The Science of Fitness Podcast
Welcome to the Science Of Fitness podcast where we aim to inspire you to live a healthier and more fulfilling life as we share evidence and anecdotes on all things health, fitness, performance, wellness and business.
Hosted by Kieran Maguire, Co-Owner and Director of Science Of Fitness with an Undergraduate degree in Exercise Science and Masters degree in High Performance, the podcast includes guests and friends of SOF from all walks of life sharing their knowledge and stories within their field of expertise.
Join us as we provide listeners with digestible and relatable educational tools and entertaining stories to inspire a healthier and more fulfilling life.
The Science of Fitness Podcast
S2 EP22 Merging Traditional and Modern Healing for Holistic Health w/ Jo Famosa, Health and Wellness Expert
Join us for an insightful conversation with Jo Famosa, a seasoned expert in health and wellness, as we explore the transformative power of integrating traditional and modern healing practices. Jo shares her personal journey through various modalities, including remedial therapy, acupuncture, Ayurveda, and neuroscience, to illuminate the profound connection between physical treatments and mental well-being. Discover how her work with athletes inspired a holistic approach that addresses the underlying causes of chronic health issues, emphasizing the blend of Eastern practices and neurostrategies.
We promise you'll gain valuable insights into managing chronic inflammation and toxification from both Ayurvedic and Western perspectives. Learn about the pivotal role of routine, seasonal eating, and exercise in naturally eliminating toxins, much like maintaining a well-oiled machine. Uncover the hidden dangers of chronic hyperventilation and stress, and find out how mindful breathing and movement can lead to a balanced and healthier state. Jo underscores the importance of small, consistent changes in lifestyle that can lead to significant health transformations.
We also explore the art of building a compelling future, encouraging listeners to envision a new identity to overcome mental and emotional "stuckness." Jo offers strategies, such as setting achievable goals and embracing the qualities of your future self, to create momentum and excitement for change. The episode wraps up by highlighting the importance of integrative health practices and collaborative healthcare, showcasing the benefits of teamwork among health practitioners to deliver holistic care. Don't miss out on these valuable lessons that empower you to manage your mind and body in harmony.
Welcome to the Science of Fitness podcast, where we aim to inspire you to live a healthier and more fulfilling life, as we share evidence and anecdotes on all things relating to health, fitness, performance, business and wellness. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to the Science of Fitness podcast Today. A very exciting guest, jo Famosa, dear friend of ours, long-term client of Softjo, welcome on board.
Speaker 2:Hi, kieran, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:We've been meaning to do this for a while and we'll sort of get into the details in our relationship and everything from your end, but, as we typically do, let's bang through our rapid fire questions just to get the juices flowing. First and foremost, what's one daily habit everyone should adopt for better health, jo?
Speaker 2:I think definitely drinking hot water. Do you want me to tell you why no.
Speaker 1:Okay, it's got to be rapid, right, we will get into that, though. Ayurveda in one word, from a Western sense, what comes to mind?
Speaker 2:Definitely longevity.
Speaker 1:Okay, interesting Coffee, friend or foe.
Speaker 2:It can be both.
Speaker 1:Pick one, generally Foe Interesting, okay, your go-to natural remedy for stress.
Speaker 2:Routine.
Speaker 1:What's the most surprising thing? The Western medicine. What is the most surprising thing Western medicine has borrowed or, you know, adopted from Ayurveda or any Eastern practices that you're familiar with?
Speaker 2:Surgery, Surgery oh geez.
Speaker 1:Okay, we can dive into that. Let's put a bit of context behind you. So, for the listener, who is Joe Famosa, what do you do? And a little bit about your story as to how you got to where you are as a practitioner, sure.
Speaker 2:I've been a practitioner for 30 years now, so I first of all started in the remedial therapy space, sports injuries and massage, massage treatments hands-on, worked with a lot of Olympic teams, state of origin lions, all of those types of things Loved the sporting field.
Speaker 2:Then I went I need to learn more. So I went and studied acupuncture, mainly because I had an ankle injury and it wasn't getting better by any therapy and I had acupuncture and it got better. I went oh, I'll go study that. So I studied that and implemented that. And then there was something missing and so I went to study Ayurveda and brought that into the practice. And then there was something missing and so I went to study Ayurveda and brought that into the practice. And then I went to study neuro strategies and neuroscience about how our mind works as well, and link that all together.
Speaker 1:And it's a really interesting space, I guess, in the sense of you know, we are, from our perspective, try and be very, you know, etched in science, the science of fitness, et cetera. But I think the more we understand and learn, and particularly in the last four or five years, you know, through the information age and through COVID and I guess the big profiles that are bringing a lot of information to the mainstream, the Huberman labs and Peter Attears and whatnot, in the longevity space it's and Huberman actually said this when I went to his live show space it's, and huberman actually said this when I went to his live show.
Speaker 1:We need people that are open-minded enough to look at what was once there in the past and in ancient practices.
Speaker 1:They're there for a reason and what can we take from them, what can we learn from them and what have they influenced thus far? Um, as opposed to being simply cut off and, you know, marching to the orders of whatever system we have. So, um, you know, in your space, you go from hands-on therapist, you get acupuncture, you have a decent experience and you go. Well, this is something I can add to my toolkit. How would you say you've built your tools and what made you go away from you know, hands-on therapies somewhat Western, and then it goes somewhat.
Speaker 1:Eastern acupuncture and then brought you back to neuroscience. How did that all sort of unravel?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a really good question, because when I was treating especially athletes athletes are treated to get them back on the field, and quickly, and then I just saw that we were just enabling them to keep on being inflamed, basically, and underneath there was a big amount of scar tissue building, but there was also a lot of chronic disease happening.
Speaker 2:And there was one particular player in the Lions that I saw this too, because he was quite a valuable player to the field and he was just pushed and pushed and pushed and his system got really broken down.
Speaker 2:Then we detoxified him and everything changed in his body and I saw, for the level of inflammation and detoxification, where that's Ayurveda comes in, where you're looking at the holistic view of the body and how the body works, but also the reason why we do something and what's driving us in the first place and why we keep pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing.
Speaker 2:And that's where the neurostrategy science came in, because sometimes the reason we're pushing is something, because we're trying to be driven, or we're driving towards something because we feel like there's something not complete, and so if you don't understand someone's mind or the purpose behind it, then that's actually could be some of the disease process first. And if you don't deal with that, then it's the key that unlocks, like that Pandora box, which all of a sudden everything starts changing. And until you open that key, it doesn't matter what you do, what herb you give them, what diet you change, what exercise you give them, it doesn't change. So it really allowed formation of that whole process. So I just saw it with clients, because we just kept on getting more and more chronic cases and they would come after they'd seen everybody else.
Speaker 1:So they'd been to physio, they'd been to chiropractors and naturopaths and doctors and all sorts of things, and it was like you had to look at them more holistically and it's something we touch on regularly here and it's kind of a bit of an ethos that we try and approach most of our patients or clients or customers or members with is, and you'd know being one of them is I'd sort of use a triangle kind of explanation.
Speaker 1:Top of the triangle is the psych, the neuro, the behavior you know, and that is subject to maybe the chemistry of the food you're eating or your breathing patterns or whatever might be happening, and then that is a subject to the mechanics, the movement, the positioning, et cetera. But that's also a subject to the chemistry and the psych. So it's this sort of interdependent system. It's a holistic view, as we kind of all know, and any decent therapist or practitioner these days is coming at people saying, hey, you can't just get a trigger point on your tfl, release your hip and your lower back, pain's gone, it might work temporarily, but there's something underneath this, what's going on, and we, you know, go into all those layers. So it's really interesting.
Speaker 1:You know, I think the Western world hasn't considered things like this, at least because we haven't been able to develop science to numerically justify that until you know, quite recently, the last 10, 15 years, the data, the evidence is coming. Hey, we might need to look at behavioural change. We might need to look at, you know, diet considerations, blood markers and inflammation and all those sorts of things. So around the words detoxify, inflammation, etc. I think inflammation is kind of becoming very more, a lot more mainstream in the western medicine side of things. And you know, you injure yourself, you have inflammatory response, you might have higher inflammatory markers if you get your bloods read and those can be, you know, variable reasons causing that, from diet decisions, lifestyle decisions, to injuries, to chronic exposure to stress, et cetera, et cetera. When we talk about toxification, you know, I think the average person we would think toxic, corrosive, bad Alcohol is toxic, cigarette smoke is toxic. When someone's system is toxic in the Ayurvedic world and you're talking about detoxifying, how would you sort of unpack that a little bit more for?
Speaker 1:at least the average person to understand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you started with the inflammation process. So there's like acute inflammation which is like I need to get this sorted, and this is where Western medicine is amazing.
Speaker 1:So that's bruising, injury et cetera.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's where some of them. You know, when people need it and they need a quick response, then it works.
Speaker 1:Taking an anti-inflammatory. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:But there's also ways that you don't need to get to that point but sometimes it's needed right. So you know there's a lot of natural therapy or people out there in Western sorry, in Eastern you know medicine who go sometimes a little bit to the other way where they're like, so like blocked off. But chronic inflammation is a huge level of toxicity. So it's the underlying inflammation. That's really low grade but it's everywhere. It's not like an acute, like here you've done your ankle, you've torn a ligament, you've got acute inflammation. There's a systems response but this is like lymphatically in the muscle, it's in the tissue, it's in the organs. In Ayurveda there's seven levels of tissue and the different levels of tissue take 36 days to nourish. So the chronicity of inflammation takes many, many weeks and many months to build. And also inflammation happens not just from the environment or not from coffee or alcohol. It happens also from the mind. It happens from excess worry, excess anxiety, excess frustration, you know pressure and stress and all those types of things. So that's a cellular toxicity that's happening. But it also happens from the seasons. So you have seasons toxicity which is summer, season brings all this excess heat, but if you don't eat to the seasonal routine. This is why I said routine is important.
Speaker 2:If you don't eat to the seasonal routine, like eating from the farmer's market, then you're not doing nature's way of eliminating those toxins. So where those toxins go, they go deeper into the body and then this builds up and builds up and builds up. So that's why that inflammation. Detoxification is like taking your car in for a service. If you take your car into a service, you don't take it when it's broken, you take it when the clock says put it in for maintenance. But the difference is you don't have to do anything to fix it. You pay the mechanic money to fix it and then you get it back. The difference with detoxification is you have to actually change your diet, change some of your lifestyle. So there's a bit of a resistance because you actually have to put in some effort, but the result is less inflammation.
Speaker 1:Okay, and then that sort of less inflammation and all the chronic health disorders, diseases, if you will tend to become a subject of that.
Speaker 1:My first introduction to it was when you know a lot of the work as you know we do from a rehab perspective or a movement perspective comes down to really the first mechanical thing that we do when we were born is breathing, and your actual mechanics of how you breathe Went down a rabbit hole, ran a breathing workshop and my first introduction to chronic inflammation, in the context that you're talking about it and from a Western lens, if you will was hyperventilation.
Speaker 1:Overoxygenated blood has a toxic, corrosive effect and that was like hang on a second. Oxygen is a good guy and you talked about it starting in the mind. Well, chronic stress, chronic exposure to sympathetic neural states causes chronic hyperventilation and we're talking 20, 30 years. I'm breathing frequently. My heart rate's higher. In doing so, you increase your blood oxygen, which has a detrimental effect on blood moving from o2 to the tissue and we need a co2 buildup. Hence why exercise is such a good anti-inflammatory response. Ultimately, because you build up that carbon by-product of moving and metabolizing which causes oxygen uptake into the tissue, which causes a balance, if you will, of pH levels in our blood.
Speaker 1:And so if people aren't moving their body, and they're chronically exposing themselves to hyperventilation because of the stress of their work or the compromise in their posture or their breathing mechanics. The body needs to balance that alkaline pH. I guess state that we need to be at 7.38 ideally, so it actually releases carbonates from the kidneys. To balance that.
Speaker 1:And that was the first time I went, oh my god, and then in understanding that there's inflammatory markers as a result when we try and create acidity to balance ourselves, um, and that's that sort of whole long-term effect, and this is over 20, 30, 40 years to people. And that's purely based on breathing, not talking about diet or anything else, it's just how we breathe and the stress we expose ourselves to. Yeah, so there we are. You know, we're starting to see this marrying of. Okay, there might be a different explanation in ayurveda.
Speaker 2:But uh, there is a, there is a common ground that we're addressing stuff with and I think the thing that you're saying there in the sense of breathing and exercise. What ayurveda doesn't talk a lot about in traditional texts is exercise. But they were moving more back then so you had to go and hunt and gather your food and everyone was a lot more mobile no one's sitting at desk, no one's sitting at computers, no one's stuck in automobiles and cars and all these types of things. And whenever I see a client who is exercising, who comes to me, who exercises, definitely their body is in a better state, right? Because when you exercise you're sweating, so you're eliminating toxins. You're breathing faster, so you're eliminating toxins through the breath. You're taking in oxygenation, so you're getting in that new oxygen form. You know that blood supply and things like that but your urination process and your digestive process movements. Because you're exercising all of your organs as well, the elimination process is better.
Speaker 2:But a lot of people who come to us, who are in chronic imbalance or chronic disease, can't exercise because they can't move and so it's a catch 22, right? So it's like you want them to do that and you'd be told to do that, but you're also stuck and feel like you're in a prison. So you have to sort of work together with them. Like I had one client who had chronic fatigue and she nearly fell off a chair when I told her to walk around the block for 10 minutes. She's like I can't do that. I said by doing it you'll be able to do it and she was amazed. She couldn't believe how much energy she got just from moving for 10 minutes, right. So I think the thing is it's it's about inflammatory markers. We're given knowledge about it now with Western medicine where we can pick it up in the blood with CRP and ESR and homeocysteine and different blood markers, but a lot of doctors aren't even measuring those.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's the difference.
Speaker 1:And I mean that's where it's heading. You know, it's the Peter O'Tears Medicine 2.0.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Where you're going. Well, why wait till the car? Yes, you've got a flat tire and it's burning on the freeway. Why not address it like we do with our car? You know we're happy to give our animals, our pets, the antibiotics right through, and you know, yet we're less likely to finish them ourselves. It's all those things Totally. You mentioned the word stuck there and I think I want to just sort of hold onto that for a second. It's probably the biggest problem in at least the Western world's general health where we are stuck from a movement perspective. You know we do our work with the interns and they go oh, the posture's not right, the posture's not right. I'm like there's no such thing as a bad posture, and you know to steal from other practitioners I've seen on social media the only bad posture is the one we're stuck in.
Speaker 1:And that's the only time it becomes a problem. We're all really, really good at sitting in chairs, really good, but then when? We ask ourselves to go and move and run and catch and throw and play and you know, get play down low with young kids. Our body breaks it hurts, et cetera. How does someone you know even consider how stuck they are? How do you put that in context with people being you know from five sit in a chair, shut up, behave, don't move, yeah, yeah. Listen, concentrate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was terrible at that, yeah really.
Speaker 1:But you know, from seeing that and then I guess, getting people psychologically to realize that and then put steps in place to address it.
Speaker 2:How does that sort of go for you? I think it's a really interesting subject, because stuck first of all has to shift from the mind. So I talk to a lot of my clients about compelling future, Like what is your compelling future? What is your identity? I've had clients who have been suicidal and usually they're suicidal because there is no identity or a compelling future of where they're going.
Speaker 1:It's a degree of hope almost.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hope or purpose, you know. So then it's like, well, when I don't have that, but it's all driven by the same type of thing, like having that vision of that's what I can do, and then having those little markers and momentum that things are actually moving in that right direction. And momentum builds that like excitement. It's like something is changing, something is shifting, this is working right. But I just did an article for our clients on delayed gratification for New Year's, which is we are so used to now in this technology world of getting everything instantly. I want it now, I want it now, I want it now. And so, like, whether it's health or whether it's exercise, I want that result now.
Speaker 2:And I was just talking to you about one of our clients that we're working with, where she's older, she's 69, and she's pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing and she's like Jo, I'm so tired. I said, take it a little bit easier. You don't have to win the race tomorrow, you know. But the delayed gratification is that you have this picture and this image that you want to be and you're stuck in like who you are, and maybe this has been going on for five years, 10 years, 20 years, for some people 30 years, and then you remember yourself for what you were, and then you'll have a disconnect with that.
Speaker 2:And so it's first of all the stuckness of the mind and then allowing the body, you know movement to come along with it. But first of all you have to step into that identity. So as soon as you step into that identity of the possibility, like you know, there's also another client you know who I remember who came to us so fearful of her health, like she was in so much anxiety, health anxiety that it wasn't possible she was going to die. Right, that's how she was. She is like so well now, her bloods are so good, she's 62 or something like that, she can't believe how good she feels. But it took a year. But now, this feeling of this relief that she's not in prison anymore, she's got like her whole life ahead of her. So I think, in the sense of that, that is sort of that stuckness, and then everything else moves with it. First the mind has to move.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really interesting and you know, maybe from an achievement success, I guess, being who you could be. You know and there's so many contexts with it. I mean, religious practices are built on that. It's like how can you behave in a way that you desire to be?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's all about, like everyone thinks, it's about the destination.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it's about the journey you know to to. You know, I read just this morning, um, you know, someone received this longevity book and they posted on facebook was a really good friend of mine in america and one of the quotes was and we say it a lot in our um detoxification programs it's not the destination, it's the journey that counts, right, because who you become and what you learn about yourself as you're becoming you, you may get all these wonderful surprises along the way you know?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And it's funny because I mean I was always late for class at school and they always used to get up me. But hey, sir, life's a journey, not a destination.
Speaker 2:There you go.
Speaker 1:Which would get me out of trouble sometimes and into more trouble other times. And I think to go with that there's there's something quite scary about trying to realize who you could be. In fact, there's something very scary there's, you know the quote from the movie invictus um, it is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Like can I rid myself of being stuck? Little mechanisms, little momentum, building things, you said the mind.
Speaker 1:You know my bias is exercise like start moving body, move your body in a way, and then and I know personally, if I'm training and I'm at the point where I'm going, I could really stop now. This isn't fun, I'm not enjoying this. That's where the magic source is Not from a physiological adaptation or a performance perspective, but just I'm going to feel good, awesome. I did it last Friday and went too far over the edge, but still felt great about it, you know. So there's something pretty special about that.
Speaker 1:Someone feels stuck listening to this in realizing who they could be, whether it's their health, their relationships, their career. How do you sort of punch through? Not let's make you a new person tomorrow and go. It's like you know, it's a journey thing and it's a little momentum piece. Where does someone start?
Speaker 2:Yeah, very first question I say to them is who do you want to be in one year? Like, make it enough of a short-term goal. It could be six months, it could be three months, right? Who do you want to be in one year? And you have to adopt the qualities of that individual or that identity, right? Who do you want to be in one year? And you have to adopt the qualities of that individual or that identity? Right? Because then we have the imposter syndrome coming in. Well, I can't be that, I can't do that. That's not possible.
Speaker 2:Before you know it, your conscious mind is slapping you in the face and saying you can't do this, you can't do this, you can't do this. So you say shut up, right, if it is possible. Who can I be in one year's time? Right? Then you say who is the qualities of that person? Is it disciplined, is it organized, is it loving, Is it caring, is it nurturing, is it empathetic? Right? Depending on whether it's relationship or business or exercise, whatever it is right. Then you have those qualities. Then you say to yourself what are the actions that I need to be doing with those qualities? Right? So you know everyone's like I need to change my diet right and I need to change everything about my diet right. What if you just change one thing and you were able to manage the urge of not having alcohol or not having sugar or not having something, because it's really the emotion normally why you want it anyway?
Speaker 1:right, it's the emotion and that passes.
Speaker 2:So as soon as that identity shifts and you're holding on to a new identity, that emotion is no longer there anymore. So I always say to my clients manage your mind when you have that thought and you ask yourself the question like, why do I want that? Well, because I'm sad, or because I'm lonely, or because I'm frustrated, or I'm annoyed that I'm not that yet right, and then you go okay, but and also the fact is it's better what you do 80 to 90% of the time than what you do 100% of the time. So it's about the consistency, because it's better to be consistent and to be healthy and to be well than to be perfect and to be like upset with yourself all the time right, it's just not possible.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And I mean we see the other end of the spectrum from a healthy person the really fit, fit, fit. Overtrained pursuit of perfection, yeah and so inflamed. On the surface they look great but we know from an injury perspective they're they're in a lot of trouble they need a lot of help it's. It's a inverted you because you lost the joy yeah right and the laughter and the fun and all that sort of side yeah, it's funny taking the time to, you know, challenge yourself to consider your thoughts.
Speaker 1:It's, it's a hell of a lot it's a big one I did it with um just in our breathing class on Wednesday night before we got into the actual breath work meditative little drill of thinking in full sentences. And I heard this on another show the other day and I said okay, team, just while you're lying there before we get into the work, see if you can think in a full sentence, and then another one, and now see if you can think of five full sentences with which you're proud of yourself, things you've done this year. And while I let them do it, I tried it on myself. I got to three and I couldn't find two more and I was like whoa because every time I thought of one, and you know, I mean we've had some serious challenges this year.
Speaker 1:I've had some serious challenges this year. I was like I'm proud, I did this, I should have done this, I should have done this, I could have done that.
Speaker 2:And I was like I just saw how I tumbled.
Speaker 1:And I was like pull yourself back out of that next sentence and it was really challenging, but it's a skill, you know. It's like trying to play the guitar You're going to fail a thousand times for your first thousand strums and then you're going to hit that chord every time you try and play it, and that's you know. For people to think, I think, as you said, relationships, business, health, whatever it might be, it's okay, you're going to fall off the horse. You're going to fall off the bike as a kid, get back on try again and it's from a behavior perspective.
Speaker 1:To step away from the mind back to Ayurveda a little bit more. You obviously run a very integrated kind of practice. You know it's not like oh, we'll ignore everything that Western medicine has. You talk about bloods, you talk about all sorts of things. What would you say? Ayurveda can learn from the West, and I guess how has it helped in the work you guys are doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Ayurveda traditionally. If anyone knows what it is, ayurveda is the science of life, so it's probably one of the most profound medicines out there. It was one of the first medicines, alongside of the Chinese medicine. And it's out of India. It's out of India, right? So to do your BAMS, which is your Ayurvedic like medical training it's Ayurvedic Medicine Surgery BAMS.
Speaker 2:So it's a five-year degree. I haven't got a BAMS but all my doctors do. You have to actually be in India or Sri Lanka to do that. It's very intensive but you're taught in all of different paradigms. Like you know tongue diagnosis, pulse diagnosis and you know they go through all of different paradigms. Like you know tongue diagnosis, pulse diagnosis and you know they go through all the different ways and there's blood and surgery and all that. So because plastic surgeons still use the Ayurvedic surgery techniques of those days today, fishes are the most like if you know what anal fishes are, it's the Ayurveda has the most profound surgery technique for fishes because fishes are very, very dangerous to have.
Speaker 2:But the way Ayurveda is treated in India and especially because I've been to India and been trained to India, it's your doctor is like you don't question them interesting. So you go and have your pulse run and you go and have the consult. Doctors might have a look at your blood and then you're told to do this, this and this, but you don't question. And I remember when I was being trained in Ayurveda and one of the doctors in India took me under his wing and mentored me, dr Smita Naram, who's in India, said to her head doctor, you're to mentor her. And he said to her head doctor, you're to mentor her. And he said to her, ma'am, why did you give me her?
Speaker 2:She does not stop asking questions. But why, but, why, but, why? The doctors in Ayurveda are never asked questions because they're like a god right. So they're called a Vedaya. A Vedia is, like you know, the doctor of, and the kings and queens had Vedias, so that's how ancient it is and they keep them like really well. And so the fact is that the West, when you try to do Ayurvedic medicine in the West, that does not work because, everybody wants to know but why are you doing this, why are you doing this and things like that?
Speaker 2:So one of the biggest things I see in clinical practice and why we are so successful is that we educate the client. So we use the western, we bring in all the, the bloods, we bring in stool sample, we do like adrenal, we do urine for you know, um, all of your hormone levels and we integrate like a whole picture of what's going on with the client and also we feel it in the pulse immediately what's going on. But because we feel it, the client doesn't get that we know what's going on because we feel it in 30 seconds. So for them it's like how do you feel that? They need proof? West needs proof, right? So I think that's something that in the West, especially Ayurveda, for it to be successful in the West is to really bring the proof together and then put.
Speaker 2:It takes a lot longer when you're treating Ayurveda because Western medicine everything is a quick fix. You give the drug, you treat the symptom, you fix it, but you dampen it, you push it in. Ayurveda is treating the imbalance of that constitution to pull it out of the tissue and eliminate it and eliminate it so you don't have it up anymore. It's not about dampening it and pushing it down and waiting for the next thing dampening and pushing down, waiting for the next thing. So I think that if that answers the question in a long way. But it's about like not pushing West away, but integrating it for its good things as well.
Speaker 1:So yeah, absolutely well, it sort of addresses. The next question is what the western medicine can learn from ayurveda. But I think, as you've said, it's one you know. Let's allow people to ask why I think it's really important and to an extent it's been the fault of western medicine.
Speaker 2:It's like no, you can't ask why, and that's shifted really quickly in the last five or ten years and I think I say to my clients you become a participant of your health instead of patient of your health. Yeah, right, because the patient is. You go the doctor, the doctor tells you what you do it. But why are you doing it so? Like you know, we had a client just recently who did our detoxification program. He needed to lose weight, he had inflammation, had joint problems, he had high blood pressure on two blood pressure medication and he was moving towards cholesterol medication and diabetes. Right, they're the trifecta for cardiovascular disease.
Speaker 2:You know Peter Teer talks about the four horsemen, which is metabolic disease, cardiovascular disease, alzheimer's, dementia and cancer. Well, your metabolic disease is one of the number one that leads to all the rest and he was moving towards them, right, and he did a detoxification for 28 days, lost 10 kilos and his blood pressure went down to a really low that it was dangerous, that he was getting dizzy. Now I can't clinically take him off blood pressure medication because I didn't put him on it. He can take himself off, but I in my, you know.
Speaker 1:As a practitioner. Practitioner, it's not your place, not my place.
Speaker 2:So I sent him to the doctor. Doctor took him off one right and then gave him advice on how to wean off the other right. And so that's the thing that when they become a participant in their house, they can actually understand why the things happen in the first place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's very interesting. Yeah, I mean, my mum has another sort of anecdotal story. In a similar situation she grabbed onto her health. She sorted out her food, stopped drinking, got really healthy, lost weight, exercised the house down, couldn't lower her blood pressure, couldn't work out. Why, why, why, why why?
Speaker 1:And I'm like Mum, I just think it's your brain, like I think it's a central nervous system thing. You're not downregulating and you're just upregulated. And there was one and I remember the phone call distinctly there was a moment and it was like I'm just happy where I am, she. There was a moment and it was like I'm just happy where I am. She just said that.
Speaker 1:For the first time I've ever heard her say it for a long time and she's now come off of blood pressure medication and it's like maybe there's, as you said, there's that mind element with it and I think anyone that's genuinely inquisitive and interested in, I guess, health and wellness, particularly as a practitioner, we know there are forces at play that are out of our control.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and look, some people need to get that reactive treatment, because we need to deal with that there, and then they're at risk.
Speaker 1:Oh, totally, once that's done, totally, once they're on that, it's like don't think that's it, you need it, you need it.
Speaker 2:Fix the cause of the problem. And, like you know, I saw a client yesterday who you have also looked after, and he has neck issues and all sorts of different things and you know he wants to get this sorted. And I said to him you know, the blood pressure tablets is not something that I really want you on for a long time because it causes X, y and Z and sometimes people need to come to their own conclusion. He goes Jo, I think these blood pressure medications are causing my neck pain. He goes did you know that it causes neurological? And I said, yes, I did know, but sometimes people need to hear it from multiple people and then, anyway, he's come off it and he goes. I haven't had neck pain in seven days. So, by the way, anyone who is on blood pressure medication, do not stop blood pressure medication because, of what we're talking about.
Speaker 2:It needs to be taken care of properly by a practitioner.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and then that sort of opens that sort of whole space of integrative practitioners my specialty personally is really in movement muscle contraction, movement and where things are and how they need to be, and I just love it. I've gone down the rabbit holes.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to give advice on blood pressure yet we know that if the diaphragm is moving in a certain way, our respiratory strategies are better. It's going to affect how the heart rate functions heart rate variability, central nervous system, blood pressure. It's not my place to go. Oh, medication or not? Okay, let's address this. If I can then turn around and speak to a physician that is in that space and say, okay, they're working on, you know, central nervous system, data regulation, their movement, et cetera, it makes for a really fun way to practice. As someone who wants to get good outcomes for their patients and I think we all do we go into these careers, be it medicine, be it.
Speaker 1:you know exercise science, be it medicine be it exercise, science, be it therapy, with wanting to help people.
Speaker 2:And I call it a team. We really do need a team of health providers, but health providers that are talking and also on the same page, right, because you could have one saying this and one saying this and then the client gets confused, right? So it's really good to make sure you choose the right team that are all communicating and also don't have the ego, right? So it's really good to make sure you choose the right team that are all communicating and also don't have the ego, right? It makes such a big difference.
Speaker 1:How do you deal with that conflict? And I guess practitioners listening to this how can? You check yourself? Because there's a few times where I might have someone sent to me and a physiotherapist might say don't press overhead and I go.
Speaker 1:they need to go overhead because their scapula movement is what needs to get trained, yet that keeps irritating their shoulder or their neck and the root of evil is only addressed if we do go there. But it's like I've got to respect that because I don't want to flare up this issue that this person's having anyway.
Speaker 2:So you mentioned sort of the ego element, but um I guess practitioners listening to this.
Speaker 1:For me I'm like I want to reach out to that person and go cool. What are you thinking? What are your strategies?
Speaker 2:here's what I'm going to do and you know, let's get on the same page and look forward to addressing this problem well, first of all, I say to clients don't have too many people in your team, because you there's many ways to skin a cat, right, so this way may work, this way may work this way, but if you don't understand their particular way and pathway and you have multiple ways of doing with it, then it's going to be a challenge. I had a client just recently who I was working with with very serious joint pain and she has a parasite, she has bacteria, she has like there's something called secretory IgA in your gut and calopectin, and so she has very high inflammation. But the practitioner that she's working with musculoskeletally and another naturopath that she got advice from, said why aren't you taking glutagenics Like glutamine, right? Why aren't you on that right? And she goes. Then she started getting doubt and she's like, well, right, why aren't you on that Right? And she goes. Then she started getting doubt and she's like, well, why am I not on that? Because that's going to help heal my gut.
Speaker 2:And I said well, the level where you're at right now, you have parasite, you have bacteria. If I give you that, then it's going to nourish the mucus membrane in your gut and it's going to seal that toxicity into your gut lining, I have to first of all scrape it, I have to do a process and then I have to heal the gut. Oh, that makes sense. I said so be careful asking too many people's advice. Find your person. But also, what I tend to do is I tend to see who they're with. Like we have a really good doctor locally and I actually took in Peter Atiyah's book and I said are you a doctor who wants to really help people to get better or are you a doctor who just wants to?
Speaker 2:prescribe people medication and he said, no, no, I really want to help people get better. And I said fantastic, can you work with us? So we sent him and he does all of our blood reports for us and he also sees the results of the work that we do. So then he now sends us complicated cases. So once you start to have a little bit of a team of people that are trusted and all talking the same thing and also also able to be challenged, like I say to my clients challenge me if you want to know something, challenge me why I'm thinking that. So be curious, ask questions, challenge. Don't just accept, understand and then put it in place, because it doesn't matter what herb, what food, what thing you get. If you don't believe it, it's not going to work. So your brain will actually make it like not possible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, the best pill we can take is a placebo pill.
Speaker 2:you know Exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just funny Working with people now. I used to answer questions with so much more conviction, like every time what about this? Would that do it? What have you been told? They'll tell me. I'm like what do you feel? They'll tell me I'm like probably give an answer that supports that you know, promotes that. And I think if anyone puts their foot down with conviction, and says this is you, and you, and what you need to do, and you know, it's it's.
Speaker 1:It's a hard thing, but I think if we put it back on the patient and say, what are you?
Speaker 2:what are?
Speaker 1:your, what's your information? What are you looking at? What is your considerations? And prompts, as you said that I'm practicing my health. Yeah, health is a practice. It it's a regular thing we've got to do.
Speaker 2:And I think you also have to meet clients where they're at because they may not be ready. Like I had a practitioner you know, Ayurvedic practitioners are usually vegetarian, right, because we're pulse readers so she would put all of our clients on vegetarian diet. I said you can't. And they're eating seven days red meat. I'm like, like you can't do that. You have to meet them where they're at and take them on a little journey so therefore they are experiencing the goodness from that journey instead of I read is not about abruptness do this and then do this right. It's about like shifting the change, adopting that and having it as a lifestyle change, not just just like a big shunt right. It's as damaging to do that.
Speaker 1:Exactly. Well, you know, as they say from our end of the spectrum, 80%, 90% of diets don't actually work. They work for eight weeks and people end up back where they started.
Speaker 2:Is that because they haven't?
Speaker 1:Well, it's just too abrupt a change isn't sustainable. No, it's a little drip into the bucket, gradually fill it up and you'll get there. So very interesting. Okay, so if there's one Ayurvedic principle that you wish everyone knew or potentially embodied, what would it be?
Speaker 2:Well, one that we always start every single client with is something called medicated water. So they come into our practice and it's in their welcome pack and it's something called CCFT. So cumin, coriander and fennel the seeds and you can put one teaspoon or each, or half a teaspoon or quarter teaspoon whatever dose you can handle in one liter of water and you boil that and you put it in a thermos and you drink that tea one liter per day. Like why? Because medicated water. The cumin is a steroid to the gut, so it's calming and it's anti-inflammatory. The coriander is detoxifying to your liver, so it's cleaning and it's also decreasing heat. Fennel is helping you absorb in your small intestine, so you absorb your nutrients.
Speaker 2:So clients come back and say what is in that tea that you gave me? I'm not craving anything, I don't feel hungry, I feel satisfied, I feel calm in my brain and my tummy feels so good and I've lost five kilos. What did you do? Because they lose all the inflammation and toxicity just by doing one thing. And so it's like washing the dishes like with hot water, but we put special herbs in them and so we always say that medicine water, you're hydrating. And I tested this actually on a plane when I was coming back from India, I just drank ginger water and I usually wear a woop and haven't got on today, but I checked my recovery and I was in an international flight after taking a retreat and I just do two liters of ginger water in an international flight after taking a retreat and I just do two liters of ginger water in an international flight and hardly ate and just slept and my recovery is 98 after being on an international flight for 15 hours.
Speaker 2:Right. So when you are hydrating and also the hot water is opening up the channels and opening up the shrodas, so it's actually moving nutrients to your channels and to your tissue and we are, in the West, nutrient depleted. Yeah, from an absorption perspective Absorption right, we have got enough food, but we're nutrient depleted right, so that's probably the one thing. I would say that if people adopt that, there'd be so much less disease.
Speaker 1:So when we go back to that starter question warm water, that's sort of part of it. That's fine. Yeah, Interesting. I realize I don't drink enough water through the day, you know my little cup you see me walk around.
Speaker 2:It's usually cold, by the way.
Speaker 1:I actually had just a bigger water bottle for like two weeks and then I dropped it and it broke. But my HIV on my whoop went and I was speaking to you guys about it average about hundreds, low hundreds, jumped up to like 130s, 140s and I was like, what am I going to do? I thought I was taking you know, I had a hydrolite type supplement, thought it was that did it the next day didn't have the effect and I just realized it was purely the volume of water.
Speaker 1:I was drinking made a big difference to my HIV, which then you start to go. Then you're like, wow, so you know for those out there you know they now come to me about HIV. I look, I'm like there's two things. One, the respiratory strategy that you have. It influences how your heart moves and then, um, just drink more water like if you're not going to do anything, yeah.
Speaker 2:And then you know, you add what you're saying, add the heart because, think about it, when you clean the dishes at night time, you know, do you clean it with cold water or do you clean it with hot water? So you've got to liquefy the grime which is also in your internal tissue, internal skin, we call it. So you have to clean the inside. You go and wash and clean the outside, but you're not cleaning the inside.
Speaker 2:You go and wash and clean the outside, but you're not cleaning the inside. So just by doing that one liter, you're cleaning the pipes, cleaning the dishes, so you're detoxifying on a daily basis.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just by being hydrated Exactly Cool. I love it To bring it home. You know what's next for Jo. You've come a long way. You've got to practice, you integrate a lot of stuff. Yeah, what's going to happen next five, ten years? What's the what's?
Speaker 2:the pipe dream. So I just turned 50, which is like 30 years of clinical practice, and I just turned 50 myself, and so this next 10 years my whole thing is really about definitely, um, still building the practice. But we have global business, so we have clients worldwide as well. But to really amplify that, because you know, our big vision is to change the health of the world, one person at a time, a billion times over.
Speaker 2:And in the integration process that we do with Ayurveda and also the work that I do with you with building the exercise side in it and people knowing how to exercise, also for their body type, and understanding the stage of their life, how you should exercise differently, how that will change, longevity and Ayurveda talks about, you know, one thing like adding years to your life and life to your years. Right, and longevity is adding life to your years, and Peter Otea talks about lifespan and house span and having them both come up together so that, therefore, you're at 90 and still able to do the things that you're doing. You're not, you know, crippled or on medicine and you know, having problems with your mind and all that sort of stuff. So that's it for me. I'm going to be working on a practitioner program with one of my teachers. She asked me to partner with her to build a practitioner program more globally.
Speaker 1:So over the next 10 years that'll be definitely a project that I'm chipping away at, chipping at yeah, so that's exciting, very exciting, yeah, and I think it's the layer of it, you know, the subjectiveness of health and the embracing it and taking it upon yourself.
Speaker 1:It's probably let's be less physicians and also let's be teachers. Yes, you know, let's actually give people the tools and the confidence and the excitement to embrace their health and everything else that goes with it from a life perspective is really exciting. So, you know, I think you embody that, jo, and the amount of people that I guess we've worked with and I can see have amazing experiences with you is, um, it's pretty awesome, and we just happen to be across the road from each other.
Speaker 1:so, yeah, it's so good, we're one of the lucky ones, I think, um. But yeah, you know, having you involved and you know a client of ours and sharing your story and um, bringing a lot of people along for a journey and empowering them, is a special thing to do. So, you know, kudos to you and please don't stop doing it. I know a lot of people are incredibly grateful, um, and I have no doubt we're going to probably do a few more of these, so thank you very much for your time today um, and we'll catch you next time awesome thanks.
Speaker 1:Thanks thanks for listening to today's episode. For more regular insights into soft, be sure to check us out on instagram or facebook, or visit our website at scienceoffitnesscomau. Once again, we thank you for tuning in to the science of fitness podcast.