths. You know, curiosity is a strength. I think. I’m very interested in who people are, how we interact together, what makes a world, what makes us all kind of tick.
So that really interests me. And then as I was doing my undergraduate degree, I think everyone goes into it wanting to be a clinical psychologist. That’s what we all want to do. Or at the time, ’cause it was sort of in the nineties, everyone wanted to be cracker for anyone that can remember that in, in the uk as in forensic psychologist working in the prison service.
But then I was introduced to occupational psychology, which is about psychology, applied to work. And that just really interested me ’cause I thought well work affects everybody. You know? Hopefully we’re not all gonna meet a forensic psychologist, we won’t all meet a clinical psychologist, but we all have something to do with work.
Even if that’s unemployment, volunteering, you know, we have a connection with the workplace. So, And I’d never really thought of that from a psychological perspective before. So that sparked my interest and sort of followed on from there really.
[00:04:32] Tony Winyard: And so where did you go from there? I mean, obviously, you know, I know all about the stuff. Of F M C A and UK Health Coach Association and so on. But what, what happened after you did that degree?
[00:04:42] Catherine Steele: So I did a master’s, in occupational psychology and I started working in human resources. So I was working in hr. Fairly quickly realized that wasn’t quite what I thought it was. ’cause I thought it was very much about supporting the employees in the workplace, and I think it is much better now, but obviously there’s an organizational element to it as well.
And that didn’t really interest me as much. I was much more interested in the individual aspects. At that point I was doing work in coaching as well, got introduced to coaching through that work. I then got offered a PhD, which was sponsored by a police service. And that was actually looking at careers, so looking at people’s career development and how organizations supported careers.
And I think tangentially from that, I got interested in workplace health and workplace wellbeing. So, You know, when you start to look at how you manage somebody’s career, you inevitably, it’s a trajectory, isn’t it? So you start to look at, you know, why people would want to stay within one organization, why they might not wanna stay in an organization.
And then I think I was just at a stage in my life where relatives were starting to experience health challenges and it all kind of came. You know, came together and a lot of those were stress related. So then after the PhD, I worked in a consultancy for a while and then in about, probably about 2010, went back to academia and then started a full-time academic post.
[00:06:00] Tell me about the book you are writing?[00:06:00] Tony Winyard: Cool. And you mentioned before we started recording about how you and Penny Kechagioglou are in the process of writing a book. So do you wanna bring us up? Well let everyone know about that.
[00:06:09] Catherine Steele: Yeah, so a passion for both of us, I think is about the workplace
so we are both really passionate about health at work and also knowing that all the stats are showing us that, you know, sickness, absences are high, rates of chronic illness in the working age are going up.
So, you know, it’s a problem for organizations, but it’s a problem for individuals as well. So it’s affecting kind of both sides of, of that. There’s a lot when you talk about workplace wellbeing. My experience with that is a lot of people look at stress and burnout. That’s the, when you think about what wellbeing at work, it’s stress and it’s burnout or it’s mental health and you have fantastic schemes like Mental Health first Aid.
MIND has a great site around kind of workplace wellbeing, but taking our sort of functional medicine background, you mentioned that, that we sort of met at F M C A, the Coaching Academy. There’s that root cause piece that for me is really missing in workplace health. So much of how we work, if we use our kind of branches in terms of, you know, functional medicine and our pillars of health is toxic.
You know, a lot of people don’t have time to eat properly. They don’t sleep properly. Rest isn’t valued. There’s certainly no time for movement and that’s got worse. I think as as people are working from home, as you, you’re not even moving between offices, let alone moving how we are designed. As humans to move.
So we are kind of hoping to present a bit of a different approach, I think with the book in terms of really looking at root cause health and what individuals can do about it. You know, to try and empower individuals. I think quite often we think, well, we can’t do it because our workplace is toxic, or our managers are toxic.
But really from a coaching perspective, looking at, well, how do we empower individuals to, to take charge of their health regardless to a certain extent of what the workplace is. There are always little steps that, that you can take. But also, you know, the, another part of it will be aimed at sort of managers and senior leaders.
You know, how do you create a really healthy workplace? You know, people don’t want to recruit talent and have really good talent to have it fall over in, it’s in their forties and fifties, or even earlier as, as we’re seeing now. ’cause then you’re losing people and then the organization’s got sickness, rates. So what does a really healthy workplace look like? You know, and it’s not. Bringing in cakes for everyone’s birthday . It’s not the mild track around outside. It’s so much more than that. But I think it’s an area that isn’t really explored that much. So yeah, it’s a very, really, really early days, but a project we’re both really excited about
[00:08:29] So the book sounds like it’s about being proactive?[00:08:29] Tony Winyard: So in a way, from what you just said, is it a lot of it, well, some of it is about being more proactive.
[00:08:36] Catherine Steele: Yeah, absolutely. In terms of, of the podcast. Yeah. It’s about being proactive, but it’s also about knowledge, I think, isn’t it? Because I think, you know, we talk about this in health coaching. I think it’s insulting to say that people don’t know what to do to support their health. It’s, it’s actually putting in the structures and the support and the mechanisms to be able to put it into place.
It’s hard, you know, it, it’s hard to buck the trend. It’s hard to be the only person drinking water while everybody else is having wine. It’s hard to, you know, Be the person who’s made their own Tupperware salad when everyone else is going to the canteen and having fish and chips. You know, it, it, it’s quite difficult to be that person.
So how do you get that accountability? How do you get teams to work together and, and how do you really sell the benefits? You know, that you are going to feel so much better if you do this? You, are, you know, from a manager, your team are going to perform so much better if you enable this, if you have different food in the canteen, if you have different things available.
I mean, there’s been quite a lot of interesting stuff around this four day working week. In the UK at the minute, and I think that’ll be really interesting to see what happens. You know, just giving people another day of leisure time, a bit more autonomy because that’s a big one for health as well as having autonomy.
Yeah, I’m really interested to see what comes out of these little experiments around that.
[00:09:50] What demographic is it aimed at?[00:09:50] Tony Winyard: And so who is the book aimed at for a particular demographic or who, who is that aimed at?
[00:09:55] Catherine Steele: Well, we’ve kind of said anyone in work, you know, just to try and keep the audience nice and big. , but I think. There will definitely be a focus for managers and HR professionals within it. So looking at people that are responsible for workplace occupational health physicians as well. We’ve said gps ’cause obviously, you know, gps are at the front end of this.
They see the people that are, you know, really struggling and, and are, are suffering from those things and stress and burnout. But it’s then exploring a little bit more, you know, what’s actually causing that. What is it about the way that workplace or that work team is structured that’s causing that? And it’s often multifaceted, isn’t it?
It’s not one thing.
[00:10:31] Tony Winyard: And have either you or Penny written a book before.
[00:10:35] Catherine Steele: Yes, both of us have. Yeah. . Yeah, I’ve written sort of academic text, so textbooks and also done some chapters in, in edited books. Penny’s written most recently a book on leadership in the n h s as well. So yeah, we’ve both got experience. We both love writing. So uh, yeah, a bit of, a bit of a passion project hopefully for us both.
[00:10:54] Tony Winyard: So have you got a plan a date? You hope you would get the book out by?
[00:10:58] Catherine Steele: Yesterday I think realistically it’s at least 12 months, isn’t it? Between sort of editing and, and things. So we’re just still negotiating and sort of coming up with the final structure at the minute. Working on things like sample chapters as well. But yeah, I it for, for me, and I know for her as well, it feels like a book that’s necessary and a book that’s needed and is quite timely.
So, yeah, it’s just fitting in the day job, isn’t it, you know, whilst also keeping ourselves healthy and well, is the challenge.
[00:11:23] What is your role at The Tree of Life?[00:11:23] Tony Winyard: A few months ago on this, or by the time this episode comes out, it will be a few months. Luke Luke Watts from the cancer coach was, was a guest on this podcast, and obviously you are involved with the cancer coach as well. So anyone, for anyone who didn’t catch the episode, could you briefly explain what is the cancer coach and what is your role in there?
[00:11:41] Catherine Steele: Yeah, I mean, so I’m involved with The Tree of Life, which is sort of part of the, of the Cancer coach sort of organization. So The Tree of Life is an online program designed at sort of preventative healthcare. So following the sort of four, you know, the main pillars of, of health. And, and it’s about, you know, again, being proactive and looking at what you can do to support your health.
So, My role with the organization as a is I’m the behavioral sciences director and academic advisor. So we are gonna be looking at things like engagement also working with a team of health coaches as well to look at how we actually enact that change so we can give people the knowledge. Design programs it gives people the knowledge.
But to that holy grail piece is, is the how, you know, how do you use behavioral science to actually enact change, to facilitate change, and also sustainable change. So trying to bring some of my knowledge from sort of psychology background and, and behavioral sciences background into the programs that they offer and also the evidence-based piece as well.
You know, we always wanna be really careful with what we’re doing in this area. ’cause it’s, you know, it is open to critique. That’s, that’s the nature of it. So, The more firmly attached to the evidence base we can be and really understanding what good evidence looks like. I think that’s really important with in this sort of commercial health space to have that, have that attachment.
[00:12:55] The Tree of Life could be helpful to so many people?[00:12:55] Tony Winyard: So the Tree of Life, when is there’s, a, as you said, it’s like an education aspect to it. It’s, I mean, it, could be, it could be really helpful to so many people if we, if, if the word, if the marketing works out well and it gets, gets out to many people, it could be, it could help a lot of people start to become more proactive in, in a way, I guess.
[00:13:19] Catherine Steele: Absolutely. I mean, the potential for, for programs like The Tree of Life, I think are, are huge. And I’m, I was actually in a meeting with somebody else, something else around coaching this morning, and I think the, there is, it’s so, so timely. There is such a need at the minute. People are struggling.
People have been struggling, I think for a long time. People are aware that, you know, chronic illness, I mean, I’m in my early forties and I’m already seeing a lot of my friends, you know, poly seeded, struggling, and you know, we, we’ve got young kids, you know, we don’t wanna be feeling like that at this stage of our life.
You know, Yeah. that’s how you might wanna, don’t really wanna feel like it in your sixties and seventies either, but you certainly don’t wanna be thinking like it in your late thirties and forties. That’s, that’s not okay.
And I think that’s really concerning when we look at this. I mean, I think the cancer diagnosis at the minute in working age adults is really high.
And and, and again, we’re seeing younger and younger diagnosis of things like autoimmune disease fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue. I think we do really need to look at what’s the cause, how are we living, how are we contributing to, to this? And that’s not a, it’s a really difficult conversation to have, isn’t it?
Because I think it can very easily stray into blame. And people almost taking them too much personal responsibility for it. ’cause it’s not about that. It’s about, this is the environment that we’re in. There are all kinds of reasons that we could talk about as to why we’re in the environment that we’re in.
And I’m far beyond, you know, my, my expertise. , it’s okay. So how do we recognize that? And then just take those little steps one by one to, to make it different. And also it’s a bit like osmosis, isn’t it? It’s how do we kind of filter it out to, to other people? So you know, you see somebody over there looking really shiny and well, what are they doing , and how can I get some of that, you know?
That’s how I like to see it sort of happening as part of communities really.
[00:15:01] Which countries have a better approach to health?[00:15:01] Tony Winyard: Are you aware of any countries that are doing this well, that are, do have a sort of a better approach, say than the UK and the US anyway?
[00:15:11] Catherine Steele: I mean, I’m sure you, you’ll know Tony about the Blue Zones. I’m reading Dr. Mark Hyman’s book, actually. They’re forever young at the minute. And he, he talks about the time that he’s spent in places like Sicily and there’s definitely other, other countries that do it better or do it differently.
And that Are just more, I think even in the UK there are probably different areas that are doing it differently and, and doing it better. So I live in quite a rural area, for example, and I know. That it’s much easier for me here to get out and go for a really long walk that’s kind of hilly. It’s outside. I’m getting, you know, all the fractals from nature and, and really getting a different experience to when I’ve lived more in a city center.
And it’s quite a different experience. I can still get out and go for a walk, but it might be by a main road. It’s just, it’s just different, isn’t it? But on the other hand here, from a community perspective, it’s probably more isolated than when I was living, you know, somewhere where there were literally people on the doorstep.
There were coffee shops on the doorstep, so it’s easy. It’s all about balance, isn’t it? And finding what works for you, I think, and, and knowing yourself well enough to know what works for you.
[00:16:08] What attracted you to health coaching?[00:16:08] Tony Winyard: So let’s talk about the coaching that you do. What was it that attracted you to coaching?
[00:16:14] Catherine Steele: Good. It was such a long time ago. That’s a really interesting question I think I’ve ever been asked that. I think it’s my curiosity again. I’ve got a very solution focused nature, which is both a blessing and a curse, I think. Really interested in sort of looking at what the problem is and looking what the potential solutions are.
And I think coaching, you know, appealed to that sign know very much goal driven, goal directed, looking at, you know, exploring solutions. It’s facilitative as well. So I think I was in a teaching role at the time and I think there’s a lot of coaching in, in teaching, particularly in, in higher education.
So I thinking about, you know, how do we get people to transfer their learning? How do we get people to change I think, you know, when I was in consultancy I was also working a lot in things like assessment centers and talent development centers and you know, again, there’s a lot of coaching in that, you know, how do you get people to be the best they can be?
And I guess gradually that’s just been translated into, okay, so how do we get people to feel the best that they can, you know? So from a organizational perspective in terms of talent and coaching people to, to really perform well, to, actually, there are other things underneath this as well and just not just about behaviors and competencies, it’s actually about lifestyle choices.
[00:17:18] What is a health coach?[00:17:18] Tony Winyard: I think a lot of people don’t really understand what, what a health coach is. Could, could you explain what, what is a health coach?
[00:17:26] Catherine Steele: I can try, I mean, It’s so many things, isn’t it? I mean, a health coach, you know, they’re not an expert. They’re not an expert in you. They’re not an expert in your condition. So you might have a diagnosis, you know, they’re not there to be the clinician that knows everything about your con condition, but they are there to help you facilitate change.
So to me a health coach is somebody who has a knowledge of health and an understanding of, of what it takes to be healthy. But then they are also an, but they are an expert in behavior change. To me, health coaches are behavior change experts. That’s where they’re, that’s, that’s this golden piece that they have is they know how to facilitate behavior change.
They know how to support you with behavior change. They’re not doing it for you. I think really skilled health coaches are also good at that challenge piece because change isn’t easy. We know change isn’t easy. You know, if it was, we’d all be doing it. You know, if it was really easy, we’d just be doing it.
And it’s not, and we’d be doing it consistently not like this, which is how for most of us, you know, change, change happens. So I think there’s a big thing about the way health coaches challenge us gently and in the right direction. But yeah, I think health coaching is about being a behavior change expert with a knowledge of health.
[00:18:36] What myths are there about behaviour change?[00:18:36] Tony Winyard: Is there anything that you would say any myths about behavior change? Things people think about behavior change that aren’t really true? I.
[00:18:47] Catherine Steele: Ooh, Things people think about behavior change that aren’t really true that it’s all about discipline. All about discipline and if we were just more disciplined and we were better people, then we’d be, we’d be, be better people. And I think that’s quite a, a negative way of looking at it. It’s sort of like the New Year’s Eve effect, isn’t it?
And I know we’ve spoken about this before, I’m sure at F M C A, you know, 31st of December, well, from tomorrow I’m gonna be a completely different person. I mean, it’s just not realistic, is it? And if I don’t, then I’ve failed. You know, I think we can be really hard on ourselves when it comes to, to behavior change.
And, and as soon as we feel or get that taste that we failed, then we just give up. So I think that’s a, a big, it’s not just about discipline, it’s about really understanding your motivation. It’s about really understanding why you want to do something you know, There are various sort of experts and the names escape me now, the guy that does a lot of work around reverse engineering.
So basically, you know, how do you wanna feel when you’re 90, therefore what do you need to do today? And I think that’s really important. And if that isn’t just about what I need to get on with it and be better, it’s about, what I need to really think about how do I wanna feel at that age and, and what do I want my life to look like and all.
If I want that, then I probably need to go to that yoga class today, and that’s probably the most important thing on my to-do list. Or I will skip that cake or I’ll save the bottle of wine till Friday rather than tonight. You know, it, it’s just those little things, isn’t it? That if we think about much further ahead and that actually needs to impact our day-to-day and, and yeah, that isn’t just about self-discipline or failing or not being good enough.
It’s so much deeper than that.
[00:20:23] Being kinder to our future selves[00:20:23] Tony Winyard: Mm. One thing about behavior changes that I sometimes think about is we, many people are not, not as kind to themselves as they could be. Now. We all probably need to be a lot kinder to ourselves than, than we are and, and in an aspect of that is, We also need to be kind to our future selves. And so how, you know, if our future selves in 20 years time, there’s certain things that if, that if we do, do now certain habits, behaviors is gonna be much kinder to our, our future self in 20 years time.
It’s trying to put that across sometimes to people and get ’em to under sort, understand that.
[00:21:04] Catherine Steele: Yeah, definitely. And it’s, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m a health coach. I try and, you know, I think we all do our best, don’t we? And we do the best we can, but it’s. I mean, there is an element, I suppose, of committing to practice it, isn’t there? So I journal quite a lot and I will very often journal about my future and, and, and, and that kind of, and if I do it first thing in the morning, that tends to help me keep on track.
But that’s just for me. That’s why I think this, this self-awareness is important, you know? And again, what we want in the future is very individual, isn’t it? It’s very, you know, unique to us. And it’s a conversation we don’t really have, we don’t even really have it necessarily with our partners or with our children or parents.
You know, it, it’s quite an intimate conversation to have, isn’t it? You know, what we want our future to look like and, and what we really, really want that to look like, and feel like. And it’s probably an, an important conversation to, to encourage people to, to have, isn’t it?
[00:21:55] Peter Attia and the Centenarian Olympics[00:21:55] Tony Winyard: Yeah, there’s, there’s a guy called Peter Attia. I dunno if you are, if
you’re aware of him
[00:21:59] Catherine Steele: That’s the one I was thinking of. Yes. With the reverse engineering
[00:22:02] Tony Winyard: And, and I love his, he, he often talks about the centenarian Olympics, or I think he calls it the centenarian, Decathlon. And it’s, yeah, it’s a. A concept that I often think about, and so I, he talks about, well, if you want to be competing in a centenarian in the Olympics, you need to be at a certain level of fitness and strength and flexibility and so on at the age of a hundred to be able to take part in that contest.
So therefore, to be at that level at a hundred, you need to be at this level at 90, at this level, at 80, and this level at 70 and so on. I think That’s a great concept.
[00:22:36] Catherine Steele: It is. And if we all thought like that, we’d probably live very differently. You know, if we all really thought about, you know, fundament and they say, don’t they? You know, a lot of people come to lifestyle medicine, functional medicine through some kind of trauma. I. And, that’s the bit that I wish, you know, I, I could do differently in, in the work that I do.
I wish I could reach people before that happened, before that diagnosis, before that trauma, before that loss. And, and I haven’t figured that one out yet. And and I, if you find anyone that does, please , please point me in their direction because wouldn’t it be great? And, and when we talk, you know, before we start because, you know, families and children is a, is a big one for me.
You know, my daughter’s 10 and, you know, we try and model. A certain way of living, but I do think it’s really hard for kids. There was a program recently talking about, you know, children are actually eating more ultra processed foods than adults in the UK than the percentages. And, And that’s terrifying. When you throw in hormones and, and everything else, and.
But again, it’s that environment, isn’t it? And that modeling. So, you know, let’s hope that we can try with the younger generation to get to this stuff, you know, before they’re in their forties or before they’ve had a diagnosis or before you know, something’s happened to them. That causes this sort of about turn that we see so often in, in clients.
I mean, that would be amazing. That’s my, like nirvana. That would be great.
[00:23:52] Sean Stevenson and junk food[00:23:52] Tony Winyard: There, there’s a guy called Sean Stevenson, and for a few years he’s been saying that he thinks that in . I forget what timeline it was. 10, 20, 30 years time. We’ll look back upon this period and think how could people be so barbaric in, in feeding children, like all this junk food that, that they’re given.
And, and for many years he was the only person I ever heard saying that. But recently I’ve heard other people saying sort of similar things.
[00:24:19] Catherine Steele: There does seem to be a bit of a movement, mean, obviously Jamie Oliver’s been talking about school dinners and, and things for, for a long time. It’s just the norm though. It’s the norm and, and in some ways, you know, when I send my daughter off with her packed lunch, and I know she’s probably looking at her friend’s packed lunch and thinking, Hmm, mine’s quite different.
You know, that feels cruel because I’m sort , of, you know, I’m not feeding her the same food as a lot of her friends, and that’s just personal choice. It’s just what we, what we choose to do. But I know she finds that hard. And, you know, and there must be times that, that, that’s difficult. And I mean, that’s the whole, you know, we, we, again, we’ve talked about Pilar Gerasimo and the healthy deviant approach, you know, but it’s the whole marketing around children’s food.
It’s huge, isn’t it? You know? When you go into a supermarket, that’s sort of section on packed lunches is, you dairy dunkers. It’s, it’s crisps, it’s bars But there are some people out there, I think more and more, that are doing a lot around home cooked children’s snacks and foods. But again, it’s that lifestyle piece, isn’t it?
If we’re all working and you know, and you know, it, it isn’t just time, it’s more than time. It’s habit as well, isn’t it? And it’s the habit of. You know, we made a sourdough starter a couple of years ago and I’d wanted to do it for years. And I, you know, I wish I’d done it years ago ’cause it was so easy.
now, you know, we can bake bread, we can make pizza bases and it’s really, and it genuinely is really easy if anyone ever is thinking about doing it, it’s so easy. And I wish I’d done it years ago. But things like that, it’s just lost knowledge, isn’t it? And, and, you know, our sort of generations before us, that knowledge has been lost and hopefully we can get some of that back and, and passed that on quickly.
To, to the, to the future generation.
[00:25:50] A country which banned jumk food advertising[00:25:50] Tony Winyard: It is when you were saying that, I dunno where it just reminded me of I can’t remember which country. It’s, I think it’s Peru or Chile, where a couple of years ago they banned all advertising for sort of fast food, processed food to children on tv any media. And I’ve been meaning to. It’s just reminding me actually that I need to go and check what, what’s, how, what has happened since then.
And you know, what, ha has their health started improving? Have you, have you heard about that?
[00:26:19] Catherine Steele: I dunno, but I’d love to. Yeah, I’d love to know more about, I mean, there must be pockets of society where people live differently and, and do things differently. And I think we’re all just trying to do the best, aren’t we? We’re all trying to do the best when it comes to our own. You know, I fundamentally believe that we are all trying to do our best when it comes to our own health and certainly to our kids’ health.
No one’s trying to, to not do that. I just think the environment makes it really difficult. And that’s why I say it’s not about discipline. It’s not, you know, not about those sort of things. It’s, it’s a much bigger conversation than that, isn’t it? Around, you know, how we live and, and what we’re doing and, and I think that’s why going, right, going in my circle back to, to the workplace, that’s part of our environment, isn’t it?
For most of us, you know, work forms some part of our environment and if that isn’t a healthy place to be and there aren’t, Really, you know, ground roots for healthy practices there, then it’s really difficult to put ’em in everywhere else. You know, if you’re working crazy hours, if your expectations of your organization, you know, just at the minute with the cost of living crisis as well, just to get enough money to live, then actually asking people to do a load of other things is, is really difficult.
So it’s, all of these things need, need to be sort of considered together, don’t they?
[00:27:28] What changes would you like to see regarding children and processed foods?[00:27:28] Tony Winyard: you talked about that families and children is a, is a big area for you. What, what changes would you like to see in, in that area?
[00:27:39] Catherine Steele: There is some really big ones, which it, but I, I think. I think it’s knowledge. I think it’s knowledge. And I think that’s starting to come. So I think a lot of people were quite shocked. I think it was, was it a Panorama program? It was about ultra processed foods. And I, and I’ve seen some of the sort of conversations around that and I think people were quite surprised.
You know, I know Tim Specter’s done some things when, you know, what is ultraprocessed food? How did we recognize it? Because certainly, you know, some children’s snacks that we think are healthy. You know, he’s, I seen him identify on his social media. That’s his ultra process. And if it’s got a number of ingredients that you don’t recognize, then that is a, an ultra processed food.
Even, you know, as healthy as it looks, there might be a fruit bar or, or something. It’s, it’s still full of different things that, that aren’t great. So I think there’s a big education piece. There. I mean, I’d love to see it on curriculums for schools when I used to do, showing, my age. We know we did cooking at school when we cooked.
And you know, I, I just don’t think that happens very much anymore in terms of children learning about nutrition and learning about, I mean, they learn about some aspects of nutrition, but really learning about health because once you’ve got that knowledge, I heard it described, it was actually Dorian Yates that the bodybuilder on a podcast ages ago, and he described this as the crack in the dam.
And actually once you’ve got this knowledge, you can’t go back. You know, the water just keeps coming and you can’t go backwards. So once you understand and you really understand more about health, and I’m. 20 years on, still learning all the time about different things that we can do, different practices, things that I might have done originally.
I’m like, oh, maybe that, maybe that wasn’t the best change, maybe I need to look at at something else. So it’s an ongoing, lifelong process, I think. But I do think that once you start looking at it, you can’t sort of put the blinkers on and go backwards. It’s there, you know, and, and you have to make changes from, from that point.
So I guess education is, is a big one, isn’t it? For, for kids?
[00:29:26] How education might change because of AI[00:29:26] Tony Winyard: On about education. One, I listen to quite a few podcasts around sort of AI and AI in health and AI in education, and I’ve heard a few discussions recently with various people sort of quite high in education in the uk, in Europe, in in America, and so on. And I think the common theme that it seems to be from all of these sort of different conversations is with AI and tools like Chat G P T and all the other sort of similar tools, the education is gonna have to change quite drastically in the next couple of years.
And it’s, I think it’s fascinating what those changes may be.
[00:30:09] Catherine Steele: Yeah, I mean, in my sort of main role university arts is something that’s being, being talked about a lot in terms of, you know, it’s not just about, I think initially we’ve been talking about, you know, how do we assess people, and how do we make assessments in education? But much bigger than that is, well, what even is education now, you know, , the knowledge is, is out there. What does education look like? What are we teaching people to do? And maybe it’s gonna be about teaching people to look after themselves and to to care for themselves, and to be kind to themselves and kind to other people, because isn’t that the bit that’s innately human? You know, I wonder, I wonder whether that is the bit that is actually human.
And a lot of these other stuff can be generated in, in different ways. And maybe there’s something about that connection as human beings, that connection to ourselves, that connection to other people and valuing that,
[00:30:59] Tony Winyard: Hmm.
[00:31:00] Catherine Steele: know, maybe, maybe that’s the, the education of the future. Wouldn’t that be great?
That’d be amazing.
[00:31:07] The UK & International Health Coach Association[00:31:07] Tony Winyard: Are you still involved in the UK Health Coach Association?
[00:31:11] Catherine Steele: Yeah, I’m still, I’m still a member of of the UK International Health Coaches Association. I mean, they just do, do so much, don’t they? They do all their C p d, all of their events and things. So, yeah, they’ve done some stuff recently, I think at the I P M conference. I wasn’t able, To go unfortunately because I some other commitments.
But yeah, I mean they’re really championing I think the role of, of health coaches in the uk, which is, which is great. You know, they’re, they’re the only organization I know of that’s specifically focused on, on health coaching, so, yeah.
that, that they’re.
[00:31:36] Is the number of health coaches increasing in the UK?[00:31:36] Tony Winyard: So, is, is the number of health coaches in increasing quite a bit in the uk?
[00:31:41] Catherine Steele: Again, I think so. I don’t know for certain. But I think they are I mean certainly the number of people training, the number of training programs in health coaching seems to be increasing. The n h s obviously they’ve sort of just published their future workforce plans and health coaching is part of that.
So to be increasing the number of health coaches working within the, in the UK over the next sort of 10 to 15 years I think the n h s just recognizing health coaching is important as well. So certainly in areas like diabetes they’re, they’re being used a lot more. But there’s so much potential for, for health coaches.
And I did hear Luke’s podcast that you did with, with him and you know, very much talking about, you know, we have business coaches, we have mentors, we have life coaches, we have executive coaches, and hopefully, you know, health coaches is the new tranche of those kind of things because. It is a different skill.
You know, the coaching is, is sort of fundamental, isn’t it, in terms of the, the coaching models that we might use or the, or the type of conversation. But that health focus, I think is, is quite unique when it comes to health coaching and that real understanding of sort of what mental, physical, and spiritual wellbeing actually looks like and, and what it takes to, to get there is, is no different to other, other types of coaching I think.
[00:32:52] Which book has really moved you?[00:32:52] Tony Winyard: Hmm. We are, we are flying through as far as time is concerned. Catherine, what is there is there a book that comes to mind that has really moved you for any reason? It doesn’t have to be recent. It could be any time in your life, but something that sort of stays in your memory that’s moved you.
[00:33:07] Catherine Steele: There are probably two or three because I did, I did have a think about this actually. There was a gentleman called, he’s passed away now, unfortunately, called David Shreiber, I dunno if you’ve come across his work. And he wrote a book called The Anti-Cancer Lifestyle, and I think I came across that probably in the early two thousands.
And then his second book was called Healing Without Freud or Prozac. So very much about natural approaches to health and the anti-cancer lifestyle struck me at a time when some family members had had cancer diagnosis and it was really like, okay, I need to look at this and, and really understand it. And then obviously the book on mental health, just because I was working in psychology at the time.
So they were the first ever I’d ever seen really around sort of, I don’t even like the word alternative, but you know, . Lifestyle medicine approaches, approaches to health. And then the other, that was a big game changer for me was Kelly Brogan’s first book in Mind of Her Own. Again, you know, really focusing on mental health and really understanding that there are different approaches to mental health.
And, and again, that’s just sort of my, my psychology background, I think, as to why I was attracted to to those because that had just never been thought of. You know, if you were depressed, you had Prozac. If you were anxious, she had beta blockers that you, that was sort very much what, what the model was. So to suddenly see that, oh, it might be about what you’re eating, it might be about how you’re living.
It might be a perfectly normal response to the environment that you’re in, and therefore it’s the environment that that needs to change. They were real game changers. I might say. They were the cracks in the dam, I guess for me.
[00:34:31] Tony Winyard: If is there any, any questions? About what you do and your thoughts around coaching and psychology and so on that I haven’t asked that you think would be useful for the listeners to know.
[00:34:44] Catherine Steele: Gosh, I can’t think of anything. Um, no, I don’t think so. I think we’ve had a really rounded, um, No, I don’t think so. I think we’ve had a really rounded rounded conversation. I mean, I think the coaching market is a little bit confusing and I hope that will change. It’s not really a question as such, but, you know, I think, I think for the end user, what we do can be tricky to, to access it.
Access and, and I. think. It would be good for people to be able to navigate that a bit more clearly. And I guess that’s, that’s role for, for people like the U K I H C A, the UK International Health Coaches Association is really to market health coaching to the end user, which very much I think is what they’re about.
So people can understand, you know, why they might need a health coach, why they might want one , why they might need one. And then once they’ve identified that they need one and committed to that, how do they find a good one? What are they looking for? ’cause you know, coaching’s a big marketplace.
There’s a lot of people offering coaching out there, and, and we need, the research certainly suggests that, you know, part of the effectiveness is coaching is about the relationship between the coach and the coachee. So yeah, I think it’s also about, you know, doing a few sessions with different, you know, because most coaches will offer a trial session, so, you know, do a, have a few conversations with coaches and see where you feel the best fit.
And don’t be worried if you, the first one doesn’t seem to fit, you know, don’t be. You don’t think you’re gonna offend anybody. You know It’s much better to find someone that you kind of have a connection with. ’cause then you’ll have a much better result.
[00:36:14] How can people find out more about you?[00:36:14] Tony Winyard: Absolutely. So if people wanna find out more, more about you and what you do, where would they go?
[00:36:19] Catherine Steele: So, the, the official bio would be on the University of Leicester webpages under the sort of school of psychology and vision sciences. I’m probably most active on LinkedIn or Instagram. So I’m just under Dr. Catherine Steele. On, on those two. Probably most active on Instagram then LinkedIn, then Twitter.
So yeah, any of those, they could, they could find me.
[00:36:37] What is your favourite quote[00:36:37] Tony Winyard: Is there a quotation you particularly like?
[00:36:41] Catherine Steele: Victor Frankl, and I’m gonna say it wrong now, aren’t I? Victor Frankl’s between stimulus and response, you know, between stimulus and response, there’s a space and it’s actually on the bottom of my email, so there’s no reason for me to get it wrong. So between stimulus and response, there’s a space, and in that space lies our growth and freedom.
So, you know, really to me, that’s about choice. And having choice and having agency and obviously for people that dunno, Victor Frankl was a, a concentration camp survivor and a psychiatrist and created something called a logos therapy. The book Man Search for Meaning I’ve read probably three or four times in the last few years trying to just make sense of everything that’s been going on.
It’s quite a small paperback and it’s fantastic, but yeah, that, that idea of choice, you know, there’s a stimulus and there’s a response, but there is a gap in between and we all. Making thousands and thousands of choices every day. And it’s that gap where we really need to focus in terms of what we do, how we respond.
[00:37:31] Tony Winyard: I. Coincidentally my, my favorite quotation as well. It’s something that I’ve, I, I think I first came across it, I dunno, seven, eight years ago. And, and since then it’s, I think almost, I wouldn’t say every day, but I regularly think about it and I try and I, I certainly have succeeded in changing what was always my default response when to the stimulus.
And I no longer in, I wouldn’t say in every situation, but in many situations I don’t have that default response necessarily. And I’ve changed the, the default. In many cases.
[00:38:04] Catherine Steele: It’s having it on the wall somewhere, isn’t it? It’s like a constant reminder.
[00:38:07] Tony Winyard: Yeah,
[00:38:08] Catherine Steele: yeah, I’ve got a sort of board with it on. Yeah, because I think, I think it’s powerful. I think there’s power in those words.
[00:38:13] Quote investigator and the origin of that quote[00:38:13] Tony Winyard: yeah, absolutely. And I I mean, I’ll put the, well, it’s funny, I was gonna say, I’ll put the actual wording in the show notes. but I dunno if you’re aware. There’s, there’s a, a website called quote Investigator, and they assert that. The words that are commonly attributed to that quote were never actually said in man’s search for meaning.
He said something around that. But the wording that you normally find on Google and whatever, he never said it in, in that word. In that order,
[00:38:43] Catherine Steele: I’m gonna read it again now.
[00:38:45] Tony Winyard: I’ll send you, I’ll send you a link from quote investigator, ’cause it’s a fascinating article. He goes into real quote investigator. What they tend to do is, They examined, well-known quotes like for Einstein and many other people, and well, did he really say what everyone thinks he said, and, and then they, he goes really deep into all these other sort of books and places and to trying to find out well, where, what was the origin of these words?
And it often, it wasn’t Einstein, it wasn’t whoever
[00:39:15] Catherine Steele: I have to send it, I have to change my email. Tony . Yeah. I’d love, to be really interested to see that. Yeah.
[00:39:20] Tony Winyard: Yeah, and I’ll, I’ll put the, a link to that particular article in the show notes as well. But, but Vitor Frankl did say something around that. He just didn’t say it in the actual way that it’s commonly attributed to
him.
[00:39:32] Catherine Steele: Perhaps we can claim it then.
[00:39:34] Tony Winyard: Exactly. Yeah. Well, Catherine, it’s been an absolute pleasure. So thank you very much. And yeah, best of luck with all the tons of things that you’re
doing.
[00:39:44] Catherine Steele: thank you very much. I’ve really enjoyed the conversation Tony, as always, thank you.
[00:39:49] Episode 239 next week with Steven Borden[00:39:49] Tony Winyard: Next week is episode 239 with Steven Borden. And Steven explains how blood flow restriction or BFR training works and its benefits. He outlines how BFR uses inflatable cuffs to restrict blood flow. Which allows people to gain muscle and endurance at lower training intensities. He talks about how BFR can aid in rehabilitation in traveling athletes. And also in cognition through lactate exposure and a lot more around those areas. He emphasizes about using it proactively when unable to train at higher intensities. And he advises starting with lighter loads and going close to failure for muscle growth. And overall he conveys that BFR, blood flow restriction training allows you to maintain momentum despite circumstances that may limit training such as injury or older age and so on. That’s next week Stephen Borden Episode 239. If you enjoyed this week’s episode with Catherine Steele, please do share with anyone who may get some value from it. It would be fantastic if you could leave a review for us on one of the podcast platforms and hope you have an amazing week.
LInks:* Dr Catherine Steele on Linkedin * Catherine Steele on Instagram * Dr Catherine Steele - Leicester University * The UK & International Health Coaching Association (UKIHCA) * The Cancer Coach * Quote Investigator - the origin of the quote Between Stimulus and Response * Chile banned junk food advertising Recommended book:The Healthy Deviant- A Rule Breaker's Guide to Being Healthy in an Unhealthy World - Pilar GerasimoAnticancer: A New Way of Life by David Servan-SchreiberHealing Without Freud or Prozac: Natural Approaches to Curing Stress, Anxiety and Depression by David Servan-Schreiber A Mind of Your Own: The Truth about Depression and How Women Can Heal Their Bodies to Reclaim Their Lives by Kelly Brogan M D, Kristin Loberg Favourite Quote
Between Stimulus and Response There Is a Space. In That Space Is Our Power To Choose Our Response
Viktor Frankl* (see link above)Tweet
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TranscriptEmailDownloadNew Tab238 – Catherine Steele
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[00:00:00] Intro
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Welcome to the Art of Living Proactively, episode 238 with Catherine Steele. And in this episode. I discussed with Dr. Catherine Steele about her background in psychology and occupational health, her current work in coaching, academic research and writing, and she provides an overview of what health coaching is as far as facilitating behaviour change and supporting clients in enacting sustainable habits. She emphasizes about empowering individuals to take charge of their health, regardless of workplace wellness programs. And she really advocates for a more proactive root cause approach to lifestyle medicine and stresses modeling, healthy living for children through education. And overall she conveys the importance of self-awareness, motivation, community support, and education in making incremental changes for longterm health. Catherine is also part of the Tree of Life. The Cancer Coach program. And we discuss many issues around that as well. So that’s this episode with Catherine Steele episode 238. I hope you enjoy this episode, if you do get some value from this please do share it with anyone who would really appreciate this. Remember the episode is also on youtube you can watch the actual video of Catherine and i discussing things Please do leave a review and hope you enjoy this episode.
[00:01:26] Tony Winyard: welcome to The Art of Living Proactively. My guest
today is Catherine Steele. How are you, Catherine?
[00:01:32] Catherine Steele: I’m good. Thanks, How are you?
[00:01:34] Tony Winyard: I’m good. Oh, actually, I, I guess, should I refer to
you as Dr. Catherine Steele?
[00:01:39] Catherine Steele: Yeah, I mean that’s the official, I suppose. I’m not particularly precious about it, but yeah. Won’t make you do it all the way through.
[00:01:46] Tony Winyard: Right. Okay. So, and, and Catherine and I know each other from, I did a course with the FMCA to Functional Medicine Coaching Academy a couple of years ago, and Catherine was my facilitator, wasn’t it? Yeah,
[00:01:59] Catherine Steele: facilitator.
[00:02:00] Tony Winyard: So that’s where we’ve, and then since then, we’ve sort of crossed paths a few different times and with the UK Health Coach Association and, and other, other ventures as well.
And you’ve got your, seems like you’ve got your hands in many pies what we’ve, what you’re doing in Leicester University and Cancer Coach and the UK Health Coach Association and so on. So do you, I was thinking, how do I introduce you because you do so many things, so I think it’s better you introduce yourself and what all the things you do.
[00:02:26] Catherine Steele: Yeah, I’ve got friends that describe, I’m a bit like a Jack Russell. You know, I kind of get, I’ve got sort of lots of enthusiasm for, for lots of different things. So my main role is I’m an associate professor of psychology at the University of Leicester and I lead their postgraduate program. So, That looks at sort of occupational psychology, general psychology, and also at coaching.
So that’s my main job, which is sort of teaching, research and practice. There, I’ve also got a role as behavioral sciences director and academic advisor for the cancer coach. And then, you know, again, I do sort of various things. So I’m currently the research lead for the division of coaching psychology.
So, yeah, lots of, lots of little bits and pieces. I run a small business called Turquoise Wellbeing, where I do my own coaching and coaching supervision. So it all falls under the remit really, of, workplace health, coaching and coaching psychology. So that’s the anything to do with those things I’m interested in.
[00:03:16] What led you to psychology?
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[00:03:16] Tony Winyard: Well, let’s start with psychology. So what. When did you, I’m presuming you did a like degree. Was that how you first got into psych? What? What was it that made you want to go into that in the first place?
[00:03:29] Catherine Steele: I think, you know, a long, long time ago, ’cause it was my, it was my first degree. I’ve always been really interested in people. I have a really curious nature in terms of strengths. You know, curiosity is a strength. I think. I’m very interested in who people are, how we interact together, what makes a world, what makes us all kind of tick.
So that really interests me. And then as I was doing my undergraduate degree, I think everyone goes into it wanting to be a clinical psychologist. That’s what we all want to do. Or at the time, ’cause it was sort of in the nineties, everyone wanted to be cracker for anyone that can remember that in, in the uk as in forensic psychologist working in the prison service.
But then I was introduced to occupational psychology, which is about psychology, applied to work. And that just really interested me ’cause I thought well work affects everybody. You know? Hopefully we’re not all gonna meet a forensic psychologist, we won’t all meet a clinical psychologist, but we all have something to do with work.
Even if that’s unemployment, volunteering, you know, we have a connection with the workplace. So, And I’d never really thought of that from a psychological perspective before. So that sparked my interest and sort of followed on from there really.
[00:04:32] Tony Winyard: And so where did you go from there? I mean, obviously, you know, I know all about the stuff. Of F M C A and UK Health Coach Association and so on. But what, what happened after you did that degree?
[00:04:42] Catherine Steele: So I did a master’s, in occupational psychology and I started working in human resources. So I was working in hr. Fairly quickly realized that wasn’t quite what I thought it was. ’cause I thought it was very much about supporting the employees in the workplace, and I think it is much better now, but obviously there’s an organizational element to it as well.
And that didn’t really interest me as much. I was much more interested in the individual aspects. At that point I was doing work in coaching as well, got introduced to coaching through that work. I then got offered a PhD, which was sponsored by a police service. And that was actually looking at careers, so looking at people’s career development and how organizations supported careers.
And I think tangentially from that, I got interested in workplace health and workplace wellbeing. So, You know, when you start to look at how you manage somebody’s career, you inevitably, it’s a trajectory, isn’t it? So you start to look at, you know, why people would want to stay within one organization, why they might not wanna stay in an organization.
And then I think I was just at a stage in my life where relatives were starting to experience health challenges and it all kind of came. You know, came together and a lot of those were stress related. So then after the PhD, I worked in a consultancy for a while and then in about, probably about 2010, went back to academia and then started a full-time academic post.
[00:06:00] Tell me about the book you are writing?
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[00:06:00] Tony Winyard: Cool. And you mentioned before we started recording about how you and Penny Kechagioglou are in the process of writing a book. So do you wanna bring us up? Well let everyone know about that.
[00:06:09] Catherine Steele: Yeah, so a passion for both of us, I think is about the workplace
so we are both really passionate about health at work and also knowing that all the stats are showing us that, you know, sickness, absences are high, rates of chronic illness in the working age are going up.
So, you know, it’s a problem for organizations, but it’s a problem for individuals as well. So it’s affecting kind of both sides of, of that. There’s a lot when you talk about workplace wellbeing. My experience with that is a lot of people look at stress and burnout. That’s the, when you think about what wellbeing at work, it’s stress and it’s burnout or it’s mental health and you have fantastic schemes like Mental Health first Aid.
MIND has a great site around kind of workplace wellbeing, but taking our sort of functional medicine background, you mentioned that, that we sort of met at F M C A, the Coaching Academy. There’s that root cause piece that for me is really missing in workplace health. So much of how we work, if we use our kind of branches in terms of, you know, functional medicine and our pillars of health is toxic.
You know, a lot of people don’t have time to eat properly. They don’t sleep properly. Rest isn’t valued. There’s certainly no time for movement and that’s got worse. I think as as people are working from home, as you, you’re not even moving between offices, let alone moving how we are designed. As humans to move.
So we are kind of hoping to present a bit of a different approach, I think with the book in terms of really looking at root cause health and what individuals can do about it. You know, to try and empower individuals. I think quite often we think, well, we can’t do it because our workplace is toxic, or our managers are toxic.
But really from a coaching perspective, looking at, well, how do we empower individuals to, to take charge of their health regardless to a certain extent of what the workplace is. There are always little steps that, that you can take. But also, you know, the, another part of it will be aimed at sort of managers and senior leaders.
You know, how do you create a really healthy workplace? You know, people don’t want to recruit talent and have really good talent to have it fall over in, it’s in their forties and fifties, or even earlier as, as we’re seeing now. ’cause then you’re losing people and then the organization’s got sickness, rates. So what does a really healthy workplace look like? You know, and it’s not. Bringing in cakes for everyone’s birthday . It’s not the mild track around outside. It’s so much more than that. But I think it’s an area that isn’t really explored that much. So yeah, it’s a very, really, really early days, but a project we’re both really excited about
[00:08:29] So the book sounds like it’s about being proactive?
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[00:08:29] Tony Winyard: So in a way, from what you just said, is it a lot of it, well, some of it is about being more proactive.
[00:08:36] Catherine Steele: Yeah, absolutely. In terms of, of the podcast. Yeah. It’s about being proactive, but it’s also about knowledge, I think, isn’t it? Because I think, you know, we talk about this in health coaching. I think it’s insulting to say that people don’t know what to do to support their health. It’s, it’s actually putting in the structures and the support and the mechanisms to be able to put it into place.
It’s hard, you know, it, it’s hard to buck the trend. It’s hard to be the only person drinking water while everybody else is having wine. It’s hard to, you know, Be the person who’s made their own Tupperware salad when everyone else is going to the canteen and having fish and chips. You know, it, it, it’s quite difficult to be that person.
So how do you get that accountability? How do you get teams to work together and, and how do you really sell the benefits? You know, that you are going to feel so much better if you do this? You, are, you know, from a manager, your team are going to perform so much better if you enable this, if you have different food in the canteen, if you have different things available.
I mean, there’s been quite a lot of interesting stuff around this four day working week. In the UK at the minute, and I think that’ll be really interesting to see what happens. You know, just giving people another day of leisure time, a bit more autonomy because that’s a big one for health as well as having autonomy.
Yeah, I’m really interested to see what comes out of these little experiments around that.
[00:09:50] What demographic is it aimed at?
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[00:09:50] Tony Winyard: And so who is the book aimed at for a particular demographic or who, who is that aimed at?
[00:09:55] Catherine Steele: Well, we’ve kind of said anyone in work, you know, just to try and keep the audience nice and big. , but I think. There will definitely be a focus for managers and HR professionals within it. So looking at people that are responsible for workplace occupational health physicians as well. We’ve said gps ’cause obviously, you know, gps are at the front end of this.
They see the people that are, you know, really struggling and, and are, are suffering from those things and stress and burnout. But it’s then exploring a little bit more, you know, what’s actually causing that. What is it about the way that workplace or that work team is structured that’s causing that? And it’s often multifaceted, isn’t it?
It’s not one thing.
[00:10:31] Tony Winyard: And have either you or Penny written a book before.
[00:10:35] Catherine Steele: Yes, both of us have. Yeah. . Yeah, I’ve written sort of academic text, so textbooks and also done some chapters in, in edited books. Penny’s written most recently a book on leadership in the n h s as well. So yeah, we’ve both got experience. We both love writing. So uh, yeah, a bit of, a bit of a passion project hopefully for us both.
[00:10:54] Tony Winyard: So have you got a plan a date? You hope you would get the book out by?
[00:10:58] Catherine Steele: Yesterday I think realistically it’s at least 12 months, isn’t it? Between sort of editing and, and things. So we’re just still negotiating and sort of coming up with the final structure at the minute. Working on things like sample chapters as well. But yeah, I it for, for me, and I know for her as well, it feels like a book that’s necessary and a book that’s needed and is quite timely.
So, yeah, it’s just fitting in the day job, isn’t it, you know, whilst also keeping ourselves healthy and well, is the challenge.
[00:11:23] What is your role at The Tree of Life?
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[00:11:23] Tony Winyard: A few months ago on this, or by the time this episode comes out, it will be a few months. Luke Luke Watts from the cancer coach was, was a guest on this podcast, and obviously you are involved with the cancer coach as well. So anyone, for anyone who didn’t catch the episode, could you briefly explain what is the cancer coach and what is your role in there?
[00:11:41] Catherine Steele: Yeah, I mean, so I’m involved with The Tree of Life, which is sort of part of the, of the Cancer coach sort of organization. So The Tree of Life is an online program designed at sort of preventative healthcare. So following the sort of four, you know, the main pillars of, of health. And, and it’s about, you know, again, being proactive and looking at what you can do to support your health.
So, My role with the organization as a is I’m the behavioral sciences director and academic advisor. So we are gonna be looking at things like engagement also working with a team of health coaches as well to look at how we actually enact that change so we can give people the knowledge. Design programs it gives people the knowledge.
But to that holy grail piece is, is the how, you know, how do you use behavioral science to actually enact change, to facilitate change, and also sustainable change. So trying to bring some of my knowledge from sort of psychology background and, and behavioral sciences background into the programs that they offer and also the evidence-based piece as well.
You know, we always wanna be really careful with what we’re doing in this area. ’cause it’s, you know, it is open to critique. That’s, that’s the nature of it. So, The more firmly attached to the evidence base we can be and really understanding what good evidence looks like. I think that’s really important with in this sort of commercial health space to have that, have that attachment.
[00:12:55] The Tree of Life could be helpful to so many people?
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[00:12:55] Tony Winyard: So the Tree of Life, when is there’s, a, as you said, it’s like an education aspect to it. It’s, I mean, it, could be, it could be really helpful to so many people if we, if, if the word, if the marketing works out well and it gets, gets out to many people, it could be, it could help a lot of people start to become more proactive in, in a way, I guess.
[00:13:19] Catherine Steele: Absolutely. I mean, the potential for, for programs like The Tree of Life, I think are, are huge. And I’m, I was actually in a meeting with somebody else, something else around coaching this morning, and I think the, there is, it’s so, so timely. There is such a need at the minute. People are struggling.
People have been struggling, I think for a long time. People are aware that, you know, chronic illness, I mean, I’m in my early forties and I’m already seeing a lot of my friends, you know, poly seeded, struggling, and you know, we, we’ve got young kids, you know, we don’t wanna be feeling like that at this stage of our life.
You know, Yeah. that’s how you might wanna, don’t really wanna feel like it in your sixties and seventies either, but you certainly don’t wanna be thinking like it in your late thirties and forties. That’s, that’s not okay.
And I think that’s really concerning when we look at this. I mean, I think the cancer diagnosis at the minute in working age adults is really high.
And and, and again, we’re seeing younger and younger diagnosis of things like autoimmune disease fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue. I think we do really need to look at what’s the cause, how are we living, how are we contributing to, to this? And that’s not a, it’s a really difficult conversation to have, isn’t it?
Because I think it can very easily stray into blame. And people almost taking them too much personal responsibility for it. ’cause it’s not about that. It’s about, this is the environment that we’re in. There are all kinds of reasons that we could talk about as to why we’re in the environment that we’re in.
And I’m far beyond, you know, my, my expertise. , it’s okay. So how do we recognize that? And then just take those little steps one by one to, to make it different. And also it’s a bit like osmosis, isn’t it? It’s how do we kind of filter it out to, to other people? So you know, you see somebody over there looking really shiny and well, what are they doing , and how can I get some of that, you know?
That’s how I like to see it sort of happening as part of communities really.
[00:15:01] Which countries have a better approach to health?
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[00:15:01] Tony Winyard: Are you aware of any countries that are doing this well, that are, do have a sort of a better approach, say than the UK and the US anyway?
[00:15:11] Catherine Steele: I mean, I’m sure you, you’ll know Tony about the Blue Zones. I’m reading Dr. Mark Hyman’s book, actually. They’re forever young at the minute. And he, he talks about the time that he’s spent in places like Sicily and there’s definitely other, other countries that do it better or do it differently.
And that Are just more, I think even in the UK there are probably different areas that are doing it differently and, and doing it better. So I live in quite a rural area, for example, and I know. That it’s much easier for me here to get out and go for a really long walk that’s kind of hilly. It’s outside. I’m getting, you know, all the fractals from nature and, and really getting a different experience to when I’ve lived more in a city center.
And it’s quite a different experience. I can still get out and go for a walk, but it might be by a main road. It’s just, it’s just different, isn’t it? But on the other hand here, from a community perspective, it’s probably more isolated than when I was living, you know, somewhere where there were literally people on the doorstep.
There were coffee shops on the doorstep, so it’s easy. It’s all about balance, isn’t it? And finding what works for you, I think, and, and knowing yourself well enough to know what works for you.
[00:16:08] What attracted you to health coaching?
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[00:16:08] Tony Winyard: So let’s talk about the coaching that you do. What was it that attracted you to coaching?
[00:16:14] Catherine Steele: Good. It was such a long time ago. That’s a really interesting question I think I’ve ever been asked that. I think it’s my curiosity again. I’ve got a very solution focused nature, which is both a blessing and a curse, I think. Really interested in sort of looking at what the problem is and looking what the potential solutions are.
And I think coaching, you know, appealed to that sign know very much goal driven, goal directed, looking at, you know, exploring solutions. It’s facilitative as well. So I think I was in a teaching role at the time and I think there’s a lot of coaching in, in teaching, particularly in, in higher education.
So I thinking about, you know, how do we get people to transfer their learning? How do we get people to change I think, you know, when I was in consultancy I was also working a lot in things like assessment centers and talent development centers and you know, again, there’s a lot of coaching in that, you know, how do you get people to be the best they can be?
And I guess gradually that’s just been translated into, okay, so how do we get people to feel the best that they can, you know? So from a organizational perspective in terms of talent and coaching people to, to really perform well, to, actually, there are other things underneath this as well and just not just about behaviors and competencies, it’s actually about lifestyle choices.
[00:17:18] What is a health coach?
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[00:17:18] Tony Winyard: I think a lot of people don’t really understand what, what a health coach is. Could, could you explain what, what is a health coach?
[00:17:26] Catherine Steele: I can try, I mean, It’s so many things, isn’t it? I mean, a health coach, you know, they’re not an expert. They’re not an expert in you. They’re not an expert in your condition. So you might have a diagnosis, you know, they’re not there to be the clinician that knows everything about your con condition, but they are there to help you facilitate change.
So to me a health coach is somebody who has a knowledge of health and an understanding of, of what it takes to be healthy. But then they are also an, but they are an expert in behavior change. To me, health coaches are behavior change experts. That’s where they’re, that’s, that’s this golden piece that they have is they know how to facilitate behavior change.
They know how to support you with behavior change. They’re not doing it for you. I think really skilled health coaches are also good at that challenge piece because change isn’t easy. We know change isn’t easy. You know, if it was, we’d all be doing it. You know, if it was really easy, we’d just be doing it.
And it’s not, and we’d be doing it consistently not like this, which is how for most of us, you know, change, change happens. So I think there’s a big thing about the way health coaches challenge us gently and in the right direction. But yeah, I think health coaching is about being a behavior change expert with a knowledge of health.
[00:18:36] What myths are there about behaviour change?
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[00:18:36] Tony Winyard: Is there anything that you would say any myths about behavior change? Things people think about behavior change that aren’t really true? I.
[00:18:47] Catherine Steele: Ooh, Things people think about behavior change that aren’t really true that it’s all about discipline. All about discipline and if we were just more disciplined and we were better people, then we’d be, we’d be, be better people. And I think that’s quite a, a negative way of looking at it. It’s sort of like the New Year’s Eve effect, isn’t it?
And I know we’ve spoken about this before, I’m sure at F M C A, you know, 31st of December, well, from tomorrow I’m gonna be a completely different person. I mean, it’s just not realistic, is it? And if I don’t, then I’ve failed. You know, I think we can be really hard on ourselves when it comes to, to behavior change.
And, and as soon as we feel or get that taste that we failed, then we just give up. So I think that’s a, a big, it’s not just about discipline, it’s about really understanding your motivation. It’s about really understanding why you want to do something you know, There are various sort of experts and the names escape me now, the guy that does a lot of work around reverse engineering.
So basically, you know, how do you wanna feel when you’re 90, therefore what do you need to do today? And I think that’s really important. And if that isn’t just about what I need to get on with it and be better, it’s about, what I need to really think about how do I wanna feel at that age and, and what do I want my life to look like and all.
If I want that, then I probably need to go to that yoga class today, and that’s probably the most important thing on my to-do list. Or I will skip that cake or I’ll save the bottle of wine till Friday rather than tonight. You know, it, it’s just those little things, isn’t it? That if we think about much further ahead and that actually needs to impact our day-to-day and, and yeah, that isn’t just about self-discipline or failing or not being good enough.
It’s so much deeper than that.
[00:20:23] Being kinder to our future selves
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[00:20:23] Tony Winyard: Mm. One thing about behavior changes that I sometimes think about is we, many people are not, not as kind to themselves as they could be. Now. We all probably need to be a lot kinder to ourselves than, than we are and, and in an aspect of that is, We also need to be kind to our future selves. And so how, you know, if our future selves in 20 years time, there’s certain things that if, that if we do, do now certain habits, behaviors is gonna be much kinder to our, our future self in 20 years time.
It’s trying to put that across sometimes to people and get ’em to under sort, understand that.
[00:21:04] Catherine Steele: Yeah, definitely. And it’s, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m a health coach. I try and, you know, I think we all do our best, don’t we? And we do the best we can, but it’s. I mean, there is an element, I suppose, of committing to practice it, isn’t there? So I journal quite a lot and I will very often journal about my future and, and, and, and that kind of, and if I do it first thing in the morning, that tends to help me keep on track.
But that’s just for me. That’s why I think this, this self-awareness is important, you know? And again, what we want in the future is very individual, isn’t it? It’s very, you know, unique to us. And it’s a conversation we don’t really have, we don’t even really have it necessarily with our partners or with our children or parents.
You know, it, it’s quite an intimate conversation to have, isn’t it? You know, what we want our future to look like and, and what we really, really want that to look like, and feel like. And it’s probably an, an important conversation to, to encourage people to, to have, isn’t it?
[00:21:55] Peter Attia and the Centenarian Olympics
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[00:21:55] Tony Winyard: Yeah, there’s, there’s a guy called Peter Attia. I dunno if you are, if
you’re aware of him
[00:21:59] Catherine Steele: That’s the one I was thinking of. Yes. With the reverse engineering
[00:22:02] Tony Winyard: And, and I love his, he, he often talks about the centenarian Olympics, or I think he calls it the centenarian, Decathlon. And it’s, yeah, it’s a. A concept that I often think about, and so I, he talks about, well, if you want to be competing in a centenarian in the Olympics, you need to be at a certain level of fitness and strength and flexibility and so on at the age of a hundred to be able to take part in that contest.
So therefore, to be at that level at a hundred, you need to be at this level at 90, at this level, at 80, and this level at 70 and so on. I think That’s a great concept.
[00:22:36] Catherine Steele: It is. And if we all thought like that, we’d probably live very differently. You know, if we all really thought about, you know, fundament and they say, don’t they? You know, a lot of people come to lifestyle medicine, functional medicine through some kind of trauma. I. And, that’s the bit that I wish, you know, I, I could do differently in, in the work that I do.
I wish I could reach people before that happened, before that diagnosis, before that trauma, before that loss. And, and I haven’t figured that one out yet. And and I, if you find anyone that does, please , please point me in their direction because wouldn’t it be great? And, and when we talk, you know, before we start because, you know, families and children is a, is a big one for me.
You know, my daughter’s 10 and, you know, we try and model. A certain way of living, but I do think it’s really hard for kids. There was a program recently talking about, you know, children are actually eating more ultra processed foods than adults in the UK than the percentages. And, And that’s terrifying. When you throw in hormones and, and everything else, and.
But again, it’s that environment, isn’t it? And that modeling. So, you know, let’s hope that we can try with the younger generation to get to this stuff, you know, before they’re in their forties or before they’ve had a diagnosis or before you know, something’s happened to them. That causes this sort of about turn that we see so often in, in clients.
I mean, that would be amazing. That’s my, like nirvana. That would be great.
[00:23:52] Sean Stevenson and junk food
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[00:23:52] Tony Winyard: There, there’s a guy called Sean Stevenson, and for a few years he’s been saying that he thinks that in . I forget what timeline it was. 10, 20, 30 years time. We’ll look back upon this period and think how could people be so barbaric in, in feeding children, like all this junk food that, that they’re given.
And, and for many years he was the only person I ever heard saying that. But recently I’ve heard other people saying sort of similar things.
[00:24:19] Catherine Steele: There does seem to be a bit of a movement, mean, obviously Jamie Oliver’s been talking about school dinners and, and things for, for a long time. It’s just the norm though. It’s the norm and, and in some ways, you know, when I send my daughter off with her packed lunch, and I know she’s probably looking at her friend’s packed lunch and thinking, Hmm, mine’s quite different.
You know, that feels cruel because I’m sort , of, you know, I’m not feeding her the same food as a lot of her friends, and that’s just personal choice. It’s just what we, what we choose to do. But I know she finds that hard. And, you know, and there must be times that, that, that’s difficult. And I mean, that’s the whole, you know, we, we, again, we’ve talked about Pilar Gerasimo and the healthy deviant approach, you know, but it’s the whole marketing around children’s food.
It’s huge, isn’t it? You know? When you go into a supermarket, that’s sort of section on packed lunches is, you dairy dunkers. It’s, it’s crisps, it’s bars But there are some people out there, I think more and more, that are doing a lot around home cooked children’s snacks and foods. But again, it’s that lifestyle piece, isn’t it?
If we’re all working and you know, and you know, it, it isn’t just time, it’s more than time. It’s habit as well, isn’t it? And it’s the habit of. You know, we made a sourdough starter a couple of years ago and I’d wanted to do it for years. And I, you know, I wish I’d done it years ago ’cause it was so easy.
now, you know, we can bake bread, we can make pizza bases and it’s really, and it genuinely is really easy if anyone ever is thinking about doing it, it’s so easy. And I wish I’d done it years ago. But things like that, it’s just lost knowledge, isn’t it? And, and, you know, our sort of generations before us, that knowledge has been lost and hopefully we can get some of that back and, and passed that on quickly.
To, to the, to the future generation.
[00:25:50] A country which banned jumk food advertising
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[00:25:50] Tony Winyard: It is when you were saying that, I dunno where it just reminded me of I can’t remember which country. It’s, I think it’s Peru or Chile, where a couple of years ago they banned all advertising for sort of fast food, processed food to children on tv any media. And I’ve been meaning to. It’s just reminding me actually that I need to go and check what, what’s, how, what has happened since then.
And you know, what, ha has their health started improving? Have you, have you heard about that?
[00:26:19] Catherine Steele: I dunno, but I’d love to. Yeah, I’d love to know more about, I mean, there must be pockets of society where people live differently and, and do things differently. And I think we’re all just trying to do the best, aren’t we? We’re all trying to do the best when it comes to our own. You know, I fundamentally believe that we are all trying to do our best when it comes to our own health and certainly to our kids’ health.
No one’s trying to, to not do that. I just think the environment makes it really difficult. And that’s why I say it’s not about discipline. It’s not, you know, not about those sort of things. It’s, it’s a much bigger conversation than that, isn’t it? Around, you know, how we live and, and what we’re doing and, and I think that’s why going, right, going in my circle back to, to the workplace, that’s part of our environment, isn’t it?
For most of us, you know, work forms some part of our environment and if that isn’t a healthy place to be and there aren’t, Really, you know, ground roots for healthy practices there, then it’s really difficult to put ’em in everywhere else. You know, if you’re working crazy hours, if your expectations of your organization, you know, just at the minute with the cost of living crisis as well, just to get enough money to live, then actually asking people to do a load of other things is, is really difficult.
So it’s, all of these things need, need to be sort of considered together, don’t they?
[00:27:28] What changes would you like to see regarding children and processed foods?
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[00:27:28] Tony Winyard: you talked about that families and children is a, is a big area for you. What, what changes would you like to see in, in that area?
[00:27:39] Catherine Steele: There is some really big ones, which it, but I, I think. I think it’s knowledge. I think it’s knowledge. And I think that’s starting to come. So I think a lot of people were quite shocked. I think it was, was it a Panorama program? It was about ultra processed foods. And I, and I’ve seen some of the sort of conversations around that and I think people were quite surprised.
You know, I know Tim Specter’s done some things when, you know, what is ultraprocessed food? How did we recognize it? Because certainly, you know, some children’s snacks that we think are healthy. You know, he’s, I seen him identify on his social media. That’s his ultra process. And if it’s got a number of ingredients that you don’t recognize, then that is a, an ultra processed food.
Even, you know, as healthy as it looks, there might be a fruit bar or, or something. It’s, it’s still full of different things that, that aren’t great. So I think there’s a big education piece. There. I mean, I’d love to see it on curriculums for schools when I used to do, showing, my age. We know we did cooking at school when we cooked.
And you know, I, I just don’t think that happens very much anymore in terms of children learning about nutrition and learning about, I mean, they learn about some aspects of nutrition, but really learning about health because once you’ve got that knowledge, I heard it described, it was actually Dorian Yates that the bodybuilder on a podcast ages ago, and he described this as the crack in the dam.
And actually once you’ve got this knowledge, you can’t go back. You know, the water just keeps coming and you can’t go backwards. So once you understand and you really understand more about health, and I’m. 20 years on, still learning all the time about different things that we can do, different practices, things that I might have done originally.
I’m like, oh, maybe that, maybe that wasn’t the best change, maybe I need to look at at something else. So it’s an ongoing, lifelong process, I think. But I do think that once you start looking at it, you can’t sort of put the blinkers on and go backwards. It’s there, you know, and, and you have to make changes from, from that point.
So I guess education is, is a big one, isn’t it? For, for kids?
[00:29:26] How education might change because of AI
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[00:29:26] Tony Winyard: On about education. One, I listen to quite a few podcasts around sort of AI and AI in health and AI in education, and I’ve heard a few discussions recently with various people sort of quite high in education in the uk, in Europe, in in America, and so on. And I think the common theme that it seems to be from all of these sort of different conversations is with AI and tools like Chat G P T and all the other sort of similar tools, the education is gonna have to change quite drastically in the next couple of years.
And it’s, I think it’s fascinating what those changes may be.
[00:30:09] Catherine Steele: Yeah, I mean, in my sort of main role university arts is something that’s being, being talked about a lot in terms of, you know, it’s not just about, I think initially we’ve been talking about, you know, how do we assess people, and how do we make assessments in education? But much bigger than that is, well, what even is education now, you know, , the knowledge is, is out there. What does education look like? What are we teaching people to do? And maybe it’s gonna be about teaching people to look after themselves and to to care for themselves, and to be kind to themselves and kind to other people, because isn’t that the bit that’s innately human? You know, I wonder, I wonder whether that is the bit that is actually human.
And a lot of these other stuff can be generated in, in different ways. And maybe there’s something about that connection as human beings, that connection to ourselves, that connection to other people and valuing that,
[00:30:59] Tony Winyard: Hmm.
[00:31:00] Catherine Steele: know, maybe, maybe that’s the, the education of the future. Wouldn’t that be great?
That’d be amazing.
[00:31:07] The UK & International Health Coach Association
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[00:31:07] Tony Winyard: Are you still involved in the UK Health Coach Association?
[00:31:11] Catherine Steele: Yeah, I’m still, I’m still a member of of the UK International Health Coaches Association. I mean, they just do, do so much, don’t they? They do all their C p d, all of their events and things. So, yeah, they’ve done some stuff recently, I think at the I P M conference. I wasn’t able, To go unfortunately because I some other commitments.
But yeah, I mean they’re really championing I think the role of, of health coaches in the uk, which is, which is great. You know, they’re, they’re the only organization I know of that’s specifically focused on, on health coaching, so, yeah.
that, that they’re.
[00:31:36] Is the number of health coaches increasing in the UK?
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[00:31:36] Tony Winyard: So, is, is the number of health coaches in increasing quite a bit in the uk?
[00:31:41] Catherine Steele: Again, I think so. I don’t know for certain. But I think they are I mean certainly the number of people training, the number of training programs in health coaching seems to be increasing. The n h s obviously they’ve sort of just published their future workforce plans and health coaching is part of that.
So to be increasing the number of health coaches working within the, in the UK over the next sort of 10 to 15 years I think the n h s just recognizing health coaching is important as well. So certainly in areas like diabetes they’re, they’re being used a lot more. But there’s so much potential for, for health coaches.
And I did hear Luke’s podcast that you did with, with him and you know, very much talking about, you know, we have business coaches, we have mentors, we have life coaches, we have executive coaches, and hopefully, you know, health coaches is the new tranche of those kind of things because. It is a different skill.
You know, the coaching is, is sort of fundamental, isn’t it, in terms of the, the coaching models that we might use or the, or the type of conversation. But that health focus, I think is, is quite unique when it comes to health coaching and that real understanding of sort of what mental, physical, and spiritual wellbeing actually looks like and, and what it takes to, to get there is, is no different to other, other types of coaching I think.
[00:32:52] Which book has really moved you?
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[00:32:52] Tony Winyard: Hmm. We are, we are flying through as far as time is concerned. Catherine, what is there is there a book that comes to mind that has really moved you for any reason? It doesn’t have to be recent. It could be any time in your life, but something that sort of stays in your memory that’s moved you.
[00:33:07] Catherine Steele: There are probably two or three because I did, I did have a think about this actually. There was a gentleman called, he’s passed away now, unfortunately, called David Shreiber, I dunno if you’ve come across his work. And he wrote a book called The Anti-Cancer Lifestyle, and I think I came across that probably in the early two thousands.
And then his second book was called Healing Without Freud or Prozac. So very much about natural approaches to health and the anti-cancer lifestyle struck me at a time when some family members had had cancer diagnosis and it was really like, okay, I need to look at this and, and really understand it. And then obviously the book on mental health, just because I was working in psychology at the time.
So they were the first ever I’d ever seen really around sort of, I don’t even like the word alternative, but you know, . Lifestyle medicine approaches, approaches to health. And then the other, that was a big game changer for me was Kelly Brogan’s first book in Mind of Her Own. Again, you know, really focusing on mental health and really understanding that there are different approaches to mental health.
And, and again, that’s just sort of my, my psychology background, I think, as to why I was attracted to to those because that had just never been thought of. You know, if you were depressed, you had Prozac. If you were anxious, she had beta blockers that you, that was sort very much what, what the model was. So to suddenly see that, oh, it might be about what you’re eating, it might be about how you’re living.
It might be a perfectly normal response to the environment that you’re in, and therefore it’s the environment that that needs to change. They were real game changers. I might say. They were the cracks in the dam, I guess for me.
[00:34:31] Tony Winyard: If is there any, any questions? About what you do and your thoughts around coaching and psychology and so on that I haven’t asked that you think would be useful for the listeners to know.
[00:34:44] Catherine Steele: Gosh, I can’t think of anything. Um, no, I don’t think so. I think we’ve had a really rounded, um, No, I don’t think so. I think we’ve had a really rounded rounded conversation. I mean, I think the coaching market is a little bit confusing and I hope that will change. It’s not really a question as such, but, you know, I think, I think for the end user, what we do can be tricky to, to access it.
Access and, and I. think. It would be good for people to be able to navigate that a bit more clearly. And I guess that’s, that’s role for, for people like the U K I H C A, the UK International Health Coaches Association is really to market health coaching to the end user, which very much I think is what they’re about.
So people can understand, you know, why they might need a health coach, why they might want one , why they might need one. And then once they’ve identified that they need one and committed to that, how do they find a good one? What are they looking for? ’cause you know, coaching’s a big marketplace.
There’s a lot of people offering coaching out there, and, and we need, the research certainly suggests that, you know, part of the effectiveness is coaching is about the relationship between the coach and the coachee. So yeah, I think it’s also about, you know, doing a few sessions with different, you know, because most coaches will offer a trial session, so, you know, do a, have a few conversations with coaches and see where you feel the best fit.
And don’t be worried if you, the first one doesn’t seem to fit, you know, don’t be. You don’t think you’re gonna offend anybody. You know It’s much better to find someone that you kind of have a connection with. ’cause then you’ll have a much better result.
[00:36:14] How can people find out more about you?
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[00:36:14] Tony Winyard: Absolutely. So if people wanna find out more, more about you and what you do, where would they go?
[00:36:19] Catherine Steele: So, the, the official bio would be on the University of Leicester webpages under the sort of school of psychology and vision sciences. I’m probably most active on LinkedIn or Instagram. So I’m just under Dr. Catherine Steele. On, on those two. Probably most active on Instagram then LinkedIn, then Twitter.
So yeah, any of those, they could, they could find me.
[00:36:37] What is your favourite quote
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[00:36:37] Tony Winyard: Is there a quotation you particularly like?
[00:36:41] Catherine Steele: Victor Frankl, and I’m gonna say it wrong now, aren’t I? Victor Frankl’s between stimulus and response, you know, between stimulus and response, there’s a space and it’s actually on the bottom of my email, so there’s no reason for me to get it wrong. So between stimulus and response, there’s a space, and in that space lies our growth and freedom.
So, you know, really to me, that’s about choice. And having choice and having agency and obviously for people that dunno, Victor Frankl was a, a concentration camp survivor and a psychiatrist and created something called a logos therapy. The book Man Search for Meaning I’ve read probably three or four times in the last few years trying to just make sense of everything that’s been going on.
It’s quite a small paperback and it’s fantastic, but yeah, that, that idea of choice, you know, there’s a stimulus and there’s a response, but there is a gap in between and we all. Making thousands and thousands of choices every day. And it’s that gap where we really need to focus in terms of what we do, how we respond.
[00:37:31] Tony Winyard: I. Coincidentally my, my favorite quotation as well. It’s something that I’ve, I, I think I first came across it, I dunno, seven, eight years ago. And, and since then it’s, I think almost, I wouldn’t say every day, but I regularly think about it and I try and I, I certainly have succeeded in changing what was always my default response when to the stimulus.
And I no longer in, I wouldn’t say in every situation, but in many situations I don’t have that default response necessarily. And I’ve changed the, the default. In many cases.
[00:38:04] Catherine Steele: It’s having it on the wall somewhere, isn’t it? It’s like a constant reminder.
[00:38:07] Tony Winyard: Yeah,
[00:38:08] Catherine Steele: yeah, I’ve got a sort of board with it on. Yeah, because I think, I think it’s powerful. I think there’s power in those words.
[00:38:13] Quote investigator and the origin of that quote
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[00:38:13] Tony Winyard: yeah, absolutely. And I I mean, I’ll put the, well, it’s funny, I was gonna say, I’ll put the actual wording in the show notes. but I dunno if you’re aware. There’s, there’s a, a website called quote Investigator, and they assert that. The words that are commonly attributed to that quote were never actually said in man’s search for meaning.
He said something around that. But the wording that you normally find on Google and whatever, he never said it in, in that word. In that order,
[00:38:43] Catherine Steele: I’m gonna read it again now.
[00:38:45] Tony Winyard: I’ll send you, I’ll send you a link from quote investigator, ’cause it’s a fascinating article. He goes into real quote investigator. What they tend to do is, They examined, well-known quotes like for Einstein and many other people, and well, did he really say what everyone thinks he said, and, and then they, he goes really deep into all these other sort of books and places and to trying to find out well, where, what was the origin of these words?
And it often, it wasn’t Einstein, it wasn’t whoever
[00:39:15] Catherine Steele: I have to send it, I have to change my email. Tony . Yeah. I’d love, to be really interested to see that. Yeah.
[00:39:20] Tony Winyard: Yeah, and I’ll, I’ll put the, a link to that particular article in the show notes as well. But, but Vitor Frankl did say something around that. He just didn’t say it in the actual way that it’s commonly attributed to
him.
[00:39:32] Catherine Steele: Perhaps we can claim it then.
[00:39:34] Tony Winyard: Exactly. Yeah. Well, Catherine, it’s been an absolute pleasure. So thank you very much. And yeah, best of luck with all the tons of things that you’re
doing.
[00:39:44] Catherine Steele: thank you very much. I’ve really enjoyed the conversation Tony, as always, thank you.
[00:39:49] Episode 239 next week with Steven Borden
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[00:39:49] Tony Winyard: Next week is episode 239 with Steven Borden. And Steven explains how blood flow restriction or BFR training works and its benefits. He outlines how BFR uses inflatable cuffs to restrict blood flow. Which allows people to gain muscle and endurance at lower training intensities. He talks about how BFR can aid in rehabilitation in traveling athletes. And also in cognition through lactate exposure and a lot more around those areas. He emphasizes about using it proactively when unable to train at higher intensities. And he advises starting with lighter loads and going close to failure for muscle growth. And overall he conveys that BFR, blood flow restriction training allows you to maintain momentum despite circumstances that may limit training such as injury or older age and so on. That’s next week Stephen Borden Episode 239. If you enjoyed this week’s episode with Catherine Steele, please do share with anyone who may get some value from it. It would be fantastic if you could leave a review for us on one of the podcast platforms and hope you have an amazing week.
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Psychiatrist Heather Clague reveals how TEAM CBT builds on traditional therapy methods to catalyse change more rapidly. Learn techniques to reframe limiting thoughts, align behaviours, overcome anxiety and depression, and change ingrained habits. Discover how continual practice and “homework” facilitate real transformation. Find out how the evolution of CBT can help you harness the power of your choices.
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In this riveting episode of The Art of Living Proactively, Tony Winyard invites board-certified physician Dr. Angela Holliday-Bell to delve into the fascinating topic of sleep. Uncover the importance of prioritising sleep, the negative consequences of sleep deprivation, and practical strategies for improving your sleep hygiene. Dr. Angela provides valuable insights that will enable you to harness the power of sleep and make proactive choices for a healthier, more fulfilling life. Tune in now!
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Tune in to this episode of "The Art of Living Proactively" as host Tony Winyard sits down with Dr. Sonia Chopra, a renowned expert in endodontics. Uncover the facts about fluoride, the truth behind root canals, and gain valuable insights into maintaining a healthy smile. Enhance your understanding of dental care and make proactive choices for a brighter oral future. Join us for an enlightening conversation with Dr. Sonia Chopra on harnessing the power of your choices.
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In this captivating episode of "The Art of Living Proactively," host Tony Winyard sits down with Jodi Klaristenfeld, the remarkable founder of FLRRiSH. Delve into Jodi's personal story of having a premature baby and the unforeseen challenges it brought. Explore the essential role of proactive parenting, discovering community support, advocating for your child's needs, and embracing growth in the face of adversity. Join us and discover the power of your choices in this empowering conversation with Jodi Klaristenfeld.
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Pediatrician Sheila Carroll discusses helping parents improve children's health through lifestyle changes rather than just focusing on weight loss. She provides tips like eliminating sugary drinks, making simple changes to nutrition and sleep, and leading by example as a healthy role model.
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Join Tony Winyard in this episode of "The Art of Living Proactively" as he sits down with Dr. Michael Turner to discuss the power of personal choices in achieving optimal health. Discover the importance of living proactively, setting achievable goals, and embracing the process of continuous improvement. Gain insights on integrating holistic approaches, preventive measures, and strengthening mind-body connections. Don't miss this inspiring conversation on harnessing the potential within you for a healthier and more fulfilling life.
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On this episode of The Art of Living Proactively, we welcome Amy Stein, a remarkable individual who has harnessed the power of belief for healing. Join us as Amy shares her personal journey of overcoming chronic illness, unlearning harmful conditioning, and making radical lifestyle changes. Get ready to discover how to trust your intuition, take responsibility for your health, and integrate mind, body, spirit, and breath for transformative well-being. Tune in now and start living proactively!
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Join host Tony Winyard on "The Art of Living Proactively" as he discusses the incredible power of algae with guest Corinna Bellizzi. Discover the key role that omega-3 fatty acids play in our health, how to strike a balance between omega 6 and omega 3, and the benefits of algae-based supplements. Empower yourself with knowledge and make proactive choices for better well-being. Tune in now and harness the power of your choices!
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Join Tony Winyard for a heartfelt conversation with Gina Dallison on "The Art of Living Proactively." Explore beliefs' transformative power, purpose's impact on healing, and the importance of body connection for well-being. Discover alternative healing, diagnoses' effects, and patient-centred healthcare. Tune in to live proactively.
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In this episode of The Art of Living Proactively podcast, Tony Winyard engages in a powerful conversation with Luke Watts about revolutionising cancer care. They delve into the importance of personal agency and taking responsibility for one's health choices. Discover the impact of health coaching on cancer prevention and recovery, and get insights into the Tree of Life program that offers education and resources for personal growth. Prepare to be inspired and empowered as Luke shares his experiences and insights on harnessing the power of choices in cancer care.
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On this episode of The Art of Living Proactively, host Tony Winyard welcomes Mark Wingfield, a Havening practitioner/trainer, to discuss Havening techniques and their role in revolutionising therapy. Mark Wingfield is an expert in neuro-based therapy and has dedicated his life to helping people overcome trauma and lead healthier, happier lives.
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In this episode of "The Art of Living Proactively," Coach Michael Kurkowski shares their approach to physical training, nutrition, and mindset practices for clients seeking sustainable progress. They emphasize the importance of cultivating autonomy and responsibility in clients, while also providing ongoing support and accountability. The conversation explores the benefits of asking deeper questions and addressing limiting beliefs, as well as the importance of building strong relationships with clients over time. Join host Tony Winyard and Michael Kurkowski for this insightful conversation on harnessing the power of your choices to live proactively.
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Unraveling the Good, the Bad, and the MisunderstoodIn the fast-paced world we live in, stress has become a common companion in our daily lives. But not all stress is created equal. This blog post delves into the fascinating world of stress, exploring the delicate balance between eustress and perceived bad stress. We unravel the good, the bad, and the often misunderstood aspects of stress, shedding light on how these two forms of stress shape our lives.
Understanding Stress: A Complex Web of ReactionsStress is a natural response triggered by various external and internal factors. It sets off a cascade of physiological and psychological reactions in our body. However, it is important to recognize that stress is not inherently negative. In fact, it serves a vital purpose in our lives, enabling us to adapt, grow, and perform at our best.
"In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity."
Sun TzuTweet
Eustress: The Positive Force of StressYou might think that Eustress was the stress felt by the Conservative party in the UK as they tried to “Get Brexit done” in their efforts to leave the EU!
But in fact, Eustress, often referred to as “good stress,” is the exhilarating feeling we experience when we are challenged, excited, or engaged in activities that bring us joy. It propels us forward, boosts our performance, and fuels personal growth. Eustress is like the fuel that drives us towards our goals and aspirations, enhancing our well-being and satisfaction.
Perceived Bad Stress: The Dark Side of OverwhelmOn the flip side, perceived bad stress can be detrimental to our physical and mental health. This type of stress arises from situations that exceed our perceived ability to cope, leading to feelings of overwhelm, anxiety, and exhaustion. It can stem from work pressure, relationship strains, financial worries, and other sources that disrupt our equilibrium. Understanding how to navigate and manage this form of stress is crucial for maintaining our well-being.
Unveiling the Benefits of EustressEustress is not just a fleeting moment of excitement; it offers a plethora of benefits that contribute to our overall well-being. Let’s explore some of the positive effects that eustress can have on our lives:
Enhanced Motivation and FocusEustress fuels our motivation, helping us stay focused and driven towards our goals. It provides the necessary energy and enthusiasm to tackle challenges, pushing us beyond our comfort zones.
Improved Performance and CreativityWhen we embrace eustress, we unlock our full potential. It enhances our cognitive abilities, boosts creativity, and improves problem-solving skills, leading to higher performance in various domains of life.
"Stress is not what happens to us. It's our response to what happens. And response is something we can choose."
Maureen KilloranTweet
Personal Growth and ResilienceEustress acts as a catalyst for personal growth and resilience. By pushing ourselves to step outside our comfort zones, we develop new skills, expand our capabilities, and build the strength to overcome future obstacles.
Managing Perceived Bad Stress: Strategies for RestorationPerceived bad stress can take a toll on our well-being if left unmanaged. It is essential to develop effective strategies to restore balance and minimize its negative impact. Here are some proven methods for managing and reducing perceived bad stress:
"The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another."
William JamesTweet
Stress Awareness and Mindful Self-ReflectionRecognizing the signs and symptoms of stress is the first step towards effective management. Mindful self-reflection allows us to gain insight into our triggers and responses, empowering us to make conscious choices that reduce stressors.
Stress-Relief Techniques and Self-Care PracticesEngaging in stress-relief techniques such as deep breathing exercises, meditation, yoga, and other self-care practices can significantly alleviate perceived bad stress. These practices promote relaxation, restore inner calm, and enhance overall well-being.
Building Supportive Connections and Seeking HelpNurturing meaningful connections with others is vital for stress management. Surrounding ourselves with a supportive network of friends, family, or like-minded individuals provides a sense of belonging and comfort during challenging times. Sharing our experiences, seeking advice, and offering support can alleviate the burden of perceived bad stress.
"Stress is like a glass of water. You can either see it as half empty or half full. It's all a matter of perspective."
UnknownTweet
Seeking Professional HelpIn some cases, professional help may be necessary to address and manage perceived bad stress. Seeking guidance from therapists, counsellors, or coaches who specialise in stress management can provide valuable insights, tools, and techniques to navigate the complexities of stress and build resilience.
Embracing the Yin and Yang of StressUnderstanding the interplay between eustress and perceived bad stress allows us to harness the positive aspects of stress while mitigating its negative impact. By consciously incorporating eustress-inducing activities into our lives, setting healthy boundaries, and practicing self-care, we can cultivate a harmonious relationship with stress.
HeartMath's Perspective on StressHeartMath, a renowned institute specialising in stress reduction and resilience training, offers valuable insights into the impact of stress on our physiology and emotional well-being. According to HeartMath, stress is not solely determined by external circumstances but is also influenced by our internal state, particularly the quality of our emotions and heart coherence.
Heart coherence refers to a state of alignment between our heart, mind, and emotions, characterised by a smooth and balanced heart rhythm pattern. When we experience stress, our heart rhythm becomes irregular, which can negatively affect our cognitive function, emotional stability, and overall well-being.
HeartMath techniques, such as Heart-Focused Breathing and Quick Coherence, aim to shift our physiological and emotional state into a coherent and balanced mode. By practicing these techniques, we can regulate our heart rhythm, reduce the negative impact of stress, and enhance our resilience.
HeartMath emphasises the importance of self-regulation and self-awareness in managing stress. By cultivating a positive emotional state, developing emotional intelligence, and engaging in daily practices that promote heart coherence, we can improve our ability to navigate stress and build resilience.
Understanding HeartMath’s perspective on stress provides us with valuable tools and strategies to manage the interplay between eustress and perceived bad stress. By incorporating HeartMath techniques into our stress management toolkit, we can enhance our overall well-being and empower ourselves to thrive in the face of life’s challenges.
ConclusionNavigating the complexities of stress requires a holistic approach that considers the interplay between eustress and perceived bad stress. By embracing eustress and managing perceived bad stress effectively, we can harness the transformative power of stress to lead healthier, more fulfilling lives. HeartMath’s techniques and insights, combined with a comprehensive understanding of stress, equip us with the tools to navigate stress with resilience and cultivate a balanced and harmonious relationship with the demands of daily life.
FAQ What is Heart coherence? Heart coherence refers to a state of alignment between our heart, mind, and emotions, characterised by a smooth and balanced heart rhythm pattern.
Can all stress be considered bad? No, not all stress is bad. Eustress, or "good stress," can have positive effects on our well-being and performance.
How can I differentiate between eustress and perceived bad stress? Eustress is typically associated with feelings of excitement, motivation, and engagement, while perceived bad stress often leads to feelings of overwhelm and anxiety.
Can stress be beneficial for personal growth? Absolutely! Eustress can act as a catalyst for personal growth, pushing us to expand our capabilities and overcome challenges.
How can I manage perceived bad stress effectively? Managing perceived bad stress involves practicing stress-relief techniques, self-care, seeking support, and developing stress-awareness.
Is it possible to find a balance between eustress and perceived bad stress? Yes, it is essential to strike a balance between eustress and perceived bad stress to maintain overall well-being and performance.
How can HeartMath techniques help in managing stress? HeartMath techniques, such as Heart-Focused Breathing and Quick Coherence, help regulate our heart rhythm, reduce the negative impact of stress, and enhance our resilience.
Can HeartMath techniques be incorporated into daily life? Absolutely! HeartMath techniques can be practiced throughout the day, providing us with tools to manage stress and enhance our emotional well-being.
What is the significance of self-regulation in stress management? Self-regulation involves cultivating self-awareness and the ability to regulate our emotional state, contributing to effective stress management.
How can HeartMath techniques enhance resilience? HeartMath techniques promote heart coherence, emotional balance, and self-regulation, all of which contribute to building resilience in the face of stress.
Where can I learn more about HeartMath techniques? The HeartMath Institute's website offers a wealth of resources, including online courses, books, and scientific research, to delve deeper into their techniques and approaches.
"You can't always control what goes on outside, but you can always control what goes on inside."
Wayne DyerTweet
The post The Yin and Yang of Stress: How Eustress and Perceived Bad Stress Shape Our Lives appeared first on Tony Winyard.
Creating healthier lifestyle habits can be a challenging task, but what if there was a way to make it easier and more effective? Enter habit stacking, a powerful technique that can help you build new habits by leveraging existing ones. In this article, we will explore the concept of habit stacking and how it can be used to improve your overall health and well-being.
Understanding Habit StackingHabit stacking involves linking a new habit you want to adopt with an existing habit that is already part of your daily routine. By attaching the new habit to an established one, you create a mental association that makes it easier to remember and perform the desired behavior. For example, if you want to incorporate regular exercise into your life, you can stack it with your morning routine of brushing your teeth. Every time you brush your teeth, you follow it immediately with a short exercise routine.
"Small, seemingly insignificant steps completed consistently will create a radical difference over time." - The Compound Effect
Darren HardyTweet
How Habit Stacking WorksThe power of habit stacking lies in its ability to tap into the existing neural pathways of your brain. When you perform an established habit, your brain goes into an automatic mode, requiring less effort and willpower. By piggybacking a new habit onto this automatic process, you make it easier to adopt and maintain the desired behavior. Over time, the new habit becomes ingrained in your routine, leading to long-term positive changes.
"The secret to creating lasting change is to make small, incremental adjustments consistently over time." - Tiny Habits
B.J. FoggTweet
Steps to Effective Habit StackingTo implement habit stacking successfully, follow these simple steps:
- Identify an existing habit: Choose a habit that you already perform consistently as a foundation for your habit stack.
- Define your new habit: Determine the specific behavior you want to incorporate into your routine.
- Establish a clear trigger: Find a specific cue or trigger that will prompt you to perform the new habit immediately after the existing one.
- Create a plan: Outline the details of how you will carry out the new habit and visualize yourself doing it in conjunction with the existing habit.
- Start small: Begin with a manageable and achievable version of the new habit to ensure success and build momentum.
- Track your progress: Use a habit tracker or journal to monitor your adherence to the habit stack and celebrate your successes.
- Iterate and adjust: As you become more comfortable with the habit stack, you can modify and expand it to incorporate additional behaviors or increase the complexity of the new habit.
"Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become." - Atomic Habits
James ClearTweet
Benefits of Habit Stacking for Health and Well-beingHabit stacking offers numerous benefits for improving your health and well-being. By leveraging existing habits, you:
- Simplify habit formation: Habit stacking makes it easier to establish new habits by integrating them seamlessly into your daily routine.
- Increase consistency: Linking a new habit to an established one increases the likelihood of consistent behavior, as you automatically perform the new habit without relying solely on motivation or willpower.
- Build momentum: Each successful completion of the habit stack reinforces your sense of accomplishment and builds positive momentum towards your health and well-being goals.
- Save time and effort: Combining habits allows you to make the most of your existing routine, saving time and effort in the process.
- Foster a positive mindset: Seeing yourself successfully adopt new habits boosts your confidence and self-belief, creating a positive mindset for further growth. ConclusionIncorporating healthy habits into your daily life doesn’t have to be an overwhelming task. By using the power of habit stacking, you can leverage your existing routine to make positive changes and improve your overall health and well-being. Start small, be consistent, and watch as your new habits become second nature, propelling you towards a healthier and more fulfilling life.
FAQ 1. Can I use habit stacking for multiple habits at once? Yes, habit stacking can be a powerful technique for incorporating multiple habits into your daily routine. However, it's important to approach it with realistic expectations and avoid overwhelming yourself with too many habits at once. Start by focusing on one or two key habits that are most important to you and gradually add more over time. By gradually building up your habit stacking practice, you can ensure better long-term success and avoid feeling overwhelmed. Remember, it's all about finding a balance that works for you and setting yourself up for sustainable habit change.
2. Can habit stacking be used for any type of habit? Yes, habit stacking can be used for various types of habits, including health and wellness habits, productivity habits, and personal development habits. The key is to identify an existing habit that serves as a trigger and aligns with the new habit you want to adopt.
3. What if I miss a day of habit stacking? Missing a day is normal and should not discourage you. Remember, habit stacking is about consistency over time. If you miss a day, simply pick up where you left off and continue with your habit stack. Be kind to yourself and focus on the progress you have made rather than any setbacks.
4. Can I change the habits in my habit stack? Yes, you can modify your habit stack as needed. Over time, you may find that certain habits are no longer serving you or that you want to add new habits to your routine. Adaptability is key to long-term success, so feel free to adjust and customize your habit stack to suit your evolving needs.
We hope this article has inspired you to harness the power of habit stacking for optimal health and well-being. Start small, be consistent, and embrace the transformative potential of creating healthier lifestyle habits through habit stacking. Unlock your full potential and live your best life.
5. How do I choose the right habits to stack? When selecting habits to stack, it's important to choose ones that align with your goals and priorities. Start by identifying the areas of your life where you'd like to see improvement or change. Then, choose habits that are small, specific, and actionable. Focus on habits that have a positive impact on your overall well-being and contribute to your long-term goals.
"If you were given a choice between getting $3 million in cash today or a single penny that doubles in value every day for 31 days, which one would you choose?Darren points out that the majority of people would take the $3 million today because it not only looks like the better deal, but it also takes a lot longer to see the payoff for the magic penny. In fact, the Compound Effect of the magic penny is invisible for much of the time.For instance, if you picked the magic penny and your friend took the other option, on day 10 your friend would have $3 million in cold, hard cash, while you would have only $5.12. On day 20, you would have $5,243, which is a lot better than $5 but still nowhere near the $3 million dollar mark. By day 29, you’ll have $2.7 million, almost as much as your friend’s $3 million. However, it isn’t until day 30, that your magic penny bet pays off and is now worth $5.3 million. On day 31, the very last day, your penny doubles again and is now worth a total of $10,737,418.24. About three times more than your friend’s, now tiny, $3 million prize."Impressive, isn’t it? That’s the power of The Compound Effect.
Darren HardyTweet
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Living your best life means different things to different people. However, one thing that is consistent is that living your best life requires being proactive rather than reactive. In this article, I will explore the difference between being proactive and reactive and why it’s important to be proactive in our health and wellness.
What is Proactivity?Proactivity means taking control of our lives and making things happen rather than waiting for them to happen to us. It’s about planning, setting goals, and taking action towards achieving those goals. Being proactive is the opposite of being reactive, which is simply reacting to things that happen to us without any prior planning or preparation.
What is Reactivity?Reactivity is simply reacting to things that happen to us without any prior planning or preparation. It’s living in a constant state of response to the events around us, without taking control of our lives. Reactive behaviour is often driven by emotions, and we tend to make decisions based on how we feel rather than on what is best for us.
Why is Being Proactive Important?Being proactive is important because it puts us in control of our lives. We have the power to choose our actions and determine the outcomes we want. Proactivity allows us to plan, set goals, and take action towards achieving those goals. It helps us to be more resilient and better able to cope with challenges.
Benefits of Being Proactive* Improved decision-making skills * Increased productivity * Greater sense of control over our lives * Improved mental health and well-being * Increased resilience * Greater sense of purpose and direction in life Tips for Being More Proactive1. Set goals – Identify what you want to achieve and create a plan to achieve it. 2. Take action – Don’t wait for things to happen, make them happen. 3. Manage your time – Use your time effectively and efficiently to achieve your goals. 4. Be flexible – Be willing to adapt and change your approach if things aren’t working. 5. Practice mindfulness – Stay present in the moment and focus on what you can control. ConclusionBeing proactive is essential to living our best lives. It allows us to take control of our lives and achieve our goals. By being proactive, we can improve our mental health and well-being, increase our resilience, and find greater purpose and direction in life. So, take the reins and start being proactive today.
FAQs What is the difference between proactive and reactive? Proactivity means taking control of our lives and making things happen, while reactivity is simply reacting to things that happen to us without any prior planning or preparation. Why is being proactive important? Being proactive is important because it puts us in control of our lives, allows us to plan and achieve our goals, and improves our mental health and well-being. What are the benefits of being proactive? The benefits of being proactive include improved decision-making skills, increased productivity, greater sense of control over our lives, improved mental health and well-being, increased resilience, and greater sense of purpose and direction in life. How can I be more proactive? To be more proactive, you can set goals, take action, manage your time effectively, be flexible, and practice mindfulness. What is the importance of mindfulness in being proactive? Mindfulness helps us stay present in the moment and focus on what we can control, which is essential for being proactive. Leave a Reply Cancel replyYour email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
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IntroductionWe all know that achieving health and wellness goals can be challenging, but did you know that having a supportive community can greatly affect your success? In this article, I will discuss the importance of having a powerful community to help you reach your health goals, and how being part of a collective can positively affect your well-being. So, let’s dive in!
Why is Community Important in Health and Wellness?1. Emotional SupportOne of the primary benefits of having a supportive community is the emotional support it offers. By connecting with others who share similar goals and challenges, we can find comfort, encouragement, and understanding, which are essential for maintaining our motivation and perseverance.
2. AccountabilityHaving a community that keeps us accountable can help us stay committed to our health goals. When we know others are depending on us, or that we have a support network to report our progress to, we are more likely to stay on track and continue pushing ourselves.
3. Knowledge SharingA community can also serve as a platform for sharing knowledge and experiences, allowing us to learn from one another and make informed decisions about our health and wellness journey.
4. Networking OpportunitiesIn a community, we have the opportunity to connect with others who share our interests, which can lead to new friendships and even collaborations that can enhance our health and wellness journey.
5. Social EngagementBeing part of a community also helps us maintain social engagement, which has been shown to have numerous benefits for both our physical and mental well-being.
How to Build a Supportive Health and Wellness Community1. Start LocallyBegin by seeking out local groups, clubs, or organisations that are focused on health and wellness. These can include running clubs, yoga studios, or even social groups based around specific activities.
2. Connect OnlineWith the proliferation of social media and online platforms, it’s easier than ever to find and connect with like-minded individuals. Look for online forums, support groups, or social media communities that align with your health interests and goals.
3. Attend EventsAttending health and wellness events, workshops, or conferences can provide a fantastic opportunity to meet others who share your passion, as well as learning from experts in the field.
4. Create Your Own CommunityIf you can’t find a community that meets your needs, why not create your own? Reach out to friends, family, or colleagues and invite them to join you in pursuing health and wellness goals.
5. Engage with ProfessionalsBuilding connections with healthcare professionals, personal trainers, and nutritionists can also be invaluable in developing a supportive community.
The Power of Community in Overcoming Obstacles1. Community Helps Combat LonelinessLoneliness can have a detrimental effect on our health and well-being, but having a supportive community can help to counteract these negative effects and keep us engaged and connected.
2. Collective Problem SolvingWhen we encounter challenges or setbacks, a community can provide us with the resources and ideas to overcome them, fostering resilience and perseverance.
3. Group Dynamics for SuccessThe group dynamics of a supportive community can provide a positive and motivating atmosphere, encouraging us to push ourselves and achieve more than we would on our own.
ConclusionIn conclusion, a supportive community can greatly affect our health and wellness journey, offering emotional support, accountability, and opportunities for growth and learning. By seeking out and engaging with like-minded individuals, we can harness the power of collective strength to help us achieve our health goals and live healthier, happier lives.
FAQs Can I join multiple health and wellness communities? Yes, you can join multiple health and wellness communities, allowing you to benefit from diverse perspectives and experiences. How can I find a local health and wellness community? To find local communities, try searching online or through social media platforms, or ask for recommendations from friends, family or healthcare professionals. What are the benefits of joining an online health and wellness community? Online communities offer the advantage of connecting with people from around the world, allowing you to access a wide range of experiences and advice. They also provide the convenience of connecting from the comfort of your own home. How can I make the most of my health and wellness community? To make the most of your community, actively participate in discussions, ask questions, share your own experiences and knowledge, and support others in their journey. Can a supportive community help me maintain long-term health and wellness? Yes, a supportive community can significantly increase your likelihood of maintaining long-term health and wellness by providing ongoing motivation, encouragement, and resources. The post The Importance of Community in Health and Wellness appeared first on Tony Winyard.
In today’s fast-paced world, stress has become a common experience for many. But did you know that simply focusing on your breath can help reduce stress and improve your energy levels?1. Box Breathing:This technique involves inhaling for four seconds, holding your breath for four seconds, exhaling for four seconds, and holding your breath for four seconds before repeating.Box breathing is a simple yet effective breathing exercise that can help to reduce stress, increase focus and improve overall well-being. It’s also known as square breathing because of the way you visualise a square in your mind as you breathe.
To begin, sit in a comfortable position with your back straight and your feet flat on the floor. Close your eyes or keep them open, whatever you feel most comfortable with.
Now, take a slow, deep breath in through your nose, counting to four as you do so. Feel the air filling your lungs and expanding your chest.
Hold your breath for a count of four, feeling the tension in your body as you hold the breath in.
Next, slowly exhale through your mouth for a count of four, feeling the air leaving your lungs and your chest contracting.
Finally, hold your breath for another count of four, feeling the emptiness in your lungs.
And that’s it! Repeat the cycle for a few minutes, or as long as you feel comfortable doing so.
If you’re finding it hard to count to four, try using your fingers to help you keep track. As you inhale, touch your thumb to your index finger. Hold your breath and touch your thumb to your middle finger. As you exhale, touch your thumb to your ring finger. Finally, as you hold your breath again, touch your thumb to your little finger. This simple trick can help you to stay focused and get the most out of your box breathing practice.
Remember, box breathing can be done anytime, anywhere, whenever you need to take a few moments to yourself. Whether you’re feeling stressed, anxious or overwhelmed, taking a few minutes to practice box breathing can help you to feel calmer, more relaxed and more in control.
NOTE:
I said to do this for a count of four. However, I would urge you to experiment and find a time that is right for you. For some that might be 3 for others it could 7.
Try different durations and see which “feels” right for you.
- Diaphragmatic Breathing:Also known as belly breathing, this technique involves breathing deeply through your nose and focusing on expanding your belly rather than your chest.Ah, diaphragmatic breathing! Also known as belly breathing, it’s a simple and effective technique to reduce stress and anxiety, and it’s a great way to help you feel more relaxed and centered.
To get started, find a comfortable position where you can sit or lie down. Take a moment to get settled, and then place one hand on your chest and the other on your belly.
As you inhale, try to expand your belly like a balloon, pushing it out against your hand. This will allow your diaphragm to move down and create more space for your lungs to fill up with air.
Next, as you exhale, let your belly naturally fall back down towards your spine, and gently push the air out of your lungs.
Repeat this process several times, taking slow and steady breaths in and out. As you get more comfortable with this technique, try to make your inhales and exhales last a little longer each time.
Remember, the key to diaphragmatic breathing is to focus on your belly, not your chest. So try not to let your chest rise and fall with each breath, and instead focus on the feeling of your belly expanding and contracting.
And don’t worry if you find it a bit tricky at first – like anything, it takes practice to master. But with time and patience, you’ll soon be able to use diaphragmatic breathing whenever you need to feel more calm and relaxed.
So give it a go and see how you feel – your belly will thank you for it!
- 3-4-5 Breath:Inhale for three seconds, hold for four seconds, and exhale for five seconds.The 3-4-5 Breath is a simple breathing exercise that can help you relax and reduce stress. As the name suggests, this exercise involves inhaling for 3 seconds, holding the breath for 4 seconds, and exhaling for 5 seconds.
To get started, find a comfortable position, whether you’re sitting or lying down. Take a deep breath in through your nose, filling up your belly like a balloon, and count to 3 in your head. Hold your breath for a count of 4, and then slowly exhale through your mouth for a count of 5. Repeat this pattern for several breaths, feeling your body start to unwind with each cycle.
Remember to keep your breathing slow and controlled, without straining yourself. You can also experiment with different counts to find what feels best for you. Maybe you prefer a 2-3-4 count, or a 4-5-6 count. It’s all about finding what works for your body and your mood.
The best thing about the 3-4-5 Breath is that you can do it anywhere, whether you’re stuck in traffic, waiting in line at the supermarket, or just need a quick break from a stressful situation. With a little practice, you’ll find that this simple exercise can be a powerful tool for calming your mind and reducing tension in your body.
So, take a deep but gentle breath in, and let it all out with a big sigh. Give the 3-4-5 Breath a try, and see how it can help you feel more relaxed and refreshed in just a few short moments.
- One Minute of Six Breaths:Inhale deeply and slowly for six counts, then exhale deeply and slowly for six counts.One minute of six breaths is a quick and easy breathing exercise you can do anywhere. It’s perfect for when you need to take a break from a stressful situation or just want to clear your head.
To start, find a quiet spot to sit down or stand up with your feet firmly planted on the ground. Take a deep breath in through your nose and exhale through your mouth. Now, breathe in deeply and count to six as you do so. Hold your breath for a count of two and then exhale for a count of six.
Remember to focus on your breath and let go of any distracting thoughts. It may feel strange at first, but keep practising and you’ll get the hang of it in no time.
It’s called one minute of six breaths for a reason: you only need to do six breaths in total! This means you can easily fit it into your day, even during a busy workday.
Try incorporating one minute of six breaths into your daily routine. Whether it’s during your lunch break or right before bed, taking a moment to breathe can make a big difference in your overall wellbeing.
Try experimenting with this. I have suggested to count to 6 breaths, but try 4, or 7 and find which number feels right for you.
-
Nadi Shodhan:This technique involves inhaling and exhaling through alternate nostrils, promoting balance and harmony within the body.Nadi Shodhan, also known as alternate nostril breathing, is a great way to calm your mind and balance your energy. So grab a tissue, blow your nose, and let’s get started!
-
Find a comfortable seated position with your spine straight and your hands resting on your knees.
- Take a deep but gentle breath in and out through both nostrils to start.
- Use your right hand to fold your first two fingers down towards your palm, leaving your thumb, ring finger, and pinky finger up.
- Use your thumb to close your right nostril, and inhale deeply through your left nostril for a count of four.
- At the top of your inhale, close your left nostril with your ring finger and pinky finger, and hold your breath for a count of four.
- Release your right nostril and exhale for a count of four.
- Inhale through your right nostril for a count of four.
- At the top of your inhale, close your right nostril with your thumb, and hold your breath for a count of four.
- Release your left nostril and exhale for a count of four.
- Repeat steps 4-9 for several rounds, or as long as you like. Remember to keep your breath slow and steady, and focus on the sensation of the breath moving in and out of your nostrils. If you get lightheaded or dizzy, take a break and return to normal breathing.
So take a deep but gentle breath, blow your nose, and give Nadi Shodhan a try. Your mind and body will thank you for it!
Once again, please do experiment. I have suggested a count of four, but play with this and see which number feels right for you.
By incorporating these simple breathing exercises into your daily routine, you can reduce stress and improve your overall well-being. So why not take a moment to focus on your breath and give these exercises a try?If you enjoyed this post and want to learn more about improving your health and well-being, join the community of proactive individuals in the Habits & Health Facebook group. I’ll be sharing more tips and tricks to help you live a healthier, happier life.
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Habits & Health episode 100 with Joanne Kennedy, a Naturopath and specialist in MTHFR, histamine intolerance, gut health (SIBO), and women’s hormones. We discuss the role histamine plays in so many conditions.Joanne runs a successful clinical practice in Sydney, Australia and sees patients online worldwide. Joanne’s approach is to identify the root cause of illness. This is done by the use of functional pathology testing, assessing the biochemical individuality of each patient, assessing environmental exposures as well as individual genetic testing if required.
Joanne is also the author of a book on Histamine
Intolerance and an Executive Contributor Writer for Brainz magazine.
Timestamps
00:00 100 – Joanne Kennedy
03:29 How Jo became a naturopath
07:08 How Jo began working with clients
08:52 Histamine intolerance
12:08 Treatment for histamine related conditions
13:39 How mould affects this
15:11 Asthma
15:37 Reasons to seek out a naturopathic or integrative medicine doctor
16:15 Joanne’s e-book on histamine
17:46 Patients suffering from histamine related conditions
22:35 Menopause and perimenopause
24:04 The role womens genetic makeup plays
24:50 Why does Jo have so many clients in the USA?
27:35 What stage is science at with research into histamine?
28:59 Why entrepreneurs are needed for this area
31:46 Treating the body as a whole
33:22 Jo’s fave book
35:16 Contact details
36:01 Favourite quote
37:59 The end of Habits & Health, but the beginning of the new show!
LInks:* Joanne Kennedy on Linkedin * Joanne Kennedy on Facebook * Joanne Kennedy on Instagram * Follow Joanne Kennedy on YouTube * Joanne's website * Histamine E-Bundle * Purchase Joanne’s 90+ Page Histamine Intolerance E-Book & Video Masterclass Recommended book:The Snow Leopard by Peter MathersonFavourite Quote
“If you cannot digest it, let it go. No matter how shiny and gorgeous, how lusciously tempting it might be, if you cannot digest it, it will poison you”
UnknownTweet
Related episode: Listen on Apple Podcasts * Google Podcasts * Spotify * Amazon Music * Listen on Stitcher Don’t forget, there is a transcript of every episode* (scroll down the page).
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TranscriptEmailDownloadNew Tab100 – Joanne Kennedy
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Habits and health episode 100.
Welcome to the last edition of habits and health and my guest today, joanne Kennedy, who is a naturopath and specialist in M T H F R. Histamine intolerance, gut health, SIBO, and women’s hormones. She runs a clinical practice in Sydney, Australia, and sees patients online worldwide. And so we talk a lot about what is M T H F R and histamine intolerance and identifying root causes of illness. So all of that and a lot more to come in today’s last edition of habits and health. Hope you enjoy this week’s show
[00:00:58] Tony Winyard: Habits and health. My guest today is Joanne Kennedy. How are you Joanne?
[00:01:03] Joanne Kennedy: I’m Tony. Thanks so much for having me on your show.
[00:01:05] Tony Winyard: It’s amazing how considering the time differences between England and Australia that we are able to do this. It’s, I just can’t imagine this happening even just as recent as 10 years ago.
[00:01:16] Joanne Kennedy: Yeah, no, it’s great. Like the world is really opening up. It’s, it’s what 9:00 AM for you and 8:00 PM for me, so it’s very easily done.
[00:01:23] Tony Winyard: Yeah. Cool. So Joanne, tell us who are you as a person?
[00:01:28] Joanne Kennedy: Who am I as a person? Funnily enough to myself, I am actually a, I am an entrepreneur, and this is something that’s quite extraordinary to me to think about because I never envisaged myself as being an entrepreneur visionary, when I started on my naturopathic journey about 15 years ago. So yeah I’m a, an extroverted introvert and a visionary entrepreneur, so that’s how I’d summed myself up these days.
But if you’d asked me five years ago, I would’ve said I was a healer. But things have changed. And I think the industry that I work in and what I have seen my patients struggle with and the ill health in our chronic ill health in our modern world and how people are let down and are frustrated and at their wit’s ends has moved me to figure out solutions that I can get onto a more of a global scale than just seeing one-on-one patients in Sydney. So I’m starting to see patients globally and I’m branching into the US very soon. I haven’t been able to see patients in the US due to professional indemnity insurance restrictions, but I’ve trained a US-based practitioner to start working with me. Because the US is a market that is desperate. I honestly get emails from them every day asking me to see them as patients cuz they are very unwell and lost. So this has led me to become more of a visionary in my industry and more of an entrepreneur working out how I can get my knowledge to more people to help more.
[00:03:21] Tony Winyard: Okay. There’s a few things to explore there. How did you first, you know, so you mentioned about your naturopath, so how did that come about in the first
[00:03:29] Joanne Kennedy: place?.
[00:03:29] How Jo became a naturopath
—
[00:03:29] Joanne Kennedy: What’s funny I was many years ago, I when I was about 28, I used to always say to myself, Joe, you need to start doing yoga before you turn 30 because you need to start doing yoga all the time so that you’re flexible when you’re old. I don’t know why I used to think that, but. Anyway, I joined this yoga class with this Indian teacher.
She was from Mumbai P, that was her name. She’s a really authentic Indian yoga teacher, and she was practicing out of her little studio in Sydney, and I went and met her and she’d said to me, Jo, like, you’re just, you’re holding onto the mat, like you’re gonna fall off the earth. You’re just like really highly strung.
And she said, you need to ground, down and you need. Start eating warm hot foods. I’m like, what do you mean? He goes, you need to eat warm foods. This is Ayurvedic medicine. This is Indian natural medicine. I’m like, oh, that’s fascinating. So I started googling that and I’m like, oh, you do a course in Ayurvedic medicine at the naturopathic college in Sydney.
And I went and spoke to them and I was so fortunate to get a career advisor there who was really switched on, and she said to me, Jo, you know, Ayurvedic medicine. It’s a philosophy. It’s a lifestyle of philosophy. You probably do need to go to India to take it the whole way you study for eight years in India.
She goes why don’t you just start with a western nutrition degree that you can use, you know, and start practicing. And I thought, you know, she’s. and I started studying nutrition and I had to go to the student clinic to help them get patients. They just needed more patients. So I went and they gave me some herbal medicine and they gave me a herd called Ashwaganda, or with Thania, which is really calming, and it was really calming.
I’m like this works this medicine works. So I was hooked. And then I started studying herbal medicine and moved from the nutrition degree into the naturopathy.
[00:05:23] Tony Winyard: And when you say it really worked, were you having some health issues at the time?.
[00:05:28] Joanne Kennedy: No I wasn’t, I was fortunate. I, fortunately, I haven’t had any health issues, tony, a lot of naturopaths have, I just find the history of it. The biochemistry, the history of natural medicine fascinating. But it was just it was calming. It was really calming. It just put me in a really chilled out place.
I’m like, this, it’s meant to be, it’s a calming. . I’m like, this this is really working. I can see that this works. And I became quite fascinated with that. And then I yeah, I just threw myself into my studies for five years and after that I was fortunate enough to work in a clinic that specializes in a gene mutation called the MThFR gene, which is a very common gene mutation. A lot of people are very aware of this mutation, and I was fortunate enough to work in a clinic that specialized in that it’s more functional medicine that I started to become educated in when once I left college, traditional naturopathic medicine, I moved more into functional.
Um, Which is what I do now. So I use it, I do a mix of like functional medicine where we use tests, functional medicine tests, very scientific based tests, and we draw on our evidence-based natural medicines and traditional naturopathic medicine, which sometimes doesn’t have the evidence, but it has it, it has, it’s tried and tested over years of practice.
So we tie that all together. So it’s a mix of traditional and functional medicine. That’s how I’m here today.
[00:06:54] Tony Winyard: So you started training in you know, in the Ayurveda and so on, and. I’m just wondering, so when did you start, you started working with clients, what, on a one-to-one basis initially, or working for some sort of clinic or how what
[00:07:08] How Jo began working with clients
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[00:07:08] Joanne Kennedy: Yeah. So after I graduated from college, I went and worked at a clinic called M Te f r, support Australia, that specializes in. the Mt. FFR G mutation, and this is where and issues pertaining to functional medicine. So I think what we, I need to explain is that functional medicine is getting to the root cause of illness.
And unfortunately, and I do need to say this a lot of the time in the education even in naturopathic college, And not getting to the root cause of ill health. You’re taught that but that’s not really the case. So it’s not un it’s not until you go out in your own practice and you get mentored from someone, or you do further education in functional medicine.
You are really getting to the root cause of illness, and so natural medicine lends itself beautifully to be able to healing the body when we get the results from functional medicine testing. So for instance, you can do. See, like, gut microbiome testing, right? SIBO testing, stool testing. You can do organic acids testing.
You can do dutch hormones testing. These are looking at how the body is responding, how the body is in, in real time. What is going on with your biochemistry and your microbiomes and your. And looking at very causative issues in the body.
[00:08:43] Tony Winyard: Okay, so we’ve got much better understanding of where you’ve come from and what is what it is you do. So do you specialize in any area now? Do you specialize with a certain type of demographic or.
[00:08:52] Histamine intolerance
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[00:08:52] Joanne Kennedy: Yeah. It’s really interesting. I do specialize in something Tony. It’s called histamine intolerance. and I specialize in histamine intolerance because it is extraordinarily common. So when we understand that chronic illness it’s inflammation in the body, and when there’s inflammation in the body creates. Always, and we have histamine receptors in our respiratory tract. It can cause shortness of breath, it can cause sneezing, rhinitis, sinusitis. In our cardiovascular system, it causes heart palpitations, histamine receptors in our gut. It causes chronic reflux and heartburn. It causes abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhea.
We have histamine receptors in our skin. It causes hives, eczema, it also causes acne and we also have histamine in the brain, and that will cause when it’s too high vertigo headaches, migraines, anxiety, insomnia, problems regulating your body temperature. So you can see how wide these symptoms are. It’s, and it’s coming from the inflammation that people are suffering from when they have chronic illness.
So whether that’s gut microbiome issues, food intolerances, mold, illness will do it. Lyme disease will do. Estrogen dominance, perimenopause, these conditions will drive up histamine in the body, and it’s so extraordinarily common. And it blows my mind that that more people weren’t doing it.
This is why I I I started to learn about this in my first job, and people would present with hives, which is a classic histamine symptom we know. , but then we’d be looking at treating them for that and they’d come back and their headaches had gone, their skin’s better, their sleep is better, their anxiety is better.
And it’s just like, this is histamine. So I did a deep dive into all the research on histamine, and it’s one of the most research molecules in medical science, but they’re trying to find the drugs to hit the receptors. But I’m like, how can we look at this naturally? So I just did a deep dive into all the different causes. Deep dive into histamine, the biochemistry, how it’s made in the body, how it’s broken down in the body. And then I’ve looked at all the different conditions that can cause. high histamine. And so I wrote a ebook and I’ve done a like a video masterclass on, on histamine intolerance.
It’s extraordinarily common. A lot of people don’t even know that they have a histamine intolerance though and Tony, like so many people will be Googling their symptoms. They’re seemingly unrelated symptoms, anxiety, insomnia, migraines, reflux, and they finally figure out its histamine. which is a shame because you should be able to go to your GP and then recognize it that they don’t.
So this is how I’ve been able to develop a business around this because it’s extraordinarily common and people are suffering from it in a really big way.
[00:12:00] Tony Winyard: And so how easy or difficult is that to treat? So you have someone with one of those many conditions you just mentioned. How easy is it to.
[00:12:08] Treatment for histamine related conditions
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[00:12:08] Joanne Kennedy: Yeah. Well, It depends on what condition. You know, it’s funny, one of a really common cause of high histamine in the body is actually gluten intolerance, cuz gluten is highly inflammatory to the human gut and it depends on your tolerance level. So some people, it’s just simply gluten.
Other people can get a condition called small intestinal bacterial overgrowth or sibo. It’s becoming very commonly known and tested these days. It’s a major cause of irritable bowel syndrome globally. And SIBO will cause significant inflammation in the small bowel and significant release of histamine that, that is not too hard to treat.
You know, as long as the patient’s compliant and we, that’s not too bad. Estrogen, this is really interesting. estrogen in women. Women are estrogen dominant or perimenopausal, are very likely to suffer from high histamine because estrogen increases histamine. So that, that clinically for me is not too hard to treat, cuz I’ve worked that out but when women are getting perimenopausal and they’re not ovulating and not making progesterone, they have unopposed estrogen, and that causes a lot of problems with histamine.
So a lot of women in that perimenopause stage will start getting migraines for the first time and that. due to the histamine recently. But then there is a whole lot of people Tony that are suffering from a severe form of histamine intolerance. It’s called mask cell activation syndrome, where the immune system is out of control.
[00:13:39] How mould affects this
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[00:13:39] Joanne Kennedy: It really is the mask cells are dysregulated. These are the cells that release histamine, and one of the major causes of that is mold illness. Now this is really a difficult thing to treat often because. people. It will, we will go undetected for years. The person doesn’t know they’ve got mold in their house.
We had this Scottish guy who was so sick and he got the builders in and they pulled down some of the the wallpaper and it was just covered with mold and he didn’t know. Right? And you get these mold creates microtoxins and they get into your body and. Create havoc. They really dysregulate your immune system, your nervous system.
It’s, that can be extremely hard to treat, especially if the person has been exposed for a long period of time. You can also have a genetic susceptibility to being, to fearing worse from mold than other people. And then the whole situation, like some people are right, right. I’m gonna pack my bags and I’m leaving the house.
Other people have five children and a mortgage. and it’s difficult. So it depends on the, it depends on the cause and then it depends on how long the person’s had the condition to how long it’s gonna take them to get out of it. Histamines a symptom. Yeah. It’s a symptom of underlying health conditions.
Yeah.
[00:15:00] Tony Winyard: Okay. Commonly most people think of histamine, you know, like hay fever and stuff like that. And you say you take an antihistamine pill or something along those
[00:15:08] Joanne Kennedy: Yeah. That’s only one of the symptoms.
[00:15:11] Asthma
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[00:15:11] Tony Winyard: So from what you’re saying, you talked about respiratory as well, so I’m presuming it’s got something to do with asthma as.
[00:15:16] Joanne Kennedy: Yeah, definitely. So histamine will exacerbate histamine’s part of the pathophysiology of asthma and eczema. Def. Yeah, absolutely.
[00:15:24] Tony Winyard: So if someone’s been suffering, there’s many conditions you mentioned and they’ve been going to see the doctor and their, the conditions aren’t, the symptoms are being treated, but nothing’s changing. They’ve still got their eczema, their asthma, whatever it may be.
[00:15:37] Reasons to seek out a naturopathic or integrative medicine doctor
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[00:15:37] Tony Winyard: What would you say? Maybe a next port of call may, may be for them if they’re just not getting satisfaction from seeing their GP or whoever.
[00:15:45] Joanne Kennedy: It’s really important to get to find a naturopath or an integrative doctor that looks at the functional medicine test that I was talking to you about.
So Tony, if someone is suffering from, any of those histamine symptoms I was telling you about, and they’re being just prescribed antihistamines or sleeping tablets. If you actually look at a lot of sleeping tablets in antihistamines or steroid drugs, obviously this is not treating the cause.
[00:16:15] Joanne’s e-book on histamine
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[00:16:15] Joanne Kennedy: Okay. You know, if people are really interested, they can look at my ebook, which lists all the cause of histamine. and they can take it to their naturopath or nutritionist or gp even, integrative doctor, and ask to get the tests run that I talk about in my ebook. Okay. So it’s stool testing, it’s SIBO testing, organic acid testing.
There’s a lot of tests that you can do to get to the root cause of why you are having problems with histamine. Because it’s not recognized. It’s not a condition, it’s a symptom. Okay. But because we have these histamine receptors all over the body, it causes a lot of different symptoms where people get quite confused.
They see a neurologist, they see a gastroenterologist, they see a psychiatrist, they see an endocrinologist, they’re seeing all these specialists, and it basically, it comes down to there’s something driving up the histamine in the body to a point where it can’t break it down effectively. But if people are really interested in my ebook, I list all the different causes of histamine and I have had people, patients that I haven’t been able to see, tell me that they’ve taken it to their doctor, and their doctor has been helpful in getting the testing done for them. Yeah. But, it’s not a new condition, but how we are testing for the causes and treating it is actually quite.
[00:17:46] Patients suffering from histamine related conditions
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[00:17:46] Tony Winyard: And you know, some of the conditions you mentioned now, I imagine there’s gonna be people listening who’ll be gonna be quite a surprise that maybe the root of the problem is something as like that histamine, because they’ve probably been told something completely different.
[00:17:59] Joanne Kennedy: Yep. Yeah it’s really true. Tony like, like it’s extraordinary. My girls, my naturopaths and nutritionist that train with me after they’ve been through uni they cannot believe when they sit with me that the patient after patient will come in and their symptoms are histamine symptom driven from chronic inflammation.
It’s just, it’s really quite extraordinary, especially this chronic reflux. We have histamine receptors that stimulates hydrochloric acid. Chronic reflux and heartburn. It really is profound and extremely common. I’ve had really, I don’t think I’ve had one case where it hasn’t actually been histamine, and these people are told they need to have gut surgery, but they don’t, they need to get the bacteria down.
That’s creating all the histamine migraines absolutely driven in the majority of cases driven. histamine and anxiety. Histamine stimulates adrenaline, so people have a lot of anxiety. Insomnia is is often histamine and you know, obviously these, you know, anxiety, insomnia can be from other things, but when people are presenting with all the signs and symptoms of SIBO or all the signs and symptoms of mold illness and they have all these histamine symptoms. You know, this is very likely a histamine problem, like their anxiety is histamine and once, once you calm it all down the body, the adrenaline will stop pumping up and it will relax.
Motion sickness and nausea is also a really common histamine.
[00:19:37] Tony Winyard: So once you’ve identified what the issue is, and yeah, I appreciate you said, depending on there’s so many different conditions. There’s therefore many different ways to go about treating it. But is this something that can be completely eradicated or is it something that’s gonna have to be watched out for the rest of their life?
[00:19:58] Joanne Kennedy: yeah. Case by case spaces. So if someone has sibo as I said, major cause of irritable bowel syndrome, this is something that we’re, you know, myself, my colleagues, a lot of practitioners. You know, in the UK and US are getting very good at treating, we are getting very good at. This is not a, it’s not a disease, it’s an overgrowth of your own.
Bacteria in your small bowel is overgrown, causing problems. This is a very treatable condition. If you’ve got histamine producing bacteria in the large bowel or candida, that can also cause histamine. That’s very treatable. Getting your hormones in balance as a woman is very important and very fixable in a majority of cases.
You know, it’s not a, it’s not a condition, it’s just a natural part of the progression into menopause. But there’s a lot that can be done to support that balancing hormones. It’s just mold illness is the tricky one. Because the way that mold disrupts the mass cells to a point where they.
They’re triggered constantly. They’re it’s quite different, just a histamine intolerance. The mass cells are de granulating and releasing histamine in a very out of control way. These people are quite severely unwell. And mold illness is just, my colleague specializes in it.
I don’t treat mold. She had mold illness herself. But that is yeah it’s all about how bad the exposure is and how quickly you can remove yourself from that environment. And it’s every, it’s, you know, England, I’ve got England, Scotland Island, Denmark, like the cold places.
Sydney’s rife with mold and we’ve got patients in Indonesia, Asia, damp mold. It’s common. It’s really. So if you yeah, so it’s people. The mold patients come to me and they’ve done everything. They’ve seen so many practitioners. They’ve done all the gut stuff, they’ve done all the candida protocols, they’ve done everything, and they never get better.
That’s a classic red flag. And they also have multiple chemical sensitivity. Like they can’t walk down the aisle of the supermarket past the cleaning products. They can’t go into. Selfridges and go past the perfumes. They have massive issues with multiple chemical sensitivity, and they also have major food intolerances.
These are the people that are living on two or three different types of foods, so that’s like a classic red flag to me that they’re, it’s not just a simple gut problem, it’s a lot more insidious than that.
[00:22:22] Tony Winyard: Again, the conditions you’ve described affecting everyone, I all sorts of ages and cultures and nationalities and whatever, but are you, do you specialize in any particular demographic? You’ve talked about menopause and perimenopause, for example. So are you dealing
[00:22:35] Menopause and perimenopause
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[00:22:35] Joanne Kennedy: yeah. Ideal. Look, you know, just the way I. Look it all I’m surprised by this, like when I’m looking at my demographic, you know, even looking at my Instagram following it’s majority women between the age of 35 and 55. But we, you know, we see a lot of men in our clinic with a lot of different health issues.
But yeah, for absolutely there is when women’s hormones start to change. in the perimenopause phase, which really does start at 40, for most women. It’s like a 10 year rollercoaster nightmare, right? When? When women don’t produce as much progesterone as they used to, which is what happens in that transition, your estrogen is higher than your progesterone and that can stimulate histamine and it causes a lot of histamine symptoms in a lot of women. So they don’t even know, A lot of women don’t even know that their heightened premenstrual anxiety in insomnia is driven from estrogen and histamine imbalance. Like it’s really extraordinarily.
So I have a, yeah, my demographic. You know, definitely a lot of women between the age are like 35 and 55. Definitely.
[00:23:58] Tony Winyard: So what you just described, if that’s caught early in the whole process, is it then quite easy to treat?
[00:24:04] The role womens genetic makeup plays
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[00:24:04] Joanne Kennedy: Oh it just, we, every women are so different in their genetic makeup. They’re in their their stress level. Stress plays a massive part in hormones. You know, you might have thyroid issues that contributes to menstrual cycle, irregular. You might have you might have stress. Stress has a massive role in women’s hormones, gut issues, et cetera, et cetera.
There’s just a lot going on with women in their hormones. And it’s just, but it is a transition and natural medicine lends itself beautifully. Herbal medicine and stuff is extremely efficacious for balancing women’s hormones. So much can be done. A lot can be done.
[00:24:43] Tony Winyard: Early in the episode, beginning of the recording, you talked about how you’re getting so many clients from America,
[00:24:50] Joanne Kennedy: Yeah.
[00:24:50] Why does Jo have so many clients in the USA?
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[00:24:50] Tony Winyard: I’m intrigued as to, do you have any thoughts as to why there are so many people in America reaching out to you?
[00:24:56] Joanne Kennedy: A few things that I think they. They are huge. They are consumers of things. The Americans, this is just very true. They are very aware of functional medicine and natural medicine. Integrative medicine. There are a lot of very good naturopaths and integrative doctors and pathology laboratories in the United States.
Right. There is a lot of that. So they’re exposed to. but I have a niche area and, I can talk about it in layman’s terms, so they find me on Instagram and YouTube and because I can talk about the gut microbiome and hormones and histamines and some kind of tricky genetic stuff. All in one thing.
I can pull it all together and they’re like, oh my. You are talking about all my different things. I went to this practitioner for my sibo. I went to that practitioner for my mold. I went to that practitioner for my hormones. I went to that practitioner from my M t h FFR G mutation. And I I’ve, I’ve can pull it all together.
So that’s why. I do get patients from Britain and stuff, but the US is, it’s also Chinese. It’s a massive market. There’s so many of them. Also, . They do, it is true. Like the food chain in the US is not good. The stress in the US is not good. Right? The over-prescribing of medications, it happens here.
It happens in Britain too. It’s not, we’re not really that different. But I think the us, they do, a lot of them have, are exposed to a. Great practitioners for specific things, but I can pull it all together. And I think that’s what they’re looking for. And the histamine thing’s such a big deal because a lot of the practitioners just actually aren’t aware that these signs and symptoms that they’re presenting with are an actual histamine symptom and how to actually deal with it.
And it, it’s extraordinary to me. I, I. Do not understand why it’s not more commonly known and treated. It. It’s starting to be, but it’s always been there. It’s always been there, right? We’ve always had histamine in our body and we’ve always had not forever, but Mo in modern living has driven these problems.
And people have been sick with it for a long time, but a lot of practitioners, even these amazing naturopaths, old school naturopaths that I’ve trained with, that I learned from incredible practitioners, they didn’t know about histamine until recently either. Like people just didn’t know about it and it’s like the lights being switched on.
It’s like we, I can’t believe we didn’t see this before.
Yeah.
[00:27:35] What stage is science at with research into histamine?
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[00:27:35] Tony Winyard: Is it possibly, at a moment we are in the, there’s so much that we don’t know, and when I say we like science doesn’t know about the gut and the microbiome and we’ve just, we know a tiny bit. And is it something similar with this? It’s just many people are only kind of discovering this now and there’s still much to be learned or what would you say?
What’d you.
[00:27:52] Joanne Kennedy: Yes. I think no I think. , a lot of research has been done around how histamine is made in the body, how we break it down, et cetera. Right? This is why we have a lot of medications that are targeting all these histamine. Re I think there’s five, four or five histamine receptors. We’ve got drugs for all these receptors just to block them, right?
But. what is now becoming more and more known and the research is getting better. It’s actually, I’m gonna say it like this, the research around the micro, the microbiome disruption is a massive cause of histamine intolerance. There is so much research done on the microbiome, it’s fascinating. It, we are their human.
There are trillions of bacteria in our gut way more than cells in our body. they, they communicate with our dna, they regulate our immune system. They they support detoxification processes. They’re just, they, creates seratonin. They’re extremely important. A lot of the researchers there, but this is the catch, right?
[00:28:59] Why entrepreneurs are needed for this area
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[00:28:59] Joanne Kennedy: The commercial testing, right? And. And then the businesses the practitioners who have a business brain and the money to create a business so that they can create a clinic for patients to be treated, is the problem. Does that make sense? So for instance, we didn’t learn about SIBO at uni.
There was an amazing, she’s actually an American woman Neur Jacobi. She’s been in Australia for years and she specializes in gut, and then she started to really realize that SIBO was a big problem. So she created commercial testing that you combine due from your own home that’s very efficacious, safe and accurate.
Then she developed all these treatment protocols around what to do. Then she created a business where she would sell. Webinars to practitioners, so practitioners could treat patients. And it takes a brain and a lot of energy and a lot of money. And there’s another pla there’s one in, it’s called SOS SIBO in the us.
Very similar. Does that make sense? It’s just because the businesses need to be there for clinics, for patients to go and be treated. It’s just, it’s how it is. Does that make sense? So it’s getting the research and creating a way that patients can get the testing done and get treated for it.
And this is what is not happening in allopathic medicine. So it needs to be done.
[00:30:39] Tony Winyard: So it’s making more sense now. When you, at the start of the recording, when you said that you are now an entrepreneur as opposed to a healer.
[00:30:48] Joanne Kennedy: Yeah.
[00:30:48] Tony Winyard: Following on from what you just said about those couple of examples.
[00:30:51] Joanne Kennedy: Yeah. It’s that. So I, due to this the US market, and I’ve got a girl who I’ve trained in America, she’s gonna start with for me next month. She’ll be inundated with patients. I, I already got a whole list. Then I’m gonna have to train another one, but, so I’m like, okay, Joe, you’re gonna have to create online course.
You’re gonna have to create courses for these practitioners to do, and then you’ll have to accredit them and they’ll have to retrain every six months, et cetera, et cetera. I need to create things. So it’s, I’ve become more entrepreneurial because the need is there. Yes, still a healer, but it’s just, I’ve market’s just there.
I can’t not see it. Like I c it’s there. Which is, you know, it’s extraordinary to me that this has happened with. Career in natural medicine. But it’s exciting and it’s interesting and you know, if we can help a lot of people, it’s really rewarding.
[00:31:46] Treating the body as a whole
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[00:31:46] Tony Winyard: And so I’m wondering if in this expansion you’re talking about where these new people you’re taking on. Would it, would you like it to be the situation where maybe you’ve got one person who specialize in perimenopause and another person in sibo and another per, you know, for example, would that.
[00:31:59] Joanne Kennedy: Ki but you need to be able. To treat the body as a whole. Because if you have a, we do. If so it because our patients are majority are women. You need to be able to treat hormones as a practitioner. So yes, so we are going to we do someone that can do gut issues and hormones.
Definitely. Then there’s the whole mold illness side, which is really complex and I do have a practitioner that works for. Just doing mold illness. So I do gut and hormones. That’s really my forte. And my colleague Nicole, who trained with me closely she does a lot of gut stuff. I’m more of a hormone guru than her, but then Melanie is the mold specialist.
So yeah. But it’s just that the premise of natural medicine is trying to treat the whole body as a. So I, it’s just that. But then there are certain conditions that really need a specialized kind of like Nicole, my colleague is brilliant at sibo. She’s very good at that. If I have a tricky case, I’ll send them to her just to have a, another look.
If she gets a hard hormone case, she’ll send it to me. So we do share patients to get the best results. Cuz there’s just so much to know. Like there’s a lot to know with natural. Yeah.
[00:33:22] Jo’s fave book
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[00:33:22] Tony Winyard: One question I ask all all of my guests, is there a book that’s moved you in for any reason?
[00:33:26] Joanne Kennedy: Yeah, it’s called The Snow Leopard by Peter Matherson. and I’m not sure if you’ve read it. Dunno. No. Peter Matheson is a, he’s a environmentalist, a Buddhist and a writer. And he went to the Himalayas on like a science expedition looking for snow leopards, the elusive snow leopards. He does eventually see them, but the whole book is about him meeting his Sherpa in Nepal and.
the Sherpa taking him just protecting him and him going through the mountains and going deep into his meditation practice. And he would always be in a rush to get to the next, like base camp for the next day. And he’d get there hot and flustered, and he’d sit there and he’d, oh, I’ve done this in five hours.
And then his Sherpa would just walk up calmly, casually. Mindfully present, and it was that he’s learning about how to be mindful, calm, present, and to meditate is what led me into doing meditation and yoga, which led me into natural medicine. So I’ll always, I’ve got it here, I’ll always remember this book.
It it changed, it did change the trajectory of my life cuz I was just in my corporate head party girl lived in London and then it just shifted my perception on mindfulness and calming and being present. Look, you know, I try and practice meditation most days. I don’t always get there, but it, I don’t think I could have done my degree without my mindfulness meditation practice.
And that book led me into that world.
[00:35:16] Contact details
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[00:35:16] Tony Winyard: So if people want to get your, the e-book that you’ve mentioned and find out more about you and your social media website and so on where should they go?
[00:35:25] Joanne Kennedy: So my website is simply joanne kennedy.com.au. And so my website that’s where you can book appointments to see me and my colleagues. And I have an e bundle, which you can get from my website, and that is all about histamine intolerance. So there’s an ebook. Video masterclass is also some recipes and some other handouts.
So that’s on my website. I have a YouTube channel called Joanne Kennedy Naturopath, and I’m on Instagram at Joanne Kennedy naturopath.
[00:35:57] Tony Winyard: And finally, Jo, is there a quote that really resonates with you for any.
[00:36:01] Favourite quote
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[00:36:01] Joanne Kennedy: I do love this quote, and I dunno who I don’t know. I see it on Instagram a lot, and I dunno who it’s by, but I’m gonna tell you what it is. If you cannot digest it, let it go. No matter how shiny and gorgeous, how lusciously tempting it might be, if you cannot digest it, it will poison you.
[00:36:21] Tony Winyard: And when did you first come across that?
[00:36:22] Joanne Kennedy: A few years ago, but I pop, it was weird. It came up today and I thought, I really love that. It’s just, you know, so often in life we’re tempted by things that are so shiny and look amazing, and then we try and people if you know, if how they behave towards you, their attitude towards your energy is something that just.
Sits in your gut, it doesn’t move through. The energy gets stuck in you. You, You can’t digest it. You gotta let it go. You know, and I often talk to my friends about this. It’s just when not everything is for everybody. And not everybody is for everybody. And I think that’s one thing that I’ve learned is just to let go of things in business as well.
In business I’ve just learned to. . If things don’t sit well in my body, if they cause an anxiety disease, they’re probably not right for me and I’ve gotta let ’em go.
[00:37:26] Tony Winyard: That’s some very wise words, I think.
[00:37:28] Joanne Kennedy: Thanks, Tony.
[00:37:29] Tony Winyard: Take to heed that advice
[00:37:31] Joanne Kennedy: yeah. No, I love it. It’s good. I’m telling, I tell my friends all the time. That’s always my advice to them. Yeah.
[00:37:38] Tony Winyard: well Joe, thank you for your time and for sharing your wisdom with us. And I think a lot of people are gonna be quite surprised with what you’ve told us about histamine.
[00:37:45] Joanne Kennedy: will be.
Spread the word people do need to know. Yeah.
[00:37:49] Tony Winyard: This episode’s gonna be coming out at the beginning of January, so have a fantastic 2023 and yeah, thank you for sharing your knowledge with us.
[00:37:58] Joanne Kennedy: You’re welcome Tony. Thanks for having.
[00:37:59] The end of Habits & Health, but the beginning of the new show!
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That was the last edition or the last episode of the habits and health podcast. From next week, there will be series four of the podcast, which is called Escape from the vicious circle (which you didn’t know you were in). It’s going to be a lot of similarities with the habits and health podcast.
The main focus will still be around health. And very much into behavior and habits and so on. But we’ll be looking at the vicious circles that many people are in. Most of them are going to be looking at health, but it will allow me to widen the scope slightly and look at some other problems that people face in their lives. Sometimes they’re not aware they’re in, and in health there’s so many of these vicious circles. That people are struggling in. And so each week I’m going to be continuing to interview people. And looking at how can we help people escape some of these vicious circles?
So the first episode. We’ll be with Simon Blake. He is the chief executive of MHFA England, which is mental health first aid, England. Simon Blake has an OBE. He joined MHFA in October, 2018. And leading a social enterprise to achieve its vision of normalizing societies attitudes, and behaviors towards mental health.
Through training one in 10 of the population. That’s there aim. He also chairs, the Dying Matters campaign and the support after suicide partnership. So we’re going to explore a lot of that. That will be episode one of the escape from the vicious circle podcast. Next Tuesday, same time as usual. Hope you have a great week.
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Habits & Health episode 99 with Tom Glaser, a Licensed Psychologist and life coach with over 35 years of experience, Tom is also a bestselling author and yoga instructor. We discuss compassion, listening, how to find the right person to work with and a lot more.Tom’s book, “Full Heart Living: Conversations with the Happiest People I Know,” is an amazon.com bestseller. Whether counseling, writing, or teaching, his passion is for helping people live their best lives flows through.
Topics discussed in this episode:
03:01 Why Tom became a psychologist
04:19 If we’d lived their lives…
08:15 Clients being open to change
11:51 What qualities should you look for when seeking a life coach?
14:35 Why did you also train to be a life coach?
17:21 What types of psychology Tom studied
18:09 AEDP
20:22 Being perfect
22:55 Taking total responsibility
23:55 Do many of your clients give them self enough self-compassion?
24:58 Younger generations get criticised a lot by the media
27:29 How some teachers can kill creativity
29:38 Why did you call your book, Full Heart Living?
30:00 Things that happier people do
32:22 What do you hope people will get from your book?
33:46 Relationships
35:29 Who is the book aimed at?
37:30 When did you start writing the book?
37:59 Experiences Tom has had at his book talks
40:22 Will there be a follow-up book?
43:46 Listening to someone
44:43 Quote on deep listening
46:04 Being a conduit
47:52 Yoga
52:49 Tom’s social media details
LInks:* Tom Glaser on Linkedin * Tom Glaser on Facebook * Tom Glaser on Instagram * Full Heart Living website Upcoming workshops:Full Heart Living: Connecting for HappinessSunday, January 15, 1:00-3:00 Central through Yoga Center Retreat onlineNavigating a New World: Collective Trauma, Ambiguous Loss, and Self-CareSunday, January 29, 1:00-3:00 Central through Yoga Center Retreat onlineHighly Sensitive People: Harnessing Your Hidden AdvantageSunday, March 19, 1:00-3:00 Central through Yoga Center Retreat onlineDiscover Your Purpose: Living from the Seat of Your SoulSaturday, May 20, 9:00-noon Central through Yoga Center Retreat in personVisit https://theyogacenterretreat.com/workshops/ to registerTom's book:Full Heart Living: Conversations With The Happiest People I KnowRecommended book:The Magic Power of Self-Image Psychology by Maxwell MaltzFavourite Quotes
"Listen with a Willingness to be Changed"
Mark NepoTweet
"Everything you want is out there waiting for you to ask. Everything you want also wants you. But you have to take action to get it."
Jules RenardTweet
Related episode: Listen on Apple Podcasts * Google Podcasts * Spotify * Amazon Music * Listen on Stitcher Don’t forget, there is a transcript of every episode* (scroll down the page).
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TranscriptEmailDownloadNew Tab99 – Tom Glaser
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Habits and health episode 99.
Welcome to another edition of habits and health and my guest today, some Glazer. I licensed psychologist and life coach. We’ve 35 years of experience. He’s also a best-selling author and a yoga instructor. His book, full heart living conversations with the happiest people. I know.
Is a best center bestseller on Amazon. And whether he’s counseling, writing, or teaching. His passion is helping people live their best lives. That flow. And we’re going to talk about. What that means, why he called his book for heart live in. What he learned from the project and a lot more. So that’s this week’s episode with Tom Glaser.
If, you know, anyone would get some value from this, please do share the episode with them. Hope you enjoy this week’s show
[00:01:03] Tony Winyard: Habit Sound Health. My guest today, Tom Glaser. How are you, Tom?
[00:01:08] Tom Glaser: I am well, how about you? Tony?
[00:01:10] Tony Winyard: I’m doing well. Where I am is not anywhere near as warm as where you are, but I can’t complain because recently we had a very cold spell, but at the moment it’s pretty mild, so yeah, it’s
[00:01:23] Tom Glaser: Nice. Do you have snow on the ground?
[00:01:25] Tony Winyard: No. Well, it’s a few weeks ago. We had a lot of snow and then we had a warm, well warm for England in December.
Um, and all the snow, I mean, literally, I’ve never, I’ve never known this in my life before. We went through a period of a couple of weeks where it was like minus something every single day, and then we had a period of snow and then suddenly it went up 15 degrees overnight. It was, I’ve never known it to go that quick in the winter, you know, to, to go up by that.
[00:01:52] Tom Glaser: wow.
[00:01:53] Tony Winyard: So, yeah, so at a moment, I dunno what, it’s probably eight, nine degrees, something like that. But yeah, there’s no snow
[00:02:00] Tom Glaser: Okay. Well, from where I am, I can see snow on the top of the mountains, but I don’t have to drive or walk through it.
[00:02:10] Tony Winyard: And just, for our, for our listeners, where are you,
[00:02:13] Tom Glaser: I’m in Palm Springs, California, which is where my husband and I winter now, but most of the year we’re in Minneapolis area, Minnesota. Yeah.
[00:02:21] Tony Winyard: Prince Territory.
[00:02:23] Tom Glaser: Yes, that’s right. You got it.
[00:02:27] Tony Winyard: I was a big, big Prince fan, so Yeah, I know
[00:02:29] Tom Glaser: Raspberry Beret, man. Oh, party like it’s 1999, all that.
[00:02:35] Tony Winyard: absolutely. So listen, listen Tom, so you are a licensed psychologist and life coach, and you’ve been doing this for, what, 35 years?
[00:02:44] Tom Glaser: Yeah. Yeah. I’m an old guy and I’ve been doing it my whole career, so,
[00:02:48] Tony Winyard: So what, which came first a psychologist or a life coach
[00:02:53] Tom Glaser: Psychologist.
[00:02:54] Tony Winyard: and why?
[00:02:57] Tom Glaser: life coaching wasn’t even really a thing back then. I mean,
[00:03:01] Why Tom became a psychologist
—
[00:03:01] Tony Winyard: I mean, why, why a psychologist? What? What made you want to get into that?
[00:03:05] Tom Glaser: Oh, I understand. Oh my gosh. Okay. Couple things. People from a very young age, Tony had told me what a good listener I am. Um, so I feel like I may have had some kind of natural talent in that area. Then in high school, uh, I had a phenomenal psychology teacher, Mr. Ryan, who’s no longer walking the planet, sadly.
Uh, but he was so inspirational and introduced me to so many things. Uh, You know, to me, psychology is the study of human behavior, of the soul, of our motivations. Uh, what could be more fascinating than the human mind And everybody has a story. If you ask the right questions, most people will open up and they have a story, and they have really good reasons they made the decisions they made and how they got here.
And I. infinitely fascinating. So, I’m never bored at my job unless, oh, go ahead.
[00:04:19] If we’d lived their lives…
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[00:04:19] Tony Winyard: Well, I was gonna say, have, you heard of a podcaster? He’s a British guy. He’s a doctor Rongan Chatterjee?
[00:04:28] Tom Glaser: No, don’t think of,
[00:04:29] Tony Winyard: He has a line that he often says and he talks about, you know, sometimes we see people do what seems like strange things to us, but he says, well, if we had lived their life and been through the things that they’d been through, we would probably be doing exactly the same as, as.
[00:04:47] Tom Glaser: exactly. Yes. I remember using that. Not in those exact words, but I remember saying that as far back ago as in the 1980s, Yes, in the late eighties, I remember saying that to people. I was supervising a, a team working with a ton of diverse people and yes, we would sometimes scratch our heads. It’s hard for us sometimes to make sense of other people’s choices and behaviors, but yes, there’s to, this is what I see.
There’s a reason they’re doing that. always is a really good reason.
[00:05:20] Tony Winyard: Yeah,
[00:05:21] Tom Glaser: If we dig down deep,
[00:05:22] Tony Winyard: yeah, yeah. Yeah.
[00:05:24] Tom Glaser: And I, and I like the second part, you would make the same choice if you had their experiences. It’s very helpful to remember that when we are puzzled or, or worse, uh, troubled or triggered by someone else’s behavior so that we can step back, have some compassion, and particularly when we do learn their story, typically there’s.
[00:05:49] Tony Winyard: Yeah, yeah.
[00:05:49] Tom Glaser: when they’re doing something that’s difficult or challenging, typically it’s trauma based. Uh, and if we knew their trauma, we wouldn’t be so judgmental. And it’s not that we put up with inappropriate behavior, no. If someone’s doing harm, we say, no, you may not do that. You must stop that behavior and, and we can also open our. someone who’s done something harmful and it’s through that, that the person might or at least will have more options for change in the future, right? If just one other person offers them that hurtful experience, interest in their lives, why did you do that? What’s going on? Um, then healing can occur and it’s so exciting.
Again, this is why my work is infinitely. interesting and fascinating and even rewarding because the potential for, well, it’s both. Here’s what I say, Tony. I am stunned by the potential for people to change. I’m also stunned by the potential for people to remain stuck, right? Like both continue to shock me, or shock but not surprised, kind of as I guess where I’m at.
Um, Change is hard. Change is difficult, and it’s possible if we want it, if we want it, if it means enough to us at any age, it’s available in relationship. That’s the second piece that’s so important in that I was getting at before. When someone shows interest in a troubled person, most troubled people are very, very lonely.
Extremely lonely and when someone shows interest, again, opens their heart, asks some questions, remains nonjudgmental, the person has the opportunity. It is not a guarantee. We can’t guarantee that someone else will open up, but it’s more likely as any of us, we all understand this when we’re with someone else who is non-judgemental, interested. Uh, we feel safe and we tend to open up. This is just human nature and we’re wired for that. That’s the other thing. I feel like I’m rambling a bit. I hope you’ll, I’m just trusting you to, to stop me at any time.
[00:08:15] Clients being open to change
—
[00:08:15] Tony Winyard: One thing that I was thinking as you were saying that, I, I, would I be right in assuming, and it’s never good to assume, but the people that come to you, the patients that you are working with, the, just the fact that they’re coming to you. Surely that means they, they’re open to change, or are there some people you work with that aren’t open to change, even though they have maybe sought you out?
[00:08:42] Tom Glaser: Yes. It’s, it’s, uh, yes, yes. generally speaking, people who come to me, especially at this stage in my career, they tend to be motivated. They tend to be ready. And I remember years ago I’m not gonna be able to. To, you know, call up the study at this point. But this has been studied and great change takes, takes place for people in between scheduling the first appointment and the first meeting, so before it even happens, right?
And that indicates that they’re primed, they’re already making change just by virtue of getting serious about it. Uh, so yes, that’s all true. And there are some people who are still, even though they make an appointment with me, they are not truly ready. It’s rare. Now, at this stage, I, I tend to attract people who, as I say, are more ready.
But every now and then I run into somebody and they, they just are not, it’s either they’re not ready or I’m not the right fit for them, or they’re not the right fit for me, or both. Um, so that’s the other thing. It’s not, healing. You know, they always say the relationship. They always say find a therapist or a coach that you really jive with.
What does that mean? Someone you’re comfortable with, someone who you feel really understands you. I feel like I understand a lot of people, but I, I’m not. Best for everybody. I, I’m like, I’m super sensitive. I’m highly sensitive, for instance, so people who are more attacking and angry, I’m not a very good fit for.
There’s other people who have a different disposition, different life experiences, and they’re really good with that stuff. They know how to work with it and it doesn’t bug ’em so much. Me people. Angry. And they, and they, and they sometimes clients do this and they, they wanna attack and it’s all my fault and I couldn’t possibly understand them and they call me names, you know, that’s just cuz of my own history and disposition that it stirs me up too much.
And I get more unsettled in the face of that. And I know this is not uncommon for people in my field. Uh, but that said, there’s other people in our field who are really good with it. So that’s just one example. Yes. . So it’s a little bit of both. Mostly, mostly people I see are very motivated, ready to change, and they’re already open.
And they’ve, and they’ve also, here’s the other thing, being at this stage in my career, people choose me specifically right. There’s a ton of screening has already happened way before the first meeting. Uh, when I, you know, when I was earlier in my career, I was just a person. They didn’t, they had a name.
They didn’t know who I. It was, it was blind. I worked in a big clinic or several or counseling centers. People would just get assigned randomly. You know, it’s a bustling big thing. Um, and, and that’s very different. We have to get to know each other and then determine more, are we a good fit? But usually people are specifically already choosing me because of things they know about.
[00:11:51] What qualities should you look for when seeking a life coach?
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[00:11:51] Tony Winyard: And when you said, they also made me think that when people have decided they want to. See a, a psychologist, a life coach, my guess, and you know, I could be wrong in this, is that many people spend a lot of time looking for, um, someone who’s the best, who’s got a lot of experience, maybe qualifications, whatever.
But in some ways, the most important thing is, is that personality fit and whether, whether you are gonna have the right, whether you are gonna have a nice kind of blend or you’re gonna fit well with personality.
[00:12:25] Tom Glaser: yes, yes. Or like, chemistry is a word that used and, um, that’s hard to define. Right? We know it when we, when there’s a good fit, you feel it, you know it, your body tells you if there’s not a good fit, you’re, you’re more tense.
[00:12:41] Tony Winyard: So
[00:12:41] Tom Glaser: Your
[00:12:42] Tony Winyard: then, so how would then someone who’s decided they need the help of a psychologist, a whatever, and they’re, they’re hunting or they’re looking, they’re looking through the internet, wherever they’re looking, how would they. Now they’ve made me thinking, oh yeah, that’s, that makes sense.
Psych uh, chemistry is very important. So how, what would you say, what would they, how would it, what would be a good way to look for someone who has chemistry that fits with you?
[00:13:07] Tom Glaser: Couple things come to mind. Uh, word of mouth is huge, so, uh, And this is a huge way people find me, is friends. Tell them, uh, that they saw me or that they know someone who saw me, that that’s the, or someone else refers them a doctor or a a, you know, a, a clergy person. Um, so that personal recommendation is huge, number one.
Number two, the wonderful thing of this age where we have access to videos. uh, you get a sense of people in, in less than a minute, really a few seconds. Most of us, we get a sense of a person just in a video clip, so, uh, look at, you know, if my mannerisms bug you, I’m not a good fit for you, right? If the, if the way I speak bugs you, if the things I’m saying seem too.
I don’t know, esoteric or, you know, I’m, I’m, I bring in a lot of spirituality, not in, not in like, I’m telling people how to be spiritual. Like I’m just, I’m me. I bring all of my own spirituality and it blends into how I am my presence with people. Uh, some people don’t want that. They want someone more clinical.
They want someone who’s just gonna do and, and, and there’s nothing wrong with that, right? There’s. , different strokes for different folks, different, that’s why there’s 31 flavors, all that stuff. So yeah, I think the video thing, uh, and uh, word of mouth,
[00:14:35] Why did you also train to be a life coach?
—
[00:14:35] Tony Winyard: Right. And so you talked about, you started off as a psychologist, so what made you add being a life coach to what you did?
[00:14:44] Tom Glaser: several things. Um, I wanted to serve more people. with, uh, uh, psychology. We get really limited in who we can work with, where they reside, uh, how we can do things. Um, Nothing wrong with that. I really like that there are overseers, uh, helping protect the public really important. But, you know, I can, if I’m doing psychotherapy, I can only see residents of Minnesota, um, by, uh, my license and I could lose my license if I practiced.
Otherwise. So if I do life coaching, which is extremely similar in many, many ways, I can work with anyone in the world,
[00:15:35] Tony Winyard: Mm.
[00:15:36] Tom Glaser: um, that’s really the number one reason I wanted to reach more people.
[00:15:43] Tony Winyard: Right. It’s interesting about seven, eight years ago, I forget when it was, I wanted to work with a new life coach, business coach, and, and in my, I can’t remember why I thought this, but I thought, I wanna find someone who not only is a good business life coach. , but has some sort of expertise in psychology as well, because then they’re gonna maybe understand how my brain works, which is gonna help me better with what I’m trying to achieve and so on.
It wasn’t easy to find.
[00:16:18] Tom Glaser: Right. Bingo. Yes. I’ve heard that from many people.
[00:16:24] Tony Winyard: Hmm
[00:16:25] Tom Glaser: Yeah. There there’s some of us.
[00:16:27] Tony Winyard: mm-hmm. . I mean, I did find someone, but it wasn’t easy.
[00:16:30] Tom Glaser: Yeah. It took you, took some work. Yes. And it paid off.
[00:16:35] Tony Winyard: absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The, the, what I thought, the reason why I was looking for those certain things, it, it all came together and it made complete sense. Yeah. And it, yeah, it helped me. Yeah.
[00:16:48] Tom Glaser: Good. Yes. Well, again, there’s nothing wrong with. Whatever people’s background is, is their background and they bring what they bring and really beautiful, in my opinion, in most, in the vast majority cases. Um, right. So I bring what I bring from my life and professional experience and, um, yeah, it’s like everybody and we all have something to offer everyone.
[00:17:21] What types of psychology Tom studied
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[00:17:21] Tony Winyard: And so there’s, there’s many different forms of psychology. There’s what? C B T
[00:17:26] Tom Glaser: Cognitive behavioral therapy.
[00:17:29] Tony Winyard: So did you study any one of those in particular or a few of them, or?
[00:17:34] Tom Glaser: Oh, yes. I’ve studied so many over, uh, over my, uh, time, uh, through not just, you know, formal training in graduate school, but, uh, continuing education beyond and, um, So to my personal belief is that there are as many, uh, types of psychotherapy, not just as, not, not just as many as psychotherapists, but that each one is unique with every client.
[00:18:09] AEDP
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[00:18:09] Tom Glaser: Like something new emerges with every person. It’s always unique. It’s always unique because different things happen when different people come together. so. So I’ve studied all kinds. The, the one in my more recent years that has made the most impact is called Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy or A E D P.
very attachment based. It’s, uh, trauma resolution based. Um, heavily using video taping of sessions and then reviewing sessions with an advanced practitioner. . So I learned so much. Um, and it’s a very vulnerable experience, I might say, showing one’s work, which is usually very private to other people, but super, super helpful.
Even after decades of experience to share the work. Here’s what happened in the session and not just talking about it, which can be super helpful with consultants, but showing here’s what happened in this moment. Let’s look at options. How could you do. Super, super helpful.
[00:19:23] Tony Winyard: And then so when someone, you’re working with someone and they’ve maybe giving you feedback on some things that you did with a particular patient, does it ever then happen where then you go back to the patient and maybe look at something again that you’ve previously looked at?
[00:19:40] Tom Glaser: Absolutely. And, and own it and say, Hey, I’ve really been thinking about that moment. Uh, this is what I did. I’m not sure that was best, you know, just saying that. Saying it out loud, here’s what I wish I might have done instead,
[00:19:55] Tony Winyard: Okay.
[00:19:56] Tom Glaser: and then talking about that. Right. So that’s just real. That’s just being human.
Isn’t that great role modeling right there? Right? Isn’t
[00:20:04] Tony Winyard: That never happens. Yeah. So.
[00:20:08] Tom Glaser: mean it never happens that a professional might do that, or in life
[00:20:12] Tony Winyard: well both, but
[00:20:13] Tom Glaser: kind of both. Yes.
[00:20:15] Tony Winyard: can imagine that the, the patient must be really surprised at that because isn’t what you expect.
[00:20:22] Being perfect
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[00:20:22] Tom Glaser: Correct. But we’re all human. We all make mistakes, right? There’s always this, um, there are so many options we could make in any moment, right? And we, we, given what’s happening in the moment, we make our best choice. We make the best guess in that moment, and sometimes all of us are off, even those of us with decades of experience.
I, I sometimes make, uh, a, a decision that maybe isn’t for the highest good of the person, and absolutely it’s that repair. That. And again, this is not just in psychotherapy, this is in intimate relationships of any kind. So when I can do this with my husband and trust me, I do regularly. Oh my God. I, you know, and I own it.
Hey, I was, whatever I was, I hadn’t eaten enough that day. Right. I was hungry and I snapped at you. I’m so sorry, I wish I would’ve done it this way. I’ll keep working on it now, you know. Okay. We’ve been together 35 years. you know, again, right? We are, we’re always working. As long as we’re alive, there are opportunities to improve and that’s, that’s part of it is accepting, right?
I can’t be an angel. I can’t be perfect all the time. I try my best to do my best as much as I can, and I’m human. So sometimes I make a mistake. And yes, whether it’s in pyschotherapy or with one’s partner or with one’s child, this is a huge one in parenting. It’s impossible. And in fact, it’s bad if you’re a perfect parent. Uh, your child would have feel like they could never reach that potential. And I’ve had clients like this, they thought their parent was perfect and they could never measure up, and then that’s damaging. So you don’t wanna be a perfect parent. You don’t want to intentionally do things to screw your kids up.
Of course not. But when you make a mistake. Oh my honey, I’m so sorry. Uh, daddy was distracted and didn’t attend to you well enough. I wish I would’ve done it this way. I’m so sorry. You own it. You make a repair That strengthens the relationship. It’s a good thing for friendships. It doesn’t have to just be families, friendships.
If you screw up, own it, move on.
It’s a good thing to do. So, so yes. So that does happen with clients and of course I do that. Of course I do that, very important.
[00:22:49] Tony Winyard: I can imagine how happy, happy is not the right word, but I can imagine clients would really appreciate that. Yeah.
[00:22:55] Taking total responsibility
—
[00:22:55] Tom Glaser: It’s a relief, Oh my gosh. This professional. And it’s very vulnerable to be a client. Or patient Very vulnerable. You all, there’s always this dynamic of feeling like the other person is, you know, you put them, on a pedestal cuz they’re trained and you know, you’re revealing all your darkest, deepest secrets.
And they say, wow, I made a mistake. And then it’s like, oh, I have permission to be human too. Oh. Oh, sink in, right? And then that self-acceptance and the self-compassion can come up. So earlier I was talking about having compassion for someone who has done something harmful. Now I’m talking about the other side of that self-compassion.
Wow. When a role model can own up to a mistake, maybe I can own up to a a mistake, maybe I can be okay and still show up in life, still show up in the world and do the good deeds that I came here to do. , even when I screw up. Wow.
[00:23:55] Do many of your clients give them self enough self-compassion?
—
[00:23:55] Tony Winyard: And on that self-compassion, and again, I’m doing a lot of guessing here. Again, my guess is that many of your clients, or maybe the majority of your clients, Don’t give themself enough self-compassion.
[00:24:09] Tom Glaser: It’s the number one thing.
[00:24:11] Tony Winyard: Right,
[00:24:11] Tom Glaser: If we really boiled it down, what I’ve come to realize is that what I’m doing, whether I’m life coaching, teaching, being a psychotherapist, I’m helping people learn or remember how to love themselves.
[00:24:28] Tony Winyard: right.
[00:24:29] Tom Glaser: That’s what it comes back to. If we distill it down, and it’s not just clients, there’s an epidemic in Western culture of self-hatred.
It’s not just people who are in psychotherapy.
[00:24:41] Tony Winyard: And what you just said about getting people to love themselves, that sounds like something that now in 2022, nearly 2023 is, is, an accepted phrase. I don’t think that was five, 10 years ago. Something just as a simple phrase as that.
[00:24:58] Younger generations get criticised a lot by the media
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[00:24:58] Tom Glaser: self-love. It wasn’t used as much. Yes, it is becoming more, um, well, there were forces that attacked the, attempt to. Instill self-esteem in children, for instance, right? Are we raising a generation of narcissists? This was raised Mm, was it 10 years ago? I can’t re maybe it was 15 years ago. Very publicly, right? It, my humble opinion, this was just journalists needing something to do. Right. Really, I think that was a piece of it. Uh, with a 24 hour news cycle, And the truth is, and and, and there are, um, there are stigma about some of the younger generations that they are self-absorbed. And actually, I was just reading about this the other day.
In fact, there’s no evidence of that. There’s more narcissists now than there ever were. There’s no evidence of that at all. Yes. May, more recent generations indulge children a little too much. That’s possible. I’m, I’m not saying there’s nothing to that. We do, we wanna be careful with parenting. Very careful.
Uh, we don’t wanna reward every behavior. We don’t wanna just say everything you do is good. No, no. That doesn’t help people.
[00:26:18] Tony Winyard: Hmm.
[00:26:19] Tom Glaser: but have, have we damaged a whole generation? No. There’s no evidence of that whatsoever. Uh, and there is evidence that the, the levels of mental health distress are going up. There’s more depression, there’s more anxiety. Where does it ultimately stem from? Not loving ourselves is what, in my humble opinion. Now, who am I? What do I, there’s so much, I don’t know.
[00:26:45] Tony Winyard: Yeah.
[00:26:46] Tom Glaser: I’m learning more and more every single day, but from what I know so far, that’s what I see from my position.
[00:26:54] Tony Winyard: So do you think that your, the patients you’re working with when they are able to love themselves more, They get more, contentment, I dunno what happiness, um, fulfillment in their lives?
[00:27:08] Tom Glaser: Oh, absolutely. It’s that self-judgment that, troubles us, that brings us down, that brings anxiety. We’re working so hard to be so perfect, and then when we do make a mistake, we get down on ourselves. Oh my God. It lends itself to anxiety. and depression, and when we can wake up, and here’s where mindfulness comes in.
[00:27:29] Tony Winyard: Hmm.
[00:27:29] How some teachers can kill creativity
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[00:27:29] Tom Glaser: The first step is just noticing, oh, I’m doing that thing in my mind. I’m saying that thing to myself. Oh, so I’m not getting down on myself for doing it. I have a curiosity about it. Wow. There I go again. There’s that thing. It’s in my mind. Is it really true? Might there be another possibility? Can I refute, the untrue part of. Can I approach it a different way with more neutrality, with more support? Think about being in a classroom. Think about your favorite teachers. If they just harped on you all the time, you felt like you couldn’t do anything right, and you stopped. Your creativity was squelched, right? Most of us have that experience, like with art, where especially when we were young, we try, I, I distinctly remember this exact thing.
Uh, the assignment was to draw a pine tree. I was so happy with my pine tree. This was fourth grade. Oh, I was so happy. I showed it to the teacher and she was like, You think that looks like a pine tree? I thought I couldn’t draw from then for years, not until an adult, when I was brave enough to take an adult education drawing class, and I had a teacher who was like, oh my gosh, that looks really good.
I love what you did that She was like, wow, I’ve never seen a pine, it wasn’t literally this, but it was like, it was like that. I’ve never seen a pine tree look like that. That’s so cool. That’s beautiful. Right? And then I’m like, oh, oh, I, I could do something. And, you know, I think of myself as not a professional artist, but I, like, I do watercolor sometimes I play with acrylics.
I make greeting cards. Like I just do it. It’s, it’s just for fun. for, cuz I like to give people cards, handmade cards,
[00:29:20] Tony Winyard: I’m intrigued by your your book, the title of your book, full Heart Living Conversations With The Happiest People I Know.
[00:29:28] Tom Glaser: Yeah.
[00:29:29] Tony Winyard: Um, there’s a few things I want to dig into on this. Let, let’s start with a title, full Heart Living.
Why, how, where did that come from?
[00:29:38] Why did you call your book, Full Heart Living?
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[00:29:38] Tom Glaser: so my, my working title for a long time was, choosing happiness. My original title was Choosing Happiness, conversations with the Happiest People I Know. And, uh, two things to use the happy word twice is kind of a waste of a word as, as one of my editors pointed out.
[00:30:00] Things that happier people do
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[00:30:00] Tom Glaser: And, um, also far more importantly, I realized, although the book started with looking at happiness, first of all, everyone in my book, not everyone, so many people in the book talked about so much more than happiness. They talked about ways to live and they talked about living with their whole heart. Uh, so that’s to really reflect what I really got though.
I though I interviewed the happiest people I personally know , that was the basis of the book. I realize it’s so much more. So happier people live with their whole heart. What does that mean? So first of all, there’s 20 chapters or so in my book, I can’t remember the exact number. There’s all kinds of things that happier people do.
They’re very, very grateful. They take really good care of their bodies. They live in alignment with their values and more. The top things people do in my experience from the people I interviewed is they connect really deeply with other people. They have heart to heart relationships. With people who love them and who they love, that reciprocity.
They have tribes, they have places they go where they feel accepted. They connect deeply with themselves. Again, this is through the heart. They, this is where mindfulness comes in, which I mentioned just a few minutes ago. They’re in the present moment. They know who they are. They honor their rhythms. They’re good to themselves. The self-compassion stuff. Number three, happier people connect with their passions. They do things they love, they do activities that they adore, that bring them into that flow state where they lose all track of time. So to repeat, they connect deeply with other people.
Themselves and their passions. When they do those things in the service of the greater good, when they give back, when they wanna make the world a better place, that’s when it all comes together and people really get to that next level of joy. So how else to describe this in a few words other than full heart living?
My goodness, , that’s why I named it Full Heart Living
[00:32:22] What do you hope people will get from your book?
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[00:32:22] Tony Winyard: What is your objective of the book? What do you hope that people will get from it?
[00:32:27] Tom Glaser: Oh my goodness. I hope they’ll wake up to those three gems I just mentioned. I hope they will work on their, or play with their relationships, number one. Connect with people. Start with, if you’re lonely, start with a person you’re standing next to at the bus stop. If they’re receptive, start with the cashier, As you’re checking out buying your groceries, just look them in the eye and ask them genuinely how they’re doing.
You know, low risk things start, maybe take a class like I did, take an adult education class. Maybe art isn’t your thing. Maybe it’s pickleball. I’m just using personal examples here cause I, I’ve taken up pickleball recently too and I’ve met some great people. who I’m developing friendships with through playing pickleball at 60 years old.
Hello, . So just take classes. Do you know that you’re interested in, you automatically meet people who have similar interests, so you already have something in common with them. I hope they will, uh, look at their patterns of thought as I was talking about earlier, if you’re being, you know, bad to yourself, talking to yourself as you never would your best friend, let’s say, look at that.
[00:33:46] Relationships
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[00:33:46] Tom Glaser: Make new choices. That may be easier said than done. It is easier said than done. If it’s really hard, reach out to a professional or reach out to a friend or a trusted family member. And talk about it. I’m, here’s what, be honest, this is what I’m struggling with. the things that wound us almost always happen in relationship.
The things that most trouble us is, is because there was a rupture in an important relationship. Almost always, not a hundred percent, but the vast majority. they can be healed only in relationship. So meet with someone that you trust. Could be a professional, it could be not, and be honest. Say your truth. Here’s what I’m struggling with.
See what happens often. Just that sheer act of being vulnerable, being true, being honest shifts something, could be very subtle. Even if the, the change is extremely subtle. You wanna capitalize on it. You want to, um, validate it for yourself right away. You wanna, um, reward it. You wanna say, wow, I did 1% different today.
I did it better. 1%. That’s great. I’ve started, I’m on the path that increases the chance that you will continue if you just stop there? No, you’re gonna go back. You’re gonna fall back into your old habits. But if you keep doing 1% every day, that’s only a hundred days. It’s only a little over three months that then you get to a hundred percent.
Now I’m just throwing that out. Are we ever a hundred percent? No, no, no. These, these metaphors don’t totally work for human behavior. It’s just, it’s just to make the point.
[00:35:29] Who is the book aimed at?
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[00:35:29] Tony Winyard: Yeah. Yeah. And so who then do you think the book is aimed at? What, is there a certain type of person? Is it like a particular demographic?
[00:35:38] Tom Glaser: Well, so yeah, I mean, I, I wanted to write a book that was, uh, kind of for the general population more than people who, who just subscribe to mental health stuff or who have been in psychotherapy. So I wanted something broader, again, to reach more people. So all that said, it’s kind of, it’s kind of meant for the world.
That said, there’s a couple populations that seem to be most drawn to it. The one that doesn’t surprise me is women aged approximately 35 to 55. That does not surprise me. That’s the demographic that tends to be drawn to self-development kinds of things. Generally speaking, tons of exceptions, but there’s a greater proportion in that demographic.
The demographic that did surprise me that has responded so well to my work is senior citizen. That’s where I get the most invitations to come in and do workshops. they love this. They love this. I feel like part of that might be because as we age, we appreciate our relationships more. We know the value of just sitting down with someone and, and having a nice chat over a cup of tea or a cup of coffee, like, like, like by this age, we get to know, oh, that’s what really matters. That’s all that really matters. Ultimately, who cares what the titles behind our name are? Right. Just be with me and, and, and hang out a little
[00:37:18] Tony Winyard: And is that senior citizens, both men and women, or is it more Right. Okay.
[00:37:23] Tom Glaser: Well, well still it does tend to be more
[00:37:25] Tony Winyard: women.
[00:37:26] Tom Glaser: but, but yes, it’s, there’s more gender diversity. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
[00:37:30] When did you start writing the book?
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[00:37:30] Tony Winyard: When, when did you start writing the book?
[00:37:35] Tom Glaser: Yeah. It was about 12 or 13 years ago now, and it took me a good long time to write. About six years with some long breaks in there. And it’s been out about six to seven years now. Yeah.
[00:37:48] Tony Winyard: And did you, the reactions that you’ve had to it were, I mean, you’ve just told me about, the demographic that surprised you, but have you got any reactions that really surprised you?
[00:37:59] Experiences Tom has had at his book talks
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[00:37:59] Tom Glaser: So Tony what I do now with my workshops, I used to just do a standard kind of book talk and just read from the book and talk to people and tell them about it. Hoping to inspire them to connect more deeply with other people and. , it didn’t, it wasn’t working. I realized really quickly, I would, I would say at the end, I hope I’ve inspired you to connect more deeply.
People that would look at me like a dear in the Headlights, they had no idea what I was talking about. So I realized I needed to provide an experience of actually doing this. So I created this whole process. I take people through of deep listening with a prompt, a conversation. . And so people, uh, talk about themselves and are heard, and then they switch roles and the other person talks about themselves and the other person listens deeply and feeds back.
So they go through this thing and it’s based on themes and values. So they, they give feedback based on what they heard for themes and values. And people cry. People are so moved and here and it’s two things. Cuz often people are paired with a stranger, right? And so within a couple minutes with this activity being deeply listened to and talking about something important to them, like, oh my God, you understood me?
And they cry and they’re so moved and it makes a difference. is shocking and really cool. On the other hand, sometimes you’re with someone you know really well. Sometimes you’re sitting next to your best friend or your spouse or partner, and I even had this experience as I was developing this tool with my own husband.
So here I am. I’ve developed this whole process. We’re practicing it. We’re with our couples group. I already know what the question is, so I kind of think I know what I’m gonna say. and cuz we’ve been together so long, I assume I know what my husband’s gonna say back, but we go through this and we do it and we both are like, oh my God.
Because we listened deeply to each other. We said some things in a new way cuz it’s all primed in this experience. Oh my gosh. We were like, took us to another level really quickly. So yeah, that’s really fun, really exciting to be a part of.
[00:40:22] Will there be a follow-up book?
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[00:40:22] Tony Winyard: and can you see, a follow up in sight?
[00:40:27] Tom Glaser: I’m, it is a yes and no answer to that, to that question. I am writing another book. but to call it a follow up wouldn’t quite, I mean, it sort of is a follow up, but it’s not like full heart living 2 . Um, so what I’ve done is interviewed on camera and the, and the first, uh, book I interviewed the happiest people I know on camera.
And, and the, uh, some of those videos are available on my website, FullHeartLiving. Com. But now I interviewed, trauma survivors. Looking at and, and they’re super happy, super functioning people. So, so the question was or slash is how, how do you experience really difficult things and live a great life?
So that, that’s where this second project started. Now those videos are also available, on my YouTube channel. That’s why I started with the second book. But what’s coming now and what happens writing a book is in. Way is, and in many people’s ways is a creative experience, right? The muse tells you, right?
You, you don’t, I’m not in charge. So what’s coming now is different but similar. What I’m writing now is how I work with trauma survivors. what I, what like key moments in trauma therapy is what I’m writing about now. What really seems to make the difference when do people really turn the corner? So what happens in the therapy room in in particular, and again, my hope is not that I’m writing an instructional book on how to be a trauma therapist, although that might be helpful.
For that population as well. Again, I really mean it for the general populations because just as we all know, super happy people, we all know trauma survivors. Most of us, or many of us are trauma survivors ourselves. We just don’t know it. Some of us, or many of us have family members or dear friends who we were talking about this earlier, whose behavior sometimes really puzzles or troubles us. So I, I wanna write, wanted to write a book that would help people, uh, discover why this might. And just how to be with someone. That’s really what it is. It’s just, again, when I’m a therapist, yes, I have all my training, I have all my years of experience. I bring all that with me. In the end, I’m just a human being.
I’m showing up in a particular way though, right? I’m like, I really am in the present moment. I’m listening so deeply. I’m also super aware of what’s going on inside. I’m shuttling back and forth a little bit between each of those all the time, noticing how the person affects my body, how they affect my feelings. So I’m, I’m writing about that in the hopes that we will all come to a place where we can just be one human family despite, however wounded we all are, that we can just be with each other.
[00:43:28] Tony Winyard: again, what went through my mind is you were just saying that just now. So earlier you referred to, I, I forget the, the name you talked about a new style of therapy that you were going through, where you are working with another person who’s kind of looking back at the videos of someone.
[00:43:43] Tom Glaser: Yep. A A E D P. Accelerated experiential
[00:43:46] Listening to someone
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[00:43:46] Tony Winyard: And so when, when you were talking about that then what you were saying just then about when you are really listening to somebody and as you, as you listen to someone, and as I was listening to you,
[00:43:57] Tom Glaser: Yes,
[00:43:59] Tony Winyard: it’s just a natural. For us, lots of different thoughts come up as we hear people say different things and we can, we can zero in on any one of those things that someone and that, and then we decide, okay, this is the one I’m gonna respond to.
not kind of that whole sliding doors thing. Well, maybe instead of responding to that one, maybe I’ll respond to this one. We’re going it a completely different direction.
[00:44:23] Tom Glaser: Yes, yes, yes. Right. This is the human experience. If I’m listening deeply and my main focus is on, uh, having the best thing to say in response, that limits how much I can take in.
[00:44:42] Tony Winyard: Hmm.
[00:44:43] Quote on deep listening
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[00:44:43] Tom Glaser: Here’s the quote I love about this, and I know that maybe this’ll be my quote. I know there’s a question coming because you primed me, Deep listening, Tony is the willingness to be changed. I love that quote. I don’t know who said it offhand. I, I’d have to look it up. So if, if I’m just thinking about having a pithy, humorous comment to make. I might interrupt the person before they’ve even really gone where they need to go with that, because it might not even be relevant by the time they get there.
So if that’s my goal is to be smart and funny, I’m not as good a listener. But if I’m willing to be changed like then, then I might hold thought and I’ve trained myself to remember the important things and still stay really deeply.
Right. Put it back, put it back, put it back in your mind. Compartmentalize a little bit and stay really present.
I mean, I have decades of experience of doing this, so I can usually do it. Sometimes I forget and then I trust. If I forget, I let it go. Then that’s not meant what I’m was meant to say. I just trust the process. I trust the universe cuz again, when I’m with somebody in psychotherapy, it’s not about me being brilliant.
[00:46:04] Being a conduit
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[00:46:04] Tom Glaser: I’m a conduit.
[00:46:06] Tony Winyard: Right?
[00:46:07] Tom Glaser: There’s a greater force somewhere, way out there. This is where I said earlier, I’m like spiritual. I’m not talking about this stuff with every client. I’m just doing it. I trust that what needs to happen will happen and it’s not me. This was way back in my training, Tony. I distinctly remember one of the very first people I worked with, something came out of my mouth.
I don’t remember what it was, but I have no idea where it came from, and it was just the right thing to say. I didn’t plan it. I was spontaneous. I was in the moment. It was like it came through me. I’m a channel. It came through me. Somebody out there knew the right thing to say. It was not me. I have to get myself out of the way.
That’s what I know. I have to get outta my head. I don’t discard. . This is very useful. It gives us a ton of information. I bring this with me, but it’s not the main thing I’m leading with. I’m leading with my heart. I’m leading with my ears. I’m leading with my presence. I’m just showing up. I’m being with you. say what you need to say. I’ll respond in the way I need to respond to trusting, staying in the flow. It’s really fun. It’s really hard work. It takes a lot of energy, but yes, all this. all this chatter that goes on. Tolerating that. I’m not, again, I’m not like saying, oh, I’m such a bad person for doing that.
For sometimes somebody’s talking and I think about my grocery list or something, right? That that’s just how the mind works. I accept that, but I go, oh, I don’t need to do my grocery list. Now come back to the present, and this is in a nanosecond. I noticed that’s what I did, and I come back. This is what matters.
[00:47:52] Yoga
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[00:47:52] Tony Winyard: And that comes from working on mindfulness and meditation and so on, isn’t it? And, and you talked about that. I, I’m, I mean, we’ve running out of time. there’s many more things I’d like to but I want, I wanna go into, I, I love the fact that as well as the, the psychologist and life coach, so you’re also yoga instructor, I find fascinating and so do.
are there clients that you are doing all three with or is it, is that separated or how, how is that
[00:48:19] Tom Glaser: Very unusual that a, a yoga student is a client. If, if we were in a super small town and there were no other options, you know, I might make an exception, but we’re, we’re trained to be really careful with boundaries. Cuz there’s so many other good therapists, a yoga student, I would refer to another psychotherapist.
Yeah,
[00:48:40] Tony Winyard: And then so with the yoga though, are you bringing in elements of sort of mindfulness and so on as
[00:48:45] Tom Glaser: absolutely. Yoga is mindfulness. The whole point of yoga is the last most difficult posture. Shavasana laying still on our back. That’s the most difficult posture because the mind. All of that prep helps us get into a place of meditation so that we can just be in the present moment. Yes. And as well as throughout the postures.
Of course, I’m bringing in mindfulness, but, but all good yoga teachers are holding a yoga posture. What comes up in your mind? What’s taking you out of the present moment? What’s happening? That’s all mindfulness. What’s happening in your body and your mind and in your spirit, in your energetic body.
All it’s that is mindfulness all comes together. That’s part of why I love yoga, cuz it’s such a great way to what I’m talking about, mindfulness.
[00:49:47] Tony Winyard: We are running outta time. So before I’m gonna gonna change the subject, something I ask all of my guests, and I get some fascinating answers from this question. So, is there a book that’s moved you for any reason?
[00:50:00] Tom Glaser: Yes. So when I was just about to go into my senior year of high school, I was babysitting and in the basement of our neighbor’s home, they had this paper back. By Maxwell Maltz called, the Magic Power of Self-Image Psychology. Maxwell Maltz was, a dermatologist, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. A, a plastic surgeon.
[00:50:25] Tony Winyard: Yeah, I’ve read a book by him. Cybernetics something
[00:50:27] Tom Glaser: Yes, yes, yes, yes. In in this book he talked about, he would fix people’s faces. Let’s say some people would be so happy with the nose job or whatever. Oh, exactly what I wanted. I’m so happy. Thank you, doctor. The other person looks in the mirror and goes, Ugh. it’s still me there. thanks. But, uh, , he’s like, it’s not about the face, right?
It’s about the insides. And he realized that the self image, so what we believe about ourselves, what other people believe. So I read this before I go into my senior year of high school, so super young, and I start playing with this idea and. And, and you know, it’s a time of life, right? When we’re all like figuring out who we are and we’re all, you know, it’s such a difficult time of life and, oh, I don’t have enough friends and blah, blah, blah.
I start playing with, huh? If I think I’m a good person, if I think I’m a positive person, if I think I’m a person that people might like, maybe they’ll think that. It worked. I’m telling you it worked. And not in a narcissistic, bragging way, just like, oh, maybe I’m an okay person. I started. Thinking that about myself. And then I’m sure my behaviors also reflected it.
It’s not just the thoughts, but the thoughts then guided my behaviors. And I was looking for friends and looking how I was interacting with people. It all, there’s a synergy, then
[00:51:57] Tony Winyard: Hmm.
[00:51:58] Tom Glaser: it worked. That made a huge impact on my life. And isn’t it interesting that all these decades later, I’m talking about self-compassion?
[00:52:05] Tony Winyard: Well, and have you.
[00:52:07] Tom Glaser: thing, right?
[00:52:08] Tony Winyard: Have, have you ever looked at the book in recent years,
[00:52:12] Tom Glaser: No, I haven’t. That’s a great idea. I should, that’s a great idea, , because maybe my memory of it doesn’t even . Who knows? Right? I mean, memory can be Yeah, that’s a really good idea. I would love if you can find it, it’s probably out of print. I’m gonna write that down. Thank you for the homework. Tony
[00:52:35] Tony Winyard: and most things you can find, I mean, if you can’t find anywhere else, Kindle has, you know, cuz it doesn’t need the actual print, does it?
[00:52:41] Tom Glaser: That’s true. I will do that.
[00:52:44] Tony Winyard: Well, if, if people wanna find out more about you, Tom, where are the best places to look?
[00:52:49] Tom’s social media details
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[00:52:49] Tom Glaser: I am on Instagram and Facebook. I mentioned full Heart living.com. That’s probably the best way. I do have a YouTube channel, the Full Heart Living YouTube channel. Yeah, so.
[00:53:01] Tony Winyard: Okay, and you’ve got various, webinars and, and you’ve got a course as well, haven’t you?
[00:53:06] Tom Glaser: Yes, through the Yoga Center retreat out of Minneapolis, uh, I offer workshops. Many of them are either online, a hundred percent or hybrid, so available to people. anywhere. Yep. I have four courses coming up over the next Mm. Five months or so. Yeah, please. Everything on high being a highly sensitive person.
to self-compassion. there’s one on my book. Yep. Where we go through that activity that I was mentioning where with the deep listening. Yeah.
[00:53:35] Tony Winyard: We’ll have details of all of those will be in the show So just before we finish, Again, a question I ask everyone is, is there a quote that resonates with you? Are you, I dunno, you’re gonna use the run used before or have you got a different.
[00:53:47] Tom Glaser: Okay, let’s do a different one as long as we have time. This one really helped me when I was writing my book, my first book. Everything you want is out there waiting for you to ask everything you want, also wants you, but you have to take action to get it. That’s by Jules Renard.
[00:54:10] Tony Winyard: And why does that resonate??
[00:54:13] Tom Glaser: I love that second line. Everything you want also wants you. It was like, oh, there’s this other force. It isn’t just me wanting something. I have to work, work, work, work. It was like, oh, there’s another force out there that wants me to do that thing. wants me. And the third line, it’s not just gonna happen just cuz I want it.
Just visualizing it. Just seeing it. And then, then there’s, there’s something about visualizing it. I’m not saying that’s bad or wrong, but I also, I, I gotta do some homework. Writing a book is one of the hardest things I’ve done in my entire life, and I just kept showing up day after day after day, writing, writing, writing, and then finding somebody to design the cover and, you know, you know, on and on and on all the tests.
Keep doing it, keep doing it, keep doing it. And it. And I just find this with other people. There’s people, people, everyone has dreams. We all have dreams. Lean into your dreams. It’s, it’s like the third thing. Happier people connect with, other people themselves, their passions. Lean into your passion. Go for it.
If it brings you alive, pursue it.
[00:55:26] Tony Winyard: Tom, I think we’ll, we’ll stop there. That’s a great place to stop. Thank you for your time. It’s been a fascinating discussion and
[00:55:33] Tom Glaser: you, Tony. You are a deep listener. I really appreciate it.
[00:55:38] Tony Winyard: Well, thank you and I, I think it’s gonna be helpful for people to maybe think in a different way about how, if they are trying to reach out for someone to help them, to, to coach them, to, to guide them, whatever it may be,
about it in a different way about how to try to find that person and how important it is the chemistry it’s so important.
[00:56:03] Tom Glaser: Yes, yes,
[00:56:05] Tony Winyard: that might be one that, that’s such a, that could be such an important thing for many of the listeners. So I hope that does help to help someone. So thank you, Tom.
[00:56:13] Tom Glaser: Pleasure. Thank you.
Next week is episode 100 of habits and health with Joanne Kennedy . She’s a naturopath and a specialist in M T H F R. Histamine intolerance and gut health, especially SIBO, and also women’s hormones. She runs a successful clinic practice in Sydney, Australia. But she sees patients online worldwide.
We talk a lot about identifying the root cause of illness. About using functional pathology testing. And we dig a lot into histamine intolerance. What that is, why it’s at the center of so many different conditions. We talk about her book, that she has a book on histamine as well. So that’s next week, episode 100 with Joanne Kennedy.
If you know anyone who’d get some real value from the wisdom that Tom Glaser shared with us in this week’s episode. Please do share the show with them and hope you have a
great week
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Habits & Health episode 98 with Christopher Maher, a former US Navy SEAL who endured intense physical, mental, and emotional stress as a US Navy SEAL and child. In this episode we discuss stress resolution and balance and what that means.By combining a “seal team mindset” with modern stress resolution strategies, Christopher taught himself to free his body, mind, and emotions from pain, tension, and emotional distortion by developing subtractive tools for eliminating unresolved stress, tension, and emotional distortion. Christopher studied Traditional Chinese Medical Practices at the Pacific College of Oriental Medicine and at Yo San University before continuing his studies at The Universal Healing Tao System.
Timestamps for topics discussed in this episode:
06:21 In the navy08:37 SEAL training10:24 The difference between SEALS and the navy15:47 Intensity of being in the SEALS17:05 Dealing with stress as a SEAL and afterwards18:02 What stress does to the body19:53 Training as a semi professional athlete22:45 Boarding school24:40 Finding purpose26:22 Introduction to the Healing Dao System and Chinese medicine27:38 Studying stress29:50 I come from a country of peasants31:04 Difference between stress management and stress resolution32:00 Negative stress management tools32:46 Positive stress management tools35:32 Stress Resolution37:13 Lifetime Accumulated Stress40:34 Hormetic stress41:33 Temperatures43:17 Limiting beliefs45:30 What do you mean by balance?48:55 Tao Te ChingLInks:* Christopher Maher on Linkedin * Christopher Maher on Instagram * Christopher Maher on Facebook * True Body Intelligence * Ice-Centric Strength * Ma Xing Chris' book:Free for Life: A Navy SEAL's Path to Inner Freedom and Outer PeaceRecommended book:Mutant Message Down Under: A Woman's Journey into Dreamtime Australia by Marlo Morgan Favourite Quote
Be the Change You Wish To See in the World
Mahatma GandhiTweet
An interesting article on the above quote from GandhiRelated episode: Listen on Apple Podcasts * Google Podcasts * Spotify * Amazon Music * Listen on Stitcher Don’t forget, there is a transcript of every episode* (scroll down the page).
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TranscriptEmailDownloadNew Tab98 – Christopher Maher
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Habits and health episode 98.
Welcome to another edition of habits and health. My guest today, Chris Maher, who is a former US Navy SEAL. And as a SEAL he endured, a lot of intense physical, mental, and emotional stress. And he learned how to combine the SEAL team mindset with modern stress resolution strategies. And taught himself to free his body, his mind, emotions, from pain, from tension, the emotional distortion. And we talk about that. What does he mean when he talks about modern stress resolution strategy. He talks a lot about balance. He learned traditional Chinese medical practices. He learned about the universal healing Tao system, from the Tao Te Ching. So we talk lot of about stress management, stress resolution. That’s all coming up in today’s episode with Chris Maher. If you enjoy this week’s show. Please do share it with someone who you feel would really get some value from some of the Information chris shares with us
[00:01:26] Tony Winyard: Habits and health. My guest today, Christopher Maher. How are you, Chris?
[00:01:31] Christopher Maher: Excellent, excellent, excellent. Just so the listeners know, we got a little bit of time to connect before, which was wonderful, so I’m happy to be here. I love your mission. I love where you come from, what you’re doing, and, impacting people’s lives in a positive direction is what brought us together.
So I’m here to serve powerfully. So any questions you have or any direction you want to go, I’m all game.
[00:01:54] Tony Winyard: Well, from what I know about you and obviously in the next 45 minutes, we’re gonna find out a lot more, but from what I know, there’s a lot to dig into. I guess the obvious place to start is you’re a former US Navy Seal. So tell us a little bit about that.
How did that all come about? Was that like an ambition from when you were small? What happened?
[00:02:13] Christopher Maher: No. What happened for me is, uh, I was in college and I went to a party and I drank a little too much. Like I had never had hard alcohol before, and there was vodka with mixed with orange juice, and to me it tastes like orange juice. And at the time I loved orange juice, so I just kept drinking and then, uh, my heart went into ventricular fibrillation, and then my heart stopped,
[00:02:44] Tony Winyard: Wow.
[00:02:45] Christopher Maher: and then I had to immediately be taken to the hospital.
When I woke up the next day, you know, I woke up in intensive care wondering, what, what am I doing here? And a friend came to pick me up. I said, I’m fine. . They were like, no, please stay. And I said, no, I’m fine.
Get my clothes. I was 18 years old. Yeah. And I went back to campus and then there was a note on my door that the president of the university wanted to see me.
So I went, knocked on his door, went in with him and he said, look, you know, based on your grades and based on your aptitude tests to get in, these two things don’t match. and with what happened to you last night, it seems like you don’t really wanna be here. And of course, in the beginning I was offended, right?
Like, who were you to tell me where I, I want to be? But then as I walked back to my dorm, I started thinking, because he said this one thing, he said, maybe we’re not challenging you enough. And I thought, you know, He’s right. I didn’t come to the university that I really wanted to go to. I went here to be loyal to my track coach and my swim coach, and I thought, yep, I need to find something more challenging.
So I moved back home and um, I started a business, right? It was it, it was called the Hogan King, a sandwich shop right next to an industrial. I did that for about five and a half, six months, and then all of a sudden, I remember waking up at four plus four o’clock in the morning, and when you’re that old and you’re getting up that early to go pick up cold cuts and bread and cheese in a town that’s like maybe 25 minutes away from where you live and then coming back, and that’s what you’re.
that’s what your life is gonna look like the rest of your life. After about five, six months, I was like, no, I’m, I’m, I’m done with this. And I gave the business to my business partner. I said, look, I don’t want to continue here, but I don’t want anything from you either. I wanted to slide out without any bit of obligation.
So I gave him the business. And then one of my buddy’s moms that I went to boarding school with in Milton Hershey and Hershey, Pennsylvania. Came and she picked me up on my birthday and she said, look, why don’t you come live with us until you figure it out? I went in the house, um, and I was there for about seven months.
In about month, was it month four, month five. I went down into the basement and there was a biannual SEAL team, SEAL training magazine. and I picked it up and on the cover was like seven boat crews…. A boat crews made up of seven guys and they’re all running down the beach with these telephone poles.
And I looked at that picture and I thought, these people are gonna challenge me. And look, everyone who goes into SEAL Teams has a different motivation, right? I wasn’t all like, I’m gonna be a Patriot and save the United States. No, that was not me. I was looking like, yeah, I, I definitely need to be challenged.
I was an athlete in high school that seemed like the perfect place. These people are gonna pay me to work out, great It was very different than I had imagined.
[00:06:05] Tony Winyard: Right.
[00:06:07] Christopher Maher: I had some idea somewhere between like an Olympic athlete and James Bond and, no, that’s not what it was about.
[00:06:15] Tony Winyard: So once you realized that was what you wanted to do, how easy or difficult was it to actually get in there?
[00:06:21] In the navy
—
[00:06:21] Christopher Maher: It was difficult because I went to a recruiter at the time when I went to the recruiter, I never did any investigation, right? I just went in all gung ho, ready to Go, and recruiter’s job is to put a certain amount of guys in every single program. and the special programs only a small percentage of guys get into and all the regular programs, they’ll throw anyone into there.
And this guy has a quota to meet every month. So I became a victim of his quota, so he didn’t give me the information that I needed. He could have given me a, what was called the DIVE Fair program. And a dive fair program means I would’ve went to bootcamp and straight to SEAL training, right? But instead he gave me this regular program with no school on it, and I end up basically wasting about 16 months of my life, because they sent me to a ship.
Look, I made some good friends. I had a nice time. I developed a wonderful relationship with a young lady there, and I made the most of it. But ultimately, I only went into the Navy to become a Navy SEAL. So I went through a process of taking physical exams, physiological exams, a piano two test, and I needed to have what are called performance evaluations.
And they needed to be at a certain level. And I wasn’t happy about being on the ship. So of course I wasn’t cooperating, right? I didn’t see the bigger picture. So my first set of evals wasn’t gonna be good enough to get in the SEAL training. And then one of the guys pulled me aside and said, look, I know you want to go to SEAL Training.
If you wanna go to SEAL training, this next six month eval, you have to be on point with everything. And I thought, okay, I’m gonna do that. But I didn’t, still didn’t really want to be there. So I send in my, something that says 1602 dash seven, uh, this formal request to go to SEAL Training with all of these tests, to Washington DC and these guys get a stack of these because this was the time of the movie Navy Seals with Charlie Sheen. Okay? I got my orders. right? But in the meantime, I was still wasting 16 months of my life, right?
[00:08:37] SEAL training
—
[00:08:37] Christopher Maher: So I get there and it’s full on, like the moment you get there, they don’t play around like suddenly you’re on the beach, you got sand all over you, they’re sticking you out in the cold ocean constantly.
And then you’re training basically from the time you get up till the time you get off work. It was good. It was good. I got there. I was not fit in the way that these guys are fit, right? I was always a good athlete. I was always fast, but I wasn’t fit and it took me a little while to kind of get my feet underneath me and then once I got my feet underneath me, it was okay.
right? Like the, the working out part and the camaraderie. I went to boarding school. So camaraderie and being part of a team, that felt really good to me. And I was young, you know what I mean? I had all this energy, like, what am I gonna do with this? And they put it to the test. They stretched me physically.
They stretched me mentally. They stretched me emotionally. They tested me spiritually. When I say spiritually, I mean my ethics, my morals, my values, my principles. Was I in alignment? with what their mission was. And, fortunate for me, I met a lovely young lady who made that whole experience really easy for me.
So other guys lived at SEAL training and on base military base. She had a house and I moved into her home right, we got the home together. But initially I moved into her place. And so when I wasn’t at SEAL training, I was away from that space i, was away from, from that vibe.
[00:10:08] Tony Winyard: Many of our audience is, there’s many in the states, but there’s also quite a few in Europe, and Britain and Australia and so on. Most people, I imagine outside of the US will have heard of the Navy Seals, but maybe aren’t so familiar with what is, what’s the difference between seals and just the regular Navy?
[00:10:24] The difference between SEALS and the navy
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[00:10:24] Christopher Maher: Okay, so, A SEAL stands for Sea- s e a air A and land commando. And what that means is we can infiltrate and we can xFi, through the air or through the water or through the land, and we move around in very small units. So in a platoon, there’s 16 guys. And a platoon is made up of four fire teams.
And so we can go super small and our job is to do clandestine missions, right? To use the element of surprise and get in and get out without anyone even knowing that we were there, right? So, this unit was activated by President Kennedy. To take on clandestine missions. And so we have a top secret clearance and we move around the world, right?
Different situations. We go into, we have, you know, long hair and beards and we blend into the community. And the thing about being a Navy seal, which I feel was the most valuable for me, is we get the job done. Like it doesn’t matter what we’re tasked with, we’re gonna get the job done. And that’s the mindset that you get once you move through SEAL training. And so we’re coming in, we might enter through a submarine, right? We might dive in right through, this very special, product that we use called the Drug Alar five. Or we may take a boat in, we might take a speed boat in.
We may go in, enter through a military positioning ship. We may enter through a cruise ship, right? Like you never know how we’re gonna get into your country and we can come in through water. We can come through the land, crossing borders. Maybe we enter through Thailand and then, you know, we march across those borders to get into a different country.
Right. Or we may skydive in. Okay. So it, it really depends on the operation. It depends on the country, it depends on their defenses. But our job is to get behind enemy lines, undetected, carry out an operation, a mission, and then get home without anybody knowing that we were there.
[00:12:35] Tony Winyard: And so how long did you spend in the SEALS?
[00:12:37] Christopher Maher: I spent in that community. I spent six years,
the Navy total about almost eight years.
[00:12:46] Tony Winyard: why did you leave?
[00:12:48] Christopher Maher: I left because I was complete. I’m the type of person that once I learned something and I feel proficient at it now, if we’re doing the same thing again and again and again, it’s not that I’m bored, it’s that it’s time for me to move on,
and I got what I wanted out of that dynamic.
I, I’m the type of person, I like things to always be changing, and I got to understand that at a certain point, it was a fixed environment, right? And so in a certain way, my intellect and my passions were being limited because. in the SEAL teams, it’s a certain lifestyle. Like, you’re contributing a lot in order to be in that program, SEAL training and to be part of the SEAL teams.
And I was no longer willing to pay the cost of that. And I had a bigger vision for myself and before I went to SEAL training and when I was younger, I made up a bucket list before they called it a bucket list. And you know, SEAL training in the SEAL teams was on my bucket. but it wasn’t my and all, be all.
I knew I wanted to be a musician. I knew I wanted to be a motivational speaker. I knew I wanted to impact a lot of lives in a very big way. I knew I wanted to study medicine. You know, I had all these other things that I wanted to experience. I knew I wanted to take a shot at getting to the Olympic trials, being an athlete because, I knew I wanted to be a poet. that limited me and I decided, hey, okay, I think I’m, I’m complete. And what really made it complete for me was I wanted to transfer to SEAL team two, which was on the East coast and I was on the West coast of Seal Team five. And me and a guy, I won’t give his name, but um, we were gonna switch. What’s called duty stations and Seal Team two was gonna pay for all of his effects, his car, all of his clothes, all of his stuff to be shipped to California to take my position and Seal Team five wasn’t gonna do the same thing for me.
[00:15:03] Tony Winyard: right.
[00:15:03] Christopher Maher: And I thought, you know what? You’re gonna show up for this guy. , that’s unfair and inequitable to me. And if I get into a situation, I find that’s unfair and inequitable grossly. So. Then I usually remove myself from that environment. And I remember I got a call like, Hey, we don’t see you down at the team. I was like, and you won’t be seeing me. And I explained to my CO at the time, this is what happened. This is how I viewed it, and I’m moving on with my life.
[00:15:34] Tony Winyard: You come across as pretty, chilled now, quite calm, you’ve mentioned about how, you’re very spiritual and I’m wondering how different your mindset is now to how it was at that time when you were in the SEALS?.
[00:15:47] Intensity of being in the SEALS
—
[00:15:47] Christopher Maher: Uh, how would I say I was definitely intense, right? The thing about going through SEAL training in the SEAL teams is that your intensity ramps up, meaning like, you’re just, you’re, you’re, they have a saying in the courtyard when you enter in the SEAL training, it says The only easy day was yesterday. So, uh, from a healing perspective, you know, what does that.
It means that every day we’re going to pile on a little extra stress, right? And I was there for 20, 22 months. So imagine every day a little more stress for 22 months. And so by the time you get outta SEAL training, the amount of stress that you can handle is enormous.
So you’re always looking for a more intense dynamic, right? And so wherever I went, I drove fast. right? Like I needed things to be hard. I needed things to be fast. I needed things to be difficult in order for my body, my brain, and my nervous system to feel like I was calm, right? So now I was looking, manufacturing intensity in order to feel normal, and I didn’t know at the time that, well, that’s abnormal.
[00:17:05] Dealing with stress as a SEAL and afterwards
—
[00:17:05] Christopher Maher: And the only people who do that are people who are usually severely stressed.
[00:17:10] Tony Winyard: And it made me think when you said that about they’re piling on more stress all the time. Were they also teaching you stress management coping systems?
[00:17:18] Christopher Maher: No, no, no. There was,
[00:17:19] Tony Winyard: it wasn’t overwhelming.
[00:17:20] Christopher Maher: yeah. No, there was no stress management tool. The stress management tools in the SEAL teams was like promiscuity and alcohol. Right. , like, get up during the day, work hard, get your energy high. And then at night, you know, now look, not all guys were living the lifestyle that I was living, right?
Um, but I was very young and I got into, the way that they do things in the teams. And I didn’t know that I was drinking alcohol cuz I was attempting to manage my stress. I thought I was just drinking alcohol. Cuz it, was part of the party right? And there’s a saying when I was in SEAL training and the SEAL team’s like, we work hard, but we play harder.
[00:18:02] What stress does to the body
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[00:18:02] Christopher Maher: And I didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I was doing that. Meaning I didn’t know what the effect was gonna be on my body. I didn’t know what the effect was gonna be on my brain. And I had no idea what the effect was gonna be on my nervous system, cuz I never really thought about my nervous system.
Like obviously I thought about my brain because. When I was being raised in Pennsylvania, there were commercials all the time about don’t do drugs. It destroys your brain. Right. I knew alcohol was a drug, so I , I know about alcoholism. I come from a family of alcoholics. Okay. So I understood. that, but I didn’t understand the nervous system.
And at the time I thought the fitter I got and the harder that I worked, the better I was doing for my body. And I didn’t know, actually that was the opposite, right? Like the human body’s only meant to do so much intense activity. And once you go over that threshold of intense activity and you take it too far, it now creates what are called diminishing returns. And now you start doing damage to the body, right? You start wearing away your elbow. , right? You start wearing away at the soft tissue underneath your joints. You start experience stiffness in your back, limited range of motion in your neck, and this is happening a little bit every day, so you’re not aware that it’s actually happening cuz it’s only a little bit every day.
It’s these micro amounts of stress and tension and distortion that are coming into your body, brain, and nervous system at a physical. at a mental, at an emotional, and at an energetic, spiritual level. And in one day you end up with a problem and you don’t know where it came from.
[00:19:50] Tony Winyard: And so is that what happened? Was it after you left, did you have some sort
[00:19:53] Training as a semi professional athlete
—
[00:19:53] Christopher Maher: Yeah. After I left. Yeah, yeah, for sure. After I left, I, uh, I decided to take SEAL training, um, principles. and seal team principles into training as a semi-professional athlete. Right. You know, that was my goal. Get to the Olympic trials and, um, and make a career in track and field. And I was going to practice and in practice I was training like it was a race every single repitition.
Going as hard as you could all the time. I had one speed, 110%
right? Like,
Recovery
[00:20:36] Tony Winyard: wasn’t a part of what
[00:20:37] Christopher Maher: yeah, recovery wasn’t a part. I had no idea because I was so used to training like that, I didn’t realize that I had to treat my body more like a Lamborghini than then a Ford Mustang. right? You can’t just go out and run a Lamborghini the way you run a Ford Mustang.
If you do, your car’s gonna be on a shop. It’s gonna cost you a lot of money. Well, guess what? My car went into the shop and it cost me a lot of money cuz I had to hire a lot of naturopathic, uh, holistic healers in order to educate me and help, you know, put me back. So in the end, it cost me, not only did it cost me physically, physiologically, energetically, it cost me financially, and so I had to dedicate all my work and all the resources that were coming in to getting myself back to a state of relative homeostasis where I could explore the things that I really wanted to do with the potential that I had in a relative and a reflective manner.
That felt really good to me. and when you’re in pain, you know pain. When you’re in consistent chronic discomfort, it always has your attention, right? You can never get away from it. But still, I was running that seal training, seal team mindset, right? Do more, get more, be more. And that didn’t work out for me. I ran into limitations, right?
I had, you know, at the time I had a weaker immune system. And my immune system wasn’t happy with what was going on, and so it was attempting to give me signs and signals, and I ignored every signal, every bit of back stiffness, every bit of neck discomfort, every bit of hip pain, every bit of insomnia, every bit of emotional discomfort and awkwardness and social relationships.
I was ignoring all.
[00:22:41] Tony Winyard: And isn’t it because you were trained to ignore all of that essentially?
[00:22:45] Boarding school
—
[00:22:45] Christopher Maher: Uh, not trained by them. To do that, I was trained because I went through a lot of childhood trauma and I went to a boarding school at a very young age and a boarding school. In order to manage 1300 children, there has to be institutionalized rules and regulations in place, and so I learned there. Communicating my own desires, wants, and needs was impossible because you have two house parents attempting to take care of the needs of 16 children. And the house parents have been trained in a way to not show any favoritism. So when you have a lack of affection, when you’re getting a lack of attention, um, when you’re getting a lack of nurturing at a young age, and I went to boarding school when I was seven years old.
You know, it has an impact on you that tells you, look, you gotta figure out how to be a lone wolf and manage and self-soothe yourself. And so I was taught to be that way at a very young age. SEAL training in the SEAL teams, you know, the mindset and the principles there. It only amplified that because seeing seal training, seal teams, there’s no bitching. There’s no moaning, and there’s no complaining. I don’t remember ever hearing anyone bitch, moan and complain. So you become hardened in a certain way, right? And you create what your winning strategy is. And my winning strategy was to figure things out on my own, keep on a good face on the outside, even though I might be feeling discomfort on the inside.
Never let anyone in to that cavern.
[00:24:33] Tony Winyard: So once you’ve got the situation now where you’ve left the seals, the Olympics training didn’t work out. So where are you now? What’s
[00:24:40] Finding purpose
—
[00:24:40] Christopher Maher: So where am I am now is, I am working hardcore on removing massive amounts of structural tension, emotional distortion, psychological distortion, and physiological stress, right? And I’m devoted to this practice five, six hours a day for seven years, right? So the benefit of going to SEAL training SEAL teams is one, I knew how to compartmentalize.
I knew how to organize myself, and I knew how to stay disciplined to my ultimate goal and mission. once I realized how good I felt and that I could possibly feel better by removing even more tension, stress, and distortion, I went all in. I went all in on organic food, on fasting, On detoxing my body on removing physiological, structural, energetic, emotional stress, tension, and distortion, and once I got into that lane, I was uninterested in Anything else. And then once I got an opportunity to help others to do so, I was hooked. I found my niche, I found my meaning. I found my purpose. And when I looked back over my shoulder, everything that I went through in life suddenly made sense. And so being devoted and committed and loyal, and investigative and consistent.
[00:26:22] Introduction to the Healing Dao System and Chinese medicine
—
[00:26:22] Christopher Maher: It was very easy because now I was being who I was born and meant to be from my personal perspective. Right? All the moons, all the stars, they all came into their correct alignment. And then I was getting introduced to people who had been like Daoism Master Chiia, Monta Chiia in Thailand, who runs the Healing DAO system, the Universal Healing Dow system in Chiang Mai.
I got introduced to that work. I got introduced to Chinese medicine. I started getting introduced to people who were at, who were the very best in the world at what they did in terms of integration healing. Personal development. Now, I was devoted from sunup till sundown to myself and to others equally.
And so I, and I’ve been on this train for 22 years straight. You know, the one thing I go to a buddy of mine here in Los Angeles, three to four days a week to do some body work on me and, and to do some energy work and his name’s Terry, looks at me and I come in and, this happened this week, and he said, he reminded me.
[00:27:38] Studying stress
—
[00:27:38] Christopher Maher: He goes, you know what, the one thing I always get from you is total commitment. So me, I’ve been totally committed. I’ve put in a hundred thousand hours of practical research into the negative effects of distress. post-traumatic stress disorder, tension, distortion, toxicity, and I’m the world’s foremost authority in that field.
Not only do I understand the mechanics of it better than any earth human on the planet, I’ve created all the solutions for those malalignments at a physical, at a mental, at an emotional, at a structural, at a psychological, and spiritual level. And so this Path SEAL training in the SEAL teams and training for the Olympic trials afforded me the opportunity to bump up against limiting beliefs that I created that were circulating around in society, that I applied to attempt to be successful and ended up failing miserably. And that failure allowed me to continue to look deeper into myself and to investigate further into how I could get some help, and that was a very vulnerable day. Imagine when you’re trained to be a lone wolf through the institutions that I was in, and when it’s unfavorable to to show other people your emotional vulnerability, that lone wolf train can only take you so far. and it took me to a place where my body was grinding down to a halt. It was grinding down to a halt, and so I took it as far as I could. I used all those things that were taught as a kid. Right. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter. Right? Pain is the real gain push through everything. These limited mindsets that, look, I get it right.
[00:29:50] I come from a country of peasants
—
[00:29:50] Christopher Maher: I, I come from a country of peasants if, if we’re real honest, right? America’s made up of, of, of their ancestors come from countries where, they were at the bottom of the food chain. they had no choice, right? They had to grind it out every day just to be able to put some food on their plate, right?
And imagine an entire country, 350 million people of that stock. you come up with very limiting mindsets about reality because you don’t understand thriving mindsets because genetically and epigenetically, your predisposition is towards let’s just work harder. If we work harder and we give more, it’s all gonna work out.
And the truth is that’s not true. That’s not true at all. In fact, it’s a very limiting belief, right? It’s about understanding what you can manage. At a stress level. What’s actually correct for you as an individual rather than buying into fixed ideas and fixed principles. And so those fixed principles, they limited my ability to be successful in the places where I crave to experience success.
[00:31:04] Difference between stress management and stress resolution
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[00:31:04] Tony Winyard: You mentioned there about stress. I’m wondering what is the difference between stress management and stress resolution? You, I heard you mention something along those lines when you were talking about stress.
[00:31:14] Christopher Maher: Okay, so there’s three lanes, right? The lane all the way to the left, which is the first lane, which is where I was at initially, was stress, ignorance.
I had no idea that there was, I remember in school them talking about eustress and distress, but I never actually applied it to myself. So, yeah, from a philosophical, uh, understanding, I understood there were these two versions of stress.
Yet beyond that, I was very ignorant. That’s where most humans are, right? They’re in the lane all the way to the left. Stress ignorance. The people who tune into you, are looking to find what I call positive stress management tools, right? So in stress management, there’s two lanes in stress management,
[00:32:00] Negative stress management tools
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[00:32:00] Christopher Maher: there’s negative stress management tools, which would be nicotine, caffeine. Alcohol, refined sugars, pharmaceuticals, recreational drugs, and alcohol. Okay? Those are negative stress management tools. Now pile on excessive exercise, right? And, anything that’s too extreme is now a negative stress management tool, right? Dishonesty, negative stress management tool. Lying, negative stress management tool. Close-mindedness, negative stress management tool.
So not only does it affect you on a behavior level, it also affects you at a physiological, structural, and psychological and emotional level.
[00:32:46] Positive stress management tools
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[00:32:46] Christopher Maher: So now if we shift into positive stress management tools, so if you follow what I was sharing with your listeners. I started out as stress ignorance. Then, I shifted into negative stress management tools. I took those as far as I could. And then I finally shifted into what are called positive stress management tools, right? A reduction in exercise, not excessive exercise, yoga, breath work, fasting detoxification, meditation. Now I’m using positive stress management tools. The challenge is this, is that positive stress management tools. They help you deal with what’s called your daily accumulated stress load, DASL right? They help you deal with that, but none of that addresses your lifetime accumulated stress. So lifetime accumulated stress is in the third lane, which is called stress resolution. And so what I have figured out and put together over the last 22 years is a system based on stress resolution, which means you can, I can anyone you know, can reduce their lifetime accumulated stress load and their daily stress load easily by 50%. And if you can reduce your lifetime accumulated stress load by 50%, you arrest the aging process. The aging process basically slows down. It stops, all right, so I will be 60 soon, all right? Most people see me in the street they would never know that. Okay, now, and I ran my engine hot. I ran my engine as hot as you can run without it completely blowing up. So when you’re using negative stress management tools, I get it, right. People are going to use what’s in their environment, right? And if you’re in stress ignorance, you’re definitely using negative stress management tools. But once you shift outta stress ignorance, and you’re in the know, now you start looking towards positive stress management tools. and then people get to a place of realizing this is great, yet this isn’t enough.
Because guess what? We live in a world that’s much more complex now. Right? Look at the internet, look at smartphones, look at computers. Look at how much time we spend on social media and communicating, connecting with people in that way, how much less face-to-face time that we have, exchanging ideas and love and affection and attention and connection with others.
All these factors add and make the stress load that we deal with on a daily basis much more complex and much higher. Right?
[00:35:32] Stress Resolution
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[00:35:32] Christopher Maher: So now, Basically we have to move into stress resolution because the positive stress management tools aren’t enough to maintain a high state of homeostasis. And so stress management tools would be things like ma xing, ma xing is MA XING or ice-centric strength, or, using body of light, learning about transmutation and attunements, right?
Using, shaking medicine I call Sha King. And using your Bestercize right, bester size would be, what I would call the best form of exercise because best stands for Bio Energetic, Self Transformational sequences. Like when you see people that are struggling with unresolved stress loads, the most important thing for you to understand is they eventually end up in some level of pain.
They either end up in emotional pain, which would be identified as hopelessness or depression, repression, or borderline behaviors. Right? Or they end up in physical pain, right? So, their gallbladder contracts and gives them a shooting pain that goes around to the right side of their back, or they got kidney stones or they got neck pain, or they have these debilitating menstrual cramps, so they get headaches, right?
So these are all these physical physiological pains, but then people have psychological pain. Okay. And when people are dealing with psychological pain, what do they lean on? They lean on addictive substances, right? And then you have people who have spiritual pain. What’s spiritual pain? A massive reduction in your energy, right?
[00:37:13] Lifetime Accumulated Stress
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[00:37:13] Christopher Maher: You’re showing up and you’re being unethical, immoral, undervalued by yourself, and you are being overly critical. Okay, so every one of, these symptoms that people deal with in the world is all led back to their lifetime accumulated stress load. And so now we’re at a place in the world where everyone has access to information. Information that 30 years ago they never could have had access to unless they grew up with a library card or they come from a well-to-do wealthy family cuz people who had money had access to things that poor people didn’t. , right? And now the average Joe has access to breath work. You can get on the internet, you can, you know, you can circulate the microcosmic orbit on a video, on YouTube with master chia.
Like there’s all, there’s, all of this is available if you’re willing to put the time, the energy, and the effort in. But for me, the most important thing is the education. Because as we educate people about lifetime accumulated stress and what is my lifetime accumulated stress. That’s your genetic and epigenetic predisposition.
Okay? Plus the environment that you were raised in, meaning your parents, inner deficiencies, insecurities fears, and limiting beliefs that they projected into the environment that you were raised in. Was your environment, was it nurturing or was it punishing? again, was your environment that you were raised in, was it nurturing or was it punishing?
And then you have your compounded, accumulated lifetime stress, right? That adds to that on a daily level. So what I mean by that is this. So on Monday when you go to sleep, if your sleep isn’t effective enough, the stress of Monday moves into Tuesday. On Tuesday night, if your stress was less efficient, meaning you rolled around, you woke up, you went to urinate once or twice or three times, you got ineffective sleep, guess what?
Monday and Tuesday stress load now moves into Wednesday. Add that up over 40 years, right? And of course, a guy suddenly is at work and he has a heart attack. Of course he had a heart attack because he kept carrying his stress. His unresolved lifetime accumulated stress from one years old, plus his compounded daily stress for 40 years into the next day, every single day.
Of course, he’s gonna manage his daily stress with alcohol. It’s gonna go home at night. He’s gonna have a shot of whiskey and a couple beers because he’s attempting to feel
[00:40:01] Tony Winyard: normal.
[00:40:02] Christopher Maher: Right. People wanna reprieve from their anxiety. People wanna reprieve from their anger. People wanna reprieve from their debilitating fear.
People wanna reprieve from their chaotic, self-righteous perspectives and positions that they’re taking over society, their family, the company that they work for, and the people that they care about. People wanna reprieve from those states. And so what you would call. the negative stress management tools run rapid in our society.
[00:40:34] Hormetic stress
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[00:40:34] Tony Winyard: What are your thoughts on hormetic stress? You know, things such as extreme temperature, like ice baths and saunas and various other hormetic stress.
[00:40:47] Christopher Maher: So someone who put their nervous system in like a, a high state of homeostasis and balance, uh, If I go into those states for too long, I can feel how they pull me out of balance
now. When I was out of balance and I went into those states, they kind of helped me feel more balanced. But when you are balanced, anything that’s too extreme pulls you outta balance.
When you’re outta balance, anything that’s really extreme can actually put you back into balance. And so if ice baths and extreme temperatures in terms of heat make you feel a lot better, that’s an indication that you’re severely outta balance in terms of your nervous system.
[00:41:33] Temperatures
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[00:41:33] Christopher Maher: What I mean by that is, Every temperature’s tied to an emotion, right? So warm would be attached to what? Emotion.
Love, right? Cool. Would be attached to what? Emotion. Confidence. Right? Hot would be attached to what? Emotion. Anger.
Cold would be attached to what? Emotion. Fear. Boiling would be attached to rage, and then freezing would be attached to fright, right? So temperature has effect on emotions. And so look is an ice bath or 40 minutes in the sauna, is that much better than a shot of whiskey? a thousand times, right? I say use what’s in your environment to do whatever you can to maintain a high state of homeostasis. But if you need those things in order to feel normal and to feel good, it’s telling you, you’re already out of balance, at an extreme level. Okay? So, if you don’t have someone like me in your life, you don’t have access to Ma Xing or Bestercize, or Icentric strength or Ma Xing or body of light.
These are stress resolution tools. Then you’ve gotta find positive stress management tools and those things would be considered positive stress management tools. But none of those things will actually solve. right? Or reduce your lifetime accumulated stress. You actually have to go into the body. You have to remove the massive amount of accumulated tension.
[00:43:17] Limiting beliefs
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[00:43:17] Christopher Maher: Here’s a very interesting, strain, line of energy to follow, right? Limiting beliefs, okay? Manifest fear. Fear, right, creates stress. Stress manifests this tension. Tension creates physiological, psychological and structural distortion. High levels of distortion create intermittent or chronic states of pain. And so when you go back over that chain of thought, you go back and you go, oh my God.
You mean the limiting belief is the issue? Okay. So for people who have less limiting beliefs, they have lives where they’re in a more thriving state. People who have limiting beliefs have lives where they’re more in a survival based state. So the prudent thing to do would be to do what, right? What? What sits directly in the middle of the limiting belief and the intermittent or chronic pain, physical, physiological, structural, systemic, energetic, and structural tension.
That sits right in the middle. If you reduce this, guess what? On this side, the pain gets reduced. On the opposite side, the limiting belief gets reduced. So what’s the prudent thing to do? What’s the prudent thing to become, more flexible? Right. Because when I’m more flexible, I’m more adaptable to the environment that I’m in.
When I am less flexible, I’m more rigid. now, rather than being able to adapt, I have to over adjust. Every time I over adjust my personality in order to produce a result, I lose an aspect of myself. So over adjusting, pull that off the table, over adapting, pull that off the table, and do yourself a favor and figure out how to get access to Bestercize. Right. And fortunate for you and your people. I have a few of my practitioners that live in the uk. Right?
[00:45:30] What do you mean by balance?
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[00:45:30] Tony Winyard: We’re gonna dig into a minute to how people can find out more about you and your practitioners and so on, you talked about balance just now, so, what do you mean by balance?
[00:45:38] Christopher Maher: Balance for me is, there’s emotional balance, okay? And that means that I’m in a state of supreme neutrality. I add nothing. I take nothing away. I simply see things for what they are. And when I’m in neutrality, that removes me from excessive self-judgment and judging others. It removes me from excessive self-criticism and criticizing others.
It removes me from excessive self disapproval. And disapproving of others, and it removes me from being in an overly moralizing position. Whenever I’m judging, I’m criticizing, I’m disapproving, and I’m trapped in an overly moralizing position. I’m circulating the energy of spiritual anger through my body, and I’m competing with God. Meaning I’m competing with reality. I’m competing with the universal intelligence. Whatever happened in that moment is what is what was meant to happen. So when I’m in, in a great state of neutrality, yeah, I might miss my flight, but I realize that there’s a purpose behind it. And instead of puking all over the people at the airport,
I simply take ownership for my action or inaction, and I move into the lane that’s gonna get me to where I need to go next with the most efficient amount of time, energy, resources, and kindness. When I’m out of, when I’m in a state of emotional balance, my heart closes, right? Because now I shift into. of fight or flight, I shift into the protective mode.
I shift directly into an inappropriate stress state. Ultimately, an inappropriate stress state does what? It disallows me to receive love from others and to give love to others. Right? Why are we here? Why am I here? From my perspective, why are we here? Why am I here to give and experience unconditional states of love?
That would be divine love. And so when I am out of balance emotionally, I’m locked into a protective mode. When I get locked into a protective mode, what am I gonna be looking for? Negative stress management tools. Refined white sugar, refined brown sugar. What else am I gonna look for? I’m gonna look for fermented sugar, alcohol.
I’m gonna look for nicotine or caffeine, and those substances. Give you a reprieve from your protective mode, but as soon as you come off the high that they provide for you, you actually have more anxiety and stress because all of those substances are what are called angiogenics, meaning they’re anxiety causing agents. So when I’m in a state of emotional balance, I am out of an anxious state. And in that state, I can provide more consistent, deep, rich states of love to those around me. And inspiration.
[00:48:55] Tao Te Ching
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[00:48:55] Tony Winyard: When you were describing balance, I recognize a lot of that from the Dao and I know that you talked about the Universal Healing Dao system. Tell me more about that. What is the Universal Healing Dao system?
[00:49:09] Christopher Maher: So the Daoists were basically monks, that decided to move into the mountains and to study, the human relationship with, with the universe. And in that process of that study, they discovered very specific techniques of breath. Techniques of circulating energy techniques of emotionally of using a concept called the inner smile, right?
Smiling into your organs, projecting happiness into your liver, projecting happiness into your spleen, projecting happiness into your pancreas, projecting happiness into your colon, projecting happiness into your lungs and your heart, and your kidneys, and your thymus, and your appendix. And by doing so and using these techniques, They found that they were more energized, they were more present.
They experienced less sickness. They were more alive. They became more intelligent. And so all the systems within the Daoist Healing Practice is to teach the individual how to become self-sufficient. And how to maintain an appropriate state of balance and how to be of service to those around you, through the concept of moving through the world with a compassionate heart.
[00:50:27] Tony Winyard: We are at 50 minutes already, Chris, and there’s so much more I would love to dive into, but we are running out of time, so we maybe we’ll have to have another episode or something,
[00:50:36] Christopher Maher: We have to, we, I’m, I’m into it, dude. I, uh, love your vibe, man. You know, you’re just, you’re grounded, you’re present, you’re very open. You give a lot of space in order for me to share. What I’ve discovered, what I feel is important and what I understand, that could be useful to your listeners. And I, hope they got a lot out of this.
I got a lot out of this and I really appreciate you holding space here today.
[00:51:03] Tony Winyard: I’m sure people will have. So before we, we do finish, there’s a question I ask all of my guests, which is about a book that’s really moved you, does anything come to
[00:51:11] Christopher Maher: mind?
Yeah. You know, one of the books that first moved me was a book called Mutant Message Down Under.
[00:51:18] Tony Winyard: Okay.
Okay
[00:51:18] Christopher Maher: And, uh, it’s a wonderful story about a woman who lives United States and moves to Australia. I don’t want to tell any more than that, but she works with these aboriginal children who have been outcast in society, and she teaches them how to build window screens to keep the bugs out. And she’s gonna get recognition by an aboriginal tribe for the positive impact that she’s had on these children. And it’s her journey of understanding, the bigger picture and the ancient ways of the aboriginals. And it’s very powerful. It’s very moving. And you know, that was a book. allowed me to start thinking way outside of the box of what I was raised under, cuz I was raised under traditional, western medicine practices.
Right? And, uh, that book opened my eyes to a much more natural perspective of even understanding that things were possible in a way that I couldn’t imagine at that time. And that was a motivating factor. And I used to suggest that to everyone I ever met. You need to read this book.
[00:52:31] Tony Winyard: How long ago was it you first read
[00:52:32] Christopher Maher: that?
I read that book in 1998.
[00:52:36] Tony Winyard: So it’s quite a while.
[00:52:37] Christopher Maher: Yeah, so that’s quite a.
[00:52:39] Tony Winyard: Well, Chris, if people wanna find out more about you and, your website, social media, whatever, where would they go?
[00:52:45] Christopher Maher: Easily. If you’re gonna go, if you’re an Instagram person, you go to TBI Potential. If you’re into Facebook, you look for true body Intelligence. If you want to go to the net and go directly to my website, you go to truebodyintelligence.com. And then when you get to True Body Intelligence, if you wanna get ahold of me, the first thing you do is you email us at support@truebodyintelligence.com and then my assistant will send you a one sheet of the steps that you have to follow, the hoops you have to jump through, what’s required in order for us to get on the phone and have a conversation to see how I could help you. If you’re interested in that way. When you get to the website. For me, I think the most important thing when you get there, do do a little bit of reading. I have a bunch of other podcasts that I’ve been on in interviews that I’ve done with other people, but the most important thing really is to order the book.
My book is called Free For Life, a US Navy Seals Path to Inner Freedom and Outer Peace. And once you read the book, every chapter, the Here’s what I hear from the people who read the book to tell me, oh my God, I read your book. I couldn’t put it down. I didn’t eat that day. I didn’t sleep that night. They kept reading because it resonated with them, cuz I get real, I get super honest and I give you a profound education and today it’s a very powerful investment. So that’s my suggestion.
[00:54:14] Tony Winyard: I’m sure some will go and, explore and, and read the book. And just before we finish, Chris, is there a quotation that resonates with you for any reason.
[00:54:23] Christopher Maher: Yeah, yeah. There is. The one that comes across my mind again and again, and again and again is Mahatma Gandhi, be the change you wish to see in the world. And for me, the reason why that’s important is because I understand the concept of oneness. And what that means is all nervous systems vibrate to the highest functioning nervous system in the collective field.
If we brought a hundred clocks from all around your neighborhood into your apartment, within three days, all those clocks would be ticking to the same clock cuz they would’ve found the master clock. And so when you begin to master yourself, when you be, when you get into supreme alignment in your body, your brain, and your nervous system, you are changing the world.
By allowing others to orientate to that high state of function, that high state of neutrality that you’re in, which gives them direct access to inner peace, emotional groundedness, a quiet mind, and a comfortable body. So if I’m gonna spend my time, energy, and effort impacting the world, the prudent thing for me to do with my discoveries, is to put time, energy, and effort, and spend resources every week in aligning myself to a greater state of function, because that allows me to be the change that I wish to see.
[00:55:48] Tony Winyard: Chris. I love the quote and thank you for everything you’ve, shared with us. All the information, the knowledge, the wisdom. It’s been great. Thank you.
[00:55:56] Christopher Maher: Thank you. It’s been awesome. I, I love sharing, you know, I’m really good at. What I do is in terms of an inventor, an healer, but ultimately the thing that I’m the best at is teaching and inspiring. And so you’ve given me an opportunity to come here and educate and teach and inspire and hopefully, people will walk away and take a little bit of a risk, right, and to their benefit. And I would love that.
[00:56:20] Tony Winyard: Thank you. Cheers, Chris.
Next week is episode 99 of habits and health with Tom Glaser, who. Is a licensed psychologist and life coach with over 35 years of experience. He’s also a best selling author and yoga instructor. He has a book called Full Heart living- conversations with the happiest people. I know, which is sold really well on Amazon and whether counseling writing or teaching his passion for helping people to live their best lives is what he really enjoys. So that’s next week’s episode 99 with Tom Glaser. And again, if you know anyone who would get some value from the stress resolution techniques that Chris Maher talks about in this week’s episode, please do share the episode with them. And hope you have a fantastic week and a great start to 2023.
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Habits & Health episode 97 with Luke Iorio, former President and CEO of iPEC (the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching) in this episode we discuss coaching, balance, purpose, structure and blockages to name a few topics.Luke Iorio is the host of the, On This Walk podcast, where he and his guests share their real stories and experiences on the challenges as well as what it takes to be centered, connected, fulfilled, and balanced. He is the former President and CEO of iPEC (the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching), one of the largest and most respected coach training organizations in the world. He still serves on the Board at iPEC, while maintaining a personal coaching and teaching practice.
In this episode we discuss:
What about being balanced is most misunderstood?
What needs to come first, before finding purpose?
02:01 Luke’s main role
03:20 Why Luke started coaching
05:13 Coaching, but not sport!
06:26 Difference between a coach, a mentor and consultant
07:06 A consultant
07:29 Coaching
08:36 Why coaches shouldn’t tell a client what to do
11:05 When Luke fist started using inner balance
16:08 Can you help get that awareness?
18:45 What do you mean when you say “balance”?
21:38 Do you work with people 1 to 1?
22:48 What draws clients to Luke?
24:00 Group coaching
24:53 Finding purpose
26:03 Midlife- change of value structure
27:20 Do some struggle with the spiritual side of it?
30:13 Blockages which hold people back
32:41 Behaviour
34:18 The near future
37:06 Luke’s podcast
38:58 What should look for in a good coach?
40:55 Favourite book
42:43 Contact details
44:45 Favourite quote
LInks:* Luke Iorio on Linkedin * Luke Iorio on Facebook * Luke Iorio on Instagram * On This Walk podcast * The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After Midlife - Jonathan Rauch Recommended book:The Surrender Experiment - Michael SingerFavourite Quote
"Most of us have two lives: the life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance."
Steven PressfieldTweet
Related episode: Listen on Apple Podcasts * Google Podcasts * Spotify * Amazon Music * Listen on Stitcher Don’t forget, there is a transcript of every episode* (scroll down the page).
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TranscriptEmailDownloadNew Tab97 – Luke Iorio
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Habits & health episode 97.
[00:00:05] Intro: Welcome to the Habits and Health Podcast, where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy brought to you by an educator and coach. For anyone who wants to create a healthier life, here’s your host, Tony Winyard.
Welcome back to habits and health. My guest today, Luke Iorio, who is the host of the, on this walk podcast where he and his guests talk about. They share a real stories and experiences on the challenges as well as what it takes to be centered, connected, fulfilled, and balanced. He’s a former president and CEO of iPEC, the Institute for professional excellence in coaching.
And he still serves on the board at iPEC. And we talk a lot about today, about difference between coaching and mentoring and, consulting. And many other aspects around those sorts of things. We talk about his podcast, about purpose, about balance. So that’s this week’s episode with Luke Iorio hope you enjoy the show and please do share it with anyone who would get some value from it
[00:01:06] Tony Winyard: Habits and health. My guest today, Luke Iorio,
So Luke, you are in New Jersey
[00:01:12] Luke Iorio: I am New Jersey, east side of the states.
[00:01:15] Tony Winyard: Did you grow up there?
[00:01:17] Luke Iorio: I did, I did. I actually, uh, amazingly enough I grew up in New Jersey and if, uh, other than being, uh, Outta state for a little while. For, for college, for university. I, uh, I ended up settling back here with my wife.
[00:01:30] Tony Winyard: and so New Jersey is kind of like, I dunno, it seems like it’s the, the baby brother to, to New York
[00:01:36] Luke Iorio: Yeah. It’s, uh, it’s funny. It’s a, uh, it’s a state that most people know because of our association to either New York and the North or Philly in the south. And, uh, what most people don’t realize is that we’re, we’re a garden state. We’ve actually got a ton of farmland and reservation land and everything else. It’s actually a, it’s a pretty great, great place to, uh, be. There’s a lot of different things we can get.
[00:01:58] Tony Winyard: What is your main role now? What is it you do now?
[00:02:01] Luke’s main role
—
[00:02:01] Luke Iorio: It’s really kind of two things. Uh, one is actually partly how we got connected is, uh, I run a, uh, a podcast called On This Walk, and that’s actually been something that I’ve created almost as a bit of, uh, it’s actually, I’d say even a little bit less business and more art. Uh, in the sense it was a lot of message, a lot of information, a lot of stories and experiences for myself and guests that I wanted to put out into the world, uh, to be able to share. I still do personal coaching. Uh, I do that as a coach. I do it as a facilitator. So I do some group work. I do one-on-one work. Uh, and most of the focus, uh, which I know we’ll get into some of today, is really around helping people connect to their inner balance. So you can say it’s a bit more on the spiritual development side of things as opposed to the personal development side of things.
And that’s kind of been an evolution. I used to do a lot of business coaching and leadership coaching, uh, but I found that once I started connecting people to that inner game and this, this inner balance and inner peace work, a lot of the things that were external to them, whether it be in their business, their lives, their relationships, all of a sudden would start to resolve in very different manners.
We didn’t actually have to work directly on those things because it was the inner gain, the inner consciousness, uh, that needed shift.
[00:03:16] Tony Winyard: That’s definitely something we’re gonna dig into. But before we get into that,
[00:03:19] Luke Iorio: Hmm.
[00:03:20] Why Luke started coaching
—
[00:03:20] Tony Winyard: I’m wanna take you back to when, when you first started coaching, what would, can you remember what, why did you start coaching? What was it that appealed to you, or did someone suggest you do it or what
[00:03:31] Luke Iorio: it was, uh, completely found by accident. Uh, I was in the consulting space and I was working with a lot of, uh, small businesses with entrepreneurs, uh, typically under about maybe 20 million or so in sales. And what I was finding was that you could have two business owners in very, very similar businesses, similar size, similar resources, personnel, the whole thing, right?
And one of them, Would take a new plan, take a new structure, a new strategy, and they would just, I mean, they’d shoot the moon with it. It was incredible. And you had this other business owner and the business would go nowhere. It would just completely flounder. And ultimately what that led me to was really looking into, okay, if it’s not really truly the business or the strategy, There’s something else going on here energetically, or, or with that individual.
And that led me into a, a much deeper exploration of personal and professional development. And I found a lot of those types of traits of self engagement, self self-empowerment, uh, these types of qualities of personal responsibility. That pe these owners that would be very successful, would take on, and I recognized that I couldn’t reach them through consulting.
Now, interestingly enough, I was not looking for coaching as like a vehicle for that. I didn’t know that that was even a thing. This was my goodness. This is 17, 18 years ago. Uh, so coaching was nowhere near known the way that it is today. And it was a, it was actually Ipec, uh, that the, the founder there and his previous business owner had reached out to me for some consulting work and I ended up, uh, engaging a little bit to answer a lot of the questions they had for me because I saw coaching at the end of their email url and I grew up playing baseball and basketball and everything else.
[00:05:13] Coaching, but not sport!
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[00:05:13] Luke Iorio: I thought I was gonna be consulting for a sports company. I click on their website, learn all this thing about this, this new field called coaching. And I recognized that that actually was the modality that would allow me to work with entrepreneurs and help them in the, in the way that they could really take ownership over their business and over their lives again.
And it literally was, it was because of an email that ended up in my inbox. And, uh, it led to a near 18 year journey, uh, in the coaching field.
[00:05:42] Tony Winyard: It’s interesting what you just said about your. , your thinking coaching was gonna be something related to sport. I mean, you know, see, you’ve been a coach now for so many years. How many people do you come across who still, who do think like that?
[00:05:55] Luke Iorio: Not often. It, I, it did. I mean, those, the, the first five years that was constant. You’d mentioned, you know, you were in the coaching field and they’re like, oh, great. Which, you know, what sport is it, university level, high school level, where you at? And it’s like, no, no, no, no. That’s not, that’s not what it is.
Uh, thankfully the, you know, the, the industry, the field, Has expanded that as soon as you say, whether it’s life coaching or personal coaching, executive coaching, uh, people, they have at least some orientation of it now, if in fact they don’t know it really well, uh, depending on the industry or or career track or or personal track they’ve been on.
[00:06:26] Difference between a coach, a mentor and consultant
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[00:06:26] Tony Winyard: There might be some people listening who are not so clear on what is the difference between consulting, coaching, being a mentor,
[00:06:35] Luke Iorio: Yeah, absolutely. So if I, if I start with kind of what it’s not, so if you think of a mentor, a mentor is very much going to teach you very specifically from their experiences, here’s what I did. Here’s the path that I traveled. Here’s the things that I, I think you should do. Almost like an advisor saying, you know, these are the steps that I took and therefore, Try to follow in these footsteps.
It’s almost a little bit of a mentor apprentice type of, of relationship that can develop there. Uh, certainly there are some mentors that broaden beyond that.
[00:07:06] A consultant
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[00:07:06] Luke Iorio: Uh, from a consultant, you are being paid very, very specifically to come in and fix a problem based on your area of expertise. And in many instances, you will kind of roll up your sleeves, be directly involved, and even help with the implementation and execution of how something then gets done.
So it’s a, it’s, it’s more hands on. And it’s very much about the expertise that you are bringing because they would not be able to solve this for themselves.
[00:07:29] Coaching
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[00:07:29] Luke Iorio: Now, coaching flips a lot of this on its head because one of the, the most fundamental beliefs of a coach is that you as the client, you’ve already got the answers.
Within yourself. And so the coaching, uh, the, uh, coach is really one that is meant to employ a process to help a client be able to connect into those inner answers, that inner wisdom, because they obviously, they know their lives best. They just may not know how to navigate around to be able to find that wisdom and unlock that within themselves.
So a coach is there to facilitate process and it really creates a higher degree of self engagement, self-power. That sense of ownership of personal sovereignty because you know, as the client you are actually, you’re coming up with your own answers. You’re solving what needs to be solved. You’re beginning to really kind of chart your own course, and that is then something that stays with you because you now understand how to tap into that, that part of you by yourself.
And honestly, my job as a coach is to become irrelevant, uh, so that, you know, you don’t, you don’t need me. Um, that’s not always the case in, in some other,
[00:08:36] Why coaches shouldn’t tell a client what to do
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[00:08:36] Tony Winyard: So can you explain why does it not work so well? When a coach or someone who is supposedly a coach is telling their client what to do?
[00:08:46] Luke Iorio: Yeah. It, it makes the client reliant on answers that are outside of themselves and that has, you know, a variety of different, uh, of implications. The first and foremost is that, you know, you think of. . If you wanted somebody to tell you what to do, uh, go talk to a family member or friend and think about the advice you receive and what’s your response.
Energetically think about, you know, emotionally and energetically, how do you feel when somebody gives you advice or says, oh, here, I know what you should do. You can feel yourself kind of like withdraw a little bit because you know it’s not something that’s directly from inside of you. It maybe isn’t even something you would truly choose for yourself.
And. If you take that little bit of extra space to be able to find that answer within yourself, and you do for a period of time, need a guide to help you sort through any of the assumptions, the interpretations, the fears, the blocks, those types of things that may stand in your way, you do need to learn how to navigate that process.
But ultimately, the choices you’re making are from a more pure part of who you are. They are completely a choice that you have made and created. And so you’re gonna feel a greater level of both empowerment as well as ownership over the direction that you’re taking. If I relate it back actually to when I was doing the consulting work, one of the challenges that I saw in the business owners who wouldn’t like grab a strategy and run away with it, but instead would flounder, was because they very often would keep something at arm’s length because they didn’t create it.
So you could. Unbelievable strategy, this really great plan. But if somebody isn’t fully bought into and they don’t really see themselves in where that, where that path can take them, they’re not gonna follow through fully, if at all. But those business owners who had maybe just a, a slightly better than average plan, but they dove into it, they made it their.
Owned, they, they created from there, they just wanted to, to, you know, fully roll up the sleeves and go after it. Well, that plan every single day was gonna be more successful than the great plan because of the ownership that was created. Same exact issue inside of coaching. When you create that level of connection, that level of ownership for the path and the choices that somebody is, is ultimately undertaking.
They, there’s really, truly, there’s no stopping ’em at that point. Uh, but it, it connects them at such a deeper,
[00:11:05] When Luke fist started using inner balance
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[00:11:05] Tony Winyard: And so when in your journey, I mean, so you’ve been, you say a coach now, 17, 18 years. So you’ve seen a lot. You’ve learned a lot in that time. When did this. Sort of notion of inner balance, first start to appear, when did you start thinking differently about what you were doing?
[00:11:22] Luke Iorio: Uh, well, how do we find those? Those really incredible. You know, turning points and wisdoms within our life. We find it when we have kind of bottomed out . And so for me, uh, I, I ended up going down the path where I was, uh, I was helping actually run the institute and so I ended up as a, even though I was maintaining a coaching practice on the side with some, some personal clients, most of my work.
Was in growing and building and managing and executing the strategy of the institute itself. And we had this wonderful, beautiful run. I was actually the, uh, first individual to take over for the founder as the the new c e o of the organization. And I was about five years into that process, which now is maybe about seven years ago, six and a half, seven years ago.
And, uh, I’m about five years in and I hit a complete wall of burnout. Um, I was, you know, if you, if you think of it this way, uh, if any single one of us. Is this bright light or this flame? I was running around trying to, you know, light the flame on all of these different things outside of myself, and I’m spreading myself thin in all of these different directions as opposed to being more of that, that centered, anchored source within myself.
And so I found myself taking on all of these responsibilities and obligations, trying to keep up with all, all of the, you know, the, the proverbial kind of spinning plates that I’m trying to keep spinning and keep them going. I ultimately recognize that there’s no way that I could keep up with this. And I, I quite literally burnt out.
Uh, it was one of those, you know, on the floor, kind of a moments of, of recognizing I just, I’ve got nothing left in the tank. My energy is completely drained. And in, in that instance, that specific moment. it happened to be on a day that I had attended the fourth funeral of a year that I had been in, and I came home from that funeral.
It was actually a, a, a sort of like a mentor role model for me, and my wife drops me off. She’s gonna run some errands before going out to, to pick up the kids from school. And I came into my house and I did, I completely collapsed on the floor. and just all of like, the, the tears and the emotion and the weight that I’d been carrying was like pouring out of me.
And so I picked myself up. Uh, I, I don’t even know how long I was on the floor. I wanna clean myself up before, before my kids get home and I go upstairs, I get changed and I go into the bathroom to splash some water on my face. And as I’m splashing that water on my face, I look in the mirror and I connect with that energy, that consciousness that resides in all of our eyes that has been there the whole time.
That is, that’s ageless. Even though the, you know, the wrinkles and the, the gray hair around us, uh, may have changed forms since we last connected to it when we were just four or five years old. And so I see this energy, I see this consciousness, I see this kind of younger glimpse of myself, and in that, felt a, a huge wave of energy rushing through me, and as it kind of rushed up and was coming out my mouth, I recognized that that energy was rage.
I was angry, I was frustrated. And I shouted in the mirror of where did you go? Why did you leave me? And of course, you know, you yell into a mirror. What do you get? You get, you get the exact questions you asked, and that conversation comes right back at me, and I recognize that there is, that, that essence, that consciousness, whatever we wanna call it, soul or spirit, whatever the, you know, the language is that, that anybody uses, that has always been there.
and that it was I that left that essence that had left that truth. I had left that sense of peace and balance within myself to go on the journey that I’ve gone on as, as a professionally human being and everything else. Well, this was about seven years ago, and I’ve sort of devoted the, the path that I have been on is devoted to getting back in touch and helping clients and individuals get back in touch with that part of themselves so that they can really, truly feel the essence that every single one of us walks around with.
To me, that’s created through Inner Balance. It’s created through finding that sense of equilibrium within ourselves once again. And that means that we’ve gotta look at the fears, we’ve gotta look at the attachments, we’ve gotta look at the entanglements. We’ve gotta look at all of these things that were internal choices that now have an external manifestation inside of our lives.
But when we can begin to unwind all of that and just get back to that balanced state centered state within ourselves, life gets easier. It gets simpler, it gets more peaceful, it gets more enjoyable or more present. It has this just unbelievable ripple effect across all aspects of our life, our relationships, even our health, um, in some very, very powerful and profound ways.
But I, how do I get there? I was the exact opposite . I realized the importance of it, uh, at that stage of my life.
[00:16:08] Can you help get that awareness?
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[00:16:08] Tony Winyard: So two things are going through my mind. Do you think everyone needs to go through that to to, to get to the other side? And are you able to see when someone is going through or doesn’t realize that, that they’ve reached that stage yet and they’re, they are kind of burning themselves out?
[00:16:24] Luke Iorio: Yeah, it’s, it’s, it depends like, you know, all of those answers kind of, it depends. Um, I don’t think somebody has to get to that level of extreme, even though that seems to be the case for many, you know, we are, uh, part of us is wired from that standpoint of, you know, the pain of change until the pain of where I’m at.
Is greater than the idea of the pain of change. I’m not gonna make the change. And so unfortunately for us as human beings, that tends to be the case. More often than not. I don’t think it has to be the case. And so there are, you know, there are signs of, of that brewing kind of frustration, aggravation, or even apathy that begins to set in that lets us know when we’re out of balance.
Personally, I love the way that, uh, Parker Palmer, uh, one of the authors, one of the writers that I, I’ve followed for years, uh, talks about this and he describes it as living a divided life. And so when you think about all of the ways that we put ourselves out there, all the different roles we play, even, even the masks that we put on to present ourselves a certain way in, in, in life and in work, we’re putting ourselves.
and then there’s this internal portion that feels as if it’s somewhat separated from all of the different ways that we live. And so you can recognize that all of a sudden there’s a very different mental dialogue going on. There’s a very different presentation that’s going on to the world than what I’m actually feeling inside.
And when we can recognize that dichotomy, when we can recognize that separation or disconnection that, that the outer world, It’s, it’s resembling the parts of the inner world that we don’t want to have, and the parts of the inner world that we do want to have, I do not see outside myself. We can see those signs, we can see it in our self-talk.
We can see it in our level of stress, our level of overwhelm in just usual life. We can see it with the way that we go about making decisions. Are those decisions easy? Do they feel congruent? Do they feel aligned, or do they feel like things that we’re kind of forcing or we have to do or feel like obligations so we can start to look at signs that we’re seeing in many different facets of our life and recognize there’s this feeling of out of balance or out of alignment might be another way it could, it can present that we’re starting to feel.
And those are, those are signs that let us know, okay, hold. I need to take a pause here and do some introspection, do some reflection work, uh, so that I don’t have to crash and burn and, and get to that.
[00:18:45] What do you mean when you say “balance”?
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[00:18:45] Tony Winyard: So when you talk about balance, what do you mean by.
[00:18:49] Luke Iorio: So for me, great question. When I think about balance, first and foremost is I think about it from an interstate and I wanna differentiate it just like we did with coaching and mentoring and consulting for a moment when most people hear balance. It conjures up what has been a, a, a bit of a story of farce that’s been presented about balance in, in, by organizations and by time management experts for a long time.
And the, the notion of balance that’s out there is this sense of almost, you know, I think of it as is this image of the ladies, the scales of justice, right? Trying to keep everything in perfect balance and everything is, it got its right place in our calendar. And I can tell you, Absolute recipe for disaster.
It’s it life isn’t meant to be that way. Life is fluid. It changes all the time. To me, balance in, in even just the external, just to give you a representation of it, is more like the surfer on a wave, cuz the wave is always gonna break. The wave is gonna move in directions that you may not even be able to predict.
But a surfer is going to be able to use the wave the way in which life or work is breaking at any given moment and stay perfectly centered for that ride. So now let’s talk about inner balance. inner balance is that, that part of you that allows you to maintain that center, that groundedness, that anchored ness within yourself so that regardless of what’s going on outside of you, you feel like you have balance and you can glide with what’s there.
Well, a lot of that comes from, and I think of my own, kind of my own teacher that, that I’ve worked with for years who’s taught me also a tremendous amount about this, uh, from a place of consciousness is that we’ve gotta take a look at things that get simple. Meaning we tend to make our lives very complicated with a lot of things outside of ourselves.
How is it that we can unwind and unentangle from those things to feel that sense of simplicity, of ease within ourselves? Again, how is it that we can be aware of all of the different commitments that we have made? And commitments don’t just mean us to another person, or us to a job, or us to a relationship.
Commitments can be to belief systems. , they can be to perceptions, they can be to attitudes. And so there’s a lot of inner structure that we want to take a look at because when we have inner structure that’s consciously chosen, not chosen out of conditioning and out of assumptions and attachments, then we get something that’s very stable, meaning again, that very balanced, harmonious kind of feel as we move through life.
And then there’s a variety of different practices and, and ways of working with things so that we can feel. Things like acceptance, flowing more easily through us presence, stillness, silence flowing more easily through us so that we can create that inner state that can be in harmony, and therefore it can move with whatever the notes are of life that tend to come up.
[00:21:38] Do you work with people 1 to 1?
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[00:21:38] Tony Winyard: Are you working with people one to one.
[00:21:41] Luke Iorio: I do, uh, I, it’s a very, I work a little bit more limited on a one-to-one basis. Uh, meaning I don’t, I don’t take on a tremendous amount of clients one-to-one, but I do have a one-to-one practice. Uh, and then from time to time I open up group work, uh, that is usually bringing circles together.
Uh, cuz I have also found that bringing circles together, bringing group experiences together can be a very profound way to experience. Uh, not only our inner work, but when we recognize that we’re on this journey, we’re on this ride together, it, there’s a tremendous amount that we can learn from each other as well as feeling like we’re in community to receive that type of support and be witnessed as we’re going through our change process.
[00:22:23] Tony Winyard: Well, the reason I ask, are you working with people one-to-one? Actually, it doesn’t matter whether it’s one-to-one or the groups. So the people that come to you, whether they’re doing a group coaching, they’re doing a one-to-one, do they come to you because they’re, they have some sort of awareness that there isn’t, they need some kind of a balance.
They, maybe they don’t have a co a complete understanding of that, but they, they realize it’s something not right. or what is it that you think draws people?
[00:22:48] What draws clients to Luke?
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[00:22:48] Luke Iorio: it’s the awareness is usually around. Something no longer feels in alignment or fulfilling. I think that’s usually where the awareness begins, cuz most individuals, even though I know that a lot of the work that I do is gonna be on like inner balance and peace and these, this type of work, that’s the inner work that’s, that’s kind of like what’s going on underneath what’s, what’s being presented out in the world.
Now. What most individuals are seeing is maybe the path that they have been on that used to be fulfilling feels. It feels like the aliveness, the vitality that used to be there isn’t there anymore. They feel like maybe the path that they’re on, maybe it felt great for a long time, and now it’s like, I don’t even know where this is going.
I don’t, I don’t feel much meaning or purpose in this direction anymore. And so it usually presents more like that, uh, than somebody recognizing, oh, this is an issue of, of balance. Uh, so it’s more of fulfillment, it’s more alignment, purpose. Draining sense of meaning or joy within their lives is usually what they will recognize.
[00:23:53] Tony Winyard: And so when you are doing this kind of group coaching environment, well, do you prefer doing a group coaching to to one-to-one?
[00:24:00] Group coaching
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[00:24:00] Luke Iorio: I enjoy both, honestly, , um, they’re, they’re just very unique experiences. So when you, you know, when you get to work with somebody one-on-one, it is this beautiful personal, uh, relationship that, that you can really navigate to every nook and cranny that you need to get into at any given moment. And at the same time, the group experiences, like I said before, there is something about the group dynamic when people feel like they’re moving through something like this and they’re not alone. They feel seen and they feel supported, even if nobody’s actually doing anything for them. They just energetically can feel the support of the community that they’re going, going through this with. And there’s something special about that too. So it’s, it’s kind of, I enjoy both, I enjoy it based on, you know, on, on what needs to unfold at that time.
For the individual that I’m, I’m with, I’m.
[00:24:53] Finding purpose
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[00:24:53] Tony Winyard: So you talked about finding purpose, is it a case of when people are younger, money is the main driving factor, and then they realize that there’s a lot more to it than simply just earning as much money as.
[00:25:06] Luke Iorio: Yeah, I think it’s, uh, even beyond money, I would say in the, and there’s some very interesting science on this. Um, there was a, uh, a great book called The Happiness Curve, uh, and I believe that was Jonathan, Jonathan Rauch, who had written that book. And, uh, in that it talks about how in the first half of life, you know, once we get past our adolescent years, we really move into more of this achievement focus.
And so that achievement, it can be money, it can be material, it can be the house, it could be the job, it can be the title, it can be the relationship. It’s, you know, it’s about getting things, it’s about achieving or obtaining, because that’s part of the way that we feel, you know, just evolutionarily, right?
It’s, it’s part of the way that we go out and individuate and make ourselves, you know, like. Somebody that a, a mate would wanna come and find, right? It’s part of kind of wired into who we are. And then at some point when we get to midlife, and midlife can be as early as the early thirties. It could be late as the late fifties and early sixties.
[00:26:03] Midlife- change of value structure
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[00:26:03] Luke Iorio: Uh, we each hit a midlife at, at different points for ourselves. There usually is a changing in value structure, and that value structure now is one that starts thinking beyond the self. Thinking in a larger context, it’s usually a lot more relationally driven than achievement oriented. And so there’s usually this community component that ties into it.
And there’s also this desire to more deeply know ourselves because, you know, I, I think of. Quoting other work. Uh, b Bronny Ware was a palliative care nurse who wrote the top five Regrets of the Dying originally a, a blog post that caught like wildfire and then later on a book. And, uh, the number one regret of the dying was that I’d wished I’d had the courage to be true to myself as opposed to the expectations of others.
And in that second half of life, whatever that that mid midlife crisis is, or even quarter life crisis, we begin to recognize that and we want to be true to ourselves. And that’s not about achievement anymore. That’s a, a, a mission of self-actualization. And it, it really is about what are we here for? What are we designed for?
Uh, who is it that we wish to be in relation to this life? And that question usually leads, not who do I want to be, but who am I already that I wanna bring out?
[00:27:20] Do some struggle with the spiritual side of it?
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[00:27:20] Tony Winyard: Do you find there’s some people really struggle with the spiritual side of it?
[00:27:27] Luke Iorio: They can. Um, and I’ll, I can use, again, I use myself as an example in this. Um, I was raised in a, you know, a very kind of traditional religion and, uh, that was all fine and well, and everything else, nothing, you know, specifically ever went wrong with it, but I. I didn’t have a deep connection to a lot of organized religion, and that was not a path that spoke to me as I started to go deeper on my journey.
And so I ultimately, I mean, for a long time I kind of turned away from that type of path. Now, ironically, when I ended up hitting this stage of burnout and change, I clearly, I deepened into my spirituality because I started looking at, uh, mindfulness took me into Buddhism. Buddhism took me into Eastern philosophies and the Dao that took me ultimately over to Nas theism and, and deeply into Christ’s consciousness work.
Uh, I’ve had the, the honor of being able to study some indigenous traditions in wisdoms as well. And each of these has kind of reignited or did reignite to in me a very, very different connection to. We would call spirit spirituality. There’s a very specific view among, uh, a lot of the indigenous cultures.
I think it’s actually all of the indigenous cultures, honestly, that they recognize that absolutely everything inside of this life is animated with the life energy, with life force of some kind. And so they view this as a completely living and breathing world. They don’t view it as static. They don’t view it as things.
And so when all of a sudden we start to recognize the alive. Of all things to, to, to connect ourselves to that. Well, that’s a very different understanding of, of spirituality. And so it doesn’t matter what religion somebody may be or have been. It’s really about what is that aliveness, that spirit that is in all things that we are connecting to.
Because when we feel that type of connection to life, it opens us up and we can feel the, the kind of, the flow, the connectivity, the peace that is inherent in, in that flow of things. And so, uh, for me, I did go through that path. It was a challenge for me, and I hit many different obstacles of, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
You know, I, my view of God, my view of this, my view of that, right, and I’ve got all of these old beliefs, goes back to those inner structures we were talking about before. I’ve got all of these old structures that were making me unstable. That were not, that were not fueling my sense of balance within myself, and so I needed to connect to those beliefs that allowed me to restore that balance that allowed me to restore that connection.
I find that to be a very spiritual path, and I’ve gone through this with a lot of clients who have become disenfranchised with a more traditional religious approach, have also gone through it with clients that are very deeply connected to a religious tradition. This is just a different way of walking.
[00:30:13] Bloackages which hold people back
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[00:30:13] Tony Winyard: The way you are seeing things now is so different to how you did 15, 20 years ago, and was it a case then you had many more sort of blockages stopping you from seeing the way you see things now.
[00:30:25] Luke Iorio: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:30:26] Tony Winyard: And so, Are many of your clients in that same situation where they just, it’s, it’s difficult for them to, see things in a very different way that you are describing about, especially how things are often seen in, in many eastern societies.
[00:30:41] Luke Iorio: Yeah, they, I would say those blocks are there, but a, a, you know, a, a door has been opened or there’s a, a crack that’s letting the light in. Right. As, uh, as has been said many times and. So if you, if you think of this as the journey that people have gone on, when people start to become disenfranchised, when they become, you know, no longer as fulfilled or as happy as they once were, they don’t feel like they’re in the flow of things once more, uh, the, the, the way that they used to be and.
They’ll go on a journey initially seeking external solutions. Right. And I, I know obviously the, the connection that you’ve, you’ve had to health, and I’m sure you’ve seen this, where people will hit this stage of maybe stress or burnout and then they’ll get really, really focused on their health. They’ll get really, really focused on exercise, let’s say, or nutrition.
But they’re not doing the rest of the work. They’re looking for an external situation to change the way that they feel internally. And so a lot of people will start on a path like that. They’ll seek adventure, they’ll seek vacations, they’ll seek fitness. They’ll, whatever it is. Or they’ll seek addictions.
They’ll seek other things that that do not serve them. And ultimately they recognize that none of that, all of that’s temporary. None of that is working to make a more substantial change. And after a while, Of going through a variety of things and maybe even trying things that are a little deeper. Maybe they’ll take a yoga class, maybe they’ll get into a little bit of meditation, but it’s still surface level just to like calm them down, but not really to go within.
And they’ll reach a point where they look around and they go, I’m the common denominator. Like I’ve tried all of these things. Those it, they didn’t work. But the one thing that’s in common to all of those things is me. and then all of a sudden it’s like this, this light bulb goes on where maybe they don’t know the answer, they don’t know the direction, but they do begin to be open to the fact that, okay, I’ve gotta explore what’s within me.
I’ve gotta turn inward a bit to discover what’s actually going on. That’s usually when they’re finding me.
[00:32:41] Behaviour
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[00:32:41] Tony Winyard: The main theme of this podcast is, is about behavior and habits and so on. And so a lot of what you are talking about is, is people’s behavior. So when you are helping people, how, how do you help them regarding behavior and habits? What would you think about that?
[00:32:57] Luke Iorio: I So, uh, Everything we talk about ultimately has to get re-grounded into behavior and habits where it won’t take hold within our lives. That’s, that’s the integration work that we need to do. And so part of it can be the behaviors, which are new practices that help them with the exploration. That’s part of the kind of the journey, right?
So, uh, part of the explorations might be. A lot more time journaling. It might be meditation, but a very introspective form of meditation. Not a, uh, not meant to clear the mind, but to focus the mind in what they do. And those are some of the behaviors or the habits that help them with the journey. But then ultimately, We need to ground those behaviors in the way they’re making decisions, the way that they’re building relationships, the way that they’re creating trust in relationships consciously through the way they communicate and the way that they set expectations, uh, through the creation of boundaries, healthy boundaries, balanced boundaries in the way that they operate within their lives.
So it, it ultimately, Any of that deep spiritual work has to be grounded in something practical. It’s gotta be grounded in, in the way that we are actually relating, communicating, deciding, living, working, leading, et cetera. And, uh, so it’s a, it’s a very fundamental part of, of what this journey entails.
[00:34:18] The near future
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[00:34:18] Tony Winyard: and how do you see your practice changing or what you do in the next sort of five, 10 years?
[00:34:24] Luke Iorio: Hmm. You know, it’s funny, that’s, that’s, it’s a funny question to me because I think it’s a big piece of how I’ve changed in the way that I’m doing this. Um, A lot of what I’m doing right now is I’m sort of surrendering to the flow of where things are taking me, and I’m, I’m, you know, I’m fortunate enough to be in the position to allow things to unfold.
I don’t, I don’t, I’ve not, I’ve chased the achievement, I’ve chased the money, I’ve done those things, and I know where that led me and what it felt like. And so now, I know there’s broad strokes. I know like for, you know, somebody asked me just yesterday about the mission of my podcast and really what’s underneath what I’m doing and why I’m sharing these things is that I recognize just how much the imbalance that we’re feeling, the hurt or the pain that may be going on within us is projected out onto the world right now.
And then we’re blaming the world for it and we’re, we’re focused out here as opposed to doing our own healing and holding work inside and. Why do I share that? I share that because the journey I’m on right now is trying to stay connected more to the mission of this is the way that I wish to support anybody that I can speak with, that, that, that I work with, or that hears the podcast or any of the things I’m doing.
And seeing how that evolves and unfolds with them and for them. And so for myself, that allows me to feel like I’m deeply connected to who I am as a human being, is helping people on that journey and helping myself on that journey. And if I’m there, Then whatever unfolds is, is in alignment with that. And so I know that today I do a lot of one-on-one coaching and I do some group work, and that’s the basis of what I do.
Um, I do have visions of, of some longer term programs and some summits and things like that that I’d love to run. Uh, but I’m gonna let, I’m gonna let kind of life and spirit and the marketplace tell me if and when those are the right ideas. And I think that’s also reflective. The longer term plans that I used to set, it usually actually led to different expectations and attachments where I would then stay laser focused.
And frankly, I got rewarded for that for a long time, was being able to set a long-term vision and going out and achieving it. But then I crowded out the magic. I crowded out the fun. I crowded out the spontaneity of letting things unfold as they were meant to. And so a lot of my planning right now is, Maybe a couple of months at a time and really kind of winding with this journey and seeing where it is it’s gonna lead.
[00:37:06] Luke’s podcast
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[00:37:06] Tony Winyard: You talked about your podcast this, then who, who would you say your podcast is aimed?
[00:37:11] Luke Iorio: Uh, so very much the, you know, the individuals that we’ve been speaking with who are, are beginning to recognize there’s this deeper journey that they’re getting called to, uh, I have found that most, you know, I can’t say that they, I, it’s easy to say it’s that middle-aged demographic of 35 to 50, 55 or so, but, uh, I know of, you know, 20 year olds and 60 year olds and 70 year olds that are listening to my podcast right now that are, that are sending me messages.
Uh, I think it really is, it’s that deeper journey and. It’s the, the individuals that. They’re looking for more of what you know, sort of what we are doing right now, which is a much deeper conversation. One that is not just about what’s the one idea that I can implement that’s going to save me five minutes today, or the next piece of advice I can receive from this expert.
It’s. Individuals that are not only on the deeper journey, but they want to hear the journey that others have and are on, you know, watching unfold for themselves right now. What are the struggles that they’re running into? What are the challenges that they’re hitting? Uh, how have they gotten themselves out of some of these very, very difficult moments and, you know, difficult feelings and emotions that they have gone through so they could feel like they were more empowered or more on purpose or more aligned in their life again.
And so, uh, that’s really the common denominator. It’s. The types of situations that you and I are chatting about and people are tuning in and saying, wow, number one, I don’t feel alone. I feel like I’m connected to a, a larger group of people that are actually going through this. And thankfully they’re willing to share about it.
They’re willing to talk about it, and it’s like inviting people into the conversation as much as possible so that. They can see themselves in, in this work, they can see themselves in these stories and see if that begins to unlock something for them that that allows them to take the next step on their path.
[00:38:58] What should look for in a good coach?
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[00:38:58] Tony Winyard: If there’s anyone listening who maybe is considering. Having a coach, they, they’re starting to think maybe you could help them. What, what things would you say, what should they look for in a good coach?
[00:39:12] Luke Iorio: To me, you know, the, the biggest thing with a coach, first and foremost is your level of rapport with them. Uh, you need to be with somebody that you feel like you can trust and open up to. Because that’s fundamental to the coaching process. Uh, sure You want to check their credentials, check their experience, kind of have the, the logical list of let’s make sure that they’ve done their stuff.
Let’s make sure they’re trained, let’s make sure they’re certified, that this isn’t somebody who just hung up a shingle cuz they, they think they’ve got good advice, but, you know, check those credentials. But I mean, truly, It’s your level of rapport with the individual. How, uh, how do they, they make you feel in terms of safe and secure and accepted in what it is that you have to share.
And then obviously, how do you feel based on maybe an initial session or something like that with them? How do you feel in the way of, of where they can help you draw out of yourself the types of answers that you’re looking for to see things that you haven’t seen before. And so in that trust, that rapport that’s built is a, is there something there that’s, that, that you can feel is getting produced that you can feel is opening from that type of an experience?
So it’s a, it’s a very personal type of process. Uh, I am not, I think you’ve gotta check all the credentials, but I do not think you can select a coach based on their credentials. Uh, it, that’s not where it’s gonna, that’s not where the progress is gonna come from.
[00:40:36] Tony Winyard: Yeah, I agree. And one, one question I, I never do tell people this, but one, some, one thing I often think about telling people is any person you are thinking of being coached by, ask them if they have a coach, cuz if they don’t, and that’s quite telling
[00:40:50] Luke Iorio: Yeah. That’s a great sign. , absolutely. Most definitely.
[00:40:55] Favourite book
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[00:40:55] Tony Winyard: So, um, we’re, we’re gonna, yeah, we are. Time is flying by as it always seems that there, so question. I always ask all my guesses. Um, and I find it’s fascinating. So many answers I get. So can you think of a book that has really moved you in any way?
[00:41:10] Luke Iorio: Yeah, absolutely. Uh, the Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer, and, uh, I think you could tell from one of my, my answer before about the, you know, five, 10 years out, uh, I, it’s something I’ve very much taken to heart. There is such a beauty in the way that things unfolded for him, the faith that he had and the way that you know, to me.
So for those that aren’t familiar with Michael Singer, he also wrote a bestselling book called The Untethered Soul. The Surrender Experiment, which is actually his second book, tells the tale of everything that was going on for him as he was actually writing The Untethered Soul, which is this deeply spiritual book.
And his life was all over the place. Like he had so many things that he was going through, and yet he just had that peace, this balance of it’s gonna be. It’s gonna be, okay, let me see where this goes. Let me see where this next thing goes. And it was this just beautiful serenity that was actually underneath what could have been described as total chaos that was going on around him at different moments.
So I, I found that to be a, uh, uh, not only a helpful book, but just a very profound experience that he shared
[00:42:10] Tony Winyard: And is that a book? When did you first read that?
[00:42:14] Luke Iorio: a while ago. I’ve read, uh, several times, but it’s gotta be, it’s gotta be probably at least eight, 10 years ago
[00:42:20] Tony Winyard: Oh, well you just answered the next question I was gonna ask. So when you’ve, so you read it 10 years ago and you’ve reread it again and you’ve seen it, the different light, I’m guessing when you’ve
[00:42:28] Luke Iorio: completely. Oh yeah, yeah. Means that’s one of those books that, you know, you, you read it originally and you’re inspired and then you go through something and you’re like, oh, let me go back and read that. Cause I’m gonna understand it in a very different way now, . And that’s, that’s what unfolded for me.
[00:42:43] Contact details
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[00:42:43] Tony Winyard: if people wanna find out about more about you, your podcast, where, where would they look?
[00:42:48] Luke Iorio: Yeah, so the, uh, the podcast as well as the website is on this walk, so it’s on this walk.com. Uh, you can find on this walk podcast on all the major podcast platforms wherever you’re listening to, to Tony’s show here. Now, uh, you can find on this walk. You can also connect with me through, uh, through the website and I’m all over social.
So if you look up D as in Daniel, Luke, Iorio, I O R I o. If you look it up on Facebook, on LinkedIn, on Instagram, you’ll find me and uh, connect with me there.
[00:43:19] Tony Winyard: and why the name On This Walk?.
[00:43:22] Luke Iorio: Hmm, there are many meanings to on this walk. And so, uh, one of which is, uh, just very practically, I have spent a lot of time, uh, hiking with friends and small groups through the last several years. And those experiences of being on this walk with them have been very, very, uh, deeply touching and profound for me at times.
Uh, it’s also that. I describe myself as a coach, but I use that term very, very loosely at this point because there are so many modalities that I have trained in and that I use to support a client based on wherever they are. And so I like people to think of, of me, I’m walking with you for a period of time to support you, and I will draw on this range of experiences to support you.
So I’m on this walk with you. Uh, but then the last of which, uh, is from some of my time and some of of some friends of mine. That come out of the indigenous traditions. And there is a phrase of being on this walk, uh, within some of the indigenous cultures. And it specifically is meant to be on this walk of life, meaning to be in this embodiment, to be on this incarnation.
How are we choosing to use this walk? And so it, it, to me, it’s also a very deeply, uh, spiritual, uh, connection of me thinking about where I am at this point in my life. What is this walk about?
[00:44:45] Favourite quote
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[00:44:45] Tony Winyard: And finally, Luke, is there a quotation that resonates with you for any reason?
[00:44:52] Luke Iorio: Yes. Uh, one of the ones, and I’ve actually, I’ve commented on this recently, uh, I love sharing it. It’s a quote from Steven Presfield and he wrote about it in the book, the War of Art, and he talks about the two lives. So it’s the, uh, we each have two lives. Uh, we have the life that we live. And then we have the unlived life within us and between the two stands resistance, that dichotomy, that gap, that resistance is the work that I do. Is working in that space so that the unlived life that exists within every single one of us, we find a way to be deeply in connection with it and learn how to bring that out of ourselves so that we can feel like we’re living a whole life as fully as we should.
[00:45:37] Tony Winyard: Why, why do you think that particularly speaks to you? That quote
[00:45:41] Luke Iorio: It’s, oh, that’s lived experience. And that’s, you know, that’s part of the burnout process. It was part of the, uh, imbalance into balance that I walked through was feeling, you know, these moments of, I know that this is the life out here that I live and, and the one that everybody can see. And yet I know there is this unlived expression that is within me that’s more creative and more artistic and more loving and very different than the persona that I was, I was choosing to portray, to fulfill some of the roles of my life.
And I wanted to be able to tap into that unlived life. I wanted to be able to express myself from that deeper place. And so that’s very much part of, of the journey that I’ve been on. Um, I’ve referenced Parker Palmer before. Another wonderful writer. And he, he talks about living a divided life. And it is because we feel like we’re fragmented at times in all of these different pieces.
And when we fragment in that way, there is always sediment. There’s always something that’s left that is not getting addressed well, that’s the unlived life and I want to bring that back for people to tap into, to feel that vitality, that aliveness, because that’s the life they’re meant to bring into this world, cuz it’s the one that’ll be most fulfilling to them, most meaningful to them.
And it’s also the one that will produce the most for the.
[00:46:53] Tony Winyard: Well, Luke, thank you for your time and for coming onto the show. It’s been, uh, it’s been a real pleasure and I’m sure you’ve, there’s some people that you’ve really helped with some of the wisdom you shared, so thank you.
[00:47:02] Luke Iorio: Thank you, Tony. Thank you so much for what you’re doing.
Next week is episode 98 of habits and health. And my guest is Tom Glaser. A licensed psychologist and life coach with 35 years of experience. And he’s also a bestselling author and yoga instructor and his book, full heart living, conversations with the happiest people I know is, one of the best sellers on Amazon.
So we talk about counseling, writing, teaching, and his passion for helping people live their best lives, about his book and many other things that’s next week. Episode 98 with Tom Glazer. I Hope you enjoyed this week’s show have a great week
[00:47:40] Outro: Thanks for tuning into the Habits and Health Podcast where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. You can also sign up for email updates and learn about coaching and workshop opportunities at Tony Winyard dot com.
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Habits & Health episode 96 with Daniel Mansson, a clinical psychologist by training and in this episode we discuss Flow, a revolutionary new way of treating depression.Daniel is the co-founder and previous CEO of Flow Neuroscience. A clinical psychologist by training. He now leads the scientific work at Flow as Chief Clinical Officer
In this episode we discuss:
03:21 Setting the company up05:28 What is Flow?07:41 How often should it be used?08:49 The hardware09:52 The 30 minute sessions10:15 Reactions from users to the product11:15 Where it’s available12:16 Can it be used for other ailments?13:49 Are some people more receptive to this?14:44 Do you get different reactions in different countries?16:02 How do users discover this?17:16 Have any of the reviews surprised you?18:54 Does a user have to believe this will work?19:59 The next step22:01 Social media and the Flow community23:25 A book that really moved DanielLInks: Daniel Mansson on Linkedin * The Flow website Recommended book:Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson by Mitch AlbomRelated episode: Listen on Apple Podcasts * Google Podcasts * Spotify * Amazon Music * Listen on Stitcher Don’t forget, there is a transcript of every episode (scroll down the page).
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TranscriptEmailDownloadNew Tab96 – Daniel Mansson
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Habits and health episode 96.
Welcome to another edition of habits and health. This week, my guest is Daniel Mansson, who is a clinical psychologist by training and he now leads the scientific work at Flow. As the chief clinical officer and we find out more, what is flow? How does it work?
What kind of people, is it for. We talk about depression. Mental illness and many other things around that sort of area as well. So that’s this week’s episode. With Daniel Manson, if you know anyone who would get some value from some of the stuff that Daniel talked about, please. I do share the episode with them.
[00:00:40] Tony Winyard: Habits and health. My guest today, Daniel Mansson. How are you, Daniel?
[00:00:44] Daniel Mansson: I’m all good. Thank you Tony for inviting me
[00:00:47] Tony Winyard: I think this is the first time I’ve had a guest from Sweden as far as I can remember.
AwesomeAnd your whereabouts inn Sweden.
[00:00:56] Daniel Mansson: I’m based in the south of Sweden and so next to Copenhagen in Denmark. it’s called Malma, it’s a very nice town.
I’ve been to Gutenberg and Stockholm, but I’ve never been to Malmo around
[00:01:11] Daniel Mansson: go. Gothenberg is about two and a half hours of, traveling by, car, up north. Malmo is in the south.
[00:01:20] Tony Winyard: What is Malmo famous for anything?
[00:01:24] Daniel Mansson: zlatan ibrahimovic I would say , the football player, one of the best in the world. and then it’s just a very nice, down to earth town. so it’s a little bit like Copenhagen, but smaller. so it’s very nice. It’s very easy to live here, I would say.
[00:01:39] Tony Winyard: And you are the, I know you are the co-founder but you are a clinical psychologist by training, aren’t you?
[00:01:45] Daniel Mansson: that’s correct. so I started out in IT, as a, person who, ran big networks, and then decided, at 26 that, I wanted to, Go deeper into the, to the minds of people. try to understand, why we become mentally ill, but also why we become very happy. and, basically the basics of the human mind, and therefore decided to become a psychologist.
and then after I practiced that for a while, I decided to start Flow. and then as you said, ran that,as the CEO for about six and a half.
[00:02:17] Tony Winyard: and how was that whole experience? Was it, did it go as you thought it would or was it quite different?
[00:02:24] Daniel Mansson: so starting the company. it never goes according to how you believe. when me and my co-founder, started this journey, we, I remember it very clearly. we sat in a room, in a, in an incubator, business incubator and we talked about, what we could potentially achieve with this company.
And we said, we are going to give this three years. and then we can potentially do something else because we’ll take about three years to develop the product and get it out in the market and get traction and so on. And here we are seven years later and, still in the beginning of that journey.
I would say we have accomplished a lot, but still in the beginning of the journey. So not really, but I’m very happy that we did it anyway.
[00:03:04] Tony Winyard: And is your thoughts on where you want to go now quite different to what your thoughts were when you originally set the company
[00:03:10] Daniel Mansson: up?
So So I would say that the basics of the companies actually, still there, very clearly. so we decided earlier on that we wanted to build a. I’m sure we’ll get
[00:03:21] Setting the company up
—
[00:03:21] Daniel Mansson: into what we are actually building, but I can just say that we are building a treatment for depression and from the beginning we wanted to build a holistic treatment.
So partly, a stimulation of the brain and partly a behavioral training program in the form of an app. That is the basics of the products, and that’s still true. The way we deliver it is also, basically the same thingwe, imagined in the the beginning. but of course everything that has to do with we, uh imagined in the get paid for the device and how you deliver it to the patients and so on, that has changed quite a lot I would say.
[00:03:58] Tony Winyard: and what was it that made you want to do this in the first place? Is like, specifically around sort of mental.
[00:04:05] Daniel Mansson: Yeah. So I would say that the, my career as a clinical psychologist started out with, what I said before. I was very interested and still am very interested in trying to understand why we do certain things, because sometimes we tell others. the story of why we do things and then there is another reason hidden maybe for others, but also for ourselves.
And I wanted to understand the real reasons why we do things. And why we think certain ways. So that was the start of the career there. but the reason why I then left psychology was basically I saw a tremendous opportunity to have a bigger impact. . so as a psychologist you can maybe meet, people, five to eight people per day.
you are quite exhausted when you are, when you’re done with that. If you put yourself into it, you’re, it’s very,it gives you a lot, but it’s also quite draining in certain ways. so if you have the ambition to, to do something for the many people, I think you need to bring technology into. And these opportunities that we have, when it comes to apps, but also hardware, in order to help as many people as possible. and that was the decision I took then. So I’m happy about that. I miss doing psychology, definitely. but I think it was the right choice.
[00:05:25] Tony Winyard: So well, let’s dig into what is flow and how does it.
[00:05:28] What is Flow?
—
. So Flow is the company and we also call our first, product flow. so it’s a treatment for what we call unipolar depression or regular depression. it’s a, should we say, two component solution, two component treatment where we combine a brain stimulation headset. I will go into what that actually is with a behavioral training program in the form of this app that I mentioned.
[00:05:54] Daniel Mansson: The hardware, is a thing that you put on your head. It looks like. like headphones, but it has two electrodes that goes on the frontal part of the head, parts of the brain. it’s a non-invasive treatment, so it means that nothing goes into the head or anything like that. Just put it on the outside.
we then send a very weak, electric current, you could say it’s 2.0 milli amp, so you can hardly feel it. it goes into the left side of the frontal parts of the brain, and we take out the current on the right side. And the effect of this, is that on the left side you can get the neurons in the brain, these tiny things that communicate with each other in order to create everything that has to do with feelings or thoughts.
[00:06:37] Daniel Mansson: Our whole, inner mental, program, whatever you wanna call it. try to activate those neurons in the left side and we try to make them less active on the right side. And this has been researched for many years and are big trials showing that if you do it this way, you can get an effect that is roughly equivalent to the effect of an antidepressant, but with the big advantage of not having any side effects. So we take this and we then, as I said, try to create a holistic treatment by adding. A behavioral training program where we teach the patients what depression is, but also how you can affect it yourself by changing things that you are very familiar with. nutrition, exercise, sleep and meditation practices in order to help them reduce depression symptoms right now, but also prevent it from coming back.
So that was a long harangue of information. I hope everybody got,so is this something that someone needs to do daily, weekly? how regular would they need to do?
[00:07:41] How often should it be used?
—
[00:07:41] Daniel Mansson: Yeah, so the stimulation sessions, the technique is called tDCS. You do that, 30 minutes per session, so that 30 minutes per day. And then depending on where you are in the program, if you’re in the beginning, you do it five times per week, and then after the three weeks, you move on to what we call maintenance phase, and that’s two times per.
[00:08:06] Tony Winyard: And so what kind of results do people get from doing.
it has been tested in numerous studies that I mentioned before, and these are, what’s called R C T studies, placebo control Studies. and, then you can see that, it’s better than placebo and it is better or roughly equivalent to, a normal antidepressant at a high dosage. So that’s the kind of level that you’re on.
[00:08:28] Daniel Mansson: It’s, if I’m naming a number here about, 40 to 50% get a 50% drop or more in depression if you do this for six weeks.
[00:08:40] Tony Winyard: So is it a case then people just what they buy the hardware or do they just need to use this for a few months or? Does that work
[00:08:49] The hardware
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[00:08:49] Daniel Mansson: So we have a, we try to give access to as many people as possible. And we know that, if you buy a hardware, some people can do that and, some people cannot do that. and therefore we have provided. one purchase option. So you can buy the equipment that’s 399 pounds and then you can also rent it, and that’s, 79 pounds at the moment.
and how long? That rental period be?
[00:09:14] Daniel Mansson: So it depends on your severity of depression, whether, you need, the maintenance phase and so on. But we tend to recommend or basically see that if people choose themselves. A big majority of people use it for about six months, and then we have, of course, many patients are using it for a year, two years, and so on.
But, but the big majority is using it for roughly six months,
[00:09:38] Tony Winyard: And so you said, so during the actual session when someone’s got this on their head, so how long did you say that session was?
[00:09:44] Daniel Mansson: 30 minutes, three zero. Yeah.
and is that, are they sitting in a, like a meditative state or how does it actually, how is the session?
[00:09:52] The 30 minute sessions
—
[00:09:52] Daniel Mansson: So we recommend that you shouldn’t do anything that, may. Get the headset to fall off, so you shouldn’t be running or anything. But otherwise you can do home chores, you can be sitting in a chair comfortably, watching tv. You can do the app sessions. you can do many different things, but you shouldn’t be running around.
But otherwise, it’s fine.
and so how has the reaction been since people have started using.
[00:10:15] Reactions from users to the product
—
it’s quite overwhelming, to be honest. of course. Kind of bias because I’m in the company. so you can read the reviews for yourself, but it’s overwhelming to see the amount of people that haven’t been helped by an antidepressant or have been depressed for a very long time and then tried many different things, and they can suddenly go back to.
[00:10:37] Daniel Mansson: Painting, the, you have reviews saying that there is color in the paintings again. I can go to the gym, I can hang out with my children and all these things that we want to be able to do with some kind of emotional, expression. You wanna feel something in connection to other people and or, things that you do in your everyday life.
so it’s very. it’s actually overwhelming to see that, something that I didn’t see on this scale when I was, myself practicing as a psychologist. It’s, it’s quite overwhelming actually to see the reviews.
[00:11:08] Tony Winyard: Did you initially just release this in Sweden and then it’s gone to the international market, or how did that develop?
[00:11:15] Where it’s available
—
[00:11:15] Daniel Mansson: So it’s a medical device, which means that when you get the medical approval in Europe, you are able to sell all over Europe. So we are available now, I think in, 28 or 29, countries. So that’s the whole of Europe, the UK and Brazil also.
[00:11:32] Tony Winyard: And is there anything similar to this on the market?
so the technology is widely used. and you, there are other, firms, that are developing devices using tDCS, which by the way stands for Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation. but these devices are normally research devices or made for clinicians, so they. Quite highly priced from 3000 Euros and up.
and then they’re used in the clinics. So you go to the doctor and then you get your treatment. And we have focused on getting this to, as I said before, as to as many people as possible, taking something that works in the clinic and delivering it to the many people, because we want that kind of impact.
so there we are quite unique. I would say.
[00:12:16] Can it be used for other ailments?
—
[00:12:16] Tony Winyard: and is, can you see how this might progress in the future? Is there, can it be used for other ailments as well?
[00:12:25] Daniel Mansson: Yeah, that’s an interesting question. this is a big research field. so first you have the brain stimulation research field where you look at things like, Tms, which is quite popular now. You go to a doctor and you get this magnetic stimulation. but you also have these, E C T sessions, electroconvulsive therapy for very severely depressed patients.
Works very well. It’s a bit controversial because of the media picture of it, but it works very well if you look at the research. and then there is. That have a lot weak occurrence such as tDCS that we are using. and in that field of tDCS, they have seen very positive effects on anxiety, diseases, PTSD, phobias, many different time, generalized anxiety and so on.
but also it’s beginning to. , we published big studies on adhd, certain symptoms of schizophrenia such as auditory hallucinations, for example, but also pain management. And then when you hear these things, you may say, okay, this works for everything. That sounds a little bit strange. but in a way it’s not that strange because you change the positioning of the electrodes and it’s just an effect on the actual neurons that you’re trying to have. and that can of course be true for many parts of the brain. And if you believe that these diseases are based in the brain, which we believe and many others, then of course you can affect them.
[00:13:49] Are some people more receptive to this?
—
[00:13:49] Tony Winyard: And is it a case that some people are more receptive to this than others? Like for example, would it not work on some people?
[00:13:57] Daniel Mansson: And that is definitely correct. Like with all treatments, antidepressants or other types of pharmaceuticals, but also TMS or EFT for example. it only works for
a certain, amount of people. Who those people exactly are, is a little bit more difficult to say. It’s different in different disease groups, patient populations.
so for example, we know that if you, if add a certain type TMS or EFT are used for anxiety. the effect of tDCS seems to go down a little bit. so that’s one thing. and then there are probably, genetic differences that could potentially affect it.
but otherwise we don’t really know why it’s not working. As with an antidepressant, for example, we won’t really exactly know why it’s not working.
[00:14:44] Do you get different reactions in different countries?
—
[00:14:44] Tony Winyard: and you mentioned that it’s available in, most of Europe now, I just wondered if there’s any difference in reaction to, because the people in different countries in Europe, the cultures are quite different. And so have had, there been some countries that have been really much more positive and I dunno, yet, really much more into it than other countries though.
[00:15:04] Daniel Mansson: Interesting question. I haven’t really thought about it like that. what we can see is that we have focused quite a lot on the uk and people have been, I would say very open to it. much more so than I, I thought in the beginning because it’s, it has these connotations to send, electricity into the brain, of course.
but people use what works. We have found, so I wouldn’t say that a certain country is more skeptical towards this. If I were to name any country, I would actually say Sweden because we, for some reason, we are a very skeptical people. and, especially, there’s this saying, you can’t become a prophet in a, in your own country or your own village.
[00:15:48] Daniel Mansson: And I think that’s pretty true actually. it’s, people are very skeptical towards new things that come from Sweden. In Sweden, I were to name one country, it would be actually Sweden.
[00:16:02] How do users discover this?
—
[00:16:02] Tony Winyard: And so is this now being like, for example, recommended by psychologists or how do most of your clients find out about this in the first place?
we decided early on that we wanted to go directly to the patients, in order to quickly get a sense of, Yeah, basically how they perceive the treatment. we know that it works from the science. We know that it’s safe, that has been established and otherwise we wouldn’t have gotten the medical, device approval.
but still the other aspect of it is the patients actually like it. So we wanted to test that quickly and therefore we went out and we now have. X amount of thousands of people. I think it’s about 8,000 now and that have been using it. in the future though, we see that, the connection to a physician, psychologist or a doctor, is very important.
and,the reason for that is that, most patients actually go to their doctor first when they feel that they, that they might be depressed.
so it’s important. so therefore, in the future we would see the, if I’m talking business now, business language, the B2B to C
[00:17:08] Tony Winyard: mm.
[00:17:08] Daniel Mansson: kind approach would be, the bigger part of the market, but right now it’s directly to, to patients.
[00:17:16] Have any of the reviews surprised you?
—
[00:17:16] Tony Winyard: You mentioned about you’ve got your testimonials, it reviewsiews of people who have found lot of benefit from this. Have you been surprised sort of testimonials, it reviews found benefits which they just weren’t expecting from this?
it depends on if you mean we didn’t expect it or if the patient didn’t expect it. either. Either one. Yeah. I think that when it comes to our, analysis that we are doing internally, we have a lot of data coming in and, I was. Maybe I was mostly surprised, I would say, on the effect of the severely depressed, because normally this is a technology that’s deemed, as something that, that, that is mostly targeted towards mild and moderately depressed patients.
[00:17:59] Daniel Mansson: But we have, what we have seen in our data is that people with quite severe depression, are also getting a lot of. And, that is very encouraging, I would say because it’s such a, such an easy technology to use and it’s such a inexpensive, also in a way, and very accessible. so that’s very encouraging. For the patients I think we have reports of people saying that they have. Their cognitive effects. for example, at memory function, or works, better people feel that they have,effects on other types of diseases. for example, if they have OCD. People have reported back to us that,that has become a lot better. People sleep in a little bit different ways. so they have, more interesting dreams and stuff like that. but that’s more like case studies. should we say stories from individual patients
[00:18:54] Does a user have to believe this will work?
—
[00:18:54] Tony Winyard: is there a case of if, how much does belief play in to this? So if someone is determined that this is not gonna work for them and they’re really skeptical, it work for them or that is what you test in the placebo controlled trials. so I would say that people that are coming in, in those trials, they get the information that, we are now giving you this treatment. It could either be, a non-treatment, a placebo, or it could be the active treatment. And then we measure the difference between those groups.
[00:19:22] Daniel Mansson: So that’s important from a scientific point of view. we also know. other things from psychological research in general that if you feel that a treatment is the right one for you, especially when it comes to talk therapies, I believe in C B T or I believe in psychodynamic therapy, then the effects of that specific therapy goes up quite dramatically.
Actually, you know about this. and that is, is very interesting, I would presume. but this is a presumption, that this, would be true for our treatment also. So if you believe it, it becomes a little bit better. If you don’t believe it, it doesn’t,
[00:19:59] The next step
—
[00:19:59] Tony Winyard: If someone’s listening to this and they’re thinking, okay, I’m interested to learn more about this. Where would they just go to your website? Where, what would be the next step?
[00:20:07] Daniel Mansson: Yeah, I think you should look broadly,look for the evidence, and if you are a scientifically inclined person, you should read the research reports. The clinical studies, you can definitely go to our website. We have a research section, where we list, many of the different trials that have been done on tDCS, comparing it to antidepressants, comparing it to TMS that I mentioned before.
looking at the safety aspects of this, for short term and long term. so there are many different resources at our website, but look.
[00:20:35] Daniel Mansson: There are, for example, there are also podcasts,and researchers specifically talking about it, trying to explain the effects,and why it actually works.
Mechanistically,I think that this popular podcast, the Huberman,
talked about, brain stimulation in general, a couple of episodes ago. he talked, I think, specifically about tms, but that could be also a very good source.
[00:20:58] Tony Winyard: Over the next few years, what further developments do you see your company making? Are there other areas that maybe you are able to go into? How do you see technology in this whole area progressing?
so I think that what we talked about before, that there are numerous studies showing, very interesting effects in other disease types, in the mental health area. I think that we are. Closely watching this, we are also doing our own research as a, at a quite advanced level. so there may be, I can’t say too much, but there, there may be advances, when it comes to, partly how we attack depression.
there are different ways that you can change the way you do the stimulation for, depression sufferers. but. Again, as I said before, we can also go to other disease types and we actually have, should we say a hardware devices internally in the company that can do this differently. so I think that, we’re watching the science that comes out.
[00:21:55] Daniel Mansson: We’re doing our own science, and then that will lead to, advancements in how we stimulate.
[00:22:01] Social media and the Flow community
—
[00:22:01] Tony Winyard: So what is your url, your social media? how can people find out more about.
[00:22:08] Daniel Mansson: Yeah, I think the primary source of, of information would come from the website. But then we’re on some of the social media, Twitter and Facebook and so on. if, the patients decide that they want to, To buy a device, start using device. they can also get access to our Facebook forum, where we have several hundred, people that are daily discussing, how they got on with the treatment, what they are doing, otherwise, and how they’re feeling and so which has turned out to be a very, vital, part of the company.
where people are very active in talking about the treatment. So that’s a great source of knowledge.
[00:22:44] Tony Winyard: Yeah, communities always helps that kind of
[00:22:46] Daniel Mansson: Yeah, it’s amazing to see these discussions taking place and how many different stories there are, about the treatment pathway, but also the disease history and so on. it’s very empowering.
Everything.
[00:22:56] Tony Winyard: and are people able to join that group before renting or purchasing the product?
[00:23:02] Daniel Mansson: So normally you wouldn’t get that invite. So we have quite few patients that are actually, because we’re not really promoting it before they, they buy it. But if someone wants access to it, that’s no problem.
not.
and the website, is it flow neuroscience.com.
[00:23:17] Daniel Mansson: Exactly. It’s a bit long, , but, you can probably find it if you search for flow and depression in Google, for example, or some other searching.
[00:23:25] A book that really moved Daniel
—
[00:23:25] Tony Winyard: I always ask people about if there’s a book that has really moved you for any reason. Does anything come to mind when I ask that question?
[00:23:33] Daniel Mansson: Yeah, it’s a very interesting question. I think,from my, there are many books that have moved me, deeply, but I would say that the book that I tend to reread every year is, Tuesdays with Morrie, it’s a quite short book, but it’s about a,a professor that is, about to, To die from a disease
and he knows about this, I think it’s a year before or something like that. And then he, get contacted by one of his pupils, from before and they, go on a philosophical journey. So they meet every Tuesday, and talk about life and talk about what he learned so on, and what’s important.
And I think that. always comes back to me because it’s,yeah,the most important things in life, gets very accentuated when you talk about it from a, dying in this case, man’s perspective. so I think that’s a very good book for those who hasn’t.
[00:24:26] Tony Winyard: I’m wondering what is it about the book that you think resonates with you so much? Why is it that you keep going back to it? What is it you are getting from the book?
[00:24:35] Daniel Mansson: I think that, obviously, as I’m a psychologist, I’m very interested in the conversation, in the meeting with other people and authenticity in, in general. I think that the. Why I start my career and left my old career and started this career is because I was almost, obsessed with getting to the truth of, as I said before, why we do certain things, but also this connection.
when you really have like a real conversation with someone. So I think that’s the kind of underpinning, and in the book, they convey this a, in a very nice way. the conversation is real, it’s emotional. You can feel the emotions between them. and then, that is actually intellectually also very intriguing because it’s between a professor, if I remember correctly of philosophy and, this, student of philosophy. so it’s, yeah, it’s a very intriguing and very short also, so it’s very, easy to, to reread and, and think about it again, and the new meanings of what they said as well.
[00:25:39] Tony Winyard: I’ve heard a few people, recommend this book. I think it’s about I explored it myself, so yeah, I’ve heard other people rave about it.
[00:25:46] Daniel Mansson: Okay. Okay. I hope you will, you’ll enjoy it as much as I have done through the years.
Daniel, thank you for letting us know about flow, cuz it sounds like something that’s gonna be really useful for many people.
[00:25:56] Daniel Mansson: Thank you so much for inviting me and thank you for the very, thoughtful call.
[00:26:00] Tony Winyard: Thank you Daniel.
[00:26:02] Daniel Mansson: Okay, thank you.
Next week is episode 97 with Luke you Oreo. Who is the host of the, on this podcast where he and his guests shared a real stories and experiences on a challenges as well as what it takes to be centered, connected, fulfilled, and balanced. And so we talk a lot about what does that mean and what does balance mean to, to look cause it’s, I don’t think it’s the same as what many other people often.
Express when they talk about being balanced. Um, he used to be the president of, and CEO of AIPAC, the Institute for professional excellence in coaching. So we also discussed that and about coaching in general. And so that’s next week’s episode 97 with Luke. Oreo hope you enjoyed this week show we’ve Daniel. If you know anyone who could we benefit, maybe anyone, you know, has got depression.
Could well be worth their while trying out this device. It’s um, I mean, it’s not that much to, to rent you. You know, it’s just as, as a first call, maybe just to give it a, give it a go. See if it works for you or for anyone, you know, who does suffer from depression? And hope you have a fantastic week
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Habits & Health episode 95 with Dr. Joe Mather. We discuss how important gut health is to other seemingly unrelated areas of health and how to find a good functional medicine doctor. Dr. Mather is a board-certified Family Practice physician and the Medical Director of the Ruscio Institute for Functional Medicine. He graduated from Tulane University School of Medicine and Tulane University School of Public Health in 2011 and completed his residency in 2014. He is passionate about delivering cost-effective and practical medical care with a focus on GI health and environmental toxicity. He spends a lot of time working with patients suffering from complex and chronic diseases.
In this episode, we discuss:
02:48 How Joe got involved with Functional Medicine
10:33 Gut care
12:42 The gut is more than just bloating and diarrhea
14:40 How on earth does looking at the gut help arthritis!
17:21 Rosacea
17:51 Environmental toxicity
22:13 Toxicity testing
24:15 Health recommendations Jow gives
27:58 How do you find a GOOD functional medicine doctor?
29:20 The problem with integrative/functional medicine
30:33 Benefits of various types of fasting
34:35 Don’t pick one thing and roll with that forever
35:33 Favourite book
37:20 Joe’s fave quote
LInks:* Ruscio Institute on Facebook * Ruscio Institute on Instagram * Ruscio Institute on YouTube * Ruscio Institute website * Dr Ruscio podcast Recommended books:Healthy Gut, Healthy You: The Personalized Plan to Transform Your Health from the Inside Out by Dr. Michael Ruscio The Green Bone Saga by Fonda LeeFavourite Quote
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."
F. Scott FitzgeraldTweet
Related episode: Listen on Apple Podcasts * Google Podcasts * Spotify * Amazon Music * Listen on Stitcher Don’t forget, there is a transcript of every episode* (scroll down the page).
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TranscriptEmailDownloadNew Tab95 – Dr. Joe Mather MD
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[00:01:16] Tony Winyard: Habits and health. My guest today, Dr. Joe Mather. How you doing, Joe?
[00:01:20] Dr. Joe Mather MD: Doing fantastic Tony. How are you?
[00:01:23] Tony Winyard: I’m pretty good. And we’re in, is it New Orleans today?
[00:01:27] Dr. Joe Mather MD: You got it. That’s right. It’s a beautiful day in New Orleans.
[00:01:30] Tony Winyard: I think this may be the first time we’ve been there. We’ve been in a lot of places around North America. I can’t recall having a guest from there before.
[00:01:38] Dr. Joe Mather MD: Man, its, we’re a unique city. We’ve got a lot of soul, a lot of music. Small enough that you don’t spend your whole life in traffic, but big enough that you can still watch the Saints play and see some fun festivals. So I think it’s a fantastic place to be.
Just come visit.
is it where you’re from?
[00:01:52] Dr. Joe Mather MD: No, I grew up in the north. I, grew up in upstate New York, you can think Canada really. But, I got tired of freezing all the time. So I went south
[00:02:02] Tony Winyard: And is that what was it that initially drew you to though in the first place?
[00:02:06] Dr. Joe Mather MD: to New Orleans to music. I, I spent a lot of time as a kid listening to blues music as it is. And, when I was applying to medical school after, after. I was like, I think it would be pretty fun to be in New Orleans. And, as luck would have it, I got into the medical school here and, fell in love with the city.
know, you walk through the city and there’s just music playing and you’re like, ah, this is great.
[00:02:26] Tony Winyard: Sounds, sounds pretty cool. I’m very much into music myself, but we won’t go down that avenue, but yeah, it sounds
[00:02:32] Dr. Joe Mather MD: Maybe we could do another podcast.
yeah. Yeah. I know that you are,we had a quick chat before and I’ve looked at some stuff on the, on the website as well, and that you are the medical director of the, I have to pronounce this right.
Is it the, Ruscio Institute?
Close. It’s Ruscio Institute.
[00:02:47] Dr. Joe Mather MD: Institute,
Yeah.
[00:02:48] How Joe got involved with Functional Medicine
—
[00:02:48] Tony Winyard: And the Institute for Functional Medicine. So tell me more about that. how did that come about? How long have you been there? What is it you?
Michael Ruscio is a chiropractor who specialized in gut-based functional medicine, and I’ve teamed up with Michael after, blazing my own path and running an internal medicine practice and opening my own private practice and that the. Question I’ve always had as I practice medicine is how do I get patients with chronic disease better?
[00:03:16] Dr. Joe Mather MD: And functional medicine is this field where the whole idea is what is the root cause of disease. And if you fix that root cause of a disease, you’ll get patients better. And so I’ve really spent the last 10 years just cycling through all of the claims and functional medicine, what works, what doesn’t, and one of the most consistent avenues to get patients with all sorts of chronic disease.
Fixing and optimizing gut health. And so early in my career when I was trying to sort through what works and what doesn’t, I found Michael’s work really resonated. And it was one of those cases where I tried it and it worked real quick on a couple patients I’d struggled with. And so I said, oh, there’s a signal that really worked.
And then the more I did it, the more I worked through with patients, the better it got. And so I said, okay, this is one of. Main root causes that we have to pay attention to. fast forward and, Michael and I became fast friends and we, have teamed up and our kind of mission is to simplify functional medicine because there’s a lot of, a lot of nonsense in the field, if I can be frank.
And we’re trying to do our very best to get cost effective, effective care to people. And so we focus on the gut because that’s one of the best avenues.
[00:04:22] Tony Winyard: There’s a few areas we can dive into from what you just said. So let’s start with the functional medicine because there’s, it seems like anyone can just call themselves a functional medicine practitioner,
[00:04:34] Dr. Joe Mather MD: You’re correct.
[00:04:36] Tony Winyard: and that’s crazy, really, in a way, isn’t it?
[00:04:39] Dr. Joe Mather MD: It sure is. so I’m an MD and and I consider myself a functional medicine practitioner, but you can be a health coach and say, I’m a functional medicine practitioner. You can be a dietician. You’ll see functional medicine, like physical therapists, physios, and there really is no one governing body.
So I was trained in family medicine as a gp. Y’all would have it in the uk. And so I have a pretty broad background, but that could be very different from someone who goes to a couple seminar. And then says they’re a functional medicine dietician. So it’s a little bit the wild west and it’s a really amazing field in a lot of ways.
[00:05:16] Dr. Joe Mather MD: And it’s growing, right? So what it is now is different than I think it was even 10 years ago when I first leap in. but you’re absolutely correct. There is no one governing board or one, set of degrees. In fact, at our. I’m an md. I’m the medical director. We have a large diversity of clinicians.
Michael is a chiropractor at dc. Dr. Scott is a naturopath, so n d and then Dr. Hannah. She’s a do. So we kinda have the run of the gamut of medical degrees, which we think is helpful at bringing a diversity of.
[00:05:50] Tony Winyard: And so if someone has decided that is the route they want to go down, maybe they’ve tried, they’ve been with their GP and they haven’t been getting results they’ve been hoping for, and so they think they’ve been hearing about functional medicine, what would be some checks that they could take themselves to find someone good to work?
[00:06:10] Dr. Joe Mather MD: The. I think the biggest problem with the field right now is an over-reliance on laboratory testing, and so I would be extremely concerned that this is not a red flag all the time, but often if a doctor is asking for, four to five tests at a fairly significant financial cost without meeting you, that’s a red flag to me because that suggests that doctor is, overly reliant on laboratories that quite honestly are not that.
and that usually leads to a clinical process. It’s very expensive and laboratory driven. And the laboratories, because they’re not as accurate as many doctors and patients believe them to be, leads to a path where they don’t get very good outcomes. And they pay way more than they need to you can order here in the states’s, standard blood work will typically go through insurance, or it can be done for cash for relat.
An expensive, say, under $200 for most cases, right? Many of the functional medicine tests are four to 800 each, right? And so if someone is asking you to do multiple tests without listening to your story, without listening, what happened? What are their symptoms? Who is this patient in front of me?
that’s a pretty big red flag.
[00:07:23] Tony Winyard: And so if they, if that is the case and the practitioner they’re talking to is suggesting many different tests, is it as simple as just finding someone else or what would you say
[00:07:35] Dr. Joe Mather MD: I think so. I think that particularly with medicine, just like in therapy or if you’re hiring a therapist or an architect or a physio, You need someone that you connect with at a pretty, pretty good level. And it’s almost like speed dating. You need to find someone you connect with and you can build some trust with.
And most patients have a pretty good intuition if the person they’re working with is trustworthy and honest or not. And yeah, I would say I wish it was easy. I wish there was enough functional medicine docs out here that, that it was as simple as just finding a new one. But, it’s a growing field and so I think it’s trying to find.
and so what was it that made you, I mean we, we touched upon this before we started recording, that made you go into functional medicine in the first place after doing your,
[00:08:15] Dr. Joe Mather MD: I was frustrated. I was frustrated at, I’ve always wanted to be a doctor, right? The deepest level. I’ve always felt I, I am called to be a healer. That’s just how I’ve always seen myself from an early age. And so naturally I wanted to go right into medical school and I was able to make that happen and was lucky to be able to do that.
And I just figured it would be as simple as that. You get your medical degree, you get broad training in family medicine, and then you’re off to the races, right? I care about getting patients better and I went to a great university and so I was, I thought that it was gonna be as simple as that, but I got to the tail end of my conventional training and it was just like, my patients aren’t getting better, right?
I’m doing all of the diets that the American Diabetic Association is telling me to. Following all the cholesterol guidelines from the American Heart Association, I know exactly how the pulmonologist would treat this C O P D, but nobody got better cuz I had a clinic for three years where I would see people sequentially over many years.
And at the end of the third year, I’m like, man, no one’s better. So I’m either a bad doctor or the tools I’m using are not helping. They’re not. and thankfully , it wasn’t the former, it was the tools were not appropriate to help the patients with chronic disease, and so then became the journey of, okay, what actually works, because there’s lots of claims out there on what works and what
[00:09:36] Tony Winyard: And so how did you make the next step?
[00:09:38] Dr. Joe Mather MD: doesn’t. I did training with the Institute of Functional Medicine. I read
[00:09:44] Tony Winyard: and so before that, how did you find out that were you already aware of functional medicine and what happened?
[00:09:49] Dr. Joe Mather MD: One of my professors, my, my mentors in residency put on a lecture with Dr. Mark Hyman, who, is one of the major, I think educators in functional medicine. and he just said some things that clicked and I said, oh, this is interesting. I haven’t heard that talked about in this way before. And he helped, was pretty influential in the Institute of Functional Medicine, which is the.
Educational group. And so I went through their training and I read about 50 books and I, I couldn’t tell you how many hours of podcast interviews and just started reading and listening to patients and, applying it step by step, one thing at a time. And here we are 10 years later.
[00:10:28] Tony Winyard: And so you are, you mentioned about your, specializes in, was it, gut, the gut microbiome? Was it
[00:10:33] Gut care
—
[00:10:33] Dr. Joe Mather MD: Yeah,we specialize in all things gut care. I wouldn’t label us as just working, with the microbiome. We could talk about that, why we don’t do exactly that. But, we have focused in really selecting the tools that make a difference from the GI perspective. And the reason why, what we’re pinpoint on the gut is that is one of the major systems that’s easiest to change, right?
From a dietary perspective, from a supplement per. From a lifestyle perspective, we have a lot of leverage of being able to change the gut. and the gut in our experience, is the system most likely to help other systems improve. so by fixing someone with irritable bowel syndrome, we often see improvements in brain fog.
The neurologic system, we’ll often see, improvements in anxiety or depression. Again, neurologic, we’ll often see improvements in. Dermatologic, we’ll often see improvements, in joint health, arthritis, right? And so that is like one of those,major root causes. When you’re seeing multiple systems in different domains go away, it tells you that truly is a root cause worth pursuing.
So we spend a lot of time on the gut for those reasons.
[00:11:37] Tony Winyard: And isn’t it the case? I dunno the situation in the States, but it seems to me here in the UK, if you go into your local gp, there’s real time constraints for one thing. So you don’t really get to spend much time with them. So therefore, It’s rare that they’re gonna suggest to look at the gut if as a cause of an issue.
[00:11:55] Dr. Joe Mather MD: it is. It’s really unfortunate. we have the privilege of seeing patients across the world and it’s not better in other places. I can assure you. I just dealt with a wonderful guy from Canada the other day, and similar story, went to the gi, they threw an antidepressant at him in some fiber, did a colonoscopy and said, go away.
There’s nothing else I can do. I see the same thing in people from Australia. I see the same thing, Brazil, Italy, us, we see people all over now, and it’s really disheartening. I’ll be honest. There is a time constraint and there is a lack of good training on the things that help, and the doctors haven’t caught up, I think, to the latest medical literature on the gut, but that’s okay cuz we’re doing podcasts like this.
Tony, , get the word out,
[00:12:41] Tony Winyard: But do you think that’s changing?
[00:12:42] The gut is more than just bloating and diarrhea
—
slowly. there’s definitely more of a. Awareness that the gut can do more than just help with your bloating or your diarrhea. I, that seems to be true to me, but, I think I’m biased because, I’m in that world every day. so it’s a little bit hard to put myself, outside of that world.
do you feel that is changing.
it seems to me there’s a lot more awareness about it now. II remember. I dunno, what was it, three or four years ago? I used to often hear maybe on a podcast episode or on different books, some doctors criticizing things like leaky gut saying it was ridiculous. There is no such thing that doesn’t seem to be happening so much anymore.
my, my observation is, most conventional doctors, because they have. Handcuffs on with time. They have handcuffs on with training and they have, handcuffs based on how they’re paid from usually insurance companies. it’s just easier for them to dismiss something out of hand than give it some thought.
[00:13:33] Dr. Joe Mather MD: And so it’s much easier for them to say, oh, a basic elimination diet is bunk. here’s a drug. Or, but, and then what happens inevitably is for the things that are true is that all of a sudden you’ll hear all the GI doctors saying, of course a low FODMAP diet is helpful. Of course, probiotics can help reduce brain fog and joint pain.
of course an elemental diet can help resolve sibo. We were saying that years ago, and here’s raise your hands and you’re okay. . They’ll come on board eventually cuz it works. And that’s what it comes down to is that we’re looking for the things that make people better. We don’t care about the ideas.
it just has to translate into outcomes for patients. And if it gives my patient a better outcome than I’m all.
[00:14:16] Tony Winyard: So we’ve got probably got audience people listening to this who maybe aren’t so knowledgeable around the whole gut, and they may be wondering, why is the gut so important? Why does that make such a difference and how? How are you able to help someone with, one of the things I mentioned I wanted to talk to you about was arthritis.
So say we’ve got someone listening who’s got something like arthritis. How is it that by looking at a gut, you can help them?
[00:14:40] How on earth does looking at the gut help arthritis!
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[00:14:40] Dr. Joe Mather MD: Absolut. So the first thing I think about is that the gut by surface area is by far the largest entranceway into the body, right? So much bigger than, the outside skin, much bigger than the nose, right? the internal lining of the gut from top to bottom is the single biggest entryway to the body.
So it’s a huge input on how the body regulates homeostasis, right? The, it’s how we get our nutrition. It’s how we expel waste and toxin, right? So there are major functions wrapped up into it, and it’s extremely important to realize the density of the immune system around the small intestines, is extremely high.
Again, because that’s a major entrance way to the body. The body has an incentive to protect itself by wrapping the first party intestine with a ton of immune tissue, right? A ton of nervous cell activity, right? and because of. , you get immune function wrapped up in the health of the gut because of the proximity of both the nervous system and the immune system to the gut because it’s an entranceway.
So because of that, by improving the health of the gut, that holds hands with the immune system. And that’s one of the ways that, that we see a reduction in joint pain. So what we find is a decent number of patients come into our clinic with ibs, irritable bowel syndrome. They have fluctuating diarrhea, constipation, usually some bloating, nausea.
And they may have tried a few things and they’re still feeling ill. And I would say of the patients with, ibs, maybe 20% report joint pain. And the really neat thing is that in many of those patients, not all, but in many of those patients with joint pain, when you get the GI symptoms better, their stools become more regular.
[00:16:24] Dr. Joe Mather MD: They’re having less nausea. If they’re able to eat more, the heartburn goes away or their ref. When that happens, you almost frequently see other systems heal, so the joint pain goes away, and that we assume and think that is primarily due to, a less active immune system. We think that the joint pain is immunologically driven, so this would be something like rheumatoid arthritis where the immune system is inappropriately activated against some of the tissues around the joints, be it the collagen, the joint capsule, or the joint. The simplest, best way to calm the immune system is often to heal the small intestine and the gut. Did that make sense?
[00:17:02] Tony Winyard: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And it, and I was thinking what it, of all of the things that you, so you mentioned you often look at the gap to, to help people with different issues.
[00:17:13] Dr. Joe Mather MD: Absolutely.
[00:17:14] Tony Winyard: Is there, what do you think would surprise people the most? An issue that they would never consider? The gut could have any influence over that.
[00:17:21] Rosacea
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[00:17:21] Tony Winyard: That does help.
[00:17:23] Dr. Joe Mather MD: Rosacea comes to mind. we see a lot of rosacea in our patients with small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, and in my mind, if someone comes in with rosacea, that’s a clear sign that there’s a gut problem because I would say about 75% of patients with rosacea respond brilliantly to the tools we use.
So that would be one that probably people may not consider rosacea being a gut driven condition, but in our experience, it’s heavily dominated by the gut.
[00:17:51] Environmental toxicity
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[00:17:51] Tony Winyard: , environmental toxicity, how much? Does that play a role in poor health now?
[00:17:59] Dr. Joe Mather MD: I think this is going to be the thing that in 10 years we all say, I couldn’t believe that no one was thinking of this. This is a huge part of our work, and all. I’ll say because a few reasons, right? So number one, we see many patients with mold toxicity who’ve been sick because they’ve been living in damp water damage buildings, and they are made sick from the allergic response to mold.
They’re being sick, from the. Infectious load of the bacteria and the fungus that tend to grow in water damage buildings. And they’re being made sick by the toxins that mold can produce, right? So we see patients who are sick from a mold perspective. we see patients who have been made sick from air pollution.
there were forest fires, or are forest fires in the western portion of the united? I observed a really interesting, horrible, but interesting pattern of people having lots of symptoms flare as the particle count from the forest fires went west to east over the country, joint pain, brain fog, anxiety, diarrhea, constipation, whatever their main symptom was, it seemed people flared.
so air pollution is increasingly problem. We see, one of the more disheartening cases over the past two years was a gal who came in early fifties really fit, really healthy, doing so many things right, and but losing her hair, right? Her eyebrows were falling away and her hair was thinning and falling away, and she was fatigued all the time And it came down to, she had seen a practitioner previously who had recommended that she eat a lot of green leafy vegetables.
[00:19:32] Dr. Joe Mather MD: So she was eating, I think between four and six, cups of kale and spinach a day in a smoothie. And it turns out that kale and spinach, although it was organic, was contaminated with Valium and her urinary Valium levels were as high as I’ve ever. And it was just so disheartening that we could have a patient doing something that was, seemed to be so healthy.
Eating green leafy vegetables in a smoothie right, was being poisoned because of Valium and a contaminated food supply. So when I think of environmental toxicity, it’s one of the major problems I think that are causing poor health outcomes across the world. I see it most here in the us.
My, my breed is, The environmental protections, that the UK has put in. and most of, I think Western Europe is quite a quite a degree better than what we have here in the States. Unfortunately, I think it’s a major problem.
[00:20:32] Tony Winyard: And so if, so in a situation like that where you mentioned about this girl having the, these smoothies, seemingly eating very healthy, so and how did she discover that, what was it she was just ill, and she couldn’t understand why, and she came to say, you what?
What happened?
[00:20:46] Dr. Joe Mather MD: Exactly. Yeah, she was ill. and we, she had GI symptoms, so like many patients, I began with the gut. She didn’t respond, So we had spent about two months really working on tweaking her diet. We used, broad spectrum probiotics, I believe I pulsed in an elemental diet. And we tried a round of herbs, one at a time, and at the end of two months, she just hadn’t moved the needle.
Anyway. So that’s a big sign to me as a clinician that what I thought was the case was not true. It was not a gut case. Gut was not the root cause for her, right? And so I scratched my head and then I listened a little bit. And, we did a urinary heavy metal test. just have her wake up in the morning, pee in a cup and see was there anything there.
and this was a, I’d become aware of fall toxicity and green leafy vegetables and kale particularly. And so I wondered with the hair loss that was the case. And sure enough it was. And so what we did with this gal took her off the kale, right? if you’re being poisoned, the treatment is to stop the.
[00:21:43] Dr. Joe Mather MD: Then we did a detoxification program. We used binders, to pull the heavy metals, things like modified citrus pec in and chlorella. used some sauna and I used glutathione and she responded beautifully. So hair started growing back within a week and three months later it was where she was prior in the fatigue.
And that joint pain and depression settled away. So that told us that we hit on the mark, right? The root cause was the Valium cuz she improved when we address.
[00:22:13] Toxicity testing
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[00:22:13] Tony Winyard: If the average person did. Tested for toxicity would many people show? I’m guessing many people would show signs of toxicity much more so than say 20, 30 years ago.
I think so. I think that’s the truth. the, I spend a lot of time looking at the CDCs report. It’s called nhanes, N H A N E S, and it’s a longitudinal. Study and documenting many things, many environmental exposures, but heavy metals being one of them. And we’ve definitely seen an increase in many metals and many substances, many plastics over the last, few decades.
[00:22:48] Dr. Joe Mather MD: So I think that is the truth. I do want to quibble a little bit. we can. Chemical exposures and toxin exposures and mold to, exposures without necessarily being toxic. So you could even have some Valium at a higher level in your urine than maybe someone standing next to you.
But the question is it manifesting as a problem? This gal had hair loss, which is one of the cardinal manifestations, right? And so that she very clearly was toxic, right? So we just wanna be careful because I saw a case last week where, A gentleman had some elevated mercury in his urine, right?
And, I thought I did a good job of communicating that it’s something that we should work on, but it’s not something to panic about. And he sends me an email saying oh, about the mercury toxicity. I said,no. You’re not toxic. Like we wanna optimize your health and I’d rather get it out.
you’re not about to explode. , you’re okay. . So I hope that helps.
and I guess it. In today’s world with the scare stories that we are subjected to all the time in, in the media about toxins and various other things, it’s hard for people to, and just that those scare stories alone create additional stress, which is the last thing
[00:23:58] Dr. Joe Mather MD: Which exactly.
[00:23:59] Tony Winyard: it’s hard for people who do like that girl that you just gave as an example. Someone who really wants, goes the extra mile to try to be. And so how, what recommendations, Ido you give to people to try to just stay generally healthy?
[00:24:15] Health recommendations Jow gives
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[00:24:15] Dr. Joe Mather MD: we spend an inordinate amount of time on sleep. Sleep is the lifestyle factor that in our western world is just has been decimated, with light exposure. with people not having exposure to dark with the chronic stress levels, with the diets that we eat, and with our lack of activity, right?
We, the number that I read at some point was that our earliest ancestors may have walked 13 miles a day on average to hunt and gather, right? And, I’m lucky if most of my patients are walking a mile a day. And so the lifestyles that we are living, I think are contributing to a big sleep deficit.
This has a range of effects on the body and we often see gut problems because of this, we see chronic fatigue, more pain, more anxiety, depression. So sleep is a really important piece that is often missed. most people know that they should be exercising and dieting, eating healthy, that seems to be things where people are doing a pretty decent job.
The sleep, is probably the thing that’s missed.
[00:25:16] Tony Winyard: Does it surprise people when they, maybe they come to you and they’ve got some kind of issue, which is, in involved with the gut somehow, and then you talk to ’em about sleep. Is that a surprise?
[00:25:27] Dr. Joe Mather MD: Yes, it is. and, being a clinician, it’s always when is the right time to introduce an issue. and what we try to do as best we can at the RU Show Institute is. Kind of rank order the treatments for each patient that we think is most likely to help. And almost always, there’s at least one or two major lifestyle pieces that someone can do better that we wanna pull the trigger on first, right?
Because if someone is coming in and their diet is really inappropriate, right? They’re just, let’s say they’ve got small intestinal bacterial overgrowth and they’re eating small meals nine times a day because they’re, weight. , right? And then we can say, Hey, I think it’s your meal spacing issue that needs to happen.
And we’ll give you three or four hours in between meals, maybe cut the carbs a little bit. let’s see how we go from there. We’re also gonna maybe give you some basic GI support. Come and see me in a few weeks. I think that may be enough. If not, we’ll go to number two. so we try to order the operations for what’s most likely to help.
And my big picture point is almost always the lifestyle’s being missed. If you, let me go on a slight tangent. One of the reasons why we end up seeing patients who’ve failed multiple doctors. Our general patient who comes in, who’s seen a couple gps, maybe a specialist and is still having an issue, or they’ve seen a few integrative or functional medicine doctors and they’re still ill.
There are basics that are being missed all the time in these patients, and I think the major reason why is that many of the functional medicine doctors have bought into the Kool-Aid that I need to do organic acid testing and adrenal testing and get a microbiome profile and advanced thyroid labs, they’ve bought into that idea that if they just optimized the numbers on a page, their patient will get better.
So they spend all their intellectual bandwidth thinking about thyroid ratio. , right? And they miss the fact that the patients sleep in four hours a night.
And so we get a lot of mileage out of doing the basics. we’ll almost always do some gut support because of the reasons I’ve already talked about.
And then if someone is not improving, then we’ll say what might be missed. Is this an environmental exposure? Is there a, limb or a amygdala imbalance? . there’s lots and lots of things, heavy metals, mold. the list goes on and on, and it’s more about thinking individually based on the patient’s story, what are the things that happened right before they got sick and that will point us into maybe a different direction than another patient.
So we try to do that, that, that thing called listening , which is often missed,
[00:27:51] Tony Winyard: which is so important.
[00:27:52] Dr. Joe Mather MD: that advanced, the advanced medical skill of listening to your patient,
[00:27:58] How do you find a GOOD functional medicine doctor?
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[00:27:58] Tony Winyard: So that kind of takes us back to where we started. Say we, we were talking before early in the episode about maybe goes to see a function medicine practitioner who as you talked about, Recommends lots of different lab tests and that’s probably not someone that would be advisable to have a long-lasting relationship.
But so and I asked you the question, so how would, what to look for, so is it a case of someone’s decided they are gonna go to functional medicine route? Should they start looking into. where they trained, for example, should they, if they’ve trained with the ifm, does that, is that normally a good indicator that this is probably someone to work with?
what is it someone who could look for who doesn’t have any training in this whole area?
I, I think you want to look for someone with an open mind who’s not, who doesn’t seem sold, that every case has to be a hormone deficiency. Every case has to be, a missed thyroid case and we’ve gotta throw more thyroid. you don’t want someone thinking that everything is the gut, even though we love the gut, it’s not always the gut, right?
so you’re looking for someone who’s not dogmatic, and I think the early functional medicine, practi, Try to say nice things. Let me see if I can say this in a polite, respectful way, many people who become integrated or functional medicine doctors had a really bad experience with the conventional medical system, and so they become dogmatic in a different way.
[00:29:20] The problem with integrative/functional medicine
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[00:29:20] Dr. Joe Mather MD: So the dogma in the conventional arena is everything is a drug. It’s a drug. It’s a drug, and if the drug doesn’t work, it’s in your head. It’s a little bit of a over exaggeration. There are so many brilliant, amazing conventional doctors, so please don’t hate me if you’re a conventional doctor, but I think most people will recognize the, overgeneralization of truth there.
the problem is that a lot of people are turned off by that approach. They go into the integrative medicine, arena, and then they become almost dogmatic in a certain small subset of integrative medicine. They saw a thyroid really fix someone. So they think it’s always th. They found a, a lower carb, lower insulin approach, really helpful for someone as they become low carb alts.
[00:29:59] Dr. Joe Mather MD: You’re looking for someone who, who is looking for just the tools that help. And there are tools in the conventional world that help, right? There are tools in the integrative world that can help, but what will actually move the needle for patients? You’re looking for someone who doesn’t seem like they’re, dogmatic or just trying to push one idea. harder. Easier to say, harder to do. we are taking patients, if you like what I’m saying. we have a clinic, we see people all over the place, all over the world at the GR Show Institute. so I’m biased, I’m the medical director, but I think we do a great job, . We’d be happy to talk to you.
[00:30:33] Benefits of various types of fasting
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and we’ll get onto all your,how people can find out more about you, but just before that, so some of the things, something you touched upon about five minutes ago. You talked about how if someone is trying to gain weight and they’re eating 6, 7, 8, 9 times a day, whatever it might be, what are your thoughts or do you ever suggest to many of your clients about things like intermittent fasting, water fasting,
[00:30:56] Dr. Joe Mather MD: Absolutely. both of those things for the right patients, it’s always a, it’s always a question of is this the right tool for the right patient? But we love intermittent fasting. for weight loss. My clinical experience is that most patients need to do more than intermittent fasting.
intermittent fasting, most people would think of as like 18 hours of not eating six hours of eating a compressed eating window. What I have found is that most people need to go past a 24 hour. To have, enough clearance of, glycogen stores in the body to lower and to kick up more of a ketogenic state.
[00:31:28] Dr. Joe Mather MD: So usually when I’m having people use this for weight loss, I have them do at least a 24 hour fast once or twice a week. I, my feeling is that intermittent fasting is excellent for health, but it should be pulsed in where there’s times where we do this and then maybe times where we back off of it.
I haven’t found it be enough kick for weight. But we love it. It’s very helpful for the gut. The more rest you can get for the gut, the better. So we find that fasting can be curative for some gastrointestinal conditions. we could spend 30 minutes talking about fasting. I love it. There’s excellent studies showing reduction in inflammatory markers and symptoms in rheumatoid arthritis from water fasting.
So periods of water fasting can be extreme. Helpful to the immune system. We see deep changes in the immune system with fasting, and we see it, eradicate a lot of the bacterial problems in the gut. So we’ll frequently do elemental diets, which is a variant, a fasting, for our patients with, inflammatory bowel disease or ibs.
So we love fasting. It’s just gotta be the right tool for the right patient.
and that well, that
[00:32:33] Dr. Joe Mather MD: who have eating disorders. And so if you have someone with an eating disorder and a background of bulimia where they’re underweight, then you’re not gonna be pushing that, right? So it just depends.
[00:32:43] Tony Winyard: And then on that, Iknow, we’ve talked about, you’ve talked about the how beneficial it is for people trying to lose weight and therefore then turns people off who are trying to gain weight, they’re trying to build muscle and they think, oh, that’s definitely not the route I should take.
I don’t ever wanna be doing anything like intermittent fasting. So what would you say to, to people with that approach?
[00:33:01] Dr. Joe Mather MD: We say the body. The body is the boss, right? Your response to the treatment is the only thing that matters. So it doesn’t matter how many studies there are for XY condition, it just really matters. Does it work for you or not? And we stop doing things that aren’t working. So many times. If I have something where someone’s like really keen on fasting, and I’m not sure, I say give it a try, do, gimme a 24 hour fast twice a week, do that for a month and let’s track your body fat and your weight and let’s see, is this moving you in a good direction or not?
Because if it’s not, we’re gonna stop this strategy. But maybe I’m wrong and maybe the fasting is a good fit for you. It just comes on just meeting the patient where they’re at and not being dogmatic about these things because you, I think any good clinician will be surprised, right?
if their mind is open and they’re just trying to be objective, they’ll be surprised. Things that they didn’t think were gonna work all of a sudden are the thing that worked. so I did, I don’t know if I answered your question, Tony. I’m sorry.
it was more about guys, there’s a lot of guys who are trying, especially say in their late teens, early twenties, who are. Feel they’re really underweight and they’re trying so hard to gain weight and they just can’t gain weight.
[00:34:06] Dr. Joe Mather MD: Yeah.
[00:34:07] Tony Winyard: they will often think, I would, I should never do something like intermittent fasting because that’s the last thing that’s gonna help me.
some, so what they could think a little bit broader, right? So they could maybe pulse in one day of fasting a week, but if they’re eating six outta seven days, a caloric surplus and they’re gonna gain weight. So they may be able to eat enough six days of the week so that, a period of, Zero calories on the seventh day would net not be a problem, and it might be a helpful reset.
[00:34:35] Don’t pick one thing and roll with that forever
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[00:34:35] Dr. Joe Mather MD: My perspective on all things diet is that you shouldn’t pick one thing and roll with that forever. The body does need to change, and so I don’t think we should always be, I’m always gonna be keto or I’m always gonna be, carnivore, I’m always gonna be low fod, meth, whatever it is. I think the body deserves some, curve balls thrown at it.
I think that probably is the way to keep it, the health. for the guys trying to lose weight. my, my latest realization is just the obvious importance of protein. I don’t think I really understood until recently how critical protein intake is and how, easy it is to undereat protein.
the guidelines that I was taught in medical school are really under what people need, I think for optimal health, particularly if they’ve been chronically ill. so these days I’m recommending quite a bit more protein, for many patients.
we are drawing to towards the end of the episode. So before, before we go, there’s a couple of things I wanna ask you. One is a question I ask all my guests. Is there a book you can think of that’s moved you in for any reason?
[00:35:33] Favourite book
—
I’ll give you, I’ll give you the answer I’m supposed to give as medical director. And it’s also a true answer. It’s Michael Russo wrote Healthy Gut, healthy you. That was one of the kind of turning point. I read that book and I said, ah, I think this Michael Guy is not crazy, and in fact has the best answer for how to get the gut well.
[00:35:50] Dr. Joe Mather MD: And the nice thing about this is at the end there’s a how to do this kind of practical problem solving yourself. And so for 20 bucks, I think patients who’ve struggled with their GP and not having a good map for how to get their gut health petty better can read this book and figure. . so Healthy gut, healthy you is just phenomenal.
Iit honestly should sell for 50 bucks . It is just phenomenal. And then, I read quite a lot, so I’ll just answer with the book I’m reading right now is a really neat novel called, green Bones, A Green Jade by Brenda Lee. it’s a kind of like the Godfather with kung fu, and like a fantasy city.
Fantastic. So I was in the airport all day yesterday reading that book. That was fun. If you’re looking for a non-medical just fun book, right?
we’ll have both of those in the show notes so
[00:36:38] Dr. Joe Mather MD: There you go.
[00:36:39] Tony Winyard: those out. So if people wanna find out about you and the institute you’re working on, where would they go to?
[00:36:44] Dr. Joe Mather MD: there. Go to the ru show institute.com. That’s R U S C institute.com and there’s a. We onboard all patients online, so if they’re interested in working with us, they’ll see it become a patient page and they’ll just click through the process and, we’ll be happy to work with them.
[00:37:03] Tony Winyard: are you guys active on social media at all?
[00:37:06] Dr. Joe Mather MD: Yeah, we are. And but I’m a poor interview subject because I couldn’t tell you the, I know.
I think Instagram, we are active and
we’ll put the links again in the show notes for your
[00:37:17] Dr. Joe Mather MD: Thank you. Thank you.
[00:37:20] Joe’s fave quote
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[00:37:20] Tony Winyard: So finally, Joe, is there, is there a quote that particularly resonates with?
I’ve been thinking about kind of the dogma and people just going to one solution, and that’s the way to fix people. And so quote that I’ve been thinking about lately, and I’ll butcher it, but it was, one of the huxley’s, I think it was El Huxley, said the. The mark of a first rate mind is the ability to hold two contradictory ideas in it at the same time, something like that.
[00:37:46] Dr. Joe Mather MD: But the idea that the truth is not just one, right? That there may be some things that are both true in certain situations and how can we reconcile those ideas. And I always like that quote. I think it’s.
[00:37:58] Tony Winyard: Yeah, it is a good quote. Yeah. So I’ll make sure we have that. Yeah, we have that one in the show next as
[00:38:03] Dr. Joe Mather MD: But maybe just get the actual, so we’ll not so Mr. Huley is not rolling in his grave. Maybe we can get the actual quote
[00:38:11] Tony Winyard: Yeah. Yeah. Cause I can’t remember exactly what he said either, Yeah. Joe, it’s just been an absolute pleasure. So thank you for your time and for giving us so much great information on many different areas. yeah, thank you.
[00:38:22] Dr. Joe Mather MD: You’re welcome. My pleasure. It was fun.
Transcribing…
Thanks for tuning into the Habits and Health Podcast where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. You can also sign up for email updates and learn about coaching and workshop opportunities at Tony Winyard dot com.
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Habits & Health episode 80 with Dr. Judson Brandeis, Urologic Surgeon and author of "The 21st Century Man" an invaluable book for men's health.
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Habits & Health episode 79 with Gavin Andrews, Managing Director for HeartMath in the UK and Ireland, a system of breathwork, self-regulation techniques and biofeedback technology.
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Habits & Health episode 78 with Jeff Chilton, founder of Nammex, who supply medicinal mushroom extracts to the Nutritional Supplement industry.
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Habits & Health episode 77 with Rick Olderman, a sports and orthopedic physical therapist with more than 25 years experience specialising in helping people with chronic pain experience a pain-free life. He wants to show you how to live completely pain-free without the need for medication.
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Habits & Health episode 76 with Joanna Shurety, a Lifestyle/Wellness Coach who helps people build resilience to navigate changes and challenges in life in a healthy way.
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Habits & Health episode 75 with Catherine Chadwick, An expert in transformational guidance that provides individuals and groups with insights and tools that prioritise mental fitness training, wellness, resilience, adaptability, and mindfulness.
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Habits & Health episode 74 with Mark Young, who is on a mission to make the "Zona Plus", a household name. The device is a "blood pressure biohack", using isometric therapy to lower blood pressure and increase nitric-oxide throughout the body.
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Habits & Health episode 73 with Rachel Beanland, a Public Health Doctor, coach, yoga & meditation teacher. Rachel supports women in medicine using evidence-based tools, and lives in an amazing cooperative neighbourhood in the Pyrenees.
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Habits & Health episode 72 with Hans Ambachtsheer founder and CEO of MenElite, he creates step-by-step solutions – from articles and eBooks to coaching and consulting, to education and media – for the worlds hard-charging, high-achievers to live truly limitless lives with fully optimized minds, bodies, and spirit.
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Habits & Health episode 71 with Amy F. White, a functional holistic nutritionist & lifestyle practitioner. Amy’s Hangry to Healthy, 3 phase approach to health and weight loss makes it possible for anyone to achieve their goals
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Habits & Health episode 70 with Magic Barclay, an Innate Immunity and Functional Health Solutions advanced practitioner, looking at the root cause, finding the most natural source for supplementation and working with the 5 immune types.
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Habits & Health episode 69 with Elizabeth Gasson-Hargreaves, a Functional Medicine Practitioner and Nutritional Therapist. 15 years ago, her son Charlie had less than 24 hours to live had he not received vital antibiotics which saved his life. This had a major impact on Elizabeth.
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Habits & Health episode 68 with Luke Chao, who uses hypnosis to help change the way people think to help tackle procrastination and bad habits.
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Habits & Health episode 67 with Dr Amy Novotny, who founded the PABR® Institute with the mission to provide pain, stress and anxiety relief to those who seek a naturalistic form of treatment when other treatment methods have fallen short.
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Habits & Health episode 65 with Jay Fields, author of the book "Teaching People, Not Poses" and the Linkedin Learning courses "Managing Your Emotions at Work" and "Practices for Regulating Your Nervous System and Reducing Stress".
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Habits & Health episode 65 with Suzanne Culberg, a mindset coach who transforms bodies and minds. She asks you to consider, what if you overeat because you over give?
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Habits & Health episode 64 with Adele Spraggon, behavioural Expert. Her book "Shift: 4 Steps to Personal Empowerment" has won awards and transforming how people are setting and achieving their goals.
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Habits & Health episode 63 with Dawn Cuckow, who helps people to get to the root causes of why their body is blocking their weight loss. Her approach helps discover what’s triggering cravings and belly fat, then target these imbalances so it becomes much easier to lose weight and sustain it.
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Habits & Health episode 62 with Arthur Taniyelyan a disciple of the art of breath. He is qualified in many breathing methods including Wim Hof, The Oxygen Advantage, Breathology, Buteyko and others.
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Habits & Health episode 61 with Nicola Singleton. She appeared on BBC 1's "Doctor In The House" 5 years ago with Dr Rangan Chatterjee and has gone from being housebound to recovering from ME/ CFS and Fibromyalgia.
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Habits & Health episode 60 with Dr Mike Mew who qualified in 1993 as a dentist and entered the renowned Orthodontic programme at Aarhus University in Denmark, qualifying as a specialist dentist in 2004 and he continues to study the relationship between orthodontics, posture, ENT problems, snoring and sleep apnoea with the view of improving orthotropic therapy.
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Habits & Health episode 59 with Pamela Spence, who has been fascinated by herbs since growing up surrounded by the fragrant wet markets of Singapore as a teenager. After a hectic career in film and television, she left to study herbal medicine in 2002 and has been running a successful clinical practice, writing and teaching about herbs ever since.
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Habits & Health episode 58 with Polly Bateman, mindset and performance mentor. She wants to disrupt your beliefs and break through the self-imposed barriers that limit your potential.
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Episode 57 with Teresa Bitner who helps those who've been knocked down and want to bounce back to live a bold life. She’s a coach, speaker, and author specialising in resiliency, change, and loss.
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Episode 56: Robin Rothenberg, a Certified Yoga Therapist, Buteyko Educator, and author of the superb book, "Restoring Prana". Robin has been assisting people in transforming health habits using the teachings and tools of yoga for over 35 years.
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Inspiring You to Live Healthy, Vibrant, & Free – Habits & Health episode 55 with Tina McDermott, who spent most of her life struggling with digestive issues. She didn’t understand that the embarrassing gas, bloating, constipation, and Yo-Yo weight gain/loss all were interconnected. Tina had these issues since she was a teenager, thinking that this is just ‘the way it is’, and that she had to live with it. We discuss how in her 30s, she learned she had Lyme disease which had gone undetected for years and wreaked havoc on her body, and the knowledge and experience she has gained since that time and how she uses it to teach women about natural health and wellness, and how to live a healthier and happier life. She has also discovered methods to release self-sabotaging beliefs and how to come to peace with them.
Links:
https://www.facebook.com/tina.mcdermott.520
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGH0Y5KEI2eNvY9jyIlwHnw
Favorite book: The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level by Gay Hedricks
Favorite quote: “Dare to dream and turn your dreams into reality.” ~Tina McDermott
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Listen on Stitcher
Don’t forget, there is a transcript of every episode (scroll down the page)
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Jingle 0:00
habits in health episode 55. Welcome to the habits and health podcast, where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. Brought to you by an educator and coach for anyone who wants to create a healthier life. Here's your host,
Tony Winyard 0:18
Tony Winyard. Welcome to another edition of the podcast where we give you ideas to improve your health by implementing new habits. Today's guest Tina McDermott spent a large part of her life struggling with digestive issues and we go into what happened, how she managed to escape from that, what it is that she does now. So that's this week's episode, Tina McDermott. If you do know anyone who's got similar issues who may would really benefit from some of the wisdom and suggestions that Tina shares with us. Please do share the episode with them. Hope you enjoyed this week's show. Habits own health, my guest today, Tina McDermott. How are you, Tina?
Tina McDermott 0:58
I'm wonderful. Thank you, Tony, thank you so much.
Tony Winyard 1:01
I'm way in. I'm guessing from your accent, you're in the states?
Tina McDermott 1:07
I'm in Maryland. originally from New Jersey. And I've been living in Maryland for 20 years now. And yeah, with strong roots in Italy as well. So I can turn on an Italian accent for you if you'd like.
Tony Winyard 1:24
Have you visited Italy much?
Tina McDermott 1:26
I lived there. Yeah, my parents were both were both born and raised there. And I've been going back and forth my whole life and there was a part of my life at 27 I moved back there and I guided bike trips all throughout Italy, in France and Holland and I've been all over the place. It's fun.
Tony Winyard 1:43
So where is your favourite part of Italy?
Tina McDermott 1:47
Ah, that's a tough one because my favourite parts are two places. And that's the island where my dad is from which is a little island off the coast of Sardinia called Leyzaola de San Pietro, which is St. Peter's Island, California is the name of the town. And the other favourite place of mine is in the mountains where my mom grew up. And that's only a little tiny town called Viola called the Canal, which is near Bobo, I CZ if you know any of those. So those are my two favourite places.
Tony Winyard 2:18
I'm gonna have to stop myself from talking. And turn this whole episode into Italy, because I've been to Italy many, many times. We'll, we'll we'll get back onto the topic of what the podcast is about. The podcast is about health and habits and so on. And you've got a story about some things that happened to you in your past. Would you like to tell the listeners more about who you are and what your story is?
Tina McDermott 2:42
Oh, boy, I would love to and thank you for that invite in. And if I didn't say this, thank you for having me on your podcast, Tony. I really appreciate that. Now, my story can unfold in many different ways. And because I always had a lot of gastrointestinal issues growing up, and oh my gosh, I'm going to be transparent to the world here. Tony. My siblings had a nickname for me. And it was an Italian word named pizza, which means stinky, very embarrassing, because no one understood why I had all of these digestive issues no one understood. Hello, I had a lot of allergies to a lot of different foods. And fast forward to my 30s I discovered that I had chronic Lyme. Now I am not going to make Lyme, my story. I'm just stating a fact because it was my I lived there in that story for a long time. But that's where it came from. I had chronic Lyme from probably a teenager knowing the symptoms knowing everything. And of course I've cleaned all of that up making mistakes here and there because I'm human. And so that's really like why am I always no one else has this gas and bloating and this embarrassment it was terrible, terrible way to grow up. So that was one piece of it in them when I was 19 my 23 year old sister developed breast cancer she survived 24 years and of course ultimately passed away 10 years now from breast cancer that drove me both the the the digestive upset embarrassment through most of my teenage years. And the sickness of my sister drove me to want to learn more about health and wellness. How to not just help myself not get breast cancer and to alleviate all these gas and bloating symptoms and embarrassment holy cow and but to share with the world share with the world. How they as well can alleviate these signs of gas and bloating. And I'm not even speaking about the emotional issues that I had for my sisters making fun of me and, and and it's not just the gas and bloating, they were also obsessed with losing weight and impose that on me. So I wanted to share with the world, how they can live a life that's full of health, full of vibrancy and free. And what I'm learning now with this freedom is free from dis ease, right? Dis ease to words, and free from diets. Because I want to share with people that they need to live their lives healthy, so that they can have the energy so that they can fulfil, live a fulfilled life, whatever that fulfilment is for them. And that is my driver. And I have another sibling sister, she looks at me and she says Tina, how Why do you have such a drive? How Why are you so driven to be to be on these TV shows and to do these podcasts and to do these cooking classes and to be a coach, you are so driven, and she was baffled. And I said it was because of Ana Ana has inspired me and she nudges me every single morning every single day all throughout the day, hey, you got to go do this. You've got it, you've got to get the message out. You've got to get the message out. And that's my mission. And yeah, so that's my story in a nutshell Tony.
Tony Winyard 6:28
And I'm guessing Anna is your sister that passed away? Yeah, she's my
Tina McDermott 6:32
sister who transitioned and and there's a picture of her behind my, my camera here. So I always look at her.
Tony Winyard 6:39
And so in your in that journey. When was the the realisations you talked about? Changing your kind of eating habits and and people focusing too much maybe on weight loss? I think you mentioned your siblings and so on. Can you think of a particular time when things all started coming together in your mind around sort of health and wellness? Was Was there a time?
Tina McDermott 7:03
Was there a time? I think it was it? When did it come all together? It's a journey. It was my journey throughout my entire life. I don't know if there was ever a time that there was a bell that went off. It was oh, okay, let me read this book about cancer think outside the box. Oh, let me read this book on what was the very first book, I'm trying to remember the name of it. And hopefully it'll come to me Tony, and I'll blurt it out. But it was it was a book on vegetarianism. And this I read this in my teenage years. And that really got me like light bulb. Wow, that's the way to get healthy. But unfortunately, I went down the unhealthy vegetarian route for many years. So again, it was a process and a journey and a continuous learning throughout my life. So I can't tell you there was any kind of major light bulbs, or major like, oh my gosh, I got to transition my life. It was continuous learning and experience working with people as a personal trainer, and then as a Nutritional Consultant. Now as I am a weight loss coach, people come to me for weight loss, and, and I and I, I they start there but I take them all the way back to let's let's talk about fundamentals and deal with those emotional issues that are driving them to eat the foods that are not my philosophy on eating is eat foods that walk, fly, swim, and grow. Right eat as close to the way the Mother Nature provided them for us. And the the actual part of eating is is not is the easy part. The hard part is getting around those emotional issues and calming those down so that they don't go for that piece of cake or the the doughnuts and the fast foods and the such right, calming those emotions down or coming to peace with them. So that they want to naturally go for the apples or the oranges and, and the the vegetables and yeah, so hope that answers your question. Tony.
Tony Winyard 9:12
You mentioned just then about when you started on a vegetarian path, you realised you were going down a wrong path. And so that was quite an interesting comment. And I'm wondering from some of the other things you say to some of the other explorations that you've done over the last sort of, you know, however long it is, there were some other realisations you had maybe you started going down one path and you realise maybe this isn't the right way to do it.
Tina McDermott 9:39
I'm glad you asked. I was a vegetarian for probably 10 years in throughout my 20s Throughout my 20s And what I learned it no okay not That's not what I learned. This is what happened. I would get very low blood sugar. This is before I knew about nutrition and this was before I studied nutrition, and I just read books up until now before I got certified, and up until then I meant to say and how we get late very low blood sugar. I was an athlete my whole life. I'm a cyclist, I used to what is that called? rollerblade. I used to run in the in the woods, always act as super active. And I would notice, oh my gosh, my blood sugar is going well, I don't feel good. And I would instinctively go for tuna fish. Oh, I'm not cheating. I'll be a pescatarian. Once a week, it's fine. And then I would immediately feel better. Right? So that was one of the things my my remember, I wrote, I wrote a chapter in a book that I collaborated with other friends about this. I was in the subway in France, coming home from France with a very heavy bag, carrying it through the subway, and I finally got to the train and I passed out. My blood sugar was so low that morning, because I think that I had a glass of orange juice this time in my 20s I don't know anything about nutrition. That's all I had, but my blood sugar tanked. Oh, I'm hypoglycemic. Sure. No, thank goodness, I did have a banana that I could mention a couple pieces of banana, bring my blood sugar back up. But that again, a kotoge was a journey drove me to learn even more. Like why did that happen to me? I cannot just blame hyperglycemia. Right. So now I'm trying to bring this back around. So help me out. Tony, where were we here? We were talking about
Tony Winyard 11:28
some of the kind of wrong paths that you realised you.
Tina McDermott 11:32
Thank you the wrong Thank you. And and the other part again, we people talk about IBS, right? That it's either you go one direction, or the other direction of constipation. I had a lot of constipation issues. It was terrible, absolutely terrible. So the low blood sugar issues, the constipation issues, still gas and bloating not as bad as in my teens, but still there. And I just started researching more. I started reading more books, I started going to classes on nutrition and becoming certified as a Nutritional Consultant. And in one day I was in Italy. I was in Italy, it was in my early 30s I think it was or was it my late 20s, early 30s. And a friend of mine, we went for a picnic and he bought prosciutto. I hadn't had prosciutto in 10 years. And I decided Alright, I'm going to have a pee. So I did. So I ate some, I just felt really good. I felt really good. And I realised that it was okay for me to eat a little bit of meat here and there. And again, through my journey through my learning through my teaching, I realised my body, not everybody's body, but my body really loves to have the animal protein, as well as a tonne of vegetables as well as a balanced, balanced amount of fat. And packaged foods are a no no. Right? And the sugars and I anyhow, that's how I realised that it was imbalanced for me.
Tony Winyard 13:19
And so when was the When did you have the When did you realise about the balance? The good too often we you know, experts tell us we should be eating this way and this way. And it's just this generic information which is supposedly valid for everyone. So when did you have the realisation that what works for you is not necessarily what works for anyone else.
Tina McDermott 13:39
I don't know if that was a realisation but again a journey of study and, and not just study with the books but also study with my clients over the years. I wrote a book called The not thinking the flavour point diet, but that's not the one the blood type, what it was the it was the blood type diet No look, again, I want to tell you, I do not subscribe to any kind of capital D capital I capital E small teas out there. I absorb what they have to say and I will implement so what did I learn from this book, I learned about the origins of humankind who are from Africa. And as we migrated up north, we had blood type A blood type A Bs, and but we all originated from blood type O in blood type. Oh, very athletic need protein A's don't need protein A B's can do a balance of both right? So you take all of this and I asked my clients as I go through their health history, and I listened to them and I have seen that the O types do so much better with some animal protein. The A's, not so much, maybe a little bit of fish they do okay with the A B's balance, they need a complete balance. So I take that into consideration, but it is not doctrine for me it's not law that Oh, you're no you have to write what works for you. What works for you. It's not what works for me. It's what works for the individual. And some people are steadfast in being vegan, I don't judge a let's find the right path for you, if you want to be vegan, I have this one client, she is now vegan the last several months and a resentful vegan because it was what her husband wanted, not what she wanted. So back to those emotional issues. Right back to those emotional issues and, and the communication between her and her husband, that she and now she's being a junk food vegan versus a healthy vegan. So we have to work with those, the communication piece, the emotional piece, to have her have that conversation with her husband that she would like to be a temporary vegan. Maybe venture into little pescatarian ism. So anyhow, I hope that answered your question, Tony.
Tony Winyard 16:14
And I loved what you just said about that book. And there were some things you took from that book, which have stayed clearly stayed with you. And and I've often found and I I'm a prolific reader, I've read so many different books. And and I found that there are a lot that I don't like to say that a book is bad because there's always well, usually there's something that I'll take from a book, even if it's only like a couple of paragraphs maybe. And then there's other books where I just pages and pages. But there's always that usually there's something that you can take from a book, and then you just can't start kind of piecing things from different books in your mind.
Tina McDermott 16:55
Yeah, and what I personally, I love that you said that I personally have pieced together what I that's knowledge. And now I apply that knowledge to my individual clients and to my teachings to my webinars to my cooking classes. And I said it before and I'll say it again, my philosophy is eat foods that walk, fly, swim and or grow, emphasis on grow, eat the way that Mother Nature taught us eat balanced out rocket science.
Tony Winyard 17:27
So who what kind of people is it that are coming to you? What do they typically have sort of similar issues? Why do they seek you out? Who isn't?
Tina McDermott 17:38
The typical person that is attracted to me because I'm gonna I'm an attractor of the people that want me my personality, how I how I teach how I coach is typically an entrepreneurial woman, and entrepreneurial woman who she just she's focused, focused, focused on her business and needs to find that balance between work, self care, and family work, self care and family. So that's predominant, my, the people that I attract, and I have other people, of course, office workers, women, mostly women, I have some men that are attracted to my programmes, and have one man he is a sailor, he sails all around the world. So what part of the world are you in today, Joe? It's fun. There's a lot of fun, I love it.
Jingle 18:30
We hope you're enjoying this episode of the habits and health podcast, where we believe that creating healthy habits should be easy. If you know a friend or a loved one who might be interested in learning simple habits to improve their health, then please share this podcast with them. We also invite you to subscribe and to leave us a review on your favourite podcast app. Now, back to the show.
Tony Winyard 18:55
And you mentioned about self care and self care is such an important issue for for women I think particularly and so many women sit just really neglect that that area.
Tina McDermott 19:10
Most women are nurturers and we're all nurturers and they emphasise on the nurturing of others versus nurturing themselves. I had a client the other day and it was all about everyone else in her family feeding them what they wanted. And through the coaching. A she came to realise that I needed that she needed to be self full, full of self, not selfish but self full and make healthy meals not just for her but for the entire family that starting with her in mind. And I gave her the analogy, Tony, of being on an aeroplane. Everyone knows this analogy. The masks come down whose masks deep Put on first, not the babies, you put yours on first. If the babies pass out, it's okay. You'll soon as you put the oxygen on them, they'll come up. But if you cannot take care of you, you pass out and everybody dies. Okay? And it's the same thing in a specifically a women, nurturer, who is mostly nurturing, taking care of everybody else in their business, everybody else in their family and they come third, they need to come first, we need to come first take care of you. And I don't have children, I have dogs, Tony. And I have three dogs, two cats. And I would wake up in the morning, and the first thing after I brush my teeth was take care of the dogs. And I've shifted that remember this, this journey, these things that I've shifted that literally over the last year, now I wake up, I take care of me not just brush my teeth, I take care of me first. And then I let the dogs out. And then I go for a walk with them once I am taking care of self care is a conversation that I like to have with every person as you come first. Because if I fall apart, then the whole household falls apart. I'm sorry, one more thing is I have bad energy. If I have bad energy, if I'm just frustrated, I didn't take care of myself, and I'm out walking the dogs. Do you know that they are already they are terrible on the walk, they feel my energy. And the same thing goes with your family, your children, your co workers, they feel that neglected energy of yours that you're frustrated, you didn't take care of yourself. So take care of self so that you can take care of everyone else. Thank you.
Tony Winyard 21:50
Well, and I was going to just follow on from what you were saying about do any of your clients find it find that really difficult to to because they stay still even though what you've told them? In their mind. It's still being selfish about taking care of themselves and not taking care of other people first, do any of them really struggle with that?
Tina McDermott 22:10
Yes, yes. It's a reminder that needs to stay in place. And this is why Tony, I coach people for six months to a year, because it takes time to change habits. Yeah, it takes time because we're creating new habits now, right, we're creating new habits. And we need the the accountability of a coach. And that coach could be somebody, a family member, a friend, it doesn't have to be an actual coach, you could have an accountability partner, okay. However, I love coaching, I feel that coach is the number one piece that can help shift people very gently from where they are to have them soar to where they need to go. So with the coaching, that truly helps them with being self full, for example, the conversation I had with a woman the other day, she had that realisation on my gosh, I really need to take care of myself. And she didn't she's not continuing on with me right now. Because she had this great epiphany and okay, I've got to do this on my own. I guarantee you in about a couple of weeks time she'll call me and say, you know, I really, really need the coaching and because I've forgotten about myself again. So you need the constant until you can the constant reminder, the constant coaching until you can. You've created that new habit that you come first. So yes, it's a struggle, because that's the way you've lived for so long. And now it's time to switch it up.
Tony Winyard 23:50
Is there any clients or former clients that you can think of where they they have made that change, they've realised the importance of self care. And it's made a real transformation somehow in their life.
Tina McDermott 24:04
Can even for my clients, it's a journey. It's an absolute journey. I have a client that I've been working with for many years now. And she has a very, very stressful family life family dynamics. And it's a constant stress on her. And I implore with her on the normal on a normal basis that she needs to take care of herself. And she has come such a far away with being a caretaker to an ill person. It's very, very challenging. And now every morning, she doesn't start she works 12 hours a day, it's obscene. And now she is taking her mornings to herself and starting work not at 6am by At 10am. And the next step for her is for her to not even look at her phone until 10am. Because the moment that you look at the phone, which is an addictive piece, changes your brain to work mode, even if you're going to go on and play a game. So what we talked about was she needs to take nature breaks and nature break does not mean watch a movie, or play a game on your phone. And or look at your email here and there and try to do work while you're trying to relax. It's take a complete break. I can tell you that working with me over the last several years of this highly stressful life situation. Again, it's ups and downs, but most more ups than downs with her. She has stayed sane for the most part. And she has been able to manage not only her incredible business, at her home life, as well as manage all of the the doctor's visits and the trips and all of that in such a way that she's a champion. I mean, I salute her every single time for being able to be that pillar for her family. Yeah,
Tony Winyard 26:31
you mentioned you've you've kind of hinted a couple of times about how you've been helping people I think it was with, with cooking in some way. So can you tell me more about that?
Tina McDermott 26:39
Oh, absolutely. Oh my gosh, I just love I glow. When I talk about cooking. I offer cooking classes for my corporate clients, right from my own kitchen. I'm virtual. I used to do them in person. And now I'm all virtual. So people come into Tina's joyful kitchen. And I do I teach them. Normally I do like a main dish, a side dish, and then a dessert because yes, you deserve to have dessert. There's healthy ways to eat desserts. And yeah, so I present to them and I teach. And it's not just okay, this is how you know you, you make the chicken and how you make steamed broccoli or roasted broccoli. And it's I teach them why they need to be careful of their, their, their spices, and they need to be careful what spices they use to avoid MSG, or make your own salad dressing so that we get really good oils in our body as opposed to the rancid oils from jarred dressings that are full of not just rancid oils, but MSG that, and I explained to them how it passes the blood brain barrier, and it excites those brain cells so much that they die. And, and and, and I do not talk science. I want to talk where everybody can understand and get it right away. I don't and I like to science myself, but I don't want to talk too much scientific T things with people because I want the general person to really get it and understand how easy it is to make a dressing. It's so easy. Incredibly easy. So I'm educating throughout. So I'm not just cooking. I'm teaching them knife skills. I'm teaching them how to cut an onion. I'm teaching them why use wooden chopping blocks or cutting boards versus any of the others. I'm doing a class tomorrow called the essential kitchen, Tony and I cannot wait. And it's all about what are the right cooking utensils to use the I love the cast iron skillets and and what kind of containers should you use to store your food in? Which kind of gadgets should you get rid of? And which one should you keep? Right? So I'm going to talk all about that this isn't going to be my first time presenting this. And I'm just super excited about that. So yeah, that's what I do. I've been teaching within corporations, weight loss classes, cooking classes, coaching programmes, workshops, for a long, long time, 15 years, something like that. A lot. A lot of fun. I love it.
Tony Winyard 29:13
And I'm wondering if when you say you said 15 years you've been doing that. And so before you started doing that, it sounds like that you've kind of grown up in an environment where you were maybe taught cooking from your mom or whatever. And so it was kind of almost normal for years is the impression I'm receiving that many people that's not the life that they've grown up in. And cooking is a like a like a foreign environment from them. So when was it you first realised the power of showing people helping people with cooking?
Tina McDermott 29:45
Oh, what's a dynamic question? I think from the Okay, so obviously you know, I grew up in a time family. I'm in the kitchen with my mom I go food shopping with my mom. When we go to Italy we're on the farms. I know that food comes from a farm and then you bring it to the kitchen, and you prepare it lovingly with your family and you eat together. And that's the way I grew up where today people think that food comes from a fast food restaurant from a drive thru, right? And so, I have always loved feeding people, and cooking with people and showing them that this is where life comes from. This is where the energy comes from. My clients, my morning clients when I was personal training all the time, they're like, Tina, where do you get your energy? How much coffee did you have? I'm like, I don't drink coffee.
My energy comes from the way I live the way I eat, the way I sleep,
the what I drink, it's just this is normal for me. So the realisation of transforming people. Ah, I'm trying to remember like an exact time because you can never leave my house without food. Like take home food. Okay? You never leave my house with either having eaten with me and or taking food home with you. My grandma, anytime you visited her. Did you eat? Yeah, we just ate dinner? No, no, sit down. Let's eat. It's family. It's togetherness. It's love. It's joy. I remember one time I was doing a weight loss workshop within a corporation. And I decided one of these eight weeks we're going to do a cooking class, right? No, I think what happened, it was I was doing this an eight week cooking course instead of doing the eight week workshops of the coaching and the talking and checking in, I did an eight week cooking course. And at the end or towards the end of this cooking courses. One client she said to me, Tina, I'm making salads in a jar now just coming up here and cooking with you. Because they would come up and cook with me and make salads in a jar and take them home. Just the the interaction with you. And hands in the the mix really clicked with me. I realised, Tony that day when that client said to me, I understand how to cook food now. And I am cooking food all the time with my sister, she lived with her sister on cooking all the time at home and it clicked with her. And that's when I realised the power of cooking classes. And how people really get it when they're working with you. And they're doing things with you. So I have people cook with me. It's wonderful. I love it during the show and other people just watch and they interact by typing in the chat box. And, and and one of the things that people tell me all the time is that Tina, you've captivated me, how did you keep my attention the whole time? I did.
Tony Winyard 32:43
So it makes me wonder whether you've had any clients who have been in a situation where, I don't know, maybe they've grown up where most of the food I grew up with was processed food and, and they didn't even I'm wondering, it's almost like there's the there's a story about there's a two fish swimming. And there's an older fish swims by and said more than boys How's the water? And then they swim past. So what the hell is border? And it's like, I wonder sometimes if people who have grown up eating processed food all the time aren't even aware that they're they're eating processed food in some ways.
Tina McDermott 33:18
You know, that is so interesting that you said that because I believe that that is true that people don't are not aware. And through my courses and through my teaching, I help people understand how to read labels. And again, it's a journey. It's a process for people. I agree with you. They don't realise that the food that they're eating is processed food. And that's why I need to show them this is what a tomato looks like. This is what an onion is. And this is how you chop an onion. This is fennel. Have you ever had fennel, this is what it looks like. This is what it tastes like. This is broccoli. This is how you cut it up. This is how you steaming broccoli is wonderful. So yeah. And I agree with you. There's people that just don't understand that because they weren't brought up in that environment. And that is my joy to teach them.
Tony Winyard 34:08
So D so you it sounds like you're doing some one to one coaching and you're doing kind of online stuff as well. Do you have a preference in terms of working with individuals or groups online face to face? What do you love to do most?
Tina McDermott 34:24
I love coaching. I love it all. I love everything that I do. And the teaching the cooking is fundamental. And the coaching is really where people make the most shifts, the faster shifts and the faster moving forward with their health and their wellness with the coaching I coach one on one. And I also have groups Yeah, so my one on one clients go into the groups if they want.
Tony Winyard 34:57
We talked a few a little bit about books earlier in the In recording, what is there? Is there a book you can think of this really moved you for any reason?
Tina McDermott 35:08
One of my favourite books I've been, I've read it probably nine times, maybe listen to it nine times, listen to it nine times right at once. The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. And that really, really, every single time I listen to it, I get one more thing from it. That launches me forward. And I encourage everyone, whether you want to get healthier, whether you want to have a better business, whether you just want to find what is your mission in this life, listen or read that book from the big leap. And it really helps you move forward in your life and stop putting limits on yourself. helps you become unlimited. Yeah, that's that's a good way of putting it home should become unlimited. And one of the things that I told you earlier my sister nags me all the time. My deceased sister she's always nagging me you know, you got to do better you got to reach more people and and and this year listening to the book again, I realised I need to be on the big stage doing keynote talks, not just these webinars for 20 3040 people that are in my webinars and in my cooking shows, but I need to be on big conferences, big stages doing these keynote talks to really bring home health and wellness and and how you can find that unlimited energy and that unlimited life because the the sky's the ceiling there is no ceiling to what you can do be have in your life or be do have.
Tony Winyard 36:49
So if people want to find out more about you and your your website, your social media, any talks you might be delivering where would they go to?
Tina McDermott 36:59
Please see me on the YouTube channel. It's Tina's joyful kitchen. You could also reach me Tina Tina McDermott comm slash cooking show that will take you right to my my cooking show on YouTube. You can just find me Tina McDermott calm.
Tony Winyard 37:14
And is there Do you have a quotation you particularly like?
Tina McDermott 37:18
You know, I came up with this, I think I was 19 years old. And my quote is dare to dream and turn your dreams into reality.
Tony Winyard 37:29
And why does that stay review?
Tina McDermott 37:33
Always has because people feel limited. I felt limited in and I'm like, No, I am going to dream my life and I am going to create because I am the creator of my life. And I've learned even though I came up with that quote in my early 20s It still lives with me because I want to still create and be and do and have everything that I want in my life. And I feel that everyone needs to just dare to dream and take that dream and make it created a reality because you're worth it. And that's you know, find your mission in life.
Tony Winyard 38:08
Tina, it's been an absolute pleasure. So thank you very much.
Tina McDermott 38:11
Thank you, Tony, thank you so much for having me on the show today.
Tony Winyard 38:17
Next week, episode 56 is with Robin Rothenburg. She published a book a couple of years ago called Restoring Prana, a therapeutic guide to pranayama and healing through the breath. And she is a specialist in helping yoga instructors and yoga therapists to really focus on the breathing and to really get the breathing, right because she's done a lot of research in the origins of yoga, and the origins of pranayama. And really went into into detail into the science of breathing and kind of coupled that together with the ancient origins. And that was what the book was about as a fascinating book. I read it a couple of years ago. And Robin is a guest on next week's show and we we get in we talk a lot about the yoga about yoga therapy, about breathing. And yeah, or a lot of subjects around those areas. So that's Next week, episode 56 with Robin Rothenberg, hope you enjoyed this week's show if you'd only want to get some value from some of the the great information at Tina shared. Please do share the episode with them. And hope you have a great week.
Jingle 39:33
Thanks for tuning in to the habits and health podcast where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a review on your favourite podcast app. Sign up for email updates and learn about coaching and workshop opportunities at Tony winyard.com See you next time on the habits and health podcast.
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Habits & Health episode 54 with Dr Bill Hang, an orthodontist who for 32 years has been reversing previous orthodontic retraction by re-opening orthodontic extraction spaces to give people back their face, improve breathing and eliminate OSA (Obstructive Sleep Apnea) when possible. He explains that the most important habit to support proper forward facial growth is to have every child adopt proper nasal breathing with proper rest oral posture (teeth lightly together, tongue firmly to the palate, and lips together without strain) at rest all of the time. This promotes optimal forward facial growth, and avoids many medical and dental problems associated with chronic mouth breathing.
Bill was mentioned in the book The Oxygen Advantage by Patrick McKeown where he was cited for his work in helping people with sleep apnea.
Books mentioned by Bill during the episode:
Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor
Baby-Led Weaning, The Essential Guide–How to Introduce Solid Foods and Help Your Baby to Grow Up a Happy and Confident Eater by Gill Rapley
Shut Your Mouth and Save Your Life: The Dangers of Mouth Breathing and Why Nose or Nasal Breathing is Preferred, by George Catlin
The Evolution of the Human Head by Daniel E. Lieberman
Why?: African American Children Can Not Read by Philip Cooper
YouTube video mentioned:
Finding Connor Deegan – AAPMD
Recommended Books:
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston A. Price
Pottenger’s Cats: A Study in Nutrition by Francis Marion Pottenger
Favourite Quote:
“If it has been done, it is probably possible”
Related Episode:
Dr John Roberts
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Jingle 0:00
Habits and health episode 54. Welcome to the habits and health podcast, where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. Brought to you by an educator and coach for anyone who wants to create a healthier life. Here's your host, Tony Winyard.
Tony Winyard 0:20
Welcome to another edition of habits and health. My guest today, Dr. Bill Hang. So took traditionally trained orthodontist, who practised as he was taught for about seven years, which was removing permanent teeth using headgears, to retract and so on. And he noticed that many of his patients faces were not as attractive after treatment and decided to find a better way, a different way. So we're going to dig into what was that and how did he go about that. And for those of you who may have read the excellent book, The Oxygen Advantage. Bill hang is actually mentioned in that book. So hope you enjoy this week's episode. If you know anyone who would get some real benefit from some of the wisdom that Bill shares. Please do share the episode with them. habits and health my guest today, Bill Hang How are you, Bill?
Dr Bill Hang 1:09
I am fine. Thanks. Thanks for asking.
Tony Winyard 1:12
And we find you in sunny California.
Dr Bill Hang 1:15
I live in Los Angeles County in Agoura Hills, California for the last 25 years of my life. Yes. Wow.
Tony Winyard 1:22
And that sounds like a lot warmer than where you grew up originally.
Dr Bill Hang 1:26
Yeah, it's it's very nice here. It's enviable. When people ask what the weather is. I tell them you don't want to know. It's too nice.
Tony Winyard 1:36
Yeah, we certainly compared to where I am is a lot warmer, I guess. And Bill, you're an orthodontist, and many people listening may not be so familiar with that phrase. So could you explain what an orthodontist is?
Dr Bill Hang 1:50
Well, when you think of an orthodontist, people think of someone who traditionally puts braces on teeth and straightens teeth. Kids have crooked teeth for reasons I'm sure we can explore. And the orthodontist is a person who straightens the teeth. That in reality, I'm almost apologetic about saying that I'm an orthodontist. Because that's not really my focus it making lower front teeth straight. To me. That was what was put on my gravestone is that's what he did is he's he straightened lower incisors for a living, I feel like my life was pretty much of a waste.
Tony Winyard 2:28
So when did you when did you become an orthodontist?
Dr Bill Hang 2:32
I started orthodontic training at the University of Minnesota. This June. We'll make 50 years ago. A long time. So.
Tony Winyard 2:45
And now I can imagine there must have been so many changes during that time.
Dr Bill Hang 2:50
Well, there are a lot there have been a lot of changes. But the sad part is there haven't been enough changes the profession, I learned to straighten teeth. And in the process, I often remove teeth, pull the front teeth back, because that's what orthodontics do. orthodontists do. And it's not appropriate that in the late 1970s, early 1980s, I began to look at the faces that I have the patients I was treating, I didn't like what I saw. And I there was also a general dentist in the United States at the time, who was teaching other general dentists to do orthodontics. And he was claiming that the orthodontist were literally wrecking faces and producing temporomandibular joint problems or pain in the ears and, and ringing in the ears and things like that clicking and popping in the joints. And I began to explore that. And I began to think this guy is right. And so I started looking for different ways to do this. And that journey started basically in November of 1981. And it really hasn't ended. I've been in 50 states and several foreign countries, including yours, learning about how to do things in a different way. I went through a time, which was kind of dark because I had so many patients that I'd had teeth taken out and I began doing new things that I frankly didn't even know if they were going to work or not. But I knew I couldn't continue to do the old thing. And I lived in a town of 18,000 people in Vermont where what you do gets home before you get home people know about it. And if the new things I was doing work, that would be great. If they didn't, I might as well pack up my bags and leave. And I also had a great deal of guilt about the patients I had taken teeth out on and what was happening to them and didn't know a way to reverse that. So it was a very interesting time. But it got me away from traditional orthotics.
Tony Winyard 4:52
And I guess as he said that was in the in the early 70s You started realising you want to do things
Dr Bill Hang 4:57
early 80s 1981 82 To 83, and there was a very challenging time in my life.
Tony Winyard 5:03
And I'm presuming that wasn't many people who tried to look at things differently like
Dr Bill Hang 5:09
No, not really. Mainly, the interesting thing was mainly there were a bunch of general dentists who were very unhappy with what the orthodontist were doing it and me being an orthodontist. I was, you know, I felt like I was in the crosshairs. But when I opened my mind, I realised these people were very smart. And they had they, they saw our patients later on, after they left our our orthodontic practices that kids go off to college grow up. And the general dentists sees what they look like years later, and the general dentists don't like what they see, because people look worse, their faces collapse, they have jaw joint problems. And now what we've really gotten to know in the last 20 to 25 years is that many of these patients suffer not only from pain patterns, but from sleep apnea, obstructive sleep apnea, because their teeth have been pulled back and their tongue space and airway has been reduced. I have a lot of videos on the internet and I literally get people contacting me from all over the world almost every morning, I will awaken and there'll be an email from somebody somewhere, asking me Gee, I've I identified a syndrome, which I described as extraction, read retraction, regret syndrome, e RR s, as in mistake, identify it and define it as a constellation of aesthetic, functional, and, and emotional symptoms, which are the result of without a grid traction. And there's three different things aesthetic, functional, and the emotional a triad. And, you know, typically people Hey, I see my lips collapsed, My cheeks are flatter, My smile is narrower, those are aesthetic concerns, functional concerns, gee, I'm, I'm have clicking jaw joints. I don't have enough room for my tongue. I snore when I didn't before. Lots of things like this and even worse. And then what happens is those two, then spill over into the emotional side. And many people who I who will come to me and they'll identify as I'm an ER RS suffer, and they may have had pain and hated them. There's their smile for 2030 years. And finally, they see this on the internet. And they contact me. And then they tell me I am an ers suffer. Do you know someone who can help me? And the answer is 99.9% of the time is no, Alaska? Do you know some in my town and I say, I don't even know someone in your continent? I'm sorry. Because I get people from I've had people from all the continents in the world
Tony Winyard 7:55
in well sounds like in the 80s. It was certainly difficult. But what is the situation out there far more dentists orthodontist looking at things the way you do? Or is
Dr Bill Hang 8:06
there are there are a few but not a lot. And with the internet, parents, mothers are getting much more educated, which is great. So the people who come to me in my practice, they frequently know more about me than I know about me. And they'll also there's a lot of feeling of that removing teeth is not okay, and retracting pulling the teeth back. It's not okay, given the fact that now we really know scientifically that our faces are way back from our ancestors. Daniel Lieberman as an anthropologist at Harvard University, and he's chronicled in his book called The evolution of the human head, how our faces are back massively from our ancestors. And what happens with that is if the upper Jaws back from the lower jaws back, your airway can be compromised. And so this becomes a big deal. There's a lot of a lot of controversy in the profession regarding the effect of what what retraction can do on the air to the airway. As a matter of fact, three years ago, in Marco Island, Florida, the American Association of Orthodontists had had a convocation to address that very issue. And they the fight paper that was supposed to come out of that was actually written, the final draft was written before even one speaker spoke. And, and I don't want to get into that a big deal. But let's just put it this way. I think that the profession would rather see the whole airway thing go away. Whereas the American Dental Association in 19, excuse me in 2017 made it I had a conversation mandated that the dentist learn to screen for airway issues for their patients. Sadly, that is not being done by most people. but at least it was a positive step in the right direction by the American Dental Association.
Tony Winyard 10:05
And there may be some people listening who are a little bit confused as to what airways have to do with teeth. So could you could you expand further?
Dr Bill Hang 10:15
What does airway have to do with teeth? It has everything to do with teeth. John Mew, and your country is a is the brightest orthodontist to ever live. I met him 32 years ago, and he has very accurately described how and why the face falls back, the upper jaw falls back in the lower jaw falls back. Because children have what we call poor restful posture, they're more mouth breathers, and their tongue posture is low, which allows the upper teeth to fall back. And in turn, the lower does to now we have some silly classifications in our in our, in our profession called Class One, class two and class three malocclusions. They're in reality, they've never been scientifically validated to mean anything. And they both jaws fall back and all in all those classifications. As the upper jaw falls back, the soft palate falls back. As the lower jaw falls back, the tongue falls back. Nobody knows. You know how big an airway has to be to be adequate. But the smaller your airway is, the worse the harder it is for you to breathe. There's a there's a law governing the flow, the resistance to the flow of a gas and a tube varies inversely according to the fourth power, the radius of that two, this is called possibles law. The fact is, if you look at that, a small change in the diameter of that airway can have an amazing impact both positively and negatively on how someone breathes. John, you has shown that everything falls back because many people today are mouth breathers Some may hang their mouths wide open, others will just have their their lips apart by a millimetre or two. But the the effect is still the same. And there's plenty of evidence of this in the literature. There are a number of articles which and books written about this from anthropologists who aren't really organised. Robert chord. Cheney is one at Southern Illinois University PhD anthropologist, and he talks about how the faces change. And there are others that are been out there. And this this has been out in the public since the 1800s. Even. And even before that, the ancient Chinese in medicine talked about how someone with a receding jawline does not live to a ripe old age. So this is not new, new stuff out there. But in reality, what you're dealing with is faces that are back and airways that are back. So John Mew, developed this approach to move the upper front teeth forward. So typically, in a child, the teeth are often eight to 10 millimetres too far back. And John, in his infinite wisdom, decided let's move those teeth eight to 10 millimetres forward. And then he developed an appliance which will bring the lower jaw forward and make it so that the child will hold the jaw on that position. Still, as it can be, that becomes a new rest position of the lower jaw. And over time, that jaw will grow into that position. And I've been doing this now for 32 years. In the year 2000. I recognised that, indeed, we were improving the airway with a bunch of consecutively treated cases. And I had an article written along with the help of someone else. We're actually grew up in Great Britain, but it's with the National Institute of Health in the United States, very well known first, and he did a research project on my patients, and showed an increase in the airway of 31% at the level of the palate and 23% of the behind the tongue and even 9% Down in the throat with these consecutively treated kids. Now realise that this technique is not easy, and it requires total cooperation on the part of the patient to do it. But if you have a child who will do it, you can, you can have a nice improvement. We literally never guarantee any kind of a result or improvement in the airway. But we've seen it and we've seen it can be very life changing. You have children today who are getting brain damage from sleep apnea. As a matter of fact, Ron Harper is a PhD neurobiologist at UCLA, and is used MRIs to show the brain damage that occurs even with one night of reduced oxygen saturation, and his permanent brain damage and he can go into their articles that he has in the refereed literature for anyone to find.
There's another gentleman who's a good friend of mine in a group that I am part of is called the American Academy of physiological medicine and dentistry. His name is Philip Cooper, and he's in Savannah, Georgia. He's African American, and he's written a book why African American show cannot read. And it really has nothing to do with the colour of their skin. It has everything to do with so many of them in disadvantaged situations have lots of health problems, including sleep apnea. And so they literally are arriving at school by the time they're starting to go to school. They've already had so much brain damage that they're really not going to be able to breathe to to function properly. This has it has it? Yes, it has some that are disadvantaged status makes them more likely to have this happen, but it really has nothing to do with the colour of their skin. It can happen for any it can happen for Caucasian, it can happen for an Asian, it happened for anybody we've been, we can see huge changes in behaviour once when a child sleeps better and breathes better. There's a there's a video out on the internet that you can find called Finding Connor Deegan is a young boy from the Chicago area. And he he was frankly suicidal he and he was the cut up in the class the teacher hated him. And he was about one of these performances in class or being institutionalised. The good news is he was referred to Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago, had a sleep test realise he had sleep apnea had tonsils and adenoids removed and had his neck, his upper jaw expanded to make more room for his tongue by someone that has taken my mini residency where I teach John Muse approach. And the boy got rid of the sleep apnea became a totally normal kid wasn't not was not a bully anymore. His grades improved dramatically. And he's a nice, nice, nice boy. It's all about breathing and sleeping. And I mean, I know this boy, I know his his mother and I in there, I knew some other people that had kids in his class, and it was a complete turnaround for this boy. Interestingly, the head of Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago, his name is Steven Sheldon, and has it been a good friend of mine for 20 years. He's a physician, He's now retired. But he would say this, he says, I do not believe there is a thing such as ADHD, I do not believe it exists. And currently, by the way, the last figure I saw is in the United States, 15% of the kids are being diagnosed with that. In the next breath, Steve Sheldon says, I believe it is always and he uses that term, which is interesting for a researcher, a scientist, if I believe it is always a breathing and sleep problem.
Tony Winyard 17:39
That's I mean, he wasn't aware to study so many things. You said though, I'd like to expand upon one of the things you talked about that that child in in Chicago, and a difference it made by restructure in his jaw essentially, yes, and how that changed his attitude. And one of the things that went through my mind, as you were saying that is, I imagine there must have been so many people who just couldn't compute how could change in his jaw, affect his attitude, they just weren't able to understand that.
Dr Bill Hang 18:07
It's, there are a lot of people that will be challenging for but when you realise that making a, even a tiny change in the airway, can have a massive effect. I had a gentleman one time who was in his 40s. And an orthodontist had closed some spacing and pulled his teeth back hadn't even taken any teeth out. But he came to me for a second opinion, because the general dentist didn't like the result. And I determined that the guy had sleep apnea. And I said, we need to reverse this and push the teeth forward. And and so I design an appliance which I use routinely, to move the teeth back forward. And very soon after he started the process. He came in and he says, My wife says I'm not even snoring anymore. And I look at him and say, Joe, how can that be? I barely moved your teeth. And he's, and you know, he says no, she says I'm not snoring. Who am I to call his wife a liar. I mean, who knows better than she does, she sleeps with him. And that's that was a learning thing for me. That somewhere there there's a there's a threshold for any given person, that okay, now they have enough room for their tongue and their airway opens up their tongue moves out of the base of the throat, gets up to the roof of the mouth, and now they're okay. So what we're really trying to do for kids is to have them establish proper rest oral posture, which means as John Muse says, teeth together lightly, tongue firmly to the palate plastered right up to the top of the palate, and lips together without strain. And John would say that face will grow forward naturally according to his genetic plan, to the degree that that is not happening. Then you see it grow down and back. And this has been corroborated very well by study back in the 1960s. Where they took monkeys and plug their noses and you know, they're breathing through their nose all the time at the plug. of the nose. And then the face changed about in the head that monkeys to stay alive had to had to mouth breathe, and the faces and teeth changed just like it has for humans. More recently, and this is the best, best thing. James Nestor, who is a, who's written the book breath. As he actually did this for himself, you could everybody should read this book was number six on the New York Times bestseller list. When it came out a year and a half ago and published in 32 languages. He's, he and a friend had their own nose plugged up for 10 days, and then did all kinds of physiologic tests on them and their blood pressure went up. And all these markers changed in a negative fashion. I mean, these guys were not happy. But they, they chose to be guinea pigs in this experiment, which had never been done on humans. But you need to read the book. And once you do, you're gonna think oh, my gosh, this really is a big deal. It's a very compelling book. And basically, a confirmation of everything that John Mueller has been working on since his, you know, the 1950s. And everything that I've known about and then researching for the last, you know, 32 years since I met John
Tony Winyard 21:18
is a fantastic book. And I agree with you, and anyone really should read that book by James nester. And, and for people listening to I mean, on the listeners of this show, I think tend to be kind of 40 plus people in their 40s 50s 60s, maybe, and any anyone who's listening, who is older, maybe they do have sleep issues, maybe they are snoring a lot, what are the what would be your recommendation as to the first step that they could take to change in
Dr Bill Hang 21:50
what first of all, they need to identify the problem and see if it's, if it really is a problem, get to see their primary care physician and tell them you know, gee, I have these issues. I don't awaken well rested, I wake up gasping, that's a classic sign. When someone's gasping there, that's they've stopped breathing, and now they're starting to breathe again. That's called an apnea event. So that's not a good sign. And if the person wakes up, and they've slept for eight hours, but they don't feel well rested, those people are not going to be in good shape. If they tend to fall asleep, reading a book or watching television, these people likely have apnea. So you get the test done. Okay, now, you know you do or you don't have apnea. But even that isn't doesn't tell the whole story and Christian demon Oh, who was the head of the Stanford University sleep clinic until he passed away two years ago, had over 400 articles in the refereed literature and was really the person who defined sleep apnea and came up with a mild, moderate and severe classifications. In his later years, he was lecturing and said he wished he'd never came up with those classifications because they don't really describe what's going on for the patient. So what what the bottom line here is find out if you have a problem, if you have a problem, then treat it. If they sleep doctor says you need a CPAP machine which is a continuous positive air pressure, then get one, it will help the person feel better in the morning. But there's a New England Journal of Medicine had an article I believe it was about six years ago from the University of Flinders in Australia, stating that a CPAP machine does not provide a statistical benefit of reducing the chance of heart attack or stroke. But those who have apnea have to understand that untreated apnea is good for 20 20% reduction in a person's lifespan. 65 to 80% of all stroke patients have apnea. And your chances of apnea is correlated with every chronic disease known to man that's comes from some very well known sleep doctors. And I've heard most of them speak over the last 20 years. So are there things to do for those individuals that are suffering? The answer is Yes, the CPAP is the first thing because it will help someone feel better. But let's say for instance, that someone has had attractive orthodontics, and you have many in the UK who contact me by the way, I have any number of them. I've treated people from from from the UK and reopened extraction spaces for them. Where they've had four teeth taken out, starting in 1989. I've been I've been reopening those spaces for people. And I've, I've been done. I've done it for people for more than 30 states in several foreign countries. And before I analyse the case, I have a pretty good idea if we're going to be able to help get rid of the app manhandle. I have sleep reports for some patients showing that we've been able to do this. We literally never promised a result. Not once in my life if I promised a result for anything I've ever done. I'm an Eagle Scout, and I promise to do my best. That's what I tell people with a smile on my face. And if they want to have treatment, then then we proceed. But that may help some. And sometimes it doesn't take very much to help someone breathe better and sleep better.
I had a woman more recently that we've finished treatment on should have four teeth taken out. And she for 20 or 30 years she'd been seeking solutions for this. And when she came to see me several years ago, she she said, she talked about, gee, I have a problem when I swallow here, it's difficult for me to swallow. I said, Well, it may well be an airway problem. And later on, years later, when we were talking after we as resolved her problem with reopening spaces and surgery, she told me that I was that she had seen more than 100 doctors before she saw me. And I was the only person who recognised that she had an airway problem. airway problems. I mean, very few people have great airways. Very, very few. And so it's a matter of how bad is your airway? And how much does it affect you? Can you get along with it or not? There are other things to do. I mean, the surgery to advance both jaws can open the airway if it's done properly. And very few surgeons know how to do it well, sadly. And if the orthotic preparation is done properly, I've done hundreds of jaw surgery cases in my career. And I have many people who are, you know, undergoing that kind of treatment, and I prepare them for it and finish them afterwards. So there's something to do for everyone. Sometimes widening the jaw laterally can help. And so, orthodontists are taught that you really can't expand the adult maxilla the upper jaw, because the sutures closed Well, in the early 1980s, I met some orthodontist who say that's not the case. And so I have expanded my own maxilla seven millimetres and I did that 32 years ago, I also opened up a space where I had a bicuspid tooth taken out when I was 11 years old, growing up in Illinois, and I so I've made my own maxilla bigger non surgically, and I've expanded the adult maxilla more than 10 millimetres and people in their 40s and 50s and have not pushed the teeth off the bone support, which is what most orthodontists were taught would happen. But orthodontists are taught things that they that someone speculates what happen. When you ask somebody to well, can you show me a case where the teeth have been pushed off the bone and the teeth have been lost? No one has those cases. But this is just part of the profession that people say, you can't do this, it's kind of like don't go out too far on the ocean, or you'll fall off the edge of the earth. Until till Magellan, you know, went around the world and came back and the other the way other way. Everyone thought the world was worth world was flat. So in a way, that's a great analogy for this. So there's something to be done. For everyone. It may not be quick and easy. But it can be life changing. This one woman who who said to me, you know, I'd been the first person out of 100 doctors to recognise her problem. One day, toward the end of her treatment, she was sitting in my treatment area and out of the blue. She just said after she'd had jaw surgery to bring both jaws for she said I would do this surgery 10 times to feel the way I do today. And that's a very compelling statement from somebody. It's what I call a an oh, by the way, Dr. Hank, comment.
Jingle 28:36
We hope you enjoy this episode of the habits and health podcast where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. If you're looking for deep support to create the health and life you want, we invite you to consider one on one coaching sessions with Tony. coaching sessions give you personalised guidance to fit your unique goals and life situation. Only a limited number of spots are available. But you can easily get started by booking a free introductory call at Tonywinyard.com. Now back to the show.
Tony Winyard 29:03
You talked about CPAP machines. And one of the things I was wondering is a lot of people, well, some people maybe they put on a CPAP machine, and then they start to use it for many months. And then they begin to think of that as normal. And they'll just use that. What would be the next progression? How could someone aim to progress from using a CPAP into a situation where they no longer need that?
Dr Bill Hang 29:31
Well, first of all, they'll feel better and then that then that is their new normal and they think that's normal, but it's art. It's it's basically I call it Life Support. And I'm glad that people get to do it and they feel better. Again, I go back to the study from the University of Flinders report in the New England Journal of Medicine, that they're honestly they're not that they're not less likely to have a heart attack or stroke. So it's, I think that it's a good it's a good stopgap measure. It's a good band aid so they can feel better. But they need to find somebody who knows how to address this issue. The sad part of it is that there are courses being given out about Gee, expand the upper arch and vote. Most people, most orthodontists are never going to expand the lower arch. Because they there's no suture in the midline. And they've, they've been taught that you push the teeth off the bone support, I've expanded adults, lower arches, 10 millimetres, and I routinely do that I actually have my own wife in treatment right now. And she, because she's begun snoring, she never did before. As you age, the muscle tonicity gets worse. And so what we're trying to do is expand both our upper and lower jaws to try to get rid of that. So these are things that can be done lateral expansion. The unfortunate part of that is that lateral expansion is not it's it's, it's it's part of the solution, but a very poor part of the solution. Because the problem really is in that front to back plane of space, our jaws are back from where they used to be, we have what appears to be larger noses, our noses aren't larger, they just look that way, because the upper jaw is back that people have flat cheeks and their lower jaws back, they often have a sloped forehead, because they're they're keeping their chin forward, just to breathe and stay alive. The slope forehead is so common, realise that someone's forehead should actually be vertical, vertical, straight up and down. But how many people do you see with their head tipped back like this, they don't even know they do it. But they do it because if they didn't do it, they wouldn't be able to breathe. They also have forward head posture, you drop a perpendicular from the middle of the year to the floor, it should go right through the middle ear shoulders, zillions of people have their jaws their head their entire head to three or four inches forward. Over time, this pays the the neck muscles pay a big price for this. But the patient is doing it just to survive. You can sit in a in an airport and watch people walk by going down to the gates and I do this all the time with a cup of coffee and I and I look at some people and I say oh my god, they're barely alive, their head is ready to fall off of their body. And frequently, you can tell by their entire gait the way they walk. You know, they're way older. They're way, way, way older than their than their years that they've been alive. We as a society suffer horribly. And Nestor comes, you know, he describes a little bit of this in his book, but not not as much as as really would be nice. As a society. We're pretty sick.
Tony Winyard 32:44
Well, and you talked about the surgery on your wife more recently for snoring. So it made me think about is there. I mentioned as many people who listened to this show who may be in their 50s and 60s and so on. Is it is it if people are thinking I'm too old to have that kind of surgery? What would you say to that? The oldest
Dr Bill Hang 33:07
person I've had to have a surgery. This is kind of comical was I think it was three weeks short of his 75th birthday. This He was a retired US Navy pilot and a bicycle fanatic. And he had the year before we did this, he had written his bicycle from Jacksonville, Florida, to San Clemente, California distance of approximately 3000 miles. And he took his his CPAP machine with him. And so he went and had this surgery done after I prepared him for it. And interestingly, you think, Well, It must hurt so much must be so horrible. Not really. Five weeks post surgery, he was out doing 20 miles a day on his bicycle. So there and this can completely change someone's physiology. I had a woman years ago, this was this was very classic. She'd had a headache pattern, and she's a horrible clencher and she had sleep apnea. And she was from Florida. And I used a surgeon in Texas to treat her to bring her jaws forward. I called her I called her three weeks after the surgery and and said, Well, how are you doing? And it was amazing. Out of just five things came out of her mouth and rapid fire fashion. Number one, I'm thanking God for you and Dr. Walford, who says this The surgeon and said I can I can breathe. I you know I can breathe better. And this was the real killer that I really got that. She said I'm smarter. She says I've been in a brain fog for 40 years. I've told my kids I'm smarter. And in reality, that's the case. Interestingly, just this week. I'm part of another group that's making a documentary on this To show the world and this, there's a lot of good filming that's already been done on this. There's a young lady from New York City, whose father took my mini residency where I teach Johnny's course. And about five years ago I said, he, he, he came up to me and said, What would you do in my daughter's case? And I took one look at it in a nanosecond, I said, she needs surgery. Well, no father wants to hear about surgery, then. So he thanked me. And he did what all fathers will tell all dentist fathers will do, is going to try to find all the non surgical options. And that's exactly what he did. And over a period of a year and a half to two, he came back to me and said, Bill, you're right. And I said, I smiled at him and said, Yes. And so I, I helped him know the process of how to prepare his daughter for surgery. And she had the surgery done. And we made no promises, but it was done properly and well, really well. And she is prospering now. And she was what we would call a health fanatic, she ate everything perfectly good. She was an exercise fanatic, but she still had no energy, she'd never had any energy in her entire life. Now she's robust. And in this meeting, we had with Zoom call of this board for this group that's promoting a documentary on this, there was a a woman who is a psychiatrist, and is doing research on these kinds of things. And she tested this girl, this woman or in her 20s, before the surgery, and then tested her afterwards. And what things about cognitive function, executive, functioning, all kinds of different things that I'm too dumb to know about. But the numbers were amazingly better. So here, the mere fact that this, this woman is now breathing and sleeping much more normally, her life has literally changed, and she's gonna have a much, much better life. There's story after story like this, and this will be this will be something that will be researched very well, if by this group, and when we documented in there, it's going to be a docu series that they're making on this, it will be coming eventually.
Tony Winyard 37:21
So someone who's listening to this and things. Wow, I'd love to get to do some of that. Where would they? How would they go about finding out how how they could do? Where would they look?
Dr Bill Hang 37:33
Here's where I'm going to disappoint you. The world is not full of a lot of people who really are tuned into this. Yes, there, there's more of an awareness of this. They're sleep clinics around a lot of them in the US. But to a great degree. Even the heads of the departments in the United States who head up these sleep clinics don't truly understand what they're dealing with. And I say this because I've been going to lectures for the last 20 years. And typically, what they'll you'll see in a lecture is they'll show us map of the United States. And they'll show back in 1985, Mississippi had more fat people than any other state. And then they show the map every five years and how obesity gets worse and worse and worse. And now we've got, you know, more than 30% of the people in some states are morbidly obese. And so they attribute the problem to obesity, when in reality, you have tiny little Asian women that are 85 pounds, and are not obese at all who have sleep apnea. They're not the typical National Football League linebacker who weighs 280 pounds, and you know, he's got apnea. So the point is, they're not recognising are, you're going to have to look hard to find someone who truly understands that this is a an anterior posterior problem and the face needs to be moved forward. And just laterally expanding is not going to make it happen. I wish I had a better answer and I don't know enough about people around the world and where there are people who really understand these these issues. It's James James nesters book has been great in that is brought a unbelievable amount of awareness amongst the public. But the problem is, the medical dental system is woefully inadequately trained to address this, this monumental issue that to be honest with you, and I'm not exaggerating, more people are going to suffer from this and then from the pandemic where or supposedly and because cry every chronic disease known to man is correlated with poor breathing and sleep. Now that brings up another subject. For those who really liked to learn more. Go get Patrick McKinnon's book, The breathing cue or the most recent one that's come out. Patrick has the oxygen advantage which was out several years and he's has other books So one about John Mew and another one called atomic focus. And the really the good one is this the breathing here, Patrick I heard speak more than 10 years ago. And he, he didn't know it, but he caught it. I started taping my lips every night, because I've been a mouth breather and my pillow would be wet every night. I did that 10 years ago. Now it's almost February. And if I make it to February without a cold, I will have three years in my life without a cold. And Bill hang used to get to colds a year guarantee 100% I knew it. And so mouth taping alone can help. That's a simple thing to do. Anybody can try that. And if it works great. If it doesn't, that's fine. At least you tried. But his Patrick's book is a reference book for everything. He Chronicles how poor sleep and breathing for breathing is associated with every chronic disease named named. And each in each chapter has from 75 to 100 references that if you're a scientist, and you really want to know more, you can delve into that. I mean, it's an amazing book with interestingly, in my own situation, I've been an addicted runner for I've been running for more than 50 years, I've run 32 marathons in my life. When I heard Patrick speak, I decided to try running with my lips together. And I took me a few weeks to train myself to do that. But I was able to do it. And so I might my 20th marathon was a Pasadena marathon and I came in second my age group running with my lips together. When I saw nesters book, then it I must I must be a slow learner. Because from nesters book, I understood that I'm still breathing was still breathing too much. Because he talks about holding his breath on the exhale, running through Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. And I thought, wait a minute, I'm breathing way too much too often. And so as soon as his book came out, I began holding my breath longer. On the exhale. I had been running three strides inhaling, and two strides on the exhale. So when I read his book, I went from three strides into three strides out and I did that for a few weeks, then three strides in and four strides out. Then three strides in and five strides out. I ran another marathon in June of last year, and I qualified for the Boston Marathon for the 11th time. And I ran that marathon three strides in three strides out and held my breath for nine more strides. I was having one breath for every 15 strides versus one breath for every five. And I've trained myself to do this and I have not sacrificed any speed. The point is, I am much more fit just because of that book. And my own insistence on trying to train myself and any any I know special person I never went out for sport in high school ever. I became a runner just because and I have not I'm not gifted any more than anybody else. As far as that being an athlete. I'm not that competitive, but I competitive against myself. I give this this this story to anybody listening. Because you can be in charge of your own health. And if you're not who's going to be you're not going to get any health. The health care system in Britain is is disease centred. The health care system in the United States is disease centred. You can spend all the money you want on it, and you're not going to get any healthier. The only person that's going to make you healthy is going to be you by what you eat and what you do. And if you exercise or not
Tony Winyard 43:46
something we just mentioned about Patrick McKeown, and all of his fabulous books. And it reminds me of, I've heard him speak a few times. And I actually did his oxygen advantage instructor course and I am an instructor. I remember him talking about, I think he mentioned it in maybe The Oxygen Advantage book, where he talks about where he met Dr. Butayko in Russia.. And it was about when Buteyko first created the Buteyko method. And he noticed that the breathing patterns of the patients who were ill and the breathing patterns of the patients who were recovering and so on, can you remember the story?
Dr Bill Hang 44:28
I don't remember the specifics of it. But I know what you're talking about. And I think Patrick's own. His Own Story himself is so compelling, because here he was this, this kid trying to do really well in school and he just worked hard and hard and hard. And he got into in the College in Dublin, and he was struggling because he was always sick. And that's he then went to to Russia to learn this. And he was asthmatic, and you know, and he knew he over breathe and he then trained himself to The nasal breather. And I've become really good friends with Patrick. He's been to my home and I've been to his home in Galway, and I've lectured around the world together. But I then also treated him he had crooked teeth as he would with low rest tongue posture. And so I also have an x ray of his nose. And the fact of the matter and he I'm happy to talk about it because he says I can talk about it. But he has a horribly deviated septum. It's like wavy like crazy. And those of us in this industry know, a deviated septum makes it harder for you to get air through your nose. But he's a classic example of someone who has trained his nose to work. He's still got the deviated septum, but you will never ever, ever see Patrick hang his mouth open. He's a nasal breather and has taught him self to do this, which I present that as great evidence that anyone who is committed and wants to try this as a good, there's a good mentor of mine, who's a dentist who now passed away two years ago. His name is Omar Reed and, and Phoenix, Arizona. And I took courses with him back in the 1980s. wonderful human being. He used to say, and one of his classic, classic lines that he had was, if it's been done, it's probably possible. I really like that. And I use it all the time. Well, excuse me, Patrick McCune has done it. And it is possible and other people can do it too.
Tony Winyard 46:34
If I'm so we've been talking about improving people's breathing and so on earlier in the episode, you were talking about restructuring faces and so on. And we right, and you mentioned about children? So I'm wondering for people who do have children and grandchildren? What What would they look out for to it, you know, on their children's faces to see if maybe it's not the way it should be?
Dr Bill Hang 46:58
And that's and that's the most important part of this discussion, as we cannot rely on doing surgery for people when they're an adult to treat this problem. It's like, what would you rather do? prevent forest fires or go out there with a squirt gun and try to fight them? It's ridiculous. Yeah, we must treat very early. And, and and let's be really clear about that. And this has taken me a long time to come to orthodontics usually begins, and someone who's in their teenage years and has all of their teeth in I have for years called that rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. It's ridiculous. The face is so far down and back that you have very little chance to change that growth. John Muse treatment, or the tropics to develop the face forward starts in the mixed dentition at age seven or eight when the upper four teeth or incisor teeth are in and he develops the face forward. And that's critical is great. But what we really must do, and I've only come to this in the last couple of decades, and I haven't come out a lot about teaching other people to do it is treating children before they even have the first permanent tooth under age six, age three and four. So for the parents out there, number one for the mothers, breastfeed as long as possible. Don't use a bottle. This is very important. And make sure that your child is is a nasal breather from the get go. By the way for those of you who have premature children, Cristian Gemalto has spoken for years about the various stages of embryology of foetal development that the child does not go through before birth, and how almost all of them are suffering when they're born from the get go with breathing and sleep issues. And they'll be paddling upstream to change that. I currently have a 16 year old boy that was born three months prematurely. He has an incredibly long face because he never could get his lips together. And we're preparing him for surgery to bring his jaws forward because he has big problems. That that whole population cohort is the premature kids are big, big problem there. But for mothers, you want to breastfeed as long as possible and never use a pacifier. Use earplugs for you don't use a pacifier because it pulls the face back. The kid pulsates. With that thing. It's retracted force on the face. The next thing is when you do when we into solid foods. There's a good book from the UK from a woman who's now passed away by the name of Gill Rapley. It's called Baby led weaning, get that and realise you want to have that child wean to solid food, and the more coarse the food is, the better it is. And don't think that your little baby with those little ridges can't can't can't eat it one way or the other. The more coarse the food is, the more they have to work the better it is and John Muse talked about that for years. And, and that's pretty well documented with the Ain't no Lieberman's book from Harvard on the growth of the human face. Other things to do are, you know, to look for, you never want to see your child have their lips apart at rest, and never have their mouth hanging open. And another thing is mobile devices, mobile devices are they destroy people, the sooner you give that young kid a mobile device, the more he's going to get addicted to it, he's going to put his head down, it's going to hang his mouth open, because that's what they do. And you're just making the whole situation worse. There's a physician in the San Francisco area who's documenting all of this, and he's writing articles about a syndrome which he's, which he's identify called spiky leaky syndrome. And my myofunctional therapist that I work with all the time Joy molar, she understands and treats kids with these issues. So you really, really, really need to take the parenthood thing very, very strongly, and your mother is in charge and the mother is going to change the world.
If a child has a flaccid lower lip that rolls out that child's mouth breather, an easy measurement to do is John Hughes measurement to measure from the tip of the nose to the edge of the upper front tooth, that's with a with a millimetre ruler. Now, John came up with this years ago, and it's one of the most accurate things that I know. And so that measurement for a girl should be 21 millimetres plus the patient's age and years. So let's say you have an eight year old girl 21 plus eight is 29. And most girls that you'll see will have a number of far higher than that it's rare to see someone whose face is on that, that close to the norm. And if you do, you'll see a very attractive patient has that number that that face will be very attractive, your eye will just know it. For a boy, that number is 23 millimetres plus the patient's age in years. If you measure this, many of the patients that we see in our practice are eight to 10 millimetres above that traditional orthodontics only makes that number bigger by retracting in reality, everybody needs to have things move forward. So there are myofunctional therapist in every country. There's a group here in the United States that I'm very, very intimately related to all these people, I know many of them and the person who's in charge the organization's my friend, they're trying to spread the word. And what we really need as myofunctional therapist, we've got more than 10,000 orthotics a United States, we need about 100,000 myofunctional therapist to help all the kids who need it. And we need about not nearly that many orthodontist, because if we had the myofunctional therapist doing their thing, orthodontics wouldn't be needed, nobody would need to have braces. And I make the very, very compelling statement a few years ago, that it's you know, more recently, you see that the Journal of Clinical orthotics shows that very few orthodontist will treat anyone until they're at least age six and have permanent teeth coming in. I make the craziest statement that we should have our orthodontic treatment finished by age six. That's pretty bold statement to make. But after all these years of dealing with this, I view it as the literally the only way to make any headway in this in this airway War, where we're seeing the faces come fall down and back. And they have been for centuries. If we don't do something about it. We're frankly doomed and and I'm saying that with sadly, I Joy Moeller my good friend who myofunctional therapist said it about 10 years ago. And I thought, Man, she's crazy. But the more I think about it, the more I see, I don't think she's crazy. We have got to act, we have to act now. And it's going to happen with the mothers and the market. But people who are going to be able to help has got to rise to the demand that the mothers are going to have. And I've said for years, the mothers, the mama bears that are looking out for their little cubs, they're going to make a difference here.
Tony Winyard 54:01
Bill, you've got so much wisdom, so much experience. Have you considered writing a book?
Dr Bill Hang 54:09
I have written four books and not published one. And I once I finished I started back in the 1990s. When I lived in Vermont, I wrote a book. And then it was great. And then I didn't move on getting it published. I absolutely need to write a book because I know I'm not being big headed about this. I'm just being truthful because I dedicated my life to this. My life is completely out of balance. I work seven days a week on this very issue. I've worked for patient for way four days a week seeing patients but I'm in this office sitting in this chair on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Living here in Southern California when I could go out and you know, go surfing, hike, go golfing, go skiing in the local ski area. I'm here working because I'm committed Making a difference just because I seen what goes on. And I feel like I have to be the advocate for the patient, because no one else is going to do that. And I'm trying to train other people to do what I do. And I'm too busy, frankly, to write a book. But I've been told I need to. And maybe that's going to happen when I'm a little freer with my time and not seeing patients all the time.
Tony Winyard 55:23
Well, I look forward to the book, I hope people do manage to persuade you because the world needs that book. Yeah. And speaking of books, Bill, is there a book that you that comes to mind that has really moved you in any way?
Dr Bill Hang 55:38
Well, the ones I already mentioned, that are really the best ones. But I think a book that to me is very entertaining, and to let everyone know that this isn't even new. This has been around forever. The book is by George Catlin, and it's called Shut your mouth and save your life. Now, that is such a cool title. I wish I'd come up with that. But I wouldn't come up with it in the way he came up with it. George Catlin was an attorney in Philadelphia, and it was in his early 30s. In the 1830s. He decided to jump being a lawyer and he went to the American West and became a an artist and a photographer when photography came in. And George Catlin is one of the best known artists of the of that era. And then in the American West, he also went to South America as part of his travels. But he came up with this book called Shut your mouth and save your life. And it was published in the 1860s for the first time. And what he did is he compared the Native Americans, their faces to the Caucasians that he knew on the east coast of the United States, where they were in the in the cities that had already been developed. And he talked about how the Native Americans had their lives together, he talked about how the squat, the mother would take the baby off of the breast and immediately take the baby's lips and take her fingers and push them together to make sure that the child didn't, didn't keep the mouth open. I mean, intuitively knew this showed Native American children's sleeping as they did with their lips together. And he had up drawings of Caucasian kids, where he would see and what he was used to seeing on the East Coast. And when their mouths were open, and then he talked about how the faces were changed by habit, not Yeah, that wasn't anything genetic, but he could see that the faces were were, you know, way back for the Caucasians. And he acknowledges that the not only did the the Native Americans call the Caucasians pale face, they also call them black mouth, because their mouths will be wide open like this. And back in those days, the mouth breathing, which would make someone have infinitely more tooth decay and periodontal disease. So many, many people back in those days had no teeth. So if they were talking and their mouths wide open, they just like it's black mouth. And that's what he described. It's a compelling book. You can get it off amazon for $13. If you're offended by, you know, not politically correct language, don't buy it, because he talks about the Native Americans as savages. So, but you have to look at that as the time in which he was writing the book. Yeah, that was what people said back in those days. And so it's a very, it's, it's the the point of the book is that it shows that we've been talking about this for forever. There's one more book that I would urge people to get. It's called Nutrition and Physical degeneration by Weston Price, who was a dentist in the United States and in the 30s and 40s, toured the world. And notice that faces and teeth changed in one generation. That was orthodontists were taught Oh, that malocclusion is a intimate play of genetics and environment. And there's no there's no real evidence that genetics plays anything. And this is game, it's really almost all environment. And that's what you for some, some mutation to occur, would take 1000s of years to go through a population and become permanent. And think about it. If it's a mutation that causes someone to have a worse airway. How is that person ever going to survive to reproduce, it makes no sense. So this book, nutrition and physical degeneration is, is about Western Prices travels all over the world, to places were in a space of one generation, that the parents had good teeth and no malocclusions and their kids don't had malocclusions and poor looking faces. He describes us and the one change was a change to the Western diet. with refined sugar and flour, and pasteurised milk, there's more to read on this and you can even believe yet another one is another book is Pottengers Cats
Francis Pottenger was a physician in Pasadena and did experiments on cats feeding the same food. But he cooked the food and pasteurise the milk for one group and gave the raw food and raw milk to another. And the cast develop very differently. It's very compelling books basically confirming that what we're dealing with here is an environment. It's a lifestyle issue. And unless until we change our lifestyle, we're not going to get rid of these problems.
Tony Winyard 1:00:43
Bill if people want to find out more about you and your social media and website where they look.
Dr Bill Hang 1:00:49
My website is www.Facefocused.com That's for patients to look at. For dentists who want to learn more about what we do and take courses and I have a brand new course which is kicking off in Dallas Texas called Echo - Early Childhood Health-centred Orthodontics it will start in Dallas in May, that you can find out through my website called www.OrthO2Health.com. It lists my courses both I have a mentorship called er s for treating adults who had you know, retracted orthodontics, it's also to prevent that doing some things differently, and adolescents and how not to remove teeth and how to preserve the airway and still get straight teeth. But the new organisation is going to be teaching to a great degree, I'll be focusing on orthotropics, as developed by John Mew, only the big emphasis is going to be treating the child before age six. So if if some mother wants to have someone treat her child, they find a dentist who will take this course because it's it's for dentists, only paediatric dentists orthodontist who are interested in this general dentists who do ortho general dentists who do ortho are generally the biggest market because they they've seen the world of attractive orthotics and they don't like what they see and they want to want something better. And that's what they perceive is better. Most of the people who've taken my mini residency are general dentists who do orthodontics.
Tony Winyard 1:02:38
And finally, Bill is there. Is there a quotation that you particularly like? Yeah,
Dr Bill Hang 1:02:46
I love I already gave it to you. Over read this very, very bright dentist, who was a mentor to me starting the early 80s. His quotation is: "If it has been done, it is probably possible". I love that quotation.
Tony Winyard 1:03:03
Well, Bill, thank you for your time. It's been it's been a real pleasure and I hope my might have a try to help you. Yeah, the listeners have gained a lot from this. You know, I sincerely think they will have so yeah, thank you.
Dr Bill Hang 1:03:16
Okay. Thank you.
Tony Winyard 1:03:19
Have you enjoyed that episode with Bill Hang? He mentioned a few times in the episode about a British dentist called John Mew. In a couple of weeks time, on episode number 60, which will be released on the fifth of April. I'm speaking with Mike Mew, who is the son of John Mew, who was mentioned by Bill a few times. Mike Mew is one of the most forward thinking dentists in the country. So that is episode 60. In a few weeks time with Mike Mew Next week, episode 55 is with Tina McDermott. She's spent a lot of her life struggling with digestive issues, and she didn't really understand why she was getting so much gas and bloating and constipation. And her was really having problems with yo yo weight gain and loss. And she eventually discovered what the issues were that was causing her these issues. What was causing all these problems and how she went forward to to solve it really. And one of the things was Lyme disease and there was various other things. So that's next week's episode with Tina McDermott. If you'd only want to get some real value from some of the great information that Bill shared with us this week, please do share the episode with them. And hope you have a great week.
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Habits & Health episode 53 with Sarah Tait who for many years said ‘yes’ to everything and everyone, a perfectionist trying to spin far too many plates for most of her life, until one day it was too much and she cracked and suffered severe burnout leading to a psychotic episode. Now a qualified coach she helps people to feel the way she feels now without going through what she had to go through!
In this episode, we explore what she went through, the causes and where she is now. We also look at the stigma around mental health and how she faced that.
Links:
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Recommended Book:
The Secret – Rhonda Byrne
Favourite quote “Whether you think you can or you can’t, you are right.” Henry Ford
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Jingle 0:00
Habits and health episode 53. Welcome to the habits and health podcast, where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. Brought to you by an educator and coach for anyone who wants to create a healthier life. Here's your host, Tony Winyard.
Tony Winyard 0:20
Welcome to another edition of habits and health. My guest today is Sarah Tait who had a mental health breakdown a few years ago, that completely changed her life. And we talk to her, she tells about how, what led to it in the first place. And then the transformation she's had since that incident happened. So we'll be speaking with Sarah in just a minute. And if you know anyone who could really benefit from some of the great advice that Sarah shares with us in this episode, please do share the episode with them and hope you enjoy this week's show. habits and health my guest today Sarah Tait. How are you, Sarah?
Sarah Tait 1:00
I'm good. Thank you. How are you?
Tony Winyard 1:02
I'm pretty well. We are in Essex today?
Sarah Tait 1:06
We are yes, Chelmsford in Essex.
Tony Winyard 1:08
And how is Essex today?
Sarah Tait 1:12
Had a beautiful sunrise this morning. But it's turned out quite great.
Tony Winyard 1:20
We spoke briefly before the show started recording. And obviously we've been corresponding for a while. So you were telling me about you had an episode a couple of years ago, would you'd like to let our listeners know some more about you and your story more. Why is that you're on a mission to inform people?
Sarah Tait 1:40
Yeah, of course. So I was always the strong friend, I have always been a born planner, a perfectionist wanting to please everyone take everything on. And I got married in 2018. And the wedding was beautiful. I loved every minute of it. And after the wedding, I felt like I lost a sense of purpose and wasn't really sure what to do with myself and had been planning this dream wedding for ages. And I decided the best thing to do would be to throw myself into work, which in hindsight, was not the best thing to do. And I worked ridiculous hours, I worked really long days, I worked weekends. And then it came to the New Year.
Tony Winyard 2:32
And just just to interrupt you when you said you throw yourself into work was that your own self employed job or working for someone else.
Sarah Tait 2:38
This is working in a corporate finance job. Yeah, so working in the city in London, working for a bank in the finance sector. And I it was my own choice to take on a big project and my own choice to work the hours I was working because I wanted to play myself into something because I guess I felt like I'd lost a sense of purpose and then was trying to get that back through work, which was definitely not the best thing to do. And it came to January. So we got married in the June. I then had no time off over Christmas because I've taken quite a lot of holiday for the wedding. So we got married in Italy. And I started January with a fresh outlook and did the whole new year new me Everything needs to change this year. And I'm going to put myself on a really strict diet, and I'm going to exercise and I'm going to do all of these things that are going to help me and it's as if my brain just when No, You physically can't take any more on there's no more that we can physically do. And I felt my brain pop. So physically a physical Poppins sensation in my brain. And I collapsed into my husband's arms that evening. And I then had what is called now known I didn't realise at the time but I had what is called a psychotic episode. So throughout a couple of weeks of being really quite unwell, I had believed things that nobody else believed. I thought my flight was bogged. I thought the TV was talking to me. I thought I was in a coma and that my mum and my husband were my physical my mental health and I had to complete challenges to be able to get out of the coma. I thought that the TV was ran the wrong way that then the way that I was watching programmes, everything was in the wrong order. I would write consistently it was like everything was trying to come out that had been stored in for the last 30 years of my life. And it was very scary. And I guess I'm here and the reason I want to share my story and talk on podcast is because I was the person that thought that it would never happen to me. And I was the one that was like, I'll always be Okay, I don't need to worry about any of that. And it did happen to me. So I guess that's why I'm really passionate about sharing that I think whilst there's still this really big stigma around mental health, and we're getting better, there's still a long way to go. And I think the more people that talk, and the more people that talk about mental illnesses that aren't talked about as much, so things like psychosis, the more we can break down the stigmas even more and get to a place where we know that it is actually okay to not be okay. And know that we can grow through the things that we go through as well, which I think is really important.
Tony Winyard 5:40
So from when that those incidents first started happening, and obviously you must be pretty confused, and, and also your, your husband and your mom, and so on. So what happened from there? And so I'm guessing there was some kind of medical assistance and so on. So how were they able to diagnose it pretty quickly. I mean, what happened there?
Sarah Tait 5:58
Yeah, so I am, I'm really lucky that I've got private medical cover with my employer. And I know that some people don't have that privilege and that luxury. And I know that I'm very lucky to be able to have that. And thankfully, I was able to get a appointment with a psychiatrist. Within three days, it was the weekend, so I couldn't be seen until the Tuesday. But as soon as I as soon as the psychiatrist saw me, he diagnosed me with something called hypomania, which is a milder form of psychosis. And then I got progressively worse. So when I went back to the psychiatrist after he wanted to, at that point section me, I was quite aware of going to a mental health hospital, I didn't think there was anything wrong with my mental health. At this point, I truly believed everything I was thinking and feeling was gospel, it was true. I didn't think that it was a mental illness that I had. And my husband, thankfully, was aware that I was aware of the fact that I didn't want to go into a mental health hospital. And I remember kids saying, Don't put me in a padded cell, because that's what you see on the TV. So you think that if you're mentally unwell, you might get put in a padded cell. And that's how it came out. So my husband said to the to the psychiatrist, like, please let us not section her, let me try and treat her at home. And he thankfully did, and him and my mom looked after me at home, I was able to then fully recover with the medication at home, and thankfully didn't end up being section. But I could have been, I think that's quite scary, but I could have been. And I'm very grateful to the fact that I had private medical that I got the diagnosis that I was able to be treated quickly enough with the right medication that I was then able to take at home. And I then got diagnosed at a later point that it was a psychotic episode, because it was, it had not happened before, I had not struggled with any mental illnesses before. And therefore it was classed as an episode rather than any longer term mental illness because of the way I was able to recover from the correct diagnosis and the correct treatment. And I then went on to have lots of therapy, I had one to one therapy, I had group therapy. And I was able to then come off gradually off on my medication and then discharged from my therapy. So all in all, I think the journey of being from the night, my brain physically popped to be discharged on therapy was about 10 months.
Tony Winyard 8:51
And just just to go, you mentioned, one of the things you said a few minutes ago was you were very thankful that you weren't second semester when I was leaving. You were very thankful that you weren't section. Were you aware at the time that that was a possibility.
Sarah Tait 9:07
Yes. And it's interesting because I I didn't think there was anything wrong with me. Mentally, I thought I had a brain tumour because my brain popped, and I then went, Well, I've got a brain tumour, something I physically felt something happened in my brain, therefore, something must have happened to my brain physically, rather than mentally. So that was my initial reaction. I need to go to a hospital as in a physical health hospital, not a mental health hospital, because there's something physically wrong with my brain. And I then wouldn't sleep because I was so scared to sleep, that if I slept I wouldn't wake up because I'd convinced myself I had a brain tumour. So Then it got progressively worse because I wasn't sleeping. So my mental health was then deteriorating even more, because I wasn't sleeping. And it was just getting worse, which was making me even more paranoid and even more anxious about the fact that I had a brain tumour. And then I felt like I had every other illness that I've ever heard of, in my life all within five days. So I remember first go into the NHS doctor because I had to get a referral to the psychiatrist and shouting at the doctor in the NHS, like in the surgery saying, I am dying, like, you need to help me I am dying. And I can remember now her being like, it's okay. And I'm like, No, you don't understand I'm dying. I physically felt my brain pop. You don't understand. She, obviously they can't tell you you're not dying, because they don't know. So they sent me for blood tests. And I remember getting the the results of a blood test. And my husband was like, your blood test to come back. There's absolutely, it's absolutely fine. I'm like, It's wrong. It's wrong, the blood tests are wrong. So I, I knew that there was something wrong with me, but I didn't think it was anything to do with my mental health. And I think then I started to realise, as we were going towards the mental health hospital, I, we drove past the physical health hospital. And I was like, Why? Why are we going past that hospital, that's where I need to be. And we drove towards the mental health hospital and I had the worst panic attack of, I am not supposed to be here, I'm not supposed to be at the mental health hospital, you're going to put me in a padded cell, and there's nothing wrong with me, I need to be in a hospital bed. And I think that's where it then. So it's like, I knew there was something wrong, but I couldn't associate it being my mental health, I thought it was physically my brain.
Tony Winyard 12:02
So therefore, once you started having regular sessions with the most psychotherapists, psychiatrist, or whoever it was, did you feel like any kind of stigma? Or how how did you feel about that?
Sarah Tait 12:18
I think once I'd had, I would say that my episode lasted a couple of weeks. So from the point where I was that my brain physically pop, to be able to actually have a conversation and be able to make my own choices to remember who I was, because there was point throughout that two weeks where I didn't know I was, I was like, am I male and female, like, who am I, I had to, I had a candle at one point with my initial s on it in front of the TV, to remind myself of my name. And because I couldn't make decisions for myself, and I couldn't think for myself, even the thought of like, my mom, or my husband asked me what I wanted for dinner was too overwhelming. Like, I couldn't make that decision. Unless something was physically put in front of my face. And I was able to decide that one or that one, I couldn't think it was too much to think. So I, once I'd been diagnosed, it was easier for me to be able to then say, okay, so how do I now get better? Now I know. And once the medication kicked in, it brought me right back down. And I mean, it brought me down so much to the point where I remember having my plate of food in front of me and my knife and fork. And it must have taken me about five minutes to get the fork into the bit of food to get it into my mouth, because it's like, everything in my brain was like on slow motion, because it just brought me down so much where I'd been almost so high with the hypomania psychosis. And it brought me right down. So I remember thinking at that point, well, at least we know, the medications working, but will I actually ever be able to have a normal life again, where I can physically function and make my own decisions and eat my food at a normal pace. And I think once we've got through all of that, that couple of weeks, once I came out the other side of that, all I wanted to do was just make sure it didn't happen again. So I was up for anything. I was like, give me all the treatment, give me all the therapy, let me work out why it's happened. Let me work out how I can make sure it doesn't happen again. So I think that was really important. And I think at that point, I didn't really even associate the stigma, because I was so determined to get better. And to make sure it didn't happen again.
Tony Winyard 14:43
And so you said, I think you said it's about 10 months. And so at what point did you think yeah, I'm back to hesitate to use the word normal, but yeah, I'm feeling okay again.
Sarah Tait 14:55
Yeah, that's funny. That word normal, isn't it? Because I think I think probably after a couple of months, I was able to do normal things in society again, like, meet friends, spend time with family, like be in a crowded room with people, which was that first couple of weeks, there's no way I could have done that, that would have been panic, I would have had so many panic attacks about. So I think I've got to the point, after a couple of months, where I was able to start seeing people again, I mean, I think even after three weeks, I went to the theatre with my husband, because we had tickets booked, I think it was only three weeks after it happened. But I remember being very overwhelmed and all of the lights flashing really brightly, and it being a lot. So do remember that. And I think it's funny, because I look back on points now. And I remember at that point, thinking I was, so I'm sort of good there. But then I look back now and I'm like, I'm so much better now. So it's interesting, I remember when I went back to work, so I actually went back to work whilst I was still having therapy. So I went back to work after six months off on a phase return. And I remember my first day back at work, and I was like, I have come so far, like I'm back at work. This is amazing. Like I'm being able to function in society. Again, I'm actually back the first day of the job. But then I also remember hearing somebody on a phone call, and then talking to a group of people, and sitting there thinking, I'm never going to be able to do that, again. I'm never going to be able to speak to a group of people on a conference call, which before was I would do it five, six times a day. And then I remember walking in, I think, and I'm never going to be able to do that again. And then it wasn't until a year later that I was then doing a conference call in front of like hundreds of people sharing my actual mental health journey. And then I thought that day. Wow, look how far I've come. And then I fast forward to now and I've done an NLP qualification. So Neuro Linguistic Programming, I've set up a coaching business to help other people. And I now speaking on podcast, and now I think, look how far I've come. So I think it's really interesting that it is I hate to use the word journey, but there's nothing else that describes it in the way that journey does. Because it is and I feel as though I'm continuously growing and continuously peeling back the onion layers of what else I need to, to work through. Because I was that way for 30 years of my life. And actually, around that time is where it all came to head. And then lots of things got untangled as I worked through it through therapy and then understanding myself more. And now it's almost like a habit in itself of self development and getting to know yourself on a deeper level and understanding why you do the things you do. So it's almost just continued from that point.
Tony Winyard 18:08
And you mentioned, one of the things that you were determined to do was you really wanted to find out why it happened. So you wouldn't happen again. So what what do you think of word of reasons? I mean, you mentioned about the pressure of the wedding and so on. Was it was there other things that contributed to her?
Sarah Tait 18:27
I have always been a perfectionist, I've always liked things a certain way. I've always been a people pleaser taken on everyone else's. I hate to use word problems, but everyone else is. What's the right word? I've always been a people pleaser. And I've always thought I want to help as many people as I can. But by doing that, I wasn't helping myself. So I think what happened is through therapy, I was able to have a real stark reality of actually if I continue to want work in the same way that I worked previously worked really long hours, which again was all about seeking approval and wanting to do really well in the workplace and wanting to be a perfectionist and keep on top of my emails. If I continued to do that, then it's only going to end again in the same way or I would have been that person that when they retired they dropped down dead because they weren't quite sure their body couldn't cope without the amount of work that they were doing. So there was lots of unhealthy habits and behaviours that I had that led up to that point and a lot of it I think now I know about NLP I know that most of the way that you view the world and most of your habits and behaviours actually come from a lot younger on in life. And I think I had a great childhood and I was the only child in the family For five years, and I had the unbelievable amount of praise, and you're amazing, and you're great at this, and you're gonna do really well in life, and you're gonna succeed, you're always doing really well. And it's almost as if that shapes your character. So you then take that through the rest of your life. And I think people sometimes think, well, if people have got problems in later life, maybe they had a bad childhood. It's not about that, I think it's about how you work conditions, and I was almost conditioned to be pushed, so great at everything, and she's so good at this, it's like, I have to live up to it. So I then continue the rest of my life trying to live up to this expectation of myself, of what that if I do that, I get really good praise. So I need to make sure and then seek your approval and doing a really good job. But nothing was ever really good enough for me, not for others. And it was these really high expectations that I set myself that all of a sudden, it was almost like, I had to put the brakes on. And it was like it all came at once. It was like you either carry on doing what you were doing, and carry on in that same cycle, or you decide to learn some new habits and behaviours and learn a new way of living and have a different outlook on life. So that that never happens again.
Tony Winyard 21:14
And what you've just described, I'm guessing you're familiar with the growth mindset and fixed mindset?
Sarah Tait 21:19
Yeah, of course. Yeah.
Tony Winyard 21:21
Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of what you just said is kind of feeds into all of that, as well as,
Sarah Tait 21:27
oh, my mindset was so fixed, so fixed on I need to be the best need to do the best I need to need to keep continuing being the best and things like that. And it's just, yeah, it wasn't a healthy way to live. And it created lots of different behaviours around food around the way I viewed my myself physically, the way I actually looked after myself, the relationships I had with people, it's almost as if this there was like, that was one person up until that point where I have my psychotic episode. And then I was able to grow and use the growth mindset to actually continuously develop. So I am by no means perfect, and I still have bad days, and I still have a lot of triggers. But what I do now is I work through them. I'm like, Oh, that's really interesting. Where did that one come from? Why do I do that? And I actually now find it like, I find it fascinating why something might trigger me.
Tony Winyard 22:28
You know, something that's just occurred to me, as I'm listening to you speak. And I've never never thought of this before that. In many ways, it sounds to me. I mean, you give me your taken a little bit. It sounds to me, means from a mental health perspective, you're in a much healthier place than you were before the incident happened. And so that incident to actually improve your mental health, and so many people have the perspective maybe who've never had any kind of mental health issues. And so therefore, they think they're absolutely fine. From a mental health perspective. You're proof that actually, by having a mental health issue, you can improve your mental health?
Sarah Tait 23:07
Absolutely. Yeah, I think all I believe everything happens for a reason, I believe that was meant to happen to me, because it had to stop me in my tracks. And as horrible as it was for it to happen. And for those around me, it is like I needed something really big to happen to take me on a completely different road. It's like it needed to divert to say, if you carry on doing that, it's only going to end in one way. So you need to change perspective, you need to change the things that you do in your life, you need to start looking after yourself. And by doing that, you'll be then be able to continuously grow and develop and you will be able to have a much better relationship with yourself and a much better relationship with your mental health and the way you look after yourself. So yeah, absolutely, I actually wouldn't change it happening. So as horrible as it was for it to happen. I wouldn't change it. I'm not advocating that everybody goes through it to get to a better place because there's definitely other ways. But I think that having been through that has brought me to where I'm supposed to be today. And that is a much healthier outlook on life. And like growth mindset, like we were saying, and being able to help others, which I think is really important.
Tony Winyard 24:26
Well, so in helping others. I mean, you touched upon NLP. So how did you discover NLP and what happened?
Sarah Tait 24:34
It sort of just fell into my lap. It was really it was really amazing. I am when I recovered and was signed off with my therapy. I had a blog for self improvement, self development, I set up an Instagram page to share my journey. People naturally gravitated towards me and was asking me things about it and because I've always been quite open person. I was very open with what What happened to me? So if anyone asked, I would be very open about it. And I think what happened is, people started asking me for advice. The only advice I had was the advice I learned in therapy, which was great. But it was no qualification or training or anything like that. So I knew I wanted to do something, but I wasn't sure what it was. And I was on a conference call at work, and we have lots of development sessions at work. And one of my friends that was also on the conference call messaged me and said, that book they're talking about, I'm actually in that book. And I was like, wow, okay, why are you in that book? And she said, when I did my NLP training, I got featured in that book. And I was like, What's NLP? She was like, Oh, my God, Sara, you would love it. And she explained it to me. And she said, there's this amazing company that I learned with Dave on a two free day core. So go and try it for the first two days, if you like it, then you can continue. And I went for the first two days. And I was like, this is where I'm meant to be. This is what I'm meant to be doing. This brings together everything that I believe to be true about mental health, about how people can grow through things. This is my path. This is my journey. This is where I'm meant to be. And then it's just gone. From there. I did my practitioner training, which is the first level and then I did my master practitioner training, which included hypnotherapy as well, which is the the top level of Master Practitioner NLP training. And then I, I could go on if I wanted to, to do trainer trainer to train other people to do it. But I decided at the moment that I am really interested in helping people one on one. So I set up a coaching business in September last year. And I've been helping people using NLP which I find amazing. And not only do I absolutely love watching people grow and improve their current circumstances, I learned so much for my clients as well about me and about who I am as a person. So it's just, it's just great, I just absolutely love
Jingle 27:14
it. We hope you're enjoying this episode of the habits and health podcast, where we believe that creating healthy habits should be easy. If you know a friend or a loved one who might be interested in learning simple habits to improve their health, then please share this podcast with them. We also invite you to subscribe, and to leave us a review on your favourite podcast app. Now, back to the show.
Tony Winyard 27:39
And so you when did you sort of the most recent course that you did? When was that last year?
Sarah Tait 27:50
Yeah, so I did that last year. So I fully qualified at the end of July.
Tony Winyard 27:54
And what was there anything? I mean, I there's probably a number of things that you learn about yourself doing that shining? But what, what was the thing? Is there anything that most surprised you, which is
Sarah Tait 28:07
what I didn't know, before I did NLP was about how everybody views the world completely differently. So we all view the world completely differently based on the experiences that we've been through, that seems quite obvious. But get into the root of how that happens, and how people build their maps of the world, and then how they then filter information in from the external world internally, and then make it mean something to them. That was fascinating. So I think what it did for me is even though through therapy, I knew and I understood why I'd got to that point, I think what NLP did was helped me really identify what my triggers were, and why some of them were so strong, why some of them weren't as strong. And why I did the things that I did even before therapy, because I think at the time when I had therapy, it was very much like survival, I needed to work through those things that I needed to go through at that point to be able to function again in society. Whereas when I did NLP, I was already fully functioning in society, and I was able to then go even deeper and work out. Okay, that makes sense that why I would be triggered by that because of something that had happened in my past. And I was able to make all of those links back, which in itself was fascinating.
Tony Winyard 29:38
So since you've Well, the people you're working with now to the clients you're working with, are they is it? Do you have like a niche of people who went through something similar to what you went through? Or is it more broad than that?
Sarah Tait 29:53
I like to describe it as helping people before they get to the point I got to So if I think about all the things that I was doing, pre my psychotic episode, the people pleasing, they're trying to stay on top of everything, they're trying to be everything to everyone. They're not looking after myself, all of those things that contributed to me having a psychotic episode. They're the people I like to try and help now, so that they never get to that point. So I can almost like help divert them off the current path that they're on, before it gets down that road. And so, generally, the people I help are quite similar to myself pre psychotic episode, that are perfectionist people pleasers, trying to do everything got to do constant to do list in their heads, those types of people.
Tony Winyard 30:44
So why would they come to you in the first place? What what is it that makes them think I need to change something and then come to university?
Sarah Tait 30:54
I'd like to think that it is. They've seen what I've been through, and therefore know that there's hope. But no matter what they're going through, or no matter what they're feeling, that they can come to somebody that can understand their current situation, and move them from either out of that current situation, or to a completely new new situation. So I think people always have in them something they want to change, or somewhere they want to get to. And I think what for me, NLP coaching does is just help enable that.
Tony Winyard 31:39
So if so one question that's coming to my mind, and it's kind of, I guess, two parts. So people listening to this now, May, how could they spot a close family member or close friend, spouse? who maybe has similar? Who may? If they continue the way they are to have issues like that? You've you've mentioned that mentioned about? Or? Or how could they recognise it in themselves that they are going in that direction?
Sarah Tait 32:11
So I think some of the biggest warning signs for me, which I completely ignored is I stopped doing anything I laughed. So if you, you, yourself, or somebody, you know, has completely shut everybody out and stopped doing the things they loved and almost retreated into themselves. That isn't to say that that's going to end up in psychosis. But that, for me is a warning sign of somebody isn't quite right. And what
Tony Winyard 32:38
would what makes excuses what would they say as to why they're stopping doing things they enjoy, what you don't know, would be saying what kind of things
Sarah Tait 32:49
to think of some of the things that I would have said, I, I just didn't, I didn't make time for it's not about other people, it's I didn't even make time for doing things. For me, all I was doing was working. So I was throwing myself into work. And I didn't allow any other space to be able to do the things I loved. So see the people that I love, do the things I love. So I think I think some of the big things would be if people are shutting out people that they love in their lives, or stopping doing the things they love in their life. And that could be a number of different excuses that they could use, they can say, well, it's too busy. I've got too much on. I'm really sorry about a con. And this is the reason why I think the big warning sign for me now is about if people are really overly apologetic about something. And they are making lots of excuses. And also, I think another warning sign is if someone's really struggling to make a choice over something, if it's a particularly it's a small choice. So that for me was a big one is I was really struggling to be able to think clearly and make a choice. And I think now I would be able to recognise that in myself and probably others and say everything feels quite full in your life. Maybe you need to take a time to have a bit of a breather from that fullness is what I would probably say.
Tony Winyard 34:15
In mean in some of the communication we had before word of recording, you mentioned about the relationship that food and exercising contributed to all of this.
Sarah Tait 34:26
Yeah, so I had always been on a diet and yo yo diet. So I would do like shaped diets during the week, and then it would hit the weekend and I would just eat takeaways all weekend. And I think that that was a form of control. I think because I was feeling out of control in other areas of my life. I think I knew I could find a way to control food. So food became something I could keep some sort of control over if everything else fails. Like it was out of control, I knew I could control what I was putting into my body. But that wasn't in a healthy way that was not eating enough during the week, and then eating way too much at the weekend. So then I'd go, right, no need to stop, we need to start everything again. And it was like I was able to set the reset button on my food, the way I was eating, it was just really unhealthy, I would feel a lot of guilt around if I had anything that wasn't as nutritious as before. And I think now what I've done is just ditch the diets for good, and just build a much better relationship with food and my body. And I think that I have, I think when you build up your self esteem, when you go through something like that, and you build back up your self esteem and your self worth, that actually just perpetuates into the rest of the environment. And that includes the way that you look physically. And the way that you look after yourself, the things that you put in your body. The when we talk about exercise, I think before I would have been really trying to hammer it in the gym. Whereas now I'm much more relaxed about my approach to exercise, I think that if I fancy going to the gym, I'll go to the gym. If I want to go for a walk, I'll go for a walk, if I want to do yoga, I'll do yoga, and there isn't that pressure that I put on myself to be like, I must go to the gym five times a week and I must do this x y Zed workout, because otherwise, the world's gonna fall apart if I don't do it. So I think that's the difference now is that it was just really unhealthy. Even the healthy things were made unhealthy because of the way I was doing them.
Tony Winyard 36:43
And so how have you. So it sounds like from what you were saying you've improved your health in many aspects, aspects, obviously, from the mental side, but also from your nutrition and your exercise. And so I wonder what have you implemented any any habits to, to take care to improve the way you're eating the way you're exercising and thinking and so on.
Sarah Tait 37:08
I think for me, the choices I make around eating and exercise come from the mindset that I've got, because I know that if my head if I've got a clearer mind and I'm feeling more positive, I'm more likely to then nourish my body in a more positive way. So for me, that all probably starts with my morning routine. And I know that if I get up and I have a really good start to the day, my morning routine involves sitting and drinking a cup of tea in complete silence with no distractions and just thinking so that's really good too. The first thing I do then I journal then I use affirmations visualisations gratitude, I absolutely swear by
Tony Winyard 37:56
when you talk about your journal and gratitude. So is it a gratitude journal? Or is it just an aspect of the journaling?
Sarah Tait 38:02
So my journaling I do is just, I just write, I find it really cathartic to just write, I think sometimes we can put too much pressure on ourselves and having a perfect journal and then needing to be prompt and then needing to be this and I've got a notepad and I just write, I write the date at the top of it. And then I just write how I'm feeling. Sometimes I write about the dreams I've had, sometimes I'll write about the day ahead. Sometimes I write about something that happened yesterday, just whatever is on my mind, I will just write about it. And you'll be surprised you can write quite a lot when you're just doing that. So I find that fascinating. So that really sets me up really well for the day. And my gratitude produced separately.
Tony Winyard 38:41
And sorry to keep in touch. But I'm just thinking so on that journaling. So say today you write three pages, for example, did you ever look back at it? Or is it just something to get out of your head?
Sarah Tait 38:52
I don't often look back at it. No, I think it's just at that point in time. How I was feeling I have looked back it before. I have seen Oh, that was how I was feeling that day. And I think if I look back at it too much, it's almost as if you're going back over old ground all the time. Whereas I think that's just how I was feeling at that point in time. So I was always going to feel that at that point in time. That's not how I feel today that's going to be different. So I don't tend to go back over them. No, I tend to just write get it out. And then my gratitude I do separately, which will be to set up my day with three things I'm grateful for. And if I don't have time to do the gratitude, I will do it while I'm brushing my teeth. So I'll just think about it rather than write it down. So always make sure that I get gratitude into my day to day routine. That for me helps to shift the brain to look for more positives. And then as you start doing that, you just seem to naturally feel more gratitude and more more gratitude towards everything and more positive In general, I think gratitude is brilliant. And so I think it starts with me with my morning routine. And then that almost goes into the rest of the day. If I then if I woke up, and I've had that really nourishing time for myself in the morning, I then tend to nourish myself better throughout the day.
Tony Winyard 40:18
So that makes me wonder how can you remember how did you feel much gratitude before all of this happen? Did you have much gratitude to towards things in general?
Sarah Tait 40:30
I think before I was always chasing the next thing, and never reflecting on the moment of what I actually had, I think I always wanted more. And I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting more. But there is if you're not reflecting on actually what you've already got. Because what you've already got, is, will take you to wherever else you want to go. And I think it's really important to stop reflect what have you currently got? What are you grateful for, before then deciding what else you want or need in your life? And I think that's the difference, I think before I never stopped, and it was always I wanted the perfect wedding. And then as soon as the wedding was over, it was like, right, well, what's next, whereas actually, if I'd have taken time to be really grateful for the wedding, and be in a space of gratitude, I might not have then felt that afterwards, I might not have then felt that there was such a what's next, then?
Tony Winyard 41:35
My hunch is it'd be interesting to see your thoughts on this. My hunch is I think majority of people don't maybe have as much gratitude for for their own the things that they have in their life and friends and family and so on. But even more than that, this very few people, it seems to be living in a present and do reflect on on their life and things that are happening in their lives.
Sarah Tait 42:00
I think it's really hard to be completely in the present these days, because of the amount of distractions we've got. And I think it takes a lot of practice. And it's something I continuously work on daily, around practising gratitude. And being in the present moment. I think the society that we live in nowadays, there's distractions everywhere, that take you away from the present moment. And I really try to minimise those distractions as much as possible. So I don't have any notifications on my phone. So if I'm having a conversation with my husband, I'll try and turn the TV off. So there's no distractions there. There's no notifications that come in my face, I can be fully present in that conversation.
Tony Winyard 42:45
And it has to be worked on otherwise, it's just, yeah, it is a daily practice, isn't it.
Sarah Tait 42:53
So very few conversations, we have these days a distraction free. And even if they're distraction free, sometimes when we're having a conversation with someone, wherever, anticipating what they might say next, or thinking of your reaction to what they're going to say, or thinking about something else as they're talking. So very, very rarely are we completely in the present moment. And I think that's it does take practice, it is a muscle that you need to practice, you wouldn't expect to go into the gym and be able to pick up the heaviest weight first time round. So you can't expect that you're going to be completely in the present every minute of every day. It does take practice it is training your brain. And meditation is really good for that journal is really good for it. Finding moments of mindfulness for me is really important. And my days can be quite busy. So I think sometimes it's just taken a moment to sit on my sofa with a cup of tea with my dog, and just being like, Ha, let's just let all the thoughts settle. And let's just practice a bit of mindfulness in this moment, actually, how does the taste? How does the tea taste? How does how hot is it? How warm is it, that sort of thing. So I think those little moments of mindfulness are really important to incorporate into your day, to enable you to feel more grounded in the present.
Tony Winyard 44:18
So if someone's listening to this and thinking, I am distracted all the time, I don't have focus and and they they love what you've just said about how being more present and what what initial steps would you recommend people could take to maybe start to go towards that direction.
Sarah Tait 44:39
I would work out what distracts you from the present moment. That's a really good place to start. So I know that my phone can be really distracted. So if you break down what is it that takes you away from the present moment, whether that be physically or your thoughts that you're having? That way you can then start to break down Okay, so if it's my phone that distracts me from being in the present moment, what can I change about how I use my phone? To ensure that it doesn't take me away from the present moment? Can I therefore have screen top of screen three days of screen free evenings? Can I change my the way my notifications come up on my phone? Can I put my phone in a different room for half an hour? Like those sorts of things? And then I think around the thoughts, it's about journaling on them, I would say is, if there's repetitive thoughts that you're getting that are taking you away from the present moment, just sit and write about them. So you can be present with those thoughts.
Tony Winyard 45:37
But what barmy may people say that they've tried to journal and they do it for a couple of days, and then it stops? And then they try it again a few months later, and it's how could you give any tips for someone to make journaling and habitual thing that they do daily?
Sarah Tait 45:54
I think Have you heard of the habit loop?
Tony Winyard 45:56
The habit loop? Yeah,
Sarah Tait 45:57
I find that really interesting. So habit loop is about the initial trigger of the habit, and then the the action that you take, and then the reward that you get out of the back of it. So I think you there needs to be a reward for the habit, because otherwise, you're not going to stick to it. So for me, the reward for journaling is that it clears my mind. So if I don't do it, I know that my mind feels more full. So then why not? What's the benefit of it? So if you then know that the reward you get the back of that you get a clearer mind? For me, I would then question why would I not do it? So it's not a case of building in why you do it, it's why would you not do it. The other thing that's really good with habits is habit stacking, so attaching a habit to something you already do. So if you already get up in the morning, and maybe read the paper, you could have your journal next to the paper, which means that as soon as you open the paper, the next thing you know you do is then to journal or get out of bed and have your journal, your journal on top of your phone. So actually, you pick up your journal first. So whatever your current habit is, you have add in it physically in, or like I said, about when you're brushing your teeth, when you brush your teeth in the morning, added in gratitude at that point as a habit. So attaching habits to things that you already do throughout the day that are already you subconsciously do without even thinking about them, that can be a really good way to make sure that they stay as a habit.
Tony Winyard 47:35
Well, where time is pushing on, Sarah So a couple of questions I always ask every guest before we finish is, is there is there a book that comes to mind has really moved you in any way that comes to mind quickly.
Sarah Tait 47:51
So the book that I have loved the most. And I pick up every now and again is The Secret. And that's all about the law of attraction and how what you put out is what you get back. So it's about focusing on what actually is it that you want, and then visualising that, and working towards that. And that, for me has been an amazing book that I've read that's opened up possibilities that I never thought could be true. But it really does prove the power of your mind.
Tony Winyard 48:26
When if people want to find out more about you, your website, your social media, and so on, where where would they look.
Sarah Tait 48:33
So I'm on Instagram at iamsarahtait/ And I'm on Facebook at Iamsarahtait And on Facebook, it comes out Sarah tait coach and speaker. I'm working on my website at the moment. So that will be available in the next couple of months. And that'll be Sarahtait.co.uk.
Tony Winyard 48:52
And finally, Sarah, is there a quotation you particularly like?
Sarah Tait 48:56
I love the quote by Henry Ford, which is whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right.
Tony Winyard 49:06
Why does that speak to you?
Sarah Tait 49:08
Because it just shows you the power of your mind. So if you believe that you could do something you absolutely can. If you think you can't do it, you're also right, you probably won't be able to. So it just shows the power of your thoughts and how by believing in what you want, and how you can get it you absolutely care.
Tony Winyard 49:31
Sarah, thank you for your time. And it's been it's been a pleasure chatting to you. Thank you.
Sarah Tait 49:35
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Tony Winyard 49:40
Next week is episode 54 with Tina McDermott, and she spent most of her life struggling with digestive issues and she didn't understand the embarrassing gas and bloating and constipation and the yo yo weight gain or loss. All of that was connected. And so we discuss about how she discovered that and then what she did and a lot more. So that's next week in Episode 54 with Tina McDermott. If you know anyone who would get some value from some of the information that Sarah shared with us in this episode around mental health, please do share the episode with them. Hope you have a great week.
Jingle 50:21
Thanks for tuning in to the habits and health podcast where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a review on your favourite podcast app. Sign up for email updates and learn about coaching and workshop opportunities at Tonywinyard.com See you next time on the habits and health podcast.
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The post Sarah Tait appeared first on Tony Winyard.
Three weeks ago, I moved into a friend’s house, knowing that they owned a cat, and the significance of that is, I have an allergy to cats.
Over the last few years, since I’ve started practicing breathwork daily, I’ve used my asthma inhaler on a handful of occasions, and I’d noticed that when visiting friends who owned cats, my allergic reaction appeared to be less strong than those I had before beginning the regular breathwork, and so wondered whether I had de-sensitised myself a little to cats?
On the day I moved in I needed to use my inhaler multiple times, however at that point I was living out of tons of cardboard boxes, and was surrounded by them, and knowing that I am also allergic to dust mites, it was far from clear whether it was the cat, the dust, or both.
A few days later, with fewer boxes and having hoovered, but the frequency of requiring the asthma medication not reducing, it seemed to become clearer that my thoughts about having desensitised myself to cats were false.
After two weeks of living there, it was pretty obvious the cat allergy was causing my regular wheeziness and shortness of breath. I now live in a very hilly area, and I was getting out of breath just walking up hills, whereas a few weeks before, I could walk up hills at a pretty fast pace with no issues. So last week I decided I needed to be proactive about this, and take some steps to address the issue.
I decided to do a daily routine comprising 4 protocols: 1. Daily cold shower plus Wim Hof/Tummo breathing 2. Buteyko breathwork exercises 5 times a day 3. Adopted a low histamine diet 4. Oxygen Advantage “Breathe Light to Breathe Right” breath-hold exercise
Below is a more detailed journal of the routine I followed.
But in short, I began this routine on Feb 9 and used the inhaler 3 times that day. My guess was it would take a few weeks for it to show some signs of improving.
As I had been using the asthma inhaler so frequently in the first two weeks of moving, it was running low. I contacted the new GP surgery I had registered with and requested a prescription for some new asthma medication. They told me I would need to speak with their “Asthma nurse”. It was a telephone consultation, which took place on Feb 10.
During the conversation with the nurse, she indicated she had never heard of the Buteyko method, and it was clear from her voice she was very dismissive of how any breathing protocols might help. She told me I needed to take the “Preventer inhaler” before sleep and after waking daily, but that it would take maybe a week before the effects really took hold, and so in the meantime, I might need to continue with the “Reliever inhaler” for a few days more, and to then come in and see her on March 17.
I told her I had started a routine to combat this and was quite confident that I would not need to take so much medication, and that I was feeling a little better already (that was the 2nd day of the routine). Again, she repeated I should take the medication twice a day and seemingly ignored what I had told her. Even though I had also informed her, I was trained as an instructor in these breathing methods.
The inhaler was used three times on Feb 9, once on Feb 10, and has not been used at all since then!
I’m writing this on the evening of Feb 14 and I feel immensely stronger than when I began this routine five days ago. I find it unlikely I’ll require use of the medication again between now and seeing the nurse on March 17, and it will be interesting to see how that conversation goes.
Here is a journal of how this progressed over a 5-day period:
February 9: First thing after waking: 5 sets of 30 rapid breaths in a Wim Hof/Tummo style, followed by a 90 second cold shower and then some more Wim Hof breathing and other exercises that are part of the Wim Hof method-WHM). Followed by the first set of Buteyko breathing, which was 5 sets of breath holds on the exhale (Each set was 10% longer than the previous one. 1st set: 25 seconds 2nd set: 27 3rd set: 30 4th set: 33 5th set: 37 Between each set, 2 minutes of light breathing, followed by 1 minute of normal breathing) Morning walk, up and down hills. Struggled up some hills and required use of inhaler. 2nd Buteyko session before lunch. At lunchtime, I began the low histamine diet, which essentially reduces the amount of non-fresh and fermented foods. Evening meal: There were 3 further Buteyko sessions between 3pm and 10pm, followed by as part of my evening wind-down routine; 20 minutes session of slow breathing (known in the Oxygen Advantage method as “Breathe Light to Breathe Right” BLBR, in which I did Inhale: 4 seconds Breath hold: 2 seconds Exhale: 10 seconds Pause: 2 seconds
Repeated for 20 minutes.
Used asthma inhaler 3 times.
February 10: After waking: 5 sets of 30 rapid breaths in WHM/Tummo style 90 second cold shower and then some more WHM breathing and other exercises part of WHM. First set of Buteyko breathing: 5 sets of breath holds on the exhale 1st set: 25 seconds 2nd set: 27 3rd set: 30 4th set: 33 5th set: 37 Between each set, 2 minutes of light breathing, followed by 1 minute of normal breathing) Morning walk, up and down hills. Struggled up some hills , took a rest partway. 2nd Buteyko session Lunchtime: Decided to do a 42 hour water fast (I have been doing regular water fasts for a few years now, so am very used to them). No food today. Last meal was at 4.30pm on Feb 9. 3 further Buteyko sessions between 3pm and 10pm
Evening wind-down routine; 20 minutes session of BLBR
Used asthma inhaler 1 time.
February 11: After waking: 5 sets of 30 rapid breaths in WHM/Tummo style 90 second cold shower and then some more WHM breathing and other exercises part of WHM. First set of Buteyko breathing: 5 sets of breath holds on the exhale 1st set: 35 seconds 2nd set: 38 3rd set: 42 4th set: 46 5th set: 52 Between each set, 2 minutes of light breathing, followed by 1 minute of normal breathing) Morning walk, up and down hills. Struggled up some hills , took a rest partway. 2nd Buteyko session Lunchtime: Continued on Low histamine diet. Evening meal: 3 further Buteyko sessions between 3pm and 10pm
Evening wind-down routine; 20 minutes session of BLBR
Used asthma inhaler 0 times.
February 12: After waking: 5 sets of 30 rapid breaths in WHM/Tummo style 90 second cold shower and then some more WHM breathing and other exercises part of WHM. First set of Buteyko breathing: 5 sets of breath holds on the exhale 1st set: 35 seconds 2nd set: 38 3rd set: 42 4th set: 46 5th set: 52 Between each set, 2 minutes of light breathing, followed by 1 minute of normal breathing) Morning walk, up and down hills. Hills were much easier, but walked relatively slow. 2nd Buteyko session Lunchtime: Continued on Low histamine diet. Evening meal: 3 further Buteyko sessions between 3pm and 10pm
Evening wind-down routine; 20 minutes session of BLBR
Used asthma inhaler 0 times.
February 13: After waking: 5 sets of 30 rapid breaths in WHM/Tummo style 90 second cold shower and then some more WHM breathing and other exercises part of WHM. First set of Buteyko breathing: 5 sets of breath holds on the exhale 1st set: 40 seconds 2nd set: 44 3rd set: 48 4th set: 53 5th set: 58 Between each set, 2 minutes of light breathing, followed by 1 minute of normal breathing) Morning walk, up and down hills. Hills were much easier, walked slightly faster and felt much stronger. 2nd Buteyko session Lunchtime: Continued on Low histamine diet. Evening meal: 3 further Buteyko sessions between 3pm and 10pm
Evening wind-down routine; 20 minutes session of BLBR
Used asthma inhaler 0 times.
February 14: After waking: 5 sets of 30 rapid breaths in WHM/Tummo style 90 second cold shower and then some more WHM breathing and other exercises part of WHM. First set of Buteyko breathing: 5 sets of breath holds on the exhale 1st set: 40 seconds 2nd set: 44 3rd set: 48 4th set: 53 5th set: 58 Between each set, 2 minutes of light breathing, followed by 1 minute of normal breathing) Played football, and again felt far stronger. 2nd Buteyko session Lunchtime: Continued on Low histamine diet. Evening meal: 3 further Buteyko sessions between 3pm and 10pm
Evening wind-down routine; 20 minutes session of BLBR
Used asthma inhaler 0 times.
Disclosure: I am an Oxygen Advantage instructor and also a Health Coach trained in nutrition.
Before moving into this house, I was pretty fit, and was alarmed at how quickly my respiration declined. However, the fact that it had been at a strong starting point was almost certainly a contributing factor to the speed of this recovery.
The above is not intended as advice. The routine that is right for a person depends on many different factors, including their age, fitness level, metabolism, time available to practice, how they eat, how their sleep quality/quantity is, and stress levels, to name a few.
Links: Download the free Wim Hof method app on Apple Download the free Wim Hof Method app on Android One to one coaching with me on Buteyko and/or Oxygen Advantage Low Histamine Diet The Oxygen Advantage The post Is medication for asthma the only solution to controlling it? appeared first on Tony Winyard.
Habits & Health episode 52 with Dr Jenny Goodman. She is a member of the British Society for Ecological Medicine, has specialised in Nutritional and Environmental Medicine for the last 20 years and has a particular interest in pre-conception care (fertility and making healthy babies), and in working with children. Jenny has lectured extensively, to other doctors, to practitioners of alternative medicine, and to the general public. She ran a case-discussion group for 10 years, where medical and naturopathic/nutritional practitioners share knowledge and clinical experience.
She is the author of “Staying Alive in Toxic Times: A Seasonal Guide to Lifelong Health”.
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Listen on Stitcher
Links:
Website: drjennygoodman.com
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dr_jenny_goodman/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/DrJennyGoodman Twitter https://twitter.com/drjennygoodman Upcoming Speaking Events:
- Meeting of The Nutrition Collective, at the Medical Society of London, on the evening of Thurs 24th Feb
- The Health Optimisation Summit in London on the w/e of May 28-29
- Oxford Literary Festival on March 31st
Book:
Staying Alive in Toxic Times: A Seasonal Guide to Lifelong Health
Recommended books:
Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy
The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin
Favourite quote:
“I’d rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned” Professor Richard Feynman
Don’t forget, there is a transcript of every episode (scroll down the page)
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Jingle 0:00
Habits and health episode 52. Welcome to the habits and health podcast, where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. Brought to you by an educator and coach for anyone who wants to create a healthier life. Here's your host, Tony Winyard.
Tony Winyard 0:20
Welcome to one year of habits and health, yes the Habits & Health podcast started exactly one year ago, this day this week, episode 52. Dr. Jenny Goodman is my guest today. She recently released a book or in the last couple of years, called Staying alive in toxic times. And it's an absolutely superb book. I've read it three times, because there's just so much good information in there. And I was delighted that Jenny accepted the invitation to be a guest on the show. We cover lots of different ground around habits and nutrition and toxicity and many other areas. So hope you enjoy this week's episode with Dr. Jenny Goodman. habits and health my guest today Dr. Jenny Goodman, How are you Jenny?
Dr Jenny Goodman 1:11
I'm very well, thank you. Pleased to be joining you.
Tony Winyard 1:14
And I am so happy that you're here. I mentioned to you just now before we started recording, I've read your book numerous times. Now. I think I'm on the third time it may be the fourth. I don't know. But it's it's a fantastic book. For people who who have come to this may be don't know so much about you. When you meet someone in a networking meeting what do you say about your background?
Dr Jenny Goodman 1:38
Oh, gosh, well, um, I've started calling myself a rebel medic, or a radical doctor. And I qualified a million years ago back in 1982. And I, you know, I worked as a junior hospital doctor for a while, I worked in a&e. And I liked that best because I felt everything I was doing was right. But in all other departments of the hospital, I felt everything we're doing is too little too late, or actually making people worse. Or certainly I didn't learn much about healing, and even less about the causes of illness and the prevention of illness. And I used to ask questions on the ward rounds, like why has this person got liver cancer? Or why is this person so ill? And not only did I not get an answer, the very question itself was taboo. Now that's improved a little bit, but not that much. So, you know, basically, I couldn't find a way of doing what I had imagined medicine would be, until very luckily, in the 1990s, I discovered the British society for ecological medicine. Now, that was a bunch of doctors, disillusioned medics, asking all the same questions. I'd been asking, Why is this person got healed? How can we prevent it? Why are millions of us dying of cancer, diabetes, dementia, heart disease, what's going on with all these real pandemics? And these guys were finding answers. So I was very lucky, I did a two year post grad training with them in ecological medicine. And I found them just at the time that course was beginning. So it was serendipitous. And what ecological medicine is, which I've now been practising for 22 years, is it's ecological in two ways. One is that it sees the whole body as one joined up ecosystem. So for example, you might have a pain in your joints, painful joints, and you get sent to the rheumatologist, you also have a persistent skin rash, and so you're sent to the dermatologist, but you also have palpitations and so you're sent to the cardiologist. Now, those three speciality is those three specialists will never speak to each other. They'll never sit in a room and say, what's going on in this person's body, but suddenly, they have these three problems. And if you could magically put them in a room together, they wouldn't know what to say to each other. So ecological medicine is saying, Look, all these things are going on in one person, one body, what is the link? What is the cause? Or more likely, what are the multiple causes contributing to that? And we look for the causes, in terms of nutrition, what's going on, and what's failing to go in for various reasons. And we can come in a minute to why most of us in the West are actually paradoxically, undernourished. Even if we're in beast, we're undernourished. And the other thing, of course we look at is the environment and environmental medicine is crucial, because it's looking at the toxins in our Earth, our soil, and therefore our food, and our water and our air that are making us ill and behind so many of these new post industrial epidemics. Now, the other sense in which ecological medicine is ecological is that it sees the human body within the wider ecosystem of the planet. You know, we are part of nature. And if we try to see ourselves as separate, the consequences are pretty disastrous. So you know, we're extracting All these resources which are finite from the earth and poisonous in the process. And as I think I say, at the beginning of chapter seven, you can't poison the planet without poisoning the people. So ecological medicine, in practice is an education about what we're doing to ourselves on the planet and how to reverse it. But also how to help the individual person, understand why they're lacking in nutrients, why they're poisoned, and how to change it. And there are many, many ways of changing it of getting better nutrition, and avoiding the environmental toxins. And they're simpler than you might expect.
Tony Winyard 5:40
When you said in the 90s, you joined the Society of ecological medicine...
Dr Jenny Goodman 5:47
society for ecological medicine?
Tony Winyard 5:51
I gather from what you said, it wasn't so big then, Are there many more people now?
Dr Jenny Goodman 5:57
I believe it started back in 1983, I think from the merger of two societies, one about nutrition and one about allergy and environmental toxins, it was called something different back then it's getting bigger all the time. And we've got more and more doctors applying to join. And not just GPS anymore, but all sorts of consultants from every speciality, who want to know how to really help their patients, and how to help them long term, improve their health and stay well, rather than just suppress the symptoms and treat what presents in the moment. So give you an example. Again, if you go to your doctor, your GP and you say, Oh, I've got symptoms in every system of the body, my head hurts, I've got a headache, I'm exhausted, I've got muscle pain, I can't think straight, my brain is not working properly. And let's say you're a woman and your menstrual cycles, all disrupted, and your joints are hurting, and you're a bit short of breath. Now that is symptoms in about five or six different body systems. Your poor old beleaguered GP will scratch her head and say, Do you know what it's all in your head, nobody can have that many illnesses at once, and will give you a prescription for an antidepressant, which of course will only make things worse. But the irony is that when the GP says it's all in your head, they may be literally correct, because most of the toxins in our environment that are damaging us are things like pesticides, or plastics, plasticizer, chemicals, and petrochemicals, all of which are fat soluble, technically, they're called lipophilic, which means they dissolve in fatty tissue, that means they'll get through the skin, for example, the benzene in a commercial perfume, and then they'll get through all the cell membranes into all the cells. And they will accumulate wherever we have most fatty tissue, which is in the brain. Right? So our brains are being damaged at every stage of the lifecycle by these fat soluble petrochemicals, which are everywhere. And chapter seven, and my book is full of all sorts of tips on how to avoid them, and identify them and get them out of your system permanently if they're in there. Yeah, so the GPU says it's all in your head maybe being rather more accurate than he thinks.
Tony Winyard 8:27
You mentioned about the growth of the the Ecological Society and, there seem to be many other sort of similar movements such as integrative medicine and functional medicine. Around the world, this looking at everything holistically seems to be happening much more now. It's
Dr Jenny Goodman 8:45
taking off. And frankly, doctors have been slow on the uptake. Because for hundreds of years, we've had herbalist, herbal herbal medicine is the oldest medicine in the world. It's simple. It's earth based, you take the plant, and you learn over hundreds of years. Empirically what makes people better although herbalist now of course, have all the biochemistry backing up what they've been doing all along. So holistic medicine has been very much in the alternative medicine world but the past three or four decades, doctors have been rushing to catch up. Functional Medicine is the American term.
And I have a problem with it because it doesn't tell you much. But in conventional medicine, functional has the association of imaginary or psychosomatic or being all in your mind. So it's confusing for us over here. Ecological medicine is the British version. It's been going for much longer. The British society for ecological medicine is an educational charity. Basically we want reran trainings, the Institute for Functional Medicine while it does absolutely brilliant trainings, it is a commercial organisation you know, it is not not for profit, it is for profit. And so they're much bigger, much louder and they have the Very intensive five day trainings, which are very good, because graduates of that training have sat in with me on my consultations, and they know their stuff. So this is blooming everywhere, especially in the past couple of years. And a lot of it, it's just common sense, you know, if the body is not working while you ask yourself, What's it missing? What does it need, and often what it needs is the nutrients that are or should be in our normal food. Okay, so vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, plenty of water, plenty of good proteins should simply be part of our food. But even if you're eating a really healthy, so called balanced diet, or we could argue till the cows come home, or the lentils come home about what constitutes balance, and but even if you're eating everything, right, it's not necessarily the case that your vitamins and minerals and everything you need is in that food. And this is where we cannot separate health from modern agricultural practices. Okay, so after the Second World War, there was this panic about food security. And the idea that we must be self sufficient, and therefore, we must, although we're not, and we must grow much more intensively. So farmers were encouraged to use all these pesticides and nitrogen fertilisers, which make no mistake were derived from nerve gases used in both World Wars. And you know, once the war was over, the manufacturers needed an outlet. And that combined with the government's desire to produce food much more intensively. So what we're looking at now many decades later, is we're looking at soil that's utterly depleted of its nutrients. Because if you force the soil to grow three or four crops in a year, was previously it was only sustaining one crop. And if you put on so much fertiliser, that you've forced the plants to take all the nutrients out of the soil, then you've got depleted soil, you've got depleted crops, if you eat those vegetables, and those fruits, and those grains and those pulses, there's not enough nutrients in them. And if you eat the animals that have been fed on those crops, you're also eating food that's been depleted. And not only are they depleting the soil, they're poisoning it with the pesticides and with the fertilisers. And by the way, one of the waste products of the phosphate fertiliser industry is fluoride, which they're not allowed to release from factory chimneys get this because it's too toxic. So they're trying to put it in our water supply. And they've already put it in toothpaste and in the drops that the dentist puts on your kid's teeth without asking you or telling you, and so on. So, it's an inter woven Web. As Daniel Barenboim said, everything is connected. And that's why some of us some of the time, need nutritional supplements, because there just isn't enough in our food. Now, you can increase your nutrient intake, for example, rather than just eating salad, you can reduce it. And you can make a lot of vegetable juice, which has got concentrated nutrients. And of course, if you eat organic, if you eat real Soil Association approved organic, then you're not eating the pesticides, and you're not eating my fertilisers. And I think that's the single most important change and the first change even if it's the only change to make. Now people do say to me, but you know, organic food is so expensive. Well, the first thing to say is yes, it is and it shouldn't be and write to your MP and say, Why does the government continue to subsidise the big agro chemical farmers who cover our landscape with these uniform mono crops of rapeseed oil and, and ruin the biodiversity in the soil, which leads to lack of biodiversity in our gut? damages our microbiome? Why aren't they subsidising the good old organic farmers who are keeping us healthy? So that's one response. The second response is, what proportion of your income do you spend on food? Because in the 1950s, we spent about a third of our total income on food. It's gone down and down and down. Now it's about 8%. On average. Yeah, I mean, I have some lovely neighbours down the road, who say to me, gosh, how can you afford all that organic food? Oh, by the way, and I got to cancel next week's that social gathering because we're going to Australia for six weeks, which is obviously a story from before the pandemic, right. And these people literally went on a six week holiday to Australia and claimed they can't afford organic food. Now, I can't afford a holiday in Australia. Not that it would be my chosen destination right now. But because I choose to prioritise eating organic, and the third thing or the fourth thing, whichever it is, it's If you're a meat eater, if you're a carnivore, then changing to organic means that instead of eating chicken or beef or lamb or pork five or six times a week, you can afford to eat it only once or twice a week, but make sure it's organic, and free range. And that's better for you and the planet in lots of different ways. So the sad thing is, we end up in a situation where however, well we try to eat, some of us need some supplements some of the time, you know, in a British winter, we need vitamin C, vitamin D, and zinc. And in a viral pandemic, I would say we need those even through the summer, although that may not be the case this summer 2022.
Tony Winyard 15:43
You were talking about the organic food and how the soil has so many more nutrients and the plants and so but something else as well about the organic food, which I think a lot of people don't don't know about is when the vegetables haven't been subjected to all those so called protection, pesticides and herbicides and so on. They then have to fend for themselves. So they create additional sort of nutrients, which are beneficial for us as well,
Dr Jenny Goodman 16:14
indeed, and in regenerative agriculture, they're utilising that capacity of plants to protect themselves. So there have always been predators. There have always been pests. But yes, you're right. Plants have always produced substances to protect themselves from their their enemies in nature. And one of the ways to make this work even better is what's called companion planting. So you get these problems with pests and predators. If you have monoculture. If you only growing one crop over a vast area, then any pests that like to feed on that crop will will come in and will overgrow will multiply hugely with if you've got 10 or 12 different types of plants in one small acreage, then they protect each other in I mean marigolds like calendula and garlic will protect other crops because they'll fend off the predators and so on. So agro ecology, including agroforestry, or forested agriculture, is utilising this so you don't just have the crop you're growing, you have lots of different crops, you have trees, and you have animals doing what animals have done on farms for 10,000 years, which is wandering around and pooing. So they naturally fertilise the soil. And they some of the things that you don't want to be there. Some of the things that you do want to be there, but it's all about balance. So mixed Farms is the way to go small scale, family size mixed farms, where you grow a little bit of everything. And there are lots of really exciting ventures happening in this regard now. And I'm hoping to put a lot about regenerative farming in my next book, because you know, we cannot separate what's happening in the field, from what's happening in our gut, which just takes me back to another point about why we may be nutritionally deficient deficient, even if we're eating well, and that is that our guts aren't working so well. Our small intestine and stomach generally is not as good as it was a few generations ago at absorbing the nutrients, vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids from our food. Because the microbiome is compromised, we haven't got so many friendly good bugs in there. And we've got an awful lot of unfriendly ones. And that's because, firstly, we've been eating foods that's contaminated with pesticides. So just as those pesticides kill bugs in the soil, they will kill bugs in our intestine. But it's also because of antibiotics. And the antibiotics are not just what you get from your GP. They're what you get from eating non organic, non free range animal food. And they may even be coming out of your tap. Because every animal that's been dosed with antibiotics, and every human that's been taking antibiotics is paying and that goes down the loo into the sewage into the water table into the water system. And the water companies bless them. They take bacteria out of our water supply, but they do not take antibiotic residues, pesticide residues, fertiliser residues, which have runoff from the soil into the reservoirs. They don't remove heavy metal traces, and they don't remove the hormones. Now the hormones are in there because of all the women taking the pill or taking HRT. And now after Brexit, it's not illegal to inject hormones into animals, and therefore animals may be injected with hormones and that may get into our water table as well. So for all those reasons, but particularly the antibiotics and pesticide residues, our guts are not working as well as they might be. Taking the contraceptive pill also interferes with the balance of the bugs in the gut in coverage is the overgrowth of funky, fungal organisms. And of course, some funghi are good and some are bad, but it's all about balance. So there are lots of reasons. And of course, the main one is eating sugar. If we eat lots of sugar, we feed the unfriendly bugs in the microbiome. And just cutting sugar out the diet and having lots of dark green leafy vegetables can be enough to shift the microbiome to a healthier balance. And then your whole gut will start digesting and absorbing better.
Tony Winyard 20:31
You mentioned there about the water and all the various toxins and so on in the water. So for anyone listening to this, who's alarmed by what you just said, What recommendations would you make about what they could do?
Dr Jenny Goodman 20:44
Don't be alarmed, get a water filter. And in Oh, I think chapter seven and quite a few other places in the book, I do recommend, how to choose a water filter and how to get a good one. But a couple of criteria are make sure that the company you're buying from has been in the business of making water filters for a few decades. Make sure they didn't just jump on the bandwagon last week. And secondly, I would advise if you can, if you're living in your own home, to get a plumbed in water filter, not just the countertop one. And the couple of I mean if you if you're a student in a bed set, then a countertop water filter is absolutely better than nothing. But it's not ideal because the jug into which the water is filtering may well be plastic. Now if it's hard plastic and you keep it somewhere cold, that's all right. But it's soft, if it's soft plastic and the sun is shining on it through the window. Then the plasticizer chemicals like BPA Bisphenol A and others can get into the water. Ideally, you also want to plumbed in whole house water filter because it's not just that you want to be drinking water that hasn't got chlorine and fluoride and all the other nasties in it. You also want to be cooking your rice or boiling your pasture if you're still eating faster or whatever. With water that hasn't got those toxins in they want to be making a cup of tea with water that hasn't got those toxins in and you also want to be having a bath or a shower in water that hasn't got those toxins in. I mean, it took me I have to be on for years and years and years to get round to this laughter I knew about it. So only about two years ago. Did we finally get rid of our plumbed in water filter that was for the kitchen only and get a whole house water filter. Okay, holidays cancelled lockdown happened to get a plumbed in water filter. And I noticed the difference immediately
inserted my grown up kids and my husband who said Oh, having a long hot bath isn't irritating my skin anymore. I've stopped itching after the bath or after the shower. And now I can smell the chlorine in the water in other people's homes. And I really noticed that I can get in the shower however long I stayed It doesn't smell of chlorine. Now of course it's it's a small amount compared to the swimming pool, but it's every day. So I think again, that's an investment worth making. Now it shouldn't be necessary, but it now we'll be more than ever. I don't know if any of you have noticed our beloved and beleaguered Prime Minister Dr. Boris Johnson a few weeks ago discovered a sudden deep concern for Children's Dental Health. Isn't that remarkable how much he cares about children's teeth. So he said we've got to put fluoride in the water supply throughout the UK. Now, it's already been in the water supply in some parts of the UK for a very long time. Birmingham and the West Midlands. Now in my practice, I've seen children as well as adults from all over Britain and Ireland in Europe. And many of them have neurodevelopmental disorders, whether or not it's diagnosed as autism or whatever neurodevelopmental delay, and some of them have bone disorders. And there is a disproportionate number of those kids that I've seen. This is just my experience from Birmingham in the West Midlands where they've had fluoride in their water supply for many decades. I think they were the guinea pigs for this in the UK. And the number of kids with bone and brain problems from as I've seen is quite extraordinary. And back in the 90s, I saw statistics that they had a much higher rate than the national average of osteosarcoma, which is a very dangerous primary bone tumour I can't find those papers anymore. But the point is that it used to be up to the local council the local authorities to decide what they would put in their water supply. And there are other parts of the UK now that I think have this um, Southampton and parts of the Northeast parts of Cheshire and the Republic of Ireland has it as well. London doesn't at the moment, but it's very Interesting that most states in America do have fluoride artificially added to their water supply. And Scandinavia has never done it. And nowhere in Europe now has fluoride in the water, they've made that decision for the good of their population. So I think we need to campaign against it. Fluoride alert, there's fluoride alert group in the UK, you need to write to our MPs about it, but if it goes through, we must filter our water. Now, for those of you who did chemistry GCSE, or O level, if you're as old as I am, you remember that fluorine, chlorine, bromine, and Id are all in the same group. On the periodic table of the elements, they're all what's called halogens. And they look a bit similar to the body, they all have seven electrons in the outermost orbit, and therefore they can displace each other. So one of the ways in which fluoride has been damaged in us is to push iodine out of the body, we need it. And it's crucial for not just the thyroid, but the stomach, the breasts, the saliva glands, the prostate, the ovaries, so it can damage or that can damage the kidneys and the bones as well. So taking a little bit of IRD is to some extent of protection against this. But the most important thing is to make sure you're drinking from it's not naturally part of the human physiology.
Jingle 26:27
We hope you are enjoying this episode of the habits and health podcast where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. If you're looking for the fastest and most effective way to transform your energy and wellbeing, we invite you to join Tony for an upcoming habits and health workshop. This five week group workshop will empower you tools to disrupt unwanted habits and make positive changes easy. You'll enjoy sound asleep, better energy, less stress, and a happier mood Workshops begin on the first week of every month. And you can sign up now at the Tonywinyard.com. Now back to the show.
Tony Winyard 27:08
A few minutes ago, you you touched upon supplements. And something that I've noticed recently is I listened to quite a few podcasts. And I'm often reading and it's there's a few doctors who I really respect in some of the information that they give out and some of the podcasts that they're doing. But there's a couple of people who I do enormously respect and give great information. That something that's kind of disturbed me recently is they've been printing lists of supplements, they take. I don't know if I'm reading this wrong, but as far as I'm concerned, what supplements are suitable for one person depends on their metabolism, the gene history and so many other things. And these doctors that are printing, "this is what I take" Well, that doesn't mean most of the people looking at that list, it would be appropriate for
Dr Jenny Goodman 27:59
Yes, I think that's right. I mean, you think you know, nutritional supplementation, like any medical intervention should be individualised. It should be personalised medicine. And it is the case mostly mostly the what's right for you. And what's right for me may not be identical. Not only is it different for different people, but it's different for the same person at different stages of their life cycle, depending on their age, and at different seasons of the year. You know, so what I need in the winter and what I need in the summer are different. What I needed pre menopause and what I need post menopause is different. Gender makes it different, you know, if you're pregnant, you need vastly more nutrients of all kinds if you're breastfeeding also. So yes, it should be individualised. But, but particularly with a pandemic, there are certain nutrients that absolutely all of us need. And the first one I would say is vitamin D, vitamin d3 that we would normally get from the sunshine. And before the Industrial Revolution, most people probably got enough during a British summer to just about lost them through the winter, although it would be a struggle. So if you're working outside all day with your arms and legs exposed from April to October, you'd probably make enough vitamin D to just about last you through the winter. But now, even if we have a decent summer, most of us are working indoors. Frankly, unless you're a full time gardener in the British climate, you must have vitamin D supplement to see you through the winter. If you have got dark skin you need more, much more because the sunshine in this country is just woefully inadequate for all of us. But the darker our skin the more woefully inadequate it is. So I would generalise that we all need vitamin D through a British winter. And I think with viruses around we need vitamin C as well through the winter. And lastly again because With the virus, I do think we need think beyond that it does need to be individualised. For example, if you're a vegan, you probably need vitamin B 12.
And you must have vitamin d3 Because it only comes from sunshine, it doesn't come from any non animal food. So it's not there in the vegan diet. So again, you know, if you eat lots of oily fish, you maybe need a bit less vitamin D. And if you're completely exhausted and you're 85 years old, then some co Q 10 would probably be useful for you. But if you're 25, and fit and healthy, you don't need co q 10. Now, obviously, in my practice, I would measure these things, I would do a blood test to find out what your co Q 10 level is. But for people who are elderly or exhausted or have Parkinson's disease, Kochu tam is a fantastic supplement, you know, and then there's the B vitamins. Now, if our guts working properly, and we're eating a very diet with some whole grains and some animal foods, we should get enough vitamin B. But the B vitamins are used up and greatly depleted by stress, emotional stress. And if you can find me someone who hasn't had any emotional stress in the past two years, find you a liar or someone who resides on another planet. Right. So at the moment, I think we do need a good be complex in the morning, particularly if we're tired or we've had a stressful day or we've got a really stressful day coming up. And then there's the toxins we've put into ourselves. Like, you know, alcohol, cigarettes, smoke, you know, paracetamol, which we may need the paracetamol if we got a lot of pain for some reason, but these things deplete all the B vitamins and vitamin C. So the government's recommended daily allowance or a piece of nonsense, they're based on the amount you need to not die of a deficiency disease like scurvy or berry berry. They're not based on the amount you need to be vibrantly healthy. And they're certainly not based on a world in which stress and pollution are draining those vitamins out of your system as fast as you're putting them in. So our needs have increased, and our intake has gone down. Which is why some of us need some supplements some of the time. And in chapter six of my book, which is the shortest chapter is called nourish and flourish. I have a little rant about supplements. Because an extraordinary number of commercially available supplements are full of junk. And I was really shocked because when I was writing that chapter, I went down to my local chemist with my magnifying glass, and studied the ingredients list on the kind of supplements you would buy in the supermarket or the chemists. Hand I was frankly horrified, particularly by the ones marketed at children. Because actual vitamins and minerals were way down the ingredients list, and were in quantities so tiny, that they wouldn't do anything. And most of the studies by the way that the medical establishment has conducted on vitamins and minerals use such tiny amounts that they wouldn't do anything. So firstly, the amounts were too small, but even worse, they were full of fillers and colorings, and emulsifiers and additives, and sugar, and calcium carbonate, which is chalk and doesn't do any harm, but it just bulks it out. And the reason for this is it's very cheap for the manufacturers, it makes it easy to process the supplements by machine rather than by hand. So decent quality supplements. And I do recommend in my book, How to Find Them have got high levels of vitamins and minerals. And those are the first and only things on the ingredients list. Right? You don't need anything else. So it's a bit of a minefield. But there are a few brands in this country, which are really good and really reliable. And don't put any junk in. But the thing is to go to the health food shop with your magnifying glass and read the ingredients list. And if you're ordering supplements online, and you find something you think is right, and you read the ingredients list, and you're not sure, look at half a dozen other products from that same company. And if they've got things like you know, sugar, and by the way, anything that ends in o s e is a sugar, you know, so lactose or sucrose or dextrose anything owes its sugar, if they've got that or they've got calcium carbonate, or they've got anything with a long nasty name and you don't know what it means look it up. And if it's an artificial synthetic chemical, don't buy it and don't buy stuff from that company. But there's a slight caveat here which is you might see something that looks to me like a long Latin name, but it's the Latin name of a plant. Right? So you know, love ven doula Augustifolia might just mean lavender oil. That shouldn't be in your supplements though. It should be in your natural essential oils that are organic and harmless and that you use instead of perfume, which is neither organics more harmless.
Tony Winyard 35:10
What do you think about... I can't remember who it was who said... "when it comes to supplements, if it's in a really fancy bottle, that's really colourful, then it's often to be avoided. And if it's got a more plain bottle, it's after more, you can trust it.
Dr Jenny Goodman 35:25
That may be true, but I wouldn't rely on that, I would seriously take your magnifying glass and whether it's a supplement, or whether it's a ready meal, which I hope you're not buying anyway. But anything from the shop that comes in a package, you've got to read the ingredients list, you know, and this is not just food, this is cosmetics. So if you're buying shampoo or cream to put on your skin, moisturiser, anything like that, read the ingredients list, because we have a right to know what's being put into our bodies. And there's plenty of completely health healthy safe options out there. And they don't make it easy. And particularly with fragrance or perfume, or whatever it's called. They don't have to put an ingredient actually even on the list if it constitutes less than 1%. And there's an American group called the Environmental Working Group, who looked at perfume in great detail. And they found that the average commercial perfume has got 14 unlisted ingredients. Okay, you can't see them if they're unlisted. But you look at the ones that are listed. And if they're quite frightening, and they're long, synthetic chemical names, then don't go near it. I think, you know, we have to adapt a bit. So if you go to your health food shop and you get some organic essential oils, which are What perfume used to be, it's just that petrochemicals are cheaper and more profitable. You can get wonderful smells like Jasmine, lavender, geranium, orange, flower, Rose, these are simply made from the flower because they're natural, they biodegrade quicker, you know, you put it on in the morning, it won't still be there in the evening. You have to add a dab during the day if you want to. But you're not doing yourself any harm. Whereas almost all our commercial products, not just perfume itself, but other things. You know, from your shampoo to whatever you clean your sink with. They've got fragrance added. Right and this is just the petrochemical industry getting its products into everything you use. So open the cupboard under your sink and look at everything you're using for cleaning because you will clean your windows with vinegar and you can wipe your surfaces with a clean damp cloth and you don't want to be spraying antibacterial rubbish everywhere because it only reduces your resistance and kills the good bugs along with the bad and you don't want to be scrubbing your vegetables with soap you want to be buying organic in the first place and looking bathroom cabinet as well. What are you putting on your body you know your aftershave, your deodorant, all this stuff? That if you're eating really well, and exercising and washing regularly, you don't need deodorant. You know, I spent years advising people to get natural deodorants without Hello minium. Without parabens and people would say it doesn't do anything. It doesn't make any difference. Okay, so forget it, you know, there are more toxic things around than the smell of human sweat. And I firmly believe it only smells bad if it's old. Or if it's the smell of fear, the sweat of fear. But if it's just exercise, and you go and have a shower every day, you know, if you're a you know, a testosterone charged young man of 25, and you're exercising like crazy and you sweat a lot, then you have to wash more often. But they've got the kids at secondary school, spraying this atrocious stuff, I won't name it, you know, I don't want to be sued. But it's a it's a four letter word, the worst brand of spray deodorant. And these kids are poisoning themselves in each other in the changing rooms and the teachers of pee are insisting that they do it. And make no mistake, these chemicals that I'm talking about are carcinogenic, they damage DNA, and so they interfere with reproduction and contribute to infertility and to children being born with serious problems and so on. And they also are contributing to cancer because anything that damages DNA is going to cause both birth defects and cancer. And they also because they were originally you know, nerve gases interfere with the nervous system and what are we seeing we're seeing a pandemic of neurodegenerative conditions, like motor neurone disease, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimers, autism. All of these things mean that some chemical that's originally a petrochemical dissolves, in fact, is getting into your brain and in some cases, triggering autoimmune reactions as well. So we need to clean up our act by cleaning up our kitchen cupboards and our bathroom cupboards. And yeah, I described how to do that in chapter seven of the book.
Tony Winyard 40:10
You talked about finding ways to use less harmful cleaning products and also in the book you talked about mouthwash and using some combination of herbs and stuff. So I was wondering if in many high streets there are herbalists who could kind of help you with some of this
Dr Jenny Goodman 40:33
and often every high street but certainly practitioners of herbal medicine are brilliant at this. You can find one near you through looking up the National Institute of Medical herbalists the NI MH National Institute of Medical herbalist, any herbalist will be able to make you up a herbal mouthwash, I use one from America called perio, bright perio as in periodontal and the bright without the GH. So br It perio bright, got lots and lots of different herbs in it. If you want to make that or any other herbal mixture even more powerful, add a couple of drops of tea tree oil. Now tea tree is a natural essential oil and it smells like hospitals. You know, it says powerfully antiseptic and everything else. And a couple of drops of Lu golds iodine. Now ideen is still the most powerful antiseptic antiviral, antibacterial antifungal on the planet, which is why they still use it in operating theatres before they make the cut. They swapped the person's skin with liquid iodine. But the thing is, is naturally occurring is cheap. There's no profit in it. So they're pushing all sorts of other antivirals, but the best one there is his Iodine. So a couple of drops of Iodine in your mouthwash is going to improve your oral hygiene tremendously. And so is avoiding sugar. Because if you eat sugar, unfriendly bugs will breed in your mouth and in your gums. And of course, the mouth is the beginning of the digestive tract. So when we talk about gut health and microbiome, you're absolutely right, we have to include the mouth, you can even get mouth probiotics these days, which you can rinse with. And CO q 10, which I mentioned earlier, as an as a supplement to take is also very good for the gums. And of course, so as vitamin C, you know, the first sign of scurvy was gums bleeding.
Tony Winyard 42:32
And in your book there's so many great case studies in there. And we were talking before the recording started, that you had so many other case studies that you'd like to have put in there, but there just wasn't enough space. Does one come to mind...
Dr Jenny Goodman 42:49
There wasn't enough space, Tony. But there's another reason. Some of the other case histories, the publishers considered too scary. I think we need to face being scared a bit in the secure knowledge that there are solutions to these problems. So I'll tell you one of them. And I think it's going to be my next book. A young couple that went on honeymoon to the area between France and Spain in I think it was late March or early April. And they went for a walk through very beautiful orchards, I think peach orchard where the Peach Blossom and the trees were flowering. And they didn't realise till the end of their walk that people were spraying in the orchard. And maybe they weren't flowering because I think they spray before they flower. But anyway, they inadvertently walked through an orchard where people in full protective gear and mosques, which of course these tourists my patients didn't have, we're spraying the trees with some kind of insecticide. And at the end of the walk, the woman collapsed and had to be carried back to the cottage and was vomiting and unable to move for several days came home. Long story short, was ill for over a year before she came to see me had seen a neurologist, a psychiatrist, an endocrinologist and everything ologists. And they'd all said, Well, it's an atypical chronic fatigue. Actually, it's a typical chronic fatigue because pesticide poisoning often contributes to chronic fatigue, although it can be post viral it can be stress can be many other things. So I did lots of tests that I was then able to access and I found two different pesticides at incredibly high level in this woman's fat, right not in the blood because the body's very sensible and it gets these things out of the bloodstream within hours. In her fatty tissue. I found very high levels. Now what these chemicals do, again remember they're derived originally from nerve gases, is they act as an anti colic esterase so they destroy choline esterase. And collagen esterase is the enzyme that breaks down your neurotransmitter acetylcholine, once it's done its job and cross the signups as part of transmitting a nerve impulse through the nervous system. So sorry, this is this is a bit complicated, but basically,
if the enzyme that breaks it down is destroyed, it doesn't get broken down, it accumulates and what you get in the end is paralysis. Too much signal effectively no signal. So this one, spent the first consultation lying on the couch in the consulting room, couldn't sit in the chair, we had to turn all the lights off. We had to go over to the couch, myself and her husband, and she couldn't tell me the story she could barely speak. He told me 90% of her story. And this is someone who before this holiday had been jogging, and she'd been jogging five miles every day she was fit healthy. And now her body wasn't working in her brain wasn't working. Now, it took me about a year and a half to get her substantially better. And what the programme was, was detoxification focused on these pesticides. I gave her a lot of a supplement called phosphatidylcholine. I made her introduce loads of healthy fats into her diet, nuts, seeds, avocados, all the good oils, which is like hemp seed oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, but not the nasty refined stuff you get in plastic bottles in the supermarket that looks like we we, right we're talking makes like Biona or clearspring dark glass bottles organic kept in the fridge, and cold pressed, not extracted with heat and chemicals, cold pressed oils that you never cook with, you just put them on salad. So she had loads of that she had to have loads of vitamins B, C, D, all the minerals, and of course, Omega three and Omega six, but I measured her level because as you said earlier, it has to be personalised, and lots of rest, and lots of organic vegetable juicing with a bit of the good oils in as well. Some coloured colonic hydrotherapy. And once she was able to which took over a year, some saunas to actually sweat out these toxins and the fat soluble toxins do come out onto the skin, but only for the first few minutes. And only if you keep wiping the sweat off with a clean towel. Otherwise, the skin will just reabsorb it again, because that's what it naturally does. It thinks it's reabsorbing the minerals that it doesn't want to lose. It doesn't know we're trying to get rid of fat soluble toxins. So you know, Epsom salts baths and sprouting seedlings on the windowsill. And all those other detox methods, which I describe at the end of chapter seven of the book, which is staying alive in toxic times a seasonal guide to lifelong health. Now, she got better. And I'm not telling you she got 100% better because she didn't it took about 18 months. And she would say she got 80% better. So she was able to work, she was able to walk she was able to function. But she was never going to be happy with you know, fluorescent lights and you know, an evening of drinking wine, her liver couldn't take that anymore. What's very interesting about this is her husband who walked through the same orchard being sprayed was perfectly alright. And I did genetic tests at their request on both of them. There is an enzyme called Pon one, P O N one, para oxygenase. One I think, which does break down organophosphate pesticides. He had the full version of that he had the perfectly functioning version of the gene to make that enzyme from both his parents. She didn't. She had the defective version from both her parents. So she was homozygous for the genetic glitch, and he was fine. So your genetics determines how you will react to these chemicals. Which is why some people for example, cabin crew on airlines get very ill with aerotoxic syndrome, many pilots do as well, and some are absolutely fine. The genetic difference determines how much our post industrial toxic world will damage you. But I think it's important to be clear what's doing the damage is not the genes. It's the toxic chemicals in our environment. So this lady would have been perfectly well before the Industrial Revolution. And that story
Tony Winyard 49:34
makes me think about... so you talked about they're walking through that field and pesticides are being sprayed. So for people in England who maybe live near a farm or there park, there's you know people are spraying stuff on there. How can they be vigilant about stuff? Well,
Dr Jenny Goodman 49:50
first of all, contact a wonderful organisation called PAN. Pesticide Action Network. The Pesticide Action networks are a fantastic charity And they'll tell you which local authorities have already agreed to stop spraying herbicides, weed killers on the grass verges in the park, and which are still doing it, they will give you some hints on how to campaign about it. But yes, local authorities are using these chemicals. And you have to be particularly weary in spring and early summer. And the only thing to do here is to become an activist, contact your local authority and make sure they're not doing this. Because you don't want to take your kids to the park for a picnic and be sitting on the grass where yesterday, they sprayed insecticides, and even closer to home, pets, cats and dogs. Flea collars are impregnated with these insecticides. And I've had these totally surreal conversations with the vets where you'll say, well, when will it be safe for my toddler to stroke the cat or the dog? And they'll say, oh, within 48 hours? And then you say, and how long will this collar or these drops of insecticides that you put between the animals, shoulder blades? How long will they keep being effective and killing the fleas? And they say, oh, three to six months? Now, hang on a minute, stop and think about that is effective for three to six months, but it's safe for your toddler to pet me animal after two days? No, these are very enduring chemicals. They're persistent, they lost, they're still there. And guess what? They are completely safe, natural alternative ways to keep fleas off your pet. Okay, there's a wonderful herb called neem that's m for no one double E M for mother from the neem tree in India. They have been using it to kill bad bugs for 1000s of years. And if you get the powdered bark or leaf of the neem tree, which you can get from a herbal supplier, and you rub that all over your pet, every few months, you will have a green dog or cat for a couple of days. But that doesn't matter. They lick it off. And in licking it off, it acts as a natural worming powder as well. And they will never catch fleas. And it works to get rid of the fleas as well if they've got them. So, you know, you can do that you can use neem powder. And you don't ever need these nasty insecticides from the vet. I think I've got theory that most vets have this strong genetic makeup where they are well able to detoxify these chemicals. Otherwise they'd never get through veterinary school. You know, and they handle chemotherapy agents a lot as well, because dogs and cats are getting cancer as much as we are now. And they're getting chemotherapy and the vets that can handle those things have got strong detox liver enzyme systems. But some of us haven't. And some of our pets haven't either.
Tony Winyard 52:45
We've talked over quite a bit about your your book, which came out a couple of years ago, was it I think it was 2019. And you've mentioned a couple of times
Dr Jenny Goodman 52:52
it came out in January 2020. Oh, right, precisely two months before lockdown, as the hardback and then the paperback came out in March 2021. And they let me add a couple of pages of nutrition for strengthening the immune system to protect against viral infections. So that's on page 255 to six in the paperback.
Tony Winyard 53:18
You've mentioned a couple times about your your new book. So when do you think that will come out and what will
Dr Jenny Goodman 53:24
embryonic it's embryonic Tony, it's really very new. I only have just wound up my clinical practice and retired in November, in order to focus full time on writing. And I broke my ankle, so everything's been a bit derailed. But I took comfrey tea and put comfrey balm on it and already was taking loads of D three and k two. So the bone healed in double quick time. But you know, I'm still hobbling with ligament and tendon sprains from the same injury because the local council hadn't mended a massive hole in my pavement. Therefore, the book has barely begun. I haven't even got a proposal yet. I've got an outline. I've got hundreds of ideas. I'm meeting with my agent in a month's time. So it'll be a good couple of years before it's out. Because these things take time. But I do have ideas for books three, four and five as well. And now I'm going to be focusing on that full time. So watch this space.
Tony Winyard 54:24
And it's definitely something to look forward to. I mean, if it's anywhere near as good as the current book, then yes, definitely. Someone's look forward.
Dr Jenny Goodman 54:30
Thank you. Thank you.
Tony Winyard 54:32
So talking of books. A question I always ask everyone is, is there a book that comes to mind that's really moved you in any way?
Dr Jenny Goodman 54:40
Oh, gosh. You know, I read absolutely constantly and there are so many wonderful books Am I allowed to name two? Okay, so from 1976 There's Marge Piercey's Dystopian and utopian novel called, Woman on the edge of time. And from probably about the same era, I've just read Ursula Le Guins book The Dispossessed everything. Ursula Le Guin writes is absolute genius, but I think my favourite is The Dispossessed. it's about an attempt at a utopian society. But because she's very sophisticated writer not naive, she died recently. Sadly, the utopia is not perfect, and the dystopia is not totally evil either. So she really captures the complexity of life and people's moving and sincere efforts to make a better world.
Tony Winyard 55:35
Jenny if people want to find out more about you and your social media, your website and so on, where do they look?
Dr Jenny Goodman 55:41
Well, my website is simply drjennygoodman.com And on the website, you can find all the links are I'm on all these channels. Now Instagram is far and away the most active one. But I'm posting twice a week now on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. I do have somebody helping me with it because I'm a complete technophobe. But there's a lot of content on there, particularly Instagram. And I can't do it myself, because you have to post a photo and I don't even have a smartphone. That's how low tech I am. And but yeah, I believe that on the website, drjennygoodman.com It's got the links to all those four social media channels. And it's also got the links to the book, and all sorts of other things.
Tony Winyard 56:30
And in the show notes to this episode, I'll put all those links. And also I'll include the links or some upcoming talks that you're going to be speaking at as well.
Dr Jenny Goodman 56:39
Yes, I've got I've got I mean, obviously, loads of webinars and podcasts planned, but I have got three live gigs coming up. Yep. At the nutrition collective on the 24th of Feb. And the Oxford Literary Festival on the 31st of March, if anyone's near Oxford. And at the end of May, I think the weekend is 28th 29th. There's a huge gathering called the Health optimization Summit. And I'm speaking there as well.
Tony Winyard 57:06
Okay. So I'll include all those links so people can find out where if they want to go and see you speak as well. So just before we finish a question I always finish on with every guest is, is there a quotation that you really like?
Dr Jenny Goodman 57:21
Yes. And I'll tell you where I got this quote from, I'm afraid I don't know who first said it. But a new friend came around to visit me after I broke my ankle, and she bought me a t shirt. And she, although she's a new friend, she must know me quite well, because the slogan on the t shirt is, "I'd rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned". And it's a thin short sleeve t shirt. I can't wait for the weather to be warm enough to go out and about wearing it. I'd rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned.
Tony Winyard 57:58
I've got a feeling that was one of the ancient Greeks. I'm sure I've heard. I've definitely heard it before.
Dr Jenny Goodman 58:06
think we'll have to go and look it up and find out who said it.
Tony Winyard 58:09
Yeah. Well, Jenny, it's been an absolute pleasure. I thank you for your time and for sharing your wisdom and experience. I'm sure my audience will be really, really appreciative of all the wisdom that you shared with them. So thank you.
Dr Jenny Goodman 58:25
You're very welcome.
Tony Winyard 58:27
So we've got an added bonus here, as I asked Jenny some questions about habits and so Jenny's got some habits she's going to give to the audience.
Dr Jenny Goodman 58:36
Okay, so one is that I start every day with a brisk 45 or 60 minute walk, or three quarter an hour an hour. Obviously, that's a bit tricky when you've broken your ankle, but it's getting better. And I am getting back to that. And I find not only it makes me feel better physically, to have been exercising outdoors, and like you have a green space nearby where I can do that. It also makes me function much better mentally. You know, I sit at my desk and I do better work if I've had a jolly good brisk walk. And if I've had breakfast as well, my second habit is what these days would be called a digital detox. So at least one day a week. It is one day a week, I turn the computer off. I don't have a smartphone right, and I don't have a tablet or iPad or any of those things. So I turn the computer off and leave it off for at least 24 hours a weekend. So if people want me now to phone the old landline and so that's a built in digital detox and again, like the walking I think it makes your brain work better and you come back refreshed, a little weekly holiday and you can survive you know you can survive without being in electronic contact with the whole world all the time. You can even actually see people face to face
Tony Winyard 1:00:00
Well, that's, that's superb and some great habits, to replicate or to aim for anyway. So yeah, it's not quite, 24 hours, but my phone is on aeroplane mode for at least 12 hours every day. Probably more than that quite often.
Dr Jenny Goodman 1:00:19
That's great. Yeah.
Tony Winyard 1:00:22
Well, thank you for those Jenny. And hopefully that will give some people some ideas and some habits they can try to use them for themselves very well. Okay. Next week is Episode 53, with Sarah Tait, who was very successful working in the City of London working in finance, doing really well, when she she got married few years ago, and was doing a lot of preparation for the wedding. And after the wedding, she kind of felt like there was he put so much effort into planning a wedding, she was kind of almost let down afterwards. And so she decided to put all that energy into her work, and was working crazy hours and really put in a lot of effort and to the point where she had a psychotic episode and she actually had a major breakdown, and was off work for a very long time and, and then since then has become a coach and she helps people who do have mental health episodes. And so we're gonna hear a lot more about that story. Next week with Sarah Tait. If you know anyone who would get some real value from some of the gold that Jenny shared with us in this episode, please do share the episode with them. And I hope you have a great week.
Jingle 1:01:42
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Habits & Health episode 51 with Filippo di Lenardo who has launched 3SSENTIA, which is a Work-life experience platform that combines AI and the science of wellbeing to help professionals feel more balanced, energised and inspired in their day. We discuss how the app will help people, who it’s aimed at, future developments and much more.
Links:
www.3ssentia.com
https://www.instagram.com/3ssentia_
https://www.linkedin.com/in/filippo-di-lenardo-608a7970/
Recommended books:
Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage in Human Consciousness: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness Frédéric Laloux https://amzn.to/3L2Z7CE Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao – Dr Wayne Dyer https://amzn.to/35FKWTQ Treatise on Efficacy: Between Western and Chinese Thinking: Treatise on Efficacy François Jullien https://amzn.to/3saQOf8 Favourite quote: To understand the limitations of things desire them – Lao Tzu
Don’t forget, there is a transcript of every episode (scroll down the page)
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Jingle 0:00
habits and health episode 51. Welcome to the habits and health podcast, where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. Brought to you by an educator and coach for anyone who wants to create a healthier life. Here's your host, Tony Winyard.
Tony Winyard 0:20
Welcome to another edition of the podcast where we give you ideas to improve habits around various areas of your health. My guest today, Filippo di Lenardo, and he is a three time entrepreneur. He has a real passion and a mission to create products and services that improve people's lives. And he's created an app called 3ssential which is about a work life experience to it helps people to create habits that are going to help with their well being and to feel more balanced and energised and inspired. So we're gonna hear a lot more about this app during the episode so hope you enjoy it. habits and health my guest today Filippo di Lenardo, that I get the pronunciation right? So you're in Italy?
Filippo di Lenardo 1:13
I am Yes. Just just outside Venice in a small town called Treviso, which is actually my hometown.
Tony Winyard 1:20
Wow, we were speaking before the recording started. I love Italy, I've actually been more times to Italy than any other country on the planet, I've been there at least I think 20, 30 times or something.
Filippo di Lenardo 1:33
wow. Okay. You really are an expert.
Tony Winyard 1:37
I wouldn't say I'm an expert, but I love Italy. Yeah. But you travelled quite a bit from from what I gather from when we were speaking.
Filippo di Lenardo 1:45
Yeah, I left Italy when I was 14. So yeah, I'm Italian. But really, I've been living abroad, most of my adult life. So you know, kind of New York, Switzerland, Spain, London. Now Berlin. So I just couldn't cope with the appalling weather that that Berlin has in sort of January, February. So I thought, you know, what, just come back home, you know, embracing their remote culture to the fullest. So it's pretty good.
Tony Winyard 2:16
Well, I live in England. So I'm quite used to terrible weather! So, I know you're involved in a few different things, but how would you describe to people what it is that you do now?
Filippo di Lenardo 2:33
Oh, okay. That's a very straightforward question, what do I do, I do a couple of things, my main sort of sort of day to day activities involve one in the sort of creation and launch of this new application that we're building a well being app called essential. And that really is, let's say, the main purpose of what I do and what inspires me the most. As we were saying before, you know, talking about human behaviour, understanding how to live more and more empowering, sustainable, inclusive, and even fulfilling lives, that's really my mission, and how to help people achieve that. And then I also do some some training and consultancy, on the side, where I help brands understand how they can create more human experiences for their customers so that it can actually engage them long term in a way that is more sustainable, both as a business but also for consumers, to be empowered and not just be seen as consumers, which is not a word that I particularly like, because implies a whole sets of things, which I think is not really what the world needs, in many ways. But yes, trying to make the customer experience more human and meaningful.
Tony Winyard 3:51
You mentioned briefly about the app that you you're creating, which is due at any time now. What was what was the inspiration? What made you think about creating an app to help people?
Filippo di Lenardo 4:02
Well, it's interesting because I'm not a technological person. So my background is actually in hospitality. So I when I when I was living in London, I started a business which specialises in creating very exclusive travel and events experiences for wealthy individuals in Italy, funnily enough so so yeah, I know Italy quite well. But I very early on in my in my sort of professional life because I started the business straight out of uni, I kind of realised that I needed to be mentally and emotionally and physically at my best if I wanted to kind of increase my chances of hopefully succeeding. And yeah, one of the events that I was organising I, I met this coach who was talking about how to be your best you every day. And when I heard that talk, I was like, Oh my God, that's exactly what I want. And never really kind of come across the whole personal development thing. It was just never kind of there was never really expected to it, when I heard that I was like, Oh, this is exactly what I want. So what I did is I started working with him, and that hope and the whole field of like, you know, complete passion and devotion for understanding, you know, how we operate as people what makes us tick. Because actually, in some ways, you know, hospitality and providing services and experiences is about understanding what makes people tick and how to engage with them. But I always saw it as a more as a consumer kind of perspective, rather than as an individual, what empowers you, what motivates you what makes you feel good. And so as I was working on myself, I really kind of fell in love with the with this whole world and I spent years really working and studying with with leading experts in the field of you know, behavioural science, neuroscience, spirituality, all everything that could have to do with the, with the human condition. And I was like, You know what, I want to do something in this direction. So I decided to stop what I was doing and wanted to find a way to to integrate technology just because I was kind of also a bit concerned with the with the, with the way technology was being developed as a non technologist. And I wanted to find a way to kind of combine the, the well being world with the technological world in a way that could be more immersive and more integrated into the flow of our daily lives, because I was kind of looking at various products out there, but I wasn't finding what I was looking for. And so I thought, well, maybe I can try it myself and see what comes out of it, you know, so it was really a long journey of self discovery first, and really understanding what's important to me, and what is what is the life that I want to live in that kind of led me towards this direction?
Tony Winyard 6:41
So once you started thinking about creating an I guess, obviously, you had you kind of hired some kind of experts to actually create the app itself. Was it clear in your mind from the beginning what you wanted the app to do, and how it would help people or did that happen along the way with speaking with people
Filippo di Lenardo 7:02
it happened definitely along the way, you know, not being, so I came from the approach of a coach, right? Someone that kind of understands on a high level, all the things that people should be doing, the problem is that when you translate that into technology, people are much less forgiving, they don't have the patience that you would have in a one to one. So the experience needs to be a lot smoother, and needs to be a lot less intrusive. Because when we in, you know, if we think about the way we interact with technology, we're really infants, right? We it's, it's a relatively new world, for us, even if it feels like we've been on forever, it's only like, really 20 to 30 year that we're kind of full on. So a lot of a lot of us, most of us are very instinctive when it comes to technology. So I kind of had an idea of what I wanted to do. But it obviously evolved a lot more along the way. And that's kind of quite an interesting and challenging journey to kind of evolve the whole concept. But I You know, I've definitely made mistakes and learned a lot of things, but I wouldn't go back because the learnings that you gain, you know, from all these experiences, make you better at understanding how to better serve people. So, you know, it is it is a journey of continuous discovery at the end of the day, so definitely not a clear, you know, like just one click, and it was all perfect. It's a, it's a journey. And when you when you build products anyways, it's never perfect from day one, it's actually it's known that it's something that it's never quite perfect. So it's in the nature of what we do that actually requires this continuous improvement, which is what actually makes it interesting.
Tony Winyard 8:41
There's that saying isn't there? I can't remember the exact wording, but it's something along the lines of if you wait until the product is perfect, you've waited too long,
Filippo di Lenardo 8:48
absolutely. 100% 100% There is always you know, the the temptation to kind of wait for the perfect time. But I've learned through the hard way that it's always never rarely goes as you expect. So it's kind of, I mean, you need to find a balance between something that it goes out early to get feedback, but also that is something that people are worth giving you feedback for, you know, because the reality is also I believe that nowadays we're much more spoiled than we were 15 years ago. So you know, maybe if you launched an app, you know, when the when the iPhone launched the app store people's willingness to be patient with a low quality product was probably much higher than it is today because you know, people just switch on their phone are expecting perfection. So it's kind of finding the right balancing act. But yeah, I would agree with that without saying I've certainly then I've made my my experience in that field too. So it's that as part of the journey
Tony Winyard 9:47
How will the app help people in what way around wellbeing and health will it help people?
Filippo di Lenardo 9:54
Yeah, so we kind of, because obviously, well being requires a certain An effort, right? It's kind of, I wouldn't say against our natural, instinctive behaviours, but it certainly requires some sort of effort and dedication. And so when I, when I, we kind of thought about, okay, obviously we live we, you know, we're, we're 24 hours a day, where do we spend most of our time? And most of us, the answer is working. And so we were thinking, what if we could kind of support people in the flow of their daily work experience, because that's when we experience most stress, that's when we kind of feel we need to be at our best. And so I we wanted to find a way to support professionals in the flow of their daily work experience with the goal of not only improving their levels of well being, but literally transforming the way they look at their daily their daily life. Because well being, you know, it's such a big word. And I'm big fan of kind of the science behind the neuroscience, you know, science that studies the brain. And when I looked at the neuroscience of wellbeing, I kind of saw that there are four main pillars, you know, self awareness, resilience, developing a positive outlook, and generosity. And all these four pillars, if developing, they increase massively, our levels of wellbeing. So the goal in some ways is to help people implement these, these four pillars and also physical well being in the flow of their day by basically the way the app the system works is that it asks you to check in in the morning to see how you're feeling energy wise, and based on that and your schedule for the day. What essential does it recommends, short, two minute guided wellbeing experiences that obviously are designed to come at the right time in your in your day, so that you can kind of you know, bring out hopefully your best you and your best activities while keeping sustainable levels of productivity. And so the idea is to kind of have this mini well being experiences in the flow of your day. And of course, now it's just the very beginning of the app, we have a whole vision for what we want to build. But essentially, that's the first release of what the app is going to do. And then it's going to give you some analytics to see not just quantify your effort, but to sort of track your your energy levels and your mood over time to kind of see the impact that has on your productivity and well being.
Tony Winyard 12:22
What would you say is the aim of the average user who starts to use this app? In what what would they hope to be achieving? I guess, to get familiar,
Filippo di Lenardo 12:34
yeah, well, the first thing would definitely be to reduce emotional volatility in their day, because that is proven to be a massive energy wasting, both physically and mentally. And as a result, also to improve their their energy levels. So what we have in the in the sort of, we call them well being hacks, these short two guided wellbeing experiences, and the outcome that they can achieve is either to feel more balanced, energised or inspired. So some of the some of the well being many well being experiences work more on the physical well being. So it might be some yoga, stretching exercises. Some may be more on emotional regulation, like breathing, and sort of light meditations. And others are more inspirational. So they work more in your mindset, and of kind of inspiring you to be more motivated to look at your next activity as an opportunity to thrive. And the idea behind all the these many well being axes that they always have a narrative that is kind of designed to help you look at your next activity as an opportunity to thrive. So we kind of want to make well being really integrated into what you're doing, rather than just being an abstract concept that is kind of somewhere in your day, but that doesn't have a tangible impact into actually the quality of your output. So in some ways, the goal is also to help improve your performance and productivity at the same time. But not from a place of from a place of self care, right from a place of self love and balance. Because that is where you can you can develop better performance productivity in a way that is more compassionate rather than just maybe me an ego driven thing. That's not what well being, at least for me means. So that's kind of the goal in a nutshell.
Tony Winyard 14:25
So I'm guessing it sounds like you've done quite a bit of research in in finding how to make this app be most effective, I guess for people. Yeah. So what in in the research that you've sort of come up with and in your own coaching experience and so on? What is What are the things you think that make people kind of get in their own way and stop them from progressing and living a contented life I guess?
Filippo di Lenardo 14:55
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. I think it also depends on the type of person you Have so you have the strivers that tend to be you know, quite ambitious people, but sometimes they forget themselves in the equation, and I'm one of them. And what I've seen from a personal experience is that we forget to love ourselves at times, right, we get so identified with what we need to achieve. And sometimes it also comes from external pressure. And so we forget that actually, if we feel more balanced, energised and present, that's going to get us where we want to be. But without fighting and pushing, but rather in a way that is more holistic, and actually a much more meaningful and enjoyable path, I would say. And that's been for me that the the biggest realisation, the other things is the typical excuse of, oh, I don't have time for this. And I love this quote, by Lao Tzu, and it's amazing, spiritual Chinese master, he says that time is a creative thing to say, I don't have time, it means I don't want to. And so this kind of excuse, I don't have time we live busy lives. And sometimes, you know, it's about baby steps and doing small things in your day that can compound to a massive difference. So my, my kind of idea was like, Okay, well, I've been there, I've said, I don't have time for this, but really, I don't want to do it. And it's fine. We all live through, you know, different flows of motivation, we're not machines. And so my goal was to understand what is the simplest thing I can do to help people integrate small nuggets of well being into their day, and just, you know, just a minute of conscious breath can actually change the way your brain is, it thinks it operates, you know, and so just one minute, so, you know, everyone has a minute, you know, no matter how busy you are, or two minutes, and so that was kind of the idea of like, oh, I need to remember to put it in my routine, I need to be motivated, you know, and it's kind of that planning, right? That tends to be the, the hardest bit. So I think it's a bit of lack of organisation in some some senses, which can be hard at times, and I would say, even bigger lack of self love, especially because we feel that maybe we shouldn't make time for ourselves. Because, you know, strong people don't do that, you know, we kind of have this image of ourselves, especially as professionals, that's, that's what I've seen. And then it's kind of death by paper cuts, right? So you kind of like, it's okay, it's okay. And then it's kind of, it gets to a point where it's like, there's no return, and then actually, you do end up losing more than you probably would have if you were a bit more sustainable in a way.
Tony Winyard 17:37
Is it aimed at, say entrepreneurs, people who have their own business? It wasn't aimed? Generally anyone? Oh, yeah,
Filippo di Lenardo 17:45
that's a good, that's a good question. Um, now we enter into like the business side of things, because obviously, there's always dynamics. Well, I'm an intrapreneur, you know, and I can definitely relate to people or freelancers that have their own gig, and they definitely have a lot of stress, a lot of uncertainty to handle. So I would say that the product is designed initially, it's going to be a laptop application. So it's actually going to be on your laptop, just because that's a predominant device that we all use to work. So we want to have something that is on your laptop that comes to you, rather than something you need to remember to get your phone and actually kind of avoid the phone in some ways. So it is designed for any professional that really is working remotely or in some sort of individual way, we are going to start initially with enterpreneurs. And freelancers, just because of we think it's a market that is interesting to target. But of course, the goal is then to spread it out to any professional really, of course, then there are, you know, companies that often buy these products, and you kind of have to then convince companies whereas when you convince someone that is a decision maker, so like myself or yourself is a different relationship, but ideally is for any any professional that is that is working in a predominant in a remote environment, I would say to make the most of the well being support.
Tony Winyard 19:08
You touched upon just now about doing things like breath work. I get the impression are there sort of videos on there showing people how to do these sort of things?
Filippo di Lenardo 19:19
yeah, so one of the things that I I kind of wanted to bring into this product, I my background in hospitality and experience building, I wanted to transform well being not into just a functional experience, but into an immersive experience. And so we kind of spend a lot of time creating these guided experiences where there's visual experiences, there are sound, there is a voice and the idea is to kind of create mini journeys, where you can either do them with your eyes closed or your eyes open, but if you do decide to keep your eyes open, we've designed like special environments with special effects so that they can be conducive and also have kind of an abstract artistic element to it. So that's something that we really want to want to push. And one concept that I'm really interested in this concept of neuro design where you kind of look at design from, from a brain perspective, and how can you stimulate the right emotions through the right colours, the right sounds the right, you know, the right audio, the right voice, so we kind of want to have this kind of multisensory, well being experienced so that it feels more immersive rather than just, you know, functional, okay to hold your breath for six seconds. And that's it, because also, that's something you could probably find elsewhere, you know.
Tony Winyard 20:32
So you talked about multi sensory. Have you looked at things like binaural beats or other sort of applications that can be integrated in
Filippo di Lenardo 20:42
half, if that's an very interesting point. So our vision with the centre is to kind of develop a deep behavioural understanding of yourself by using a whole series of signals. So the idea of sinking your smartwatch, for example, as a way to kind of track your biorhythms and your heart rate variability. But also, what we're planning on doing with the sensor is to kind of look at the way you move between the tabs and your kind of computer activity to predict if there are any stressors, or any potential risks for depletion of energy and kind of work between these different signals that we're building to create a, it's an artificial intelligence will be a kind of an AI companion that can understand and support you based on your inner biometrics, but also your behavioural biometrics based on how you interact with the with the with the laptop in this case. And the idea is to develop almost a sentiment of how you're feeling and then become a platform where third parties can come in, to kind of optimise the timing of the experience, because one of the main problems with well being applications is that their product may be good, but the timing is often wrong, because they don't have a contextual understanding of how's the weather? How are you feeling? How busy is your schedule, you know, how did you sleep, so it ends up being a fragmented experience. So what we want to send you to become as is an operating system where you are at the centre of everything and then everything comes, you know, you could sink your smartwatch eventually your Alexa, any well being app you may be using. But that becomes a lot more curated and personalised based on who you are and what you're going through. And that's kind of the division in a way of what where we want to take ascension.
Tony Winyard 22:31
So if I'm hearing you, right, so there's things that so when you were talking about wearables there's things like the Oura ring, and the Whoop app and all these, which give also, as you mentioned about HRV, and deep sleep and REM sleep and all that kind of thing. So it's going to take all that all that data, and then combine as you mentioned, with both how you're using your computer and what your your schedule that you've got coming up, and we're going to give you recommendations and on things that you could do maybe to improve your efficiency or your well being and so
Filippo di Lenardo 23:05
on. Absolutely. So let's say that give you a simple example, let's say your your heart rate variability tends to have a strong signal between three and four, and the system sees that you tend to be on LinkedIn, and that you have a very tight schedule. So it starts finding correlations between different factors and maybe the weather outside, you know, or how you slept, if you sink in your health data. So that's the idea of kind of developing a more holistic understanding so that you can manage yourself better, and then become a signal for understanding what's the best experience that you could have right now. And kind of through third parties bring those in, so that it can be more personalised and curated. That's kind of the idea of how to bring it all together. Yeah, we want to make also the experience social, so you can collaborate with people going well being journeys together. Because the vision is for us also to kind of show how the your well being can impact others, and sort of have this collaborative aspect to, to the well being experienced. So it's not just improving your well being but showing you how you can proactively impact others. And that's kind of the idea of, of collective well being that we have for a sense of just being part of essential for for me, it's not just I don't see it, as a user, I see it as a co Creator as someone that takes part of wanting to be, you know, a sort of part of something and that's why we're thinking of building a whole series of like loyalty programmes tokens, where people can also based on their well being efforts, basically transform those into causes that can be donated for NGOs and charities. So we want to kind of create an ecosystem where based on your well being efforts that can kind of be transferred into meaningful causes so that you can see that your well being doesn't only have an impact for yourself, but for the greater whole and that's that's really what I think, you know, for me, that's the that's the life I want to live right. And I wish more people Do that to see the repercussions that that working on your well being can have.
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Tony Winyard 25:37
It seems like there's so much potential for how it could grow in the future with I mean, I'm wondering for example, if it could incorporate VR capabilities for like a fitness kind of workout and, and further capabilities in the AI world to really extend what it can do have you got lots of ideas of what could happen in the future?
Filippo di Lenardo 26:00
Yes, I do. And I have to stop because otherwise I, I just stay in the future, I have a million of ideas. And I have we have a roadmap of some of the things you've touched, definitely AI is going to be a fundamental part. With AI though my The reason also why we develop the sensors, we wanted to have a conscious kind of use of data. So first of all, the data will always be yours, it should act for you, it shouldn't be a value extraction model. So absolutely. The AI should work with you and for you together. And as the AI learns about you, you learn about yourself and it becomes a collaborative relationship, this kind of human machine relationship, rather than I telling you, you got to do this, you got to do that, because that's not the relationship one establish. Blockchain is another one and a very good application for the data aspect that you can own that data and it can work for you. So through the creation of tokens, AI, the hacks that we were building now, the ones we were thinking of doing AR and VR, as well, my only concern with that technology is the danger that it could pose if not used consciously. Because imagine you live in a world that is completely parallel to reality, and you choose to stay in that world that can easily become a drug. So what I don't want us to create an experience that becomes a pill. So it's very easy to think oh, yeah, I definitely could do VR. We thought about it, but it's always okay, what's the repercussion and on a socio economic level, and that's really why we're doing this is we want to bring on most of change. So, gotta be very careful with the weather direction. But certainly, you know, the whole Metaverse, which is now a big trend, right of moving the whole our whole life digitally and virtually, is definitely an appealing proposition is just like, how can we make sure that it doesn't become a drug where people decide to seclude themselves and not live in reality anymore? Right? Because the fake virtual world feels so much better. But is it better? You know? So? It's it's a tricky one, when you work with well being in psychology to find the right balance? And yeah, so but yes, there is 1000s of possible ideas of where we want to take this. But yeah, I want to try and be as as conscious as I can to not do build a monster, let's put it this way.
Tony Winyard 28:23
You mentioned about how you will be able to draw information from other applications, such as Oura, or whoop, or smartwatches, and so on. And what about things like, there's a lot of continuous glucose monitors are getting more and more advanced all the time. And, and I've heard talk about how they're trying to develop continuous insulin monitors, and many other of these types of devices. Do would you be able to draw information from those types of things as
Filippo di Lenardo 28:50
well? Potentially, I mean, to be honest, I haven't looked into that. In that aspect of the health related, I think it will also be determined by how the market responds. We've kind of looked at like, they've definitely data in order to curate your experience. And then we kind of looked at also what kind of experiences do we bring in to empower your well being. Because one of the things about the well being that we're the angle that we want to take is have the sustainability angle so that it's you're not only working on your sustainability, but also doing well being experiences that are ethically sourced that have a sustainable, sustainable angle, that are maybe contributing towards environmental or social goals. So we're kind of trying to work towards that direction of like monitoring yourself to understand what you actually need, and how to provide you something that is meaningfully satisfying for your own well being but that also can have a positive repercussion, repercussion on the world. So we're kind of looking at at this aspect. But yeah, I mean, there is there's endless possibilities in terms of the data that you can sink in But then you have to also be careful to not overwhelm the user, right? Because it could be kind of analysis paralysis. Oh my god, I can't even move that something. My whole biometrics have changed. So we kind of need to be careful of not freaking people out right of having that kind of mysterious ness to life. That is the turning people into robots. Right. I think that's, that's also interesting to kind of look at the trend that we are going into, right, the tracking thing is a massive trend that we're all experiencing. But I don't have a wearable, interestingly enough, and I've been asking myself that question for quite some time. And I think a lot of times is the value in which the data is presented that feels a bit too deterministic. For me, I'd like something that is more like a starting point from which you can start something you know, it's it's more like, Okay, we're here. And now we can go there. Or what about if we go here, so it becomes a collaboration rather than? Okay, you've done 1000 steps, okay, your breath rate is like this. Okay, but so what, you know, like, how can we have a continuous relationship? So? Yeah, I think there's also some some magic in the unpredictability of us, you know, as individuals, so it's kind of finding the right balance, in my opinion,
Tony Winyard 31:18
What you were saying you said about not having a wearable yourself, I mean, I used a whoop strap for 18 months. That's cool. And I quite liked the data at first, for the first year or so I quite liked it. And then I started to realise, I was able to predict better, what the readings were going to be about how I slept about how my HRV was going to be, and so on. And eventually, I thought, I don't need this. I know exactly what it's going to say every day. So why do I need to keep looking at it? So I my contract ended sometime last year, and I didn't bother renewing it. And I was debating whether to get an aura ring. And then I thought, well, so the main attraction of the aura ring is the sleep data. Yes. Well, I think it's very difficult for me to improve my sleep, I get amazingly good sleep. Very good. I almost always get at least eight hours. Usually I never wake up. I feel great when I wake up. So I thought, Do I really need something to track my sleep? Because it's I'm not sure how I can improve it really?
Filippo di Lenardo 32:20
So yeah. It's interesting, what you said about whoop. So I've spoken to a lot of people that really enjoyed whoop. And it seems definitely a very, very cool concept. For me, the question is like, Well, I would almost argue that whoop, did a great job. Because in some ways, it made you so sensitive, and so able to kind of understand yourself that it kind of resigned environment. So I think they've done a great job to actually, commercially it's a weird concept. And that's always the debate with well being right? I shouldn't be so good that you don't need me. Yeah, I'm or I make you so good. So then the, and definitely I don't want to I don't want to create a product that creates addiction or slavery. So my idea there is that after a while, like you said, the data becomes a bit repetitive. So it's more about access to experiences and people as a result of that data, rather than just telling you, oh, you said like this, or tomorrow, maybe do 1000 steps more, it's more about how are you shaping my outer world based on my inner world? You know, and that's where I feel, you know, imagine you you went on YouTube. And there was, you know, you could think through and understood, that's what we're talking about? Who you could you speak to today within your network that is more aligned? Or what meaningful activities for charity? Could you could you contribute to our what great wellbeing experiences in your community? Could you could you do based on your inner world that for me is more interesting, because it's a continuous exploration. But yeah, it's interesting what you said about the, the whoop, and generally the, this, these trackers, I just want them to be a bit more human and act more as companions and facilitators, rather than just reflective, or predictive data models. And that's about it, at least for me.
Tony Winyard 34:06
I mean, we talked before I asked you before about who this might be aimed at, and my, my guess, as far as an age group is concerned, my guess or the obvious guess to me is that it would be people in their 20s, maybe 30s, who are much more receptive to this kind of thing. Is that what you found, or is that?
Filippo di Lenardo 34:24
Yes, that's spot on. What I found is exactly that. But then again, you know, maybe, maybe a slightly older age group might be interested. I mean, what I found is that women tend to be particularly interested in this product from the very getgo coaches obviously tend to be very interested in this product too. Those are the two like main light, standout kind of trends. It's interesting about the 20s I've, I need to validate this because I don't have enough data. My feeling is that is more around The 30s, I would say. And I think if I had to look back retrospectively at my life now I'm 32. And I definitely feel that in my early 20s, I probably didn't care. But although generations are different, that much about my well being it was more about just succeeding kind of thing, or is that a 30? You start looking at? Yes, I definitely want to succeed, but I'm kind of looking at things a bit more holistically. So my guess is, though, we'll be you know, around 30s. But who knows, maybe someone also in, it'd be nice to maybe be able to cater to 250, the 50 age group, which maybe also needs, you know, some some well being support. So I will remain to be seen, I don't have a magic, you know, bow, unfortunately. But yes, I, my guess would be similar to yours.
Tony Winyard 35:53
And as you speak, and then it made me think about, like sub sub cultures almost or, you know, I mean, so like, for example, there could be, it could be aimed at women who are trying to get pregnant, for example, and it could help them with things that could be good to me, and what to look out for HRV, right, wise and various other like blood pressure and various other things that could be detrimental to their pregnancy, I suppose. That's a
Filippo di Lenardo 36:21
very cool idea. I mean, one of the things that funnily enough, we were when we were doing interviews and showing kind of the prototype, they're like, does it sync with my period, and a lot of people said, sync with period and those sort of things. So that's, that's interesting, but to be positioned for an outcome, which is so important for most women, it's actually an interesting thought. I mean, yeah, there is. That's, that's a very interesting one. Actually, I never thought about it, although I should, because I'm kind of in that position two with my wife. So you've given me a good inspiration there?
Tony Winyard 36:55
Well, I mean, we could we could talk about this this for hours. I mean, it sounds fascinating. I'm, I'm fascinated by AI generally. And technology. And, and health and wellness has been my world for for some time. So it's yeah, it's something that fascinates me. So I'm, yeah, I'd be I'm interested to see how it develops, and, and what new things you add onto overtime. It's clear, it's not it looks very interesting.
Filippo di Lenardo 37:22
Oh, thank you. Yeah, it's a starting point, you know, like, one has to be kind of safe focus on the on the present. You know, of course, there's a whole bunch of things that I that I'd love to do. And I have planned, but we also need to be humble enough to be like, we have to start with something we kind of have to validate, step by step, the product to make sure that, you know, the people ultimately are the ones that need to benefit from this. So that's what we need to listen to at the same time, while also it's kind of this interesting, I always have this this, this this internal and external debate. And there is this famous quote by Henry Ford that, you know, said if I asked people what they wanted, they probably asked for faster horses. Yeah. And so you know, people are not going to tell you what you want, but you got to respect whether what you're doing is actually in a improving their life. And they're, they're using it. So it's a it's a nice dance. Let's put it this way.
Tony Winyard 38:18
When is it out now? And when will it be out? When will it be available?
Filippo di Lenardo 38:22
It will be our first release will be on Monday 17th. of January.
Tony Winyard 38:31
So by the time this this episode comes out, it will already be Yeah, it will be out? I'm not sure. Is that globally or particular countries? No, it's,
Filippo di Lenardo 38:39
uh, you know, it's gonna be a Chrome extension. Okay, initially, so all you need is to have Google Chrome as a browser, and then you just it's a you installed as a as a plugin, that's going to be our first release. And then soon after, we're gonna release this part, which was, it's called the off mode. So the idea is that with the click of a button, all your work related tabs move away. Because what we found from our research is that a lot of people were having a hard time separating personal and professional life, especially in a remote work environment. So we kind of said, what if we could create this off mode where you know, you click a button, all your work related tabs move away and your screen now becomes your centralised, curated space, where you can sync your favourite Well, being apps, reconnect with great content, explore local or online events tailored to your interests becomes kind of your, your place for self exploration after work. So to help you have this kind of healthy work life balance, and the idea is that what you do off work impacts how you live your day. So to then have the AI understand how the two correlates that there can be a healthier relationship ultimately for for your own well being. That's kind of the the next step of what we'll be launching.
Tony Winyard 39:54
So if people want to find out more about this, where where would they look
Filippo di Lenardo 39:58
online, begin On the website, it's www.3ssentia.com. body mind heart, that's kind of the reason for the three. And there they can they can try it for free.
Tony Winyard 40:25
Can people find out more and follow you on social media, for example?
Filippo di Lenardo 40:29
Yeah, I mean, we were quite active on LinkedIn. And also on on Instagram, those are the two main channels that we kind of use. So yeah, just to kind of let people know of any challenges or any kind of, you know, content that we may create, just to kind of inspire people, and hopefully in their day, but yeah, those are the two main main channels we use.
Tony Winyard 40:55
Okay. Again, it's a couple of questions I asked most guests. And so it's a little bit different from what we're talking about now. I mean, one is, is there a book that's really resonated with you in your life for any reason that's really, really moved you?
Filippo di Lenardo 41:09
Oh, my God, there's so many. There's I, you know, I was when I was kind of opening the email, I was like, Oh, that question. As I Oh, there's so many. Well, it really depends. I mean, one book that really struck me, really struck me for human potential for the human potential is Reinventing Organisations. Basically, it's a book about leadership and, and how to create companies that are kind of living organisms where there are no like set titles, but everyone is kind of CO creates and takes ownership at the same time. And it's a beautiful example of how companies can operate and may or may not be suited for every business. But what I like about that is the is the beauty of the limit of believing in human potential and human harmony. The spiritual message behind it was what making videos I've read this exists, this is possible. So it was a great message of hope. I think that's what really moved me is that if we do empower people, and we actually let go of our fears, and our need to control, we can actually create beautiful, beautiful society, and even companies which have financial objectives and all those things, they can still have operate in harmony. So that was, that was a something that really that really touched me as a as a book, if I have to think of one recently.
Tony Winyard 42:38
And finally, Filippo, is there. Do you have a quotation that you particularly like?
Filippo di Lenardo 42:46
Well, one that always, I think it's more like a reminder for me. And it's about the Chinese kind of spiritual master that was talking about Lao Tzu. And it always strikes me is like "To understand the limitations of things desire them". And for someone that kind of likes to think big and dream and stuff like that, sometimes I catch myself trying to live that quote, because it's kind of like, Yeah, you get caught in it, and then you realise the limitation of it. So it's, it's maybe it's not the most. It's quite profound in some ways, and maybe it's very specific. But if you have to ask me, something that I kind of tried to remind myself is that but one that I tried to live by every day, I try, of course, I'm not perfect is the one by Nelson Mandela, which is I never lose, I either win or learn, I find that to be so powerful. And so just a wonderful thing. And that's a cool, great example of the neuroscience of well being at work because that practising our positive outlook is exactly that. So that's the one maybe that is more practical on a day to day level that really helps.
Tony Winyard 44:00
When you mentioned Lao Tzu just then he reminded me of a couple of years ago, I was reading, Dr. Wayne Dyer, who did a book called Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao, lots of quotations that Lao Tzu mode. And I was reading this book, and I was on a tube in London, and I was so engrossed with the book, I didn't just miss my stop. I went five stations past my stop! I was just so engrossed in this book. It was yeah, it's an amazing book.
Filippo di Lenardo 44:36
Oh, another book now that you gave me, I think, because I love books, A Treatise on efficacy by Julia. That is an amazing book. I mean, we could talk for hours about that book, but very briefly, it talks about the difference between the sort of Eastern approach towards achieving a goal versus the, the western approach and a It's like, it's amazing that that actually, I haven't actually I would actually change that that book. That book would be my top now,
Tony Winyard 45:09
I lived in Asia for 10 years, so I very much know where you're coming from when you're talking about.
Filippo di Lenardo 45:15
yeah, it's so fascinating. As a Westerner, you're like, Wow, really, you can be so powerful without, with surrendering, which is not really a sign of weakness, right is a sign of being aware of who you are, and where you want to be without pushing for things, you know, because in the West, we kind of have this ego driven approach. And oh, my God, that book is so beautiful.
Tony Winyard 45:37
I get the impression, we could talk about books for next couple of hours, I think I think I'm gonna finish. But I really thank you for your time and for letting our listeners know, the app. Sounds fascinating. I'm sure a lot of people are going to at least look up and find out more about it. So yeah, best of luck.
Filippo di Lenardo 45:55
Thank you, thank you very much. Appreciate. It's been great talking to you.
Tony Winyard 46:02
Next week, episode 52 with Dr. Jenny Goodman. She's been working as a GP since 1982, and is a member of the British society for ecological medicine. And she specialised in nutritional environmental medicine for the last 20 years, with a particular interest in preconception care, fitted fertility and making healthy babies. It's it's a fascinating conversation. She released a book lot two years ago called staying alive in toxic times. A seasonal guide to lifelong health. It is really a really good book. I think I've read it about three times now. We talk a lot about the book about some of the things that she talks about in the book. So yeah, so tune in next week, episode 52 with Dr. Jenny Goodman. If you know anyone who you feel will get some more value from this week's episode with Filippo di Lenardo, please do share the episode with them. And I hope you have a great week.
Jingle 47:03
Thanks for tuning in to the habits and health podcast where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a review on your favourite podcast app. Sign up for email updates and learn about coaching and workshop opportunities at TonyWinyard.com See you next time on the habits and health podcast
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Habits & Health episode 50 with Silke Maria Haas who is an energetic Coach and a healer with over 25 years of experience helping people with physical, emotional, mental and spiritual problems. She went to India at the age of 18 and discovered Yoga as a way of life. Realising that many of her yoga students had medical problems she trained as an Osteopath and Naturopath in the U.K. In order to help people by “fixing” the physical manifestations of their problems in the body helping to enable people to heal and empower themselves through a unique system of energetic Coaching called “crazy healing” Links:
www.crazyhealing.eu
https://www.facebook.com/energeticcoaching YouTube Channel Recommended book: The Big Leap -Gay Hendricks Favourite quote: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.”
from American Theologist Reinhold Niebuhr.
Don’t forget, there is a transcript of every episode (scroll down the page)
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Tony Winyard 0:00
Habits and health episode 50.
Jingle 0:03
Welcome to the habits and health podcast, where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. Brought to you by an educator and coach for anyone who wants to create a healthier life. Here's your host, Tony Winyard.
Tony Winyard 0:19
Welcome to another edition of habits and health, my guest today Silke Maria Haas, she's an energetic coach and healer who has over 25 years of experience helping people with physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual problems. And she went to India at the age of 18, where she discovered yoga as a way of life. And so we find that a lot more about what happened, and how she's worked on that sense and what she does now. So that's this week's episode with silk mania house. If you know anyone who would enjoy this week's episode, please do share it with them. habits and health my guest today, let me see if I can pronounce this right is Silke Maria Haas did I get it right? Fantastic. How are you?
Silke Maria Haas 1:06
I'm very well, thank you. And thank you for having me on your show.
Tony Winyard 1:09
No, it's a pleasure and you're in a much warmer part of the world than I am at the moment.
Silke Maria Haas 1:15
That's true. I'm in Majorca, Spain, and it's beautifully sunny for a change, because we've had weeks of rain.
Tony Winyard 1:21
Yeah, yeah. But when it rains there, it's still quite nice, though, isn't it? Yes. It's not like when it rains in England. I mean, you know what it's like when it rains in England.
Silke Maria Haas 1:30
That's right. I lived in England for eight years. So I know.
Tony Winyard 1:34
Cool. And you've been in Spain quite a while you said, Yeah.
Silke Maria Haas 1:37
for over 20 years. I've lived in Spain, in New York.
Tony Winyard 1:41
What was it that took you out to Spain?
Silke Maria Haas 1:44
It was when my daughter was born. And I was living in London. And I thought bringing up a child in a big city wasn't the right thing to do. So moving out of London was, you know, a fresh start. And I had a distant family member that lived there that invited us over.
Tony Winyard 2:03
Okay. And you're originally from Germany?
Silke Maria Haas 2:07
That's right. Yes. You're quite
Tony Winyard 2:08
a world traveller. Yes. So, how many languages do you speak?
Silke Maria Haas 2:14
I'm fluent in German, English and Spanish. And, yeah, there's other languages, but I don't speak them fluidly.
Tony Winyard 2:23
Cool. Okay, let's let's test and talk about your I mean, you're very much into health fine. You and that was it, because you mentioned that you studied in England?
Silke Maria Haas 2:32
That's right. Yeah. I started to become an osteopath and naturopath in 1990.
Tony Winyard 2:38
Okay. And what was the influence? What made you want to do that?
Silke Maria Haas 2:43
I actually originally trained as a yoga teacher at the early age of 18 When I went to India, okay. And then coming back from India, I realised that a lot of my students had medical problems that I didn't know enough. So I was looking for something medical to backup, my yoga teaching and then I stuck with with the clinic and the practice and one to one work.
Tony Winyard 3:07
And why did you go to I mean, we were there many places around the world offering that sort of training. What Why did you go to London?
Silke Maria Haas 3:14
Ah, well, there was a there was a side interest, a side hustle, I wanted to study dance. And there was a particular course I was interested in London. But also I was I was too young to do the German degree in naturopathic or the health practical then. So that was the obvious choice.
Tony Winyard 3:35
And for anyone who doesn't really understand what is osteopathy and natural profit work? Could you give a definition? How what is it to the average person?
Silke Maria Haas 3:46
Oh, I love that question. It's really looking at the body as as a whole, looking at the body as a self healing mechanism. And osteopathy is very much to do with looking at the relationship between structure and function. So by adjusting or manipulating or helping the skeleton to be in a better place that could improve the function of the organs the movement and the well being of the person on all levels.
Tony Winyard 4:18
And I'm wondering so when you have to when you were deciding to do that course after you've been doing yoga in India? Would I be right in thinking what how you thought that would help you before you started it? You had very different thoughts after you completed that course and what you learned during that time?
Silke Maria Haas 4:38
Absolutely. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. But it's like that with many things in life.
Tony Winyard 4:45
Yeah, so what what did change and what what were you after you qualified? What were your thoughts? What did you think you were going to do or?
Silke Maria Haas 4:53
Well, at that time, it was obvious I was just gonna get my hands dirty and just work with client get as much experience as I could. And what I didn't know, it would then lead me on to more helping people to heal and empower themselves, which is what I'm doing now as a coach, as well as sort of repairing and doing the one to one work. But I very much love reaching more people and giving people the means to help themselves.
Tony Winyard 5:24
And is the a certain type of person you work with, like a age group, or any sort of particular demographic?
Silke Maria Haas 5:31
Well, in, in my practice, I have literally from newborn till 95 year olds. In my coaching, I like to focus on parents, because having children gives a big way. And since children are sort of my teachers in terms of being lightness, joy, and being beings of presence, you know, parents are obviously in a much better place to understand what I'm talking about. But really, it's about anybody who's conscious and sensitive and really wants to empower themselves.
Tony Winyard 6:08
And when people initially come to you, what is, is there a common theme that they have they come to see you in the first place? Why? Why do people seek you out? Usually,
Silke Maria Haas 6:22
usually, they have some sort of problem, they have a pain on a physical level, or an emotional relationship problem, or they're struggling with some issues in their life. Yeah, it's, it's quite often as in life, pain driven, and very few Joy driven, they just want to learn and to grow. And to be more aware. I love those too.
Tony Winyard 6:45
And so how, once you start working with them, I'm guessing that they're, they initially comes to you just because they've got some pain, and I probably learned far more than just simply dealing with that pain, I'm guessing.
Silke Maria Haas 6:57
That's right, they start to understand that the pain is somehow their manifestation of their problems in their lives. And it's, that's really the trick to make them understand that until that problem is solved, whatever I'm doing is just a remedial thing. And they're much better off getting out of that victim place and getting into that power.
Tony Winyard 7:20
And so when you say you work with parents, and and the children at the same time, did you say?
Silke Maria Haas 7:26
That's right? I mean, a lot of people bring the babies to me after birth, because that's one of the common issues that I treat. That baby is not sleeping or feeding well growing well, and it has some sort of blockage. And that's quite easy to solve with gentle osteopathic treatment. Okay, but then you have the whole stress of the parents, and not knowing how to deal with different situations in their lives shows up issues and the relationships. Yeah.
Tony Winyard 7:57
And what, what aspect of your work? Do you enjoy it the most?
Silke Maria Haas 8:07
The thing I enjoy most is when I when somebody comes back to me, and they've really applied some of the tools that I've shared with them, and it's worked for them. And I can see them flourishing in in various areas of their life being happier, healthier, and more abundant. That's really, that's the biggest gift anybody can have. I think,
Tony Winyard 8:29
is it something you can do both online and face to face? Or does it have to be face to face?
Silke Maria Haas 8:35
No, no, it can actually be done online, because energy doesn't need a person to be there physically. That is if I work energetically, or with coaching when I work with a physical issue. I prefer people in front of me.
Tony Winyard 8:50
So what would you say is the of your clients? What percentage would be face to face and online?
Silke Maria Haas 8:59
And it's changing. It used to be like 90%, face to face and 10% online and and I'm just working on the transition. So it varies from week to week.
Tony Winyard 9:10
Right? And I guess with the whole sort of pandemic thing over the last couple of years has been far more online than face to face.
Silke Maria Haas 9:17
Yes. Although we've been very lucky here in Spain that we've been allowed to work and had less restrictions than anywhere else. But that's also part of part of the problem that people when when they are confined to their homes, they need the remedies to work with themselves.
Tony Winyard 9:36
And so what is it the the issues that people are having around pain and so on when it comes to in the first place? Is there a common denominator in what's causing a plain pain in first place often?
Silke Maria Haas 9:49
Yes. On the physical level, I would say civilization chairs sitting far too much And moving far too little, and not having the proper balance between rest and movement. That is a very common cause for skeletal problems, at least, as well as stress, of course.
Tony Winyard 10:16
And how easy or difficult is that to remedy?
Silke Maria Haas 10:20
It's actually very easy to remedy, all they have to do is take sitting breaks get up every half an hour, do two minutes of exercise.
Tony Winyard 10:28
And do they need to sort of be changing their furniture or anything along those lines? Well,
Silke Maria Haas 10:34
ideally throw out the furniture sits on the floor. Of course, there's better and worse chairs. And there is these, you know, cheap versions of just a ball that you can sit on at the height of your sitting bones sort of 60s 60 or 70 centimetres, they can usually be bought for 1015 years. And that gives you a moving balance. And and it's just a nice change for your back.
Tony Winyard 11:07
And do people think of some of these things as being extreme because they're so used to what is normal for them for their whole lives is today think about dude, do some of your clients fitness is a bit extra extreme, maybe?
Silke Maria Haas 11:20
Possible, they don't say that. I mean, I make them look into other countries and like where people sit a lot more on the floor, and they work really hard physically. And yet, there's a lot less back pain and joint problems just because people sit on the floor and they bear down to go to the toilet and a squat and, and they do simple things. Even the Muslim prayer position is a great back exercise. As most people know from yoga.
Tony Winyard 11:47
Yeah. So are you still instructing yoga as well?
Silke Maria Haas 11:51
No, but I use some exercises from yoga to instruct clients on a one to one, right.
Tony Winyard 12:00
And in your, in the coaching you're doing you do so I'm thinking well, um, sort of people you've worked with previously, and you've helped them with issues around pain and it sounds like often it's around their backhoe and whatever. So and you've given them information about how to, to not only to resolve it, but I'm presuming do many of them need to come back to you. Or once you've sort of given them information now you're able then to, to carry that on for for many years. And they don't, it doesn't come back again
Silke Maria Haas 12:34
on what it depends on the chronicity of the problem on the type of problem a lot of people can just do with with maintenance. The pain can usually be resolved if they resolve the cause of the pain. And then they can maintain themselves with exercises. But it's like I said, it's a bit like going to the dentist, although I don't like the comparison. It's like I can brush my teeth every day. But I would go for a dental cleanse every six months and a checkup just for the bits that I can't get to.
Tony Winyard 13:09
Right. So what would you say you're in what you do? What is your what is your main message that you're trying to put out?
Silke Maria Haas 13:18
If I put it into one sentence, I would say you can heal and empower your life that you can actually be in charge of your life, you're the creator. And in the same way that you can create a problem, you can uncreate it and have a better life. Right? And problem can be like a stepping stone towards a better life. Like quite often a problematic situation then makes us turn around and change something and looking at it from the hindsight perspective. It often turns out to be for our better good,
Tony Winyard 13:55
right? And is it something that people think is going to be very difficult and is actually far easier?
Silke Maria Haas 14:01
Yes, a lot of people have this idea of personal growth as being hard work, that's part of the conditioning. And then when they actually realise that they can learn from joy, like children do, right? And by being lightness, and being more just being more rather than doing more, it's very much about coming more into presence coming more into your being and then the doing comes out of that being and it's not hard work anymore. It's hard to change habits you know that
Tony Winyard 14:35
right? And I'm wondering you you're talking before why I don't think you actually said these words but a lot of this comes down to I guess it's sedentary behaviour. Yes. Is there because your eyes it sounds like you're dealing with many nationalities, obviously Spanish you've been living in England and you're from Germany. Is there maybe this is controversial but is there a nationality you find farm more sedentary than others?
Silke Maria Haas 15:04
I haven't actually thought about this. No, it very much depends on the constitutional type. Right? And obviously the type of work somebody does, right? It's, I haven't found a cultural pattern.
Tony Winyard 15:21
Which profession? Is there a profession that you've had to deal with far more than any other?
Silke Maria Haas 15:28
I would say I get a lot more desk workers than I get physical labourers. Right. And, but that could also depend on the level of education. Right? So I wouldn't, I would dare to say that's to do with it. But I do think not moving is more harmful than moving.
Tony Winyard 15:47
And there's a lot of talk about a few years ago, many people thought the solution was way too, we're sitting too much. Therefore, the solution is a standing desk, which is not really the solution is that it is for some people,
Silke Maria Haas 16:00
other people like me, I can't stand for any length of time. So I prefer to sit. Yeah, it's about creating a balance. And it's when when people working on the computer, really what happens that their consciousness is sort of in the computer, and we forget about the body. We kind of all in the head and the mind, and then we listen to the body when it shouts at us in pain. And then we take a painkiller and shut it up again. And then we're surprised then we create more and more physical problems, because at the end of the day, the body has a certain tolerance. But there comes a point when the compensation mechanisms don't work anymore.
Tony Winyard 16:47
So how do you try to Because changing people's behaviour is very difficult for not only if you're trying to change someone else's behaviour, but even when you're trying to change your own behaviour. It's very difficult, what how'd you go about them?
Silke Maria Haas 17:02
That's a great question. It can be difficult, you have to have a good reason why to change. And when the reason is good enough, you will do it. And once you've changed the habit like brushing your teeth, it was hard for parents for teachers to teach. But once you've gotten used to having a clean mouth, nobody needs to go after you for you to do it, it becomes it becomes natural, it becomes a habit. Right. So once you've installed a good habit, it actually doesn't take much to keep it up because you get the benefit from it.
Jingle 17:36
We hope you're enjoying this episode of the habits and health podcast where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. If you're looking for the fastest and most effective way to transform your energy and wellbeing, we invite you to join Tony for an upcoming habits and health workshop. This five week group workshop will empower you with tools to disrupt unwanted habits and make positive changes easy. You'll enjoy sound asleep, better energy, less stress, and a happier mood Workshops begin on the first week of every month. And you can sign up now at Tonywinyard.com. Now back to the show.
Tony Winyard 18:21
Sometimes people there are behaviours that we want to do, and we know they're going to be good for us. But even though we have that knowledge, we still got can't get ourselves to do that. You know, I mean, there's loads of people want to meditate. And they've realised the benefits of meditation, but they just for whatever excuse they come up with they don't meditate.
Silke Maria Haas 18:42
That's right, yes. And in German, we have a saying you can't carry a dog to hunt. So it's like, you know, you have to really want to do it. And then you have to sit down and literally work through it. Because when you start sitting down and then you're faced with all these little voices in your head, and sometimes it's not nice what comes up. But knowing that if you do it, and then you create that habit and you get the benefit, you know, there was no way you would turn back on it.
Tony Winyard 19:19
What habits have helped you the most? Is there any habit you've really had to work hard
Silke Maria Haas 19:25
on? What has helped there's two two parts to that question. The habit that's helped me the most is definitely meditation. Okay, it's coming into awareness and to be close in a way it by being who are who I really am. Yeah, I sort of go beyond all that conditioning and programming that limits me. Okay. And so working from my essence, is the thing that helps me most in living my life, a happier life. Okay, I think I've struggled most in and just doing regular exercise because somehow, you know, getting out of bed in the morning and getting going is not a natural thing. It wasn't conditioned, it wasn't natural to me. So I've had to work hard on it. But every time I do it, it's like a success. So doing it six times a week, it's kind of I win every day. And it makes me stronger. And I feel great afterwards.
Tony Winyard 20:26
Right? You talked about meditation? Is there a particular type of meditation that you prefer?
Silke Maria Haas 20:34
I think it's, it's mostly being present. Right? Yeah, it's being present with the breath, being present with whatever the reason being not judging just being in that space, and not trying to do anything. Right. It's stopping the try.
Tony Winyard 20:51
So it is no easy to you know, in life, sort of sort of trans men, transcendental meditation or loving kindness. So it is none of those particular styles that you follow, for example.
Silke Maria Haas 21:02
No, I don't follow a particular school. But I've done lots of lots of these techniques. And sometimes I will do some breathing, or some particular visualisation to start with are definitely do start with gratitude. Right, that's, that's a big thing. To get into that vibration of gratitude. And then it's literally coming into being it's, there's a place when these techniques stop being techniques, they just, they sort of go
Tony Winyard 21:31
in attorneys. Do you ever suggest meditation for your clients?
Silke Maria Haas 21:36
Yes, absolutely. I actually make it sort of, I don't take on coaching clients, unless they're willing to commit 15 minutes a day to do some practice, okay? Because I found it's a waste of money going to classes and learning things if you don't apply them.
Tony Winyard 21:53
And when you say, practice, practice, in meditation or in in order things that you instrument,
Silke Maria Haas 21:59
in all the things, right. It's like you're wandering an investment, so you have to put something into your bank account in order to get an interest.
Tony Winyard 22:08
So typically, what would in those Did you say, 15 minutes every day? 15? One, five minutes. And so typically, what would those 15 minutes be made up of? What would people be? What would you hope people would do every day?
Silke Maria Haas 22:23
Well, hopefully, they would, they would spend some time sitting. They would write down what they're grateful for, they would write down their successes. And they would visualise their goals and objectives. That could be a very simple routine.
Tony Winyard 22:44
And is there any people you've worked with? Who when you first suggested that they didn't think they would be able to do it? They've never done anything like that before? And I'm not sure I can do that. Was there any sort of reactions like that?
Silke Maria Haas 22:59
I presume there are I sort of, I tend to make deals with people said, well, you're paying me to do coaching with you. So when you pay for it, usually, like, you know, having a gym membership, you're more likely to go if you commit to it. And then of course, there will be people who paid the membership and then they don't go. And and that's fine to
Tony Winyard 23:27
wait for people who are listening to this, and maybe they have got they've got pains or whatever it may be there are too sedentary. What What suggestions, what advice would you give them?
Silke Maria Haas 23:41
Well, first of all, be aware of what they're doing. They listen to their body, if we were to talk to our bodies, and really feel our bodies, in the same way, that we would do it in a relationship, I very much compare the body to a marriage and say, if you were to listen to your wife or your husband, only when they shouted you, you know, you wouldn't call that that good marriage. And the art of having a good relationship is to tune in, to listen to ask questions and be really interested in the other person. And in that case, in the body, and knowing that you don't have to always understand but it's all about being present and listening. And as you work on the relationship and feeling your body more, then you learn to understand and your body actually gives you the indications to do what to do, to drink more water to move more to take more rest. Whatever it is, it could be so many things. Touch for example, is also something that a lot of people are missing, just to be held.
Tony Winyard 24:51
And, and is there an element of some people may be thinking that they're they're healthy or they're fit because they They do. Maybe they do a lot of sport, but it's just one sport that they do all the time. Maybe they only play tennis or they only play golf, or they only play football. And they're not having a mixture of different types of movement, and it can that be problematic.
Silke Maria Haas 25:14
That can be although, in my experience, I find that people do themselves less harm doing what they love doing and what they enjoy doing. Then, then doing what they don't enjoy doing. But quite often when people say sit all day, and then they go off on a try to do something really hard. And then they obviously do themselves harm. Because that's when they start, you know, then when all the damage from having sat all day comes up. And then also, it's to do with the attitude when people sort of are into competitive mood and into having to achieve things and then take that into the exercise. Then again, the mind goes three steps ahead of the body. And then it's not the good teamwork
Tony Winyard 26:05
so what would so once people are start tuning into their body and listening to the body, as you explained before, then what I'm thinking what would be a good recommended recommendation for them to do to be taken things like yoga, tai Qi, sort of sort of movement practices to especially if they if they're getting older, maybe would would that be advisable?
Silke Maria Haas 26:34
Yes, I mean, you can't generalise because bodies are so different. I usually have the criteria that should be something that person enjoys, not another must in their life. And should be something where the mind and the body work together. Okay, it could be yoga, it could be martial arts. For some people, it's running some or boxing when when they have a lot of bottled up aggression. It could be dancing. It there's so many things if you if you ask your body. It'll tell you
Tony Winyard 27:08
nicely dancing is a great one for many people, I would imagine because that's, that's can be so much fun.
Silke Maria Haas 27:15
Yes, it's one of my favourite ones. So it doesn't feel like sports, because it's, you know, you're moving and you're having fun. You're socialising. There's so many things that this fulfils? Hmm.
Tony Winyard 27:29
And have you in the last couple of years since the lockdown pandemic situation? Have? Has that? Have you found there's been more people suffering from sedentary behaviour because of being at home more? Or is it not? Not too much different?
Silke Maria Haas 27:44
I couldn't say because I'm busy always. So it's like, I think what's more, that people are starting to have more economic challenges. So they're more saving on coming to see somebody? Okay, but that's exactly why I give out more material for free. I actually have have a YouTube channel with exercises for sedentary people. Okay. So that's something that I make available,
Tony Winyard 28:14
right? So in how would you like to see your your business, your practice, develop over the next few years? Are you going to be adding any new things or trying different things?
Silke Maria Haas 28:28
My practice is totally changing all the time. I'm, I'm forever learning. I'm the total junkie when it comes to learning and development. So my aim is to reach more people, and also to reach people more with my words, and just with my hands. Okay, so yes, my plan is to be a lot more online to be more present and writing a book at present. And I've published four online products in the last six months.
Tony Winyard 28:56
And what types of things, whatever things are there?
Silke Maria Haas 29:00
Well, there's, I have a 12 step course, where people can actually, you know, go through the steps of what I call energetic coaching to heal and empower themselves. And I accompany that with live group coaching calls monthly, and a membership site for people to exchange with me personally, and the others in the group. Because it's more fun when you do it together. But of course, people can do one to one coachings and they can do half online half live with me. And just recently, I published a course to release blockages in the subconscious. That's a particularly piece of work I called karmic knots. And that's a one off very, very powerful work, which usually gets rid of 80% of the problems within 10 minutes. So it's really amazing work.
Tony Winyard 29:57
And in the book, but you mentioned that you're right, yes. What who would have booked me about?
Silke Maria Haas 30:03
The book will be about how to be crazy, happy, healthy and abundant. Okay? Because my coaching method is called crazy healing. This was a name I got channelled long before the crazy times that we started. And it's about using the crazy situation that is the problem as a stepping stone towards reclaiming one's wholeness.
Tony Winyard 30:27
And when do you hope to have the book finished by
Silke Maria Haas 30:30
should be out next year?
Tony Winyard 30:32
Okay, well, we're in a bounce next year.
Silke Maria Haas 30:36
I'm just finishing writing it. So whatever long the publishing takes, right, that's out of my hand.
Tony Winyard 30:44
And speaking of books, is there a book that has really moved you at all?
Silke Maria Haas 30:49
Yes, yes, I have it with me. It's called The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. And it's all about scaling up and becoming the best version of yourself. Not stop playing small basically.
Tony Winyard 31:05
What was it about the book that really moved you?
Silke Maria Haas 31:10
It was realising that I had been playing small for so many years, and realise that there was so much more to me than I believed myself to be able to do.
Tony Winyard 31:26
If people want to find out more about the courses that you mentioned, and your social media and your website, and so on, where is the best places to go?
Silke Maria Haas 31:33
The easiest way is to subscribe to my newsletter on my website, crazy healing.eu. And, and they're also the courses that I've been published. They're also on the website.
Tony Winyard 31:48
And is there on your YouTube channel? You mentioned?
Silke Maria Haas 31:51
Yes, the YouTube channel is just my name Silka Maria Haas,
Tony Winyard 31:55
okay. And I'll put links to all of these in the show notes for anyone listening,
Silke Maria Haas 32:01
that would be great. And just
Tony Winyard 32:03
before we finish, is there, is there a quotation that you particularly like?
Silke Maria Haas 32:08
Yes, I very much love the quote of a sociologist called Reinhold Niebuhr. And it's, it's a little prayer really saying, grant me the courage to change the things I can't change. Grant me the equanimity to accept the things I cannot change. And grant me the wisdom to differentiate between one as the other.
Tony Winyard 32:39
And what is it about that that sticks produce so much?
Silke Maria Haas 32:44
When it's it's really describes the essence of my coaching, because energetic coaching is about developing the skill to differentiate one thing from the other, and to cultivate that acceptance, and at the same time, cultivate the courage to do the changes?
Tony Winyard 33:04
Well, Silca, thank you very much for your time, it's been a been a real pleasure, and best of luck for the future.
Silke Maria Haas 33:11
Likewise, it was great talking to you. Thank you. Thank you.
Tony Winyard 33:16
Next week, episode 51, with Filipo de Leonardo, and he's a third time entrepreneur who have a passion and mission to create products and services that can improve people's lives. And he's done a lot of work around behaviour change. And he inspired him to launch an app called essential, which is a work life experience platform that combines AI and the science of wellbeing, to help professionals feel more balance energised and inspired in their day. So we talk a lot about how this platform works, and what was the inspiration behind it and how will we actually help people? So that's next week with Filippo de Leonardo. Hope you enjoy this week's episode. Please do share the episode of anyone you know who you feel would get some real value from this. And hope you have a great week.
Jingle 34:08
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Habits & Health episode 49 with Dr Sarah Myhill is a Naturopathic Physician, Member of the British Society for Ecological Medicine and former GP. She’s written many books and has won awards including the Peoples Book Prize Winner and was a BMA Short-listed author. Sarah has co-authored 3 medical papers on CFS and mitochondrial dysfunction.
In this episode we discuss CFS, medicine, the immune system, and much more.
Links:
https://www.drmyhill.co.uk/ Books: Green Mother – families fit for the future – https://amzn.to/3GCOzY5 The Energy Equation – from The Naked Ape to The Knackered Ape – https://amzn.to/3FDMhqi Ecological Medicine – The Antidote to Big Pharma and Fast Foods – https://amzn.to/3FD5R6n The Infection Game – life is an arms race – https://amzn.to/33ES01Y The PK Cookbook – Go Paleo-ketogenic and get the best of both worlds – https://amzn.to/3GH76Te Diagnosis and Treatment of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Myalgic Encephalitis (2nd Edition) – https://amzn.to/3IbydpQ Prevent and Cure Diabetes – delicious diets not dangerous drugs – https://amzn.to/3FE5nwF Fave book: Silent Spring Rachel Carson – https://amzn.to/3If4cpi Fave quote: “My education was only interrupted by my schooling” Winston Churchill
Don’t forget, there is a transcript of every episode at tonywinyard.com
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Jingle 0:00
Habits & health episode 49. Welcome to the habits and health podcast, where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. Brought to you by an educator and coach for anyone who wants to create a healthier life. Here's your host, Tony Winyard.
Tony Winyard 0:20
Welcome to another edition edition of habits and health. My guest today, Dr. Sarah Myhill. She's a naturopathic physician, a former GP. She's written numerous books around chronic fatigue syndrome, ecological medicine, a book called the infection game, the paleo cookbook or a paleo ketogenic cookbook. The diagnosis and treatment of chronic fatigue syndrome, and many others. We have a very interesting conversation. Dr Sarah Myhill, how are you, Sarah?
Dr Sarah Myhill 1:10
Very well. Thank you, Tony. I'm looking forward to this morning.
Tony Winyard 1:14
And you're well you're not so far away from me. You're mid I was You were telling me
Dr Sarah Myhill 1:17
indeed. You're just down the road. If I'd known that before I'd crossed it down. We could have done this live.
Tony Winyard 1:24
But your your accent doesn't sound very well.
Dr Sarah Myhill 1:26
I'm not well, I mean, my family and North Londoners were bought up in well in in Hartfordshire and only moved here a few decades ago. And actually the local people here are largely well, they're all English speaking. They have a rat Misha accent rather than the Welsh accent.
Tony Winyard 1:43
For the people listening who maybe aren't familiar with your name? Would you give us a little background about what it is that you've done? And what it is that you do now?
Dr Sarah Myhill 1:52
Okay. Well, you know, I qualified in 1981, having been conventionally trained, you know, at Middlesex Hospital Medical School, I then went straight into general practice, and I worked as an NHS GP for for about 20 years. And during that time, I, I learned that modern medicine is not about identifying the root cause of symptoms. Modern medicine has drifted down the Big Pharma route, which is find a symptom and supply its symptoms suppressing medication, which in the short term gives a short term relief, but in the long term is disastrous. Because we have symptoms for very good reason symptoms are the signpost symptoms tell us there's something wrong and you've got to do something about it. And it's the symptom gets very nasty, when you don't do anything about it, then you should work even harder. And trying to tackle medicine, from that intellectual viewpoint within the NHS became increasingly difficult, because and eventually, during the late 1990s, I got my wrist slapped, because my prescribing budget was so low. And because my prescribing budget was so low, that made me a bad doctor. Now, obviously, I was treating people through diet and lifestyle changes. And, and then actually what really, there were several issues. But the last role was that I was told I would have to have Hepatitis B vaccination if I were to be allowed to continue in NHS practice. And I'd seen so many patients, patients who'd had serious illnesses and fatigue syndromes triggered by vaccination, I thought that's it, I've got to do my MC. So in 2000, I set up an independent medical practice. In fact, there's a bit of overlap with my NHS work, but by then I had enough work to make it viable. Now it is my view that all information should be freely available. And at that point, I set up a website, and everything that I knew or had learned about medicine I put up there. And that's where my problems really started. Because you would think that somebody who who was open and open to questioning and wanted to make that information freely available to all, you know would be would be applauded by the powers that be. And I actually found that the reverse was true. And in 2001, came my first General Medical Council investigation. Now there have never been any complaints from patients. All my patients very happy with what I do. Every single complaint has come from other doctors, health authorities or sometimes the GMC itself. And in consequence of all that I am now the most investigated doctor in the history of the General Medical Council. Not because I've done any harm, but simply because the establishment and the powers that be do not like my approach to medicine. They do not like the fact that I'm looking for disease causation. rather than symptom suppression with drugs, so anybody listening into this, as got to be thinking of as obviously your attorney has got to be thinking on those guidelines, we have symptoms, why do we have those symptoms? What are the mechanisms, those symptoms? And what tools can we use to reverse that pathology. And that's what medicine should be all about. And in fact, if you think about it, that formula applies to any situation, whether it's agriculture, whether it's engineering, whether it's health service, it doesn't matter, we ask, you know what the problem is, we identify the mechanism by which that problem has been has arrived at, and then that gives us an obvious treatment. And I have no difficulty with that logical project progression as I have you, and your listeners will have no difficulty as well.
Tony Winyard 5:49
Well, and I mean, many of the experts and doctors who have been guests before you have some form integrative medicine and functional medicine and many similar types of approaches so very much. And you I know a couple of people that I've spoken to your you've also got some speciality. So I know that you're renowned in, I think it was chronic fatigue syndrome, and some other sort of conditions similar to that area,
Dr Sarah Myhill 6:18
indeed. And chronic fatigue is the worst treated condition in the Western world. When in the 1980s, I remember reading that the acronym ta TT tired all the time, constituted 40%, of GP consultations, then, of course, it's not 40%. Now, because people have worked out that the doctors are no good at that, you know, they they just fudge the issue, instead of asking questions, why is this person fatigued, they maybe do some basic tests to make sure there's no major pathology there. And then they dismiss the patient as being a hypochondriac. And I got started to get interested in chronic fatigue syndromes, and E in the mid 1980s. And throughout the 1990s, because, you know, I saw in a very fit healthy people, you know, sometimes Olympic athletes, sometimes English and British athletes, for me to top level who develop this condition, and that told me it certainly was not hypochondriasis. When I moved to Wales, in the 1990s, I started seeing many farmers with sheep flu, which essentially is a severe chronic fatigue syndrome induced by exposure to toxic chemicals. And I was really then asked the question, Why, what's going on here? Why are these people pathologically fatigued? And then I started seeing Gulf War veterans, again, with a clinical picture of chronic fatigue syndrome. Why what happened in the Gulf, that caused those patients to those fit healthy young men to become the pathologically ill? I saw over 200 women with silicone breast implants, who again, who presented with a similar clinical picture of chronic fatigue syndrome and inflammation.
And, of course, you can get so many clues from the history as watsco as is what is going on here. But, you know, let's leap forward to the here and now to the present day, you know, what, what have I arrived at now, and essentially, the clinical picture of chronic fatigue syndrome is characterised by pathological fatigue, which causes physical fatigue and mental fatigue. In fact, these patients, essentially, they have an early dementia. And patients with me, they have pathological fatigue with poor energy delivery mechanisms, and inflammation. So their bodies are inflamed for reasons of allergy, autoimmunity, or maybe chronic infection. So that's how I break it down. And the key point to remember about chronic fatigue syndrome, and Emmy is they are not diagnoses. They are clinical pictures. They're, they're groups of symptoms, and we have to ask the question, why we then have to break it down. So what makes fatigue pathological? What's the difference between normal fatigue because guess what you and I, you know, we're going to be tired at the end of the day, we can have a good night's sleep and the next tomorrow, we should wake up feeling fine. So the difference between pathological fatigue and normal fatigue is the delay aspect. People who are pathologically fatigued if they overdo things, they pay for it the next day. Now, that's a universal symptom, you know, Steve Redgrave, after he'd won his fourth gold medal, and had pushed himself to his limit, he would have had delayed fatigue that for him was pathological. But when energy delivery mechanisms are so awful, that you know you can't survive, you can't do your everyday stuff just staying up without getting pathological fatigue, then you know, you're in trouble. Now the starting point to treat me and chronic fatigue is to look at energy delivery mechanisms. And the analogy which I use is the car analogy. So if you're castigate, you've got to have the right fuel in the tank. And that's all about Dart and gut function, you've got to have the mitochondrial engine. And this is my special area of interest. And together, John Howard, we published three papers now, on mitochondrial function in patients with fatigue syndromes, then you have to have the thyroid accelerator pedal, and that determines how fast your mitochondria go. And new adrenal gearbox and the adrenal glands. If you know, gearbox allows us to gear up in response to stress. So in response to doing a podcast like this, then you don't have to have a few stress hormones functioning flight in order to allow me to perform so that I can inform and hopefully entertain that same time. So that's the analogy that I use to my patients. And I like that analogy, because because I get it in my patients get it. And it always starts with diet. Now, Dart is probably the most difficult thing that I asked people to do. But it's also the most important. And if you don't get diet, right, nothing else works. And the problem with Western diets is that they are high in sugars, and they are high in carbohydrates. Now, if you've got a perfect digestion, and young people do have much better digestion than the old Vegas, if you have perfect digestion, that will go a long way to dealing with sugars and carbohydrates. But it's so overwhelming. Nowadays, there's so much sugar and junk food and fast carbs and fruits and fruit juices pouring into our diets, that it changes our gut function. Now, just to talk about normal gut function, the human gut is almost unique in the mammal world, because the upper gut should be a sterile, acidic, digesting gut, just like my little dog who's sitting next to me, just like her gut for the businesses of absorbing, digesting and absorbing meat and fat. And then the lower gut, the large bowel should be a vegetarian gut just like my horse, you know, for the purposes of fermenting vegetable fibre. Now that gut layout allows us to eat a very wide variety of foods. And that's part of what has made humans so successful in the natural world. Because we can, we can, you know, I can consume vegetables, which my dog certainly couldn't cope with. And I could consume meat which my horse you wouldn't deal with either. Now, I say the upper gut should be a sterile, acidic, digesting gut. Now, if you overwhelm that the sugars and carbohydrates, then the bacteria and the yeast move in and they ferment, and the upper gut becomes an upper fermenting gut. And I now know without a shadow of doubt, that that drives much pathology, it causes a huge number of problems. The first thing is if your upper gut is a fermenting gut, then it will be full of bacteria and it will be full of yeast that the body is not used to, and they produce toxins. They produce bacterial endotoxins. They produce a fungal mycotoxins and all those poison the body.
If you start to consume vitamins, minerals, and of course there lots of natural vitamins, minerals in foods, then those microbes are in the front seat, they get first pick. So they take all the B vitamins and the essential fatty acids and the minerals for their own metabolism, ie you Mel absorb those supplements. And I see so many people who have spent a fortune on supplements, but they've got enough of fermenting gut. This is feeding the bugs. Yeah, potentially, they're making the situation worse. And then those microbes when they ferment, they produce more toxins. So if you've got a yeast in the upper gut and you eat some fruit, it will ferment that to alcohol. It's called the auto brewery syndrome. Yeah, it's not rocket science. And it's not just ESA alcohol we get we can produce methyl alcohol profile alcohol, butyl alcohol, we can produce the lactate, hydrogen sulphide, ammoniacal compounds, a whole range of toxins, all of which poison the body. And the blood of the venous drainage of the gut go straight to the liver and the liver has to deal with that toxic load. And in dealing with that toxic load, it uses a massive amount of energy. One of the statistics I love to quote is at rest, the brain consumes 20% of our energy and the heart 7% of our energy at rest. The liver consumes 27% ie the same amount of energy, it's the heart and the brain combined, just to deal with that toxic load. So soon as you clean up the upper fermenting gut with a PK dark, we'll talk about that. As soon as you clean that up. You make more energy available to the rest of the body. So and there's a third major issue You hear at medical school we are taught, yes, the gas is full of bacteria, or rather the lower fermenting gases from a bacteria. And there they stay and don't cause any problems. Not true. We now know that gas is a bit leaky, and some of those microbes do get from the gut into the bloodstream. Now, a very good example of that is, if you brush your teeth, if I took a blood test from somebody, two minutes after they brush their teeth, I would find dental bacteria in the bloodstream. And that, of course, is why people with heart lesions go to the dentist are given antibiotics routinely to stop getting infected with your heart valve. But these microbes on the upper fermenting gut also get into the bloodstream. Now, from an evolutionary perspective, these microbes are not familiar. They shouldn't be there. And the immune system sees these unfamiliar, you know, foreign microbes floating around in the bloodstream and getting stuck in our joints and get stuck in our skin and getting stuck in in our connective tissue. And where those microbes get stuck, we get inflammation. And I'm now quite short, that many pathologies derived from allergy to microbes from the upper fermenting gut pathologies like temporal arthritis, polymyalgia, rheumatica, fibromyalgia, chronic urticaria, intrinsic asthma, inflammatory bowel disease, arthritis, etc. So if if, if people listening to this podcast I'm quite sure Tony, you do the Paleo ketogenic diet because he wouldn't dare unless otherwise. If people listening to this podcast do nothing other than move to paleo, I no grains, no dairy because they are not natural foods, Paleo ketogenic, ie very low carbohydrate diet, they will be doing yourself a huge favour. Because we now know that doing that diet a is the starting point to treat absolutely everything. And it's also the starting point to prevent absolutely everything. So guess what? Am I going to wait till I get my dementia or my cancer or my heart disease? Before I start doing the PK da? No, I'm going to do it now. And again, people asked me why the PK diet, you know, and the answer is, because that's what primitive man's been eating for the past few hundreds of 1000s of years. That is the natural diet, and, and our bodies and our guts and our brains have evolved and consuming those foods. So that's what we should be eating. I know I've talked for too long, you're probably in between is going to be shutting me up. And I'm quite sure there are 1,000,001 questions that might pop out. So if you got anything, you know, please say so now before before you lose me in the in the distance.
Tony Winyard 17:54
So me as you say that, that being so many different questions, and some into my mind and the obvious one being so. So someone does change to a paleo ketogenic diet. How long typically, I mean, it is a bit like asking how long is a piece of string, but how long would it take those symptoms to start to disappear and for the person to recover
Dr Sarah Myhill 18:11
remarkably quickly, you know, a few weeks you'd see a difference, okay? The problem is, is that sugars and junk foods are addictive. And what happens when we give up an addiction, we get withdrawal symptoms, that the caffeine addict giving up caffeine will and each initially feel they're weak and maybe headachy and a bit, you know, spaced out. But that will last a few days or a week or so and then they will feel much better. It's the same for any addiction. And the keys that start is to think of sugars and refined carbohydrates as an addiction. And if you're eating foods in an addictive way, then you have metabolic syndrome, you you and you are fueling your bodies with sugars and carbohydrates. And that is the forum has a diabetes, high blood pressure, cholesterol problems, heart disease, cancer, dementia, the whole shooting match. So once you've recognised that sugars are addictive, and it's very easy to do. If I take a dietary history from somebody I recognised within the first few seconds what the problem is if they Oh yes for breakfast, so we'll have a glass of fruit juice bowl of muesli, toast marmalade. All those things are sugars and carbohydrates immediately No. And what that means when they have that sort of breakfast is the mid mid morning. They're hungry, because that breakfast sent their blood sugar flying up, which of course is very dangerous to the body high blood sugar sugar is sticky stuff. It's sticky in the hand. If I pick up sugar, I'm putting my hands it's sticky. It's sticking the bloodstream to it sticks to things, and in sticking to things it damages and denatured them. So high blood sugar sticks to arteries and damages them. It sticks the brain proteins and damages them. In fact, dementia is now being called type three diabetes It's a sugar problem in the brain. It sticks to connective tissue and damages that too. We now know osteoporosis is part of sugar addiction. So it manifests in lots of ways. So the body cannot allow the blood sugar to run too high. So as soon as it comes up after that high carb meal, insulin is poured out. How does insulin bring the blood sugar down by shunting into fat. And therefore people running carbs tend to get fat very easily, then the whole metabolic drive is to laying down fat. So then the blood sugar starts to come down. Now, if you're eating sugar all the time, all the time the brain runs on sugar. As the blood sugar drops, the brain starts the planning. Oh, we're running out of fuel. It sends out the panic hormone. What's the panic hormone adrenaline? What's adrenaline do okay? It stimulates your fat burning. Initially, it brings blood sugars back up again. But adrenaline gets as high blood pressure. It makes us feel stressed, worried anxious. If you get an adrenaline spike in the middle of the night, it stops you sleeping. And we know that loss of sleep is a major driver of all pathologies. If you if you don't get good quality sleep and the right house, we know that a risk factor for cancer heart disease and dementia, it's symptomatic of that adrenaline spike. So and that drains by is a bit addictive, you know you because suddenly you've got a bit of energy. Okay, it's temporary. It's ephemeral. We know it's not going to last, but it runs out 11 o'clock. And then Asha graddic, goes and has a sweet drink, cup of coffee biscuits, bag of crisps, piece of fruit, whatever. Up comes the blood sugar again, and you're on that roller coaster. And to get off that roller case that does take a few days a very low carbohydrate diet until the body is running on ketones because ketones are the preferred fuel mitochondria. That's how they function best on. And we know we know that from years of just experience. I was fascinated to read that the Samurai Warriors before a battle they will fast for 24 hours because they know they function much better. And at a higher level when they're running on ketones. They have far more stamina. The world record for the furthest distance run in 24 hours is held by keto adapted athlete Mike Morton. And during those 24 hours, he ran 172 miles it's almost inconceivable listen to
some of some listeners may have heard of Dr. Ian Lane GP down in in the south, who is a type one diabetic. He controls his diabetes with a ketogenic diet. Or type one diabetics will need a little bit of insulin, but very, very little and it's constant. Anyway, not last summer. But the summer before he did a five day fast together with Matthew Pinsent and some other athletes. And during those five days, he ran 20 miles every day, three rounds from Winchester to Bristol. And during that time, his blood sugar's were absolutely level, he didn't run out of any energy. Obviously, he lost some weight because he was burning fat. But he was absolutely fine. And so with the other four keto adapted athletes at the end of that, it illustrates the point that we can achieve great things on ketones. In fact, that's how we function best running on ketones, our brain works better, our bodies work better. And by doing that low carbohydrate diet, we massively reduce the toxic load, we massively reduce the load from sugar. And from all products of fermentation that we talked about earlier. Just by reducing that toxic load, your liver has less work to do. And your mitochondria work much better. Again, I know I'm jumping ahead and forgive me for jumping all over the place. But mitochondria, that's my special area of interest. And I started to get interested in mitochondria in the 1990s. We learn about medical school, as I'm sure you did, as part of their second MB, you've got to struggle through your biochemistry. And as part of that you learned about mitochondria. And it's the sort of subject that you mug up the night before and chocolate biscuits and coffee. You regurgitate it on the examination page the next day, and hope you've done enough to pass. And the reason you do that is because in the 1970s when I learned all this stuff, I didn't know that it had any clinical application. In fact, we weren't told that it had any clinical application whatsoever. We But by contrast, now, mitochondria are now implicated in any pathology you care to mention. You know, we know they go slow in heart failure. We know they go slow in dementia. We know they're implicated in cancer, we know their central part of diabetes. So you know, mitochondria suddenly become you know, the most important pathological unit talks about in the modern world. But in the 1990s when I first started rethinking them, there was none of this stuff anymore. I was very lucky to work with the most brilliant biochemistry in the world, Dr. John McCarran Howard, who was a bio lab laboratories, and I put it to him that we needed a mitochondrial function test. That was the easy bit. The difficult bit was developing the test. And your John really should be given the Nobel Prize for biochemistry for his brilliance, he developed a mitochondrial function tests. And I started to apply this test to my patients who are not responding to the usual dietary interventions, micronutrient supplements and all that stuff. And because a very, very, very, very long story short and three papers later, we demonstrated that those patients with chronic fatigue syndrome or me, who had the most fatigue had the worst mitochondrial function, and vice versa. It's an almost a straight line graph. When we look to mitochondria function against disability, and this was done blinded, so I saw the patients and worked out their energy score in conjunction with them, the blood test weights John McCain and Howard and of course, the bloods are big and went somewhere and had no course he didn't know how fatigued those patients were, he just did the test. And then the results went to a third party to be number cruncher. And finally the paper was published. So it's a very powerful paper. And our third paper then looked at what happens when we could put the correct those mitochondria functions and mitochondria to say the engine into your car, they can go slow for a number of reasons. They can go slow because you've got the wrong fuel in the tank. Well, we've addressed that because guess what we put the right fuel in the tank, which is which are ketones. The mitochondria can go slow because they are deficient in some essential nutrient. Now in parallel with mitochondrial function test, we also did nutritional studies looking at levels of magnesium it may be three Kevin's IQ 10. But but but, and we found that common things were common. And there were five common deficiencies that came up time and time and time again, magnesium, vitamin d3,
SL, l carnitine. CO q 10. And D ribose. Are the five nutrients that we use to replace the deficiencies. And then we found mitochondria go slow because they were blocked by something. And guess what a very common thing was products of the fermenting gut. And we've already addressed that with our PK diet. But again, this is nice to fit in with those people I'd seen who've been poisoned. Because the Gulf War veterans were poisoned by organophosphates, sheep that farmers are poisoned by organophosphates. People experiencing spray drift poisoned by organophosphates. The nasty bit of biochemistry that describes mitochondrial function is called oxidative phosphorylation, so no one that they were that was inhibited by organophosphates, you know, it's not rocket science is it? So by identifying the toxins, and again, you get clues from the history, heavy metals, pesticides, or whatever, we found we could improve mitochondrial function reliably well, so that's the second bit. And at that point, I felt qualified to write a book on it, which I called chronic fatigue syndrome. It's mitochondria, not hypochondria. And I have to say that that title went down very well with my fatigue patients. So then we have to look at the control mechanisms. Because, you know, you could have, you know, a Formula One car with rocket fuel in it. But if the accelerator pedal and the gearbox didn't work, you wouldn't go anywhere. So the next thing we have to look at other control mechanisms. Now, the underactive thyroid is probably one of the worst treated condition in western medicine, not my words, but the words of Dr. Kenneth Blanshard. American endocrinologist who's written several books on the subject. He estimates that maybe up to 40% of Westerners are, are deficient in thyroid hormones. We are seeing epidemics of hyperthyroidism, even the conventional endocrinologist in this country will tell you, well, about 1% of the population receive thyroid hormones, but they know about 10% actually need treatment and that diagnosis has been missed. So, in my books, I talk a lot about the characteristic symptoms of the underactive thyroid, and how you can treat it yourself with natural interventions. The point here is you have to bypass doctors, because doctors are a break they get in the wave of treating the underactive thyroid well, because they will only diagnose that on the basis of blood tests. And then often there's only one part of the blood test they look at which is the TSH of the TSH is normal. Nothing wrong with you rubbish, rubbish rubbish. So, we then look at the say the thyroid accelerator pedal, and then what then we then concentrate on the adrenal gearbox. This allows As to gear up in response to stress. And don't laugh now, my lovely publisher, Georgina, who bless her prints, everything that I write, has asked me to do a thyroid adrenal book. And that is my next project. So I can send you the early chapters if you think they would help. But that's the overview of the patients with chronic fatigue syndrome. And then we have to look at the Emmy patients and the Emmy patients, they've all got chronic fatigue syndrome, they've all got four anti delivery mechanisms, but they've also got inflammation and inflammation is switched inflammation occurs when the immune system is busy. Now, the immune system is an obviously a central part of our health. And what we want is an intelligent immune system that switches on in response to an acute infection deals with that, you know, busily inactively and and gets rid of that virus or bacteria or fungus, whatever it is, and then goes back to a dormant state state again. Yeah, but so many of the Emmys the immune system has been switched on and hasn't been switched off. It continues in an inflamed state, in response to a chronic infection that it has not dealt with efficiently. The immune system can be switched on. And the analogy I like to use is the immune system is our standing army. Yeah, imagine the body is the country and the immune system is a standing army. Now, of course, we want to swing it into action. When Napoleon invades you know, we want to sweep him off the beaches before he you know, gets
you gets to the Tower of London and grabs the crown jewels, so get rid of it. But what we don't want is our standing army to start attacking harmless tourists, you know, harmless tourists that might be doing some good harmless tourists like food, you know, like pollen in the air, those things don't cause the body any harm whatsoever from an allergy point of view and a massive cold allergy. So people reacting allergic to foods, that's that stupidity, that's an immune error. That's a big mistake. And worse than that, you can get a case of what I call Civil War when the our nanny army attacks itself. And that's called Auto immunity. And that's you know, the the immune system suddenly decides that the thyroid is an enemy and attacks it destroys it suddenly decides that lining of the gut is an enemy attacks, it destroys it and autoimmunity is very bad news. And the big thing that switches on autoimmunity better than anything else is vaccination. And this is why it's so worrying at the moment that we're seeing, you know, epidemics of vaccination. And we will see epidemics of autoimmunity that will follow that, you know, we're in a very dangerous situation at present, already, autoimmunity afflicts about one in 20 of the population that is far too high, or rate source media are increasing exponentially. So those are the three categories of inflammation that I'm looking for. In somebody who's got me. Again, I've talked far too long. You're very nicely sitting there smiling at me as if I'm doing the right thing. But again, is it making sense I want this to be a conversation, not me just rabbiting on, because I know I can.
Jingle 33:18
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Tony Winyard 33:42
Also, one of the things I want to go back to is you talked about the addictive nature of the of the sugars and so on and, and so in theory, it's easy if people are able to switch to a ketogenic diet, Paleo ketogenic diet, then the symptoms will go but but because of the addictive nature, many people aren't able to sustain that. So when people do struggle to try to switch what how are the best ways to help them?
Dr Sarah Myhill 34:12
Well, you know, the answer is it's, first of all, don't switch it for another addiction. The best example is stopping smoking. Very often people stop smoking, and they switch. They swap nicotine addiction for sugar addiction and they get fat. And we've all seen that people who've given up smoking. I mean, the awful thing with addiction is there is no easy solution. And the shameful thing is addiction is how we deal with stress. So when we are stressed by something, we have unpleasant symptoms, and we use addiction to mask those symptoms. And it's again it's short term gain long term pain. And the whole thing is there is no easy quick solution for it's just willpower. And but what I can say is the longer that you can stick with it, you know, the better Now addiction, all addictions, they are good servants, but bad masters. So I know I'm a potential alcohol addict, I love the stuff. But I don't drink at all at home. But if I have a party is some friends come round, you know, I have a couple of glass of wine. And guess what, you know, I'm much easier, I'm much funnier, my jokes are much better, you know, we have a fun time. But I know I have to get on the waggon the day after. And it's the same with sugars. If you can consume sugars in a non addictive way, use them occasionally maybe as a flavour enhancer, usually the occasion for joy, but get off them routinely, then you'll be doing yourself a big favour. And you know, I agree with you there isn't there is no easy solution. It is willpower. I mean, people think if they pour money at it and take lots of supplements, they can get round it, but it just ain't like that. So, you know, I wish I had an easy, yep, you can do this, and you'll feel much better, but it doesn't work. Even artificial sweeteners are a problem. Because you know, the body is intelligent. And if it tastes something sweet in the mouth, it will anticipate a sugar rush, it will pour insulin in anticipation of that. And you will get all the metabolic problems of high insulin and high adrenaline following sweeteners because they say the the body's intelligence, so even they are not a good substitute. And that's why sweetness of signally failed in people trying to do calorie restricted diets. You know, they don't work because, in fact, they just keep the addictive nature going.
Tony Winyard 36:37
Hmm. You've mentioned about one, a couple of books that you've written, How many books
Dr Sarah Myhill 36:42
have you written, oh, gosh, seven or eight now, I think.
Tony Winyard 36:46
And so when when was the last one.
Dr Sarah Myhill 36:49
The most, or the most recent one, which actually do to come at any day now is called Green mother. And green mother is all about the application of ecological medicine to preconception care, pregnancy, child, the birth process, child rearing, weaning, sleep, and so on and so forth. And I don't laugh now, but I first wrote this book in 1982, when my daughter was born, and then it never got anywhere and I got busy and Ralph forgot about it. And it just so happened that a very a neighbour moved in cliff, the hill over a hill over there, became a very good friend and the soulmate, read my book on diabetes immediately got the hang of that and and put yourself in a paleo ketogenic diet. And Michelle and Pete have been trying for children for some time and failed. But within a few months of doing a Pk dot and taking my supplements, Michelle conceived, so she continued the dark through her first pregnancy, baby Bob's was born. And she continued the dark PK that through pregnant through breastfeeding, and has continued to wean feed Bob's and more recently at a number twos come along a paleo ketogenic diet. Now, what's so fascinating about that is those children, they don't have any carbohydrates, so their blood sugar will be absolutely level, they're happily running on ketones. That means they never get hungry. That means they sleep. And both girls from about the age of, you know, 12 weeks and earlier, go to bed at seven o'clock in the evening, and sleep through solidly till eight o'clock the next morning. In fact, Michelle has to wake them up at eight o'clock, otherwise, they would continue to sleep. And in addition to that, they also sleep another three hours in the day. So Michelle has not had any nighttime, she's she's having a normal sleep routine. She can have an evening to herself, because they're asleep by seven o'clock. She says often get up early at eight o'clock and go riding up at five o'clock in the morning and go for a ride because I know they're not going to wake up and guess what they never have. I think Bob S has woken up twice once when she had a tummy bug. And once when he had a bat fly into the room and the bat worked, but Bob's has never woken up. And then she's a very talented artist so she can continue to work in the afternoon because the children are asleep them. And those children are still so laid back there just so easy in all respects. I mean, when I went to go and state, I mean, unfortunately they've moved back to Dorset now. But you know, when I go and stay with them, you know, I sit at the table and this they're there too. And they're listening to the conversation, and they're not screaming and crying and Michelle's quite tough with them. You whack the finger out and if they started to behave, and they just accept that, and they're just lovely, calm, healthy children not being vaccinated. Yes, they get no coughs and colds, but they get rid of them very rapidly with simple nutritional techniques. And they're not up and down. They're not shaking tremulous. So they don't get hungry. They don't need snacks. They really are a different breed. So green mother is how we should be applying all this stuff. And of course there's much in the book about the Paleo ketogenic diet to our children because that's how primitive man races children. Alright, rather primitive woman raised her children. Yeah, they ate exactly the same food for the adults.
Tony Winyard 40:05
And so I gathered in that approach means because so many children now have asthma and various allergies and many other conditions. So that would address those sorts of issues. Of course,
Dr Sarah Myhill 40:17
prevention is far better than cure. And, you know, we can link the rising increased rates of asthma directly to vaccination, because we know vaccines switch on algae and switch on autoimmunity. But if you've got a healthy immune system, vaccines are rendered irrelevant. We just don't need them. In fact, I address that whole issue of vaccination in green mother, and devote a whole chapter that having acute febrile illness in childhood is very desirable. It trains the immune system. Yeah, children been having acute febrile illnesses since the start of the development homosapiens. And they're an essential part of training the immune system. And if you've got good nutrition, with vitamin D, and vitamin C, and all that, you will have no problem whatsoever from your months or your measles or your chicken pox, it doesn't matter, we should get all those infections. And the important thing is getting those infections in childhood protects you from cancer and heart disease later on in life, very clear associations read between malignant brain tumours, for example. So it's part of normal growing up, it's part of the normal education of the immune system. And we should be educating our immune system with these infections. And we should be giving the immune systems the energy that it needs to fight. And we do that with the diet and good sleep, and the tools that it needs to fight. And we do that with good nutrition, a good, you know, whole wholesome diet with lots of vitamin C, and lots of vitamin D, and B vitamins and selenium and zinc and all else. So I explained all that in, in green mother.
Tony Winyard 41:56
And so is that book out now?
Dr Sarah Myhill 41:58
It's I think, I think it is out now, I'm not sure when the it's almost certainly on my website. Because we started sending it out for Christmas, because we knew people would want want it for Christmas. But it's officially launched in the next day or two. But if you go to my website, you will certainly be able to get the book from there.
Tony Winyard 42:15
And for overseas listeners would is it available on say Amazon? And so
Dr Sarah Myhill 42:20
yes, I'm not sure if Amazon got it yet, but we send books overseas. I mean, unfortunately, the post is a bit more. But I do have a lovely publisher in America called Chelsea green. And they will stop that book for certain and that will go out to the American and Canadian department. So it should be available widely.
Tony Winyard 42:39
And speaking of books, is there a book in your life that you can think of this really moved you for for any particular reason?
Dr Sarah Myhill 42:49
I think probably Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, which I read in the early 1970s, you know, when I was doing a levels or a levels, and that, to me was a real eye opener, I remember thinking, Gosh, at that time, what we are doing on this planet is just not sustainable. In fact, the first book I wrote, I called Sustainable medicine, or one of the early books, I've now replaced that with ecological medicine. But it made me realise that the everything that we're doing in this world, every activity is just not sustainable. It's just not compatible with a healthy world. And, of course, this sort of medicine, I'm practising now ecological medicine, functional medicine, sustainable medicine, naturopathic medicine, it doesn't matter what we call it. The point is, is all done in accordance with the rules of nature. And that's very empowering. Because, you know, by practice medicine, everybody has I call it the rules of the game, and the tools of the trade to heal themselves. And it all started with Rachel Carson bless her.
Tony Winyard 43:54
If people want to find out about found more about you, Sarah, where where's the best places to look? Website social media.
Dr Sarah Myhill 44:00
So well, if you just go to DrMyhill.co.uk my website, most of my information is there freely available on my website. Some people prefer books, and all my books are there, and there's a whole range of them. There's the infection game. There's the energy equation, which which looks specifically about those issues. And what has proved very popular is I run all workshops, and anybody can join them, you can buy tickets, and then you get me talking all day from 9.30 in the morning to four o'clock in the afternoon with a break for lunch. And I limited to 20 people. And any point anybody can ask any question by just waving their hand and I go through all these regimes that people need to do to empower themselves to allow them to heal themselves, because there aren't enough functional doctors like you and me around to do this individually. And actually, they do work remarkably well. And if people if If people don't get a response to that early, then follow up workshops I do, where I limit that to six people, and we more intensively concentrate on individual people symptoms. And I do it in groups like that, because we can cover so much more ground. And people learn by repetition. Of course, it's all recorded. So you can then listen to that subsequently. But people learn by repetition. And when they see that they're not the only person in the world, there are other peoples like them who have similar problems and similar questions and the same answers. That's hugely empowering. So that'd be a useful start for somebody who really wanted to move things on inexpensively.
Tony Winyard 45:36
Sarah, just before we finish, and it's it's been a delight, but just, you know, I've had to be respectful of your time. Is there a quotation you particularly like,
Dr Sarah Myhill 45:47
I am a great fan of Winston Churchill, I've just been reading his autobiography again. And in that Churchill says, My education was only interrupted by my schooling. And I think that's wonderful, because schooling at the moment at schools, and dare I said, medical education is not an education, it's a brainwashing. And I reckon I use in my everyday practice, maybe 5% or less of that I learned in medical school 95% Of what I practice, I have learned, since from books from people like you, from my patients from asking the right questions. So what I would say to people is, there's so much information available, and it's in you can educate yourself. And that's an essential part of recovering getting well. So don't rely on traditional schooling, which asked, which are brainwashing, you know, use the resources available to educate yourself to learn it for yourself, and then work it out. And that's what Winston Churchill do,
Tony Winyard 46:51
It's been fascinating. So, really appreciate your time. So thank you very much.
Dr Sarah Myhill 46:56
My pleasure. It's easy when you have a good interviewer, like you who asked all the right questions.
Tony Winyard 47:06
Next week, episode 50. And my guest is Silke Maria Haas. She is an energetic coach and healer who has more than 25 years of experience helping people with physical, emotional, mental and spiritual problems and being a natural seeker of Truth. She went to India at the age of 18, and discovered yoga as a way of life. And from that she's been helping many students with medical problems. She trained as an osteopath and naturopath. And so we hear a lot more about that journey. And what has happened since then and how she helps people in now. So that's Next week, episode 50 with Silke Maria Haas. If you enjoyed this week's episode with Sarah Myhill, please do share the episode with anyone who you feel would get some real values, get some value and benefit from it. And hope you have a great week.
Jingle 48:01
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Habits & Health episode 48 with Emily Bland, a Clinical Exercise Physiologist treating patients with OI, POTS, CFS/ME, persistent pain, Fibromyalgia and hEDS. She specialises in education and energy management for patients with these health conditions, in order to help them stabilise and manage their symptoms.
She specialised in this area because of her passion for helping people and also because she lives with POTS, CFS/ME and Endometriosis.
We discuss awareness some of these conditions, on things people suffering can get relief, sources to find out more and many other areas. Links:
Website: exphysem.uk (coming soon)
instagram.com/dog.autonomia/ linkedin.com/in/exphysem/ Resources mentioned by Emily: https://www.potsuk.org/ https://meassociation.org.uk/ Article on spoons mentioned by Emily
I’m a “Spoonie.” Here’s What I Wish More People Knew About Chronic Illness https://www.healthline.com/health/spoon-theory-chronic-illness-explained-like-never-before#1
Recommended book:
Explain Pain David Butler, G. Lorimer Moseley Mark Manson: “The subtle art of not giving a F$&k: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life” Favourite quotes: “Chronic illness isn’t about missing out, it’s about living life a little differently” “Doing nothing often leads to the very best of something” Winnie The Pooh
Don’t forget, there is a transcript of every episode (scroll down the page)
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Jingle 0:00
habits and health episode 48. Welcome to the habits and health podcast, where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. Brought to you by an educator and coach for anyone who wants to create a healthier life. Here's your host,
Tony Winyard 0:18
Tony Winyard. Welcome to another edition of habits and health. My guest today, Emily Bland. She's a clinical exercise physiologist who treats patients with OI, POTS, chronic fatigue syndrome, persistent pain, fibromyalgia, and many others. And we're gonna hear a lot more about how Emily does that and what some of those conditions are, you may not even be familiar with some of the ones I just mentioned. So we're gonna find out a lot more about that in this episode with Emily. And if you do know anyone who would really find some of the information valuable, please do share the episode with them. Hope you enjoy the episode.
habits and health my guest today, Emily Bland, how are you, Emily?
Emily Bland 1:04
Good. Thanks, Tony. Thanks so much for having me here.
Tony Winyard 1:06
Yeah, it's great to have you here. And you've wondered quite a way from where you're actually from.
Emily Bland 1:12
That's right. Yep. So recently, in the last six months, moved to Cornwall, and I'm actually from Melbourne, Australia. So a little bit of travel to get here.
Tony Winyard 1:21
And do you plan on adopting a Cornish accent?
Emily Bland 1:24
Everyone's asking me that. So we'll wait and see what happens.
Tony Winyard 1:29
You're from Melbourne?
Emily Bland 1:30
That's right. Yeah, down the bottom of Australia there.
Tony Winyard 1:33
So how does Melbourne compared to... where in Cornwall are you?
Emily Bland 1:37
So we're in Truro, if you know where that is? Yeah, it's pretty far south.
Tony Winyard 1:42
How would you compare Melbourne to Truro?
Emily Bland 1:45
Ah, Melbourne's a lot busier, that's for sure. I'm sure it is a lot quieter. But that's really up my alley. I do prefer the country life over the city life.
Tony Winyard 1:55
But as I discovered before we started recording you're not a surfer, which is what people presume
Emily Bland 2:01
No. Everyone says that we're in the perfect place on the coast for surfing. But funnily enough, neither myself nor my partner have ever been surfing before. So classic Aussi stereotype which is fine.
Tony Winyard 2:15
So what how is it that you help people? What is it that you do?
Emily Bland 2:19
Yeah, so I'm a clinical exercise physiologist. And basically, I specialise in treating people with chronic fatigue syndrome or CFS me I think over here in the UK, it's referred to more as me, which is my LG encephalitis. A syphilis myelitis, though is a bit of a tongue twister, that one. And so that's one category of people that I treat. I also specialise in people with dysautonomia as well, in particular, orthostatic intolerance, so things like Postural Orthostatic, tachycardia syndrome, or pots. And again, I need to take that a little bit for the UK because it is called just postural Tachycardia Syndrome over here. So, yeah, I work with patients who have these sorts of conditions. And persistent pain is one that I didn't mention. So things like fibromyalgia. And it's interesting, because these conditions tend to have a big overlap as well. So it does work really well, especially in all of those areas. And the main thing that I do is use education around the symptoms and how to manage them. And I use a lot of energy management as well. So helping people to manage where they put their energy so that they can be sustainable and reduce their symptoms.
Tony Winyard 3:37
What led you into doing this?
Emily Bland 3:39
Yeah, really good question, Tony. And I've actually got chronic fatigue and POTS. And I've also got endometriosis myself. So I have a little bit of the trifecta of fatigue, orthostatic intolerance and persistent pain. And at the time, when I first developed these conditions I was actually studying in the exercise field. And in Australia, when he's studying that you can actually go on to specialise in the clinical side of things. And for me, it was an absolute no brainer that when I developed these conditions, and I was unchecked with my studies that I was 100% going to go and specialise in this field so that I could give back to people with these conditions, while also being really empathetic to what they were going through.
Tony Winyard 4:28
You mentioned about various conditions you had So how did they did they limit you in any way? How was it affecting you?
Emily Bland 4:36
Yeah, so a lot of these conditions so if anybody listening to this know someone with these conditions or husband themselves, they would know that they're very spectrum based. So you can get people who have very minimal symptoms and then you can have people who have very debilitating symptoms as well. And when I first became unwell after an infection I was right off the end of the scale of being very debilitated. And I was housebound for about a year. How old? Are you? 21 years old? Yeah. So it was about seven years ago for me now, seven, eight years. So obviously, that had huge impact on my life, you know, everybody else is going out celebrating 21st Birthdays, and I'm just hanging out at home hoping that things will get better. And, again, for people who are familiar with these conditions, you would know that it's not something you could ever expect is that one day you become ill and then the next day, you don't get better, because normally we get sick with something we recover, we go back to normal. So I was kind of waiting for things to pick up and just go back to how they were. And it wasn't it took a couple of years, we'd actually get any sort of diagnoses with my health. So it was definitely a long journey. And not until I had those proper diagnosis that I could find the right help and therapy to actually start to improve my health again.
Tony Winyard 6:01
A couple of things come to mind when you when you say that. So I'm wondering, so what was the initial? What did you first notice? What was the first sign that there was something not quite right. And, of the things that you mentioned that you had, what was the initial thing that they said you had? Or did they say you had all of those at the same time? And I just wonder how that developed?
Emily Bland 6:20
Yeah, no really, really good question. Because this is something that there's usually a lot of overlap with experience, as sorry, experiences that people have with these conditions, in terms of diagnosis, but then there's some real differences as well. So I always stress that this was my experience, and it's, you know, a personal one. So it's not going to be the same as everybody else's. But the first thing that I particularly noticed was a lot of shortness of breath, and intolerance to being upright. So I couldn't stand for long periods of time. And I was unusually fatigued. So
Tony Winyard 6:55
when that first started to happen, what did you think was going on? Did it just suddenly come out of the blue?
Emily Bland 7:01
Yeah, yeah, it was pretty sudden after the infection. So you know, I gave the infection maybe a month, and when things didn't improve after that, I was like, something's wrong. So working in retail, you know, I was doing a four hour shift. And I just couldn't stand up at my register anymore. And I was like, What? What is going on? I must be crazy. I must be making this up. And people use the The L Word, which we call a bit of a swear word in my field of work. And that's lazy. Like she's being lazy. And yeah, it was really hard, because I couldn't explain to people what was going on, because I didn't know myself. But the other part of your question there, Tony, was that the doctor that I was seeing at the time said that I had anxiety that like you are struggling with anxiety, and you need to go on antidepressants, anti anxiety medications, and you need to go see a psychologist. Just finally to talk
Tony Winyard 7:53
to you again, but okay, my I imagine, and by no means an expert in this. I imagine this is the kind of thing that would be easily misdiagnosed quite early 100% 100%.
Emily Bland 8:04
And particularly with parts orthostatic intolerance anxiety is a very go to diagnosis from doctors that don't understand. And yeah, it was it was very conflicting for me at the time, because I had already been diagnosed with anxiety. And I've had anxiety for most of my life, childhood teenage years. So when they said you've got anxiety, I was like, This can't be right, because these symptoms are on me. And the it's not the same. Yeah. So it's very interesting. And unfortunately, it's a story that I hear a lot from my patients now.
Tony Winyard 8:40
So what happened from there? So once you you realise, no, I don't think this is simply anxiety. So what how did it progress from there?
Emily Bland 8:47
Yeah, so after a couple of years, I got to a point where I was like this, there has to be more to this. And I didn't give up and again, a very relatable thing is you get thrown around the healthcare system a lot and you go from person to person, until I eventually ran into a gastroenterologist who said, I think you've got pots, which I'd never heard of. And so I was very fortunate that she referred me to a cardiologist who specialise in that area, and then they yesh on that diagnosis. And it just kind of snowballed from there. And I was actually referred to see a clinical exercise physiologist myself, and it was all the work that I did with them. That completely changed my outlook and I started showing some improvement in my health then. So very inspiring to go into that role after that kind of help.
Tony Winyard 9:37
And would you say the level of awareness around POTS and CFS and so on? Is it much different here to Australia? Or how would you what would you say? Do you know
Emily Bland 9:47
I was still I'm still developing my own concept around that at the moment. Because in Australia, it's still missed, but now that I've started working with patients over in the Okay, I've had some similar feedback from them as well, explaining that it is something that it's really hard to get helpful. So I think from what I can tell so far, it seems like a bit of a universal thing. Ironically, just yesterday, I did go to the doctor's office for something. And the medical student that I was seeing had never heard of my conditions. And I was like, that's okay. Like, that actually doesn't affect why I'm here. But they had to go and get another doctor to come in and help with the consult. And that senior doctor had never heard of any of the conditions either. So it was okay, because I'm educated enough that I can advocate for myself, but it still was a challenging situation, and probably a surprising one to the extent of it as well.
Tony Winyard 10:46
So if anyone listening to this may well, I wonder if there could be people listening to this, who, similar to what you were told, I've been told are you've got anxiety, they've got some kind of issue. They don't really know what it is. Yeah. And they may just be told it's anxiety. What kind of things could people be looking out for to realise maybe this is more than what you've been told that? Yeah.
Emily Bland 11:09
Yeah. No, really good question. Again, Tony. And symptoms, like shortness of breath, intolerance to standing up high heart rates for seemingly no reason. Those are some really big signs that you might have a condition like orthostatic, intolerance, or pots. And I would actually encourage people that if they thought maybe they fell under that bracket to check out the POTS UK website, because this is a charity run initiative. And they provide a lot of help to people who think that they might have these conditions or know that they have these conditions. So not just information, but they also have recommendations of specialists that you can see in this area as well.
Tony Winyard 11:53
And so once someone has one of these sort of issues, how easy or difficult is it to treat it to live with it, and I realise there's a spectrum, as you said,
Emily Bland 12:07
it's very subjective, it really is. So it depends on the individual. It often depends on the age, how long they've been living with the conditions, what sort of treatment they've actually sought out, or they've had the opportunity to seek, because that there is a lot of treatments out there. And it's important to remember that we need to take a well rounded approach because of how unique everybody is. We can't just focus on psychology, or we can't just focus on pharmaceuticals or lifestyle, it needs to be a combination. And that's where a lot of the work that I do is I'm adjusting lifestyle and energy management. But I'm also working closely with people's specialists, their doctors, their psychologist to make sure that we're all on the same page as well.
Tony Winyard 12:58
So you mentioned some of the things so endometriosis and CFS and so on how it sounds from what you were saying there's a lot of connections between some of these conditions.
Emily Bland 13:09
Yeah, yeah, that definitely is, and it's one of those things where it's not, it doesn't have to be cause and effect. So we don't know, if just because someone has this that they will develop. This is one of those things that they're still doing a lot of research into, because even with CFS ma they actually don't know, what causes it. So to say cause and effect, we don't know, but we do know that they tend to be comorbid a lot of these conditions. So when we do treat someone, say with chronic fatigue syndrome or me, then we're always just being careful that they don't have symptoms of Ra, because if they do we want to pick up on that and help them to manage that as well.
Tony Winyard 13:55
Is that the same? Do they know what the causes of endometriosis?
Emily Bland 13:59
Um, again, it's something that I would actually have to do more research into myself to give you a proper answer on. But we do know that with conditions of the nervous system, so when our body is under a lot of stress that we have, so people with me and parts, they have more symptoms when their body is under stress. And we also know that their reproductive system, the digestive system, all those functions that automatically regulate themselves in the body, that sometimes they're not regulating as well as they could because of the levels of stress adrenaline and cortisol that are affecting their systems. So, again, I can't say if it's cause or effect, but that tends to be something that we see.
Tony Winyard 14:49
So someone who may be does have endometriosis and my feeling and I could be very wrong in this is that it seems that there's a lot of doctors who aren't that knowledgeable on it? Certainly From experience I had in my, with my daughter's mother and so on, because my daughter's mother had endometriosis. And her doctor had very little knowledge about it, it was very clear from some of the things he was saying. So I wonder for people who do have that, what advice, what kind of things can they do to alleviate it to help
Emily Bland 15:24
with the symptoms themselves? Don't Yeah, yeah. So it's one of those things that a lot of people with endometriosis will have done a lot of research into this as well. But things like hate packs, 10s machines, nourishing foods at different times of the month are good ways to manage it. They're also things that the individual needs to decide if it works for them. So no, with 10s machines, it's one of those things that if you want to use it great, if you don't, that's fine, but the research is mixed. And, but I do know people that love it, people that hate it, it's like compression tights in pots, some people love it, some people hate it. And I think just making sure that you're seeking the right care for it as well. So finding websites, like pots UK can point you in the right direction, because I think they have a section in there on endometriosis as well. Because you don't want to spend that time and that money seeing someone who's not specialised in that area. And it's like I always say to people, if you're having renovations done on your home, and you're having someone come in to pull up the carpet, you usually have two or three people come in and give you a quote on that you don't just go with the first person that you meet. It's exactly the same with our body is we don't have to go with the same this one specialist that we meet straightaway. We can have a look around and see what's out there and what is going to be the best fit for us in our body.
Tony Winyard 16:52
So when when people come to you, what are they? Usually they have one of the conditions that you've mentioned, or how do clients find you? What is it they're looking for when they come to you?
Emily Bland 17:04
Yeah, no good question again. They have usually been struggling with these conditions for a while. So the reason for that is because like I said, with my experience, that took a really long time for me to actually know what was going on. So by the time people are like, Okay, I've got CFS or I've got fibre, or I've got pilots, they've been living with it for a while. And in some cases, normalising the symptoms, because they didn't know any difference. And they're like, this is my life, this must just be what it is. So yeah, those people who find me it's usually through Instagram, and LinkedIn, and my website as well. And they usually ask you questions to start with. They're like, Hey, I'm living with this. And you know, this, this, and this is stopping me from living my life, do you think that there's any chance that you could help? And for me, it's actually really important, because I don't know if you've seen my website yet, Tony. But it's very simple. And that's because I actually want to have a chat with people before I booked them in and make sure that they are a good fit for what I do. Because for some people, they do need some further care. And long COVID is a really good example of that. So they need to make sure that they've had all the correct care and all of those things checked first before I would take them on as a patient. And it's the same with the other conditions.
Tony Winyard 18:24
And is this are these things that you can do over over zoom? Or is it the need to be face to face?
Emily Bland 18:30
Yeah, so all of my work is done through telehealth because I actually treat worldwide so most of my patients at the moment are in the UK and Australia. And for me, I thought that was great, because I didn't want to say goodbye to all of my patients in Australia when I moved over, they definitely didn't want to say goodbye to me. And living in Cornwall, I'm a little while away from the busy busy London where you know, a lot of health care is for these conditions. So I wanted to be able to reach everyone everywhere. And the added bonus was that I do have a lot of patients who have a lower capacity. So it means that they actually don't have to leave the house to have the appointment and we can tailor the appointment to them. So one patient I've got at the moment, we have 10 minute appointments with the other 20 minutes of that appointment is filled in with recordings because they can't actually be on the phone for more than 10 minutes. So I find out everything that they are challenged with. And then in the next 20 minutes I spent that educating them on what we would have gone through if I'd seen them face to face through zoom. And then yeah, again, 30 minute sessions and 45 minute sessions as well. So I try and accommodate to everyone at every level.
Tony Winyard 19:49
And prevalent are these things, isn't it more than many people would imagine or is it quite rare?
Emily Bland 19:56
Yeah, I couldn't give you a number but it's a lot more prevalent than people would realise. particularly, because, like I said, if it's spectrum based, there are people out there who are quite functional living with symptoms, who don't realise it. And we never actually see I never see patients until their symptoms become limiting. Because if your symptoms weren't limiting, why would you go out of your way to try and fix something? So? Yeah, it's definitely a lot more prevalent than we realise. And, you know, you can say that on social media and the support groups, it's quite overwhelming actually, how many people out there are talking about it, which then kind of conflicts with the fact that we've got doctors out there who don't know what it is.
Tony Winyard 20:37
So it makes me wonder if is there? Are there more people being diagnosed right now simply because there's more awareness of what it is? Or is this always been around for a long time? Or is it more because in the last, so of last 50 years, there's more environmental toxins and various sub stresses? Why this is maybe happening more? Yeah, it's kind of chicken and egg thing.
Emily Bland 21:00
In my opinion, I think it's because there's more awareness around it. So the the younger generations of doctors, and I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with the senior doctors. But from my personal experience, I've noticed that the younger generation of doctors are actually learning more about this central sensitization in their education, and my studies were quite similar. Is that right? As I was about to finish my studies, people started talking about central sensitization and a biopsychosocial, all rounded approach. And that was at the end of nine years of study for me, and I was like, Where was that for the other eight years?
Tony Winyard 21:41
So you mentioned in your title, I forget the exact words see if something physical exercise, but what was your What was it you said before?
Emily Bland 21:49
So clinical exercise physiologist, that is my official title.
Tony Winyard 21:54
And the word exercise seems to scare a lot of people, it seems Yeah,
Emily Bland 21:58
yes. So that's a really tough one, because it is my official title. But particularly over here in the UK, there used to be called something called graded exercise therapy, or G T. So exercise became a bit of a swear word, because we know that g t is actually no good for people with CFS, or pots, or Fibro. Because what that was all about was giving people fixed incremental changes to a movement programme. And that's a very linear approach that doesn't take into consideration the individual. So if someone had CFS, and you tried to give them di t, you'd be telling them okay, this week, you're doing five minutes of walking. And then next week, you're doing 10 minutes of walking, and then the week after you doing 15 minutes of walking, and it's just making them increase by increments, regardless of whether they're tolerating that or not. So what you really want to do with people is talking about energy management. And this is completely backed by the the NICE guidelines here in the UK, is that when we talk about energy management, we make sure that it's patient led, so we're not giving fixed increments, we're listening to the person as a whole person. And whenever we make alterations to the activities, itself, driven by the patient, and it's actually taking into consideration how they are, what symptoms they're experiencing, and you know, what levels they can tolerate at the moment. So yeah, it has been a really controversial topic. But the main takeaway with that is graded exercise was fixed incremental stuff, whereas energy management is patient driven, and you're actually listening to them. So you know, if they're having a bad week, or you know if something's going on there, instead of just assuming that they're okay to keep moving forward.
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Tony Winyard 24:30
It's very difficult for someone with CFS for example, it must be very difficult to to do exercise in first place because they're just so tired. But then it sounds like it's essential that they do do some form of exercise. Otherwise, is it going to get much worse?
Emily Bland 24:46
Yeah, so the nice guidelines it's the National Institute of Care Excellence. I believe it's a bit of a tongue twister again that one in the UK. They have Condra indicated but graded exercise therapy and avoidance. So they don't want people to just completely rest and not move. But they don't want them using fixed increments either. So I actually, ironically enough, despite my job title, I don't talk about exercise, I talk about movement. And I see movement as being spectrum based. So I might have a patient who comes to me and they're like, I want to work on my energy management, so that I can work towards brushing my teeth. And that would be that patient's goal. Whereas I might have another patient come to me, and say that their goal is being able to work on energy management so that they can walk their dog each day for 20 minutes. And those are two very different ends of the spectrum. But what we do with someone's energy is a relative to their goals and what they're wanting to achieve.
Tony Winyard 25:58
And would a sport, such as swimming be easier or not? Would it be again, very dependent on on the person,
Emily Bland 26:07
extremely dependent on the individual? So for some people, you know, swimming just would be completely out of the question. I know, there are some published studies actually saying that it's not recommended for me just because it's considered a danger to their health if they become unwell in the water. But then there's studies out there for people who just have pots, I shouldn't they just have hot pots, but they have pots. And they, they tolerate it really well, because they get compression from being in the water. And then when they're in that flatline position, it's actually easier for them to regulate their blood pressure. So it would be something that you'd have to assess with the person. And also with people that have fatigue is, it's not just swimming, it's getting to the pool, it's getting changed, then having a swim and getting out having a shower getting changed and having to get home. So it's one of those things you do need to tailor and talk to the person about first.
Tony Winyard 27:06
So say to, to friends and relatives, of people who have a condition like CFS, and how they can be, I don't know, sympathetic is the right word empathetic to to people, because they, I imagine that some people have no understanding of their so what kind of things? How can they help, I guess, is what I'm asking.
Emily Bland 27:29
Yeah, I think being able to have those open and honest conversations with the individual who is affected by the condition. And a big one is understanding that we don't look sick, we don't look disabled, we look like normal people. And that's really hard for people to comprehend, because they see one thing and you know, one day, we might be completely fine, and you know, go out shopping or for a walk. And then the next day, we could be completely trash. And that is why energy management so important, so that we can get consistency. But that's a very confusing concept for someone that doesn't have these conditions. One of the resources that I love is there is an individual out there on the internet, if you Google The Spoon Theory, they use a and I don't know if you've heard of this before, Tony. There is a concept of, you know, spoons being energy. So for example, you start your day with 12 spoons, you have breakfast that takes one spoon away from me. So you lose that energy. If you want to have a rate of it, please do because this is a really good insight into people with living with chronic health conditions. And how energy is sort of taken from us throughout the day. Because we don't have a unlimited supply, like someone who doesn't have these conditions. And that's something that I often share with my friends and my relatives as well so that they can see where I'm coming from with my health.
Tony Winyard 28:58
I'll make sure there's a link to that in the notes so people can,
Emily Bland 29:02
yeah, that'd be wonderful. So it's referred to a lot in social media, I think,
Tony Winyard 29:06
in the in some of the questions I asked you before we started recording, and I was talking about habits and you mentioned pacing.
Emily Bland 29:12
Yeah, yeah. So pacing is the foundation of everything that I teach. And it's also the foundation of my life to live with these conditions and do what I do. Pacing is about energy management. So it's making sure that we are breaking up our days and we're not doing big blocks of activity back to back and then having a crash without fatigue. It's about listening to our bodies so that when we do expend energy, we take time to rest and restore so that we kind of top our spoons back up. So if an activity can cost us spoons, we're trying to find ways to get some spoons back. Or to even just maintain ourselves so that we're not Having those crashes?
Tony Winyard 30:03
We've been talking a lot about, you know, chronic fatigue syndrome and more about the kind of physical side of it. But I guess there's there's a mental side of this as well.
Emily Bland 30:14
Oh, definitely. I think a lot of people overlook that. So not just friends and family, but sometimes us ourselves is that we forget that there is a cognitive side to it as well. And it's not just physical. So we can expend energy physically and cognitively. And that's something that people tend to overlook when it comes to pacing is they think that they're having a restorative, they're doing a restorative activity, I should say. But they're actually not. So they're concentrating, they're reading, they're listening to people. And that's why social activities can be so so challenging for people with these chronic health conditions. Because when you go out socially, it's physical to get there. It's physical to be present. But then it's cognitive to engage with people. Yeah, so definitely very important to consider the cognitive.
Tony Winyard 31:10
So are there any other so we've talked about the physical side, the cognitive side? Are there any other elements as well as the contributor?
Emily Bland 31:17
Yeah, so we talked about the four categories, actually. So physical, cognitive, emotional, and environmental. And the emotional ones, again, is actually something that surprisingly overlooked. Even I still do it myself. If were under stress, you know, for example, we get some bad news. So sometimes we go to a clinic, see a doctor, or we get some bad news. That takes an emotional toll on us. And the emotion takes energy. Anyone who has gone into that room pulled the covers over their head and cried for a while, would know that they pretty tired after doing that. And environmentally, that's quite a broad one. So there can be a lot of things in the environment that can take energy from us, and some common ones, bright lights and loud noises, because they're things that we can tend to be a little bit more receptive to or sensitive to with these conditions.
Tony Winyard 32:17
What I mean, one of the difficulties with not knowing so much about this, from my point of view is, so therefore, I'm very limited in the questions I can ask. Okay, what? What question is there maybe that I haven't asked that? Or what information? What thing? Would you like to say to people listening about this that question, I haven't even thought to ask you.
Emily Bland 32:37
Oh, Tony, that's a really good one. specialisation and I know that this is the case in Australia, I'm not entirely sure what it is in the UK. But I did spend nine years of my life undergoing tertiary studies to specialise as a clinical exercise physiologist, but not once did we actually touch on these health conditions, or if we did, it might have been special populations. But there might have been one slide in there that mentioned fatigue. So everything that I have done has been alongside my studies. So I tend to PD. I seek out people through networking to learn more, and I am very proactive. So it is important, like I mentioned before, when you seek care that you go and see someone specialised in this area, because it's not something that we learn as part of our mainstream studies studies. And I know over here, physiotherapists, and occupational therapy, therapists, big areas to specialise in these conditions, but are only the ones who have gone out of their way to learn more about it. So yeah, that's definitely something that I would just be aware of, if I was thinking care.
Tony Winyard 33:56
Well, that's got me thinking about, you know, there's books on every topic you can think of. So I'm therefore wondering, are there may be the books around this, this area, there may be some to almost avoid, because they're maybe... misinformation? Is there any to your knowledge that is not actually as helpful as they're proposing to be?
Emily Bland 34:21
So the texts that I stick to or the clinical ones, and then that way, I know that they are legit, and that the information I'm getting out of them is good? Yeah. I haven't really read any, you know, off the shelf kind of books. And I think if you're going to do that, make sure you do research beforehand into who's written the book, and why it's been developed. Cuz I know for some, it's their personal experience as well. So I think that those are great that people are sharing their personal experiences. But when we share our personal experiences, like I do myself, I always just make it really clear that that was my journey and that was what worked for me. Yeah, because just because I have the label of CFS MA or pots or endometriosis does not mean that I will be the same as somebody else who has those labels. And that's something that I'm really careful with my treatment as well, is just because you have CFS and somebody else has CFS, I cannot treat you as the same person, I need to do a thorough assessment on you and make sure that I'm taking the right approaches for them as an individual. And it's the same with those books, they can be great, I'm sure. But you need to do your research and go into it with an open mind as well.
Tony Winyard 35:36
Are they are there any good information sources for people around this?
Emily Bland 35:44
Yeah, so again, POTS UK, who I'm just a really big fan of, I love their work. And I'm actually starting to do some work with them myself next year. There is the ME Association as well. And they're really big over here. They sound really fantastic. And if anybody loves a bit of a nerd out like I do, and they do enjoy reading, there's a text called Explain pain, which goes through a lot of central sensitization concepts. So explain pain, although it is about chronic pain. It's relevant to your pots and your chronic fatigue syndromes as well, because we know that the nervous system works similarly for all of these conditions. But that one's actually Australian. That's a guy called Lorimer, Moseley, and David Butler. So if you want to check that one out, Explain Pain comes in your standard layperson format, it also comes in a clinician form as well, if you're wanting to upskill your knowledge.
Tony Winyard 36:44
Well, again, I'll put links to all of those in the show notes. Look in the shownotes for more information. So I talked about we touched upon books just now. Yes. Is there a book that's really moved you in any way?
Emily Bland 36:58
Yeah, I think I was having some thoughts about this. And I allowed to swear on this, Tony, I don't know.
Tony Winyard 37:09
I know, you're gonna say
Emily Bland 37:12
it's called The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F, and excuse me for my language. But that one is by Mark Manson. This isn't about chronic illness at all. It's just a general, easy written book about not giving a f. And I just applied it a lot to my life. And I really loved it. Because one, it's so easy to read. And with fatigue, it's not the easiest thing to concentrate on a book. And two, it just really outlined some seemingly basic concepts that were really helpful for me to just move on and not care what people thought about me or change my perception on things that maybe didn't matter as much.
Tony Winyard 37:54
That comment you just made I hadn't considered that aspect that is not so easy for you to read a book. So that's another whole elements are as well. Yeah, yeah. Really much shorter chunks to say then then maybe other people might.
Emily Bland 38:09
Yeah, again, depending on the individual, some people tolerate but tolerate it better than others. But yes, I don't usually read as much as I used to in one hit. But interestingly enough, jumping back to Warren Mosley's book, unexplained pain, he talks about dims, and Sims, which are things that are good on our nervous system and things that are not so good. If we read a book that we enjoy, and that's friendly, nice on our nervous system, then we're actually going to tolerate it better and be able to read more than if we were reading a journal article for uni, which seems like it's taking a bit more energy and is a bit more of a challenge on our nervous system. So.
Tony Winyard 38:52
So going on from that, then, I'm guessing, if you're totally engrossed in a film, and even though it may be, say, three hours long, if you're totally engrossed in it, it's from a fatigue point of view, you're going to be okay with that, I guess.
Emily Bland 39:06
Not necessarily okay. But it may not. It may not cost us as much energy or it may not perceive that it costs as much energy. So perceptions are really big word that I use a lot. It's not saying that it's all in our head, because it's not it's all in our brain. But yeah, depending on the environment, and the situation and nervous system can perceive it differently. So and we just need to be aware that when we do enjoy things, it tends to be easier to get involved. But that doesn't mean that it's not costing us energy. So we do just need to be careful of that when it comes to managing our energy.
Tony Winyard 39:42
Did you say at the beginning of this, as we started recording this that there was an element of positive psychology. Did you mention that?
Emily Bland 39:51
No, I didn't.
Tony Winyard 39:52
Okay, I must be getting mixed up with a recent present person I talked with just let me just before we went If people want to find out more about you, where where would they look? Where's your social media, your website and so on?
Emily Bland 40:05
Yeah, definitely. So my website is exphysem.uk That's got some more information on me and what I do, like I said, it's pretty simple. Because if people were seeking help in this area, I'm actually more than happy to get in touch with them and have a more individualised conversation with them. But also my LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/exphysem/, I should come up. And also my Instagram page, which is actually my dog. So my dog is the front of all of that for a little bit of fun. And that one's called https://www.instagram.com/dog.autonomia/ And that is all about tips and tricks for people living with chronic health conditions. And also a little bit of fun and some humour in there as well. So check it out.
Tony Winyard 41:05
Cool. And just before we finish, I mean, the question I always finish on with all my guests is, is there a quote that you particularly like, or quotes that you particularly like?
Emily Bland 41:14
Yeah, there's a couple. One was actually one that I always say myself, and that's that, you know, chronic illness shouldn't be about missing out, it shouldn't be about living life a little bit differently. So I say to my patients, we shouldn't not be able to do things, but we just need to look at doing them a little bit differently. So my other favourite quote is from Winnie the Pooh, and that is doing nothing often leads to the very best of something. And when I first heard that it really resonated with me from a fatigue perspective, because sometimes we do need to stop and do nothing. We need to sit on the couch and just hang out, so that we can have the energy to do the very best of something.
Tony Winyard 42:01
We don't say actually appropriate to everyone in society, wherever they've got CFS me whatever, because too many people try to do too much.
Emily Bland 42:12
Yeah, I actually say to people that the things that I teach in my programme, so the education and the management, if people that didn't have these health conditions, actually implemented them in their life, they would be living their best life. And they would be managing really, really well. And I'm not saying that they're not. But it would really enhance their ability to, you know, be in the best place that they could be.
Tony Winyard 42:39
Emily, I'm really thank you for providing this information, because it's something that he's not probably not talked about enough. And so there's a lot of people. There's a real lack of awareness around it. So yeah, thank you for giving, giving this information to people.
Emily Bland 42:53
Oh, thank you so much for having me, Tony. It was really nice to come on here and help to raise awareness around these conditions.
Tony Winyard 43:00
Great. Thank you. Next week, episode 49 with Dr. Sarah mile, she's a former GP, who now is registered with the Association of naturopathic practitioners. She's written numerous books on many different areas around health. And she's also written some papers around mitochondrial dysfunction and some other areas. Her latest book is the energy equation, and she not so long ago did a book called ecological medicine. She she's a controversial figure is Sarah. She has very strong views. And she doesn't always agree with the way that some things are done in in the UK regarding medicine she has, she's more into the kind of integrative functional medicine type of approach or she's not a functional medicine doctor, but she's more into that type of approach. It's quite an interesting episode. She's definitely no wallflower. She has some very interesting observations and comments. That's next week's episode with Dr. Sarah Myhill. If you did enjoy this week's episode with Emily bland, please do share the episode with anyone who you feel think would get some real value from it. And hope you have a great week.
Jingle 44:12
Thanks for tuning in to the habits and health podcast where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a review on your favourite podcast app. Sign up for email updates and learn about coaching and workshop opportunities at Tonywinyard.com See you next time on the habits and health podcast.
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Habits & Health episode 47 with Brooke Simonson, a Certified Nutrition Coach & Weight Loss Expert on a mission to help as many people as possible lose 5-50 pounds for the LAST time without giving up carbs, counting every calorie, drinking meal replacement shakes, or other unsustainable extremes. Topics discussed in the episode include weight-loss, diets, nutrition, working from home, media, whole foods, The 3A Approach and a lot more.
Links:
Instagram: instagram.com/thehealthinvestment
Free 18-page guide: thehealthinvestment.com/loseweight
Favorite book: Atomic Habits – James Clear
Favorite quote: “Change requires change.”
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Tony Winyard 0:00
habits and health episode 47.
Jingle 0:03
Welcome to the habits and health podcast, where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. Brought to you by an educator and coach for anyone who wants to create a healthier life. Here's your host, Tony Winyard.
Tony Winyard 0:19
Welcome to another edition of the podcast where we give you ideas for ways you can improve your health by incorporating some healthy habits. Today's guest is Brooke Simonson. She is a certified nutrition coach and weight loss expert on a mission to help as many people as possible to lose those pounds for the last time without giving up carbs and counting every calorie drinking meal replacement shakes and other unsustainable extremes. She has a company called their health investment. And we're gonna hear a lot more from Brooke coming up right now. habits and health my guest today Brooke Simonsson. How you doing, Brooke?
Brooke Simonson 1:00
I'm doing well. How are you?
Tony Winyard 1:01
I'm pretty good. And you're we're quite far from each other. Certainly in terms of time. I mean, it's it's early evening for me and it's early morning for you.
Brooke Simonson 1:10
It is yeah, I know I woke up this a little while before coming on here. So quite literally, we're speaking across the world. But so cool that podcasting and technology allows for that to happen.
Tony Winyard 1:21
Yeah. And you're in California. Yes,
Brooke Simonson 1:24
northern California. So sometimes they say California people picture Los Angeles and beaches and palm trees a little different up here. But it still makes the weather weather's pretty great in California.
Tony Winyard 1:38
So how is it and and a moment in where you are?
Brooke Simonson 1:41
Yeah, so it's gotten a bit colder, like more of a drastic difference in the day to night temperature. But still, I mean, it's usually pretty sunny and 60s 70s every day. So you know, you can't complain?
Tony Winyard 1:59
Yeah, well, we don't have any temperatures like that over.
Brooke Simonson 2:05
Well, I used to live in New York City. And I personally loved it. I loved the seasons and having snow and you know, people complain about the winters there. I enjoyed it. I also always lived in apartment buildings, and I never had to shovel snow. So I think that made a difference. But it's funny, because now sometimes I'll talk about hear how I missed the snow and just more of the seasons. And people look at me like you're not allowed to complain when it's 65 and sunny every day.
Tony Winyard 2:35
And I mean, obviously we're here to talk about, you know, the show is called habits and health. And I know, you know, I mean, I asked you some questions beforehand, and you were talking about atomic habits and nutrition and various other things. So let's start from the beginning. What is your story? Why? What is it that you do know? How do you help people?
Brooke Simonson 2:55
Of course, yeah. So I as you said, I'm Brooke Simonsson. I'm a certified nutrition coach. And people primarily come to me wanting help with weight loss, also just kind of eating healthier and maintaining a healthy eating pattern long term. And I got into this actually, I used to be a high school English teacher for 12 years when I lived on the east coast. It's kind of another life out there a whole other career and climate as I was saying. But after college, I started that career at 22. And didn't feel my best in my 20s ended up gaining quite a bit of weight was always trying to figure out what would work. I did what a lot of people do. I think when you gain weight, I started exercising more, I tried eating better, which I thought was what I should be eating, but I didn't exactly know, I would try different juice cleanses. I really tried it all I thought I had terrible willpower or self control. I couldn't crack the code, if you will. And so this went on for several years. Eventually, I got really into kind of the biohacking idea behind it. And once I discovered that word and thought, Okay, can I kind of hack my own body can I figure this out. And I dove into a bunch of podcasts, I started reading a lot of books, I got my hands on scholarly research article. And it really became kind of a hobby, if you will, on nights and weekends when I wasn't teaching. Sometimes when I was teaching, I'd have that free period when I was supposed to grade papers and I would be more interested in all this other stuff. And eventually I enrolled in an institute called the Institute of transformational nutrition to get my hands on even more information. And that's how I ended up becoming certified as nutrition coach at the time, just planning again to learn for myself and kind of have this certification in my back pocket if I ever wanted to do it in addition to teaching but Through all of this research, I would say probably two to three years, I did eventually kind of discovered the magic pill, if you will, and the magic pill being how to not only lose weight in the short term, but to keep it off long term, how to still enjoy all of my favourite foods, wine and life in the process. I don't restrict any one food group or, you know, do anything crazy, as we see out there on the internet of people trying more of these extreme measures. And I just now feel like I'm able to show up as my healthiest, happiest, most energised, most confident, best self, and make the most out of life. And I don't like I said, do anything extreme. And it's become my mission to help other people do the same. So when my husband and I moved from New York to California, instead of starting a new teaching career, I thought, Okay, I'm going to put this certification to good use, and I'm going to start my own business as a nutrition coach. So that's what I do now full time I coach clients one on one, I have a group programme as well. And I also have a podcast.
Tony Winyard 6:11
Cool. So how long have you been coaching people?
Brooke Simonson 6:14
I've been coaching now for about two and a half years.
Tony Winyard 6:17
And how and so that So you started not long before the whole kind of lockdown pandemics?
Brooke Simonson 6:23
Yeah, that is true. I will my husband I moved down here. It was August of 2019. So then the lockdown happened march out here, at least March of 2020. So we I already had been kind of thrown into this working from home environment, working by myself for myself without any co workers. So it was already kind of strange. And he was going to an office and then march 2020 hit and then he was home too. So we had a lot to navigate in those new months of living in California. But we've adjusted now it's good. I think we've all kind of adjusted but it is very different from teaching to work by myself in the tiny little reminder and every day, but I love it. I I think my dad was a business owner, he owned a car dealership, and my mom was a teacher. So I grew up kind of seeing both. And I did the teaching thing. And that was great for a while but kind of lost my passion for that. And now, I just love starting my own business and being an entrepreneur, it just, I can't imagine doing anything else now.
Tony Winyard 7:29
So working as a nutrition coach, what has there been any element of it that surprised you that maybe you wouldn't have expected before you sort of started learning about all of this.
Brooke Simonson 7:40
I think what surprised me most is what actually works is so very simple. It's kind of going back to if you'll think about what our great grandparents and great great grandparents did. And it's so distracting now all of the things that we see in Facebook ads and on newspaper headlines, and even that our friends are trying and there's just so much extremism in the nutrition and health space, when really, it doesn't have to be that way. And I just I find it very frustrating. But most people gravitate to that with their best intentions. I mean, they're, they're wanting to get healthy and lose weight and feel better, whatever it is. And so they're just really like I was doing taking shots in the dark. Like, why I haven't tried this thing or, you know, it's been a couple years since I've done the no carb thing or whatever it is. And so people are getting short term results. And following this yo yo pattern, just feeling really out of control and what work is really just getting back to the basics. And it's just so much happier to live in that middle ground. Without all kind of the craziness. You know, I think if something comes with a big promise or a label even it's like let's stay away from those things and just get back to eating more real Whole Foods and, and not following me crazy, you know, lose 10 pounds and seven days, whatever it is, it's probably not going to be sustainable.
Tony Winyard 9:18
So do you find do your clients find it? Maybe surprising that it's easier than they expected once they got personal guidance, guidance that's suitable for them rather than kind of generally what
Brooke Simonson 9:31
they do and it's, I mean, it's kind of this banging your head against the wall thing once you realise it of this is it I could be doing this all these years and getting these amazing results and still enjoying the holidays and still having a glass of wine. And it's, you know, it doesn't have to be so restrictive and miserable. I think a lot of people attach some negative words To the process of losing weight or eating healthy of whether it doesn't taste as good, or it's just going to be kind of horrible. So they'll try to wait, burn. And in between time, like I don't want to do it right now, because it's the holidays. And I want to have fun. And I don't want to do it over the summer because I want to enjoy my vacation. But really, when you find what works for you, it's going to be able to work all the time, not just in week spurts, here and there. So it's okay to start now I'd have a client who just signed up last week, and she's already starting to take small gradual actions, and she's feeling better already. And you know, Christmas is coming up soon as we're recording this. So I was really impressed by her that she signed up even in the midst of the holiday season, because this is not usually a busy time for me, usually January.
Tony Winyard 10:55
And so a lot of it sounds like a lot of your clients are relieved, it's not what they see nowhere near as oppressive as they expected it to be.
Brooke Simonson 11:05
Exactly. And the majority of people who come to me have been on this roller coaster for years trying all the different things. So it's really just kind of quieting all that noise, I say, I give you the awareness of what actually works. And I teach you principles, there's not a prescription, because we can't all follow this exact same dietary pattern, we can't all do the exact same habits, because we all are unique. We wouldn't think in any other area of life that we should all be doing the exact same thing, right, there has to be nuance and difference. And so that's something tricky to describe to people of, you know, I'm not going to give you a laundry list of everything you can and can't eat. And I'm not going to give you a list of all these rules that you have to follow. It's more, let me teach you kind of the science behind the habits that work when it comes to nutrition and sleep and stress and movement. And then how can we make those principles work for your lifestyle, so that you're able, again, to sustain your success. Even when life gets busy, even when there's holidays and vacations and you know, your kids are going crazy. I mean, you've got to figure out habits that work for your lifestyle. So it doesn't, it is shocking to people I would say at first. But it really works. And it's exciting when it does.
Tony Winyard 12:31
So in a lot of people, they really struggle with the they often do know what they should be doing. But for whatever reason, they just struggled to be able to do it. So how, why do you think that is? Why do people struggle so much? And how do you how are you able to kind of help them pass that?
Brooke Simonson 12:50
Yeah, so 100% a lot of people know, banana is going to be healthier than a cupcake, right? I mean, these are things that we all know or, you know, if I'm drinking water, that's going to be healthier, and so that we all have a general idea of what we should be doing. I say it really comes down to three A's. I call this my three a approach. And this is what helps people sustain their success long term. So the first day I touched on a little bit the awareness piece, people have a rudimentary idea of, you know, good or bad or healthy or not healthy. But when it comes down to more of the nuance, like a lot of clients who come to work with me haven't been eating enough protein, for example, and proteins, the most filling of the three macronutrients. So just upping protein intake kind of building, every meal around protein can be such a game changer. So that's, you know, something that you may have awareness of protein is something I should be eating, but you may not know how much. So the awareness piece is critical. People do have a general idea of what to do. But then when we get more into the science, and you learn why you're eating different things, and why you're getting 30 or so grammes of protein at breakfast, and how that can affect your energy throughout the rest of the day. That is critical. So one of the first critical aids then is awareness. The second one is attitude. And a lot of people don't go into kind of the weight loss space or eating healthy long term with the right mindset. A lot of people because these diets and juice cleanses they usually have a timeframe. So it'll be a 30 day plan or a three month plan. And then they don't think beyond that. So it's really working on reshaping your mindset and there's going to be a change that you're going to make forever and ever, which is why it's important that it works for your lifestyle. So there's so many critical pieces with the attitude part. progress, not perfection. You know, if you have a cookie, we're not gonna say diet starts Monday, you didn't fall off the waggon, you just had a cookie, let's move on with life. So be a is very critical the attitude part, we have awareness attitude. And then finally, accountability. Research suggests that your odds of success can improve by up to 95% with more accountability. So that would be through like working with a coach like myself, or even getting a partner on board, maybe your sister or brother is down to make changes with you just kind of getting somebody in your corner when you're making habit changes, because it's not always going to be easy. And sometimes you're going to be doing stuff that kind of countercultural or against the grain. And it's, again, not going to be something crazy, but it's still nice to have somebody kind of checking in or if you say you're going to go for a walk, and somebody else in your life that they were going to go for a walk Can you text each other and say I did my walk Did you. But the accountability piece is often overlooked. So those three A's the awareness, attitude and accountability really get people the long term success.
Jingle 16:17
We hope you're enjoying this episode of the habits and health podcast where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. If you're looking for the fastest and most effective way to transform your energy and wellbeing, we invite you to join Tony for an upcoming habits and health workshop. This five week group workshop will empower you the tools to disrupt unwanted habits and make positive changes easy. You'll enjoy sound asleep, better energy, less stress, and a happier mood Workshops begin on the first week of every month. And you can sign up now at Tony winyard.com. Now back to the show.
Tony Winyard 17:00
And how the font Oh, do you find any of your clients really struggle when it comes to things like snacking and so on.
Brooke Simonson 17:08
They do often when they come to me that's one of their biggest issues. And it's funny because they use the term snacky. So I use that now I shall say I just feel snacky all the time. So one of the changes I mentioned getting more protein, you know, eating meals that are actually filling, also getting a bunch of fibre through whole grains and fruits and vegetables, and healthy fats, maybe through avocado, extra virgin olive oil, nuts, seeds, once you start building a plate that's actually very filling and satisfying. And you're more conscious of what you're putting on your plate and why you're kind of structuring it in that way. It's incredible that a lot of the snack Enos kind of melts away, and you don't have that ravenous feeling at 4pm. Before dinner, you feel like you can actually make it from one meal to the next. And that's a great way to be in a moderate calorie deficit by cutting out some of the snacks the mindless snacking in between meals without needing to count anything like calories. If you're just setting up your plate in a way where you actually feel full, you're cutting out some of the snacks, you may end up consuming three to 500 calories less per day, which would then cause you to start losing a pound or two. Or I don't what do you you wouldn't say pounds, right?
Tony Winyard 18:35
We say kilogrammes, but a lot of people are used to pounds as well. Oh,
Brooke Simonson 18:38
good. Okay, because I was on another podcast of somebody in the UK and then they were translating everything I was saying kilogramme. Same thing though, you start losing weight at a at a steady pace. When you are more conscious of what actually works again for feeling full and setting up your plate.
Tony Winyard 18:59
So how do you approach when, when you've alluded to centre earlier, there are a lot of there's a lot of extreme extremes when it comes to various ways of eating. So someone comes to you and they're convinced that keto is the way to go or being a vegan is the way to go or high carbs or whatever extreme it is. How would you how do you sort of cope with that?
Brooke Simonson 19:23
I would say the majority of people come to me because they don't want to do the extremes anymore. So if they're coming to me, it's because they tried all those things, and they've only been successful, short term. So they have lost weight. I mean, people will come to me and say I lost 30 pounds like keto. And then I'll say okay, cool. Tell me more about that. And then they'll say, Well, I gained I lost 30 But then I gained 40. Right, the second I stop. So most of the time people aren't coming to me really attached to one way of eating. That being said, I have worked with people who have had On autoimmune conditions, or celiac, for example, and they're avoiding all gluten, or vegetarians, and it does, we just talk about, you know, I mentioned protein, it can be more difficult to get your protein, your daily protein intake, if you're following, let's say, a vegetarian diet, but it's not impossible. And it just requires being more mindful and maybe more prepared. And kind of scoping out different protein sources, maybe you haven't even tried before. So it's definitely possible. But the majority of people I work with are 100% interested in leaving all the extreme eating patterns in the past and having more of a healthy balance?
Tony Winyard 20:47
And what I mean people up, do you find any of your clients are quite surprised that they may be initially they've come with, the main goal is to lose weight. And they've actually ended up not only they've, they've they've become healthier, and they've lost weight, but then they've maybe not required so much medication on and so on.
Brooke Simonson 21:06
Yeah, that 100%, I would say, when people come to me, the first thing always is typically the weight loss, their second thing is usually having more energy. And usually third is something like eating healthier, being a better role model for my kids, or maybe it's getting off some of my medication, if possible. So I am not a doctor. So I never make any type of promise or say, go off your meds, right, or I always say, you know, continue to work closely with your doctor and make sure they know the different habit changes you're making. But it is incredible, when clients will go back to the doctor, and then they'll send me a text of wow, I got my blood work back, my doctor still impressed. And, you know, maybe they reduced this medication a little bit, maybe I could even kind of wean off of that eventually. But nutrition can be extremely powerful. So Can something like sleep movement, just managing our stress, it's amazing how the body can kind of readapt and get so much healthier overall, just by making these habit changes. And obviously, there's still sometimes a need for medication. I think that's another extreme that some people will say, of, you know, you can do all these healthy things in terms of food and whatever, you'll never need a medication again, and you may be able to go off some of them. But I think, you know, there's always a healthy balance. So that's what I'm all about is kind of where can we find the healthy centre?
Tony Winyard 22:46
So a lot of what you're helping people with is, is changing their mindset. And they need to change their mindset in some way to make these changes. What what is the hardest part of that for, for people? Do you think
Brooke Simonson 22:58
one of my favourite mindset shifts is change requires change. And it's so simple, but it's something I say to myself frequently. And it's something I say, you know, write down on a post it or keep it on your phone or set a phone alarm to remind you of that. Because change is tough. And a lot of the people I'm working with are in their 40s 50s 60s. And they've gotten used to doing things a certain way. And that's why having somebody in your corner, some type of accountability, some type of coach guidance, that can be super helpful, because habit change is tough. So I would say, you know, I'm not having people make the habit changes that are, we've used the word, multiple times extremes that they've done in the past. So these may be easier, in a sense, because they're going from A to B, not A to Z. It's not overhauling your entire lifestyle overnight. But it is it is still tricky to make habit changes for sure. I would say another really critical mindset shift is just patience. And probably in the past with different things they've done, they've gotten quicker results, because they changed 40 different things at once. And we're working on a couple small tweaks each week that they'll be able to stick with them long term. But then that means you're probably not going to lose 30 pounds in a month or whatever happened in the past, you're going to be able to keep the weight off long term, which is going to be amazing, but it's going to take longer to get there. So it really requires coming from a mindset of I need to be patient. You know, slow, gradual change will eventually lead to awesome results, but it's not going to happen overnight.
Tony Winyard 24:51
And you talked about there about taking it slow but sometimes people just get when they decide they want to make the changes. They just want to make loads of changes that it's Same time, and it's so that can make things very difficult content.
Brooke Simonson 25:04
It can Yeah, it makes me think of a client that I have. She the first week she was making changes, we had decided we always co create short term action steps to take. So I had said, you know, let's try getting more protein. Let's try to get 20 to 30 ish grammes of protein at one meal. Which one do you want to start with? So she said, breakfast? So we were just working on breakfast, I was talking with her, you know, what do you currently eat? How can we add more protein to that, or here's some new ideas. And so she was all ready to do breakfast. And she started doing that. And then she started feeling amazing. She said, Oh, my gosh, I have never had this much energy. After breakfast until lunch. I'm not eating the snacks before lunch. I want to do this now for lunch and dinner. She said, can you send me stuff for lunch and dinner, I want to start that right now. I said, we got to kind of pump the brakes here. Because you know, you don't want to go in too hard too soon. Because then again, that's probably not going to be sustainable. And it's going to be too much all at once. So let's take it slow. But I get that I mean, it gets exciting when you're seeing awesome teams, you want more and more and more. And you will get that eventually. But it is really important to take it slow.
Tony Winyard 26:21
You mentioned in you know, before the conversation we were having before we're recording that you're you were quite influenced by the book atomic habits.
Brooke Simonson 26:31
Yeah. Love that book. Have you read it?
Tony Winyard 26:35
I have? Yeah. Yeah. What was it you particularly liked about that?
Brooke Simonson 26:40
Everything. I think just when I was reading it, it was before this new iPhone update where you can, and maybe you've seen in the camera, you can take a picture of a page. And then you can actually it'll hold the page on your phone, and then you can highlight right there on your phone. And so it's really a great way to take notes if you're reading a book, but I was reading it before that feature. So I was literally had the book had my computer. And I feel like I was just typing out the entire book, as I was reading it into a Google document because I just wanted to share so many of James Claire's nuggets of wisdom with my clients. But I things I even said, I mean, I may have gotten the change or fires change snippet from him. I know a lot of the things I say now in my day to day and in conversations with clients come from him and that book. And I think if somebody hasn't read it, it doesn't just pertain to nutrition or health. I mean, it could be for business. The tips he gives are just absolutely incredible.
Tony Winyard 27:50
I mean, can you recall any changes you made in your own life after reading that?
Brooke Simonson 27:55
I think I was. Well, I said I would say the change requires change saying to myself often. But I became much more forgiving, I think of myself when it comes to willpower and motivation. I think he really illustrates that. Those are both finite resources, the majority of us aren't going to feel motivated to exercise every single time. And you know, it's not a lack of willpower. If you have a craving, there's all these different ways you can structure your life or he calls it creating a disciplined environment, I believe so he says the more disciplined your environment, the less disciplined you need to be. And therefore the less willpower you'll need to have the less motivation. So for example, if I know I want to exercise and I have a few meetings first, and I don't have to look any certain way i'll go ahead and just put my whole outfit on and take away that tiny little piece of putting the gym clothes on after the meeting because we all can rationalise why we shouldn't exercise and Oh, I'm tired and oh, that meeting didn't go as I thought. And so it's any tiny little change you can make to make the thing you want to do the habit you want to do easier, or creating a disciplined environment in your kitchen. You know, if you're buying a bunch of things, you're you're likely going to eat those or someone in your house is so just really filling your home with all the nutrients and things you want to eat most of the time and then planning to enjoy treats scoop of ice cream, whatever your favourite treat is outside of your home when you're at that cute ice cream shop or when you're on vacation. But just thinking you know the more disciplined Your kitchen is, the less disciplined you're going to need to be the less you're going to be constantly trying to have self control and willpower and it just allows you really to feel kind of more relaxed and free. And yeah, that was probably one of the biggest ones for me too. And that works for my clients as well. going hand in hand with a mindset shift that it's not that you're restricting these things, it's not that you can never have a scoop of ice cream, it's just is there's always your freezers filled with ice cream, it's going to be that much tougher not to eat it every day, because ice cream delicious.
Tony Winyard 30:32
Are there any things that you think people may misunderstand about working with nutrition? Coach?
Brooke Simonson 30:40
Oh, that's a really good question. I think maybe that I'm gonna come in and tell you what to do. Really, coaching is more of a process. I said the term earlier and co creation. So I'm going to ask a lot of questions and get to know what your life's like, what your time constraints are, like, what foods do you enjoy? What foods do you hate? Clients will come to me and say, or actually verbatim, one client came to me and said, I hate kale. But I know you're gonna make me eat it. And I said, No, no, I'm not gonna make you eat it. There's tonnes of things you can eat, that are just as good for you as kale. So I think that could be a misconception that you show up to work with me. And then I just give you more of the prescriptive menu of things you can and can't eat, or the list of things you can and can't do. And that's not how it goes at all. I mean, I have some clients right now who eat breakfast, some who don't, because they don't love breakfast, and they like to skip it. And then I have some clients who are eating kale and some who weren't, you know, there's just so many ways to get to the end goal. And so it's really figuring out together, what's going to work for you.
Tony Winyard 31:59
And you've got on your own podcast, haven't you? What, what is it that you are exploring on your on your podcast? What do you do?
Brooke Simonson 32:08
Yeah, so in my coaching practice, it's, like I said, primarily helping people with nutrition and weight loss. And so my podcast, and my whole brand in business is called the Health investment. But the podcast, I take a broader view of health. So we talked about nutrition and weight loss topics, but also I've had financial planners on talk about financial health breathwork experts, you know, founders of more health promoting food companies, lots of topics related to health mindset shifts. I've had women talking about the postpartum period, and how to make that kind of easier on both parents. So yeah, lots lots of different topics. There's exciting and, you know, I think running a podcast, you know, yourself. It's a lot, but it's also really cool.
Tony Winyard 33:00
And if people want to find out more about the podcast, and you're too happy to book you, and social media, and so on, where were the best places to go?
Brooke Simonson 33:10
Very simple. It's a streamline the health investment everywhere. So my website is the health investment, calm, and super active on Instagram. That's just at the Health investment. And I would say those are both the best places to find me the website being the home base, you'll see places to click if you're interested in group coaching, my VIP one on one coaching programme or the podcasts, it's all right there.
Tony Winyard 33:35
I mean, we touched upon atomic habits is there and I can't remember what your answer was. Because I know you've already given the answer. But is there a book that's really moved? Yeah.
Brooke Simonson 33:44
I said atomic habits was the book. Another really interesting book that kind of got me more into the research behind different nutritional choices and kind of living in the middle ground not being so extreme is called genius foods by Max blue beer. That was one of the first books I read that really affected me and made me see the science behind different things and get really into all the research articles. And I guess I didn't realise that, as a lay person, I can access all this research and read straight from the source. But I don't have to just trust what any media headline is telling me I can actually dive into these research articles. And that's been really cool.
Tony Winyard 34:34
Is there's a couple of podcasts that are similar to what you're just saying. I don't know if you're familiar with Huberman Andrew Huberman, and Oh, yeah. And then also, don't Peter to Dr. Peter Thiel, I find those two quite useful for that kind of approach as well.
Brooke Simonson 34:49
Yeah, they do a tonne of diving into research for sure. Yeah.
Tony Winyard 34:54
Well, just before we finish, is there a Do you have a quotation that you particularly like
Brooke Simonson 35:01
One that I also use with my clients that I tell myself a lot is progress, not perfection. Again, I like these kind of simple short quotes. But that serves me when I'm editing my own podcast, or when I am building my business or when I'm working with clients as well just, I think a lot of us myself, especially as being very type A want things to be perfect, and beat ourselves up, or especially with food clients will have that cookie. And in their past mindset, they think, Oh, I've ruined the diet, and I have to start over. And really, that's never going to serve you long term, that mindset of perfection. We always have to allow for treats and indulgences, we're always going to have weddings and birthday parties and celebrations and I always say I don't I don't want to live a life where I feel guilty if I have a cookie, my mom bakes right or you know, all of these little simple pleasures that can certainly fit in a healthy eating pattern. So that's that's one that my clients like a lot as well but giving them permission to be constantly making progress and working towards your goals but not needing to be perfect.
Tony Winyard 36:16
So great, great attitude. I think it helps people with so much more fun. It's been a been a real pleasure. So thank you for your time.
Brooke Simonson 36:23
Thank you so much for having me.
Tony Winyard 36:25
Thank you. Next week, episode 48, which is with Emily Bland. Emily is She's a clinical exercise physiologist treating patients with POTS, chronic fatigue syndrome, persistent pain, fibromyalgia and many other areas. But she says don't be fooled by the term exercise in her title because she specialises in education and energy management for patients with these health conditions. In order to help them stabilise and manage their symptoms. We have quite a good chat around many of the areas that that she specialises in such as chronic fatigue syndrome and so on. So that's next week. Emily Bland on episode 48. If you know anyone who would get some real value from some of the information that Brooke Simonson shared with us, please do share the episode with them. And hope you have a great week.
Jingle 37:20
Thanks for tuning in to the habits and health podcast where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a review on your favourite podcast app. Sign up for email updates and learn about coaching and workshop opportunities at Tonywinyard.com See you next time on the habits and health podcast.
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Habits & Health episode 46 with Tara Bianca. She has been a holistic health practitioner for almost 20 years and is the owner of BE Light Transformative Therapy, an online holistic health company specialising in therapeutic bodywork, breathwork, mindset and sound healing. Her focus is on educating and coaching people to change the quality of their breathing, in order to improve the quality of their lives. She is passionate about building a global community that is dedicated to achieving optimal health and wellness.
Topoics discussed include: Mindset, breathwork, the oxygen advantage, Patrick McKeown, New York, Holotropic breathing, nasal breathing, posture, self-awareness, self-esteem, nervous system…
Links:
YouTube IG: @tarabelightFB: @tarabelightLinkedIn Lead Magnet 1The Breath Basics 6-Day Challenge Lead Magnet 2FREE Long COVID Video Workshop Recommended book: The Jungle by Upton Sinclair Favourite quote: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” From The Little Prince
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Jingle 0:00
habits and health episode 46. Welcome to the habits and health podcast, where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. Brought to you by an educator and coach for anyone who wants to create a healthier life. Here's your host, Tony Winyard.
Tony Winyard 0:20
Welcome to another edition of the podcast where we give you ideas and habits for things, ways that you can improve your health. My guest today, Tara Bianca, she's been a holistic health practitioner for almost 20 years. She's the owner of be light transformative therapy are now fully online, holistic health company which specialises in therapeutic body work, breath, work, mindset and sound healing. And her primary focus these days is on educating and coaching people to change the quality of their breathing in order to powerfully improve the quality of their lives. And she's passionate about building a global community that is dedicated to achieving optimal health and wellness for people and for the planet as holistically as possible. So that's coming up very soon. With Tara Bianca. If you know anyone who would get some real value from somebody's information, Sally shares around breathwork and relaxation, so I'm pleased to share this episode with them. habits and health. My guest today. Tara Bianca, how are you, Tara?
Tara Bianca 1:21
I'm doing really well, Tony, how are you?
Tony Winyard 1:23
I'm very good. And whereabouts in the world are you?
Tara Bianca 1:26
I'm located in the New York City area.
Tony Winyard 1:28
And are you a native New Yorker.
Tara Bianca 1:30
I am a native Connecticut person. So Connecticut is the state next to New York. But I've been in New York for 23 years since I was 18 years old. And that's where I went to university. That's what I've called home for all of my adult life. That's where I've established my, my practice my business, my everything, all of my passions have always been in New York.
Tony Winyard 1:49
So you love New York.
Tara Bianca 1:55
Well, you know, I actually would say at this age in my life, I have a little bit of a love hate relationship with New York. And I think if you really talk to New Yorkers, or people who've been in New York for an extensive period of time, over a decade over two decades, there's a real like, oh, the city drives me crazy some days, but I also can't leave it, you know, like, you just can't leave it. So yeah, there's beautiful things about New York, it can be a very challenging place to live. But it also has some some real magic to it.
Tony Winyard 2:23
I don't know New York so well. I ran the New York Marathon in 2000.
Tara Bianca 2:26
Wow, great. How did you do?
Tony Winyard 2:27
So I got to explore a lot of New York.
Tara Bianca 2:36
Probably more than me, actually. Even to every borough. Amazing.
Tony Winyard 2:41
yeah. That was pretty cool. So you touched upon business just now. We were talking before we started recording, I love some of the marketing you do, your presence on YouTube, and so on. So can you tell us for people listening who maybe aren't so familiar with you, what is it you do? And how did you get into that?
Tara Bianca 3:04
Okay, it's sort of a long story. So I tried to classify myself as a holistic health practitioner. I got into Holistic Health, officially as a career around the age of 25. So it would have been around 2005. And how it started the segue in the bridge in was through massage therapy. So I was first a licenced massage therapist and a certified personal trainer. I was really interested in manual therapy and movement therapy. And my specialty has always been kind of anatomy and physiology really like like concrete, sciency stuff, I've always loved that. My background before that is I was a dancer and a gymnast. So I've always been in this really is a cool sort of experience of life. And so I started my own practice pretty early on in my career, and just seeing private clients. Really working one on one with people, and really taking a perspective of functional movement. And also, manual therapy really focused on rehabilitation, pain reduction, again, creating functionality in people's lives more than just relaxation, right? More than just the luxurious massage. When people came to me, it's like, okay, you're gonna do a little work here, too. Right? So it definitely was more that type of therapist. And I had my own private practice in New York for about 16 years. Right. So it's been a long time. And then in 2020, you know, I had been incorporating a lot of different things. I have a lot of different modalities under my belt, and I had luckily started to be introducing some therapeutic breathwork and a lot of sound healing actually into my practice, but I'd say my bread and butter was still mostly manual therapy, therapeutic bodywork osteopathic techniques. And then in 2020, when New York first went into lockdown, I just lost the whole thing. You know, I was out of business. So that was scary. But the amazing part of it, Tony is that even though it was a disaster, and a catastrophe, and something I had even felt like an impending doom around for a few years, like, Wow, all my eggs are in one basket here, this could potentially be a disaster one day, I really felt blessed in that moment, I had kind of been looking to shift to pivot my business anyway, I was looking for that change. And it was so clear, I mean, like a brick to the face, like obvious, like, this is the time to make the shift. Sorry, let's do it, you know.
And so now, in the last year and a half, two years, I've been rebuilding from scratch, a completely different business model everything fully online, and mostly focusing on therapeutic breathwork. Now, so I'm really doing mostly breath work with people. And for now, anyway, I've kind of abandoned the manual therapy. I'm doing a lot of private coaching, group coaching, creating online courses for people, an online community for people a membership site, and the YouTube channel that I run is really a huge part of that, you know, a critical component to my ideology, as someone who wants to be of service to the world, and also really empower people to take their health into their own hands, is to offer free tools, right is to offer this free education. Because I know what it feels like to be in a position of dealing with chronic health issues, chronic pain, not having any money, not knowing who to turn to not having a community that surrounds you that has that mindset of holistic health, or that really takes into consideration lifestyle choices, or environmental constraints, and how that impacts us as human beings. And so a huge part of my YouTube channel is slowly but surely, disseminating this wisdom that I have. And it's definitely not everything, I don't know everything. But what it allows me to do is, share what I know, and also really open up a productive and beautiful dialogue. That community that I'm creating on YouTube is so unbelievably powerful, I actually get tears in my eyes. Sometimes when I read through the comments, it's very powerful, you know, as the creator, you don't always know how it's going to hit the audience, right? But what I find is, I just put all of my integrity, all of my intention into these videos. And sometimes it could be a simple five minute breathing hacker something right, a breathing tip, something so simple, that I teach people every day that I do every day, don't even think twice about it. But you'll get the most beautiful, profound comments that from someone across the globe, who you would have never had an opportunity to meet. Otherwise, who is just like, thank you so much. This was exactly what I needed to learn today. This changed my entire perspective on creating, I already feel the health benefits. I've been practising this for two weeks, my heart rate has completely slowed down. I'm not feeling the stress and anxiety that I used to be feeling. And so that, to me is really magical. And I really just applaud users who come on to this public forum. I mean, YouTube is like the most public place, open scrutiny open criticism, you know, people are that is anonymously leaving comments willy nilly. And I just applaud people for allowing themselves to be exposed and to put themselves in a place of vulnerability in the hopes of achieving better health. It's a really beautiful thing to see people on the search, and really having the courage and the tenacity to take it on to really like seek out these practices to really be diligent about implementing them in their lives, so that they can feel the positive effects. So that has been such a blessing this year. I've got really lucky with my YouTube channel, one video just happened to explode. It's not the video I would have chosen to have explode that way. But you can't always have everything go exactly as you imagined in your mind, I suppose. So I'm just so grateful that it has gotten the exposure that it has had because it really allows me to start living up this dream of creating an online holistic health network that is globally interactive, globally, inviting, very inclusive, and going toward the future. Now I really see pulling together experts from really all over the world teaching in multiple languages, continuing this concept of integrative health, everything from the most scientific evidence based protocols, to the really sort of spiritual, more esoteric experiences and philosophies and bringing them together from all these different backgrounds and cultural traditions, and really giving people a concrete package of wow, I can do this on my own. I have all the tools right here. If I can. If I can just take control of my own health. I know that I can make the difference and look at there's this beautiful network that is here to support me. You know, that would be my biggest dream At this point, and I think it would be a wonderful service to offer society. So that's where I'm headed. I'm laughing because I'm like, God, it's a big dream. But it really does feel like it's becoming more and more concrete every day. And I just feel so blessed for the opportunity that has fallen into my lap this year. You know, it really allowed me to take a very potentially negative, disruptive, detrimental experience and really flip it on its head and actually get me closer to what I've always imagined for my business than ever before.
Tony Winyard 10:32
What was it that made you look at breathwork in the first place?
Tara Bianca 10:37
That's a good question. You know, so my personal health issues, right, my personal health journey started when I was about 15, or 16 years old, I started to have a lot of digestive stuff happening, right, which is an epidemic at this point, right? It's everywhere, everyone is having gut microbial issues. But back then, which would have been I don't know, 26 years ago, nobody knew what was going on. We weren't talking about the microbiome like this. We weren't talking about probiotics like this, like there was no information and doctors really had no idea what to do with me, you know. So it's been a real struggle. And that really is the thing that drove me towards holistic health. It started more as food healing, right. And part of the digestive stuff. I know, you know, this too Tony, because you're a breath coach. And you also know so many things about health. But a huge part of the digestive stuff is also what's going on with your emotions, what's going on with your nervous system. And by proxy, what's happening with your breathing, right. So I think, to segue into breathing a little bit, you know, when you take a look at our respiratory diaphragm, right, that big dome shaped muscle that bisects the torso, it serves so many functions. It's not just helping you to breathe, but it's also massaging the organs, right? It's assisting with digestion. It's moving limps throughout the entire body, it's assisting with blood flow with venous return to the heart, with calming the nervous system with really allowing you to hack into the autonomic nervous system, and have, again, more choice in how you are responding to different environments. So I was really slow to finally get to the tools and the knowledge, but I always was seeking from a young kid, based on how am I going to heal this issue, because everyone thinks I'm crazy. You know, for a lot of us, the good stuff is a little bit like an autoimmune disorder. So and back in the day, in particular, before autoimmune disease became this, you know, global phenomenon. There just really wasn't the information and it was very disparaging and very
sort of demoralising to never have anyone in the medical health profession be able to understand you. And so that is really what forced me to constantly be looking for my own way, my own path, because when you're experiencing it, you know that there's another way, whatever the mainstream prescription is, is not working. And then I was a dancer, a gymnast, like I said, always into the physical. My father had me in the gym as a young kid weightlifting, doing a lot of fitness stuff. And then, as I started to do my massage therapy career, part of the curriculum was traditional Chinese medicine. So we were doing a lot with learning about herbs, learning about this more Eastern philosophy, quote, unquote, right. And we were doing a lot of Qi Gong and Tai Chi as part of our practice, we were doing shiatsu and more like Eastern bodywork. And it was the first time that I really had exposure to this different philosophy, this different construct of how you see the human body and how it interacts directly with the world around to this sort of synergistic symbiotic relationship with the natural world. And really, from an Eastern philosophy, either Chinese medicine or Ayervedic medicine or Tibetan Medicine, the human is a part of the bigger circle of life, right? And how the stars are moving and how the oceans are moving and how the crops are growing and what the weather's like, and how your sleep is such an integral part of how you experience the world and how your health is responding. So understanding that was really a huge piece. And as I started to experiment more with Qi Gong and Tai Chi and yoga practices, all of my teachers kept saying, talking about the breath, right? There's always this reference to the breath. And I feel like in Qi Gong and yoga, when you get a good teacher, they'll even say, Let the breath lead the movement. Like the breath is the initiator. It's the primary it's the foundational it's what everything off is built off of what everything else is built off of. And, and so it kept being fed to me that information about okay focus on the breath, got it focus on the breath, but it was sort of superficial If I didn't have a strong why, I didn't have a strong how, it was just like words in my ear and sort of a peripheral understanding that breathing is important. And then as I continued on my manual therapy career and doing more advanced techniques and osteopathic techniques, we put a lot of focus into the different diaphragms of the body. So we don't think of it as just being the one respiratory diaphragm, we see multiple diaphragms throughout the body that work in conjunction with each other to help manage pressure, for example, stabilise your spine, pump fluids around all these different things. And so as I got there, I was doing a lot of manual therapy on people's diaphragms working on the rib cages working on mobilising their breath, getting their breath to improve. But I still felt like I was a little bit flying blind, you know, like, I had a lot of great cues, and we'd get good results or we get good movement. But I still didn't feel like very strong about what I was doing. I know even as a coach and a trainer and a therapist, I would cue people's breath just to get them breathing. But I didn't really know why was cueing it the way I was, you know. And so it took until about, I think maybe like five or six years ago is when I first took my formal, completely devoted to breathing course. Because I finally found the teacher that I was like, Okay, this sounds interesting. Now, the crazy part is I started into the breath via a more spiritual route, honestly. So there's a woman whose coursework I decided to follow, she's much more focused on mindset, sort of reframing old emotional wounds, liberating old emotional wounds, and really helping people to
shift their self limiting beliefs and their self sabotaging behaviour. And that really resonated with me at the time that I found her particular style of breathwork because I had been going through a massive mindset transition myself. And so that was my first bridge into a formal breathing practice, it was much more esoteric, for sure, it was a hyperventilating technique. So Tony, you'll probably know what that means. But, for your listeners, if you don't know what that means. Typically, hyperventilated techniques are more focused on creating a slight stress response in the body. Just like when you go to the gym, and you do exercise, you're creating the slight stress response in the body in the hopes of making a positive adaptation in the hopes of creating positive change afterwards, right, exposing your body to something different, just to create that shift, whether it be mental, emotional, physiological, spiritual. And so I was doing that work for several years, and I was guiding my clients through it in my private practice as well. But then, when we went online, I realised that work does not work well, the this online forum, and I felt actually a little bit negligent as a practitioner, because when you are encouraging someone to release something emotionally, or mentally or psychologically, and you can't hold that space container for them, it's a little bit irresponsible, as a therapist, I feel, for myself, and so not being able to hold that safe container for people online really caused me to start to look for other options. And that's when I really went back to my roots of like, pure anatomy and physiology, pure biomechanics, like let's get back to the more scientifically founded stuff, and see what we can find. And that's when I really stumbled across the Oxygen Advantage. I had read the book, and I loved the work, but I didn't even realise it was something I could get trained in, you know, it was just kind of like practising it and, and teaching what I could where I could. And so I was so grateful to find that work. And Patrick McKeown, the, the creator of the oxygen advantage is he's such a generous, compassionate teacher, he's so passionate about breathing. I've met very few people as passionate about breathing as Patrick is. And I feel like he is very much about getting as many people on board with this messaging and this philosophy, and really encouraging people to go out there and try to change the world with breathing. So I feel very blessed to have that work. Now, I feel very blessed to have that community. And I'm really getting powerful, powerful results with clients, with my groups and with my private people, because now I have a much more profound understanding of the why, right? I'm not flying blind anymore. It's much easier for me to now look at someone listen to their health history, listen to what's going on in their mental and emotional spaces, and customise the work much more to their needs, which is critical for any type of therapy, right? You always need to customise there's no cookie cutter. Everyone experiences every tool differently. So that's how I got into breathing. It really came out of my own needs looking for something for this digestive stuff, which is also tied in with social anxiety, feelings of not being good enough low self worth all those things. Some tool that is totally free, totally accessible. with me all the time, and that I can choose to use or not to mitigate my symptoms and potentially even, "cure myself", right. And so having that much experience with the breath now has really helped me again to create sort of a broad spectrum of who I can work with, and how I can personalise that work to their specific needs.
Tony Winyard 20:23
What type of clients do you tend to work with? What issues do they have?
Tara Bianca 20:29
It's a good question. You know, I think when I started doing some of the Oxygen Advantage work, I had it in my mind that I want to work more with an athletic population again. But that's not who resonates with me. So the people who come to me, tend to be slightly older, middle aged to older, a lot of anxiety, a lot of subtle panic disorder, a lot of fear. I think I'm attracting the people that I was right, like, you attract what you have already been able to transform, or that you are maybe still transforming. And I am still on my own journey, right? You're always kind of peeling the layers of the onion, and just adding and, and transforming as you go and evolving as you go. And I really am finding that I'm loving working with that population of more nervous system conditioning, you know, that's what I'm really focused on with people much more than the performance aspect. Now, it's much more how are we going to nourish your nervous system? What tools can we give you so that you feel like you have control to hack into your nervous system to create powerful shifts that help you to shift your perception of the world around you to help shift your perceptions of if you feel safer not to help you shift your perception of if you feel anxious or not, to help you shift if you can be open and exposed to the world, or if you have to run in hide? Right? So it's what I find so powerful about it is, I feel like the dialogue around stress and anxiety and panic disorder has always been sort of in that mental psychological category. And that's okay. And I think there's a lot of utility to sort of more traditional psycho therapies. But I'm loving that we're finally having a conversation about the physiological aspects of anxiety, what is happening in the physiology of your body that is driving you to have these anxious thoughts and these anxious feelings. You know, I think it's such a critical part of the conversation. And again, on my YouTube channel, it's sort of like open call of anecdotal evidence. Anyone who wants to share anything is welcome to share. And I can't tell you how many people have come on, who have been practising either oxygen advantage or blue taiko clinic or taiko method, breath strategies for a significant period of time. And they are just preaching, I was anxious my whole life, I had a stuttering problem, I had massive social anxiety, it couldn't get into a relationship with someone, I changed my breathing, it changed my entire life. You know, I've tried all these therapies, they never worked, I changed my breathing, it changed my life, you know. And so, like, I don't even have to do the advertising people like that preach for you, you know. And when you feel it in your own body, you just know it's real. There's such a huge physiological component to everything we experience emotionally, or mentally. And so the breathing really allows us to address that physiological aspect. I feel like breathing is so primary. It's so foundational. It's the thing that we do more during the day than anything else that we do. We probably take what 20,000 breaths a day or something like that. And yeah, it's the thing that we totally take for granted. Right? And, and if you think of it in that way, it's so much more important than anything that you're eating anything that you're drinking, because you can't live for more than a few minutes without it. You know, Tony, you and I are sitting here now having this conversation. And it's like, what differentiates us from someone who we would classify as no longer living, it's this breath, it's this ability to have gas exchange and to communicate in this way using air, right? This is our whole communication system is blowing air through the vocal cords and shaping it, right. So the breath is so powerful. And yet we just totally take it for granted. And I think it's because it happens automatically. And we don't have to consciously control it. And so we can get maybe a little lazy or complacent about it. But it's so nice to know that if you want it to you can tap into it. And when you tap into it, you can make huge changes. I forget where I was going with that statement because I forget the original question, but I hope that that answered something.
Tony Winyard 24:44
And going on from what was what you just said, there. It's got me it made me think about I think the thing about breath is no one thinks that they're breathing wrong. Well, there are some people but the majority of people don't even contemplate that they could be Breathing wrong. Whereas we both know that the amount of dysfunctional breathing is immense, but most people have no idea that there is even a possibility that they could improve their breathing?
Tara Bianca 25:12
100%. I mean, but this goes with everything. I mean, there's plenty of people out there who also are eating garbage every day would never contemplate changing their diet, you know, I think it depends on what were you exposed to as a kid? And has your health challenge gotten bad enough that you're ready to look deeper and make the changes, you know, people never really can take fully take in the information until they're ready to? And so what is it that's happening in your life that's finally going to make you ready to receive that messaging and to implement the changes? You know, because I can, I've got plenty of people in my family and in my life, who could change their breathing, they're not going to hear it from me, like, it just doesn't register. Like it only registers when you are ready. And Tony, I'm sure you can relate to that in your own life experience. I know that I can, too, right? Like, the information is here. It's here, it's there. It's there. It's everywhere. But it's like you're completely your blinders are on, it's completely irrelevant to you until one day becomes very relevant. And now it's like, okay, now I'm ready to listen, what were you saying? 10 years ago? I'm ready.
Tony Winyard 26:18
What would you say to maybe someone listening to this What signs could they look forward to pick up that maybe they do have dysfunctional breathing? Or their breathing could be improved in some way?
Tara Bianca 26:31
I think that's a great question. And I think it is the most important question to ask when you ever you're trying to change any habit or implement any new habit in your life is that you always have to start with awareness. Right? If the awareness is that is not there, there's no impetus to change and the change can't happen. So even while your listeners are listening, I mean, you can start to scan through your body, there's some really obvious things that we can look for. And then there's more subtle things, but the most obvious are right now you're sitting here, you're listening to this podcast? Is your mouth hanging open, or your lips gently closed? That's number one. Are you breathing through your nose? Or are you breathing through your mouth? And while we're talking about the mouth? Is your jaw clenched? Do you feel like your teeth are grinding together? Do you feel a lot of tension in the jaw? Or do you feel like there's a little space between your teeth and your jaws relaxed? We talk a lot about oral posture in the breathing community. And so I would also invite you while you're listening to to take a look at what is your tongue doing in your mouth right now? Is that hanging on the floor of your mouth? Is your tongue making contact with the roof of your mouth? Is it making gentle contact? Or is it really pressed up there? Like a suction cup? And then the next things that I would say are what is your breathing sound like right now? Is it quiet? Or is it audible? What is the tempo? Is that fast? Or is it slow? And what is the depth? Do you feel like your breathing is incredibly shallow right now, or do feel like it's coming fully deeply into your body. And so some of the ways that you can really feel your breath, some of the places that you can feel it, if you're seated, I always invite people to bring their hands to their lower ribs, one hand on either side of the lowest ribs with a little bit of gentle inward pressure. So you're offering a little bit of resistance with your palms to the lowest ribs. And as you inhale slowly and gently through your nose. Can you feel like your ribs are pushing your hands out to the sides? And as you exhale? Can you feel like your hands are gently pushing your ribs back towards midline. And so what is this giving us information on in terms of the the torso, this is how much is your diaphragm fully activating, are you able to really get your ribs to move on your inhale and your exhale. And if you're to if you were to lie on your back, also, you might monitor your breath at your belly, maybe that space between your navel and your ribs. So if anyone listening is lying on their back right now, you could place one or both hands on the belly. And as you take your inhale through your nose, do you feel your belly gently pushing your hand up towards the ceiling. And as you exhale, do you feel your hand gently guiding your belly back towards the Earth. So you know breathing is really this full body experience. We have these conducting tubes that go from the tip of the nose all the way to the middle of the torso. And so there's a lot of places and a lot of surrounding musculature that gets involved with your with your practice of breathing with your mechanics of breathing. And that also can inhibit your breathing or create more dysfunctional breathing. So that's sort of the starting list of breath awareness, right. It's a lot of little things that think about and what typically happens is when you start to just even do that much with a client. I'll always give them breath awareness as homework the first week that I work with them while you're sitting at your computer just once in a while drop in Split your attention and notice what your breath is doing. Notice what your mouth is doing. Notice what your belly and ribcage is doing. And they'll come back to me the next week and say, oh my god, like, I really noticed that when this is happening in my life, I'm holding my breath. Right? So how many people aren't aren't even breathing during but
how many of us find that totally stressful email or that, you know, we're stuck in our heads thinking about this conversation or this argument that happened. And we're trying to relive the past and and rework the situation until it's until it's more pleasing to us. And we just hold our breath, because we're so caught up in the mental, the mental chatter, the mental aspect of being. So that is so huge in terms of scanning through the body, but then also, can you bring your breath awareness into every activity that you're doing? So while you're sitting at your computer working? Can you once in a while drop in while you're cooking dinner, while you're vacuuming the house? While you're interacting with your kids or your loved ones are with your colleagues? While you're interacting? Can you be aware of what your breathing is doing? And while you're doing things like interacting with others, is there ever a time where you notice your breathing is changing? Is it getting more shallow? Is it getting more fast? And if so, why is that happening? There's something about this interaction with this person make you more anxious, making more stressful? Do you feel unsafe around this person and starting to connect the dots between your your mental perception, your emotional centre, how your body is opening or recoiling to the things around you, and this basic physiological function of breathing, because it's all comes down to eventually nervous system conditioning, right? So when I'm training my, my clients now, I always remind them, okay, guys, we're gonna be doing this breath practice. But what I'm really doing with you here is nervous system conditioning. And sometimes some of the techniques that I teach are more designed to elicit more of a stress response, like we mentioned earlier, but then most of them are really designed to down regulate, get people into true relaxation, true rest and recovery. But since so many of us struggle to get there on the day to day, we tend to be stuck in this heightened stress, or we tend to be stuck in this heightened stress response. Sometimes it's nice to meet the nervous system where it's at before you ask it to do something else. So when I'm training people in, say, a 45 minute breath session, or something like that, will take the nervous system up and down and up and down, and up and down. Okay, we're going to put it into optimal stress. Okay, and now, can you get control of your breathing immediately? Can you send the signal to your brain that you're safe, that you're secure, that it's okay to relax, that there's nothing chasing you that your life is not being threatened right now? Can you get into that slow the nasal breathing right away. And so in taking it through these different levels, it's just conditioning, it's conditioning, its conditioning, and then eventually, hopefully, when you encounter that major stressor in your life, that major stressor in your environment, now, you've been practising in a safe space. Now, hopefully, you remember, okay, that was stressful, but I have tools now to get myself back into a place of safety, to calm my mind to calm my body to calm my nervous system. I can shake it off. You know, if you watch animals in the wild, especially like prey animals. You know, once the chase is over, if they escaped with their life, you see them shake it off, literally, right? They shake it off, and now okay, I'm gonna go back to nibbling on the grass, right? Like, everything's good. Now, I'm fine, you know, and now I'm gonna go back to eating and I'm calm, and I can digest and assimilate my food. And that thing is in the past, it's behind me. I don't even recognise it anymore. But humans, we love to take the past with us, right? We're on this.
Tony Winyard 33:41
And we think we're the intelligence species!
Tara Bianca 33:48
Yeah, so it's really nervous system conditioning. That's what I find myself kind of preaching the most lately. And because it seems to be the most valuable to a global audience, you know, all of us are going through that. We're just modern humans just stick themselves in this mental preoccupation with everything from the past, the present the future. And we are all stuck in this heightened stress response, just so many stimuli coming at us all the time, bombarding our sensory organs, and not really having the tools to turn it off, to down regulate, to go into total rest and recovery mode. So we really have to practice true rest and true relaxation, otherwise, we're not gonna be able to do it.
Jingle 34:28
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Tony Winyard 34:53
People you're working with, when they initially come to you, Are they aware that a A lot of what you're going to help them with is going to be around the breath, or do they come with you with a specific issue, and they're not quite sure how you're going to help them? And maybe they get surprised by how doing something as simple as adjusting their breathing helps their issue?
Tara Bianca 35:14
That's a really good question. So back in the day, when I had my private in person practice, and I was more manual therapy based, then the breathing would have been more of a surprise, right. But now I really market myself primarily as a breathing coach. So people are coming, because they are in the position I was in years ago, where they know breathing is important, but they have no information about why or how to change it, what makes it dysfunctional versus functional, and they're looking for tools. So I find a lot of people are coming to me with a very open mind, because they don't know what to expect, actually. And, and overwhelmingly, they are floored very quickly, because the breathing just cuts to the point immediately, and you can get very quick results. You know, it's not years of therapy, this is I'm going to give you the tools. And now you just have to practice them every day and you've got it. And they just get it right away. Well, if they're going to get it, they get it. If they don't want to get it, they're not going to get it. But when they get it, they get it. And they want to implement it into their day because they feel so much better. And because they feel the shift. And it could be subtle things. Oh, I'm sleeping so much better. I'm waking up with so much more energy. Oh, and by the way, my low back pain is gone, or my digestion is better, or whatever it is. Because our nervous system impacts everything that happens to us during the day, emotionally, physically and mentally.
Tony Winyard 36:40
We've mentioned a couple of times about dysfunctional breathing, I think maybe we need to define it because there's probably some people thinking, what is dysfunctional breathing? How would you define that?
Tara Bianca 36:51
That's a really good question. So I usually give people a list of things to look for that could be making their breathing dysfunctional. So I mean, oxygen advantage instructors, we're really team nasal breathing all day as much as possible during exercise during sleep. So from our perspective, anyway, we will say that mouth breathing is completely dysfunctional, and has very potentially detrimental effects to the body and to the health long term. So mouth breathing, number one, especially at rest, and especially during sleep, if your mouth is hanging open during the day or during sleep. That's rule number one, we got to work to get the lips closed and get you breathing back through your nose. This functional breathing is also in the mechanics of the ribcage and the diaphragm. Right? So are you able to get the breath all the way in and get expansion in the lower ribs or in the belly? Or when you put one hand on your chest and one hand on your belly? Do you only feel breath coming into the upper chest? Right? So what is the difference? If the breath is coming into the upper chest primarily, or mostly, you're always going to get some movement in the diaphragm. But let's say you're primarily an upper chest breather, you're using so many what we call accessory muscles to breathing. Right, so your primary muscle of respiration is your thoracic diaphragm. That's the big dome shaped muscle in the middle of your body along with the intercostals between the ribs, okay. But if you but you do have other muscles that assist with expanding the ribs in case you need them, this is doing intense bouts of exercise or things like this so that you can get more movement through the lungs and more air into the body if you need to. But if you're at totally at rest, and you're breathing, upper chest and using the small muscles of your neck and your your pecs your upper chest muscles to get the breath in, it's not only completely inefficient, you're not pulling oxygen into where you need to the alveoli are not being optimised for gas exchange. So you're sacrificing your oxygen uptake and delivery. But also, evolutionarily, if you are breathing, upper chest using those small muscles, that sends a signal to your brain that you're running from something or that you're very sick, right? So it is it's intrinsically inextricably linked to your sympathetic response. That is your fight or flight response. Whether you are running and sick, or whether you're just sitting at rest and your breathing is dysfunctional. Your body doesn't know the difference. It just feels like oh, she's breathing upper chest, she's using those accessory muscles, something must be wrong. I'm either running for my life, or I'm fighting off an infection something is up. So if you're a quote unquote healthy person, and you're breathing at rest, and you're breathing with those muscles, instead, your your nervous system is getting the signal up stress stress response fight or flight response. It's going to keep you stuck in this continual stress response until you fix that. So that's dysfunctional breathing. And then the the depth of it then is part of it. Right? So I guess that we just covered the depth. So the speed of it is going to be the other thing right? Are you breathing fast? Are you breathing slow? So we would like the resting respiratory rate to be about maybe 10 to 14 breaths per minute And I think a lot of adults are breathing much faster than that, unfortunately. And so we start to call that hyperventilation. And so now what happens when you're hyperventilating chronically, is that you're blowing off a lot of co2. And now this balance of blood gases in the body is really critical for how oxygen gets delivered around the body, particularly to the organs like the heart and the brain, which the body is going to prioritise at all costs. So if you're, if you're allowing your co2 levels to elevate just a little bit in your body, this sparks something that we call the bore effects, right. So as the co2 in the blood starts to elevate, it sends a signal to your red blood cells. And it allows the oxygen to actually leave the red blood cells so that it has a chance to enter the more peripheral tissues, the origins, and then places like the brain and the heart. Now, when you are not able to allow that co2 to elevate, which happens during hyperventilation, during hyperventilation, you're blowing off a lot more co2 than you need to be doing. Your co2 levels drop low. And now instead of the oxygen, leaving the red blood cells to go nourish your body, it stays stuck in those red blood cells and just keeps circulating around the bloodstream. And you start to sacrifice optimum oxygen levels to the brain and the heart. So not only is this a long term potential cardiovascular situation, but it's also going to lead to exhaustion, mental fogginess, you know that brain fog, lack of clarity, a lot of yawning during the day potentially or sighing feeling like you're not getting enough breaths, feeling breathless feeling that air hunger. So these are the the primary things that I think sum up dysfunctional breathing, mouth breathing, shallow breathing, fast breathing, loud breathing, effortful breathing is the other one I would put in there, right? So if you are sitting at rest, and you're hearing your breath, we have to start to investigate what's going on? Why is it so effortful? Why is it so effortful for you to breathe? Right? The breathing should be almost
indiscernible right, you should be able to sit there, and you shouldn't be hearing your breath. And you should almost not be feeling it should be so gentle, you just feel this little bit of expansion to the lower ribs in the belly, and then it just passively leaves your body, she takes zero effort for this exhale to happen. The inhalation is the active part of breathing, the exhalation is completely passive. That's the total relaxation zone of your breath.
Tony Winyard 42:34
And I guess something for for listeners to think about in relation to what you just said, if you imagine the sound or how effortless a baby is breathing is and how you can't hear a baby's breathing at all. And then at the other end of the spectrum, if you think of someone in their 80s or 90s, and especially if they're very sick, and how their breathing, and how hard it is for them to breathe.
Tara Bianca 43:00
Yeah, I think it's a nice analogy. And I would only say the only caveat is that there are some babies who are dysfunctional breathers, you know, and there could be sort of a nasal obstruction issue there or tongue tie or something happening in the mouth, that is occluding their airways a little bit also. So I don't think it's a given that you're born with perfectly functional breathing. And I do think that your environment can also shape how you're breathing. Depending how your parents are swaddling you, if the room is too hot, all these different things, you know, I think it makes a big difference. You know, a hotter room will tend to spark hyperventilation, faster, more shallow breathing. So I think all those things play a big part. And I think, though, that in modelling, well how our parents are breathing or in modelling other people in our immediate environment, it does play a big role in how we're going to take on a breathing habit. And if we're conscious of it, if we're focused on it, if it's a priority for us, just like, how are you eating, you know, that really gets determined by your immediate environment? What is the quality of the water that you're drinking? What is the quality of, you know, the, the agricultural land in your area, you know, it becomes sort of a, like a societal viewpoint, you know, all of these things are really shaped by where you grew up, geographically speaking. So and that's why I said some people are never are never going to question their breathing because they don't come from a space where anyone would question their breathing. It's just not on the radar as a thing to worry about. There's so many other things to worry about.
Tony Winyard 44:35
I think I feel it in some ways, we've already blown a number of listeners minds already, just with some of the different types of breathing we've mentioned, but I'm going to take it one step further and blow them even more, because I'm going to ask you to explain what Holotropic breathing is?
Tara Bianca 44:51
So I've only ever really had a brief encounter with Holotropic breathing and I am not a Holotropic practitioner, so I don't want to step over the line and speak for that. community because I'm sure they would describe it very differently than I would. I've had a couple Holotropic sessions in my life, maybe two or three of them. And I actually did not have a great experience with it, which is the other reason I probably shouldn't be speaking on it too much, because my opinion is going to shape the words that go out of my mouth. But um, in my personal experience with Holotropic, it is a hyperventilating technique, right? So we were just saying how, hyperventilation is dysfunctional breathing, right, and I get that, however, there are hyperventilating, hyperventilating techniques that we do for short bursts of time, very consciously choosing to do it. And that consciousness part makes a big difference, because we are taking again, conscious control of the nervous system. And we are sending the signal to our brain like it's okay this time, because I'm allowing us to go through this so that we can see what's going to happen. It's not this subconscious, automatic dysfunctional breathing. And so I think why a lot of people do this Holotropic breathing is for the the mental psychological breakthroughs, right? And in my experience doing hyperventilated techniques in the past, that is, the big thing that comes from it is that, for me, not so much during the session, but at the end of the session, you've gone through maybe an hour of the stressful breathing, it's really stressful breathing, it takes work, it's challenging, it's effortful. It's all the things I just told you guys not to do. And at the end of it, your body so much more easily goes into relaxation, and rest and recovery. It's almost like you forced yourself to chill out, you force yourself to give in, you force yourself to let go, you can't fight anymore. And now anything that wants to come up anything that was buried, all of a sudden it can come to the surface, right. So if you have a lot of physical holding patterns from past trauma, because trauma definitely has a physical component, it definitely gets locked in the tissue, I can tell you from being a manual therapist for so many years, you can unlock trauma by touching people easily. So the breathing is almost like an internal massage to the body, which can start to liberate constricted areas in the musculature, restricted areas in the fascia that have been quote unquote, holding these emotions for potentially decades, these might be areas of your body you have never accessed, right, and that you've been holding tension and painful memories and subconscious wounds in for God knows how long. And now you do this internal sort of breath massage to your body, and all kinds of stuff is coming up for you. And so I find the magic of those sessions for me personally happens at the end when I'm exhausted, and in the total rest and relaxation. And, and yet, I'm still feeling safe. And all this stuff starts to surface. And I can have a lot of epiphanies and breakthroughs, and maybe even more clearly see a behavioural pattern or a thought pattern or emotional pattern that I've been running for decades. And it's just that aha moment of like, Oh, my God, you've been doing this to yourself for years. Are you ready to let it go now, you know, and so I think that work can be very beautiful. And I've had so many magical experiences with clients doing that style of work, not Holotropic. But something similar. One case comes to mind of a male client of mine, middle age, and he had lost his wife probably 15 years prior. And they were still young, she was probably only about 30 or 35 years old. And he had done so many different therapies around it. And it wasn't his fault. Obviously, it was a freak thing, some kind of horrible illness that came on fast. And he always felt guilty though, you know, he couldn't help but feel guilty like he was somehow responsible for her death. And I did an hour session with him like this. And the type of breath work I used to do was the hyperventilation technique, a little more gentle than Holotropic. But I would also do hands on body work while they were doing the breathing, which I think was really powerful for people. Because if they can't find where to breathe on their own, you put your hands there and you encourage them to go deeper.
And he came out of that session. I don't know during the session, I took my hands off of him and he actually sat up, I still closed, still doing the breathing. And I watched this man have a conversation with his wife who had passed 15 years ago. And when we close the session, he said to me, that was the first time I actually felt forgiveness. He's like, I've intellectually forgiven myself so many times over the last decade and a half. But that was the first time I actually felt forgiveness. And I talked to her and I saw her and she said I forgive you and to just go on and live your life. Like it was a beautiful moment and I really watched it happening. You know, he was like, mumbling to himself talking to her with his eyes closed while he's still in the session. So I saw it happening. And yeah, it was such a beautiful experience. I mean, it's it's kind of impossible to explain and I can imagine some people listening are calling bullshit on this whole thing. But your breath is powerful, you know, as human vessel souls read contains so much stuff. There's so much contained in here, you guys all feel your emotions, you all experience thoughts? Where are those housed in your body, they're there somewhere, you can't put your finger on it. But these are tangible, palpable things that exist inside of you at all times. And just because you haven't discovered necessarily yet how to access those consciously, voluntarily, doesn't mean that it's not possible. And, and people are getting more hip to it, you know, I think people are, are tired of wearing masks and tired of putting on the facade and tired of not being genuine and tired of having to constantly suppress their feelings and their emotions. And so this style breathwork, I think, is becoming popular because people are ready to be free, you know, they want to free the mind, they want to free the body. I know, we're not the first generation to use this language. People have been about this for a long time. But you know, it tends to get suppressed by mainstream thinking, whereas I feel now mainstream thinking is more readily accepting these types of practices. I see people embracing it more openly, with more genuine curiosity with without being so weirded out by it. So yeah, so I, you know, you should have a whole a tropic practitioner come on sometime. Because they'll give, they'll give a clear explanation than me that I can only share again, my personal experience with that work.
Tony Winyard 51:24
That probably will be happening at some point, we were speaking before the recording started; a few weeks ago, I drew out a list of all the different experts on different topics that I wanted to have on as guests on the show. And the list was endless. There will be someone at some point, but I wanted to get your take on it. Because I think if I remember rightly didn't you do a video recently to mention Holotropic breathing?
Tara Bianca 51:55
I don't think so. I try not to just because it's not my specialty. I don't want to misspeak, you know, I have a lot of respect for what different practitioners are doing. So
Tony Winyard 52:03
I remember seeing a video that you did, and thinking, I definitely want to ask her about that. And I must be getting confused. I thought it was holotropic, clearly it was something else,
Tara Bianca 52:14
it might have been something else. I don't know. Maybe we'll discover later what it was. But I will say this. So in the in the studies that I did with that hyperventilate of technique that I was doing, it really really was a good practitioner, you know, like my safety was not taken into consideration in a group a couple times. And I actually blacked out from this type of breathing twice. And one time I hit my head really badly also, because it was not being organised and sustained in a nicely in a safe way. So when you do take on these more stressful practices, in particular, please make sure you do your homework, get really solid practitioners who really have your best interests at heart and put your safety first. Because it is a bit of a journey, it's a bit of an adventure. You know, a lot of people come to that style of breathing out of the psychedelic community or the plant medicine community, because they're going through the experience. But now maybe some people in my experience, some people don't want to do the plant medicine anymore, their body needs a break, but they still want that kind of breakthrough. And so they turn to this style of breathwork because they feel they can get a similar if not the same type of breakthrough. So that is really, I feel those two communities are very much tied together. And so really just make sure you find someone who who cherishes that space and makes it a safe for you as possible, because it is a journey, it is an exploration and things might pop up that you are not expecting. In fact, I can almost guarantee that they will.
Tony Winyard 53:41
More than 50 minutes gone. And there's so many other things that I would like to explore. But I want to be respectful of your time. So I'm going to change it to two questions that I always ask everyone. One, is there a book that has really moved you?
Tara Bianca 54:08
If I can be honest with you, Tony, I've been dreading these two questions that I hear you ask everybody, because I've read so many books in my lifetime, and I'm sure there's a million but it's like when the spotlight is on and you ask me I get so scared. And I'm trying to think you know, so in preparation thinking that you might ask me this. It's so odd because there's one book popped into my mind. And I don't really know if it's the answer you're looking for. But the book, The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is the book that came into my mind, even though I've read so many books in my life. This book I read. Well, it's interesting, probably around that same time that I started to have those digestive issues. I probably read this around the age of 15. It was a book we were required to read for school. And if you go back, I haven't read it since I just remember the feeling that that book gave me it hit me in the heart hard and I I was a very dysfunctional reader as a kid I could not read, I not dyslexia. But I'm one of those people that was a little bit ADHD as a kid, and I was much more about moving, I couldn't sit and read a book, I'd read the same page over and over and over, I couldn't absorb the information. And this was the first book that a teacher had given me that I really poured through. And I felt so connected to. And so last night, I just went back and I was reading the synopsis and what it's about. And this book was totally like, socialist propaganda, like this is the socialist like manifesto of this book, right. And so it was interesting to me, because at the age of 15, or 16, I had no sense of geopolitics whatsoever. In fact, I was very analytical, I was like a total math nerd. And I didn't like things with nuances. I had a lot of social anxiety, I didn't have a lot of friends, I was very isolated. And this book hit me so hard, because this was about social and economic justice. And I won't say that this book shapes me, but those two things are so primary in how I want to be of service to the world, and the things that I am most passionate about. And so it's interesting to me to see that at 15, I had already formed a sense of the world as being an unjust place, you know, this. Sorry, guys, the interview is gonna take an ugly turn right now. So at that age, I had such extreme social anxieties, such extreme isolation, I had already felt like the world was treating me unfairly, I already felt like I was at the bottom of the barrel and that my life didn't have value, I had such a low sense of self worth. And this book was all about immigrant rights, how people are treated differently, depending on where they are born in this world, it was all about socio economic class. It's about the meatpacking industry. So it's all the horrendous things that happen in an industrialised agricultural environment. And it's all about, you know, the most wealthy corporations being the most corrupt, you know, and whether you believe those things or not, they do happen in the world. And that was really my viewpoint back then. And I still have that viewpoint, except as, in my current way of being in the world, it's very important to me to not focus on those in justices, as much as I want to focus on bringing more light to the world. You know, instead of focusing on the negative things that I know are happening, I want to highlight the things that I know that are happening that are so positive, and that can be so impactful in people's lives, because I can't control all of those in justices, right. And it's kind of devastating to your human spirit. So put all of your energy towards focusing on things that you cannot control. So now I focus on what I can control. And I do my best to try to be the, the counterpoint to a lot of the unfairness that I see happening in the world.
Tony Winyard 57:51
If people want to find out more about you Tara and your, your amazing YouTube channel, and so on, how Where do they find it?
Tara Bianca 57:58
Yep, so my, my everything is belighttt, there's three T's because my company's name is actually be light transformative therapy. So either belighttt.com, my YouTube channel is https://www.youtube.com/belighttt And if you go to my website, I have a lot of freebies, for people, I have something called the breath basic six day challenge, which is an awesome free introduction into basic breathing principles, you get 1 15 minute video each day, that gives you access to a different breathing technique, you also get a guided five minute practice each day, it's really manageable to fit into your life. And it's a great exposure to this idea of how your breath directly affects your nervous system, your mood, your physiology, your mental state, all those things. I also have a free long COVID video workshop up there that people can take advantage of if that resonates with you. There's there's a lot of goodies. So belighttt.com/ There's so many fun things on there that you can take advantage of totally for free,
Tony Winyard 59:02
and where did Be Lightt come from?
Tara Bianca 59:08
Um, yes. So you know, in 2016, I was not in a good place. So it's coming off of about a year and a half of injury and feeling really depressed and really dragging myself around. And I really needed a change. And I had the courage to drop my business in New York, and go down to Miami for about six months. I just needed a change of environment, I needed a healthier environment. And three days after making that decision to take this massive action that could potentially affect my business and everything else. I call him my angel. He just fell into my life. I decided to take some clients down there and do like a little body work while I was down there and this man just booked an appointment and came for a massage therapy session. And he saw something in me, you know, he's he's a coach. He's like a transformational coach. And if he saw something in me, he said, You know, I think I can really help you. And he let me. He teaches coaching to like, you know, major CEOs of major corporations and I was just meeting my little cells back then he let me study with him for free for about three months. And then I continued with him for over a year, with like a 90% discount, he just like had so much faith that I could transform my whole life. And it was my first exposure to this idea of mindset coaching, how I have been running, letting my self limiting beliefs run my life, my whole life, how I've been playing the victim, how I haven't been taking responsibility for anything that happens to me how I only see the negative how I'm so cynical, and how I am perpetuating a life, exactly the way that I imagined it in my mind, I'm calling in exactly what I expect to receive, which wasn't much back then. And he was the first person to blow my mind open. And really helped me to see that there are actually limitless possibilities for every human being if we give ourselves the chance and give our bodies and our minds exactly what they need. And so out of that was when I first established the company name be lights. Because that's what he did for me, you know, he was the first one to spark the flame. And like helped me to see that there's light in all of us that really can shine forth.
Tony Winyard 1:01:20
Cool. Wow. Well, we're just about finished. And I think you know, the question I'm about to ask you, because you've already alluded to it. Is there a quotation that you particularly like?
Tara Bianca 1:01:36
Yeah, so the, you know, there's so many quotes that I see during the day that I just love, and I forget them immediately. But the one that's always stuck with me throughout my life, probably because I was exposed to it's So Young is this one from the Little Prince. My mom was a foreign language teacher, as a kid, mostly teaching French. And so this book was always in our life. And my mom used to always highlight this one quote, and I want to make sure I get it right actually. And the quote, somewhat translates to, it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye. And, you know, as a kid, it always stuck with me of like, okay, you know, my mom would always say, like, don't judge a book, by their cover, beauty is on the inside. And I always kind of put it in that category. And now as I've been more on my journey of holistic health and massive transformation, massive, massive personal transformation, I really realise that being heart centred is so important to me, and that my real passion in life is really needing to be a service to others and the world. And I don't know. And so there's this quote, which I had not really thought about until you asked, What is a quote that is special to you, I realise that it really does hit me pretty powerfully. That that is how I want to exist in the world. And that's how I would like to be seen by others also was heart centred space, and not judging each other by the masks that we wear.
Tony Winyard 1:03:08
Tara it's been an absolute delight. So thank you for your time and sharing your immense wisdom around so many different areas. So yeah, really appreciate it
Tara Bianca 1:03:19
was such a pleasure to do this with you, Tony, thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate it.
Tony Winyard 1:03:26
Next week is episode 47. With Brooke Simonson, she had a weight loss and health journey in her late 20s, which led to her having a real kind of yo yo dieting going up and down in weight. And she then decided that she wanted to try and get her hands on as much evidence based information as she could, and eventually enrolled in the Institute of transport, transformation or nutrition and became a certified nutrition coach. And so we talk about her journey and weight loss and diets and so on. So that's next week's episode episode with Brooke Simmonson. If you know anyone who would get some value from a lot of information, great information that we share this week by Tara Bianca. Please do share this episode with them. And hope you have a great week.
Jingle 1:04:17
Thanks for tuning in to the habits and health podcast where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a review on your favourite podcast app. Sign up for email updates and learn about coaching and workshop opportunities at Tony winyard.com See you next time on that habits and health podcast.
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Habits & Health episode 45 with Renée Jones, who spent 40 years on the Diet Yo-Yo before overcoming emotional/stress eating to reach and maintain her goal since 2012. She has a Master’s degree in Counseling, a Clinical Residency, and training in contemporary models of care. Her book, What’s Really Eating You: Overcome the Triggers of Comfort Eating, is an Amazon best seller, and her TEDx talk has over 550,000 views. In this episode, we discuss emotional eating, diets, nutrition, Ted talks, changing habits, the biggest problem with weight loss, why we eat for comfort, stress relief, and other emotional reasons,
how emotional eating begins…
Links:
www.packyourownbag.com Book: What’s Really Eating You: Overcome the Triggers of Comfort Eating Video Courses FB Group IG: @packyourownbag YouTube Recommended book:
Beautiful Outlaw by John Eldredge
Favourite quote:
“Be who God meant you to be, and you will set the world on fire.” St. Catherine of Siena
Don’t forget, there is a transcript of every episode (scroll down the page)
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Tony Winyard 0:00
habits and health episode 45.
Jingle 0:03
Welcome to the habits and health podcast where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. Brought to you by an educator and coach for anyone who wants to create a healthier life. Here's your host Tony Winyard.
Tony Winyard 0:20
Welcome to another edition of habits and health. My guest today is Renée Jones. She spent 40 years on a diet yo yo before eventually overcoming emotional stress and eating to to reach and maintain her goals since 2012. She has a master's degree in counselling, a clinical residency and training and contemporary models of care. And her book, what's really eating you overcome the triggers of comfort eating is an Amazon bestseller. So we talk with Rene in this episode about her many diets that she tried over many years and how she eventually discovered what was the trick. So that's coming up very soon. habits and health. My guest today is Renée Jones. How are you?
Renée Jones 1:06
I'm very well. Thank you. How are you?
Tony Winyard 1:08
I'm pretty good. And we find you in in Texas today in Texas. That's true. And whereabouts in Texas. I am right
Renée Jones 1:17
between Dallas and Fort Worth. So east west of Dallas.
Tony Winyard 1:22
And from our conversation before we started recording you know Texas pretty well it sounds like
Renée Jones 1:28
lived here most of my life. Yes. I was born here. And I always come back here.
Tony Winyard 1:35
But you spent well see, it's quite funny me again, something we I discovered just before we I press record, that your surname was quite appropriate sister somewhere you spent four years of your life. Yes.
Renée Jones 1:48
I lived in Wales for four years. And when I when I came back to the States, I married a man whose name was Michael Jones. And they were like his name was never Jones. Is it? I know. I know. But that's true.
Tony Winyard 2:04
Has he ever been to Wales
Renée Jones 2:06
yet? Because he we were dating. We were actually engaged the last two years I was there because it was over about eight years that I was there. And he would come visit me every six months or so. Those last two years.
Tony Winyard 2:19
So Is he well shows the American
Renée Jones 2:22
No, he's American. He's from Abilene, Texas. So he's a West Texas boy. Right? Okay, clearly with the name Jones is likely to be well,
Tony Winyard 2:32
somewhere along. So tonight, tell me a little bit more about yourself. I mean, I your your bio is fascinating, and your story in a book you've written and so on. So where would be a good place to start? Where do you Where would you like to start? Well,
Renée Jones 2:49
I spent 40 years on the diet Yo yo, up and down the scale. And it took I mean, I would lose 10 pounds, 20 pounds, 30 pounds and gain it back or five pounds and gain that back. And it was just a perpetual up and down the scale for all of those 40 years.
Tony Winyard 3:09
And you I like the way that you describe it as a diet. Yo, yo, what point was it? Were you realise that it was a yo yo and it was kind of? I don't know. Well, I mean, it'd be interesting to hear your thoughts that you realise maybe dieting isn't the right way to go about this is how, what were your thoughts? What did you discover?
Renée Jones 3:32
Well, I just thought that was the way it was. I mean, my my grandmother was heavy. My mother was heavy. And this is how it began. I mean, we would I was about 10 When I looked around and saw all the other little girls, the blondes and brunettes who were thin. And I was a chunky redhead. And I said to my father, is it I'm already redheaded that's a problem, because in the 70s it was but I want to I don't want to be so heavy. And she said well, it's really for you to try a diet but if you want to we can do it. So we did and we did okay for a couple of weeks at a time. And then when something happened, we'd eventually go off the diet altogether. Until we regained whatever we had lost the thought right, it's time to die it again. I just thought that's how things were. I didn't realise. I know that sounds a bit silly, but I didn't realise you could actually lose it and not regain it.
Tony Winyard 4:30
And so when did you have that realisation
Renée Jones 4:33
I was staring down my 50th birthday. And I thought if I don't do it now, it will never ever ever happen. So I started out
Tony Winyard 4:48
and what was the you said that if I don't do it now so what was it that was so that you felt that you had to die? What What would the consequences you felt that if you didn't die? If that something would happen, I would just
Renée Jones 5:02
get heavier and heavier and heavier until, you know old age, when it doesn't apparently doesn't matter anymore. But, of course, you know, for women around age 50, there's that hormonal shift. And it. It's not. What I learned was it's not impossible to maintain your weight, because I have been maintaining my weight for nine years and counting.
Tony Winyard 5:26
Right. And so what changed?
Renée Jones 5:29
I got the idea in my head that it had to change. So there was mine. I didn't do it well, for several months, but I sort of heard someone say, Oh, it's just emotional eating. And I thought, Oh, well, yeah. But I've never put that together, that you could change that. So I found a way to overcome my emotional eating. And you know, what, if you don't eat for emotional reasons, it saves you a whole bunch of calories?
Tony Winyard 6:06
But that sounds very easy. Oh, yeah.
Renée Jones 6:10
No, no, in fact, I actually hired someone to help me I do really well, with accountability that that works for me. Because I knew every week, I'd have to say, Okay, here's, here's my food, stuff. And here's what I was doing. And this is what happened when I went and crawled into my peanut butter jar. And it, it worked out. And it took me a bit, but I lost the weight. I reached my goal weight the week before my 50th birthday.
Tony Winyard 6:43
And so the person you said that you worked with, I'm guessing is some kind of a nutritionist, nutrition coach, whatever it was that they was it the accountability, that was the missing link? Or did they give you some kind of a plan or what what happened?
Renée Jones 6:57
Actually, we talked very little about food. She was not a nutritionist, she was a coach. And we talked about all the stuff, the emotional baggage, that kept me kind of where I was, and we started working through it, to unpack it, so that I could be free of it. So I could pack for the journey I wanted to be on rather than the one I just sort of fallen into. So getting that dealing with all of that emotional baggage kept me from having to go to food to get comfort and stress relief.
Tony Winyard 7:37
Did it did it all make sense? As soon as she started explaining this, or did it take a while to really Oh,
Renée Jones 7:42
it took a while? Yeah. And there's still times honestly, Tony, when I go, hmm. I want to go eat now why? Oh, I'm not hungry. What's going on? In fact, I came up with a, an acronym. And I say overcoming emotional eating isn't hard. You just have to get the hang of it. And hang is the acronym H? Am I hungry? And if you are, you probably do need to get something to eat. But if you're not hungry, then A is what is the attraction to food right now in this moment? What's going on for you? And then the end is what is it that you actually need? Do you need a hug? Do you need to walk around the building? Do you need to talk to a friend you know, what is it that you truly need in that moment, and the G is Go Go get that because that will suit you more than food ever possibly could. So getting that idea helped me stop myself in the midst of it and make a different choice.
Tony Winyard 8:55
On the only you said about the acronym ha ing so on the first the first word was hungry, hungry. So are you hungry? How do you determine whether you are hungry in the first place?
Renée Jones 9:07
Sometimes that takes a while to figure out because we are so wired to go to food for comfort. But you do have to go okay, I just ate two hours ago I had this this and this. Could I possibly be hungry? No, not really. Because it's not. It's not that stomach growl that pushes us to food. It's that need for comfort because if you think about it, when a baby cries, we put something in their mouth, whether it's the bottle of the breast or a pacifier a dummy. We put something in our mouth so we learned that soothing early on. And then we go to children go to their thumbs. And then we go to doughnuts, pizza and chips. Some things right? Looking for that soothing. So if you're, if you're not physically hungry, it's probably something on an emotional level, you just need soothing or stress relief.
Tony Winyard 10:17
And so it sounds like then it's a lot, you're better able to identify that now then in the early days of discovering this,
Renée Jones 10:28
yeah, because it feels the same. If you've been eating for emotional reasons, it feels the same. But recognising, okay, this is hunger. And this is not helps you to then make those choices more effectively.
Tony Winyard 10:47
And so is your book, I think, be I believe your book is titled the same? Well, what is the title of your book and just remind me
Renée Jones 10:53
what's really eating you overcoming the triggers of comfort eating? And so
Tony Winyard 10:58
what was it? Why did you decide to write the book?
Renée Jones 11:03
Because I wanted to be able to share with more people. And, you know, not everyone can afford to buy a coach to hire a coach. I can't get to everyone. I mean, I have, I do have clients on six different continents. So I've gotten good reach. But they may not want that. So this is a way that they can a check me out, see, okay, do I like this person? Does that make sense to me, as well as, as work through it? Because it's not quite a workbook, but it could be and allows them to do it on their own if they can.
Tony Winyard 11:43
And so the clients you talk about working with, so that's working with them as in terms of helping them with emotional eating? Is that how you're helping people?
Renée Jones 11:53
Yes, but the truth is, that's just where we start. Because most of it, you know, some people come just for the weight loss. But a lot of people come to just get rid of all the extra baggage. They're tired of dragging with them. But yes.
Tony Winyard 12:11
What do you mean by that?
Renée Jones 12:13
Emotional Baggage? Yeah, old stories, limiting beliefs, the stuff from childhood, and I help them heal their heart, so they can be who they were meant to be. And weight loss often comes along with it.
Tony Winyard 12:34
Is there? I mean, this is I know, I realise it's an impossible question to answer. But how? I'm wondering how, what would typically how long a period would you work with someone,
Renée Jones 12:47
I like to work with people for six months, I have done three. But I like to work with people for six months. Because it takes a little time to walk through all the stuff. They got to try to figure it out. Because I mean, it's not. It's not like I can just give them a prescription and say here, go do this. And life will be great. They go do that. And then they see how it works for them, whether that's the nutrition, or the relationships, or work life or anything else, right. So I like to walk with them through at least six months, so that we can respond to various experiences in their days.
Tony Winyard 13:34
So in Nice, you mentioned people from six different continents you're working with. So the diets and the food choices in all those six continents will be quite different. But what about the emotional issues? Are they are they quite similar across all those continents?
Renée Jones 13:51
They are they I mean cultures are different. That's absolutely true. cultures are different. And nutrition is slightly different. I mean, the body runs on calories. Right? That's how we move and if I can help them figure out what works for them. Because that's, that's the first pillar I do is finding what works for your body. I don't actually give them a specific diet as such. We do a metabolic assessment so that they can know what will work for their body. But they get to choose. If they don't want to do it that way. They don't have to do it that way. But at least they know. And then the emotional stuff. There are cultural differences, and I have to be careful. Sometimes, but in the end most people struggle. If they're struggling with emotional eating, most often they have a self esteem issue in there somewhere. And that's universal.
Jingle 15:04
We hope you're enjoying this episode of the habits and health podcast where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. If you're looking for the fastest and most effective way to transform your energy and wellbeing, we invite you to join Tony for an upcoming habits and health workshop. This five week group workshop will empower you with tools to disrupt unwanted habits and make positive changes easy. You'll enjoy sound asleep, better energy, less stress, and a happier mood Workshops begin on the first week of every month. And you can sign up now at Tonywinyard.com. Now back to the show.
Tony Winyard 15:51
So I'm my assumption is that Western countries, United Kingdom, United States and so on mentalities may be will be quite similar in some ways. I mean, there's obviously differences, but there'll be more similarities, then when you're working with, say, Japanese people, for example, and, and so do you take quite a different approach? Or is it more about the individual? Well,
Renée Jones 16:18
it's so much more about the individual, you know, I have to work with them where they are not where I want them to be yet. Right. And, you know, I have I have had experiences where they're like, Yeah, I can't do that. Okay, well, let's figure out another way around it, because this is bothering you. And we've got to find a resolution, what would work for you?
Tony Winyard 16:46
And how do they find out about you in the first place?
Renée Jones 16:49
The TEDx talk has been very helpful. Right? That That put me out into a whole different realm. So that that's one
Tony Winyard 17:00
time How did that come about?
Renée Jones 17:03
Well, a year before, my husband had said, you might want to think about doing public speaking. And I said, Love, I'm never going to be a speaker. And lo and behold, Famous last words, right? And it just came, we I found a coach to help me, you know, learn how to speak in public. And one of the options was then to apply for a TEDx talk. And it they took me. So I was like, wow, they actually took me this was great. Mind, that wasn't the first place I had. I had applied. The thing is, I didn't realise they wanted it mostly local. So I started playing in places I'd never been before, because I thought it'd be kind of fun to go to Rhode Island and never been there, or Oregon. Never been there. But that wasn't how that works. But this particular one didn't mind where you were from.
Tony Winyard 18:05
And so where it was, was that quite locally, then it sounds
Renée Jones 18:08
Nora was actually in Delaware, which is over on the east coast.
Tony Winyard 18:12
Right. Okay. But was, so what was your top? What did you speak about? I guess it was about emotional eating? What What was it more specific than that?
Renée Jones 18:22
No, it was emotional eating, lose the weight and keep it off?
Tony Winyard 18:27
And was it in planning for the TED Talk? I'm guessing there must have been some nerves and fears there. How did it actually go?
Renée Jones 18:36
My knees were shaking for the whole 11 minutes, Tony. I was very, very nervous, very nervous. Because that I the lights freaked me out. I hadn't been accustomed to lights like that before. So the morning of I was in this hotel room, I took all the shades of all of the lamps and put them right in front of me. And I gave my talk to the lamps, because I thought that'll help me and it did. But the thing is, very often, once you get going, you're into your talk, and it has to be memorised, that it's much easier because you know what you're gonna say?
Tony Winyard 19:18
How many other speakers were they on the same event?
Renée Jones 19:21
That day? I think there were 15.
Tony Winyard 19:25
And where were you in those 15
Renée Jones 19:28
I was right before lunch. I thought that was an awfully dirty trick to play people. But I was like number six, I think.
Tony Winyard 19:36
Right? And so that did that make lunch a lot easier that you'd finished your job?
Renée Jones 19:41
Yes. In fact, my husband and I went out and there was a there was a bench near the elevators. And I sat down and he said Don't you want to go have lunch? I said Yes, as soon as I feel I can trust my legs again. I won't get up. But yes, that it made the afternoon so much more relaxed.
Tony Winyard 19:59
So soon when was the book published
Renée Jones 20:02
January of 2017.
Tony Winyard 20:05
And so since the book was released, and you know, obviously your have got many reviews and feedback and so on, has it made you want to update it or do a second book or what has happened since then?
Renée Jones 20:20
I think about updating it periodically. And I think about writing another one because I'm a writer at heart anyway. But I don't have a plan for that. The thing that I'm I'm getting ready to do is the audible version of it. Because I like audiobooks and other people like audiobooks. So I thought, Well, that won't. That's not hard. I could do that.
Tony Winyard 20:45
So I want to go back HDT. You mentioned about the timing way or so what what age were you when you in Wales,
Renée Jones 20:52
I was about to turn 24 to 25. And then I came back to go to grad school. In 1990, I came back to do a summer in Tenby to help between two people who were one person was finishing one was coming and I did the middle. And then I was 3232.
Tony Winyard 21:21
And so what why so why did you originally come to Wales was that family reasons or something was,
Renée Jones 21:27
it was a job opportunity. There was a programme similar to the Peace Corps few ever heard of that, where you do two years stints in places. And they needed someone to run a what's it called a community centre. And then the second time I got my degree in counselling by by the third time and they wanted to open a Counselling Centre in the village.
Tony Winyard 21:59
And one of the reasons I asked that question is because we were the food culture in the United Kingdom, and the United States seems to be quite different. I mean, like the you're, I mean, I may, I might be stereotyping a bit, but the portion sizes seem to be far bigger in the States than they are in the UK. So and with the subject that we've been talking about, and how you've been yo yo dieting, I wondered how, whether it was easier during the time yo, in the UK, or wherever that made no difference.
Renée Jones 22:32
No, it didn't really make a lot of difference. You know, the there is a saying, if you leave a Welsh table hungry, it's your own fault. Because they had their little American girl that they wanted to take care of. And I was I was heavy, I was like, over 10 stone at the time. 1010 and a half, something like that. 11. So it was that they were just looking after me. And what I learned a few years ago, is what works for my body. And the food, a lot of the food that I ate and Wales was not necessarily good for me. But it was it was there. And it was good. It worked. But it kept me heavy.
Tony Winyard 23:18
So when you started working with the coach, and you started making a few changes, and as you say most of it was around emotional eating. So did you just sort of change everything overnight? Or was it gradual? Or what? How did that happen?
Renée Jones 23:30
Oh, no, that was it was a gradual change, because there's a lot of work involved in dealing with the emotional stuff. Right, it takes some time to change your thinking. To change your how you approach feeling, I was a very cynical person. And that had to go. But it was a good thing to go. But it took a while for for me to get out of the old habits and into the new habits. As far as food is concerned, I actually lost my weight on a low fat, low calorie diet, but I was tired, hungry and cranky all the time. So what I did, at two years after I was still struggling to maintain my weight, and I thought there's gonna be something better than this. So I found this metabolic assessment that told me what my body worked better with. And I was already at my goal weight, and they gave me this nutrition plan. And I followed it for a week and I lost two more pounds. So I thought there's something to this. So once I found what worked for my body and what my body actually needs, because you know, we're all different. Our we all have a unique fingerprint. So why would we think any diet going would work for us? We have to try them out or find what works so that we can maintain, you know, our our goal or our health, our body in the place that it needs. To me, that was that was amazing for me, because I haven't struggled with it since.
Tony Winyard 25:07
And so in working with your clients, why are there any common denominators to like, what is the hardest things for your clients to change? Do you think?
Renée Jones 25:17
What one of the things is their belief that they can do it? Because they've, they've done it for so long. I mean, oftentimes, when people come to me, they say, I can handle everything else that this I can't. So if we, if we can engage their belief that they can lose the weight, they want to lose, that they can live at that goal weight forever, that they have it within them, that they they can choose to maintain it, then we've gone a long way, a long way.
Tony Winyard 25:59
So. So a couple of thoughts come to my mind from what were you said there? Because there's, so there's two things I'm thinking one is, you mentioned about, you are initially quite cynical, I'm imagining that many of those people will also be quite cynical, because as you said, they've tried so many things, there'll be a number of people who will be very doubtful that anything can work for them, because they've tried so many things, and nothing has worked. And so and there must be some people who don't even come to you in the first place, because they just they're just totally disillusioned. And I think there's, I'm just going to be this way for the rest of my life.
Renée Jones 26:34
Yeah, I mean, there, there's, they're also frustrated, because they think they are doing what they need to do. You know, they've tried every pill, potion and powder out there. And, unfortunately, a lot of times, they just don't completely understand the mechanisms and the consistency. And particularly people who have reactions to certain foods, inflammatory responses, that sort of thing. And they just want to be normal, they don't want to have to be rid of those foods. And yet, that can be the key to their freedom. So yeah, sometimes they're jaded. Another one. Okay, what, what is different about yours that we haven't tried before? It's all the same stuff, right? And, you know, fundamentally Sure, if you have a calorie deficit, you're likely to lose weight. The key for each person is what does your body need? How does your body respond to these things? And if you figure out what works for your body, it'll be a lot easier, you'll be more satisfied. Once I started on that, that different programme, than I was so much more satisfied than I'd ever been before on the same number or even fewer calories sometimes. So you just have to find what works for you.
Tony Winyard 28:14
Do you find that the first few months of the year are your busiest time for inquiries with people failing and New Year's resolutions and so on?
Renée Jones 28:24
It can certainly be Yeah, usually after about mid January, all the resolutions are out the window. And it was for me when I started to. So um, yeah, it can be busy.
Tony Winyard 28:38
Do you have any thoughts on why that is? Do you have any thoughts on why people would so many people fail on many of their New Year's resolutions?
Renée Jones 28:46
Oh, sure. Because they fail to resolve the issue driving the behaviour they're trying to resolve not to do anymore. There's just so much in our emotional makeup. Right? If, if you need if you don't feel loved in a certain area, you're going to be looking for that some way. And it may be Cadbury egg that does it for you. But it doesn't last. So we've got to find, okay, what's driving the behaviour. And if we resolve that, then you won't need resolutions anymore. You'll just do them.
Tony Winyard 29:27
We're coming towards the end. And a couple of questions. I always asked. Is there a book that's really moved? You know?
Renée Jones 29:34
Yeah, I mean, there are a number but I think I just got the audio version of a book called Beautiful outlaw by John Eldridge. And I'm a I'm a woman of faith. And it is a book about Jesus that isn't overly churched as it were, is just looking at him as a human being. And it was like, Oh, that's fun. All right. That's nice. So yeah, it just it shifted my perspective a bit.
Tony Winyard 30:06
And if people want to find out more about you and the programmes you run and social media and so on where where should they look?
Renée Jones 30:14
Website is pack your own bag.com and I think Facebook and Instagram are both pack your own bag.
Tony Winyard 30:23
And can you explain pack your own bag? Yeah, yeah,
Renée Jones 30:27
cuz I, I believe so much of our emotional bags are packed for us as we are growing up. And sometimes what we have to do is just unpack a lot of that stuff. And get rid of it, like all the flotsam and jetsam in the bottom of your your luggage, so that you can pack for the journey you want to be on. You can pack your own bag now.
Tony Winyard 30:55
And when I finally is there is that quotation that you particularly like,
Renée Jones 30:59
Oh, I love St. Catherine of Siena who said, be who God meant you to be, and you set the world on fire.
Tony Winyard 31:07
From why does that speak to you? Because I
Renée Jones 31:09
think it's important to be you. Not this version that we sometimes fall into. But if we can get back to our truest selves. That's who we were made to be those the guests we are meant to bring to the world, so that we can help others.
Tony Winyard 31:29
When I experience real pleasure, so thank you for your time. I really appreciate it and best of luck.
Renée Jones 31:34
Thank you for having me.
Tony Winyard 31:36
Thank you. Next week is episode 46 with Tara Bianca, who is a holistic health practitioner for almost 20 years. And she has a company called be like transformative therapy. And in that she specialises in therapeutic body work, breath, work, mindset and sound healing. She does a lot of a lot of her work is around breathing. And we go into that quite a lot. But we also talk about some of the other areas that she helps people with as well as she's got a really good knowledge on breathing and a good way of working with that. So that's next week with Tara Bianca. If you know anyone who we get some we all benefit from hearing some of the information that Renee shared with shared with us this week. Please do share the episode with them. And hope you have a fantastic week.
Jingle 32:27
Thanks for tuning in to the habits and health podcast where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a review on your favourite podcast app. Sign up for email updates and learn about coaching and workshop opportunities at Tonywinyard.com See you next time on the habits and health podcast.
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Habits & Health episode 44 with Dr Anna Smith. She works as an NHS GP as well as working as a private acupuncturist and lifestyle health coach from her clinic at The Windrush Health Centre in Witney, Oxfordshire. She is also a Tiny Habits certified coach. She has gained a Diploma in Lifestyle Medicine and is a Certified Lifestyle Physician and works as a Lifestyle Health Coach enabling health improvements with lifestyle changes.
She is a member of the General Medical Council, the Medical Protection Society, the British Medical Acupuncture Society, and the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine.
We cover a lot of ground in this episode, including acupuncture, health coaching, tiny habits, GPs, nutrition…
Links:
https://www.gpacupunctureoxford.co.uk/ https://www.facebook.com/GPacupunctureoxford/
Other Links : * www.plantbasedhealthprofessionals.com * www.peakhealthcoaching.com * www.tinyhabits.com * www.sleepio.com * www.calm.com * www.headspace.com * www.thehappypear.ie * www.thebodycoach.com * www.thesensitivefoodiekitchen.com
Favourite Books : * The Four Pillar Plan Dr Rangan Chatterjee * Tiny Habits – B J Fogg * The Salt Paths – Raynor Winn
Favourite Quote: “A healthy lifestyle not only changes your body, it changes your mind, your attitude and your mood.”
Don’t forget, there is a transcript of every episode (scroll down the page)
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Jingle 0:00
habits and health episode 44. Welcome to the habits and health podcast, where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. Brought to you by an educator and coach for anyone who wants to create a healthier life. Here's your host, Tony Winyard.
Tony Winyard 0:20
Welcome to another edition of the podcast where we give you ideas and ways you can go about improving your health. My guest today is Dr. Anna Smith. She's an NHS GP for over 30 years. And she's also a medical acupuncturist. She's also a certified lifestyle physician, and a certified tiny habits health coach. And she combines all of that to give her clients quite a patient, quite a different set of different ways that she's able to help them. So we find out a lot more about that. In this episode, as we speak with Dr. Anna Smith. habits and health my guest today. Dr. Anna Smith, how are you?
Dr. Anna M L Smith 1:03
Very well. Thank you.
Tony Winyard 1:04
And you know, so a lot of the guests I interview are on the other side of the world, they're in America or Australia or wherever. But you're only a few miles down the road really for me. You're in Oxfordshire. I am absolutely yes. And is that is that where you originate from?
Dr. Anna M L Smith 1:20
No, I was born in Surrey and South Croydon in Surrey, which is where I grew up. And then basically I moved here we really moved here for jobs for my husband's job, Steven, he got a local job as a GP. And then I, you know, came obviously to so that's how we ended up here.
Tony Winyard 1:38
And speaking of being a GP, I mean, you've got quite an background in in medicine or in medical world revenue.
Dr. Anna M L Smith 1:46
Yes, yes. I haven't been a GP now for over 30 years. So yes, I have quite a bit of experience and heard an awful lot of things over the years.
Tony Winyard 1:56
And it's not just being a GP. I mean, when I looked at your website, the amount of study and amount of qualifications you have is quite extensive. Yeah. Would you like to tell us some some of the things that you've done? Well,
Dr. Anna M L Smith 2:13
I suppose if I was going to start by telling you whether I suppose I should tell you the story of how I got there maybe might be Yeah, interesting. Okay. So I would say, you know, as a child, my home life was slightly stressful. Sadly, there was sort of alcohol involved. And my sister sadly, developed an eating disorder in her teenage years. And we had anorexia nervosa, and sadly, she died when she was 22. And at that stage, I was in my sort of first year at university, I was 19. You know, it was a really difficult time. And that summer, I went on holiday with a friend and his family and I started feeling quite sad and tearful, and I didn't really know what was wrong with me. And in those days, no one really talked around mental health. It just wasn't it was the 1980s. It just wasn't something people really talked about, for a tonne of muddled through myself, continued medical school, got married, had a family became a GP. But it was over these years. And I think it was because of that experience I'd had that I started to kind of look at things and say what made me feel good, and what made me feel bad. And so in my own little day to day life experience, I'd be thinking, you know, what, if I go for a walk, or I go hillwalking, or I meet a friend for coffee, or I have a good novel on the go, that makes me feel really good. Whereas if I kind of eat junk food, don't sleep, so well don't do any exercise. I don't feel so good. So I think that was the sort of start of me thinking not just about being a GP, but also how our lifestyles affect our health. And so, a few years ago, I trained also as a medical acupuncturist with the British design and British Medical Association of Acupuncture. And then I had a little bit more time with patients. And because I had time with patients, I started to think about how their lifestyles affected their health. And someone once said to me one day, you know, you really should read this amazing book called The four pillar plan by Dr. Rangan Chatterjee. So I read it and it was like, wow, it was like a light bulb moment. For me. It was like, Oh, my goodness, there's another GP who's actually thinking about lifestyle and there's evidence to support it. And so it sent me on my journey really. And then I went on to get my diploma in lifestyle medicine, society of lifestyle medicine, and then I realised I had a reasonable amount of knowledge, but I didn't know how to enable people to change. So I went on a did various health coaching courses, including the tiny habits, health coaching course with BJ Fogg. And that's kind of my journey through my qualifications and into my lifestyle medicine and health coaching.
Tony Winyard 5:02
And that's it sounds like you were really young to have that amount of awareness about the things that you liked and didn't like and how they were affecting you. Because if I get if I understood you, right, you in your 20s, when that happened, I would say there's not many people in their 20s have that level of awareness.
Dr. Anna M L Smith 5:21
No. And I think that probably goes back to my experience, as you know, I'm sure there's some holidays after my sister died, I had quite severe depression. And because, and no one really talked about it or told me what was wrong with my me. So I kind of muddle through. And I think it was from that I started to notice, gosh, that makes me feel better, that makes me feel worse. So I suppose in some ways, you're right, I was reasonably young, but then I carried it on through my life, partly because then other things, you know, became more prominent, you know, GPS, quite a stressful, intense job. So I was aware of stress in my life, and always trying to manage my stress. So there's various things throughout my life, which made me think about that.
Tony Winyard 6:04
And you mentioned about when you read Dr. Chatterjee, his book, and how that surprised you, I guess, in some ways, you know, the approach that he takes and some of the things he talks about in that book. And it seems to be I mean, I'm, I'm not a GP, but from what I understand of many GPS in the UK, there isn't that level of Kanaka mindedness is not the right word, but being open to sort of many different areas around health, like, especially with nutrition and stress and and some of the other areas that he talks about in that book.
Dr. Anna M L Smith 6:42
I think that's really true. And what I think you have to understand is when you go to medical school, peep, although on all the guidelines that we call them, the NICE guidelines, the national guidelines for chronic disease, one of the first treatments is advice about lifestyle. And yet, when we're at medical school, we're not taught how food affects us how exercise affects us how sleep does how stress does weed, we're just not taught any of that. And so I think, really, we're taught to treat disease, which I think we're very good at. What I like about lifestyle medicine, and how life does affect our health is it works alongside traditional medicine.
Tony Winyard 7:30
And actually, what you just said there about at medical school when you're, you're learning Yeah, he was, I mean, was it seven years of studying and there's so many things that you're taking in. And the other thing that I understand about for many people I've spoken to who have done that, is in those seven years, your work so hard and expected, many people are doing crazy hours of studying, and such to a point where it's almost ignoring the advice that we should be given patients about getting good sleep, not getting too stressed in those studies. Many, many of the students aren't getting good sleep, they are very stressed. And that's the way they're starting their medical career. Is it as if that's normal?
Dr. Anna M L Smith 8:15
I think that's very true. I mean, there's a lot of fun that goes on in medical school, too. But I think what's interesting, so you go into your medical career and some of the hospital jobs. They are very long hours. Yeah.
Tony Winyard 8:30
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Anna M L Smith 8:32
And as a GP, you take on a huge amount of responsibility for people as any doctor does. So I think there's quite a lot of stress in the career and you're right, we've never been taught it.
Tony Winyard 8:46
So what was it that made you look to acupuncture?
Dr. Anna M L Smith 8:53
I was in the stage where obviously, I'd been a DP for quite a number of years. And I was interested in using my medical knowledge in another way to try and develop my career so that I could have maybe a slightly less pressured area of my working life. And so a friend of mine had trained with acupuncture in acupuncture. And I rather I was rather interested in it as an alternative, again, to perhaps pain relief, and all the issues around that. So is it slightly alternative way of dealing with some medical conditions?
Tony Winyard 9:33
It would seem that there's a real in, in Britain and maybe in many other Western countries as a real misunderstanding of acupuncture is so some people think of it as kind of woowoo and, and there's some people think there's no validity, scientific validity behind him.
Dr. Anna M L Smith 9:49
I mean, I think that's a shame. I trained as a medical acupuncturist and what that basically is is looking at evidence based treatment evidence base acupuncture treatment involving fine needles. Now, it's all adapted from Chinese acupuncture. But we look at sort of modern understanding of how the body works. We use a medical diagnosis as we would in traditional medicine, and then we decide whether acupuncture will work for that condition, is there enough evidence to treat acupuncture in that condition? I think it'll be interesting. There's quite a problem nowadays, with treating pain in traditional ways, and there is a crisis now with a lot of people using stronger painkillers. And I think the good thing about acupuncture is it often provides good pain relief, it reduces prescription medication, you've got no side effects, as you would have in medication, and other things such as it might reduce referrals to secondary care, you have a much longer time, I have a much longer time with patients so much sort of hands on approach. And I can look a little bit more around the holistic side of the problem that the patients come to me with so I can look a little round the lifestyle side as well.
Tony Winyard 11:16
Does it does it surprise any of your patients that you know what the the benefits they get from it?
Dr. Anna M L Smith 11:25
I think the people who do come and see me are quite open to having acupuncture. So have them had it before. Or sometimes they're looking for an alternative. I think they feel quite confident because I'm a GP as well. And I have an interest in lifestyle medicine. So I think there's a sort of confidence around coming to see me. But I think they're delighted when it works. That's what I do think,
Tony Winyard 11:51
are there any specific treatments it's really beneficial for?
Dr. Anna M L Smith 11:55
Yeah, it's beneficial quite a lot of things. I mean, pain is the sort of typical thing we think about using acupuncture for so musculoskeletal pain, neck pain, back pain, shoulder pain, etc. And then it can be very good for some of those very difficult things to treat like tennis elbow golfer's elbow. And then some other sort of disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome, overactive bladder, migraine headaches, menopause, or hot flashes, so quite a variety of conditions. As well as some people and get sort of tight bands of muscle, you know, a lot of people get it around their necks and shoulder unit from computer work and studying and whatever. And acupuncture is very good at releasing those what we call myofascial trigger points in muscles and taking that pain and tension away.
Tony Winyard 12:49
And is it something that can be just treated once or does it have to be done over a series of weeks months, or
Dr. Anna M L Smith 12:56
I would say the average number of treatments for a condition is about six, it may be slightly less than that, it may be slightly more than that. And you often don't get an immediate benefit. So sometimes you have to have sort of three, four treatments before you start noticing the benefit with acupuncture. And then you have that benefit. And then once you get to that stage, you can decide whether the treatment is you know how long the treatment is.
Tony Winyard 13:24
And do many people fear the needles.
Dr. Anna M L Smith 13:29
I have a couple of patients who are a little bit nervous about the needles. I think that the that they are very, very fine needles. So I think people are very surprised when I put in the first needle, they often haven't even felt it go in. Yeah, I do try and make the whole experience quite relaxing, so that people aren't nervous and anxious about it. But I've not had any major I've had no one feigned or anything like that, to me partly you lie someone down when you do acupuncture, so it doesn't tend to happen.
Tony Winyard 14:00
What would be maybe someone's listening, and they've got a condition that they would never have considered acupuncture for. And so maybe I'm what I'm getting at is Is there something that some people would be quite surprised that acupuncture would actually help them with that they probably wouldn't even consider acupuncture in their minds.
Dr. Anna M L Smith 14:23
I think more along the lines of irritable bowel syndrome. Maybe headaches there is in the national guidelines for headaches. So I think more the overactive bladder, irritable bowel syndrome, maybe men are hot paws or hot flushes are probably the things you don't naturally associate acupuncture with.
Tony Winyard 14:43
Okay? And when you it's so easy when you're seeing a patient or your normal patients. Is it Are you only doing acupuncture now? Are you still doing your normal sort of GP practice practice as well?
Dr. Anna M L Smith 14:57
I keep them separate so I didn't work on A couple of days a week is an NHS GP. And then I have my private acupuncture clinic and health coaching clinics like these separately.
Tony Winyard 15:08
Okay. And you talked about how Dr. chatted us book was, so you enjoyed it so much. So I'm good and your whole lifestyle approach. So you do you have a, maybe a different approach in your GP practice than many other GPS would say?
Dr. Anna M L Smith 15:27
I hope so. I mean, I think that it's really important when someone comes to see you with a chronic disease, and that could be diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, it can be mental illness, that rather than just treat the disease with medication, which may be very appropriate, we also ensure the patient has some knowledge that lifestyle affects these conditions. And I'll often say to a patient, has anyone ever spoken to about how your lifestyle might affect your blood pressure, your lifestyle might affect your depression? And if they say, Yes, I'll then explore a little bit, what do you know about it? If they say no, I might ask them, you know, how would you feel if we just we had a little chat about how your lifestyle might affect your health in the long term. So it depends where the patient is and how I might approach it. And it's whether the patient is happy for me to talk about those things and introduce that onset. What I'm usually nicely surprised about is that people generally are very receptive to talking about lifestyle and how their lifestyle affects their disease.
Tony Winyard 16:50
We hear in the media all the time that GPs are so under so much pressure, they were only able to have 1015 minutes of each patient. Is that something? That's that is true in your practice? Or is it different for you?
Dr. Anna M L Smith 17:03
I think it's true everywhere. I think we are under huge time constraints. Yes, we are. And so, in a way, I'm quite lucky with my health clinic, because I do have longer time. But I equally think it's really important for my NHS patients that they have at least some understanding, and because my time is more, you know, restricted with, with my NHS patients, I might often say to them, you know, would you ever read a book if I if I suggest a book? Is that the kind of thing you do so that they can go off and perhaps do some of the reading themselves and gain knowledge that way?
Tony Winyard 17:40
So it sounds like it's quite tricky for you to to be able to do the job that you know you can do for these patients, because there's such such limited time.
Dr. Anna M L Smith 17:50
Yes, we are very limited in time. There is no question about
Tony Winyard 17:54
that. Yeah. Is that frustrating?
Dr. Anna M L Smith 17:57
Yes, it has its limitations, and it can be very frustrating. Yes, it can. Yes.
Jingle 18:03
We hope you're enjoying this episode of the habits and health podcast, where we believe that creating healthy habits should be easy. If you know a friend or a loved one who might be interested in learning simple habits to improve their health, then please share this podcast with them. We also invite you to subscribe to leave us a review on your favourite podcast app. Now, back to the show.
Tony Winyard 18:27
So you mentioned about that you did the habit, the training in tiny habits. So how? How do you implement that in what you do?
Dr. Anna M L Smith 18:36
Tiny habits is a course run by BJ Fogg, a behaviourist in America. And his really key message is people will change behaviour, if they feel good. And one of the slight problems we have is we often consider that motivation is what gets us up and going to change behaviour. And the problem is motivation is a wave. It's quite an unreliable thing. So if I give you maybe I'll just talk through an example perhaps me. So for instance, I had this 30 year old lady came to see me and she wanted to lose weight. So we kind of looked at all aspects of her life. Her diet, which actually was very good exercise regime, I couldn't really fault she was doing sort of aerobic exercise three or four times a week, she was doing boot camps at weekends. Her sleep wasn't great. She was waking up a few times at night. And what I noticed was her stress around work and some of her home life was very high. So she had very high stress levels. Now aspiration was to lose weight. And so what we ended up doing is we looked at that aspiration and we then what looked at all the different behaviours That might help her manage her stress. Now, I know that people might be a bit confused why you're managing her stress when she's coming to weight loss. But there is quite a lot of evidence to say with stress increasing your cortisol levels, which causes something called insulin resistance, it affects your hunger and your satiety hormones. And therefore, weight gain. And also poor sleep does a very similar sort of thing. Where you get if you had poor sleep, you tend to have, you want more high calorie sugary foods, you get poor impulse control, it feeds into insulin resistance, and you put on weight. So I thought stress was quite a key factor to look at, for this lady. So we looked at all the behaviours that might make her reduce her stress levels, we looked at kind of breathing exercises, we looked at maybe could she stretch at intervals in the day? Could she perhaps change one of her aerobic classes to a yoga class? Was there any time in the day when she had could have a quiet cup of tea, anything that would reduce his stress, and we literally just went through lots and lots and lots of different behaviours. And then with each one of those ideas, we looked at, how impactful would that behaviour be? And how easy would it be to do and what we did with we chose behaviours that had high impact for her aspiration, that would lower her stress, and would be very easy to do. And then what we did is we made it tiny, because if you don't make it small, and you don't make it easy to do, you won't do it. She chose a couple of things. So she chose a breathing, I think it was she did choose to replace one of her aerobic classes with the yoga class in the week. And she did choose a quiet cup of tea when she came home in the evening. And what we did was we said she needed a, you need a prompt to remind you, then you do the behaviour. And then the idea is you feed back and feel good about yourself or celebrate Yeah. So the prompt for her with the breathing was that she did quite a lot of driving and her job was getting in the car, kept on getting in the car, starting the engine, she would then remember, that's when I'm going to do some calm breathing. That was one idea. And the other was the quiet cup of tea when she got home. So that involved sort of coming in the front door, she'd let the dogs out in the garden. And then she'd go and make the cup of tea, sit in the sitting room in a particular space, and have a quiet cup of tea and just sit with her feelings about the day. And it was that what we went through was reducing her stress. So that then that improved her metabolism her insulin resistance, as we call it, and that she started to lose weight because it had had been the stress that had probably stopped her losing weight in the first place.
Tony Winyard 23:10
Did that surprise her?
Dr. Anna M L Smith 23:12
Yes. Yeah. Because as most people with wanting to lose weight, there's this message where sold about calories in calories out. And it's a lot more complicated than that it relies it's it's it's on, there are lots of different areas and issues around weight that we don't, you know, we don't no one is really told or informed about.
Tony Winyard 23:38
And you mentioned about the celebration aspects. As Brits, we're not always great celebrations. With did she find that easy? Or was that? How was that for her?
Dr. Anna M L Smith 23:48
I think it's the hardest thing to do. Because that's exactly you know, BJ Fogg says you have your prompt, so your mind, you have your behaviour, which is tiny, and then you do the celebration, which is a very American thing to do. And you're absolutely right. I think it's a hard sell for the British, British public. And I think you can do it in sort of ways that work for you. And, you know, it can just be a moment of just, you know, just feeling that pleased with yourself acknowledging in your own mind that you've done it, it can be a simple smile. It can be a kind of, you know, thumbs up, so it could be quite a small thing, but I think it is a harder thing to do. However, I do think it's really important. We make ourselves feel good. And if you feel good about something you will carry on doing the activity.
Tony Winyard 24:41
Anyone listening who's maybe not familiar with the tiny habits book and may be wondering, well, why is the celebration part so important? What would you say to them?
Dr. Anna M L Smith 24:51
We, because we only changed by feeling good. Basically, we don't generally change by people making us feel bad about things. And that's why it's so important to wire that good feeling and to also do the behaviour, celebrate in some way. So that the wire that behaviour back in.
Tony Winyard 25:17
And so has that person you were you were speaking about, she managed to maintain her weight now since since that. Yeah, so
Dr. Anna M L Smith 25:23
she's managed to stress much more, she's lost some weight. And she's much happier.
Tony Winyard 25:28
Right? So is this? I mean, when when did you do the course with BJ?
Dr. Anna M L Smith 25:34
I did the course BJ earlier this year. Okay. And
Tony Winyard 25:37
so how easy or difficult has it been to implement that into what you do?
Dr. Anna M L Smith 25:44
I think it's fairly easy. I think that because people often rely, people often think like, rely on motivation, like I said earlier. And also they think I have to make a big change. And I think the key is, don't rely on your motivation, rely on a prompt to remind you a tiny habit to very small, so you'll do it, and then feed back a feelgood factor back into your feelings and self esteem and your carry on doing it.
Tony Winyard 26:16
You talk to him? So before about in order the different training that you did, you've done you did some health coach training as well. Yes, and what was it that made you decide to do that?
Dr. Anna M L Smith 26:28
So it was really similar along the lines of BJ Fogg gave us about the fact that I felt I had knowledge in lifestyle aspects, you know, things like stress or sleep or how we should eat or move, but I didn't have the ability to enable people to change. So that's why I did health coaching with with tiny habits been one of those courses?
Tony Winyard 26:54
Is it I wonder if it was, if more GPs? Well, I want do many GPs have? Do extra training, like you have taken things like tiny habits and health coaching and so on? Or are they are there more GPs who are just so busy, they just don't have time to be doing those sorts of things.
Dr. Anna M L Smith 27:17
I think, general practice a very intense career, I think a lot of GPs are incredibly busy. What some GPs are starting to do is have what we call portfolio careers. So your part time GP and your part time do something else. It's hard to say how many of them would not be doing things like health coaching or lifestyle. But certainly, they're not as many GPS, who were just doing GP, they're often doing something else as well. Right. So
Tony Winyard 27:49
you think it work? Is it in the last 1020 years? Has it changed quite a bit, then?
Dr. Anna M L Smith 27:54
It's changed hugely. I would say in the last sort of 20 years, it has changed hugely. Yes, people much people are more likely to have a portfolio type career where they do different jobs,
Tony Winyard 28:06
right? We are them more GPs now with a maybe open to say nutrition and so on. And the reason I asked that is because I had an experience once why I saw my GP and this was probably about 15 years ago. And I my iron count was quite low at the time. And I was kind of doing some experiments in with not eating meat and dairy at the time. And I was very aware that the reason my iron count was low was because of the eating, I was getting underway. I was eating at that time. And I remember her saying somehow this has nothing to do with what you're eating. I said, what it's got everything to do with what I'm eating. And so I was really, I was just so surprised that her reaction, but it's got nothing to do with nutrition was basically what she told me.
Dr. Anna M L Smith 28:54
I think I think it goes back to you know, when we're medic school, we're not taught about lifestyle about what foods we should eat, or how we should sleep or how we should move. And so I think a lot of GPS aren't really very aware of those aspects. And yet, as I said in the Chronic Disease guidelines, the number one treatment is lifestyle advice. Yeah. I also think it's it is also hard for the public because also there's lots of information out there but it's very confusing and overwhelming as well.
Tony Winyard 29:36
And since you've done the the training in the behaviour, science and health coaching and so on, are you do you feel you're able to get get much better results for your patients?
Dr. Anna M L Smith 29:47
I hope so. I do hope so. I think I hope I open up to them the opportunity that they have a chance to change their life. Change their health. And that can be mental and physical health.
Tony Winyard 30:05
And for people listening who maybe aren't really sure, what is a health coach? What, what would you say? How would you describe that?
Dr. Anna M L Smith 30:14
A health coach is someone who helped, who helped someone, manage their health coaches them to better health. Because like we said before, people don't know how to change, or they are too busy with their lives, their time constraint that overloaded with information, they're confused. And so the idea of a health coach is they may come, they may come to me saying, Oh, look, I've got high blood pressure. I'd like to sleep better, but they don't know how to do it. Right. And so the idea is, I would help them work through that with them,
Tony Winyard 30:56
as opposed to a GP would maybe just diagnose something instead?
Dr. Anna M L Smith 31:01
Yes, I mean, as GPS, what we're excellent at doing, I think, is making a diagnosis and treating people. I think we're very, very good at that. What's nice about lifestyle medicine is it works alongside traditional medicine, right?
Tony Winyard 31:19
On the subject of behaviour, change, and habits and so on, what, what habits have you found most helpful in your own life implementing?
Dr. Anna M L Smith 31:30
Probably the most helpful habit, I think, is I injured my knee a few years ago, and I don't know whether you you know, I was I went to see a physio and was given exercises to do and, you know, life takes over. And I was thinking, When am I ever going to do these exercises, I don't have time. But I was also interested in the time with mindfulness, and maybe a little bit of meditation and things. So I started to think, right, I have got to fit these exercises in somewhere. So what I my best habit is really I get up in the morning, showered, get dressed, come downstairs, let the dogs out. That's my, my prompt, goes straight into the sitting room. And I basically do 10 minutes of exercises. Partly, it started for my knee. But it's ended up being sort of mindful movement and a little bit of resistance exercise that we should all do. And I just do 10 minutes every morning, and it sets me up for the day mentally. It makes me feel like I don't react to things in the day. I tend to respond to things. I think my stress levels are lower. And I feel generally better in myself. I wish I started doing it years ago.
Tony Winyard 32:47
But when did you start doing this?
Dr. Anna M L Smith 32:49
Only about three or four years ago?
Tony Winyard 32:52
Um, can you is it noticeable? The difference?
Dr. Anna M L Smith 32:55
To me? Yes. And what about trust levels are less? I noticed, like I said, I tend to respond rather to react to things.
Tony Winyard 33:05
And but is it noticeable to people around you as well?
Dr. Anna M L Smith 33:09
I hope so.
Tony Winyard 33:13
Because I mean, you mentioned about how stressful it is working as a GP. So doing something like that is it sounds like so important?
Dr. Anna M L Smith 33:21
Yes, I think these things are important. And for GPS, but I think so many people, one of the main things I see in general practice is stress related illness, you see a lot of depression, anxiety, we see a lot of people who have high blood pressure and getting overweight because of stress. So I would say stress and managing stress is one of the key things for a lot of people managing their work and their home.
Tony Winyard 33:51
And is so such, you mentioned that stress is probably one of the most prevalent things you're seeing with people and what about sleep?
Dr. Anna M L Smith 34:01
I think that stress often feeds into poor sleep. And I think a lot of people are quite troubled with sleep. Yes, I would say it's quite prominent. Again, it comes in. If you have mental illness, often your sleep isn't very good. And if you have physical illness, often your sleep isn't very good. And certainly if you have stress, it often disrupts your sleep pattern.
Tony Winyard 34:26
And how has the whole situation we've had in the last two years with this sort of lockdowns and pandemic and so on. How would you say there's more stress since since this has happened with with your patients you're saying?
Dr. Anna M L Smith 34:40
I think there has been an explosion of mental health issues. Whether that's through the loneliness, and the lockdown. People now working from home on their own, not having that necessarily face to face social support. I think there's a certain Mount of social anxiety from having been in lockdown, and now we're out of lockdown. And, you know, generally we made the connection with people it's good for our physical health is good for our mental health. We know if we're socially isolated our stress hormone cortisol goes up and our stress levels go up. So I think it has had a huge effect.
Tony Winyard 35:26
You talked before about Dr. Chatterjee, his book has given you a taste of maybe writing your own book. Oh,
Dr. Anna M L Smith 35:37
if I could write a book that was as good as that I would. I don't know if I will ever quite write a book. Yes, we will see we will see.
Tony Winyard 35:47
Are there is there a book that is that has really moved you that you can remember in your life?
Dr. Anna M L Smith 35:55
A book that's really moved me would be the salt path. Okay. That probably is a book that's really moved me. And why? It's a really incredible story, true story, credible story about homelessness.
Tony Winyard 36:16
And how long ago was it? You read that?
Dr. Anna M L Smith 36:18
I read that about two or three years ago.
Tony Winyard 36:23
Okay. If people want to find out more about you, and where we'll be the best places to look,
Dr. Anna M L Smith 36:30
I'm probably on my website. www.gp acupuncture oxford.co.uk You can find me on Facebook GP acupuncture and lifestyle and on Instagram. I'm not that active on social media. But I do occasionally post things there.
Tony Winyard 36:50
And I you I'm guessing are your own? Do you only see people face to face? Or do you do online appointments as well?
Dr. Anna M L Smith 36:56
Obviously, for the acupuncture, I do face to face but I do do online zoom appointments for health coaching. Yes.
Tony Winyard 37:03
Right. Okay. And just before we finish, is there, is there a quotation that you like?
Dr. Anna M L Smith 37:10
Yes. I don't know who wrote this or when it was something I read. But I like one that goes a healthy lifestyle not only changes your body, it changes your mind, your attitude and your mood.
Tony Winyard 37:27
And what what is it about that that appeals to you?
Dr. Anna M L Smith 37:31
Because it's about the fact that our lifestyles affect our mental and physical health.
Tony Winyard 37:40
Anna, thank you for your time. It's been a real pleasure. I haven't it's the first time we've spoken about acupuncture on this on the podcast and I've been wanting to for quite a while so so thank you.
Dr. Anna M L Smith 37:50
Thank you very much for having me.
Tony Winyard 37:53
Next week, episode 45 is with Renée Jones. She spent 40 years on a diet yo yo before other overcoming emotional stress, and has been eating to reach and maintain her goals since 2012. She has a master's degree in counselling, clinical residency and training in contemporary models of care. And her book. What's really eating you overcome the triggers of company two is an Amazon bestseller. So that's next week with Renée Jones. If you did get some real value from this week's episode with Dr. Anna Smith. Please do share the episode with anyone who you think could get some real value from it.
Jingle 38:34
thanks for tuning in to the habits and health podcast where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a review on your favourite podcast app. Sign up for email updates and learn about coaching and workshop opportunities at Tonywinyard.com See you next time on the habits and health podcast.
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Habits & Health episode 43 with John Roberts, a biological dentist in the profession for over 40 years. He takes a holistic approach to dentistry and in this episode we explore facial structure and the role that plays in functional breathing, disruption of sleep, mercury fillings, nitric oxide and nasal breathing and many other areas. Links:
www.biologicaldentistry.com https://www.biologicaldentistry2020.com/
AAPMD – The American Academy of Physiological Medicine & Dentistry
Myoresearch.com
British Society of Dental Sleep Medicine
Dr Balfour – The Homeoblock
Rhinomed Mute Anti Snoring Aid Solution, Nasal Dilator for Snore Reduction, Breathe Better, Sleep Aid, Comfortable Nose Vent, Medium Recommended book: Six-Foot Tiger, Three-Foot Cage: Take Charge of Your Health by Taking Charge of Your Mouth Dr. Felix Liao DDS Favourite book: The Lord of the Rings – J. R. R. Tolkien Favourite quote: “If you quote me, date me “ (The importance of when a quotation was said, as new facts are being discovered all the time) Biocidin – mouth wash SMART registered – Safe Mercury Amalgam Removal Technique
Don’t forget, there is a transcript of every episode (scroll down the page)
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Jingle 0:00
habits and health episode 43. Welcome to the habits and health podcast, where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. Brought to you by an educator and coach for anyone who wants to create a healthier life. Here's your host, Tony Winyard.
Tony Winyard 0:20
Welcome to another edition of the podcast where we give you ideas on habits you can create or implement into your life to improve your health in some way. Today's episode is with a biological dentist by the name of John Roberts. He's been a dentist for 40 years. And he has got a very curious nature and he's very receptive to new ideas and has done a lot of research on new ways of doing dentistry and find out how to go about things in a different way from how many dentists would go about things. So you're gonna hear a lot more about that in this episode. Hope you enjoy this week's episode. Habits and health my guest today, John Roberts. How are you, John?
John Roberts 1:11
I'm very well, thank you.
Tony Winyard 1:15
We spoke briefly before the recording started. And I mentioned to you, I've been wanting to have a dentist on my show for such a long time. But it was trying to find the right type of dentist. And it was when I spoke with Pete Williams on the show probably about six weeks ago, and he spoke about you in glowing terms. And as he was speaking about you, I thought I've got to get this guy on the show. So here you are. So thank you
John Roberts 1:42
And you know what, I learned stuff from Pete on that podcast, because I walk every day and I listened to it. Pete's a very good lad.
Tony Winyard 1:55
You've been a dentist for quite a while.
John Roberts 1:58
40 years. And if you could see me, I'm still smiling. And I do go into work every day. And when I close the door, and I'm working with patients, I absolutely love my job. You know, I'm one of those lucky people. I found a vocation that I really, really enjoy. And it's been great to me. And I want to continue doing it. And it's evolved into the person I am today. And as we were saying before, I'm not right, I'm not wrong. But if the style of care that I can offer people resonates with them, and it's directional towards improving their health, then hey, I like it. I love it.
Tony Winyard 2:40
Has it changed quite a bit since you started?
John Roberts 2:43
Oh, massively, you know, got other days, you know, we used to didn't wear gloves, wear your own clothes, do gas stations, take teeth out, make dentures, bash out mercury fillings like there was no tomorrow. And it is evolved. And there is still places that do that style of dentistry. And that's fine. That's fine for the dentist who do it that's fine for the patients who want to receive the game. I was fortunate and I was interested in the years and questions you asked me. And I've always been a why not dentist? And if something didn't resonate, well, I won't sit around. Why not? Why not find out more? I remember years ago someone said, Oh, mercury fillings may be harmful. And this is like Oh 8586. So I went to online and then I made a conscious decision that If I could I'd stop using it. You know, that was way before all this trendy mercury free stuff. This is pre internet. This is perfect pre mobile phones, you know. And so and then because I am who I am, there was a meeting in America in San Diego. So I got on a plane I went to San Diego didn't know what I was doing. And it was you just turn up you go to meetings. And if you're a happy Chappie from Liverpool, you talk to people, and it just grew and developed. So my career has has. You know, we talked about alternative it's not alternative. It's just different. We talk about holistic while it's looking after the whole person. And I sort of in my old days now have gone on to the term biological. This is how the body works. Does the body work by putting on virtually a poison in someone's mouth and letting it leak into the body? I don't think so. Do we leave infections in the body which we know harm people? Not the best idea in the world. And do we now and hopefully we're going to talk about do we do orthodontics and give people straight teeth if they then can't breathe properly and both you and I I believe a passionate about the mantra that I want to come through his lips together tongue to roof your mouth breathing through your nose and swallow properly and after 40 If I could just do that with my patients from, I've treated a three month old baby today doing surgery on the lip and their tongue, all the way through to all people who get it. If you don't breathe properly, you don't sleep properly. If you don't sleep properly, you don't heal properly. If you don't heal properly, you feel rubbish. And you chase under more and more drugs and solutions. And it's not the only solution. But you're more of an expert than I am, breathe through your nose, and let dentist help you make that possible.
Tony Winyard 5:30
Well, it sounds like your approach to dentistry, you've either No, I just get the feeling you have enormous curiosity. And you're always trying to keep up with new findings and so on.
John Roberts 5:43
Yeah, I mean, I've never stood still, I've enjoyed travelling a lot, I've been to America more times than I can remember. And I was fortunate enough to teach over in America for a while. It does, of course, I want to do I've gone and done it, and so long as you bring it back and integrate it into the work you're doing. And it was a lot easier, because in 94, I made the decision not to do mercury fillings anymore. And therefore I couldn't be an NHS dentist. No other reason for that. And so if you learn new skills or see new things, I'm not gonna say without practising on people, but if you felt it was appropriate, you discussed it with the patient, and you did it. So, you know, at the same time, I went to see people who were not taking teeth out to do braces, you were treating children when they were young, you know, 567. So by the time they were 12, or 13, they didn't need anything done, because you'd already done it. And it's, it's, it's sometimes it's common sense. And I'm perhaps the person who looks at something and says, Why are we doing it that way is a different way of doing it. It also makes me a pain in the whatever, because I will do it the way everyone else does it. But it's nice, because people are now listening. And they're saying, right, how would John do it. And you know, maybe John can help this than the other. So he's evolving. And that's the beauty. It's, you know, what I do today may be different to what I do in a year's time. And if you take people on that journey, and you're not didactic, and I don't believe in Dogma, we must do it this way. I can share experiences today, someone came in, they want all the tea house who was only 58, I said, look, let's strike a deal, keep some loose, some, and your quality of life will be better. And it wasn't about making more money taking V out or making dentures he was about her quality of life. And that's what dentistry should be about is giving people a quality of life through whatever way we do things.
Tony Winyard 7:49
A couple of things you just touched on in the last few minutes. You mention about how it's related to breathing and braces and so on. And so for people who, who are listening to this, and maybe they don't know so much about breathing and, what role it can play in why so many people do breathe through their mouth now and how that has affected the structure of the face and so on. Can you let people know about that?
John Roberts 8:19
Okay, so you know, if I start off with today, seeing a three month old child who travelled probably 150 miles to see me, this child couldn't breastfeed, because the tongue and the lips were tethered, so their mum was in discomfort all the time, she's had to go into a bottle, but even bottle feeding wasn't achievable. So with a simple procedure with our lasers, we released the lip, we released the tongue, and the child fed a whole bottle for the first time without taking air without being upset and just promptly fell asleep, which was wonderful. What's the importance of that? In an ideal world, a mother should breastfeed for as long as we can. And I know there's reasons why these things don't happen. But when the tongue draws the nipple end, and it squashes the nipple to express the milk on the roof of the mouth, that's what grows the upper jaw. That's what then improves the child's breathing, it slows the breathing down, and it is universally acknowledged that it moves the upper jaw upwards and forwards. When you put a dummy in or you put a bottle in and you're sucking with your cheeks and you can do this while you're listening. You narrow the upper jaw, and you pull it backwards and downwards. This is what John Mew has said, for years and years and years. And almost inevitably, instead of swallowing with the tongue to the roof of your mouth, the way a child expresses melt from a nipple, the tongue goes to the floor of the mouth, and you're sort of sucking in. So the whole mechanism of swallowing from a bottle versus swallowing from a breast is completely different. But it also guides the group Both of the jaws differently. What then happens is, as the child's jaw grows, it doesn't grow sufficiently broad and jump forwards 10 years, you see a 10 year old child with not enough room in the mouth for all the teeth. Now we then say, Oh, look, you've got dad's teeth and mom's jaws were in fact, you don't have dad's fingers and mom's hands. You know, genetics doesn't work that way. It basically, the jaw hasn't grown big enough to fit on the teeth. And if you think that the teeth fit around the tongue, and the tongue is so important, if you don't have enough room, for the tongue, there's only one place where it goes and that's backwards. So then it's more difficult to breathe through the nose. So you then end up with the habit of opening your mouth and breathing through your mouth. And you're more of an expert than I, we are designed to exclusively breathe through our nose, the more you breath through your mouth, you change your oxygen, the oxygen utilisation you use, you change your carbon dioxide levels. And that's fascinating stuff that carbon dioxide is an essential nutrient, you know that I know that we should breathe properly. But to go to the dentistry, then we see children at 10, 12, 14. They have teeth taken out and braces into put their teeth straight again. But guess what? No one ever considers the room for the tongue. So there's a most amazing book by a friend of mine in America, called Six foot tiger and a three foot cage. Because the mouth is made smaller, the tongue goes backwards, which you might be able to live with as a young child. But as you get older, and that tongue gets a little bigger, you end up with snoring problems or clenching your teeth, it can eventually lead to sleep apnea. And that then becomes a health issue all the way from a three month old baby to a 70 year old man. And everything in between can be influenced by the dentist. So really go to a dentist who doesn't believe in extraction of teeth who treats a child early. And again, am I okay, giving resources out for people to look at websites? Absolutely, yeah. Then there's a great educational resource called Myoresearch.com. And they've got a lot of educational videos on showing what is correct breathing, what is correct swallowing what is correct posture. Because all these are guided and dictated by appropriate dental care. And give someone an ear to ear set of teeth. With the teeth fitting together properly, lips together, breathe through the nose, and I'll give you a healthy person.
Tony Winyard 12:42
So you mentioned about finding a doctor who has the approach of I forget how you worded it just now. But it seems to me that many dentists may tend to still take the approach of trying to fit in a brace or am I wrong? Is that not what happens so much? No,
John Roberts 13:02
no, we all do braces, but you can either. You know, if a child doesn't have enough room for all their teeth, you can do one of three things, you can leave them the teeth as they are and accept crooked teeth. And that's what we did up to 14 years ago. You can take teeth out and pull everything back and give you straight T but then you have straight teeth that don't fit the body. And this is all your then your TMJ doctors looking at all your TMJ problems. And remember, TMJ doesn't stand for temporomandibular joint. It stands for teeth, muscles and jaw. And if the teeth are in the wrong place, the muscles overwork, which is your headaches had neck shoulder issues, or the jaw doesn't work properly. Is it clicking grinding and you John are opening well enough. So the other option is to see a dentist who grows the jaw. So hopefully you've got enough room to make the jaw bigger to fit all the teeth. You then retrain the person's habits to breathe through the nose, lips together, tongue to the roof of your mouth. And then you can straighten the teeth with enough room and with with the How can I say the respect the tongue needs. We don't deal with the tongue as the beautiful organ it is it's just something that gets in the way. When is so many life saving qualities. It grows your it supports your jaw, it keeps your airway clean. But it's it's a thing that's in the way. And it isn't. But it's the same with the nose as well. The nose is a beautiful organ if you know how it works. And we as dentists, we avoid the tongue and we push it out the way and we you know it gets in the way for everything. The nose. What's the nose it's just something about the teeth that we don't know anything about, rather than the teeth of air to give a house for the tongue and support the nose and all the structure of your sinuses. your sinuses are an organ. your sinuses do many things for your health. but we don't do anything about it. And yet we treat the other end of the teeth going to the finest we treat the teeth and don't think about the sinus. And that's why I get the joy out my job.
Tony Winyard 15:11
But the approach that you're taking, it seems to me seem is very unusual in dentistry, or am I wrong? Are there more dentists taking this approach now?
John Roberts 15:21
There are more dentists taking this approach. And, you know, I have to say that maybe 40 years ago, I would be guilty of taking teeth out because that was my level of knowledge. Now that there is at least sufficient debate, to say, Should I take teeth out? Shouldn't I take teeth out? What are the health consequences, and we don't we just look at I want straight teeth, I want it looks nice. But when we actually acknowledged as a health consequence, then we should be learning and my frustration with the profession, people around their own opinion, but they should look at the person's health. I mean, it's a great fact. And, you know, Patrick McKeown, our teacher will tell you, a child who breezed through will have 10 points lower on an IQ. And we can say that because there are studies to show it. And so we as dentists are doing the same thing as we did 40 years ago. But you know, in this modern way of the world, at least give the patients a choice. And I have to admit, it takes longer. It's a bit like if you want to play the piano, you have to practice every day. If you want to breathe properly. You have to practice every day. It you know, it takes many years longer, it costs more money. But if you're purchasing health for your children for the rest of their life, then for me, it is an option I give my patients. Now why don't other dentists do it? No, I think you're the man to talk about changing habits little bit at a time. But when you've studied for 20 years, and you've spent 1000s of pounds and hours and hours away learning, all of a sudden some clever Scouser doesn't come along and say you're doing it all wrong. You've got to grow and develop and look at choices and options.
Tony Winyard 17:12
Would you be able to estimate what percentage of dentists would now take the approach rather than simply removing teeth to look at things differently in the UK,
John Roberts 17:24
I wouldn't like to say but it did only be one or two. I mean, then there is to look at something called orthopaedic orthodontics, where we grow the bone to fit all the teeth. And then we do orthodontics to fit the teeth in the bone. But also, we also then look at the relation between relationship between the upper teeth and the lower teeth. I very, very rarely see upper teeth that are too far forwards. But I always always see a lower jaw that's too far back. And yet we bring the tongue teeth back. And if you think your bottom jaw is attached to the tongue, if the bottom jaw is too far back, your tongue is in the back of your throat, you can't breathe properly. And we'll get onto the mechanics of older people in a minute. But if you bring your bottom jaw forwards, you can breathe through your nose easier. And that's why we should bring the bottom jaw to the top, not the top to the bottom.
Tony Winyard 18:23
Before we started recording, we talked about the book, Breathe by James Nestor. And in that book, I seem to remember him mentioning. He had a procedure done where he he was wearing some kind of brace or something to change the structure of his mouth or something. Do you remember that?
John Roberts 18:43
Yeah, he saw a dentist called Dr. Balfour, who's based in New York City. I did some work with him beginning of the year, I think. And he has something called a Homeoblock, which is what he wears every night and using the pressure of his tongue. He then pushes and it grows the upper jaw bigger. And so all the teeth will fit. And what it does is it changes the shape of your upper jaw to allow more room for your tongue. And it brings the tongue into a more false position. And then if you can then retrain the old mantra lips together tongue to the roof of mouth and breathe through your nose. You've created a better environment. I mean, there have been many, many people. There's a guy in southern America guy, a called David Sing, who has his own way of doing it. We have been making upper Jaws bigger and bringing the lower jaw forwards for 30 years. I'm not an orthodontist. I am a general dentist, but it's finding the orthodontist really good guys at moving teeth, who don't want to just move to make them look good, but bring them forward to give an airway. Anything to make more space for your tongue if your tongue is cramped and How can you tell whether your tongue is cramped? Well stick your tongue out, let it go limp. And then see whether there's little scalloping around the edges that would indicate that your tongue is pushing against your teeth when you're swallowing. And certainly when you're asleep at night, the whole issue of tongue tie, which I say are treated the three month old today, many adults tongue tied, their tongue can't go to the roof of the mouth, they can't swallow properly. And therefore, they'll always have an open mouth posture. So you know, you will guide people more on looking at beauty go breathing and how you can retrain your tongue, retrain your lips, retrain your breathing, because it is, in essence, what health is all about. And so where was I going with that? Very few dentists are doing it. But there's more and more we'd like to know the trouble is COVID has really slowed all our learning down. And just before locked down, we were going to run a conference in Manchester, where we were going to introduce many, many more dentists to this style of care. Didn't happen. I've got to get my enthusiasm back again to do something like that. But it's, I think Patrick McKeown was going to speak on it, I think Myobrace people are going to speak on it. So you've got several different people now all saying a similar thing. And that's where I've been lucky. I have done my dentistry, I've done my orthodontics I've done my breathing, I've done my cranial work, because swallowing properly and breathing properly enhances your cranial system. Cranial osteopath, chiropractors, they move the bones of your skull around. So your your skull works better your sinuses work better, every time you chew, or every time you swallow two and a half, 1000 times a day, you are pumping your cranial system, you are moving the fluids that bathes your brain. And, you know, modern science and, you know, we can talk about nitric oxide in a minute, I think that was Nobel Prize 2015, I think Nobel Prize 2014 was the glymphatic system, which is when you sleep, your brain shrinks. All of that squeezes out all the toxins and the fluid flows around your brain and drains out and you rehydrate your brain and you put all the nutrients back in again, if you don't get that correct sleep, then you don't rehydrate your brain, you don't feed your brain. And there's some studies, it was only I was reading it today or yesterday, saying something to bring the jaw forwards to help someone breathe at night allows the brain to function better. And you will see changes in people who've got cognitive decline. Sleep is so important for anti ageing and anti Alzheimer influencing therapy. And you then add on the science of the glymphatic system and just Google it and look it up. It's such an elegant system. But if you don't sleep, and you you don't have those cycles, either five or six cycles of sleep, 90 minutes sleep cycles, then you are not going to have a brain that's healthy. And what is crucial. We're going to talk about sleep disordered breathing or breathing disordered sleep, which is the real term if you don't breathe properly, you don't sleep properly. Sorry, I've gone on again. But
Tony Winyard 23:32
let's let's get with our let's get let's get into that now. Because I'm wondering, and so if there are we I think we do tend to have an older audience for the for this podcast. So someone's listening to this now. And maybe they they're not sleeping so well. They do have bad no sleep apnea issues, whatever. And is there something safe? There's someone who's in their 60s, a guy and he's thinking when is it too late? Is there anything I can do?
John Roberts 23:59
No, absolutely not. And you know, everything from the guy who's writing the books at the moment on reversing Alzheimer's, a guy called Dale Bredesen. He's fantastic. And he will talk about the quality of your sleep. And if you have less than optimal bite and teeth fitting together, I'm smiling now and I know this is a podcast showing off potty. But if your teeth fit together and there's enough room for your tongue, you're not breathing through your mouth, you get this lymphatic drainage. If however you breathe through your mouth or use our snoring, Worse still, the tongue falls to the back of your mouth and you're not breathing at all. Your oxygen level goes down, you wake up startled, you do not get these cycles of sleep. And that will start to add to your cognitive decline by how much is dependent on you. But certainly reversing cognitive decline is going to be improved Dara significantly by breathing properly at night. So you can go to a dentist, and they can do a sleep test on you, they can look for clinical signs, upper front teeth wearing down is one scallop tongue, looking at the function how you swallow. And making sure that when you breathe through your nose, the outside of your nose doesn't collapse in, there's something known as the couple process where if you breathe in and your nose collapses in again, it's a shame, this is not a video, then when you breathe in quickly, all of a sudden, you can't breathe through your nose. So you end up reading to your mouth. And this is where we like recommending patients, the mute snore appliances, where you put it in your nose, and it opens up your nostrils. So it's breathing through your nose easier. So when I walk every morning, I wear this, and I can I don't quite run, but I walk quickly. And I exclusively breathe through my nose. And that has to do me good. I can't prove it, because I'm not going to do what James Nestor did, and block up my nose and read through my mouth and see how well I'm going to be just not going to do that. You know. So if someone has an issue, they need to find a dentist and there is a British Dental Society for sleep medicine or look up a combination of those. The lady who runs it a DD is a fantastic lady. She's based down in Harley Street. And they're now running courses on how to recognise these sleep disordered breathing. As dentists they are mainly fairly conservative with how far do we take it with breathing. But I do believe Patrick was talking to them the other week. And then there's a whole raft of fantastic practitioners called myofunctional. Therapists. These are usually ladies who then will teach everyone from children to adults, lips together to the roof of your mouth and breathe through your nose. And so long as the dentistry supports that are the dentistry hasn't been pulled back and you literally can't do that. You will be a healthier person for it. And it's part of that Bredesen protocol,
Tony Winyard 27:13
you mentioned just sent about an apparatus that helps to widen the nose. Yeah. So if someone's listened to that, and think that sounds really interesting, where would they find out more about that
John Roberts 27:22
mute and mute key, get it off Amazon, you can go to boots. Any of these nasal dilators work, you know, the breathing rate strips, go on the outside and try and pull your nose out, you actually need something more structural that goes in and just opens your nose out. And it's like breathing supercharged, you know, you breathe in through your nose like wow. And me and my partner who's a beautiful practitioner, we walk at the top of the hill, we try not to talk and breathe through our nose. It's maybe not the most romantic thing in the world. But it's good for our health. And you'd be amazed how much quicker and how much better you feel. Once you learn how to use your nose, which is poor breathing, you know, and and yeah, I can't say more than that. Me and my dentist. I'm talking about teeth, not interested in the white anymore. I'm interested in the nose and supporting how your body should work.
Tony Winyard 28:21
Is there anyone who maybe someone as I just said, someone listening to this may be interested in that device? So is there anyone who that device may be would not be suitable for
John Roberts 28:38
I can't think of anyone who wouldn't be I mean, you'll hear people say I can't breathe through my nose or I've got allergies. Well, you can't breathe through your nose. There are some fantastic beautiful techniques to unblock a blocked nose. People can have deviated septum so we can take x rays and just occasionally, we may send someone to an EMT I've sent Well, one patient a year where we take an x ray and we find the sinuses are fully blocked with infection. So those are people that would struggle, but it's there if we concentrate on the ones who can let's concentrate on the 99% who can and, you know, give them the opportunity and if they can't, then find out a reason why they can't read through their nose. And if it means a referral to an EMT, but again, we fall into that zone of well, the EMT can't really be bothered. You know, it's nothing glorious or anything. It's but I think they're becoming more and more savvy with this. And when I write a letter now with a child, you know, can they look at tonsils and adenoids. I do drop in the line from Patrick that it can help if they're ending up breathing their mouths, it can have an influence on their overall health development and IQ belt. They're more likely to take a little bit of an interest and with adults as well. I think if we now acknowledging that snoring Sleep apnea where we used to laugh, Homer Simpson and his granddad, you know, snoring and dribbling, that's actually a sign that they're unwell. And so I think more and more surgeons will want to help, but they're a bit busy at the moment. So, you know, they'll either talk people into having a CPAP device, which is still being the gold standard, which is basically us, I mean, over your nose, and your mouth, and you blow air in. But that really weakens the tissues, but it keeps people alive. So I'm not going to deny it does help. But if you can put something in your nose to dilate, you know, so you can breathe through your nose easier, retain your lips and tongue to be together and tongue to the roof of your mouth, or even make asleep appliance device that goes over your top and bottom teeth and bring new jaw forwards. I mean, we can all do this, we can bite on our back teeth, pull our tongue back, and we can snow, sure you got that. But if I bring the jaw forwards bite on the front teeth, I can't snow because my tongue has come forward with my lower jaw. And it's given me a better airway. Now, if we tape our mouth together, as again, Patrick has has has taught us so well, then you can start to read better and see how your sleep goes. I'm not a big fan of just telling people to go on tape, because it can induce a lot of panic. But if you look at the mechanism of how you're breathing during the day, and during the night, I believe that is a positive health benefit that doesn't cost too much, and will give you a quality in life for the rest of your life.
Jingle 31:39
We hope you're enjoying this episode of the habits and health podcast. But we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. If you're looking for the fastest and most effective way to transform your energy and wellbeing, we invite you to join Tony for an upcoming habits and health workshop. This five week group workshop will empower you the tools to disrupt unwanted habits and make positive changes easy. You'll enjoy sound asleep, better energy, less stress, and a happier mood Workshops begin on the first week of every month. And you can sign up now at Tony winyard.com. Now back to the show.
Tony Winyard 32:23
You talked about CPAP machine just then and that it may be advisable recommended maybe to use the the other device I forget what your what it was called device to go in the nose. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, the mute Yeah, to mute. So I mean, I'm thinking in particular, one person, I recently was speaking to who I was trying to help him with his breathing. And he mentioned to me I've got a CPAP machine. So I'm not able to, to do some of the things that you were talking about. So So I'm wondering for him, this mute device would be something that might be good for him to try, for example,
John Roberts 32:59
again, I can't see that it would do any harm. Okay. And there's a lot of people now, in our sports, you have to go to Spain, I had a quite a memorable course in Spain, where they will make an appliance as well as offering the patient a CPAP. Because if you bring your jaw forward and you bring your tongue forward, then the CPAP will work better. I'm not saying you should replace the CPAP. But you've certainly got more options. And now that you can get these little portable sleep device tests, it costs a couple of 100 pounds to test and then we won't charge you a lot to retest. If your oxygen stats are better, we are not allowed to diagnose sleep apnea. But we can certainly sound whether your oxygen levels your snoring, your effort is, is happening when you're asleep. So get a sleep test done, go to your doctor, go to your dentist, see if they've got a sleep test. And start from there. Start from there, do a test and then you can put yourself on the map.
Tony Winyard 34:07
And is this something that's done it by every dentist or only certain guns?
John Roberts 34:11
I think it's only only a few dentists who do this kind of stuff. Again, you know, dentistry is is has has many, many, many chapters to it. You know, I don't do crowns and veneers and brilliant smiles. It just doesn't push my button. biological tissue is important to me. And this isn't the glory dentist. It's hard work. You know, we don't get all that success. Sometimes patients get annoyed with this. Really, it hasn't worked but we've tried our best with all the clinical symptoms that were there. You know, it's much easier to grab four or six teeth and give someone a beautiful white smile. But why would I put white teeth in the wrong place? And certainly, when you have all these fancy procedures, you know, be it crowns be implants If you're not taking care of the tongue and where the tongue lives, and making sure they can get the lips together so they can make a seal, and then teach them how to breathe through your nose, you're actually working against their long term health. So that's my style of dentistry.
Tony Winyard 35:18
So under sleep we were talking about just now on asleep, so someone did want to find it, it may be someone, their dentist doesn't do that. And they wanted to find a dentist who does do that, where would be the best place for them to look,
John Roberts 35:29
I would look at the British, I think it's the British Dental Society for sleep medicine, or the British Dental Society for sleep medicine, something like that. And they will have a list of dentists who, yeah, we pay our monies. We go on a list. But at least they're the dentists who start. And I think Dr. Google can find other dentists as well. I mean, for me, I've done some learning in America, and the American Academy of physiological dentistry and medicine, I think, a MPD or a PMD, something like that those combinations is a great resource for educating people on sleep breathing. That's where I saw down Bredesen. That's where you see all these great doctors and their overriding goal is to get people sleeping and breathing better. And then you do the dentistry in that place rather than the other way around. You've got to ask, that'll ask.
Tony Winyard 36:29
You touched upon nitric oxide earlier. I mean, could you let people know why that's so important.
John Roberts 36:35
Nitric oxide is an element. I guess it's made in your sinuses, at the roof of your nose and when you breathe in through your nose, you draw the nitric oxide. It goes through the top your nose around the back of the throat, and it's very antibacterial. Interestingly, and maybe controversially, it has been used as a potential treatment for Coronavirus. And if you think we actually swab right at the back of the nose to pick up viral particles, if you're breathing through your nose, if you're flooding this area with nitric oxide, naturally produced in your sinuses, if they're the right shape because the teeth underneath are supporting them, then this is a natural antiviral therapy. And there's more than one research at the moment looking at putting nitric oxide in the nose to sterilise the nose to reduce your COVID infections. Nitric oxide is then taken into the lungs, where it is very much deemed a muscle relaxant. So have a night time. If you're taking adequate nitric oxide in the smooth muscle, which is going to line your heart, which lines your bladder your your urinary tract areas. They're relaxed. If however, you breathe through your nose, and you do sorry, you breathe through your mouth, and you not taking in the nitric oxide, these smooth muscles had to tighten up, which you could speculate is why people are waking up to three times a night and go for a week. Because everything's tightening and are the body wakes you up. So you're getting disturbed sleep cycles, you're paying a lot which you don't necessarily need to do at night. And this is why a lot of people have heart attacks when they're asleep, possibly because they're breathing through the mouth not getting the benefit of the nitric oxide. More importantly, they're breathing out the carbon dioxide. Now, the other thing is nitric oxide, it is made in all parts of the oral cavity. And there are some quite elegant studies so controversial, where if you use certain mouthwashes, I'm not going to name them here. But if you use mouthwashes, it kills the bacteria that produced the nitric oxide and your blood pressure goes up. And it's not me saying this. I'm saying the studies are there to show it. So if you're going to use mouthwashes, and I'm not, I don't think I don't think we need to use as many mouthwashes as we do personal opinion. But be careful because by using a mouthwash and having fresh breath, you put your blood pressure up by five points not very clever, because you're knocking out your nitric oxide.
Tony Winyard 39:20
So what type of mouthwash should someone look out for if they are determined to use mouthwash
John Roberts 39:25
if I like a mouthwash and I'm going to name another brand and it's more expensive, is a product called Bio Sidon because bacteria live in sticky gluey gels you know like flats made out of glue. And rather than trying to kill the bugs, it actually dissolves the glue that holds all the bacteria together so it breaks down what's called the biofilm. Biofilms are everywhere in your pipes, in your heart, in every tube in your body and every tube in your mouth. You have biofilms and if you use the biocide in the essential oils and herbes in those to break the biofilm down, then you don't have the houses the bugs can live in. And that's why you can flush the bad bugs out of your system. So by siding has a whole raft of health benefits. And if I'm reluctant to use it, because it has such whole body effects, you recommend a mouthwash they said, Oh, I've got this and I've got that is because it affects everything in your body is a good thing. But as dentists we're only supposed to treat the mouth, which is rubbish, because the mouth is connected to everything else. Yeah, sizing is a good one. And any more of the more natural mouthwashes. Not some of the chemical synthetic ones is what I'm saying.
Tony Winyard 40:42
Right? You took too early on any episode about when I think it was 1995, when you stopped doing mercury fillings, but this, there's probably many people listening to this who have gotten mercury fillings. What would be recommendation for them to an approach to take if they think they have got an excessive number of mercury fillings which could be causing them problems?
John Roberts 41:08
Well, let's start by saying every Mercury filling is leaking Mercury all the time. And one Mercury filling may be too much for one person. And there was a great study by a guy called Mark Richardson in the 90s. And he said that you should have an eye on picking these figures up six amalgams in a child, you can have nine a mango amalgams in an adult, and you can have seven one year old because of the knowledge release of mercury from the fillings. The trouble is we've had a healthcare system that, you know, you can see people with 1520 fillings and it's, you know, one tooth may have a filling top, front, back, left and right. So it's a massive surface area. And if Mercury is released as a vapour, and the bigger the surface area, the more mercury is going to be released. It's released by galvanism. So you know, as kids used to lick a battery, or touch your fillings with the tinfoil, and you can feel that electric shock, fillings are corroded, they are rusting in your mouth. And then if you clench and grind your teeth, maybe because you've got sleep problems as well, that is releasing more. But you know what amalgams have got us to this point, instead of having our teeth taken out. So they've been a, you know, an absolute workhorse. And now we're realising that perhaps they're not best for our house. So let's deal with it that we're grateful that we've had them, but we shouldn't be placing them anymore. And so what should someone do or maybe you make the decision not to have any more mercury fillings put in and don't believe that I'm says the only thing we can do is a mercury fillings because I think it was 93. I stopped using mercury fillings, and I haven't done one since and I've still been able to do dentistry. Look for a dentist who is smart registered, that's safe mercury amalgam removal technique. And you'll find those through a website iomt.org, which is an American organisation, and I've run courses on their behalf in the UK since 95. And the smart dentists are dentists who follow certain protocols, when we drill fillings out because lots of dental say, or they're most harmful when you drill them out, and they're right. But unless you're going to have the mercury fillings in your mouth forever, drip drip dripping mercury into the system, having removed carefully and safely, and then it's not going to cause a problem going forwards. So you've also got to say as we have older population may be listening, what are you going to put back, because sometimes the tooth is all filling. And so the dentist has to have the meaningful conversation that if I take this out, we could have a problem. And then add to that the fact that if you've had dentistry done over 20 3040 years on your bite, it's not as good as it can be in your airways are compromised? Is your teeth where they are, at the moment the right place to have new fillings? Or do you want to build up the teeth, improve the airway, get your lips together, tongue to the roof your mouth and breathe through your nose and then have the dentistry done in the new improved bite, which not only improves, which improves your health and the dentistry is going into a more balanced mouth. So smart dentistry is something that we should all be looking at. But don't rush out and help the nearest dentist take your fillings out. That's not particularly good idea.
Tony Winyard 44:35
But one thing I gobble Well, one thing I didn't understand from what you just said, you talked about that if they did you know once they've got the teeth sitting right, yeah. What would they do then if the amalgam is removed? How can what would be do turn ative to is there something else they would put in instead?
John Roberts 44:54
So you can do there's a variety of white fillings depends on how big the mercury filling is, but there's a variety of white fillings you can put in. There's also what are known as crowns, which I think everyone knows where you drill more of the tooth away. But there's also things called inlays, which is literally you're drilling the mercury filling out, and oh, my goodness, you got a big hole in the tooth. But you can scan it with a laser. Or you can take an impression, and have a white filling that's made to fit that whole. What I guess I'm saying is that if we also recognise that your bite isn't as good, or maybe your sleep, and breathing isn't as good because of your bite, do you correct the bite, and then the fillings? Or do you do the fillings and then the bite, and then the fillings needs to be changed again, or the fillings need to be modified. So quite often, we will clear out the metals from someone's mouth, and put in a semi permanent restoration, it'll be good 2345 years, then spend time improving the bite and the country and the grinding and the airways and stuff, and then finish the teeth off. Now that you've got everything in a more biological position, you know, someone is sleeping better, maybe they're wearing a splint, you know, maybe, you know, the jaws are more relaxed. And that's where you should do the finishing dentistry which, you know, I admit may be more expensive, but it's putting teeth where the nature wanted them to be rather than than where they've found out after years and years of filming at a time.
Tony Winyard 46:20
And he talks about improving the bite. So how would someone go about improving their bite,
John Roberts 46:25
or what we would look to do is we've always got to do things conservatively. And we also want to make sure that we can always go back a step if things don't work. So quite often, we make something to fit over the lower teeth to alter how the teeth fit together. And then we can make another one to fit over it. We can add plastic, but it is usually bringing that lower jaw downwards and forwards. So someone's door opens better a lot of the muscle pain goes and dancers have been doing this for years and years treating TMJ, you know, the jaws open neck shoulder problems go headaches go and the jaw is opening more freely. That's where the that's where the teeth should be to support the muscles in the job. So this is the TMJ thing again, then you got to say how am I going to get the teeth to fit together that was more difficult and certainly as controversial as the mercury issue is that if someone has had teeth taken out, and I go back to that book, six foot tiger and a three foot cage by a gentleman called Felix Liao, he will list all the health symptoms that he's improved by undoing the orthodontics, but that's a lot of work. And you've got to go to a dentist who understands making the jaws bigger again, you may even have to go back and put implants where teeth have been removed. But you're giving them the jaw, which is going to support the tongue lips together and breathe through your nose. That's why it's so important. So getting rid of metals is important. Getting rid of gum disease and infections in the teeth is important. But finding out where everything should be is equally as important. Sorry, I answered that.
Tony Winyard 48:12
Yeah. I mean, the only the only problem is that I've got so many questions from different things that you said. And it's that I can't ask all the questions. I can't remember all of them. But so I mean, one thing that's going through my mind at the moment is what would be what would you recommend a is a good way of someone looking after their their all health so that you know, the teeth and everything else.
John Roberts 48:37
We, in our health, we're on a slippery slope down. And we always have to do more just to stand still, as we get older, believe me, you know, I've got to walk more. Or I've got to be very, very rotund. So what we've done in the past, we don't necessarily we have to add on as we go forwards. So see a dentist who really believes you should keep your teeth a lifetime. And I love seeing people and saying, Look, I told you keep your teeth a lifetime. Because I genuinely believe if you improve the brushing the cleaning, and you teach them good habits, and that's your field, then they come back and you know, I'll have a chat with them and haven't done anything for 10 years. It's not very good business model. When they're happy. You give them the fact that they do believe they can keep their teeth a lifetime. So I see people haven't seen for 30 years, and they're now in their 70s and they've got all the teeth. Haven't knows when I'm going to retire. I've got some young dentists who are taking over from me, but changing a mindset is a big thing. Oh, my mom had bad teeth. I'll have all my teeth taken out. No, no, no. And don't go the easy way of having all your teeth and putting implants in because implants can still get infections around them. Implants are still putting metals back in your body. Your own teeth are the best thing. It's what nature gave you So I have to say, find a good hygiene therapist, see a dentist at least twice a year to make sure there's no disease creeping in and treated early. And you know, hygiene therapists, our patients are more than happy to see the hygiene is two, three, sometimes four times a year to for us to give them the help where they cannot manage it. And going forwards, I'm sure will bring in vitamin D more and more to improve dental health and dental hygiene. And I must admit, I have better members of my staff, who you could talk to who will give you the advice. And yeah, we usually we have fancy stuff, I've always spent my money on silly things. We have lasers, we have ozone, ozone water, we use the more natural mouth washes, but it's what's appropriate for that individual. And it's not a Get Out of Jail answer that it is, everyone has different needs. And you have to match the dentistry to their needs, and be honest with them. And people understand that, but teeth for a lifetime. And certainly if I get a child, I should be able to develop the jaws, get the teeth fitting together, boring the word his lips together, tongue to the roof, your mouth, breathe through your nose. And that will give them a set of teeth that should last a lifetime. It's not gonna happen in my career. But I'm excited for the dentists who are coming up if they want to deliver that kind of health orientated dental care.
Tony Winyard 51:34
You've talked a few times about the how our jaws have got all this space in our mouth, from what like is smaller now than because of various things. So it sounds like having if someone's had their wisdom teeth removed, that's a sure sign of that happening in someone's life.
John Roberts 51:54
100%. And, you know, I had them out when I was a student because someone needed to take teeth out to get their their numbers of extractions out. Wisdom teeth are a difficult one to get in. And when you see someone with wisdom teeth, and they've usually got fantastic mouths. But you'll also see people with wisdom teeth, because they've had teeth, further forwards taken out that's not ideal. And it's because if you go back to Western prices, book, nutrition and physical degeneration, a fantastic book, and he basically showed primitive tribes who are eating raw and processed foods, living off the land, and usually had well developed upper jaw. So when the families moved into the towns and cities or a processed food, then within two or three generations, they first started getting decay, and then the mouse didn't grow as much. Again, it's down to, you know, a more natural approach to childbirth and nursing the child and having the midwife massage the skulls and try and round out the skulls. Again, what we have is fantastic because we keep more people alive than we've ever done. But then we don't do the ancient wisdom of cranial work, breastfeeding, nurturing and swaddling a child, leaving them outside with snow on the outside. So they function properly instead of having them warm, centrally heated rooms and they bung up their nose and they can't breathe through the nose. So you know that they end up breathing through their mouth through if you see a child who's genuinely got a stuffy nose and they have these candlesticks going up and down when they breathe in and out. They want to breathe through their nose. They're designed to breathe through their nose. The moment we break that seal and they start breathing through their mouth. It is a slippery slope for their dentist, their dental health and their overall health for the rest of their life.
Tony Winyard 53:46
We know we're getting towards the end of the episode. Is there anything about dentistry that I haven't asked you that you really think the listeners should not? I think there's
John Roberts 53:57
a huge area around dental infections and we are now acknowledging that gum disease has a big influence on someone's overall health and we can quite confidently say that gum disease is linked to preterm low birth weight babies diabetes, whether it causes diabetes, or diabetes makes gum disease where we certainly know of cardiovascular events and stroke events in one of the biggest predictive factors is whether someone's got gum disease. So again, seeing a hygiene This can save your life by getting your gums clean and healthy and showing you what to do. The more sinister side is that we as dentists like to try and save teeth at all options. So we perform a procedure known as root canals, you know, always sounds painful, but it doesn't have to be where we take the nerve out a tooth because we keep the tooth but that tooth will always have bacteria living in them. Now not every root filled tooth was called harm and the doctor Most some of the more holistic dentist, say every root canal to should go. But I would also balance it that if you take out root filled teeth and you collapse the jaw, and there's not enough room for your tongue, and you don't breathe as well, which is worse. And so a biological dentist will balance all those three, which is materials and metals we use in the body will balance infections that we have in the body, but will balance the structure and the structure is, you know, the mantra around our lips together tongue to the roof, your mouth and breathe through your nose. So, getting your mouth is infection free as possible is a win win situation where all inflamed, you know, we live in a Wi Fi suit, we live with pollution, you know all of this, and you've probably had better guests than I talking about those things. When you're walking around with something in your mouth that is poisoning you slowly with the mercury fillings that is constantly dripping bacteria into your system. And then you're not breathing, right, which is a source of inflammation. And if you breathe through your mouth at night, you're inflaming your throat. All these are inflammatory markers that we as dentists can reduce if you're interested in the person's overall health. And this is where the the parameters between fixing teeth and fixing the whole of the body is now becoming very willing years ago, I couldn't stop talking about Mercury causing harm to your body and getting into your brain. Now, there's so much research, why shouldn't I, even the FDA, oh, six months ago, maybe a year ago now said that probably mercury fillings are not advisable for 60% of our population. That's all women of childbearing age, neurological diseases, kidney diseases, genetic predispositions, and talk with Pete about his the gene profiling to see whether someone has an AP for protein that makes you more susceptible to being injured by Mercury being released from your fillings. It's pulling the science together from so many different angles. So you get this this much more of a composite picture of the human being, rather than there's a to this is how you fill it. Yeah.
Tony Winyard 57:20
Well, we are running out of time, too. I mean, there's so many more things I'd like to ask you. But just before one of the questions, what is this? A couple of questions I always ask every guest. So one is, is there a book that has really moved you in any way?
John Roberts 57:34
The book that sticks in my head more than anything is Lord of the Rings? Okay, what that is a student when I was doing my finals, because it allowed my mind to free up and think, because we didn't have the TV series or the film series, or all the graphics animations. It was me and my own mind creating that reality. So when I get facts in about dentistry, and breathing, and cranial work, I can put them all together in a mind that thinks for itself. So Lord of the Rings is still real for me. But it's my way. And when you watch the films, yeah, it's not quite what you know. So any book I read, which allows my imagination to take me where I want to go, be that a health book, I'll read something health orientated. And I'll bring it back to my dental fields. And wow, has anyone ever thought of that? When you follow that line? So any book that encourages free thinking, is why I would say, But Lord of the Rings did it for me.
Tony Winyard 58:40
When talking to books, have you written a book?
John Roberts 58:44
Oh, you know, everyone, I there was a book I started writing called The Man Who Knew it, but didn't do it. And that's very much apt for for what you do. I have two friends this weekend, give me grief. I actually want to do an online resource, because I just want to get the information out there. I don't need anything from it. But I want to have people to have choices. I'm not saying I'm right. But give people choices. And they can decide. And whether it's in a book, whether it's on a website that will come it will it will begin the next year, they can learn about ozone, and if they want it, they'll find a dentist who does it. If they want mercury fillings, they'll have the resources to here's a smart dentist, here's where you find a smart dentist, your choice. And I won't be dictatorial, I won't be dogmatic and it's ever moving.
Tony Winyard 59:43
Well, and Utah you talked about the website. So if people do want to find out more about you, where where would they go to look
John Roberts 59:49
at the moment there's a page and it's biological dentistry. 2020 Because we were going to run this conference in Manchester last year, and we had people from all over the World. Patrick was going to speak Peter was going to speak I can't remember the John Muir was going to speak. You know, we had so many fantastic speakers and COVID sort of pull the rug from under us. So I will be running more courses and conferences, but I want to put people like yourself together with dentists. Boy, there's a combination made in heaven. I want to buy osteopaths together with dentists and breath workers. Because these are like, the Heston Blumenthal or whatever he is, you know, the the wonderful chef, you bring flavours together that aren't being done. Why would a dentist work with an osteopath? Why? I mean, because you get better dentistry. You know, if you want to change people's habits, I'm not the one to do it. You're the one to do it. But this is what I want you to do. Brush your teeth slightly differently every day. But understand the importance of it. Why am I doing it not to make me happy? Because you'll keep disease out your body and you keep your teeth a lifetime? That's a pretty good reason, isn't it?
Tony Winyard 1:01:02
So when you say brush your teeth slightly different every day? What do you mean by that?
John Roberts 1:01:08
We'll always look at how you're brushing your teeth. You know, when I when I started it was up and down and side to side. Well, that's all wrong. You know, you put the toothbrush on the gum and you caress the gum upwards. But then there's bits you can't get the toothbrush. So there's these little interproximal brushes or floss, or that what is absolutely fantastic at the moment, these water jets, which is like a little water pump that you pump between your teeth and wash your teeth clean. But it's also everyone should brush their teeth differently. So how you brush your teeth and how brush, however, is mighty is dependent on the shape of our mouth and our particular needs. And, again, I'm not being evasive, but get it revalued and get someone to say right let's get your teeth a lifetime. And this is how we're going to do it. But yeah, brush your teeth. Do we over brush our teeth? You know, I brush my teeth four or five times a day. I think that's too much. I know once a day for some people, it's fine twice a day, maybe. But all the time. Ah, it's time to question everything.
Tony Winyard 1:02:17
You talked about biological dentistry? Is there a resource or website or anything for biological dentistry?
John Roberts 1:02:23
I think it's up to an old man from Liverpool to sort of start to pull these people together. I mean, a lot of dentists are being galvanised because of some health concerns that are going on in the country overall with the virus. So there's a lot of dentists who are talking but again, the moment you start to lead a group, the group tends to take the direction of the leader. And that's difficult. I am probably one of the oldest grumpiest people and probably have enough of a reputation to galvanise people but their identity just do sleep breathing their identity, just do mercury. And so who am I to set out what's right and wrong. All I want to do is an umbrella organisation. So people can declare an interest. And you might have two or three dentists. One does this really well. One does that really well. Break the paradigm of one dentist fits all? No, it's wrong.
Tony Winyard 1:03:21
Just before we finished, John, is there, do you have a quotation you like?
John Roberts 1:03:25
Well, there's a quotation was taught by a dentist, who I then went off, but his quote was, if you quote me, date me, because a lot of what I've said is where I am, when I'm 63 years old, knows what I'll be saying when I'm 65, or what I would have said when I was 50. And so if my life is evolving, and changing, that's a sign of hopefully, a slightly mature person, you know, life changes or knowledge changes. And that's a quote that I like. And the other one is, why not? So, you know, on my tombstone, I want John Roberts. Why not?
Tony Winyard 1:04:09
This funny say that because my my name backwards, Tony is why not? And I used to have a radio show called a Saturday on why not? But useless information for John. It's been it's been an absolute pleasure. I've really enjoyed the last hour. I mean, there's so many more questions, I'd love to ask. I want to be respectful of your time. So I really appreciate you giving your time and educating the listeners and so many things they probably never heard before. So thank you.
John Roberts 1:04:38
I will try and help with resources, certainly next year when I'm actually reducing my drilling commitment. But I want to spend more time helping people because nothing to be done.
Tony Winyard 1:04:51
Well, yeah, maybe maybe if you come back onto the show again in the future, that'd be fantastic as well. Thank you, John. A couple of times during the show, John mentioned Patrick, he was referring to Patrick McKeown, the author of the oxygen advantage and also some books on Libby taiko method. And he mentioned quite a few links during the show. All of the links that he talked about are in the show notes. Next week, episode 44 is with Dr. Anna Smith. She's an acupuncture lifestyle medicine physician in Whitney in Oxfordshire. She's an experienced GP of 26 years qualifying from South sandbar follow Bartholomew's Hospital in London and she registered as a GP in 94. And worked in various speciality is including medicine, surgery, dermatology, paediatric psychiatry and offset obstetrics and gynaecology. And she trained in acupuncture at a British Medical acupuncture society in London. And we talk a lot about how the misunderstandings of acupuncture and the myths surrounding it as well and we, we dig a lot deeper into that. So that's next week's episode with Dr. Anna Smith. If you don't only want to get some real value from some of the information that John Roberts shared, please do share the episode with him and hope you have a great week.
Jingle 1:06:07
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Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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