Balance & Beyond
Balance and Beyond is the podcast for ambitious women refusing to accept burnout as the price of success. Here, we’re committed to empowering you with the tools and strategies you need to achieve true balance, where your career, relationships and health all thrive and where you have the power to define success on your own terms.
Balance & Beyond
Biohacking for Burnt Out Women: What No One Tells You
When Camilla Thompson woke up in hospital after collapsing with sepsis, the doctor told her something chilling: "If you'd gone to bed last night instead of coming here, you likely would have slipped into a coma." Two days earlier, she'd been at work, pushing through fatigue and dismissing symptoms while juggling motherhood and a demanding corporate career.
This wake-up call was just one chapter in Camilla's journey to becoming a biohacking expert. From postpartum depression that conventional medicine couldn't address to discovering her family home was riddled with toxic mold that was making them ill, Camilla's path reveals why so many women struggle to find answers to their health challenges within traditional healthcare systems.
In this eye-opening conversation, Camilla shares accessible, practical biohacking strategies specifically designed for busy women. Forget the expensive gadgets and complicated protocols pushed by "tech bros" – these are real-world solutions for women juggling multiple responsibilities while trying to reclaim their energy and vitality. Learn why women need different approaches to sleep optimization, nutrition, and stress management, and discover simple five-minute hacks that can transform how you feel (including why a spoonful of honey before bed might be the sleep solution you've been searching for).
Perhaps most importantly, Camilla addresses the martyrdom mindset that keeps so many women from prioritizing their health. "We get stuck in survival mode," she explains, "running on cortisol and adrenaline, putting everyone else first." But what if the most revolutionary act is simply putting yourself at the top of your to-do list? Your health – and everything else in your life – might just transform as a result.
To view the Transcript from this week's episode, visit our Balance & Beyond Podcast webpage: https://www.balanceinstitute.com/podcast/2025/97
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Welcome to Balance and Beyond, the podcast for ambitious women who refuse to accept burnout as the price of success. Here we're committed to empowering you with the tools and strategies you need to achieve true balance, where your career, relationships and health all thrive and where you have the power to define success on your terms. I honor the space you've created for yourself today, so let's take a breath and dive right in. Welcome to Balance and Beyond. Today, I'm joined by Camilla Thompson, who is a trailblazer in biohacking, an executive coach and the author of Biohack Me Me, and also one of us, a mum of two with a burnout story and a health story. So today she's here to help us understand what is actually going on with our bodies and how we can, as women, really step into our best lives, which, of course, includes best health and energy.
Jo:Welcome, Camilla, thank you, it's wonderful to be here. Health and energy. Welcome, Camilla. Thank you, it's wonderful to be here. Why don't we start off? You've had an interesting journey that mimics that of many of women who are listening to this podcast and come into our world. Why don't you tell us a little bit about where did your journey towards biohacking begin?
Camilla:Yes. So look, there's sort of three key pivotal points in my life that sort of put me on this path. But I guess it started at a very young age. I grew up with a mom who was a bit of a hippie, very progressive thinker. She, you know, our house was low tox, no chemicals, food came from local farms. We weren't allowed sugar. So we were, you know, I really set my blueprint for health from an early age. Obviously I rebelled a lot when I was a teenager and ate Maccas and all the rest of it and lots of sugar and alcohol, all those things. But I came back to that, so that was always been instilled and my mom taught me so much. And it's funny there's so many things that are coming out in the last couple of years that she was talking about, you know, 20, 30, 40 years ago. So yeah, that's where it all sort of started for me. I call her the OG biohacker because she was. She's one of the originals. But look, there's sort of three things that happened when I had my first son, ollie, in London. He's 22 now.
Camilla:I had an awful labor, two days, very traumatic. They couldn't get him out, you know, suction caps, forceps. His poor little head was so misshapen I had two epidurals, pethidine. He was stuck. So we ended up going with a spinal tap, which shouldn't work, then a general anesthetic and then I went under general. I went under general and had an emergency cesarean section. So it was two days of hell. Apparently I sounded like something from the Exorcist, according to some of my friends. But eventually we got him out and he was healthy, thank God, because his heart rate had gone down and stuff as well. So it was a bit of a panic to get him out. But I thought I'd had a car accident. I had no idea I'd had a baby and they sort of said, oh, you've had a beautiful baby boy and I hadn't held him for hours. So our bonding was really strained.
Camilla:It was London, it was miserable, it was winter. I didn't recover very well and I just got more and more depressed and I was crying a lot and Ollie had colic and he was crying. He was really unsettled. His poor little head was so misshapen and ended up getting craniosacral therapy on him when he was a little bit older because I was so worried about the damage to his head. But um, we were both struggling. Anyway, we moved to Australia when he was a year old and I didn't really know anyone here. So then I was suddenly in another country with a baby and my partner working all the time. So I got diagnosed with postnatal depression quite late, um, and so 22 years ago there wasn't the support that there is now and there wasn't't the conversations that we have now and that that community to support you. Like I did feel very alone.
Camilla:I got put on some SSRIs to help with the depression, but they didn't really work for me. I think I was on the wrong ones and again they've developed them so much now, whereas back in the day they weren't. You know, I was on the wrong one. So I came it because I it, I put on lots of weight, I couldn't get out of bed, like it was just it wasn't a good time. I was already feeling so crap and then it was sort of compounding this sort of lost all joy and hope and and um, it was really tough. So I came off the SSRIs and had a complete breakdown like my emotions, like I couldn't stop crying.
Camilla:I ended up finding myself walking into a Chinese Buddhist place in Rose Bay, an acupuncture guy, and he sort of sat there and held my hands and I sobbed and I was like I don't know what to do and he just laid me on this bed and he jabbed loads of needles on me, gave me these black and these funky sort of herbs, and I kept coming back and, week after week, I got better and I started healing and I started getting in nature and I started eating better and I could get out of bed in the morning and I just I found joy and you know, we managed to heal um. I realized that this, you know, my little boy needed his mom and I'd been so, you know, distant, just trying to. You know, I felt like I felt like a complete failure as a mom, like I was like, why is this not working? You know, I was 26, 27 years old, felt young, I was just like this. I'm not good at this, um, so it was a really tough time. So, anyway, that was my first experience with some traditional Chinese medicine and learning other ways to heal the body. Um, I guess another one is I worked in corporate media for many years and, real perfectionist, pushed myself really hard, juggling two young boys.
Camilla:I'd left my partner at the time. So I was in massively in survival mode, having to financially support two boys on my own for a good couple of years, and I just pushed really hard. I was the only really. One other person had children in the agency and I was the only other person with young kids, so I was overcompensating. It's like you know I'm just because I'm a mom doesn't mean I can't do what you guys do. I'll just superwoman. So push, push, push had to be the best. You know terrible perfectionism, you know I've worked on that so much over the years of those feelings of not feeling good enough and what I was, you know the overcompensation to achieve all the time to give you those feelings of worth and suffering from high functioning anxiety. So on the outside I was like superwoman power, I've got this, I'm all over this, I'm high performing. And on the inside I was, you know, just crippled with self doubt and anxiety and, you know, really negative inner critic. So this resulted in me just working too much.
Camilla:I knew I wasn't feeling very well but I just kept going to work, push, push, push and I went into a fever at work, went to the doctors and they were like you've got a kidney infection. Here's some antibiotics Within 24 hours. If you don't feel any better, come back well within 24 hours. I was in A&E and I woke up in A&E the next day in the ward and they said you know, you've you had sepsis. And he said if you'd gone to bed? The doctor said if you'd gone to bed last night, you possibly well potentially would have gone into a coma because you were that sick. Two days before that I'd been at work. Really bad wake-up call.
Jo:I read.
Camilla:Dr Libby's book, the Rushing Woman in hospital and I was like, ah, she's written this book for me. Every page. I was like this is me. What have I done to myself? What have I? Why have I been doing this?
Camilla:And so disconnected from my body and how I was feeling and my intuition that something was wrong, I was blaming on full moons and Mercury was in retrograde, I was like I feel really heavy. No, you're actually ill, you've got an infection, but anyway. So that was a big wake up call and that sort of got me onto a path. I started working in mental health and well-being. I set up a business business. I co-founded it with my ex business partner and, yeah, I guess my final thing that got me into biohacking, which we share here in common, is mold.
Camilla:So eight years living in mold in Rose Bay um, funnily enough, they think that I got really bad after I had the sepsis and that the mold got in because my weak, my immune system, was so weakened. But yeah, I spent years going back and forth to doctors, immune system issues, my eyes to swell up and weep. I was constantly dehydrated, creaking bones like an old woman, anxiety through the roof, and just felt like, yeah, just felt terrible all the time, like I was on a permanent hangover and I wasn't drinking. So eventually I was sort of like in bed, wasn't well? One of my friends came over to my house and she'd been working in mold remediation for quite a while in Sydney and she said, camilla, you've got mold everywhere. It was in my bed, it was in my bedside cabinets. We'd had water damage in a cupboard. It had spread like it was. We had an old house. It was in every room. It was in my home office had black mold all hidden. It was hidden everywhere and not everyone was sick in the house. My younger son had health issues, but my older son was fine and my husband. So yeah, it was really hard to work out what was going on there and that our home was making us sick.
Camilla:So, conventional medicine they don't know about mold GPs. Unfortunately it's not their fault. They've had no training. They don't know how to diagnose, they don't know how to treat. So you have to take control of your health and you have to start doing things as you know to heal your body, because no one else is going to do it for you and there's no magic drug that's going to work to fix it. So that's what kind of got me into doing loads of crazy different biohacking stuff to try and get well from mold. So yeah, that's kind of my story as to why I'm here Amazing Thanks for sharing.
Jo:And Kimberley and I were talking before this podcast. I realized I think I'm also a biohacker. I've got this gadget and I do this and, wow, I just it's an identity I'd never, I guess, given to myself, and I know you had a similar journey. It was just these things tend to start incrementally. You don't wake up one day and go I'm a biohacker as a woman. You go with I've got this problem, I need to solve it, I need to be well.
Camilla:And then we start taking steps right. Yeah, and it's so hard being a woman because there's so many other factors, so it's very difficult, like hormones, like you know, stress levels, the mental load, all those invisible loads we're carrying, and it's very hard to pinpoint what's making you sick, or if you're just tired or you know. I mean I've got gas lit completely by doctors who said it's all in your head. You know, even a kinesiologist said to me oh, I think you're just choosing to be sick. And I was like why would I choose to be sick? I don't want to be sick.
Camilla:So it's really hard. And my husband didn't believe me for ages and the hat we found mold in the house. He was still not convinced that that was what was wrong with me until we got the bloods and I was like here it is in black and white. He couldn't believe it. So it's it's very lonely time as well when you're. You kind of don't have a community. I think there's some great groups now and communities you can join, so you feel part of something which has its positives and negatives sometimes it is.
Jo:I think you put your finger on something there. As women, we're so used to pushing through and putting ourselves last that it is difficult to know. Am I just not tough enough? Do I just need to suck it up and? Uh, you know, just try a little bit harder and if, when I get through the list, then I'll book that doctor's appointment. That's a prevailing thought, unfortunately, amongst many women listening to this podcast.
Camilla:We always deprioritize ourself and I think the one thing that when I had that significant burnout with sepsis, I was just determined that I'd be the top of my to-do list every day and I was like there's no way that I'm putting work in front of my health, my children, you know, and I missed out on time with my kids because I was working all the time and you know, and we get stuck in survival mode as women and we're just so used to running on cortisol and adrenaline and our body is just yeah, it's a lot. And then our immune system is impacted every month with our hormones more to immune, more women suffer from mold issues because of our immune system.
Jo:I mean, it does happen to men, but not as frequently it's just interesting for context, we also sold our house because of a mold issue.
Jo:And my husband also didn't think it was that much of a deal, big deal. Okay, I hear that all the time. Yeah, I was the one he's like. You're just being a bit dramatic, you know I would every. We had black mold growing in our wardrobe, which was right near our bedroom, and my daughter was constantly sick. All the family had health issues and no one could put a finger on it. And it was only when I went and just like this is going to cost a fortune, but I came and got a mold assessment done because it was after Sydney gets a lot of rain. I was after one of those periods of rain like, okay, we, we have to do something about this. I'm just going to get someone in and see if there's a problem. And it turns out my daughter's bedroom was branded uninhabitable.
Camilla:Yes, same as my humans yeah, same as my sons. It was so bad, the readings were so high. Within 24 hours we were told we couldn't live in our house. You had to, we had to get out and everything we owned was contaminated. So it's like going through a natural disaster you lose your home, all your belongings, but you're also sick, like it's. It's really traumatic. Um, I came up with PTMD, which is post-traumatic mold disorder, and I'm like it's a thing and you know we've been through it, but it's yeah.
Jo:Well, we then and there decided to sell our house. It was like we were going to renovate and as part of the renovations I've gone. Well, if we've got mold, let me find out how to rectify it when we do the renovation so I can fix it. But it was going to be upwards of two hundred thousand dollars to put in the fans and refit. It was in the air conditioning vents and and I've gone. I don't, I'm not paying that. I could buy a new house with that money. So, literally within the space of two hours, like we have to leave this house.
Camilla:Oh, and your daughter it's. And I just, I felt such incredible guilt as well with my son because, um, the school was saying, oh, he's not concentrating in class, and the football, his football team, was saying he's just not running like he used to, he's not focused, he's not, as you know, he doesn't seem to be as active and energized as he used to be, and he kept getting sores on his lips. And, um, I just thought I don't know what. I thought I, I just because it not all of us were sick.
Camilla:And this is the thing like, only 25 of the population had the gene, the mold gene, which is the hla, dr or dq part of the celiac um sequence, gene sequence, and that means we can't get rid of mold. So it means we inhale it and we, and that means we can't get rid of mold, so it means we inhale it and we just can't bind it and get rid of it. And so my son and I both have that and but my, you know, you just don't know it's so hard, your home is making you ill and what are? It's such a scary, it's so very fearful. Like I, I spent years living in fear, going to people's houses and thinking I was going to get sick again.
Jo:I don't know if you had a similar experience, but yeah, we sold our house and we're actually headed to a clinic in Norway I've mentioned this to you before where I was sick of all our issues here. My husband had a Rolodex of specialists and no one was actually getting to the core of it. It's like stuff. This I'm not taking. One daughter couldn't get diagnoses or anything. So I knew that this clinic in Norway was very much an intuitive hit. We're going to Norway. This we literally.
Jo:I actually sent my husband and daughter the first week after lockdown, after borders opened. I sent them to Norway not knowing anything about the clinic, just knowing where they had to go. And then this was another intuitive hunch At I had to go. And then this was another intuitive hunch at the end of 2022, we'd actually booked a trip to Thailand and I said we need to go to Norway. My husband's gone, we've just paid for Thailand. We're not going to Norway, like we need to go to Norway.
Jo:And that trip saved all of our lives and my there's a pretty good chance my husband wouldn't be here right now if we hadn't gone and worked out while we were down how sick was he. So so he was, he was mold stuff, but his was a whole range of other things. He had heart issues, digestive issues, insulin issues, inflammation issue, you name it but the mold was just exacerbating and taking any ability for his immune system to heal himself of his other challenges. So we actually never let the kids go back in. After we left and went to Norway and had red light therapy and a whole range of healings on a range of different things, we never let the kids come back into the house and I went back in with a mask to clean it for sale. So same I had.
Camilla:I had to do everything. I had to go through all of our stuff and try and save what I could. But I mean there's pictures of me in full hazmat and masks and having to go back in and we had to leave our cat at the house for a bit because we couldn't rehouse the cat, because we had nowhere to live and our cat lived on its own for a little while but I had to go and feed her every day. But it was like going back into that house and it was and just realizing that you were living in that environment. I was working in it all day from home and then sleeping in it literally in my bed and it's there's a sense of relief that you finally know what's wrong with you.
Camilla:But you know it's the cost. Like I mean, I know I spent tens of thousands trying to get well, that was money that we didn't actually have. Like a lot of it was on, you know, credit cards and then paying it off and all the supplements and the treatments and I'm privileged that I could do that. There's so many people living in social housing and disability housing and retirement homes and people that can't afford to heal themselves. It's a crisis.
Jo:So where would you recommend somebody start? Whether they're dealing with mold issues or they're just exhausted at bottom where you were, whether it's still recovering from childbirth or just complete burnout, there's a million and one pieces of advice out there. If you're thinking about someone who's overwhelmed, where would you suggest they start?
Camilla:Look, I mean I'm a big being a biohacker. We're all about data and we're all about testing, and so my thing would be to get the right testing done. So to if you think you might have mold, you've been living in mold or you might have been exposed to mold, is to do a urine test. The blood tests are okay, but the urine test is more reliable, so I would look at doing different testing that you can do to find out what's going on. Unfortunately, you can't do this stuff for your GP, so again you're in that situation where you have to pay for a functional doctor or a naturopath, but it has to be key is finding out what's going on with you.
Jo:What if there's? Maybe they don't suspect mold, if they're just, you know, exhausted. Like what other biohacks would you suggest? Because you know people talk about cold therapy, they talk about sleeping more, they talk about supplements, like what? What's the kind of generic, kind of biohacking tips?
Camilla:Well, I think it's. I've got my biohacking basics, so I've got just a bit of a framework. So I think it's focusing on those foundational pieces and going okay. So let me look at all of these foundations and I'll talk about them in a minute and let me really sort of put as much as I can into optimize each of those areas, and if you still feel like crap afterwards, then you're probably going to go. Okay, I need to go. I mean, I would suggest getting full bloods done anyway and getting a really good blood panel and hormone panel for women, like the Dutch test is amazing. Unfortunately, if you go to the doctors and just get bloods, you're not going to get a good hormone panel. So, dutch test. So, again coming back to testing, but if you, if you can't do the testing and you just go, okay, I just need to start with stuff.
Camilla:Obviously, sleep is number one. That's when we repair, we regenerate, that's when the body has a chance to, you know, do what it needs to do so that we can heal. So I think that's key. Don't compromise your sleep. Have it as a non-negotiable. You know we're so distracted now. We've got Netflix and Stan and all these things that are, you know, keeping us from going to bed at a decent time because we're like just one more episode or we're on our phone scrolling, having a non-negotiable going to bed at a decent time so you can get a good sleep. I was reading some research the other day actually about the length of sleep and going to sleep. I know we always used to say an hour before midnight is what you need for better sleep, but there is actually some science behind that on the different stages of sleep and when, as we know, we go into REM and deep and all these different stages of sleep and different things happen at those different stages. So really trying to get to sleep by about 10, 10.30 is ideal. You know, going to bed at 9, 9.30 and then up early to rise is ideal, but that depends on your chronotype, like some people are night owls and that's not gonna work for them, right? So again, it's being intuitive and using bio-individuality on what works for you and what your rhythm is. But sleep is number one.
Camilla:Some good hacks around sleep are magnesium. If you're not taking magnesium, it's an absolute winner. We absorb it better orally or through cream, and through our feet is actually, randomly, the best place. Get someone to rub magnesium cream on your feet place. Get someone to rub magnesium cream on your feet, but Epsom salt baths, things like that and you can get some really good night magnesium. You know powders, ethical nutrients, bioceticals those guys do some pretty good ones that you can get over the counter in a little bit of water and that's really going to help with your nervous system and sleep and restless leg and all that kind of stuff. Most of us are magnesium deficient, so it's a bit of a no-brainer magnesium.
Camilla:I like things like, you know, silk eye mask or an eye mask. It's just a way of training the brain as well that it's time to sleep. As soon as you put that mask on, you kind of rewire your brain and it's a signal to go to sleep. So also it's great for wrinkles, which is good. It sort of rewires and signals to the brain it's time for sleep and it helps block the light. So that's a really great hack for sleeping and not expensive.
Camilla:I've got a honey hack as well. So when we're sleeping our brain is still really active. You know, we think we're just sort of dead to the world, but we're not. The brain's going, all sorts is going on and it uses glycogen from our liver as its energy source to keep firing up and doing what it's doing, and often it's at two, three am. That glycogen store is gone and so we wake up. We've got surges of cortisol, adrenaline. But also the brain is looking for an energy source. So honey actually tricks and mimics the glycogen. So it's got to be good quality raw honey or manuka honey, but a spoonful of honey. The brain will use that as an energy source. So I have clients that are sleeping through the night just from taking honey before bed.
Camilla:Yeah, so if you're fasting like then, maybe do it after dinner. It's good for people the sweet tooth, because it curbs that sweet tooth. Um, there's got to be decent, like raw honey, not not the squeezy cheap stuff, because that'll it after dinner. It's good for people with a sweet tooth because it curbs that sweet tooth. There's got to be decent, like raw honey, not the squeezy cheap stuff, because that'll just send your blood glucose through the roof. Do not do that, please. But yeah, so that's a really great hack. So your honey, your magnesium, eye masks, breath work, so that really good yoga, diaphragmatic breathing that actually flushes out cortisol and, you know, sends messages to the body.
Camilla:It's time to sleep, rest, digest, you're safe. Parasympathetic nervous system activates that vagus nerve. So that's really important is to have those beautiful rituals. And also, reading a book before bed reduces our stress by 68% if we read for at least six minutes. So definitely worth reading a book, one chapter, before bed rather than being on your phone and whatever else. So prioritize sleep.
Camilla:Nutrition is absolutely key, like if you're feeling crap. The chances are you're not getting enough nutrients and you're not fueling your body with the right kind of foods. So doing a bit of a food audit is good, like what are you eating every day? You're getting enough of those good fats which you know? Our brain is fat, our body needs fat. So avocados, olive oil, good extra virgin olive oil, macadamias, walnuts you know all that kind of stuff, that fatty fish and making sure we're getting enough fiber and we're getting good quality protein and our veggies, obviously.
Camilla:So just making sure if you're fueling your body with the right foods. That is step one, you know is. Is that? So sleeping well and eating well and gut health really important? Often if we're feeling sluggish, low energy, even anxious and not good, like our gut health has something going on with our microbiome. Again, you can test that. But if you haven't got the funds to test it, I think just doing making sure you're eating prebiotic foods, take probiotics for a month and then stop. Just make sure you're getting that good bacteria into your gut is really important and that's obviously linked. Take probiotics for a month and then stop just make sure you're getting that good bacteria into your gut is really important and that's obviously linked to our mental health as well there are so many kind of pieces of advice out there.
Jo:A lot of the, I guess and I think this is part of our discussion where you said you know a lot of you didn't think you're a biohacker, because often they are older white men who lead very different lifestyles and or they're you know elite athletes who are olympians and they're the ones saying this is how you biohack to get that gold medal. But when you're a woman with two kids working full-time it can be hard to step into that. Where do you think biohacking has sort of let women down or where is the advice not landed?
Camilla:yeah, look, 100, and I think this is something I've been trying to talk about a little bit in the media here in Australia is it's this very male tech bro, millionaires, billionaires, spending millions a year to reverse their age. And you know, it's fascinating what they're doing, the Brian Johnson's of this world Like. It is absolutely fascinating, but it's completely not accessible and unrealistic for just us normal people so, and particularly women, right, because we're juggling so many multiple responsibilities and all these invisible loads as well. And most studies have been done on men and a lot of the studies have been done on women, have been done on very weird groups of women over a certain age's not really translatable, um, doesn't really translate to to us. So we are not little men, um, which we have been referred to a lot in the past. So I think it's for women. It's about intuition.
Camilla:You know, I look back to me when I'm working in my burnout story and how I had no intuition. I was completely disconnected from my body, I didn't realize I was sick. How I had no intuition. I was completely disconnected from my body, I didn't realize I was sick. How did I not know that? How was I blaming mercury and retrograde for feeling heavy, anyway. But I think just really getting stuck into your own body and being intuitive is important. But women have been let down because, you know, fasting can look different for women depending on their cycle. Ice baths, you know, if women are running high cortisol in certain parts of their cycle, like it's not advisable for them to be doing that. So I think we can't just go boldly ahead and just follow what mainstream kind of men are telling us to do. There are some wonderful women in the US that are kind of championing biohacking for women, and I've got a beautiful colleague that I work with, azra up in the Gold Coast, who's got a brand called Biohack Her and she specifically targets women. I talk about women in my book as well, and I talk about biohacking for men and women and different generations as well, because it looks different for the millennials and the gen z's and gen x and the boomers. So, um, yeah, I think for women we really need to.
Camilla:Hormones is key. I think a lot of us have got disrupted hormones because the amount of stress we're under is impacting our cortisol levels. It's impacting, you know, which is impacting our estrogen, our progesterone, and we're also exposed to 168 chemicals a day on average women, which is insane. Yeah, so that's disrupting our whole endocrine system, so our hormones. So there's a reason why women are not feeling great. So that's why biohacking is so important for women, because we have to stand up and take control. We need to be empowered to fight, particularly for things like perimenopause, where you go into a gp and they tell you everything's fine I this happened to me last year. I went in and said here are my symptoms I'm ropeable, I feel like someone's burgled my body. I don't even know who I am anymore I'm crying for days on end, like I.
Camilla:Just this is horrendous, like night sweats and, you know, anxiety through the roof, my chest pumping, waking up in the night like I was gonna have a heart attack. Something's not right. Go to the gp, do your bloods. Everything's fine, come back in six months, but if you haven't had a period, I'm like no, no, no, something's not right, you know, and you have to fight. It's insane. So I think, for women, we've got to find our voice and if something doesn't feel right, we need to absolutely explore that and we need to, you know, get support and get community support if we can, you know, talk to other women and find out, you know, how we can support each other.
Jo:It's definitely a big part. I know myself and many other women that have had either ourselves or family have had unusual, let's say, symptoms or, you know, outside of the conventional system. You know I've had children that broken arms. Really easy you can see it's broken, do an x-ray, put it back together and you're done. But too often women's they're not click cut, they're not cookie cutter and everybody's journey is so unique. So you're right, we do have to make sure we've got the energy and I know for so many women like I just don't have the energy for that. I don't have the time to find, I don't have the time to ask questions and go to specialist, start for specialist, where, if a woman's feeling that way, going whether it's, you know, I'm being in all my GP around perimenopause huge issue, or I've got issues that I'm just being, you know, passed from doctor to doctor, apart from finding a community and reading your book, what else would you suggest?
Camilla:they do look. I think finding a women's specialist, naturopath or functional doctor is really important. So you do need someone to find out what's going on like. I think there's so many invisible threats to women, so really important that we do try and find someone that can help us. Like Australian Menopause Centre were amazing for me, I think there's um wellfam is another one. There's some great places that we can go to, but and also just finding and asking friends if they do have a decent gp, like there are some some really great gps out there that actually are a bit more curious and a bit more open to exploring other stuff.
Camilla:But ultimately we shouldn't. You know, I've got this with a lot of my girlfriends who are over 40 now and some who are over 50, but who are like, oh, I feel so old, I've got no energy. You know, I feel crap and it's like we shouldn't. We shouldn't like there's. You know, yes, there's going to be days of the month where we don't feel amazing, you know, with our cycle and what's going on, but most of the time we shouldn't. If we're eating right, we're sleeping right, we're exercising, you know we're, we've got the right mindset, we're not going into martyrdom, and this is another thing.
Camilla:You know, as moms, we can be martyrs, like, well, there's no time for me, how am I going to do that when I've got to do that? And it's like we have to prioritize time for ourselves. We have to not be the victim. I was a victim for many years. You know why is this all happening to me? And you know, I've reframed all that now and I'm like, well, this was a gift actually, because it's you know, this is now my story, and I think, as women, we can become martyrs, especially when we've got kids, that we don't have time for ourselves and we just have to make that happen, whatever that looks like.
Camilla:You know, I, when my kids were younger, my lunch break was sacred. I had one hour. I couldn't do anything before work or after work, and my one hour I would always go for a walk. You know, I'd go for a walk around Centennial Park or I'd go and do something for myself in that one hour. I took that lunch hour and that was my way of self-care. So it's just finding time, prioritizing time. We can spend an hour scrolling on our phone or we could go and do something a little bit more positive.
Jo:Yeah, I completely agree, and I don't have enough time. I think would be the number one complaint of women who were feeling burnt out and exhausted. And I challenged any one of them and I said you don't have enough time? Give me your phone, let's open up the screen time app together and see how much time you're actually spending there. And then they start going into a ball and going don't do that, so there is time.
Camilla:I love it. Joey, that is awesome. I am actually going to steal that now. I'm going to nick that. That is brilliant.
Camilla:But it's so true and it's like three hours 27 minutes on your phone and it's like, well, there was clearly time to do other stuff. I talk about biohacking, stacking or habit stacking and trying to find ways that. I talk about biohacking, stacking or habit stacking, and trying to find ways that you can still do stuff yourself, whether or not. It's like you know running whilst you're pushing your jogging, whilst you're pushing your pram, or going on a bike ride with your kids, or doing something where you're also getting a benefit. You're hanging out with your kids but you're also getting some exercise. Or you know walking meeting where you can go. Actually, let's just jump on a phone call for half an hour and we can walk and talk and then you feel like you've had some exercise.
Camilla:So I think we just for women, we have to be much more kind of alert onto where are these sudden pockets of time that we can take and we just have to take them and go. No, I'm gonna I'm actually gonna do something for myself, but you know the amount of women I speak to. I'm like, when was the last time you had a massage? You know when was the last time you did something for yourself and I talk about self-care Saturdays or self-care Sundays once a month, take half a day, half a self-care Saturday, half a self-care Sunday, whichever day works, you know if you've got to get someone to help with the kids or your partner can support you, or whatever, and take, even if it's two, three hours, just to say, once a month I am off and I'm doing a self-care Saturday. So we just have to have boundaries.
Jo:You've got to be stronger yeah, I'm with you on the martyrdom thing. That's a very big trend where part of the reason that women don't put themselves first whether it's not going to the doctor, not investing in themselves, not allocating the time is because they think everyone else is more important. So the more we see this continual trend, the more you put yourself first, whether that's investing in a naturopath, your health, your wellness, your mindset, your emotional health finding a coach, whatever support it is that you need, then everything's just better and I'm sure everybody's got the best instead of coaching is great.
Camilla:You know, like I've coached a lot of women who are high achievers um, you know, big jobs haven't been able to find time for themselves.
Camilla:But once you start doing an audit through your diary and your life and I, you know, I want to know every single thing they do, from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to bed, and we're looking at okay, well, how do we layer something in, how do we find where we can pop some hacks in so we can do it?
Camilla:It is possible, but it's hard, like particularly single moms if you've got kids and you don't have family support. You know it is really tricky. But when you're in a relationship and it's a man and a woman or a woman and a woman, whatever it is, man and man you can support each other. You know, there's no reason why you have to carry all the loads and often women will say, well, if I don't do it, no one else will, or I do it better, or it's easier if I do it myself, so you don't allow other people to do stuff, and it's like, actually, just, you know, back off a bit and let someone else step in, and then you can create some space for yourself Singing from the same song sheet I do.
Jo:When you come into my program, you do a time audit and we have a load on the mental load. We have an entire mode on the mental load. So this should all sound very Absolutely Well. Camilla, thank you for joining us today. I think some beautiful hints and tips for women and really important messages around not being the martyr around. You know some really basic, cost-effective, time-effective hacks they can do. If you could leave everyone with one parting hack, that's, let's say, can fit within a five or ten minute window while you're waiting to pick up the kids, or you know, when you'd ordinarily just pick up your phone, what's one thing you'd love to leave them if they want to do this one thing, so I'll give you one thing, and then I forgot to mention something else which might be good as well, but, um, so my one thing is my plant hack.
Camilla:So plants need sunshine, vitamin d, they need water, hydration and they need air in order to thrive and grow, and so do we as humans. So just five minutes of sitting, getting a bit of sunshine, doing a bit of breath work, drinking some water and hydrating properly, that is going to help charge your battery back up. So just taking five minutes no phones, no screens, and just having five minutes just to be in your body and connecting with your senses, it is literally like a recharge. So, yeah, that I think is really important is just taking five minutes of stillness. Benefit if you can get a bit of vitamin D and hydration. And a good hack with hydration as well is to add a bit of Celtic sea salt into your water. Our bodies are like the ocean, so we actually respond really well to water and salt, but like saline drips when we were dehydrated or we need to get hydration that way. So just Celtic sea salt is probably one of the best salts. You can just put a sprinkle in your water bottle and it's going to help you hydrate a bit better.
Camilla:And the last thing I was going to say, if any, I am doing a retreat for women in September in Bali, which is a biohacking retreat. So if anyone is into all of this and they want a bit of a reset, it's a Revivo Wellness, which is stunning and new to do it. So, yes, and it will be all things women and hormones and biohacking. We're doing all the testing. They've got a longevity clinic there, so it's a good place to start. If you want to, yeah, go and learn all of this and actually set up a bit of a plan amazing.
Jo:So, apart from the retreat, where else can they find out more information about you and your book and, uh, your story and how you help people?
Camilla:oh, okay so wwwbiohackmecomau is my website. You can get a free biohacking guide on there. So if you go on the website, just whack in your details and you'll get a full guide. You can also see a link for my book on there. It's on Amazon on pre-order and pre-sale at the moment, so it's a good time to buy. And yeah, I do
Jo:one-on-one
Camilla:coaching programs as well. A bit like you and mine are all around sort of called Supercharge your Life, so it's very much about future-proofing your health and longevity and health span Beautiful.
Jo:Well, we'll put all the links to those in the show notes. Go and grab your biohacking guide. And I guess, a word of warning watch out for some of that bro stuff and make sure you're getting things that are relevant for women and for your life. So, camilla, thank you for joining us. Bring on the feminine energy Awesome. Thanks for coming. Thanks for joining us today on the Balance and Beyond podcast. We're so glad you carved out this time for yourself. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend who might need to hear this today. And, if you're feeling extra generous, leaving us a review on your podcast platform of choice would mean the world to us. If you're keen to dive deeper into our world, visit balanceinstitutecom to discover more about the toolkit that has helped thousands of women avoid burnout and create a life of balance and beyond. Thanks again for tuning in and we'll see you next time on the Balance and Beyond podcast.
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