Imagine waking up each day with more energy, clarity, and a profound sense of well-being. That's the journey Darren and I, your host Nadine, embark upon in this episode, where I reflect on the past conversations that have supported our perspectives on longevity and biohacking. From the thrill of embracing health and fitness that promises a future of presence with our loved ones to transitioning from high-intensity sports to sustainable well-being practices, we dissect the nuances of living a life rich in vitality. Our contemplation is not only about adding years to our lives but enhancing the years with peak health and functionality.
Together, we wade into the transformative waters of personalised health.
Revisiting conversations with past guests such as Angela and Andrea, where we highlight the importance of a tailored approach to nutrition. Whether it's the carnivore diet or aligning meal times with our biological clocks, we unravel the diverse routes to health optimisation. These personal anecdotes promise to illuminate the path toward fine-tuning your body's needs and uncovering dietary strategies that resonate with your lifestyle.
We cap off this episode with a look at how some of the simplest changes can wield the greatest impact on our well-being. Dr. Joy Hussain shares her fascinating insights into the therapeutic benefits of sauna use, presenting evidence-based lifestyle interventions that can revolutionise our health. But that's not all – we also tackle the myth of productivity through sleep deprivation, showing how prioritising rest is not a luxury but a necessity for top-tier performance. So, let your curiosity guide you through our discussion, and you might just find the keys to unlock a more rejuvenated, focused, and healthier you.
Imagine waking up each day with more energy, clarity, and a profound sense of well-being. That's the journey Darren and I, your host Nadine, embark upon in this episode, where I reflect on the past conversations that have supported our perspectives on longevity and biohacking. From the thrill of embracing health and fitness that promises a future of presence with our loved ones to transitioning from high-intensity sports to sustainable well-being practices, we dissect the nuances of living a life rich in vitality. Our contemplation is not only about adding years to our lives but enhancing the years with peak health and functionality.
Together, we wade into the transformative waters of personalised health.
Revisiting conversations with past guests such as Angela and Andrea, where we highlight the importance of a tailored approach to nutrition. Whether it's the carnivore diet or aligning meal times with our biological clocks, we unravel the diverse routes to health optimisation. These personal anecdotes promise to illuminate the path toward fine-tuning your body's needs and uncovering dietary strategies that resonate with your lifestyle.
We cap off this episode with a look at how some of the simplest changes can wield the greatest impact on our well-being. Dr. Joy Hussain shares her fascinating insights into the therapeutic benefits of sauna use, presenting evidence-based lifestyle interventions that can revolutionise our health. But that's not all – we also tackle the myth of productivity through sleep deprivation, showing how prioritising rest is not a luxury but a necessity for top-tier performance. So, let your curiosity guide you through our discussion, and you might just find the keys to unlock a more rejuvenated, focused, and healthier you.
Hello, hello, it's Nadine here and I'm here with this week's episode of Life, health and the Universe. Now we're getting very, very close to the end of 2023 and I am in the midst of getting some guests lined up for 2024, plus doing a couple of collaboration type things on the podcast, so looking forward to getting that out there sharing conversations with you in the next little while. But what I've decided to do today, as we do edge ever closer to the end of 2023, is share with you a compilation of episodes that we've recorded over the last little while, based on longevity and probably what we would call biohacking. So I've had some great guests on and have loved every single conversation and, yeah, what I'm going to share with you in this particular episode is a mixture of guests that have come on and talked about simple things that we can do in our everyday lives to support our health. Let's just I'm just going to say something else, but I'm just going to get started. We're going to get stuck into these episodes. I hope you enjoy them.
Speaker 1:As we edge closer to 2024, maybe you're thinking about making some changes, maybe you've something that's peaked your interest and you need a little bit of inspiration to get started. Hopefully this podcast episode will help to do that for you. Let's get stuck in. So I'm going to start by resharing a little snippet of a conversation that I had with my husband, darren. The episode's called Living Long and Wide, and it was quite a way back. Season three, episode four we're talking about longevity, so I thought that would be a great place for us to start this compilation of interviews. Enjoy this little snippet. Longevity what do you love about the idea of living long? So obviously I've mentioned like being there for our kids if they have kids.
Speaker 3:For me. I think the thing that excites me about it is that it's a new game around health and fitness. So previously I was more in the competitive space in CrossFit and I got to a point in my life where that was no longer fulfilling me. I felt like I was going backwards. There was all these young people that were getting better and I just felt like I was getting worse and I can't remember exactly how we stumbled into the longevity research. Who hit it first? I'd kind of like to think that I find most things first and then I tell you about them. But yeah, and it's only really happened in the last couple of years that we stumbled on it. But I like that. It's a new game. I feel like it has changed my outlook, my in-look on fitness and exercise, and I am again excited about it and feel like I can be better than I've ever been, whereas previously, when I was looking at different metrics around my fitness, measuring my fitness in a different way.
Speaker 3:I felt like there was no way I could be as good as I had been.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I get that.
Speaker 3:And I think also I know for you. You said that you're excited to live to 100, about being around when your kids have kids and, I suppose, being healthy enough to play with them, get down on the ground and do all those things. I lost my track. I started thinking about you and our kids and their grandkids.
Speaker 1:I forgot where I was headed.
Speaker 5:If they had decided to have kids?
Speaker 3:Where I was headed with the girl. Yeah, it'll come back to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it will come back. It will come back. So this is going to be I'm going to. Basically, in the last podcast we did, we went down a few rabbit holes. It went in a few different directions. Today, this is the Darren Shaw show, so I'm basically going to ask you some stuff that's based on some of the things that you've been researching and working on and beginning to use in your own training. As you said that you've been driven to feel better than before or better than ever. Would that be right? Because you've changed the way that you're measuring what you do. So we're going to talk about all of those things and we're going to talk about how other people might be able to start doing some things for themselves based on if they want to live longer Before we go any further. So we've talked about longevity and then we're going to talk about lifespan and health span. Do you want to go into that and like differentiate?
Speaker 3:Yeah, most definitely. So I think you know, I don't know what everyone else thinks about when they think about longevity, but it's quite an overarching sort of word theme and I think the words health, span and lifespan and defining them just make it a lot more real. So lifespan is, as most people probably think about, how many years you live in total. So you're saying that you'd like to live to 100 or beyond. I mean, you probably need to be careful that you say you want to live to 100.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm not capping it.
Speaker 3:You might drop dead at like as soon as you hit 100. Yeah, I'm not capping it so. So that's lifespan and it's definitely important and it's definitely something that we look at and we try to structure our protocols around to extend our lifespan. But I think, the more and more and more that I look into it and I research it and I talk to other people, I think that health span is more important, and so what health span relates to is, I kind of think of lifespan as long and health span as wide. So lifespan is how long I can live, whereas health span is how can I continue to do as many things as possible there's functional as possible, for as long as possible? So when I'm still and I think that was the thing that I was that I forgot where I was headed before was one of the things that excites me is I want to be 85 and have people go. There's no way he's 85. He shouldn't be able to do those things at 85.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like there's no way he's more than 65. Maybe he's got the wrinkles of an 85 year old, but he looks and acts like a 60 year old or a 65 year old, even 50. Like at 85. I want to be like a like what a 50, most 50 year olds are like.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah.
Speaker 3:So that that sort of refers to health span.
Speaker 1:It's interesting, isn't it? Because I'm not going to go off on a tangent when you say to someone, oh, I want to come 48. I'm not even halfway, like I want to push, I want to, I'm going the hundred plus, like not cap on it. And they're like why? Because for a lot of people I think I don't, dare I say for most people they have a perception of what that would look like, you know, illness, medication being decrepit, and and so why on earth would you want to do that? But we're looking at it from a different perspective.
Speaker 3:And I think I was in that space.
Speaker 1:So there are a few different things that Darren and I have been doing in our bio hacking and our pursuit to longevity, shall we say, and one of the things that I do and absolutely love is intermittent fasting. Now I was lucky enough back season six, episode four, to have a panel of guests come in and chat for an hour or so about intermittent fasting, our personal experiences, what's so great about it, and it was a really great, insightful conversation. So I'm going to share a little bit of that with you now. I kind of recommend it to my clients to a degree. We talk about it. You know it's all about. For me, it's all about experimenting, understanding how your body works and what your own personal experience is when it comes to trying different things.
Speaker 1:But I think there's a lot of bad press out there about it, and I believe that it has a lot of health benefits. So I thought, look, I'm going to put it out there. I'm going to ask the question is anyone out there doing it too? What have your experiences been? Would you be open to coming here on the podcast and sharing those experiences? And so we're opening up the conversation today about intermittent fasting. Now, all of us are doing slightly different things and have slightly different outlooks, so I'm really looking forward to hearing from each of you. I'm going to stop rattling on and I'm going to hand over, so let's have a quick intro. Maybe if each of you just will start with Sue Ellen, then we'll go Angela and Andrea, because that's how I see you on my screen. Thank you, just give me a quick intro of who you are and what you're doing when it comes to intermittent fasting, just as you did when you kind of posted in the comments when I put this out there on the socials.
Speaker 5:Sue Ellen. Okay, I'm Sue Ellen, so I'm pretty new to the whole intermittent fasting. I've tried it before, but I think you're going to discuss that a little bit later and I'll talk about my experiences then. So I'm probably about six weeks into this new protocol or this new trial of intermittent fasting, and so I'm in my sixties.
Speaker 5:I was recently well, not recently five years ago I actually was diagnosed with breast cancer. So I've been on a hormone blocker and I think a combination of the hormone blocker, change in lifestyle, probably emotional stuff that comes with the whole breast cancer thing. I actually put on a lot of weight in a short period of time and since the diagnosis I've found it quite difficult to get off and it's affected my sleep. I've had a side effects from the drugs which included joint pain, and so the whole thing just skated. Nadine knows the whole story. She's kind of been on the journey with me.
Speaker 5:But I guess it's like everything I've tried before to feel better, both emotionally and physically, wasn't working anymore and I thought, well, I need another, I need something else, I need to try something else for my long term health. So I think that's when Nadine introduced me to somebody called Dr Mindy Mindy Pells who talks about intermittent fasting for women, and I think that's where a lot of things are missed. A lot of intermittent fasting protocols are very male oriented. So I read a bit more, dove a little bit deeper and I thought well, it's worth a try. So again, I'm very new to this, I'm kind of taking it slowly and I'm really just measuring how things are going by scale, goals, I guess, or measurements, but also non scale measurement related benefits, and so far, so good. But it's very, very early days. So that's where I am at the moment. Great Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thanks for sharing that, angela. You've got a different perspective because you were also work with women through menopause. You've been a guest on the podcast before talking about all things female cycles. So, yeah, it'd be great to hear your perspective as well. Okay.
Speaker 4:So thanks for having me.
Speaker 7:So you've got your own experience.
Speaker 1:right, you've got your own experience.
Speaker 7:Yes, so my name is Angela Council. I have been a naturopath for 20 years. I am a menopause coach and I'm also a personized health coach. And as a naturopath, for many, many years I used to tell my clients you need to be eating five meals a day, because that's what I was taught and I used to kind of be, you know, keto diet, five meals a day, you know, don't go hungry, because you go hungry. Basically it's in the slayin' table, there's a down, blah, blah, blah, and that's what many, many, many years.
Speaker 7:And then I learned about personalized health, and this is about understanding our different body shapes, the way our bodies work, our genetics, our epigenetics, and started to realize that, hey, that actually wasn't necessarily so. And also at this time I was also coming through my menopause transition and I started to put on weight very, very common for women as they come through this time of life. What I used to do wasn't working anymore. So, you know, I struggled to stick to a keto diet. The weight just kept coming on and I was trying everything. And I had other symptoms as well hot clashes, joint pain, things like that. So I was looking for a solution and when I found personalized health, it kind of was like, it was like a missing piece, and I started to realize that we are all different and me having five meals a day was not actually the best option for me, based on my body type, what we call our health type, my genetics, my epigenetics, where I was in my stage of life. So I actually shifted that and I started with going down to three meals a day to start with and then I went to two meals a day and, whilst I don't follow an intermittent fasting protocol like it's strictly these hours, these like that, because I'm a bit more relaxed about it Most nights I don't eat dinner and I have a later breakfast in the morning. So I generally once again understanding my body. I know the best times for me to eat. So my breakfast is later and it's only a smaller meal and my biggest meal is lunchtime and, yeah, I will skip breakfast, skip dinner sometimes, because that works for my body and doing that, basically I was able to drop 24 kilos and but not just drop the weight.
Speaker 7:I got stronger, my symptoms disappeared and you know, and now obviously I coach women in this, but I'm also very, very careful in that intermittent fasting isn't for everyone.
Speaker 7:There are specific health types that need to be eating five meals a day. And this is where understanding the genetics behind someone and what stage of life they're in and everything else that's going on for them, it's like I think we have to be really careful that intermittent fasting is not for everyone. It's for many women, but other women it doesn't work for, and we really need to understand how bodies work. And then becomes very intuitive that when you're really in tune with your body, you actually know because a body that needs to be eaten, needs to eat five times a day, will get hungry if they don't eat and there's no point in trying to do intermittent fasting because they will fail. But then a body that's designed to have less meals because their digestive system works slower and that's you know what somebody's digestive system works a lot slower they can actually get up fine with two meals a day and they don't need to be eating as often. So I think we've got to really understand that.
Speaker 7:It works great for me, but it may not work for everyone. It's like everyone is different.
Speaker 1:I think we'll clarify some things. Let's talk to Andrea. Thanks for that, angela. But about that meal timing and that sort of thing, and how many meals a day and like the difference between time restricted eating and intermittent fasting, just some of those things, because there are some things that can work across the board. But I guess those like increased periods of fasting might not work for some people but there might still be some benefits for, like you know, doing a 12 and 12, where you have this, that window, right, andrea, welcome, welcome to me.
Speaker 1:I'm a life, health and the universe virgin. The other two have both been guests before Right. Well, here I am Awesome.
Speaker 6:Yeah, I was excited about coming on. Everything that I share comes from my personal journey. I'm in no way, shape or form, a health expert. I'm an account.
Speaker 6:So right outside of that I think I was I've always been really passionate about my health, but also from the space of human potential being better, being faster, fitter, stronger, whatever that might look like for me personally. So every time the word biohacking comes up, I'm intrigued and I'm looking at it and I'm understanding more about the human body, about neuroscience and all of the things so like my journey is taking me on those paths. But initially I think it was probably the work of Michael Mosley in whatever the books were that came out at that time, that introduced me to this concept initially, and then from there it's just sort of evolved as I've learned more. So right here and now I follow full carnivore diet and that was introduced to me by a flow state coach that I have and I was just like completely thrown by, going like that can't be a good thing, and especially since I had a pantry full of a certain protein shake that I won't name that I'd invested a lot of money in. So I was kind of like, yeah, but I'm just about to start this regime and what you're telling me is, he said, just try it.
Speaker 6:And so I tried it and I couldn't fault the increased energy, the increased mental clarity that I had. And so I follow a very high fat diet combined with animal products. I rely I shouldn't say rely I really enjoy my bulletproof coffee. So for me, intermittent fasting is having bulletproof coffee, spursing in the morning and again at about midday. We've got one right now and then with a view of eating something high fat and some protein anywhere between four and seven o'clock, and that's pretty much my day. But yeah, in a nutshell, I don't know whether that answered your question, but that's me, wow great.
Speaker 1:I've been definitely been intrigued with the carnivore diet. I do know like when we've and I I don't know if I'd go the full the full kitten caboodle like full time, but I definitely wouldn't mind trying it out. I think that if you do have high quality protein, you don't need a whole bunch of it to feel really satisfied and really full. I can kind of see Angela going where's your veggies?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I'll be curious to to talk more to you guys about all of the things. We've given us a really great intro. So I would like to just go back to what Angela said.
Speaker 1:So there are so many different protocols with intermittent fasting and I think that this also goes back to what Sue Ellen was saying as well and what she's currently practicing. So Sue Ellen's following some protocols from Dr Mindy Pelts, who's just written a book, released, a book recently called Fast Like a Girl. So she talks about fasting but going with your cycle. So there are periods where you absolutely don't fast and then there are periods where you're going to get some benefits from fasting, but for a woman in menopause that looks slightly different. So that's where Sue Ellen's coming from, but she's still kind of working from a feminine side of things rather than that masculine side of things. So that's one type of protocol, right?
Speaker 1:So we hear about the 16.8, we hear about the, the 5.2, the Michael Molesley, where it's like you fast for a couple of days a week, but then when Angela has these women with different genetic profiles who fasting doesn't work for because, well, if they're looking to lose weight, for example, or if they get hungry, it's still, I believe, important to have that window of the 12.12, which kind of works with our circadian rhythm right. So for a lot of people they're not doing a 12.12. So a 12.12 is where you basically you eat within a 12 hour window and you fast for a 12 hour window, and so you could have your five meals a day within that right. But you wouldn't want to be going. Well, ideally we don't want to go outside of that window, because we do need our body to rest and repair Totally agree.
Speaker 7:Yeah, and this is, this is a mistake that many, though I see many women making. Yes, the late night snacks after dinner, and that's like if you can just pull that late night snack out after dinner because you really don't need it. Your body's ready to rest your body and you know, don't waste your food, but if you're sitting there particularly, it tends to be the sugary food.
Speaker 1:Sugary thing, a bit of chocolate, ice cream, glass of wine, yeah, and it's like your fast isn't over until that last thing. So I just generally with that, because I'm coming from the health space and coaching people as well is that it's like have it with your dinner or have it straight after dinner and then yeah, because we don't want to spike insulin, and particularly for older women, women who are coming through that menopause transition, they are more likely to be insulin resistant.
Speaker 7:That's one of the reasons they put on weight is because of the insulin resistance.
Speaker 1:And if you're spiking late at night, basically all of that has just been stored at fast, yeah yeah, one thing that you may or may not have heard about depending on whether you've listened to this podcast, I guess is one of the reasons is the benefits of fixing our breathing. Now we all breathe, so we might ask ourselves what's the problem, but there are actually some really important fundamental things that we can do to improve our breathing and, overall, that sorry that overall, those overall practices can help to improve our health. Again, this is a really simple bio hack. Yes, it does take some awareness, just like anything that we're changing needs us to have some awareness. But when you do realize that there are these amazing benefits to fixing up your breathing, it's a no brainer. Just try it. I was lucky enough to speak with my guest, adam Stenecki, who calls himself the breath geek, and I'm going to hand over for you to listen to a little snippet from that episode now.
Speaker 8:So the oxygen advantage thing is really interesting. I think there's there are some legs there. I think a lot of people will what's the word? Sort of click over into that after being exposed to breathing in other modalities. So to get a little bit more depth, a little bit more science and a little bit more of an understanding of what's really going on, especially people like you and I who have a fitness background right, we're interested in like how do we optimize this thing that? You know where our consciousness is wrapped in at the moment. How does it work better Totally? And I've seen quite a few faces from the CrossFit community in and around there like that. I'm pretty sure that's that person. Oh, yeah, okay, okay, yeah, there's a few, so it's not surprising.
Speaker 1:Yeah, darren works with Luke Starr, so he does some business stuff with him, and I had this idea, you know, when I became an instructor, that you know that's the kind of perfect audience, right, the CrossFit athletes. But I mean, I didn't delve into it, but I feel like maybe there would be a little bit of resistance, because who wants to breathe with their mouth closed when they're doing a CrossFit workout?
Speaker 8:Yeah, but that's not, that's not like. For example, I work with a local boxing gym. They're all off to Golden Gloves this weekend and I said to them I don't really mind how you breathe when you're trying not to get punched in the head. You already know that having your jaw wide open while someone's trying to punch you in the face is a bad thing. So you're not, you're not going to do that unless you really have to. And if you have to, you're in a stressful situation. You're literally in a fight. You will have excited breathing. So the work you do is before and after the fight and the recovery between rounds.
Speaker 8:Yeah so this idea of keeping your mouth closed, it's a really great ideal, but there are times it doesn't really function that well. I teach this at Jujitsu as well. So I'm one of the higher ranked people there doesn't mean I'm one of the best people there. I just have a higher rank because I've been around long enough. And so, with the more junior people that are unable to control their bodies and their breathing, that's largely what I'm saying. It's just settled down, it's OK, but at a point they have to breathe through their mouth because their metabolic requirements are exceeding their capabilities and capacity, yeah, so it's always good fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you work? I'm already sort of going around and about from my planned questions, which I've got two pages full of. But do you work a lot with athletes? Because I know that you've even your background says Conchorasma and that's kind of the people that you've been working with because you've got your own experience with that but do you work with a lot of athletes as well? Like, are you pretty across?
Speaker 8:the board. Yeah, it's an interesting thing. So the difficulty from a business perspective for anyone who wants to get involved in this is everyone breathes. So there's this moment where you're like I can work with everyone, and that's great because you can, but who do you want to work with and who wants to work with you? Right? You've got to work those two out, and my lived experience is having severe asthma as a child. So I'm intimately aware and connected to that experience and I know people go through that and don't do anything other than rely on medication for the rest of their lives. Now, I have nothing against medication, but I don't believe we should have to rely on it, especially for asthma. For the most part and it's not in every single situation, but for most situations it can be resolved Right and it can be resolved naturally.
Speaker 8:Now, what does resolve mean? Does it mean go as a way, completely, maybe, maybe not. Does it mean that it's just not ruining your life anymore? Most likely, but you've got to put the work in and it's a lot easier just to take a couple of paths of something and a way you go rather than actually focusing on your breathing. So they're my people, because I've lived that.
Speaker 8:But as soon as you start saying to people I help asthmatics conquer asthma, they'll say, well, I don't have asthma, but when I get a cold I get blah, blah, blah, blah. Can you help me with that? Yes, I can. Or I'm not sleeping well. Does breathing, better breathing affect sleep? Of course it does. Do you want to talk about that? Or, as you just asked about, I find that I get puffed out in the gym and so it sort of happens for me by accident. Largely I don't train at a gym anymore like a CrossFit gym, but I train jiu-jitsu, so I'm exposed to a group of people in there and they all notice that I don't get puffed out. Every now and then I do when someone tries to rip my head off and they're 20 years younger and 20 kilos heavier and 20 times better.
Speaker 8:No, don't talk of you 20 times better, and but I can recover my breathing really well. So that's often of interest to someone who's like in the corner gasping for air, like well, what's he doing differently? So then they ask the question, and then that becomes a seminar, it becomes one-on-one coaching and that's how I end up working at the boxing gym, because the guy who owns the boxing gym is one of the guys I train with at the jiu-jitsu gym. And then all of a sudden I'm training boxes how to breathe and it's really interesting because I don't know anyone else who's doing it here like in boxing gyms. Yeah right, and so I haven't really started to educate them on the effectiveness.
Speaker 8:Physiologically it's more about nervous system control at the moment. Calm the body down, recover your breathing, get your head clear, because you're in a fight. You don't want to be like, oh, I could have done that. But then you get punched in the face because you're thinking about. You don't want to be thinking about your breathing. When you're in a fight, it wants to happen naturally. And it's the same like we talked about CrossFit.
Speaker 8:No one in a CrossFit competition, for example, in practice in the gym, in a workout, maybe, maybe you've got time to focus on your breathing, to learn how to breathe with movement and so on and so forth. It's like getting triple extension in a lift. You have to practice it. You've got to work out that movement. So you have to work out how you breathe under load, under stress, during intense activity. You don't want to do that if you're at a competition, though, so it's got to step in earlier in the flow, not even coming up to a competition, like even earlier than that. So you're absolutely correct. Trying to get a CrossFit athlete who is competitive and say, ok, if you shut your mouth, it'd be much better.
Speaker 1:It's like yes, you might go slower for a little while though.
Speaker 8:Yeah, and see, that's the problem. You have to say it. You have to say to people like we need to work out that outside of your competition cycle because you have to slow down to incorporate this, and then you can start to talk to them about it, because a lot of the people that are at the high end in CrossFit are very interested in like what's the next hack? Well, like, what can I do? What will work? They all know about supplementation and diet and the majority of them have got recovery sorted out Not everyone, but you know, like when you're starting to look for one per cent, this is the stuff that you start to dial in. So if we can start to dial in breathing as a recovery mechanism between workouts in a weekend-long competition, like that might be the edge.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 8:But again, you want to bring that back to the smaller competitions, maybe the in-house gym competition. Test it out there. What happened? Get some data and then let's move forward.
Speaker 1:I think it's safe to say that at this time of year, there's every possibility that we are hanging in there when it comes to getting enough sleep. We're trying to get everything done before Christmas starts. Before we break from work, we're catching up with friends, we're doing all of the things, and sleep is sometimes the thing that goes astray. Now I'm always going on about how wonderful sleep is, and it was so great to have a recent guest on with me, michael Hildebrandt. He is a sleep coach and we talked about all of the wonders of sleep and why it's so important. So, without further ado, I'm going to hand over so you can hear from a little bit of that conversation from Michael and hear about some of the wonders of sleep. I love your approach to all of the things about sleep. I'm a mad sleep fan I always have been and it's so good that there is some momentum building when it comes to people realizing the importance of getting a good night's sleep.
Speaker 4:That's true, it took a while, but I completely agree that there is momentum going. Sleep is omnipresent. You can have it over all kinds of media, not only in social media, on TV, documentaries, news. Even the importance of sleep is highly highlighted nowadays. I'm not 100% convinced that the people do the right things only because they know that it's important, but that's a different part of the story. At least the awareness is there now.
Speaker 1:I think it's really interesting that, intuitively, we know, right, you have a good night's sleep and you talk about it, right, you go oh my God, you tell people I had such a good night's sleep last night, or I slept really badly. We know that these things, we know it's good for us and how good we feel, but we are forever sacrificing our sleep to fit more into our days.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think it's like partly. There are a lot of reasons for this, nadine, right? If you look at business owners, business professionals, managers, all that kind of range of people, I think a lot of these people still believe they know that sleep is important, but I think they believe just because it's painful, I need to move through the pain. Because it's painful, it's also productive. That's simply not true.
Speaker 4:If we're honest to ourselves and we really start to measure the things that we do or take a different perspective on them and see okay, what am I really going to get getting done After one of these awesome nights of sleep where I know, oh my God, I feel incredible. I get up, I have all of this energy, I show up. People are reacting to me accordingly because now I'm in a friendly, very tranquil mode of doing the things I do. So what do I get done on those days like productivity wise? And what do I get done on other days where I'm just working? I'm pushing myself hard. Okay, I can be proud of myself that I did that. I would agree to that but what do I honestly get done? I think that's kind of the mismatch that a lot of these business professionals have going on that they still do not really believe that they really get more done when they give themselves that hour or two more sleep.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And are you still working with business people specifically, Because I know that when we spoke previously, that was like a big part of what you did was like teaching people that sleep is important for productivity and it can actually help with work performance if you are getting a good night's sleep. Are you still doing that with the people that you coach?
Speaker 4:Yeah, the coaching is like the sleep coaching people, for all different kinds of areas, have problems with their sleep right, so it's not specifically broken down to business professionals. I love to work with business professionals because that's just where I'm coming from, like I used to do performance coaching and rather was harsh to myself before. I had my own issues with sleep Years ago. So that's kind of why I still have a preference to work with these people, also because typically and that's not a rule, but typically they're more committed and it's easier to work with people that are committed to do the things they need to do. Like, if you have a chat with a business professional and he gets, he or she gets what's going on and you agree on certain things, they're higher likely to follow through or at least be honest. If they don't say okay, like let's recommit and try something else, whatever. So that makes it easier for me to do my work, because I can literally not help people if they're not willing to put the effort into what needs to be done right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I had some things coming off the top of my head and I have to say tonight. So, because of our time difference, you're in the AM and I'm in the PM and I got my times mixed up right Because of our clocks changing and so this is normally around the time I start shutting down and going to bed. So if I lose track of what I'm saying, I'm living proof right here that regular sleep times are very important for us. I was thinking about your like a few things popped up in my head as you were talking then. I think that often people who are sort of executives, for example, they do start to look at how they can improve their performance. Right, if they're doing ticking a whole bunch of other boxes, I think it seems to be more of a. They've realised the importance of how they can enhance their productivity through their lifestyle, whereas it used to be a bit more well and it probably is for a lot of people, still a bit more kind of like you know, sleep when you're dead kind of mentality.
Speaker 4:That's right.
Speaker 1:But there are. There is this evolution of, and these people are emerging where they're like. I need to get the best out of my work and to be the best I can be. I need to improve these lifestyle factors.
Speaker 4:And productivity is kind of a hook, like one of the hooks to get people to listen. But, like in the coaching and real life, it's not about productivity, right, it's about how we feel more, more like we want. Why do we want to be productive? We want to feel proud of ourselves, we want to create value for others. So it all boils down to how are we feeling? Like? If we're not feeling good, like not a day or two, like that can always happen, but if, over longer periods of time, we're not feeling good because of the way we act and treat ourselves, maybe we're not doing the right things, like the last interview I'm going to share with you today really sums everything up.
Speaker 1:I was lucky enough to speak with Dr Joy Hussain. She is an integrative health practitioner, a doctor, and she talks a lot about the benefits of saunering and she's done a whole bunch of studies on those benefits. But she talks about all of the things to do with health and it's so wonderful to know that there are doctors out there who absolutely support the ideas and beliefs that we have and they are evidence based. So if you're into, you know, understanding the evidence, then hearing from a doctor surely is pretty reassuring. Dr Joy has a whole bunch of energy.
Speaker 1:She I loved this conversation and this is a really great one to end on. What would I say that's what I was going to say, michael, at the end of that little snippet that I shared with you about our conversation. Sorry, I'm getting my words all muddled up Talks about the importance of feeling good, right, and that's why we are choosing all of these things, and the thing I love is that they are simple, they are proven to work, you don't need to do any fads, they can fit into your lifestyle and Dr Joy really supports that philosophy and I really loved this conversation with her. So I'm going to hand over for the last little snippet of what episode was it? Let me have a look. Getting hot and sweaty. Season seven, episode five, with Dr Joy Hussain.
Speaker 2:Well, I guess I'll tell you about my health journey so it'll explain how I got where I am today. So I'm someone who, since being a teenager, I've had something called Raynaud syndrome, which I get, these really cold hands, usually cold temperature or stress related. Well, they'll just go cold, they turn blue, they get painful and then they get really painful when they re-perfuse and I just thought it's something to live with. I knew it probably was something autoimmune, went through my medical career and was posted in Alaska. I taught in a small town there for about five years and I feared going because I thought oh no, my hands are going to be so painful there, it's going to be so cold.
Speaker 2:And then something surprising happened. I actually my Raynaud's got so much better I forgot I had Raynaud's and me. I didn't put it together. I just thought, oh OK, maybe I'm cured, they've got to worry about it. And then I'm married to an Australian and we ended up moving to Alice Springs after that Hot as place in Australia and my Raynaud's starting to come back and I'm like what is going on? How come I'm? And again, I didn't put it together. And then another three years later we moved to Melbourne and I was missing sonnets, just as socially and missing the way it felt. And so we built a sauna and my Raynaud's disappeared again. And that's when I went OK, something's going on with the sauna.
Speaker 2:And about that time I met Professor Mark Cohen at RMIT and I said I want to study sonnets. I think they are a tool that we're just being oblivious to, and that's what launched me on my journey and I did a PhD. I spent about seven, eight years diving into everything hot and wonderful about and sweating about saunas all different kinds of saunas and then we ended up moving to Brisbane while I was doing my PhD, and we've built two saunas since then. And what did I say? And that's how I've gotten here, and I think it was my eyes opening up to sauna that made me go. You know, lifestyle has such an impact that in my training and in my field of family medicine, we weren't yeah, we weren't doing enough justice to, and, and since that time, in these last 10 years, there's been the explosion of lifestyle medicine, integrative medicine, although it predated that too. But that's when I decided that's how, that's what that was, why I'm here, that's what I need to do, right, right.
Speaker 1:A couple of ways, things I want to ask you about. I get rainbows as well, yeah, so I'm curious about that because I have played around. We've got a sauna at home and I've played around. What kind of sauna? What kind of sauna? Infrared, okay, I think. Okay, I don't know my husband, I don't even know what brand it is. I think it's an infrared sauna. But I've been playing around with cold plunging as well and I thought, if I get a tolerance to the cold, my rainbows were going, but I was doing both We've just moved house and I haven't been saunering as much and my rainbows came back, but I put it down to not doing as much cold stuff.
Speaker 2:Well, actually you're on this thing there. I think you're on to something. I actually think saunas and what cold plunges, or what we call contrast therapy, I think those are the two edges of the same sore. I think it's inducing this thermal regulation yes, rain notes which we still, at least scientifically, don't completely understand, but we think it's definitely impacting the really tiny capillaries that are in our fingers and our toes and it definitely has to do with the lining of the blood vessel. I think that's where all these autonomic nerves lie that moderate your sympathetic and parasympathetic system, which is what I think is imbalanced with rain notes. What I've worked out in myself and I think everyone's unique, but I've worked out as long as I get into the sauna, at least once every two weeks, I keep my rain notes at bay. If I go on holidays and don't have that contrast therapy, whether it be heat or cold, then it starts to inch back in.
Speaker 1:Give it a try. I'm going to really keep an eye on that, because I just put it down to the cold stuff, but yeah, I'd rather be warm than cold, to be quite honest.
Speaker 2:Have you noticed stress For me? I really know stress impacts my rain notes too, if I'm cold and stressed, it's just like yes.
Speaker 1:Right, I'm going to check it out because I can get it. I can be at the beach on a warm day, but I go in the ocean and my fingers will go completely numb, even though it's quite hot day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, that's what happened to me in our springs. I was like what is going on? I'd walk into an air-conditioned room and, especially with work, I would be in an air-conditioned medical clinic. I'd just be like, oh my gosh, I can't believe that I need to stick warmers in my pocket in our springs of all places. Wow.
Speaker 1:I'm definitely going to keep an eye on that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was like winning. I can't wait to get rid of that bloody Reynolds. Yes, the other question I was going to ask is just can you give us a bit of an idea about what integrative medicine is? Because I feel like, for people like you and I that are, you know, into natural health solutions, I guess you'd say, and lifestyle related health solutions, when we're on social media, that sort of thing, the same sorts of people pop up right. So you know, you see cold therapy, you see saunering, you see breathwork, you see, you know high intensity exercise. But for many people, if they don't have those natural interests and inclinations, they might not realize what an integrative health practitioner or a medical practitioner does. So give us a little bit of a.
Speaker 2:Yes, the terminology is confusing and look, I started off calling myself an integrative medicine practitioner. Really, I think it does mean different things to different people, because you'll hear about functional medicine, you'll hear about lifestyle medicine. I actually think we are talking about different sizes of the same cube, basically, and my idea of what integrative medicine is is just to really explore all aspects of someone's life and not just their problems, which you know a lot of. I think conventional medicine, in the way I was trained, is very disease focused. It's very weighty of the problem and then here we go, we're going to solve, we're going to treat it, but you almost have to have a diagnosis before you've got a good sense of a plan. Even though family medicine we're supposed to have a lot of preventive medicine and things like that it's very rote and it's not actually holistic. So to me, I like the holistic approach and the three things that I really focus on are food, the things we do every day, day in, day out, like food, which again in my medical training I got two weeks of nutrition. Come on two weeks and it's like, yeah, and that's something we do every day and it impacts our health tremendously. Everyone who's become aware and open their eyes to that, realizes that. So food is one of the things I always focus on.
Speaker 2:Activity, exercise and if you want to call it exercise or not, I need to understand how someone moves through their day and I think that also moves and what they do with their body, their physical body as well as their mind. So that's the second thing I look at activities physical and mind activity and the third thing I look at is sleep. That's something we need day in, day out. I really focus hard on those three things, in addition to the diseases, the disorders, and then try and I also am very passionate about people taking ownership for their health the paternalistic attitude that I saw when I was training.
Speaker 2:I really always got my spine up. Really, how could I know? How can I tell you how to live your life? I'm not anybody 24 seven or your mind. What I can do is give you advice, but that you need to be running the show. So that's something I require. I actually have people sign it could say that they are going to take ownership. I am there to help guide them, but they are in charge. So there's never going to be me saying, oh, you need to do this, and when someone says to me, well, what should I do? I said that's not the right question. The question is which, what makes the most sense for you? So that's that's what I feel is integrative medicine. Now for functional medicine, you could go through all the seven different layers and things like, but it all boils down to the same, I think, to these essential things. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I hope you've enjoyed revisiting those episodes with me and I hope that there has been some information in these conversations that can help to support you with making some choices around your health, if that's what you fancy doing. I would just like to take a moment to say how grateful I am that you have taken the time to listen to this podcast and any others. I'm having a great time interviewing all of these wonderful guests. I really appreciate the listeners because without you, no one's hearing us. Have a great festive season, if that's what you're into. Enjoy all of the celebrations, catching up with friends and doing all of the things. Remember, we've got these wonderful options. We're looking to make some changes. Or, don't forget, if you're already doing some of these things, don't stop doing them just because it's Christmas. We need our health every day of the year. I wish you well. Thanks again for listening and I'm looking forward to sharing some wonderful episodes with you in 2024. Thank you for watching.