This week, I speak to Rebecca Dennis, coach, author of ‘And Breathe’. She is a coach, a transformational breathwork teacher and workshop leader.

I recently went to one of her classes to experience it first hand and discover the power of breath-work. It was an INCREDIBLE experience and I share all in this episode while getting all the details of how it works and why it’s so powerful from Rebecca.

We discuss:

-What is breath work and why is it so powerful?
-Are many of us breathing incorrectly?
-Breath-work for anxiety and depression
-How can it help to process trauma
-Plus – I share my story of coming full circle with panic attacks. 

Find out more about Rebecca:
https://www.breathingtree.co.uk/
https://www.instagram.com/breathing.tree/

Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit at www.calmer-you.com/free and you’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts.

Please subscribe to ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app or in iTunes to get the latest episodes and please leave me a review

Thanks so much for listening!

The post Ep 46. The Transformational Power of Breath for Anxiety and Depression with Rebecca Dennis appeared first on Calmer You .

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The post Ep 25. The Power of The Subconscious Mind (+ a free hypnotherapy session) appeared first on Calmer You .

We all love our phones, but could yours be making you anxious?

Here I give tips on:

• Why our phones trigger our anxiety
• Simple ways to use your phone less
• How to stop social media from triggering your anxiety

Please subscribe to ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app or in iTunes to get the latest episodes and please leave me a review

Thanks so much for listening!

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The post Ep. 3 – Mobile Phone Anxiety appeared first on Calmer You .

Alcohol can affect us in surprising ways when it comes to our mental health. In this episode I talk about:

– Why alcohol gives us anxiety
– How we can reduce the effects of hangxiety
– My experience of giving up alcohol for a year and a half
– How to reduce your drinking if that’s what you want to do

Please subscribe to ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app or in iTunes to get the latest episodes and please leave me a review

Thanks so much for listening!

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The post Ep. 4 Alcohol and Anxiety appeared first on Calmer You .

This week I’m answering your top questions when it comes to staying calm and confident over the summer months.

I chat about:

-How to handle the pressure to be ‘beach body ready’ and how to truly be body confident this summer

-Anxiety linked to drinking alcohol (because let’s face it, summer = more rosé)

-The unbearable FOMO of being at work while everyone else has ‘the best summer ever’

-How to deal with summer social anxiety

-The pressure to have a ‘brilliant’ summer (even though you might be feeling depressed or anxious)

-Starting a new fitness class or hobby and how to make friends

-Overcoming a fear of flying

Download Your Free Confidence Affirmations Here

Please subscribe to ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app or in iTunes to get the latest episodes and please leave me a review

Thanks so much for listening!

–

The post Ep 63. Summer: how to stay calm and confident appeared first on Calmer You .

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The post Ep 30. Breakup with Stress and Connect with Confidence with Amy Rushworth appeared first on Calmer You .

Alice Liveing is a Sunday Times bestselling author and pint-sized personal trainer, podcaster and influencer with a passion for health and fitness.

I LOVED this conversation and how open and honest Alice is – it was a great reminder that we’re all in this together, we all struggle and doubt ourselves at times and there are simple ways we can rise above this.

We discuss:
-Building confidence
-Fear of failure
-How to handle criticism and ‘feedback’
-Social media overwhelm 

Find Alice on Instagram here

Listen to her podcast Give Me Strength

Download Your Free Confidence Affirmations Here

Please subscribe to ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app or in iTunes to get the latest episodes and please leave me a review

Thanks so much for listening!

The post Ep 55. Confidence, fear of failure and handling criticism with Alice Liveing appeared first on Calmer You .

Grace Victory is an award-winning creator, and trainee counsellor. She’s a TEDX speaker and has been awarded ‘Most Inspiring Role Model’ for InStyle Magazine’s Project 13.

Over the last few years Grace has presented multiple TV shows, including “Clean Eating’s Dirty Secrets” – one of the most watched documentaries on BBC3, achieving over 1.5 million views across BBC1 and BBC3 combined. 

Grace talks about problems that all young people and women face, as well as topics that are perceived taboo; therapy, sex, trauma, relationship dynamics, diet culture, self awareness and spirituality. Grace’s content has a focus of plus size fashion, healing the mind, body and spirit and the importance of personal development.

We discuss:

-High functioning anxiety

-Grace shares her story of coming from childhood abuse to finding her own path to healing and training to be a counsellor

-Why healing should be holistic 

-Why you have to feel your feelings in order to heal them. 

-Why we’ve lost our power and how to regain it 

Come over to www.calmer-you.com/confidence to join my free 5 day confidence challenge – starting on 1st July I’ll lead you through 5 days of simple yet powerful exercises to grow your confidence, calm your inner critic, create a new positive self image and connect with other like-minded people so we can all support each other and cheer each other on.

Please subscribe to ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app or in iTunes to get the latest episodes and please leave me a review
Thanks so much for listening!

Transcript

Chloe: Hello, and welcome to The Calmer You Podcast. This is your host, Chloe Brotheridge. I’m a coach and a therapist and the author of The Anxiety Solution, and a new book, Brave New Girl: Seven Steps to Confidence. So, this week I’m talking to the amazing Grace Victory, an award winning content creator, she’s also a trainee counsellor, she is a TEDX speaker and she’s been awarded the ‘Most Inspiring Role Model Award’ for InStyle Magazine’s Project 13. She’s presented multiple TV Shows including “Clean Eating’s Dirty Secrets” – one of the most watched documentary on BBC 3. And in this inspiring conversation, we talk about high functioning anxiety, something that Grace experiences.

She shares the stories of coming from her own childhood abuse to finding her own path to healing and going on to train as a counsellor, and she discusses why healing should be holistic and also, why we might have to actually feel our feelings in order to heal them. And we also talk about why we’ve lost our power and how we can start to regain it. I also want to invite you to come over to calmeryou.com/confidence on the first of July, I’m going to be leading a five day confidence challenge. I’m going to lead you through simple, yet powerful exercises, to grow your confidence, calm your inner critic, create a new positive self image and connect with other like minded people so that we can all support each other and cheer each other on as we go on this journey together. So, if you want to get involved in this free challenge, enter your email address at calmeryou.com/confidence. So, let’s get into the episode with Grace.

Grace: Yeah, so I started making YouTube videos in 2011. So, I’m like an OG Youtuber, long time ago. And I originally started because I was watching YouTube videos and couldn’t really find anyone that looked like me and spoke like me, and was relatable in that sense. There was mixed race YouTubers, but they were American, and I think that is quite a distinct difference I think between British culture and American culture. And then I didn’t find anyone that was plus size or anyone that was a bit common, basically. So, I thought instead of waiting for someone to appear, I was just going to start making my own videos because maybe other people could relate to me. That’s what I started doing and my old videos are just oh my God awful.

Chloe: And you kept them all up?

Grace: No, there’s a few. And they are, wow. But back then you could just film on a really shitty webcam,  upload it and it will get loads of views. It was so simple. So, I started doing like makeup videos, fashion videos, beauty. And then it got to this point where I was getting so many questions and comments like, “Oh, you’re so confident, you’re so inspiring, like how could you get to this place?” And I was like, I’ve always been confident, but I wasn’t as confident as I was coming across on camera. I grew up at a performing art school so being on camera was second nature to me, but I have these deep dark demons that I was suppressing and I felt really aweful because people say, “Oh, you’re such a role model.” And I was like, “You have no idea what actually goes to my brain and the unwell mechanisms that I’m using to cope.” So, I did this video called the pressure to be perfect and outed myself basically almost like, I feel the pressure, I’m not okay, here’s what’s going on.

And at the time, I think it was a massive thing to do because no one was talking about mental health or body image issues or self-harm or issues with food. I look back at very surface level but back then it was like a big, big thing and old me found that quite difficult to do. And that’s where I started seeing a rise in followers and engagement when people were like, okay, like this is so raw and vulnerable, we’re into this. And that’s when I realised that the more you talk about your problems the more other people talk about this. And it just sort of went on that snowball effect was like the more followers I got, the more followers I got, if that makes sense. And it grew and grew and grew and grow and grew. I started my blog, started Instagram and I was doing all of that alongside working in the children’s care home. So, I was working 11-24 hour shifts with emotional and behavioural problems with children. And whilst they were asleep, and I was on a night shift, I would do my YouTube stuff. So, I never slept, which I do not recommend.

Chloe: Oh my God.

Grace: And I just go on and on and on and I guess I took all the stuff I learned with like my own childhood and the kids in care and sort of bridge the gap, I guess, online with talking about beauty and fashion, but also the real life stuff that’s actually going on. I think working with children and care gave me an insight into what people were actually going through. Because fair enough, they are in care, but they’re also normal kids, and they go through all these different things, and they want to talk about sex and boobs and periods. And that’s where the sort of changing my content came, went full time in 2015. I was making no money there so I’m not sure why I did that. But I just thought it’s January 2015, I want to just try and pursue this. If it goes wrong, it goes wrong. And I think that I was sort of raised with like, having to take risks and chances because you don’t really know what’s going to happen just kind of do it.

So, I quit my job, which was like really hard because I love working with the kids. But I just knew that my purpose was bigger than like working with– I think I was working with like four to 10 kids at a time. But I just knew that that wasn’t enough for me. I want it to work with loads of people. Numbers don’t matter, but I just knew that there was something out there for me. And so yeah, I quit my job. I took out a loan to pay the first month’s rent on my flat, moved to South London. And I was like, okay, I’ve got 00 in my account, let’s see what I can get in this month. And then lucky for me, I just got loads of work and it went up and up and up and up. And then I won a few awards, got a management company to look after me and did some TV work, got a book deal and it just sort of grew and grew and grew. And then obviously now I’m in a place where my content is like definitely changing again because I think I’ve changed so much. YouTube was an outlet for me, like a creative outlet too, I think it was to escape. Whereas now what I do is to actually heal and process. So, yeah.

Chloe: Yeah. So, how has your content change? How would you describe your content now?

Grace: I don’t know. I think that growth with your career is always going to happen when you’re growing personally. And I think your 20s, every year, you’re just a different person. And I think that when you’re in therapy, and you’re in recovery that just accelerates everything. So, I would say my content is intentional. So, everything I do is with an intention, sorry. I’m purposeful. Whereas before it was sort of like, what can I do to get some more money or what can I do that people want to see? It’s more about like what I believe I’m meant to be doing now. I don’t really do a lot of beauty content anymore. I do a lot of outfits, but I don’t really work with a lot of fashion brands. A lot of my work is around poverty. I do a lot of work with the BBC, going to schools, I go and talk at youth clubs. I just work with like generic brands, which I’m really proud of. Like I was the face of a Mac campaign at the beginning of the year. So, I’m very lucky that I get to work with so many different brands and my content, I guess has a focus on like being conscious of what’s happening to your body and your brain. And everything is, I tried to be relatable, but also educational and yeah, trauma based I guess, as well.

Chloe: It’s amazing what you’ve created and I followed you on Twitter for ages, for years. And I love what you’re posting about at the moment a lot about healing and I noticed you wrote something about high functioning anxiety recently. Can you talk about that?

Grace: Yeah, so high function anxiety isn’t actually like a proper diagnosis, which I need to just put a disclaimer out there. However, it has been recognised by psychotherapists and doctors that there’s some sort of, there’s some people that have anxiety, but can function incredibly well on it. With the research that I’ve done into it on myself, and like I Google everything. People always ask, “How do you know so much?” I’m like “Google is your best friend.” I Google a lot and I read a lot. And there’s when you’ve experienced childhood trauma or a situation that you perceive to be traumatic, I think you go two ways. So, you either shut down and withdraw or you work incredibly hard not to really feel what’s going on. For me, as a child, I had a talent, and that was performing, that was singing and dancing. So, no matter what stuff was going on at home, and no matter how badly I viewed myself, I always knew I was talented. And the focus on me as a child was either on my weight or what I could achieve. So, you can see now growing up, that I’m quite successful, but I will obviously have body image issues. So, my career for me was always something that I knew I had.

So, as a kid, I focused a lot on like getting out, getting out of my family home, getting out of my hometown, getting out of whatever difficulties I was facing. And the foundation of me was my trauma, and it was the fight or flight response mode. And it was throwing everything I had into my work and being very highly organised and structured. And high functioning, anxiety is all of that, but then underneath, it’s that fear of being seen, it’s that fear of failure. It’s not really relaxing, trying to relax but then your mind is in overdrive. And I was like, I definitely have anxiety being manifested in different ways. And I don’t realise that I’m functioning at that state unless I go into that hole and actually feel it.

But I think it’s like a common thing. People just don’t connect to what it is. Like I don’t worry about going to events. I don’t wake up and I’m like shaking with anxiety. It’s more like, like get up out of bed Grace, you’ve got this to do, this to do, this to do, right, it’s time to get on with it. And that constant state of like running and believing like if you stop, the world’s going to end. That’s the kind of anxiety that I’ve experienced. It comes in waves so there’s some days where I’m absolutely fine, I’m really chill. And there’s other days where I just cry. And I’ve noticed that it’s what I have a lot of work on. And I think it’s really hard to find a balance because you say yes to a normal amount of work. But then suddenly, you agree to them and then they all come in at once, all the deadlines on the same day and you’re like freaking out. And that’s what happens to me a lot and I’ve noticed that’s when I usually go up into my anxiety or when I’m due on my period.

Chloe: Yes, well, that’s a whole other topic that people are only just starting to talk about in the last few years actually, your cycle affects everything, can really affect your mental health.

Grace: Yeah.

Chloe: But I think it’s such an interesting topic, this thing of high functioning anxiety because, you know, anxiety is not just the shy person who’s kind of too afraid to leave the house. It’s also the really successful person that’s doing loads of things, you know, might appear really competent outside, but underneath it may be that success is driven by fear or driven by not being good enough, or there’s trauma. I mean, I actually think we’re all traumatised to some extent, you know, whether it’s big traumas or little traumas. And I think there’s almost like an epidemic of this high functioning anxiety. It’s so – common

Grace: Yeah, it’s like really, I think it’s under researched and under recognised and I don’t want to be that that controversial person it’s like the Western world. But I do think the way we in the West view medicine and the way that certain doctors management to health I just think it’s really backwards. And yeah, I try and again not become controversial, but I do believe in like holistic healing. And when you’re working on healing, to like want to heal all of you not just specific parts. Yeah.

Chloe: What’s your experience of holistic healing then, what sort of things have you done so far? I’m so fascinated.

Grace: So, I’ve had– Okay, so when I first realised that I had some issues, I was about 16-17 and I was offered counselling on the NHS. And it was just a bit horrific if I’m honest.

Chloe: The counselling itself or the time in your life?

Grace: The counselling itself. I was told basically that all my issues were daddy issues, and I probably like I should work on myself and like lose weight to fix my issues. So, being told that at 17 is not appropriate. And that’s when I started going to Weight Watchers and then Slimming World and when my eating disorder just went, like through the roof. So, that was my first experience and then my second experience was CBD. And the counsellor was re-traumatising me in every session so I was just fucked, fucked. And that that caused a breakdown in my relationship with my past boyfriend, my ex because I was just an absolute mess. And I was like this kind of counselling is not working for me. It was so in my terms aggressive, and at the time I didn’t know that you need to research counsellors and find out how they work. I didn’t know any of this. So, I quit that and was just sort of trying to stabilise myself.

And then I met a woman called Emmy while shooting a documentary, and she was a psychotherapist for the show, which is about food and eating disorders. And after the show, she was like, come and see me because you may have issues with food, not really knowing my history. And then I saw her and she diagnosed me with an eating disorder and PTSD. And I started seeing her every week for a year and a half. She has the recovery clinic, which is based in central London. And it’s all about spiritual and holistic wellness and recovery. It’s all about treating the all of you and not just one part of you, and going to the core of your pain, and then sort of cooling back out. And I think it’s a bit of a life coaching with psychotherapy, psychodynamic therapy, and all these different aspects. And I think that when you’re healing, one thing isn’t going to fix you, one thing isn’t going to heal you. It’s like 10 different things. So, I had Emmy with a whole life coaching and the psychotherapy, and I learned about self care. So, I had like sister circles I was going to and then I got into crystals and essential oils and and things like that.

So, when people ask about like how I healed, I’m like it was literally I just turned my whole life around with music. So, I was going to like sound baths and like I did everything, was in nature, reading. It had changed my whole life. It wasn’t just one core thing, and that’s what holistic healing is to me. And it’s plant based medicine as well. So, I started looking into like, what can I make in a tea that’s going to help my wound today? And so I was researching different herbs and things like that.

Chloe: What can help heal the wound, I need to know that.

Grace: So raspberry root leaf is really good, magwa is really good. In terms of like baths, colangelo is really good for your nervous system, lavender oil, bergamot is good for depression. I basically went on this massive– I’m still on a massive journey to like, find what was going to work for me because what I was recommended at my doctors and I guess the Western way did not work for me and my soul was a yearning for more. And then yeah, I kind of found what does work and everyone’s different. Some people really, really like recommend taking medication, some people love CBD, some people like talking therapies and stuff, but I just think it’s about what works for you. And I was just able to yeah, find what works for me.

Chloe: I think that’s a really good point that it’s different for everyone. And I think from the people that I speak to, they maybe try one thing, doesn’t work and then they kind of give up and think, oh, no one can help me.

Grace: Yeah.

Chloe: But my journey was maybe similar to yours in that I just did loads of things. I had lots of different types of therapy, went on retreats, smothered myself in oils, and all that sorts of things. And I think sometimes we do have to make it, like I talked about making it your priority, make like taking care of yourself a priority.

Grace: Yeah. I think I did okay in my life to getting well, and I think because my therapist, Emmy said to me, she was like, “You’re like a sponge. Everything I say to you, you absorb it slowly but surely and then it just sticks to you.” And I think yeah, I was, I think it’s a privilege, though to get well. And I was really lucky to be able to dedicate my life to getting better and better journey because I’m back in therapy for other things. My therapist is a man which is just wild and you know, you just keep going. And I think that a lot of people get overwhelmed with a healing and the what I need to do, but I think that that’s the whole reason that we’re here on earth is to like, heal but also to have a lot of fun. And that’s the whole point, isn’t it? The whole point is being able to master who you are and being president over that. Meditation is also incredible, but kind of is a massive difference. Like I just– I don’t know what it– Have you watched Documentary Heal?

Chloe: Yes.

Grace: Okay. I think that’s like a really good introductory to people that don’t get it. I think I only watched it like three days ago. And so like for me, I, again, just Google everything. And I just think there’s always a reason for whatever issues you’re going through or any like, dis-ease you feel in your body. And I’ve been getting really bad headaches the last few weeks. And I was like, I’m going to Google meditation for headache and see what comes up. And there’s a whole thing, there’s a whole frequency to help with headaches. So like, just things like that. Like I’m just very in tune and open to whatever the universe has to offer me. And yeah, it’s a journey, things take time.

Chloe: Yeah, it definitely is. And I think sometimes you think oh, I have made a big breakthrough in my mental health and then there’s like another level or something else is coming up to be healed and to be worked on.

Grace: Yeah, we’re like onions.

Chloe: Yes.

Grace: [??? 21:56] one layer. So, when I first saw Emmy and was healing my eating disorder, that was the outer layer of the onion and then it went in a little bit and now with a latch that we go into the centre of the onion, and it’s so painful. But I think when you have a good therapist, they manage your crap and your shit in this session, and then you able to leave and enjoy life and then come back to it like that’s the safe way to do it. I think sometimes we try and be vulnerable and then we’re vulnerable a hundred percent of the time and then we’re drained and then we’re tired and we’re very triggered all the time. Whereas everything is about dipping your toes in and goes a bit deeper then coming back out. And that’s just the way that us as humans have to operate. Otherwise, you know, it leads to breakdowns and then no fun.

Chloe: Definitely not, definitely not.

Grace: And I do think it’s about so when you say kind of dipping into the pain is it about like feeling the pain or what sort of processes have you been through?

Chloe: Definitely feeling it. What I’ve learned is that what you think is going to be painful, is never as painful as what you think it’s going to be. When you actually do it, you’re like, oh, it wasn’t that bad. But then sometimes it’s even worse and you’re like, well, that was absolutely shit. And I think that is just being brave, actually and knowing that nothing can actually break you. And it’s that having that self belief and recognizing that everything in life is always a perception, even our memories are perception, and that trauma, create really false perceptions and false realities. And feeling safe enough to do that, like I think I’ve only started really going to the core of my pain with my therapist, and I’ve been seeing him for a year. I haven’t felt that safe for a year, but I’ve showed up every session because it’s part of my self care. And I think it’s about feeling the things you don’t want to feel. But it’s scary, it’s very scary. And when you put up these walls and you’ve locked that pain in that box for so long, you throw away the key. Finding the key is enough, that is hard enough, and then you have to put it in and then you’ve got to turn it and then you’ve got open the lid, and it just takes time.

But one day, you’ll wake up and you’ll be like, oh my God, I’ve actually done it. Like in my last therapy session, I actually open the key. And it’s not– it’s about not putting a time limit on your healing as well, which is an issue that I think I have with a lot of the stuff that they recommend to the NHS because it’s like six weeks is that that isn’t– Six weeks is not even enough to feel safe with someone, it’s not. And I think sometimes that’s the only option people have and it’s diabolical. I think that six weeks are good for interventions, and to just be able to manage the shit that’s going on. But if you really want to process, it’s years, it’s actual years. And it also sometimes takes years to find someone that you want to work with. But I think that’s the beauty of it. I think you also have to be very ready and willing. You have to have a certain amount of self worth as well, I think to want to get well. Because searching for therapists is hard and you have to have some sort of motivation to even do that. But yeah, I don’t really have the answers to be honest. I just think it’s about an individual process. People work very differently, but I do think that holistically is the option that I recommend people because it tends to be the one that heals mind, body and soul, not just one of them.

Chloe: Definitely, definitely a lot different approaches. I work as a hypnotherapist, and a lot of what I do is, is sort of taking people back to things in childhood and getting to the root of where things come from. And people are often scared about that process, but once you do it and you kind of release something around something has happened or change your perspective, it can change so many things in your life. And it is like, you know, yeah, turning a key and just kind of looking inside and getting rid of some of the rubbish. But I think what you say is that it does take courage to go there. And I know a lot of people are scared about what they’re going to find and they just don’t want even think about or talk about it and that can be a lot of resistance to getting help for that, a lot of defensiveness around even looking at that. So, yeah.

Grace: It’s your covered memories, isn’t it? It’s the fear of what am I going to remember? And which I didn’t even think about until this year, actually, when I started remembering things, and I was like what the fuck is that and go to therapy like I’m having dreams, I’m remembering all these things that happened to me or the things I witnessed, I’m not okay with this. Because it makes you like full of fear, anxiety, you go back to being a child. And I think that’s why it’s really important to have a therapist that can manage you, so that you can come back to yourself and ground. I think grounding techniques are really important. Even if you’re not in therapy, being able to ground yourself and rebalance in the morning and at night, is really going to help. Because anxiety and being full of fear is like, I think shame as well as is one of the worst things in the world.

Chloe: Yes, yeah. Yeah. How would you describe shame?

Grace: Well, from a trained point of view, shame is obviously the emotion that allows people to recognise the repercussions and responsibilities that can happen when you make decisions. However, shame internalised with fear is like you’re going to die. I can’t explain it. It’s like you’re drowning, you don’t want to be seen, you’re embarrassed, you can’t step into your full power, you’re in fight or flight mode. And it could, I feel like shame can destroy you. It’s really interesting because shame is the root of my trauma. That’s literally it. It’s not depression, it’s not food, it’s nothing, it’s literally shame, just one word. And it’s– like sometimes going to therapy, I’m like I don’t want to be here today. I’m pissed off. And he’s like, “Why?” And I say because all these things have happened to me and all this shame is like, it could happen once and it takes you 10 years to heal and I said I’m pissed off about that. And yeah, it’s really hard. I think with trauma it can happen to 25 times, it can happen one time. And sometimes there’s no difference in how much of the cause and effect that you’re living with, it doesn’t really matter. It’s the same same thing with sexual assault, I think. So, my training at the moment is on sexual abuse and working with child sexual abuse survivors. And it can happen once or it can happen sustained, over a period of time. But some of the research that comes out of looking at that and the damage it can cause or whatever, is there’s no difference. You can have one sexual assault and you could have 50 of them and it affects your brain the exact same way. Yeah.

Chloe: Wow. And I read something recently, that is something like 13% of women have experienced a sexual assault as children.

Grace: Well, yeah. So that’s wild. And I know, I think every woman I know has had sexual trauma. Every single one. And yeah, shit is really– the statistics are wild. But also they’re quite inconclusive because not many people report and not many people remember, either. That’s the thing, you go to therapy for issues and you could have like all the textbook, symptoms of sexual trauma, but absolutely have no idea that it happened to you. So yeah.

Chloe: Yeah. So, if people have experienced that or if they’re worried about that, definitely speak to someone. And yeah, trying to take that holistic approach it sounds like is–

Grace: Yeah, and things take time, like I always– I think people see where I’ve come from, and where I am now and I may forget the amount of time that that’s taken me. And I think that try not to worry about how you’re going to do and what you need to do, but just take one step. So, just telling one person is a start of healing. So, even just calling like Victims Support if it’s sexual trauma, or the Samaritans or Mind, or going to see your GP or inquiring with a therapist, like baby steps, and then one day you’ll realise that oh, I actually heal every day, we’ve got 10 different things and it just build up and build up and you incorporate different things and you just try things and see what works. Like for some people, it’s like Tarot and crystal healing. For other people, it’s hypnotherapy and it’s exercise, you know. Everyone is different and self care is self defined as you know, I can sit here and say holistic is the best but for some people it’s not. You know, it’s all about what works for your soul and that’s okay, wherever it is.

Chloe: Yeah, yeah amazing. You’re training to be a counsellor–

Grace: I am.

Chloe: So, what made you make that decision and how is that going?

Grace: I think originally working at the Children’s Care Home, I knew my strengths. So, I had the most disclosures from the children and I was the youngest staff member. So, I was like, okay, so the children seem to want to talk to me more than anyone else. Why is that? And I think it was because of being relatable, like, they saw me as like an older big sister, had tattoos, spoke like them, like dress a bit like them, you know, quite straight or whatever. And also that I think I’m very approachable and I have a way of talking to people that’s educational, but also they understand that the words that I use, they understand. So, I knew back then when I was 22-23 that I had– I was good, I was good at helping people and we had therapy at the children home. And I was like I really like therapist and what they do, I’m really interested in that. But just never saw an option for me. I was like, in my 20s, I thought education is over. I didn’t really enjoy school anyway, didn’t go to university. So, just sort of thought well, it is what it is, I like doing it, but whatever. I’m doing YouTube and I’m doing this advice stuff on there, that’s kind of enough.

And then I guess I started my own therapy journey, having therapy and healing working on myself and realised that I was a sponge and I’d taken all of this in and I was holding in all of this information, trying to get it out to the masses, but I think when it to the masses, sometimes it can get watered down and it doesn’t have the impact it has when you’re with someone one to one, and it’s a safe space for just you want them to kind of talk and communicate. So, I was getting questions a lot on Instagram and YouTube and tweets like, “How can I do this? How can I do this? You’ve done this, what does this mean? I need to see a counsellor, but I’m not sure how.” And it’s every day I get these messages and I was like, I think I need to get some sort of training. And it was like a natural progression for me. And you know, comments about periods and like should my vagina smell this way or this happened to me as a kid. And I was just like, although I don’t feel out of my depth at all with these kind of questions, I do thought I need to backed myself up and have some sort of protection. And also I love learning. I love learning and I love writing essays, I’m just weird. It’s writing a blog post and I love being able to understand and process what happens to humans and I find it really interesting. So, I was like, fuck it, I’m going to train to be a counsellor. I had no idea how to do that, where to go.

So obviously, Google. And so I found a open college course on counselling child sexual abuse survivors and though that sounds up my street because I’ve been healing sexual trauma. And again, I find it very interesting and I think that there needs to be more women of colour therapists and black therapists. So, I was like I’m going to do it. Paid for it, did it in literally six months, less than that, probably about three months. I loved it, I found it very, very easy. I new a lot of the stuff that I was doing, so I thought, okay, I’m actually good at this. That’s been sent off, now I’m waiting for my results to come back, and then I’m going to do level three counselling course and then I can take clients after that. I kind of want to, in I don’t know, 20 years, probably before then, I want to have my own recovery program. So, it will be trauma based, person centred, it will also be humanistic, which is very spiritual aspect of treatment. And I kind of want to make my own recovery program for people, also be able to offer free sessions, discounted sessions and working with women and children on healing. And I want to get a degree eventually. That’s basically it.

Chloe: That’s amazing.

Grace: Yeah, it’s been honestly, it’s been very easy and just great. I thought like it’s just what I meant to do. I think it’s nice because I’m an example that you can sort of, like, do things in different order. Like I knew from 12 I was not going to go to Uni so I could be asked. But now I’m like I want to go to university, and you know, that’s just the way it is sometimes. I’m very lucky that I can do all of my YouTube and blogging and all that kind of stuff, and that’s going to pay for my education. So, I’m honestly so happy. I think I also want to do like a few life coaching courses and different things. I’ve done an aromatherapy course and I’m going to do essential oils and some other random stuff, astrology maybe. I just think there’s something in the market that can bridge the gap between spirit and science. And I think people are spiritually hungry, if I’m honest, and that is where a lot of the issues are. And I think basically a therapeutic program that is going to feed mind, body and soul.

Chloe: Sounds amazing.

Grace: Thank you.

Chloe: Sounds amazing. I’m very excited for this. You’ve mentioned about, you know, wanting to help women and girls to step into their power, why do you think we’re not in our power, firstly?

Grace: We’ve never been taught how to be. Self love and self care and how to be human is never taught at home or in schools. And we expect children at 16 to leave school be like cool, now you’re done, now you have to love yourself. And it’s like, they have no foundation to do that, and it is because of trauma, it is because of lack of education, lack of funding. And also our generation– the generation above us was not empowered that much, didn’t have the access to heal. So now, obviously, my generation and your generation, we are healing for like our moms and our grand moms and ancestors. And that is what stepping into your power is all about. I’m recognizing that you can be multifaceted. I think that we put labels on us a lot of the time and, you know, this is who I am, this is what I want to do and actually, you couldn’t be that person. But you can also be that person over there as well. And that’s what it’s about for me and going on a journey and having the toolbox to do that, have a toolbox for your mental health and to grow and become the person that you’re meant to be before society told you you you are.

Chloe: I think you mentioned this term generational trauma, which is as you say, it’s sort of healing things from your mom, your grandma, things come down the generations don’t they?

Grace: Yeah.

Chloe: And if you’re going through this process of trying to heal yourself, it almost can feel as if like I feel like I’m healing my mom stuff, my granny, my great granny, I feel that a lot and it can feel like quite a lot, actually. It’s a lot to carry.

Grace: A lot of people don’t talk about the physical effects of healing, and I never knew they were any until I was feeling them. So, when I first started about a year into treatment, in 2016, I, my body was just fucked. And I was purging so I was like aches, it was like I was going through growing pains; aches and pains, tiredness, breaking out for no apparent reason, my toenail fell off, like just random stuff. And I was never physically unwell ever. Although I had a lot of thrush and vagina issues because of obviously trauma. And I was like this is definitely the effects of healing. Your body has to align to your new brain and your new soul and your root chakra is the base of your spine, and that is I guess, that you’re grounding to life. But it’s also where your trauma is held. So, for black people, that’s what generations of like slavery and things like that. So, often when you’re healing, you will have a lot of lower back pain, and yeah, your trauma is held in lower back. So, I tell people I try and get massages on your lower back because you’re going to feel that. And yeah, the physical effects are just incredible.

Chloe: Because we hold so much of our emotions and our body like anyone with IBS will know that, you know, the stress can feel like a really physical thing and–

Grace: Thrush

Chloe: Yeah. So, many things can be linked to feelings.

Grace: Yeah, is related to something else.

Chloe: Someone described it to me recently as being like your emotions are like energy in your body. If we don’t feel it, but just stays stuck and that could make, you know, cause those aches and pains.

Grace: Headaches.

Chloe: Yeah.

Grace: There’s no way to release it. So, if you didn’t get things out of your body, they stay there. So, sometimes getting things out is visualisation, meditation. Other ways, it’s like exercise, swimming, dancing, and some days have an urge just to shake like Paul and Beyonce and just shake and just get it out. And like yeah, breath work as well, we don’t breathe. So, women and men, but women are obviously told to suck in your stomach all the time. When you suck in, you can’t breathe properly. Because when you breathe properly, your belly expands a lot, and you look pregnant. So, we’re conditioned not to breathe properly. And it isn’t till you meditate that you realise that you never actually get breath in or out.

Chloe: Wow. That’s so interesting, isn’t it? Yeah, I did a visualisation recently that was, I was trying to get rid of PMS. And I imagined like all this like black stuff in my womb like going back into the earth, and that month, my PMS was loads better and now I started doing this practice of like, visualising that happening and just imagining the earth is just taking it, sorting it out.

Grace: So, your second heart is your manifestation centre. So, if you have issues with PMS and anger and your period, it’s probably coming from somewhere else, and your womb like demands to be heard, it’s our wisdom. When you bleed you’re allowing your wisdom to go into the world, hence when you have menopause, spiritually that’s the most incredible women because they’re holding all their wisdom now.

Chloe: Wow. I am loving this. I’m so fascinated. I’m reading, I read wild power, have you read that?

Grace: No.

Chloe: I’m reading Period by Maisie Hill, which is all about living in accordance with your cycle, the spring, the summer, the autumn, and the winter. Have you heard of that, we’re describing it?

Grace: Yeah, have you read– I think you should probably Red Moon.

Chloe: Okay, I’ll add that to my list.

Grace: So, Red Moon is like the– I would say like the number one book about your cycle. Yeah.

Chloe: Okay, I’ll get it. I’ll get that right away.

Grace: It’s the best book ever, change your life.

Chloe: Yeah. Because it’s like, again, one of those things that we just don’t– we’ve never been taught about, never been taught.

Grace: Never been taught. I think a lot of people, they want evidence for everything. And they want it to be written down in a book somewhere or they have to always see things. Whereas I think you feel it. So, what you feel is right and your intuition because some of the most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen with the naked– with your two eyes. And that’s the problem, with like schools are– and I think it’s just like our parents as well. There’s a lot of conspiracies and they don’t really believe in certain things because it’s not there, it’s not concrete, it’s not proven. Whereas, I just think that there’s so much magic in the world if you let things be magical and view them as magic. Women are cyclic beings, like that’s absolute fact, we have cycles so of course we’re going to be powerful and like this divine feminine energy and be connected to the moon. Like why not? It doesn’t make sense not to. Where some people are the opposite and think, doesn’t make any sense. I’m like, it makes perfect sense. Yeah, but it’s you’re teaching women and children that we’re magical.

Chloe: Yeah. Yeah, I love that. I love that. And often with kind of health things or psychological things, that kind of the mainstream isn’t offering solutions. So, you do offer and where one does often go looking for other solutions and go down a more spiritual path or a holistic path or something that actually, you can find solutions there quite often. Where maybe having CBD and taking antidepressants isn’t going to be the solution for you.

Grace: Yeah, I think it’s about people want quick fixes. If you look at a healing or you look at weight loss, or you look at fixing your skin or whatever, people want the thing that is going to make them better in a week or a month. Whereas the more holistic approaches, usually months, if not years, and that’s the issue. People want to be better now. Whereas– so, I had like really bad womb problems and I was bleeding for like, a year straight. And my doctor was like, this is definitely something. We’re not sure what and I was like, it’s my trauma. It started when I started mentioning my sexual trauma. It’s the pain leaving my body through my womb, it’s blood, that’s that. He’s like, “I’m not sure that’s a thing.” I was like, it’s – okay. And I was like I’m not taking any medication. They were like, go on the coil. I said, the issue is, I came off the pill, I started bleeding nonstop, it’s obviously these hormones, these things in my body that don’t want to be there. So, I’m not going on the coil. I’m going to do meditation, I’m going to work with crystals and oils and on different baths and I’m going to heal my own womb and he was like, “No, you’re not.” What happens? I heal my own womb. And it took me two years to do it, but I was persistent and I just knew. Our bodies know what they’re doing, and we’ve been taught not to believe them and to believe that outside people and noise over our own intuition. I just knew my body will figure things out. My body can have a baby, my body can do amazing things, my body can bleed, my body cannot bleed. It’s a self cleaning vagina. Like my body’s incredible. I trust that it will figure out and it did.

Chloe: And I think when we are in a kind of a calmer state, we enable our natural capacity to heal, and it does means taking care of ourselves more so that we can be a bit calmer and that natural ability to heal comes through.

Grace: Yeah, it’s stress. Stress, I think is the number one killer. Stress is the one thing that everyone struggles with, people die from and no one talks about it. And I noticed in myself, I cry more, I’m angry more, my food is awful, my self care is rubbish when I’m stressed, it’s just everything in life is shit when I’m stressed. And it’s about coming back home to yourself and just like balancing and just taking even if it’s half an hour every night to like come home. And it’s mad because people are like I haven’t got time and it’s like half an hour, half an hour, that’s like less than 2% of your day or 1% of your daily hours. Like just take that time just to sit and be and breathe, and you just feel so much better. But yes, it’s giving yourself permission to do that, isn’t it?

Chloe: And I often say it’s not really about not having time, it’s about not making it a priority. Because if you, you know, we find the time for the things that are important to us or if–

Grace: Like binge watching TV.

Chloe: Yeah, watching Love Island for – a day.

Grace: So true.

Chloe: Okay, amazing. What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given?

Grace: Oh, my God. I get given a lot of good advice, I’m not going to lie to you. But the first that came to my head was, this is very on topic what we’re talking about. I went to a yoga class in February 2018 and had BV and thrush, okay. So, everyone knows what BV is. It’s got a fish smell, I was not in a good place. And I knew that it was trauma, I knew that my body just was not happy. And I said to the yoga teacher, I was like, “I’m really suffering with vagina problems. Do you have any advice?” And she went “Just breathe.” And I was like, what does that even mean? Because at the time– was it 2018-17? I can’t remember. But at the time I was like “What the fuck? What kind of advice is that?” So, I went home and I was like okay, I’m just going to breathe. So, then I Googled vagina meditations and then I started doing meditations and imagining a white bright light in my vagina and stuff and releasing the pain. And I would say within a month I had, I always get thrush every month, and then since then I’ve not had thrush. I think I’ve had the thrush once in two and a half years.

Chloe: Amazing.

Grace: And I was like, oh my God, breathing, just breathe. I was [??? 50:09] shit advice, but now I’m like that’s the best advice I ever got.

Chloe: That’s brilliant. Wow. I mean, going back to the visualisation, thing, so I practised a thing called Qi Gong, which is basically like, Tai Chi, but it’s like the more ancient version. It’s about 5,000 years old whereas Tai Chi, I think, is only about 1,000 years old. And you basically just make some hand movements with your arms. I can’t obviously show people listening, but you sort of make some very gentle hand movements, and you’re moving energy into your body. And it’s really helped my immune system like I don’t get sick when I do it and loads of things just feel better. And it’s like a visualisation essentially. So, it is powerful, this stuff.

Grace: [??? 50:47] unwell. I get headaches quite a lot and I think that’s my third eye opening, and I put an ice cream, my third eye and that helps. But I do think that it’s down to what you believe. So like, I just believe that I’m not going to get sick and I’m going to live a very long life. I’m never unwell. There’s a book that I recommend called Heal Your Body by Louise Hay. Anyone wants to find out the soul and spiritual aspects of their physical symptoms, it has everything in there.

Chloe: So, definitely check out that book. Is it how to Heal Your Body, Louise Hay?

Grace: Heal Your Body by Louise Hay. Yeah.

Chloe: Brilliant. Thank you. I love a good book recommendation. So, that and Red Moon as well.

Grace: Yeah.

Chloe: I think I’ll have a look. What’s next for you, what are you working on at the moment?

Grace: A new columnist, a mental health columnist for a magazine.

Chloe: Ah, that’s very high.

Grace: So, that’s going to be announced soon with a very exciting article. So, that’s what’s next to me. I’m an ambassador for a new brand that hasn’t been announced yet. So, that’s also next. Training to be counsellor is next, and also, I want to have a baby. That is like what I want to do next, next few I want to start a family. I just think becoming a mom for me is like it. Like, I’ve always had a career. So, although I’m very happy and proud of what I’ve achieved. I think for me like having a family as like the thing. So, definitely want to, yeah, start a family. And to be honest, I’ve made no solid plans. I’m just writing it down what I want to do on my vision board, thinking about things that I would like to do, travel, go to Bali, etc, etc. and live in New York for like three months or move to LA for a month or whatever. And then if it’s meant for me, the universe will give it to me. So that’s it.

Chloe: Beautiful.

Grace: Yeah. What’s next is whatever’s next.

Chloe: Yeah, great attitude. And where can people find out more about you?

Grace: So, I’m pretty much Grace F. Victory on everything. So Instagram, YouTube and Twitter and my website is GracieFrancesca.com. And on there you can find outfits, along with think pieces and mental health and healing content and that’s it. Oh, and I’m [??? 53:14] podcast on Spotify.

Chloe: Brilliant. Thank you so much for speaking to me. I’ve loved this conversation.

Grace: Thanks for having me.

Chloe: Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I really hope you’ve enjoyed it. Come and let me know over on Instagram @ChloeBrotheridge what you thought and what you’re taking away from this episode. And please do subscribe in the podcast app or on iTunes and make sure you leave a rating and please do leave me a review if you’ve enjoyed this episode. Don’t forget you can sign up to join my free five day confidence challenge. I’m also going to be including within that a powerful workshop, and a group hypnotherapy session. So, you can find all the details of that at calmeryou.com/confidence. So, thank you so much for listening. I’m sending you loads of love and hoping you have a brilliant week.

The post Ep 59. Trauma, healing and high functioning anxiety with Grace Victory appeared first on Calmer You .

On this week’s podcast, I speak with Jess Lively. She helps people experience more joy, fulfillment, and presence through flow and the power of their subconscious.

We chat about:

• The story of her changing consciousness 
• Why allowing things to be easy is an option
• How to listen to the inner voice, the intuition 
• What is manifesting 

My confidence challenge is coming up at the end of Feb – 5 days to become more confident, connect with others of the same path and have fun – it’s one of my favourite events I offer and totally free, join at www.calmeryou.com/confidence

The post Ep 83. Listening to your intuition with Jess Lively appeared first on Calmer You .

Natalia Bojanic is a qualified meditation teacher with wide-ranging training, from time in a monastery in Nepal to currently being trained by Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, a programme developed at Google and based on Neuroscience, Emotional Intelligence and Mindfulness. She is also a certified yoga teacher.

We discuss:

-What is mindfulness?
-Natalia shares some key insights from the ‘Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute’, a programme developed at Google and based on Neuroscience
-We discuss loneliness and how Natalia is overcoming it

Get 20% off at Sweaty Betty when you head to www.sweatybetty.com/podcast and enter the code ‘calmeryou‘

Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit at www.calmer-you.com/free and you’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts.

Please subscribe to ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app or in iTunes to get the latest episodes and please leave me a review

Thanks so much for listening!

The post Ep 52. Meditation + Mindfulness with Natalia Bojanic appeared first on Calmer You .

This is a solo episode where I’m sharing about how to grow your confidence and courage. I’m also inviting you to join me in a challenge and I’d love to hear how you get on!

Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit at www.calmer-you.com/free and you’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts.

Please subscribe to ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app or in iTunes to get the latest episodes and please leave me a review

Thanks so much for listening!

Transcript:

Hello and welcome to The Calmer You podcast. This is your host Chloe Brotheridge I am a coach and a hypnotherapist and I’m the author of The Anxiety Solution and Brave New Girl which is out now. Thank you so much for listening today this is a solo episode on a Brave New Girl edition of the podcast. So, I’m going to be talking about confidence which is a topic of my new book Brave New Girl and I’m going to talk about how confidence isn’t necessarily all it seems.

I’m going to be sharing some really simple ways to grow your confidence and I’m also going to be inviting you to join me in a challenge. I’ve already had loads of people joining and it’s been so, so interesting to hear from you all so I’m really excited to share this with more people. As always I’m going to invite you to come over to calmeryou.com/free and grab your free anxiety busting tool kit if you haven’t already. I’ve got amazing resources in there from worksheets to hypnotherapy Mp3’s to affirmations, to access to our online community to get support from other people who are experiencing the same things as you.

So, we look at people like Adele and we assume that because she’s so amazing at what she does that she must be super confident but the truth is that Adele has been known to get so nervous before her performances that she actually throws up. We look at people like Mel Robbins. You might know Mel Robbins, her book that is most famous is called the 5 Second Rule and she did a TED talk in 2011 and during her TED talk she comes across as totally together, calm, confident and collected and yet she talks about how the reality was that during that TED talk she was having a panic attack the whole time.

Even people like Michelle Obama and Meryl Streep have spoken about imposter syndrome and how they doubt themselves and how they sometimes they don’t feel good enough and so it’s so easy to look at other people who appear to have it all together, who appear to have everything figured out and we assume that they do have it together and they’ve got it all figured out and that somehow they were just born confident and that it’s actually just easy for them, it comes naturally for them and we could never do that we’re not good enough for that.

We struggle, we doubt ourselves, we don’t feel confident, we get scared and so we can never do you know the things that we really want to do. It means we don’t put ourselves out there, speak up or share our art and so this is just one of the ways that we really hold ourselves back. When we peel below the surface of people that appear really confident we learn actually what looks like confidence is often courage.

Reframing Confidence

Part of what I’m inviting you to do is to really just question this idea that you need to be confident before you do the things you want to do. Because lots of people are feeling afraid, doubting themselves, questioning their abilities and they’re still putting themselves out there and you wouldn’t necessarily know that they were not confident unless you asked them or they came out about that.

So what if we just gave ourselves permission to be afraid but to take action anyway. What if doubting yourself was completely normal and not a sign that you’re not good enough and not a sign that you should not put yourself forward for things… but actually just a normal side effect of being a human being? What if fear was actually an invitation for you to walk towards that? What if imposter syndrome was not a sign that you are not good enough or a fraud but actually just a sign that you are doing something that is outside of your comfort zone, your doing something new, you’re expanding your horizons, your expanding what’s possible for you and your learning and growing and stretching.

Give yourself permission

What more we could give ourselves permission to do. And if we could say no more if we had the confidence to say no, if we have the confidence to ask for what we wanted and to do all the things that we dream of doing – what would we be capable of and how much are we missing out on by holding ourselves back. Just think about this how much time, how much energy, how much money are we missing out on because we don’t feel that we’re able not to do and say what we really want and we’re held back by fears.

Now, someone told me quite recently at a women’s event where we were all talking about shame and it’s one of these situations like a women’s circle where we’re all in a circle and you had to take it in turns to speak and to share something. Obviously shame is a topic where it’s not that easy to talk about it’s actually quite scary and it feels very vulnerable and the teacher said ‘If your heart is racing that means it’s your turn to speak’. This really stayed with me because when we have anxiety or we experience a lot of fear we often take our racing heart as a sign to run away, to stay quiet, to avoid and of course that’s completely natural because the fear makes us want to avoid things – biologically it’s helping us to run away or fight or the unpleasantness of experiencing that anxiety or fear means that we intrinsically want to avoid it but what if that racing heart was actually your invitation, your cue to speak, to walk towards that thing that you’re afraid of?

Walk towards, or run away

I’ve often found in moments where I’m experiencing fear about whether to take action on something or not that there is a real moment where a choice emerges where I can either walk towards something or I can walk away and it might be for you a moment in a talk where you get the opportunity to ask a question and there’s that moment where you could put your hand up and ask the question or you could just stay quiet. It might be that moment where you spot someone in a room that you really want to introduce yourself to and you have that moment your heart starts to race and you think I could go over and introduce myself or I could just stay here and stay safe and that moment when your heart starts to race? That’s your cue to go and take that action. That’s the que to go and do the thing that means you are walking towards your fear and that’s really one thing that I’ve learned through managing my anxiety and helping lots of other people and it’s the fear shrinks when we walk towards it and actually fear tends to grow when we run away from it.

When we avoid situations for me I avoided parties, I never would go to a networking event. I was really intimidated by anyone new and the more I avoided that the more scary those sorts of situations became and it was only by challenging myself and walking towards the fear that it started to reduce and so what happens when we walk towards our fear is that our nervous system learns that we can survive that situation so little by little as I started to really challenge myself, push myself out of my comfort zone, forced myself to speak to people, force myself to speak in public, introduce myself to people all those sorts of things and my nervous system learned ‘oh I don’t actually die’ in this situation I do actually survive and better yet quite often good things come of that and you start to retrain your nervous system, your brain, your body learns it’s actually safe for you to do the things that in the past scared you and frightened you.

Your heart is racing for a reason

I had this experience recently I was in America on holiday having a road trip with a good friend of mine and we were driving I think we’re in Virginia one of these states around that part of the country on the East Coast and we were in a Mexican restaurant and we just had dinner and we had just settled up the bill were about to leave and suddenly you know one of the waiters comes on to a microphone and announces that Friday night is karaoke night. As soon as he said that my heart started to pound in my chest and I literally started shaking my hands are shaking as I was holding the bill that we just paid and because I’ve just written this book Brave New Girl, I had pretty much no option but to take that as a sign! This is a sign that this is my turn to go and do karaoke.

But just giving you a bit of a background I might have shared this on Instagram before but for years I’ve had a massive block about singing. I used to love singing as a child, as a teenager I would sing all the time and then I got slightly traumatized by my first boyfriend when I was I think about fifteen and I was singing and playing guitar in front of him and he said something to me like ‘you think you’re so good at singing guitar but you’re really not’ and this really stayed in me and I basically didn’t sing in front of anyone for about fifteen years after that.

I’m a sensitive person and this hit me hard and that sense of criticism I just didn’t forget. It was only a couple of years ago that I finally got over this fear of singing in front of people and to do something like singing karaoke in front of a load of strangers felt very scary! I don’t drink alcohol so I couldn’t even have some Dutch courage. I found myself literally shaking as I held the microphone belting out a bit of Adele in front of out thirty people in this random Mexican restaurant in Virginia in the United States.

I had this big, big sense of achievement afterwards because I knew that I’d walked towards my fear I hadn’t run away and I’d taken that racing heart as a sign that actually this is a chance for me to overcome my fear here. This is a chance for me to grow my confidence and it’s really interesting how when we walk towards our fear when we do something that is outside of our comfort zone, that is a challenge it makes us feel good. We feel good about ourselves, we feel resilient, we feel capable, we learn to trust ourselves and this is why I’m inviting you to join me in the Brave New Girl challenge and already lots of people have been posting on Instagram and tagging the hash tag brave new girl and also sending me just direct messages if they don’t feel like sharing it publicly to share about the small ways that they’ve been challenging themselves.

How will you challenge yourself?

So, some examples I’ve had was someone who went to the cinema on their own, another person asked a friend on Instagram someone that they were kind of friends with on Instagram but they hadn’t met in real life that they wanted to meet up in real life and they had a really nice day together.

Someone else took some steps to change their career, some scary steps in that direction and it’s just amazing and it’s really interesting how we just get ourselves into this mindset of ‘right I’m a brave new girl’ or a ‘brave new boy’ or however you identify ‘brave new you’ and having this mindset of ‘right, I’m going to challenge myself’. I’m in this mode of challenging myself just means that you’re giving the extra push to do those things that you might not normally do and honestly this is how we grow our confidence, this is how we become more resilient, more capable, this is how we expand our horizons and expand what is possible for us and start to discover what our potential is.

So, if I can go from completely paralyzed and able to sing in front of anyone to belting out Adele in front of a load of strangers then I think you can do this as well and so I really hope you’ll join me. You can tag me on Instagram @ChloeBrotheridge hash tag brave new girl or just send me a D.M. and I would love to celebrate your challenges and the action that you’re taking to grow your confidence. So, thank you so much for listening to this today I really hope you got something from this. Let me know on Instagram on @ChloeBrotheridge and if you enjoy this episode it means such a lot if you can take the time to leave a review on Itunes or in the podcast app. It really helps other people to find it and do share it with a friend if you think they would like it as well and you can check out my book Brave New Girl: 7 Steps of confidence in all the bookshops on Amazon and in Audible, read by me. I hope you have a brilliant week and I’m sending you loads of love.

The post Ep 57. How to be a Brave New You + grow your confidence appeared first on Calmer You .

Sarah Rose Bright is a leading certified Sex, Pleasure & Intimacy Coach empowering women and couples to discover and express their true sexual nature. A pioneer as the UK’s first certified sex coach, founder of Ignite the Erotic and V-Life she has worked with hundreds of people to ignite their sexuality and live their full potential. sarahrosebright.com

I’ve been wanting to do a sex episode and when I met Sarah I knew she was the perfect person to speak to. Having experienced her own body shame and issues around sex – her journey is inspiring and now she helps others to feel better in their bodies, experience better sex and more intimacy.

We discuss:

-Body shame and how it holds us back in the bedroom (plus simple ways to overcome it)
-The power of ‘shaking’ to change your life 
-How to feel more pleasure in the bedroom
-How to have better sex when you’re anxious or low in confidence 

This episode is sponsored by Pukka Peace Tea – learn more here https://www.pukkaherbs.com/shop/organic-teas/peace/

Download Your Free Confidence Affirmations Here

Please subscribe to ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app or in iTunes to get the latest episodes and please leave me a review
Thanks so much for listening!

The post Ep 71. Sex, anxiety and Confidence with Sarah Rose Bright appeared first on Calmer You .

I’m doing a solo episode this week – talking about my top tips for managing anxiety and feeling good this autumn.

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The post Ep 34. Autumn Anxiety Tips appeared first on Calmer You .

Nicky Clinch is a transformational life coach, Macrobiotic Nutritionist, chef and teacher.

We talk about:

• Getting out of your head and into your body
• How to realise your worth
• Nicky shares her 3 Pillars for well-being

Find out more about Nicky and her online coaching programme ‘Homecoming’ https://nickyclinch.com

Follow Nicky on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/nicky_clinch

http://www.calmer-you.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Ep-24.-Self-Worth-and-Wellbeing-with-Nicky-Clinch.mp3

The post Ep 24. Self Worth and Well-being with Nicky Clinch appeared first on Calmer You .

Shame is a root cause of so much of our mental distress. In this episode I share:

– A LOT of my own story around shame

– Why we experience shame and what it is

– How you can start to overcome it

Please subscribe to ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app or in iTunes to get the latest episodes and please leave me a review

Don’t forget to grab your FREE guided relaxation MP3 at www.calmer-you.com/free

Thanks so much for listening!

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The post Ep 12. Is Shame the Root of Anxiety and Depression? appeared first on Calmer You .

Follow Melissa on Instagram

Melissa’s website

Download the guide to sustainable dining Melissa mentions here

http://www.calmer-you.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Ep-36.-Eat-Happy-with-Melissa-Hemsley.mp3

The post Ep 36. Eat Happy with Melissa Hemsley appeared first on Calmer You .

                                                                                                                                          This is a solo episode where I’m answering your top questions that you sent in on Instagram.

I discuss:

• How to set healthy boundaries
• How to boost your self-worth
• How to switch off and sleep well
• Finding your purpose

This episode is sponsored by Kloris CBD. Get 10% off Kloris CBD oil when you enter the code ‘calmeryou’ at www.kloriscbd.com

CBD oil and public speaking anxiety https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3079847/).

This episode is also sponsored by Dorset Cereals check out their range at www.dorsetcereals.co.uk.

Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit at www.calmer-you.com/free and you’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts.

Please subscribe to ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app or in iTunes to get the latest episodes and please leave me a review.

Thanks so much for listening!

TRANSCRIPT:

Chloe Brotheridge: Hello and welcome to the ‘Calmer You’ podcast this is Chloe Brotheridge. I am a coach, I’m a hypnotherapist and I’m the author of the ‘Anxiety solution’. My latest book ‘Brave new girl, 7 steps to confidence’. So, today I am doing some quick-fire Q&A’s, because I’ve got a lot of questions coming through on Instagram. I thought I would spend a bit of time giving quite short and sweet answer to as many questions as I can.

Hopefully, whether or not this specific question and whether or not these specific questions are relevant to you, hopefully the advice will be something that can relate to you in your life as well. So, when it’s podcast, when I talk about everything from boundaries to self-worth, to sleep anxiety, to fear about the future, finding your purpose health, anxiety, morning routines, SID and a few other things as well.

If you haven’t already, I want to invite you to come on over to calmer-you.com/free and enter your email address. I will send you weekly podcast updates and also my ‘Anxiety Busting Toolkit’, which gives you tools to manage your own anxiety and become a ‘Calm You’ version of yourself. So, you can just head over to calmeryou.com/free to grab that now. This episode is sponsored by ‘Kloris CBD oil’.

Everyone in the anxiety world is talking about CBD oil. But if you don’t know what it is CBD is a non-psychoactive compound, found in cannabis. It’s used as a food supplement with promising evidence that it actually helps to calm anxiety. One study found that it reduced anxiety during public speaking and the link to this is in the show notes. It’s also believed that CBD oil could help manage pain, such as period pain by reducing inflammation. I’ve been taking Kloris CBD for the past few months to help with period pain and PMS and I think it really helps. I love that Kloris take great care to source the best quality CBD.

Only using the finest organically derived, natural ingredients and they rigorously test their products for contaminants and most CBD brands don’t do this. CBD isn’t a miracle cure for anxiety but it could be really useful as a food supplement to include in your routine and I love using it. Get 10% off Kloris CBD oil, when you enter the code ‘Calmer You’ at Kloriscbd.com, that’s Kloriscbd.com.

Anxiety and dating

So, let’s just get straight into the Q&A. So, the first question that came in was about anxiety and dating. Let’s be honest, dating is gonna bring up all our stuff because it is so intrinsically linked to our fears in lots of ways. It’s linked to our fear of rejection, you know of not being good enough so many of us have this. The pressure that society puts on us to have a partner and settle down. So, there are a lot of reasons why, this can be an anxiety provoking experience and yet it doesn’t have to be.

So, my main advice when it comes to this is, to really look after yourself and do what you can to enhance your own self-esteem. While you’re going through the experience of dating. What can you do to make you feel good? That might be about scheduling in lots of self-care. That might be about really focusing on positive experiences with dating that you’ve had in the past. It might be about asking your friends and family to remind you about your good qualities and about the wonderful things that you have to offer.

Whatever it is just making sure that, you’re building yourself up before you get out into the world. Secondly, when it comes to rejection, you know we’re all gonna get rejected at some point in our lives in our dating. It’s absolutely inevitable. Even Jennifer Aniston gets rejected even supermodels get rejected. We all do and it’s not actually personal. Trying to remember that, we all say no sometimes. There were some people that we don’t necessarily like and it might have nothing to do with that other person.

It’s a personal preference, they might reminders of someone that we dislike. We might just not be that into them actually we can take that so personally when we’re on the receiving end of that. Yet, so often it isn’t really personal. One of my favorite tools around this is to reframe any anxiety as excitement. So, you might have heard me talk about this study before where, it was done at Harvard Business School. They got two groups of participants and they told them, ‘right, you got to go and sing don’t stop believe in by journey.’

Obviously, this is kind of nerve-wracking to do in front of your peers. One group they said, ‘tell yourself you’re excited. Write yourself little notes get excited and really reframe this experience there’s something exciting and positive.’ The second group they said, ‘take deep breath try and calm yourself down you know visualize calmness.’ You know what? The group that told themselves I’m excited, felt better, felt more confident performed better than the ones that were trying to calm themselves down.

Now that’s because anxiety and excitement of very closely linked emotions. So, when it comes to dating how can you tell yourself, I’m excited? See it as an opportunity and adventure, a chance to meet someone, a chance to have a new experience. When you treat to like that, it will feel like a more positive sensation, when you’ve got those butterflies before you go off on your date.

Morning anxiety

So, someone else is asking about, ‘what to do first thing in the morning when you wake up and you want a ball of anxiety?’

I hear this all the time from people that the morning can be a peak time for anxiety and that could be for lots of reasons. Firstly, our levels of cortisol are highest firstly in the morning, so that could play a role. Secondly, it might be that you’ve got a stressful job or you’ve got a lot to do during the day. It can seem overwhelming; you’re thinking about everything that needs to get done. Perhaps, you need to go to you know different parts of town, different meetings it can seem very overwhelming.

So, I think the morning time is such a crucial time for having some tools and techniques in place to ensure that you can calm yourself down and you can make the best of the day. The thing that I love to do and I find it makes a massive difference for me is, to exercise in the morning. So, it a basic obvious tip, but when you exercise, you’re getting out of your head, you’re getting into your body you are using up some of that cortisol, some of that adrenaline. So, it’s not just pumping around your body and you’re producing those feel-good endorphins.

So, there’s loads of reasons why exercise in the morning is really helpful. Apologies to anyone, he was not a morning person I’m a morning person. So, it doesn’t bother me too much to exercise first thing. But even if you’re not a morning person, I would suggest trying it out for a couple of weeks. See how it feels, see what impact it might have on your level anxiety. If it makes a big difference, then maybe that will give you the motivation to really continue with that.

What other things you can do in the morning to ensure that you have a calm day ahead? It might be things like making sure that you have breakfast, so that your blood sugar levels are balanced. Because having blood, low blood sugar can make us feel anxious. It’s a trigger for anxiety because we might get a bit dizzy. We might feel a bit shaky. We might feel you know uneasy and we interpret low blood sugar as anxiety. It can cause that feeling of anxiety to spiral. So, having a good breakfast could be really helpful for you.

Some kind of morning practice. I do my ‘Transcendental Meditation’ every single morning and it makes a big difference for me. So, trying to have some form of meditation in the morning. I think is invaluable as well.

The next question that came in was, around boundaries. So, I talked about this a lot in my book ‘Brave New Girls’. So, if you want to learn more about right, you can check out the book. But boundaries is basically about letting other people know what is and what isn’t okay with you. For lots of us, from an early age we’ve been taught and trained to not listen to ourselves to put up with things to be good girls and boys and to keep other people happy. So, we’re not very good sometimes that even knowing what it is that is okay with us and not okay.

Secondly, we’re not very good at communicating. In some ways, it’s just about getting into the habit of asking yourself, ‘How do I feel about this? Is this a yes for me or this a no for me.’ Starting to really tune into your body and notice what feels like a yes, what feels like a no. For me, yes feels expansive it feels exciting and a no, I get this sense of contraction almost a sense that I want to run away. So, I’ve got much better over the years I’m really tuning into that and listening to whether something is a yes or a no for me. So, that I can communicate that to the other person.

When it comes to communicating it, I think one thing that’s important to mention is that it’s not always easy to talk about your boundaries. Particularly, if you have been for example to your family members. The person who always says yes and always drops everything to help out or lends people money or offers to cook or offers to drive. Suddenly, because you’re exercising your boundaries more, you’re actually starting to say no more. You’re starting to say that you’re not going to be the one to take on all the extra work.

Other people might not like that at first. It might be a bit of an adjustment period at first while other people get used to your boundaries. What’s really important in that case, it’s just to try to stand firm in the face of other people maybe being upset or angry or irritated. Just coming back to why it’s important? Why are you setting this boundary? Is it to look after your own mental health? So, that you can give from an authentic place of love and not obligation and guilt. Is it, so that you can really look after your own mental health?

So, really trying to come back to your why. Why you’re making that change, can help to motivate you and give you that inspiration to carry on and keep going.

The next question that came in was around ‘self-worth’. To be honest this is such a massive topic. I talk a lot about this in the ‘Anxiety Solution’ and in ‘Brave New Girl’. I’d probably say a lot of the ‘Anxiety Solution’, is about self-worth and self-stay. Because from my own experiences and the experiences are people that I have worked with, it really is at the root of a lot of our anxiety and a lot of our uncertainty and our worries. When we don’t feel good enough, when we don’t feel valuable, when we don’t feel that we’re worthy we’re more likely to hold ourselves back.

We’re more likely to doubt ourselves, we’re more like to worry more like to feel scared going into situations. So, working on your sense of self-worth is so key. I think one first step to start to change this is to change the way that you speak to yourself. Now the way that we speak to ourselves is one of the most important things I believe in our lives. We really have the power to make ourselves miserable by beating ourselves up about things. Telling ourselves things that we would never say to an enemy, let alone someone that really should be our best friend.

So, bringing it back to being your own best friend is such an important step when it comes to growing your self-worth. Awareness is the first step to that, actually just noticing, how am I speaking to myself today checking in with yourself. Really noticing what am I saying to myself did I really say that how did I really call myself, an idiot. Do I really would say oh I’m fat ugly? When we become aware of these things then we can start to change them. Then we can start to really think about, what would I want to say to a friend who was in this situation.

We can start to speak to ourselves in that way. You’ve heard me say there so many times if you listen to the podcast regularly. But honestly, I think we can hear it enough we constantly need that reminder to be kinder to ourselves. So, that’s my main piece of advice when it comes to self-worth.

The next question that came in, was around Sleep Anxiety. So, this is a big topic. Sleep and anxiety are linked not everyone with anxiety struggles with sleep. I meet lots of people who sleep really soundly but during the day you know worried and can’t switch off and can’t relax. Yet it does often go hand in hand. Because you are somebody that is overthinking in the day you can be also somebody that gets into bed and that overthinking just can’t switch off. What I hear from him insomniacs a lot is that, when you get into bed there can be a sense of dread and anticipation about expecting that you’re not going to sleep well.

Feeling nervous I’m feeling worried that you’re not gonna sleep well and that in turn fuels the anxiety and makes it harder to sleep. So, one thing that I always say to my clients who struggle with sleep is, just a reminder that resting with your eyes closed. Allowing your body to rest allowing your eyes to rest is not as good, but someone once told me 80% as good as being asleep. So, if we can take some of the pressure off ourselves when it comes to getting into bed and wanting to fall asleep.

If we need to say to ourselves right, resting in my eyes closed is almost as good so I can just allow myself to be awake. I don’t need to fall asleep; I’m still resting and that’s okay. If we can be okay with that we take the pressure off and we allow ourselves just to rest and you know what having that attitude means that you’re more likely to fall asleep. But it’s got to be starting with taking the pressure off of yourself.

Other things that can really help are, listening to our guided relaxation. Like the one that I give away on my website at Calmer-you.com/free. Listening to a meditation, listening to an audio book to help to distract you. One thing that can really help is reading before bed. Reading not the news, not your phone, not social media but reading some light fiction. The twenty minutes or so before you want to go to sleep. Just to help you to distract yourself from whatever might be going on your life just to help you to, yeah let go of the day. Unwind and escape into a world of witches and wizards and sort of thing for example definitely recommend that.

Okay, so the next question that came in was about fear of the future. What do I really want this person is asking? I don’t know, what do you want? Have you really asked yourself this question and spent time? Asking yourself this question in a structured way and it might be that, if it’s available to you working with the coach. But that’s a life coach or whether that’s someone like myself that helps with anxiety and confidence, can help to ask the right questions. So, that you can really figure out what’s important to you and what it is that you want.

Because life can be pretty overwhelming, we have a lot of options and that’s a wonderful thing in lots of ways. But it can be overwhelming because there’s a lot of choice or lots of us as well are perfectionists. We believe that there is out there one perfect solution for us. One perfect career choice or life choice or life partner out there. If we do not obsess enough about what might be the right solution, we’re gonna miss what’s right for us. Or the right thing is gonna passes by, but I’m also mind over this quote, ‘if it’s for you it’s not gonna pass you by, you’re gonna find it’. So, just really having that trust.

So, how can you really start to drill down into what is important to you? What is important to you? This is something that when I’m working with people with coaching is very central to the questions that I’m asking them, typically in the first few sessions. So, that your goals are really linked to what is important to you. What your values are? What matters to you? What likes you? What gets you excited? It’s amazing how, very often we don’t know what really matters to us. So, ask yourself some questions.

What do I value in my life? What has to be there in my life? Even asking questions like. If I only had three years to live, what would I want to do? How would I spend my time? I’m really starting to explore some of these questions and other things that you could ask yourself might be. If money was not an option, what would I do? If I could do anything, what would I want to do? Asking yourself these questions and I really suggest getting a notebook and a pen and doing a bit of journaling about this. Can really help you to open your mind to what’s possible, because we put all these constraints on ourselves.

We think, ‘oh perhaps not for me or I can never do that or haven’t got the money for that.’ But that really limits our thinking. When we’re really thinking about what we want and what we want to do with our lives, it’s so important to expand our thinking as much as possible. So, that it doesn’t mean we have to go and do those things, but we’re just allowing ourselves to explore all the relevant options. All the things that we could want to do and then we can narrow it down at a later point.

Another question, which kind of links into this with someone wrote in about having anxiety over a lack of purpose. I think there’s a lot of pressure in certain ways to find a job, that is gonna be something that really fulfills your life’s purpose. While I think that’s amazing and something that should be pursued or can be pursued. It kind of puts a little pressure on us and we negate the fact that we can actually do a job that is reasonably fulfilling and it pays the bills. Actually, we can still find our meaning and purpose in other areas of our lives.

We don’t necessarily have to try and find a job that for fills us in every way. Because there are lots of different ways that we can have a lack of, have a sorry a sense of purpose in our lives. So, thinking about your life so far and what are the experiences that have really stood out to you as being really meaningful to you. Have there been things in the past that have given you that sense of purpose? Another question you can ask yourself is. Who else do you look at and think; I really admire them I love what they’re doing. I’d like to have a little of what they have.

It might be that you think right in the past that was this time that I volunteered and I found that so fulfilling. I loved connecting with people. I loved helping people or it might be that, once you I don’t know borrowed your neighbor’s dog or looks after a neighbor’s pet. Asking yourself this question just reminds you of how meaningful that was for you. So, reflecting on those two questions and just see what comes up. Because it might be that there are things that you’ve already done or things that you can create that other people are doing. That you can add into your life to give you a sense of meaning and purpose.

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Chloe Brotheridge: Okay, so someone else has written in asking about health anxiety. Again, such a massive topic and I get a lot of questions about health anxiety. I have to say, it’s such a yeah, I just have a lot of compassion for anyone who’s struggling with that. Having experienced it myself in the past. I know how horrible it can be. My number one tip is, do not feed the fears. Step away from Google, step away from the NHS website. Because the more you read the more you research, you think to yourself that you are going to be calming yourself down by finding out more and reading.

But the reality is that you end up just feeding the fears, you’re fueling the compulsion to check to research to seek reassurance. This reassurance seeking that we think is helping us actually ends up fueling a need for more reassurance. So, I highly recommend if it’s available to you. Stepping away from Google, putting a ban on researching of symptoms. Really trying to, I know it’s difficult but avoid getting reassurance from other people as well. Because perhaps, your partner or your friends your family members are people who you will frequently go to and ask for reassurance and ask for advice.

Perhaps, you go back to the doctor again and again hoping for reassurance and more tests. But unfortunately, this can just feed the fears. The next thing that I want to say about health anxiety is to try to relax with whatever symptoms you think you have. To try to surrender to whatever sensations you have. Because what can often happen with health anxiety is that, you read into every little tingle, every little ache pain, headache, bit of discomfort. The body will always, nearly always have some weird sensations going on.

It’s so natural for that to happen and 99.999% at the time these little symptoms that we all get you know from time to time day to day are completely harmless. They go away by themselves and yet what happens in health anxieties that we read into them and our imagination goes wild. So, really getting into a practice of just trying as much as possible to accept any little sensations or quote-unquote symptoms that you might notice. Surrender to them and tell yourself, it’s gonna pass. Really try not to overthink them or weed into them too much or catastrophize about them.

Catastrophization as when your mind goes for the worst-case possible scenario. You imagine all the things that could go wrong, that is a very common symptom of anxiety, and sometimes just labeling, “Right, I am catastrophizing now, I’m thinking the worst”. Chances are this little headache is going to go away by itself. Just lastly, if you have house anxiety, definitely get some help for it. You don’t need to struggle with this alone, it is something that can be treated, whether or not, you come in and see a hypnotherapist. Whether you go and look into CBT, you speak to your doctor about getting a referral to CBT. Please do go, and get some help. Because, it’s a horrible thing to suffer with. You don’t need to continue to suffer in that way.

So, I really hope you’ll get some help. The next question that came in was around, ‘anxiety from big life changes.’ So, whether that is break heart, whether that’sleaving uni, moving job, moving home, and all of these things. Any kind of change can trigger our anxiety, because change means moving away from our comfort zone, and it means going into the quote-unquote unknown. That can seem scary, and yet how many changes have you gone through already in your life. That have turned out okay, chances are you already done like moved home, you’ve already grown up, you’ve been born, and you’ve learned to read and write, walk and talk, and you’ve done all these things that at the time would have seemed like really new experiences.

Yet, here you are having survived a hundred percent of the challenges that you’ve faced so far in your life. Again, I think it comes down to embracing the unknown, trusting that you have everything you need within you, that you actually built for life. I’m always saying this to my clients, and reminding people that as human beings, your ancestors have survived incredible challenges. Ice ages, having to move across continents, surviving droughts and famine, and weather changes, and all that survival instinct, all that resourcefulness is within you, it’s in your DNA.

So, you can handle a breakup, you can handle moving home, you have 100% got this. Please try to remember that you are much more capable, and amazing than you think you are. So, the last question that I’m going to answer before I leave it for now, and let you get on with the rest of your day is about SID in autumn ‘Seasonal Affective Disorder’. So, we don’t know what this is, it is something that happens often in the autumn, and in the winter caused by a lack of sunlight. It might produce symptoms such as having a lower mood, having less energy, feeling depressed, feeling more like to be anxious, and yeah so, it’s really linked with the seasons. So, autumn and winter, what’s really important with SID is to try to get that sunlight exposure. The best time of day to expose yourself to the sunlight is actually first thing in the morning.

So, getting out in the morning for your exercise, having a run, having a walk, walking the dog, walking to the bus on your way to work, that are all ways that you can just be getting that sunlight, in your eyes in the morning. It has the effect of regulating your circadian rhythms, and ensuring that things are all functioning in the way that they should. So, please do get outside. Another thing to remember is that in the UK, most of us are deficient in Vitamin D, and that’s because we miss a lot of Vitamin D from sunlight, and a lot of us, not getting enough sunlight.

This is particularly for people who have darker skin, or people like me, Sun Dodgers basically, who were fight to 50 and burn really easily, and don’t get much sunlight. Vitamin D supplement is really important, especially in the autumn and winter, and vitamin D has been linked to our mental health. So, we really want to make sure that we are getting enough. So, recommend you take a supplement.

So, I really hope that you’ve benefitted from these questions and answers. Come on over to Instagram, and let me know what you thought of this, come and find me at Chloe Brotheridge, and I would love to hear from you. As always, if you have enjoyed this episode, I’d be so grateful if you would leave me a review. So, that other people can find the podcast and can spread the word, and please do subscribe to make sure that you’re getting all the new episodes as they come out weekly. I hope you have a wonderful week ahead. I’m sending you lots of love, and hope you’ll tune in again.

The post Ep 79. Q+A: Boundaries, Self-worth and Finding Your Purpose appeared first on Calmer You .

This was a requested topic and it’s just for the women today, sorry fellas. Hormones and anxiety are often linked so in this podcast I talk about:

– Some embarassing personal struggles!
– Why our hormones can make us anxious
– What you can do to manage your hormones and calm premenstrual anxiety
– What I think of the pill and some evidence about the pill and anxiety

Here’s the Debrief article I mention in this episode

Please subscribe to ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app or in iTunes to get the latest episodes and please leave me a review

Thanks so much for listening!

http://www.calmer-you.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Ep-5.-PMS-Hormones-and-Anxiety.mp3

The post Ep 5. PMS, Hormones + Anxiety appeared first on Calmer You .

The post Ep 42. Escaping the Myth of the Perfect Life with Professor Paul Dolan appeared first on Calmer You .

We chat about:

• Links between physical health, diet and mental health
• How your sense of purpose impacts your mental and physical health
• How environmental issues relate to our mental and physical health
• Practical steps we can take to be happier and healthier

You can find Gemma on Instagram @plantpowerdoctor and find out more on her website: gemmasnewman@yahoo.co.uk

This episode is sponsored by Kloris CBD. BY Get 10% off Kloris CBD oil when you enter the code ‘calmeryou’ at www.kloriscbd.com

CBD oil and public speaking anxiety  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3079847/)

This episode is also sponsored by Dorset Cereals check out their range at www.dorsetcereals.co.uk

Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit at www.calmer-you.com/free and you’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts.

Please subscribe to ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app or in iTunes to get the latest episodes and please leave me a review 

Thanks so much for listening!

Ep 82 Plant Power Mental and Physical Health with Dr Gemma Newman

Chloe: Hello and welcome to the ‘Calmer You’ podcast. This is your host Chloe
Brotheridge. I’m a hypnotherapist and a coach. I’m the author of two books,
‘The anxiety solution’ and ‘Brave new girl’, which is all about confidence.
Thanks so much for listening, this podcast is all about helping you to become
your happiest and most confident, calm self. Today I am talking to Dr. Gemma
Newman who is a GP, and she has a special interest in the links between our
physical health and our mental health, and also in plant-based living.

So, some of the things that we will discuss in today’s episode is the
link between physical health, diet and mental health. She shares so many
interesting studies and tips for us all to be improving our mental health with
what we eat and how we take care of ourselves. She shares something really
interesting about how our sense of purpose impacts our mental and physical
health. I think you’ll love this insight, which are about how environmental
issues relate to our mental and physical health, and finally she shares
practical steps that we can all do to be happier and healthier.

So, I want to invite you to come on over to my website
calmeryou.com/free. Enter your details there and I will send you my free
anxiety toolkit where you will receive free mp3’s, worksheets, loads of
resources in there to help you to become your calmer self and I’ll also let you
know about the latest podcasts there as well. So, head over to
calmeryou.com/free and enter your details there. So, let’s get into the
interview with Dr. Gemma Newman. So, welcome.

Gemma: Thank you.

Chloe: Thank you for joining me Gemma. How are you?

Gemma: I’m excellent, it’s pleasure to be here with you Chloe.

Chloe: Can you tell us what it is that you do and how you got to where you are
today?

Gemma: Yes, so my name is Dr. Gemma Newman, I’m a GP. I’ve been doing that for
quite some time, I’ve been a doctor now for 15 years. I am senior partner at a
busy NHS medical practice, and I’ve seen everything from cradle to grave. I have
always been passionate about helping patients to get to their best health, and
that’s taken a variety of forms over the years.

So, I’ve been passionate about positive motivational interviewing,
solution focused approaches, nutrition, and my passion about plant-based
nutrition has also taken me on an exciting journey over the last few years.
Really seeing some great health benefits for my patients. I basically do my
best to incorporate all these different tools in my toolbox in the hopes that
it’s going to help people onwards with their journey of health.

Chloe: Brilliant. So, you a GP, to people come and see with the-,

Gemma: Yes.

Chloe: Well, thank you. We are so lucky to have you.

Gemma: Thank you for that. I do love it; I love my job so much. A friend of
mine said that being a GP is a bit like saving lives in slow motion, and that’s
how it feels to me that you can really get to know people. It can take a nudge
here or comment there to really help shift their perspective on what’s possible
in their life, and where they see themselves going. It’s such a privilege, it
really is to be able to have people let you into their lives like that.

These people that wouldn’t necessarily go for therapy or wouldn’t take
the time out for themselves but they do need someone to talk to and being a GP.
I think in the modern age is a bit like being not just a doctor but also
sometimes a friend, sometimes a confidant, sometimes a counsellor, sometimes a
vicar, sometimes everything in between. I don’t ever overstate that tremendous
privilege because yeah, it’s a really special thing that people let you in like
that.

Chloe: I suppose you got so much. I want to say, I don’t know if power as the
right word but I suppose power to influence people and help people. Because
when someone goes to the doctor, it’s like a single sentence, they say can stay
with you. You know that stuff stays with us a lot.

Gemma: It does. Also, the amount of courage sometimes it takes to even book an
appointment and even get one, you might have been waiting for a couple of
weeks. Then to psych yourself up to saying something, like it is a big deal for
a lot of people. So yes, I think that is a big privilege, and you’re right. The
words that we say are powerful and I think also sometimes doctors underestimate
the power that they have as well. That the difference they can make, and it’s
easy to feel burnt out nowadays and because of all the extra work that we have.
Yeah, it’s actually still such a vocation. I think people kind of sometimes get
stuck in the mire of the day-to-day without realizing how much power they have
to change and improve people’s lives, so here it’s fantastic. I wouldn’t change
it for the world.

Chloe: Amazing. I know we’ve got so much we’re gonna talk about. I only want
to touch on this briefly because we didn’t actually discuss talking about this.
But can you share with people what proportion of people that come and see for
stress and anxiety, just for people that need that reassurance because it is
quite a lot.

Gemma: It is a lot. Yes, you are right Chloe. It’s interesting because often
people don’t necessarily even realize that that’s why they’ve come in deep
down. Somatization is where people have physical symptoms sometimes, which are
directly related to psychological issues and they are connected mind, body,
soul, brain, whatever you want to call it. Has a lot very deep connection with
the body. So, yes I’d say well an estimate of at least 80% of the things I see
are in some way related to people’s mental health.

Chloe: Wow. I think that’s such a good message to remind people of if they’re
scared to go to their doctor to speak about their mental health or they feel
that they’re the only one or it’s really nerve-racking going to speak to a
professional about your mental health. So, just know that the doctor would have
seen a lot of other people that day with the similar type of issues.

Gemma: Yes, we have. Sometimes it’s important for us to keep our mental health
in check. Because when you have someone new every 10 minutes coming with a
genuine tale of woe or uncertainty or despair. You have to think of ways to
help them feel better every 10 minutes throughout the day, it can be costing
and it can be very draining. So, I always say to doctors you know in order to
get the best that of your patients, you have to be in your best form. Take the
time to yourself to really ensure that you are looking after your own mental
health as well. Because mental health issues are actually quite big amongst
healthcare professionals as well.

Chloe: Can we talk a bit about mental health and diet?

Gemma: Yes.

Chloe: I know you’ve got a special interest in this area. What are the
important things that you notice about this topic?

Gemma: Well, what’s interesting is that people who are happier tend to
actually have a reduced risk of dying prematurely. This is such an interesting
area, there was a systematic review in the Journal of psychosomatic medicine,
and they were looking over 70 studies. What they found was that people who had
a positive mood or general life satisfaction or optimism or even just a good
sense of humor tended to have boosted survival rates. Even in diseased
populations, so even in people who were suffering from chronic diseases, they
still had some advantage because of their sort of mental state of mind.

Other research also suggests that people who are happier tend to get
less sick. There was a fantastic study done at Carnegie Mellon University. I
don’t know if you do this Chloe, I think I might have done this perhaps when I
was a student but they paid people the equivalent of about five hundred pounds
each. So, there was quite a few hundred people, I think that got involved. They
paid them this money in order to allow them to squirt, flew viruses up their
nostrils to see if they got sick or not. I don’t know if you do that.  Because not everybody would get sick of
course.

We have an immune system, an innate immune system that helps protect us
against various things in the environment. What was interesting in this study
was that one in three of the people who would class themselves as anxious or
depressed or hostile in mood got sick, one in three. Whereas those who had a
much happier disposition, it was only one in five of them that got sick. They
even found these changes when they accounted for things like poor sleep and
poor exercise patterns or stress. They still found the same association. So,
it’s really powerful, our state of mind as to whether we actually get sick in
the first place.

Chloe: Okay. It’s really interesting to hear that study because we might have
heard that stress can impact your immune system but actually to hear it like
that, it’s a real thing.

Gemma: It really can. What’s great is that we can make a start with food, if
we’re feeling low, we’re feeling down. Obviously, we have to work on what the
root cause of that is, whether it’s something to do with our self-confidence or
self-perception or life circumstance. But taking a simple step and eating
something healthy may actually have a tremendous benefit. There’re two
fantastic randomized control trials that show us that there’s one called the
‘Smiles trial’ back in 2017. They wanted to look at whether diet interventions
could have a role in improving mood, and they didn’t use anything else.

So, they got people one cohort had a modified Mediterranean diet, which
was very high in vegetables and whole grains. The other cohort had social
support. They wanted to see how they did, and whether their diet made any
difference. What was interesting is that in the group that had mostly
vegetables and whole grains and modified Mediterranean diet, there was a third
of the group that went into remission from their depression, these are people
with active depression. In the social support group, there were only an 8%
remission rate in within three months of the trial.

So, there was a big difference in the amount of people who felt
subjectively better and the diet was just changing what they ate, they didn’t
have anything else as an intervention. It was just the food, which I thought
was amazing.

Chloe: That was not taking fancy supplements or anything like that or Green
powders, and it is literally Mediterranean diet.

Gemma: Yeah, that’s it. There’s another one that I love. There’s another
randomized control trial, it was actually run by Geico, which is I don’t know
if I said that right. It’s Geico. It’s an American insurance company and they
used their employees to do another randomized control trial on diet. What they
did, they recruit nearly 300 people across 10 different cities and they have an
intervention group where these people were known to be overweight or diabetic.
In the intervention group, they basically gave them a once a week one hour, I
believe education session on diet and things to eat, and a plant-based diet.
They also gave them an option in their staff canteen, if they wanted, they
could pick a healthy plant-based meal.

So, there was no obligation to actually eat the food that they were
talking about in the intervention. What I loved about this was that it you know
people had their own choice; it was a very relaxed controlled trial. But in the
intervention group, there was still a statistically significant improvement,
not only in weight and lipids and the average blood Sugar’s hba1c as you might
expect. If they did decide to go for the plant-based meal. But what was
interesting to me was that they also had improved rates of depression, anxiety,
and they had improved productivity scores as well. So, the effect on their
mental health was as almost, I would say a surprise, was you know they’re
getting the other benefits but they’re also getting the mental health benefits
as well which is fantastic.

Chloe: Fascinating. Can you talk a little bit about why the fact that was
plant-based might have an impact on mental health?

Gemma: Well, there’s so many different reasons why it could be. There are some
studies on how increasing folate from green leafy vegetables boosts mood. There
was a Taiwanese study of elderly people and they found that increasing their
vegetable intake boosted their mood by up to 60% or so. Then we have the fiber
content so for example, when you have a very high fiber diet, you get something
called short chain fatty-acids produce, which are supposed to be really good
for feeding the beneficial gut bugs that help to make precursors for our
beneficial neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin. It might also be the
bioavailability of an amino acid called tryptophan as well, tryptophan is
contained in many foods. It’s especially high in foods like chicken.

So, you’d think well why would it be more important for it to be
potentially plant-based. Well, there is an argument to suggest that it may be
more bioavailable from a plant source. There was one study in 2009; it was
around a most controlled trial. They had 106 people losing weight, some had a
high carb, some had a low carb. Both groups lost weight about the same amount
statistically, but the ones who had the high carb diet from healthy sources
improved their depression, anxiety, and mood state scores again. So, the
hypothesis was made that it might be that the tryptophan which is a precursor
for serotonin was more by available in these high carbohydrate diets.

So, foods like sesame seeds and sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds,
butternut squash these are not only high in fiber but they’re also high in
tryptophan. So, that’s another potential theory. But it’s complicated, we don’t
know all the potential reasons. I think having whole foods in their most
natural form is just good for the body and what’s good for the body is often
good for the mind. We’ve got a lot of our immune cells down in the gut and
we’ve got microbiome effects. In fact, there’s loads of new psychiatric
research into so-called Psychobiotics, these are the bacteria in the gut that
can actually potentially be useful for improving our mood as well.

It’s complicated but I’d say probably number one reasons would be it’s
beneficial gut bacteria, fiber content and increase in micronutrients. Because
if you think about it, all these fruits or vegetables are filled with
micronutrients, that’s where we get most of our, well all of our phytonutrients
from an antioxidant. So, it’s bound to have a good impact I think on the brain
as well as the body.

Chloe: So, eat your broccoli.

Gemma: Oh yes, I’ve got a little bit of tip about broccoli as well.

Chloe: Have you heard of the hack and hold technique? Tell me more?

Gemma: When you have a cruciferous vegetable like broccoli or cauliflower or
kale or Brussels sprouts, they are so good for you. One of the reasons why is
they contain, sulforaphane which is really good for inducing the phase 2 liver
detoxification pathways in the body. But it can’t be activated unless it’s been
chopped up, unless the cell membranes have been disrupted. So, if you’re having
it, wrong when you’re chewing it
in your mouth. Then it goes into the stomach, you can activate the sulforaphane
that way because there’s going to be a transit time between when you’ve chewed
it and when it’s gone into the stomach.

But if you’re chopping up cruciferous,
and you just chuckinto the pan.  The enzymes are in needed denatured with heat. [INAIUDIBLE 16:03] So, what
you want to do is chop up your veggies, first leave them on the side for about
40 minutes, and then pop them in to cook. Then you get in all the Sephora fame
which is going to help your liver to function and detoxify as it should.

Chloe: Oh, my goodness, broccoli hacks everyone.

Gemma: Literal of broccoli hacks. That was an aside. So, there are huge
benefits to mental health from eating a predominantly plant-based diet, and we
see it time and again in study after study.

Chloe: I love it. As someone has just gone plant-based, that’s good news for
me.

Gemma: Congratulations.

Chloe: More vegetables, lots of beans.

Gemma: Beans are amazing. The part of the reason they’re amazing is that
they’re so good for reducing insulin resistance as well, so but anyway. Well,
what I love is that when we look at the blue zones. Have you heard of the blue
zones?

Chloe: No.

Gemma: Okay. So, there’s this well-known researcher for National Geographic
called Dan Buettner. He spent most of his career looking at the populations of
the world with the highest longevity. The highest active longevity, people who
actually are enjoying themselves living around, living their best lives for as
long as possible. What they found is that there’s some small pockets of the
world with the highest proportion of centenarian’s people living around the age
of 100. These are places like Sardinia, an area in Greece. The Loma Linden’s of
California, there’s an island off the coast of Costa Rica. These people, most
of them live on Islands except the Loma Linden’s.

But what they’ve all got in common is that they have about a 90%
plant-based diet, and they all have some form of bean in their diet. So, beans
are very healthful. Not just kidney beans or baked beans, you’ve got all sorts
of beans and that includes things like chickpeas and lentils as well. The
reasons they’re so good is they’ve got soluble starches, they’ve got insoluble
starches, they’ve got the protein. They’ve got everything that you could need
including the micronutrients. So, you’re not just getting protein, you’re
getting all sorts of things not only just to feed you but to feed your gut bugs
as well.

They line the intestine which means that you’re going to have less of an
insulin spike with your next meal. So, say for example you have a lentil
bolognaise with brown pasta, and then when you have like a mango or something
after that, it won’t give you such a big sugar spike.

Chloe: Really good news. A good excuse to eat more hummus.

Gemma: I love hummus.

Chloe: So, I mean there’s so much I want to ask you. What to ask you next? What
about purpose, health and mental health? Can you talk about that?

Gemma: Yes, what I’ve seen in my clinical practice is that people have to have
a reason to change. If I tell them to do something, it could last for a few
days maybe. If they have a logical reason that they’ve told themselves to do
something, it could maybe last a few weeks. But if they have a purpose or an
identity or an aspiration that matches the intention then that’s when the
changes can last a lifetime. I see that in my practice time and again. So, what
I think is interesting is sometimes when you look at studies, you see that
people who have, so, for example there’s this really interesting book which I
really enjoyed reading called ‘Radical remissions’ by Dr. Kelly Turner.

She conducted interviews with over a thousand people who’d had radical
remissions from cancer. Because she wanted to understand was there anything
that these people had in common. She didn’t make any judgments on it; she
didn’t try to find a cure because you know that’s something that could
certainly create false hope in people. But she just wanted to understand more
about what it was that helped them get through it. These are people who had
quite a poor prognosis I think, around about 20, less than 20% chance of a
five-year survival.

There were nine things that she pieced together that they all had in
common. We’ve just been talking about the importance of diet and it’s true that
the people she spoke to they had whole foods plant-based eating patterns that
they had incorporated. They were having things like filter water and they were
all taking various herbs and supplements. Interestingly, there wasn’t one particular
herb or supplement that stood out but that they were all doing something.
Eating organic, cutting sugar, meat, dairy, refined foods but what’s
interesting to me was the element of purpose. These people had a reason for
living, they had good social supports.

They were taking active control of their own health. They weren’t just
letting doctors decide what was going to happen next and taking a back seat.
They had deepened their spiritual connections or if they weren’t religious,
they had a deepening understanding or an awareness of their highest self. They
were releasing suppressed emotions, and they were increasing positive emotions.
This is incredible to me, and this is I think really the heart of real medicine
is to say we have to help people find their purpose. What it is that they want
from their lives, who they want to be, and then all of the other health
behaviors can come from that.

People are going to want to eat more healthfully and more vibrant foods
when they love their bodies, people want to carry on with the meditation
practice when they’re in love with their mind. People are going to want to
start journaling or creating a gratitude practice when they are more in love
with themselves as a person. So, that’s why I think that the root of it comes
from, and I’ve seen that myself in clinical practice. I’ve seen it in my own
life, I’ve seen it in the lives of my patients and my friends. So, yeah.

Chloe: That’s really interesting to me and it definitely aligns with what I do
with my clients as a coach. The so-called Dilt’s triangle that we use in in coaching and at the top is
identity and purpose.

Gemma: Wow.

Chloe: It affects everything else at the bottom of this triangle such as
behaviors, habits and that sort of thing. If we can change our identity and
chain into our purpose and the meaning behind things, changing habits, changing
our routine. Changing all those things just becomes automatic and easy. Rather
than what most of us are trying to do is working from the bottom, just trying
to change our habits, trying to I know for example people that give up smoking.
If they have a real reason for purpose behind it. I work with a client, he
wanted to stay alive to do this bicycle ride with his son in 20 years’ time and
his grandson. He held on to that image and he gave up smoking easily because he
had that little purpose behind it. So, I love that, that is reflected in those
findings with cancer patients.

Gemma: It’s so true and I see it in my practice too. Because I say to people,
I’ve had some tremendous inspiring patients who have just wanted to feel
different, they’ve created that positive future in their own mind if I ask them
what’s important to them. Like you say your client wanted to give up smoking
for that reason. Some other people might have a more immediate need like to get
their driving license back or to be able to walk up the stairs again or to be
able to look their best for their daughter’s wedding in two months’ time. It
could be sort of small or big things but if you can create some form of
aspiration that matches your identity, then that that will help it to last.

Sort of people tend to slip back into unhelpful habits if they haven’t
done that, which I think is an important thing to say. So, yeah but it’s
interesting, sometimes I get people to do this that there’s this technique in a
solution focused approaches where you counsel someone to ask themselves the
miracle question. So, the idea behind it is that they will start to imagine
what their life could look like and start to incorporate positive health
behaviors, and start to notice when they’re already incorporating positive
health behaviors. Also, to help them realize that they are still the same
person whatever their struggles have been, and that that same beautiful soul
essentially exists.

Despite the problems and hopefully can rise above, and I think it’s a really
powerful tool. It’s so simple, all you have to do is just get the person to
suppose that when they sleep tonight, and when the entire house is quiet, a
miracle happens. The miracle is that the problem that brought them to you is
solved and this could be anything, this could be heart disease or cancer or low
mood or anxiety or whatever it is. However, because you’re sleeping, you don’t
yet know that the miracle has happened. So, when you wake up tomorrow morning,
what will be different that will tell you that a miracle has happened and that
your health problem is solved.

How would you get up out of bed? What would you make for breakfast? Who
would you be surrounded by? What would the weather look like out of the window?
Really try to visualize it as best that you can. Then sometimes I say to people
I want you to really think about it. If you don’t know, imagine what you’d
notice if you did know and how differently your day would look.

Chloe: Yeah.

Gemma: I found it, people’s faces if you give them
the time to really do this, then their faces can sometimes light up. Because
they’re starting to imagine something that they hadn’t really previously
thought about. It can actually help them to align that feeling of sort of
self-identity and create some positive change that they hadn’t considered
before.

Chloe: So, it’s about almost visualizing things
being better.

Gemma: Yes.

Chloe: It’s a really powerful technique, again
it’s something that I often do with clients in fact always deal with clients. Because
so much of hypnotherapy is about creating positive images in your mind and
helping your subconscious to really absorb that and take that on board. Because
whenever you visualize something that is the language of the subconscious. You
can send a message to your subconscious by using your imagination. So, I hope
people listening and gonna ask themselves the miracle question. I really start
to tune into what will be different.

Gemma: Yeah, well that’s so interesting that you
do that with your clients as well. I guess it makes sense that it can apply to
everything, can’t it? I do think that often what we tell our subconscious can
affect our entire lives and we don’t even know it. We’re sort of walking around
half asleep a lot of the time. Yeah, I can’t myself in that too. Unconscious
habits are so easy to do and so difficult to break. That’s the same even
circling this back to food issues. There was research actually by, I think it
was by Imperial that showed us that every day we’re making about I can’t
remember the exact numbers but they were around 213 food decisions.

We are actually only conscious of about 15 of them and all the others
are subconscious decisions. So, in a sense if we can at least understand that,
it does help us to make better choices. But also I think it puts some onus on
the food industry and society to making things easier for us in a sense. Because
it’s not our fault often when we pick something that’s not right for us. Again,
you know instinctively nobody reaches for a plate of steamed Broccoli when
they’re feeling low. They want that glass of wine, ice-cream or the chocolate
or whatever. we’re given that immediate, it sort of kick.

So, I do think that it’s important for industry and society to make
things easier for us to make healthier choices.

Chloe: Yeah, I totally agree. Wouldn’t it be good,
if we did crave Broccoli when we are feeling like probably a useful?

Gemma: Irony is of course, if we’re eating those
kinds of foods habitually, we will have less need for the quick fix which is
it’s hard for us to get. But once we do it can be things a lot easier.

Chloe: Yeah, totally. Can we talk about
environmental issues and how they tie into our health?

Gemma: Yeah, I think I am very conscious of this
and that’s partly why I’m so passionate about plant-based nutrition. Because I
see it as being a way of life that is intrinsically healthy if done properly
and is also intrinsically beneficial for our environment. Which is beneficial
for human health long-term. Which is why I really like the fact that the
conversation is moving on to that in general three nutrition. So, we have the
planetary health guidelines that were created by the Atlantic Commission,
headed up by Professor Walter Willett. Who is a world-renowned nutritional
researcher.

Not just him, you know there was 37 experts in 16 countries that brought
these planetary health guidelines together. That’s not an easy thing to do
because you can imagine there’s 820 million people with not enough food to eat.
Then there’s like 2.1 billion people that are overweight and obese and trying
to create some form of general universally healthy reference diet for everyone.
It’s hard but they did it. What they found was that they were really needing
people to try to move more towards a sustainable plant-based way of eating. Not
completely, because that’s not necessarily possible for certain communities but
for most of us it is possible.

In the UK, the British Dietetic Association is starting to catch up with
the research now. They’ve created the Blue Dot campaign which is again a way of
helping people more toward sustainable diets and why is this important. Well,
we know that the animal agriculture industry does have a huge role to play. Not
just in terms of carbon emissions, but more to do with things like species
extinctions and ocean dead zones.

For example, when you’re stripping land to create soy crops, those are
not soy crops for most of us to be eating. They’re soy crops for the cows and
the pigs to be eating which we have to raise. It’s just tremendously
inefficient in terms of our water consumption. Then of course, you’ve got all
the silage, silage from the cows and the pigs that’s destroying these ocean
ecosystems.

Chloe: Can you just explain what silage is?

Gemma: Oh, it’s the poop, it’s the cow and the
pig poop. It’s got to go somewhere. When we’re raising all of these cows and
pigs for us to eat, where does all their poo go? Ended up going in the water
system and it can really damage those ecosystems and just land mass degradation.
We know that that’s happening in the Brazilian rainforest it’s happening in
lots of other places. It’s even happening closer to home and it’s very
inefficient. You could grow a lot more food for a lot more people if we didn’t
have to use them as a halfway house for our protein basically.

Antibiotics are another thing. So, sort of talking specifically about
human health. You think to yourself, well why is this important for me right
now because I just want my steak? If I get it this ethically sourced, then
what’s the big deal? Well, it still affects you in the long term. Because for
example, like I said antibiotic use is prevalent in the animal agriculture
industry especially for factory farmed animals it has to be. When they’re all
closely sort of packed together in this way, infections are bound to ensue. Quite
rightly they need to be given some antibiotics to minimize their infection risk
and we’ll know treat them as well, if they’ve got an infection.

But that ends up going into our own mini ecosystems inside our bodies. We
are all connected, the inside is connected to the outside. So, when we disrupt
our inner microbes as we do through eating foods that of containing antibiotics
over taking antibiotics that we don’t need. Eating foods that heavily pesticide
containing which also strips our own inner microbes. That’s not good for us
long term, that increases our long-term risk of things like cancer and
dysbiosis and autoimmune diseases.

The same is happening on the outside as well. We’ve got degradation of
the soil through conventional agriculture, which means that we’re stripping the
topsoil. Which is much easier than to wash away, next time you have a big storm
a lot of the topsoil just washes off into the ocean and what we left with we’re
left with depleted soil. What do we eat from the soil or vegetables, but they
can’t have the same micronutrient or mineral profile that they used to because
they are depleted as well. So, it’s all connected.

I think that if we can aim to, if it’s possible for us personally to
help no-till regenerative agriculture, help organic farming, aim to eat organic
if we can afford to wherever possible. Having eating low in the food chain
generally, these are all ways to improve our health and also the health of the
soil and the health of the planet.

Chloe: So, there’s so many links between the
health of the environment and our health.

Gemma: Yeah.

Chloe: I was saying this on the podcast I was
recording just before this one, how we forget as human beings that we are
nature. If we mess with nature, nature is going to mess with us.

Gemma: Unfortunately, we can’t escape it but this
is. I mean just in terms of basic things I know that it was a bit of an
esoteric chat I went on to help people understand sort of the macro and the
micro and how it’s connected. But if we just look at basic statistics, I think
the World Health Organization predicted that between 2030 and 2050 there be an
additional 250 thousand deaths from malnutrition diarrhea and malaria and heat
stress. Because of climate change.

So, this is a very real tangible human loss. Mass migrations because of
climate change potentially. I think the UNIPCC reported last year we had 12
years left, now it’s 11 years who knows it might accelerate further unless we
do something to change our current paradigm. So, these are sort of very real
risk. In terms of even personal risks, we know that we’re becoming antibiotic
resistant. It is a crisis that can hopefully be addressed by industry and by
pharmaceuticals. Because we all want to be able to go into hospital and not die
from an infection that was routinely treatable in the past.

We want to be able to have a cesarean section without worrying about a
life limiting infection. But we’re looking into the abyss right now. I don’t
want to sound too dramatic, but we need to come up with solutions. I think that
minimizing antibiotics exposure through animal agriculture industry is one of
those solutions as well as hopefully finding new antibiotic agents that we can
use to treat us in the future. Because antibiotics are a good invention.

Chloe: Oh my God.

Gemma: They’ve increased our lifespan by
approximately 13 to 15 years on average. It’s amazing but they are overused and
unfortunately that has negative health consequences. People don’t realize. They
think I’ll just take antibiotics just in case. But what they don’t understand
is that multiple courses of antibiotics over a lifetime that haven’t been
necessary can disrupt our microbes so much. That we could potentially have an
increased link there between microbiome depletion and future risk of things
like autumn moon diseases and cancer. So, there is a link that people don’t
necessarily understand.

Chloe: So, antibiotics kill bacteria and they
kill the bad bacteria when you take them. So, it’s good but they also kill the
good bacteria when they’re going through. So, it’s not good for our immune
system. Because so much of our immune system starts in the gut.

Gemma: Yes.

Chloe: Not good for our mental health, because
those bugs are really important for our mental health. A lot of the antibiotics
are getting fed to animals, that we end up eating or having the milk from. More
so to the animals than to humans. Is that right?

Gemma: Yeah, so there’s a phenomenon whereby
you’d have biological accumulation in the largest mammal if you like. So, it’s
the same with things like fish in the ocean. If they’ve had explicit exposure
PCBs dioxins in the ocean, you’re eating the fish you’re gonna buy accumulate those
toxins further than they have. So, again with 90% of fish stocks depleted what
are we going to do, I mean no plastic stores that’s great. But also, I would
say perhaps eating less fish would also be beneficial.

I mean if you do decide to eat fish, then go for the smaller ones and
the ones that are wild court if you can. Because the smaller ones bioaccumulate
less of these toxins that we’re talking about and it’s the same when you’re
eating things like cows and pigs. They will still bio accumulate things that we
then buy accumulate further.

Chloe: Right. So, the little fish get eaten by
the bigger fish. If we eat the big fish, then we get all the toxins from all
the fish.

Gemma: Yes, essentially that’s exactly it. You
got it. Sounds appealing, doesn’t it?

Chloe: Yeah, oh my God okay.

Gemma: But I mean it’s a very expansive topic. But
the thing is, people sometimes feel a bit overwhelmed. They think I just I
can’t do it and that’s okay. I think the most important thing is to just be
aware of some of the issues that there are and to use that knowledge to inform
your choices next time you go shopping or next time you pick something at a
restaurant. It doesn’t have to be this massive sudden shift. It can just be a
little you know steps here and there to put you in that kind of direction if
you feel called to do so.

That’s actually how I believe Joseph Paul started his research. There
was an interesting article that was published in science journal in June 2018.
He wanted to try to establish some sustainable way of continuing with animal
agriculture. So, he spent five years on this study at Oxford University. There
were over 40,000 farms involved in over 120 countries. It was very extensive and
what he found actually was that, there was just wasn’t a way to make it
sustainable internationally. Didn’t matter how they tried to crunch the numbers
they couldn’t do it.

So, I believe after a year of his five-year study he decided to go fully
plant-based himself. Because he realized it wasn’t possible it wasn’t
sustainable. Yes, you can argue again to just generally buy things that are
more local over sort of a transported. But even with all of those confounding
factors it was predominantly the animal industry that was the main thing that
could be shifted.

Chloe: Yeah interesting. I was talking to someone
today actually it said, it was Emily Lyons who is a previous guest on this
podcast. Dr. Emily Lyons and she said that we put 20 times as much energy
calories into a cow as we get out of it. Because the cow is giving off heat,
it’s pulling it’s moving. So, it’s a very inefficient use of energy. If we were
just to eat the plant that’s a lot more sustainable because I’m not losing all
that energy through that cow being alive.

Gemma: Yes, I mean this is where people get a bit
put off sometimes, you can go through all of these different calculations that
think, should I buy this berry? Where’s this come from? Or has this been flown
here or has this been shipped here and shipping is better than flying. You
could get so confused, but I’d say if we just cut through all that and stick to
low in the food chain and local for the most part, you can’t go wrong. If that
helps.

Chloe: That sounds really good. Because yeah can
definitely imagine people feeling overwhelmed and that sort of thing. I think
you’re so right. Just educating ourselves because a lot of us don’t realize
this. Once we educate ourselves, we can start to make some changes if we want
to. But we can’t do that unless we actually face up to things and realize
what’s happening.

Gemma: Yeah, that’s so true but it’s been a
journey for me too, because I have to say I used to love steak. I used to love burgers;
they were my favorite meal. I had such a refined palate. Every time I went to
restaurant, I will have a burger please. But it’s amazing actually, how your
desires shift over time and that might be to do with the microbes in your gut. There’s
a lot of research around that actually which we could go into about, how our
microbes can sometimes shift our desires and that sort of micro brain
connection that we have

But that’s certainly true for me and I don’t fancy it anymore. Like I
used to I just don’t and I think these things can change over time. I was an
avid meat-eater myself in the past.

Chloe: So, to the microbes get a taste for Hmm, Corn
burger.

Gemma: Well, it’s the different colonies that
form really. So, you’re eating a lot of meat and dairy then the colonies of
bacteria that you are supporting, would be different from the ones that you
support with a Whole Foods plant-based diet. There are some studies to show
actually that the microbial profile can shift with as this there’s one meal
believe it or not. What’s great about having a predominantly plant-based diet
is that, you’re not growing bacteria that can release a certain toxin. Which
can increase your risk of heart, disease kidney disease and heart failure, TMAO
is the toxin.

When you’re having a diet that’s high in animal-based choline and
carnitine sources, then the bugs that are in your gut will digest those and
produce something called TMA Trimethylamine. Then that gets sent to the liver,
your body makes it into TMAO Trimethylamine oxide. That is pretty toxic to our
blood vessels, to our kidneys and you know can increase our risk of heart
disease in the future. So, it’s complicated but that’s one of the many mechanisms
whereby having more predominant plant proteins is helpful.

Chloe: So, interesting. We were talking to when
started recording about the game changes. Can you share what that is?

Gemma:  I
think it’s fantastic. So, I believe in fact, what’s the date today? Is it the
first of October?

Chloe: It is 1st whatever recording
that.

Gemma: We’re recording, so whenever you hear this
then it will be out already to purchase on iTunes I believe. Basically, it’s a
fantastic documentary that was made by James Cameron who made Avatar.

Chloe: Oh really?

Gemma: Yes, and Titanic and he has got together. It’s
a film for men actually. It’s a film that will help men to feel more connected
to the idea that they can actually eat plants and be healthy and thrive, not
just survive but actually thrive. They got a huge array of incredibly talented
athletes on it. They’ve got Arnold Schwarzenegger on there. They’ve got Lewis
Hamilton.

Chloe: Hang on, is Arnold Schwarzenegger a vegan?

Gemma: Yes, I think so. Don’t quote me on it, but
if he’s not vegan he’s definitely Veggie.

Chloe: Ohwow.

Gemma: There was one scene in particular which I
think will really resonate with men. It was these young college athletes and
they were seeing this urologist Dr. Aaron Spitz. Because they wanted to see,
whether diet made a difference to their sex lives. What they did was, the
urologist used the specialized equipment to attach to the penis and monitor
their erections overnight. Because it’s a normal physiological process that
there are young men will occasionally have an erection through the night and
they gave the men.

So, the first night they gave them grass-fed beef burrito, organic
chicken burrito and a bean burrito. They chopped them all up, so that you know
essentially looked like the same kind of burrito and they it gave them to eat
before bed. Then they put this device on and then off to sleep they went. Then
the next night they gave them all the bean burritos and then off to sleep they
went. Then they got the results back and there’s this most hilarious scene in
the movie, where he’s given them their results.

They all had improved erections overnight but one of them had 500%
increase in firmness and frequency of erections over the course of the night. It
was so funny.

Chloe: So, man on the beans.

Gemma: Yes exactly. It will definitely have
potential to improve your sex life. But that’s one scene there are lots of
different scenes to the film which I found enjoyable. It was just a very nice
very well woven together piece talking about the personal stories of people
who’ve been very successful with a plant-based diet. That was well planned and
achieving great success.

Chloe: Because a lot of athletes are moving over
to a plant-based diet. Like Serena Williams.

Gemma: Oh yes.

Chloe: Venus Williams.

Gemma: Yes.

Chloe: Lewis Hamilton.

Gemma: Yes. The only American Olympian who got
through the heavy weight bodybuilding in the Olympics. We’ve got Patrick Butbumian,
who is one of the strongest men in the world. Loads of bodybuilders are doing
it now. Because they’re all beginning to understand that it gives you an edge
over your competitors if you can have a boosted recovery time. What can happen
with a healthy Whole Foods plant-based diet is that, you’re having so many more
antioxidants, micro phytonutrients, micronutrients. That you are able to affect
muscular recovery much more quickly.

So, when you’re not so depleted, you’re recovering faster you can get
more training in. You can see that if you’ve got more training in without
muscle, then you’re gonna outdo your competitors.

Chloe: Sounds good.

Gemma: Yes.

Chloe: Can you share, are there any practical
steps that you can recommend to people to be doing?

Gemma: So, I would say that well, if you want to
make it more of an identity choice you ask yourself. Who am I? What’s important
to me? What patterns do I have day after day that bring me more towards this
person who I really am? It’s not just about food by the way, it’s the films
that you watch, it’s the people that you surround yourself by. Really think,
what do I do every day that brings me into alignment with my deepest self? Write
it down, just write it. When you start to even look at things like, what do I
eat for breakfast, what to eat for lunch, what to wait for dinner. You begin to
see a pattern emerging and the easiest way to make a healthy step is to just
think of a new recipe for example.

Maybe try something new once a week, because most people have only got a
repertoire of about five or six meals that they circulate between every week
really, most of us. So, once you’ve become confident with one new meal each
week, then by the end of just a couple of weeks three weeks you’ve got a whole
repertoire. That you can use and use again and again. There’re so many
resources now aren’t there. You’ve got the Physicians Committee; they’ve got a
great kick starter. Then you’ve got delicious Liana, I love her stuff it’s
brilliant.

It depends on the person, so for example if you’re someone that just
loves spaghetti bolognaise, you can make a one-pot lentil bolognaise and it’s
just really simple. If you’re somebody that likes a chicken curry, you could
just make a chickpea curry and learn how to do that. It’s just these little
shifts here and there. It doesn’t have to be perfect; it’s just about making
progress. But pretty soon, once you’ve connected your identity to the ability
to make these changes it becomes so much easier. It really does.

But it’s just about taking that first step and making sure that you
align it with an emotion wherever you can.

Chloe: That’s such a good thing to chain into. I
love the idea of just writing it down. Actually, spending that time to think
about that and map that out a bit and could make such a difference.

Gemma: It really can. It really kind of people
don’t usually do it. If you ask someone, have you in town whether your food
aligns with who you are, they’ll say no. But it’s a very powerful tool because
they’ll start to notice. Actually, that that junk food I ate didn’t feel so great
really it didn’t make me feel like the person I want to be. When I had this
food that, I made I really felt proud of myself and I really enjoyed it. It
tasted so much better than I expected. So, I’m gonna do that again.

It’s about as I say making that connection and baby steps. Be kind to
yourself.

Chloe: Be kind to yourself.

Gemma: Please be kind to yourself.

Chloe: Is there any other final practical step
that you want to add?

Gemma: Well, I guess really it’s about
understanding that we’re all connected. If we can tap into that
interconnectedness, it will help us not only feel closer to others and more
compassionate but also more compassionate to ourselves. That is the basis for
any long-term life change. So, that would be my takeaway tip. But if you want
to something practical that would be to put a time frame in place for yourself.
So, for example, if you’re the kind of person that likes to suddenly make a
decision and stick with it then that’s fine you can do that. But most people
need a time frame and so you could say to yourself, okay this time next week
I’m going to have learnt this recipe. This time the week after I’m going to
have learned this recipe.

I’m going to have gone out for a 45-minute walk twice this week and plan
which days you’re going to do it, whatever it is. This night I am going to go
to bed an hour and a half earlier than I have every other night for the last
month. Whatever your goal, I’m aiming to make it time-specific is also super
helpful.

Chloe: Perfect, thank you for that. Thanks so much
for everything that you shared.

Gemma: My pleasure.

Chloe: Where can people find out more about you
and what you up to?

Gemma: Well, if they were on Instagram, they could
go to Plant Power Doctor. I’m Dr. Gemma Newman, Plant Power Doctor on Instagram.
I have a website drgemmanewman.com. So, there’s loads of information and
resources on there. If people have got specific diseases that they’re wondering
about, heart disease or diabetes or plant-based diets for pregnancy or children
for example. Then there’s loads of resources on my website, podcast, interviews
all sorts of stuff and where else.

Plant-based health professionals UK, I’ve got the Veg-Med conference
coming up if anybody’s coming to that. It’d be lovely to see you there and you
could always email me if you’ve got any specific questions.

Chloe: Amazing, thank you so much.

Gemma: It’s a pleasure. thank you, Chloe.

Chloe: Thank you so much for listening. I really
hope that you gained a lot from this episode. Come on over to Instagram and let
me know what are you taking from this episode. Find me @ChloeBrotheridge. I
would love it if you would leave me a review in the podcast app or in iTunes. Subscribe
to the podcast, leave me a rating. Is there someone in your life that would
really benefit from this podcast you can let them know by sharing this podcast,
I’d be so grateful. So, I’m just wishing you a wonderful week ahead, sending
you loads of love. Hopefully, you’ll tune in again and I’ll see you soon.

The post Ep 82. Plant Power: Mental and Physical Health with Dr Gemma Newman appeared first on Calmer You .