Life Skills Masterclass Part 4: Managing your Emotions, Mindfulness, and Lifestyle Medicine.

The series finale of the Life Skills Masterclass.
Mark and Jodi bring together the WHO's 10 life skills framework — augmented with mindfulness and lifestyle medicine — into one cohesive, daily-ready integration. In this episode they cover the "Integration Trio": managing emotions, mindfulness, and lifestyle medicine, weaving in personal stories, clinical experience, evidence-based tools, and genuine warmth throughout. At 2 hours and 11 minutes, this is the longest episode of the series and arguably the most personal — featuring Mark's raw disclosure about his past anger, ADHD diagnosis, and grief, Jodi's real-time grief over losing her dog Peppa, and a beautiful mutual appreciation as the series wraps.

The episode closes with the 30-Day Life Skills Integration Challenge — a practical call to action inviting listeners to cycle through all 12 life skills over 30 days.

• emotions as messengers, not problems
• recognising triggers and naming feelings with the Feeling Wheel
• fast anxiety tools with breath, grounding, and movement
• normalising anger and choosing safe outlets and boundaries
• mindfulness without myths, present-moment awareness in daily life
• STOP and RAIN as quick resets between trigger and choice
• body scan and PMR for nervous system downshifts and sleep
• lifestyle medicine pillars: food, movement, sleep, stress, substances, connection
• Mediterranean-style eating for mood and gut health
• strength training, exercise snacks, and weekend warriors
• sleep hygiene that sticks, not strict rules
• habit stacking and transitions to make habits automatic
• the 30-day integration challenge across all 12 life skills

Take the 30-day Life Skills Masterclass Challenge: each day, pick one skill to practise and cycle through all twelve. Let us know how it changes your week.

If you've enjoyed this episode, please share it with your friends, leave a comment, like, subscribe, all of that sort of stuff


For More Info on Jodi Allen:
https://www.jodiallennutrition.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodi-allen-944a76138/
https://www.youtube.com/@jodiallenyoga
Insta: @jodiallennutrition

For more info on The Feeling Wheel:
https://feelingswheel.com

For more info on Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction – MBSR
https://www.australiacounselling.com.au/MBSR-mindfulness-based-stress-reduction/

Website: www.thelaughterclinic.com.au

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@thelaughterclinicAus

"If you or someone you know needs support, please contact one of these Australian mental health services. In an emergency, always call 000."

Lifeline Australia
Phone: 13 11 14 (24/7)
Web: lifeline.org.au

Suicide Call Back Service
Phone: 1300 659 467 (24/7)
Web: suicidecallbackservice.org.au

Beyond Blue
Phone: 1300 22 4636 (24/7)
Web: beyondblue.org.au

Kids Helpline (for people aged 5-25)
Phone: 1800 55 1800 (24/7)
Web: kidshelpline.com.au

MensLine Australia
Phone: 1300 78 99 78 (24/7)
Web: mensline.org.au

SANE Australia (complex mental health issues)
Phone: 1800 18 7263
Web: sane.org

QLife (LGBTIQ+ support)
Phone: 1800 184 527 
Web: qlife.org.au

Open Arms (Veterans & Families Counselling)
Phone: 1800 011 046 (24/7)
Web: openarms.gov.au

1800RESPECT (sexual assault, domestic violence)
Phone: 1800 737 732 (24/7)
Web: 1800respect.org.au

Headspace (youth mental health, ages 12-25)
Phone: 1800 650 890 
Web: headspace.org.au

13YARN (Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander crisis support)
Phone: 13 92 76 (13YARN) (24/7)
Web: 13yarn.org.au

Music by Hayden Smith
https://www.haydensmith.com

Transcript

Series Recap And Today’s Agenda

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the Laughter Clinic Podcast with comedian and psychocycologist Matt McComp, bringing you practical, evidence-based healthcare strategies, the latest research in mental health, along with conversations that inspire, educate, and entertain. This is the Laughter Clinic Podcast with your host, Matt McComp.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

And here we are, ladies and gentlemen, and wherever you are listening around the world, welcome to the Laughter Clinic Podcast and the last of the Life Skills Masterclass series. And joining me for the final time is the wonderful Jody Allen, co-host for the series. How are you going, Jody? I'm great. Happy to be back again. Happy to be back. So uh we're doing it. We've got the last episode. We're bringing it home in a big way. So it's uh it's been a monumental undertaking that we uh decided to do here, but I'm glad that we've got it done. So for those of you that may just be tuning into this and going, what on earth is he babbling on about? This is the fourth episode in a series of life skills masterclass. So in episode one, we covered the foundation trio. So these are all life skills based on the World Health Organization's 10 life skills, and we added a couple to it that we felt were important. So, episode one, we covered the foundation trio, which is self-awareness coping with stress and problem solving. And then what did we do in episode two, Jody?

SPEAKER_06 1:39

Episode two, it was the thinking trio, critical thinking, creative thinking, and decision making.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

All very important, and they all inter intertwine with each other. And then last week, our last episode, we were all about relationships and communication. So it was a connection trio. So we covered communication, effective communication, interpersonal relationships, and empathy. And so today is a big one because we're bringing it home and putting it all together. So what's on the agenda today, Jody?

SPEAKER_06 2:12

Well, we're going to the integration trio. So managing emotions, mindfulness, and my favorite lifestyle medicine. Lifestyle medicine.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

That's it, it's great, isn't it?

SPEAKER_06 2:27

Yeah. So when we're talking about managing our emotions, we're going to look at how do we regulate our emotions and be present and live well and live a valued life? We're going to look into mindfulness, maybe break some misconceptions around what mindfulness is, how we can bring it quite simply into our lives without making it complicated. And lifestyle medicine. So what are those preventative things that we can do, like nutrition, sleep, bit of a few.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Is it a new term, lifestyle medicine, or has that been around for a long time? Because I know that there's been those sayings that like the food is thy medicine or or things like that, but the actual term lifestyle medicine, do you know where that's going to be?

SPEAKER_06 3:20

Yeah, that's a really good question. I I don't know where it actually originated. It's been around a while a while in the Allied health realm trying to bring in a more holistic and preventative way of approaching medicine. And it's a a burgeoning field now where a lot of

Why Emotions Matter And How To Notice Them

SPEAKER_06 3:45

Allied health professionals are seeking out uh qualifications in lifestyle medicine alongside their traditional medicine education. So it's yeah, helping to really bring in what are those foundations to life that are not medicine, so to speak, or taking a taking a pill. What things can we do to improve our lives and prevent disease? Early intervention. Early intervention. And so they're really trying to now promote a more holistic way of approaching people's health and approaching disease as well.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Yeah. Yeah, it's cool. So as emotional as what this is, being the last episode of the Life Skills Masterclass series, so Jody Allen.

SPEAKER_06 4:40

Feel all the feels.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

How do we how do we manage our emotions? What talk us through it? What's going on?

SPEAKER_06 4:46

Well, I think it's of it's a good way of leading into, you know, emotions are messengers. Our emotions providing us with information. And we can often, you know, it could be the way that we were brought up through childhood or even in a career like in the military, that you know suppressing of emotions is often taught, you know, from child, don't don't cry. Men don't cry. Yeah, in the military it's pain, it's just weakness leaving the body. So we're really i it can be very common for us to ignore and suppress our emotions, which can just, you know, complicates complicates life and relationships. So it's really about understanding what our emotions are telling us, what information are they sending us? How do we healthily express our emotions? And how do we regulate ourselves? So emotional regulation is really foundational for good mental health.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

And the the I suppose the easiest way to regulate your emotion if to be to enable yourself to regulate your emotions, you've got to be aware of what's going on, you know, which is right back to where we started in episode one. Self-awareness. You know, it's like it's a full circle moment. If you've been listening to the four episodes of the Life Skills series, you'll know that they all integrate so well with each other. So awareness, being you know, being able to recognize what emotions are bubbling up inside you, and that comes from a self of self-awareness, and and at the same time that self-awareness is, you know, what's triggering me? You know, like what's what's going on here? What is it that's set me off, you know? Yeah. If you if it's something that's triggered an anxiety or a why has that affected me?

SPEAKER_06 6:52

What is it about?

SPEAKER_01 6:53

What about this situation that's made me sad? A lot of it I've had this big thing recently about watching the news, you know, like I did an episode a few weeks ago about should should you watch the news, right? Yeah. And and like that's that's emotional. So much of the news is definitely you know, like like I was at a catch up with some mates of mine and I I didn't know what they were talking about. I'd gone on about all this whole heap of news stuff, and they were getting really emotional about it and fired up about it.

SPEAKER_02 7:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

You know, and so like that in itself is having self-awareness to go, well maybe you should not be watching if it's getting you wound up, yeah, like having that self-awareness. And but at the same time, you've got to really accept sometimes the emotions of what you're going through, like you can't judge them, you know, like if you've you know, if you've just lost your job, of course, you know, you're gonna be emotionally fragile and upset, or if you've got financial burdens that you're gonna you're trying to figure out, or your relationship's just busted up, you know, like that's it's emotional times that you gotta kind of allow yourself to ride that ride that shit out, don't you?

SPEAKER_06 8:04

Yeah, and I think we can we can then you know recover and continue to you know b live a live a good life um along alongside of that.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

Yeah, yeah. And healthy outlets, you know, like when you when you know you you you are in the depths of despair, whether it be work-related or relationship related or even health related, you know, trying to find healthy outlets to, you know, kind of stabilize your emotions. You know what I know when we did your standalone episode before we did the life skills series about what fills you cup, you know, like what's your what's your recalibration, you know, because that's gonna be bringing your emotions in check a bit more if you're you know asking yourself that question, what do I need? You know, like we're talking about giving ourselves empathy. Yeah. What do I need? You know, if I'm all wound up, do I need to go to the beach? Do I need to, you know, go and I don't know, go for go for a walk. Go for a walk, play golf, you know, go for a drive, whatever it is. Connect with a friend. Yeah, yeah, connect with a friend's the best one. Because poor emotional regulation is linked to anxiety, depression, and relationship problems. So the good news is, my friends, that emotional regulation is learnable. You know, like

Triggers, News Diets, And Self-Acceptance

SPEAKER_01 9:30

and all of these life skills, like we said, they're interact with each other. So talk talk to us about, you know, what's the best way to help learn some of these skills, Jody.

SPEAKER_06 9:41

Well, first of all, you know, looking at what are the challenges with our emotions, like what I was saying earlier, we're often taught early in life to suppress our emotions, or if we're having negative emotions, if we're in fear, if we're angry, you know, we're often, don't you be angry with me, or you know, don't cry, it's okay. It's uh, you know, it's we're often taught to not tap into what our emotions are telling us or allowing ourselves to sit with them. So then we can often, you know, really react impulsively when emotions are high, especially when we're feeling like fear or anger, because you know, often the emotions can outride, you know, when they're really intense and we're trying to suppress them, they're gonna come out somewhere or at some time. And if yeah, if we don't have healthy outlets, like we were just saying before, healthy ways of expressing our emotions, then you know, that's when it starts building, just as stress builds, our emotions build and we can become a like a kettle boiling over, you know, and that's when often we can say and do things that are harmful to ourselves and others. And we and then, you know, often when we do run away with our emotions, when you know the valve is released, so to speak, you know, we can behave in ways that we are not necessarily proud of. Or wouldn't yeah, or wouldn't normally behave because normally yeah, where it's very hard for us to make smart, calm choices when we're in a heightened emotional state, and then there's often the aftermath of that is shame, self-criticism, yeah, self-stigma, or yeah, yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, so then we often learn to move into avoidance. What is the easiest way to deal with all of that is To not deal with it? To not deal with it and avoid it. And as we talked about in the last podcast, that what does avoidance do in it doesn't equal healthy relationships and you know, we don't then we stop communicating, our needs aren't met, our close ones, family members, partners, their needs aren't met either.

SPEAKER_02 12:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 12:28

Yeah. And it just becomes this like a rat on a wheel, so to speak.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Yeah. Because it becomes so overwhelming, you know, like your emotions were like when you're when you're dealing with like aside from frustrations at work or in traffic or or or whatever the daily frustrations that we all have, you know, emotions of the heart, you know, like when it comes to love or grief, you know, they're they're just all can all consuming, you know what I mean? It's very intense. Yeah, it's in it is intense, and it and it will cloud your ability to make decisions and it will cloud your ability to communicate with people and all of these other things, you know.

SPEAKER_05 13:11

Definitely.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

And so that that's when you kind of when you feel yourself getting overrun by your emotions, bringing it back to self-awareness, you know, bringing it back to being aware of where am I at right now, what's going on. You know, like just taking, you know, we talked about having a pause in a conversation if that's getting heated with someone that you're you're in a you know, banter with, or sometimes maybe taking a pause with yourself and just go, you know what, I just need to, you know, step away from everything for, you know, a couple of hours or a couple of days or whatever, you know, and just go and go to the beach for an afternoon or do whatever it is and just kind of centre yourself and try and have that self-awareness to bring yourself back to try and get your emotions in check because that will then enable you to try and communicate better and make decisions better and all that sort of stuff. So, but it's hard, you know, managing emotions is hard. There's a lot of a lot of research has been done on this in relation to positive psychology, you know. There's a lot of research around that. So there's what they call the the feeling wheel, right? Which is not not the uh not the back end of a Harley Davidson or something like that. It's it's I don't know, like the feeling wheel basically and I'll put a link to uh to this in the in the show notes. So what it does is it enables you to kind of zero in on what the actual emotion is, you know, like sad, you know, what like you you think to yourself, am I am I sad? Okay, well why am I what's making me sad? Like I actually need my glasses. It's very tiny writing. I know it's very tiny writing because I should have grabbed my glass and I can't read it either.

SPEAKER_06 15:08

Uh but but I think two people in their 50s here, ladies. Shh.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

Oh, that was rude, wasn't it? That was rude, McConville. Sorry, that was just uh smoke and mirrors, remember?

SPEAKER_06 15:23

We didn't have a air of mystery here.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Yeah, right, okay.

SPEAKER_06 15:28

But it's the the feelings wheel's quite helpful if you're having you know, finding it difficult to put, you know, a a label on your feelings or how to express them. Because there's quite a lot of words in there that you can use that you might not have recognised that they lead into.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Yeah, so like what does and you can ask yourself, what does the emotion need? If I'm feeling this way, what do I need that's gonna help me deal with this emotion, you know? So like anger might need like if you're feeling the emotion of anger, it might need boundary setting.

SPEAKER_06 16:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

You know, you've got to set some boundaries with some people, you know. If you're feeling the emotion of sadness, it might need connectedness. It might need it might need you to lean into a supportive relationship with someone that you've got, or it might need a bit of self-care to, you know, take yourself to the gym, or take yourself out on a walk or a bike ride, or do whatever it is, you know, that might be what your sadness needs.

Building An Emotional Toolbox

SPEAKER_01 16:40

Or or you maybe you're feeling anxiety, you know, which is you know, so many people anxiety is like one of the biggest you know, mental health struggles throughout around the world. Yeah, it can be debilitating. There's so many different types of anxiety, you know. So that that what does that need? What does that type of anxiety that you're going through at the at that time need? What does it need? So yeah, you gotta try and accept what it is where you're at and and have that self-awareness to go, okay, what do I need to help get me through this emotion that I'm feeling at the moment?

SPEAKER_06 17:17

So we're recognizing the emotion, we're bringing awareness and curiosity into the emotion that's coming up, we're normalizing it, we're navigating it. And then where, you know, what are we what do we do with these emotions while we're feeling these heightened uh heightened emotions? How are we taking care of ourselves? What are our healthy coping strategies and practicing self-compassion so it can be really helpful to build your own emotional toolbox? So what is going to and for everyone it can be quite different, can't it?

SPEAKER_01 18:02

Like a self- a self-care toolbox.

SPEAKER_06 18:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

But for emotions.

SPEAKER_06 18:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 18:08

And so we're looking at say it's anxiety, we're feeling really anxious. It could be, you know, the one, anyone that uh, you know, is going to stand up in front of a a like for you, standing up in front of uh an audience.

SPEAKER_01 18:26

Yeah, if you're gonna do some public speaking or something, which is gonna drive a lot of people's anxiety through the roof, yeah. You know, you know, everybody has their own way of doing it, but maybe doing some breathing exercises before you step out onto the stage or before you, you know, step into that room for that big meeting, that big presentation, or whatever it is, you know, just pause and take a moment to ground yourself and send yourself and and and you'd be amazed how the power of the breath can calm you down.

SPEAKER_06 19:00

Absolutely. And I think recognizing often anxiety comes up, you know, like the performancing, say performance anxiety, is because you I'm anxious because I want to do a good job. I want the crowd or the audience to have a really good experience, and I want to do a really good job here. So I look at any time I have some kind of you know, performance or speaking anxiety, learning to reframe it that it's not a negative, it's a positive anxiety because you know, I'm going out of my comfort zone here, I want to do a good job. Yeah, because you care. Because I yeah, because I care. So it's kind of flipping. Often we have a really negative view of what anxiety is, and it absolutely can be debilitating, but if we reframe our anxiety and then just quick breathing exercises, like we discussed on the previous podcast about our four, seven, eight breath, breathing in for four, holding for seven, breathing out for eight. We know that the longer exhalation slows our heart rate, calms our nervous system, it helps to ground us, and we use our breath as an anchor. And you you can play with the counts, start lower and increasing it. Grounding exercises are great. One of the very popular positive psychology ones is uh the five, four, three, two, one grounding exercise. And I really like doing this with groups. We'll do it outside, bare feet. So what does that look like?

SPEAKER_01 20:44

So you're five things you can see.

SPEAKER_06 20:47

Five, five that you can see, yeah, four things that you can feel, three things that you can hear, two that you can smell, one that you can taste. I often get them, the order mixed up. But you know, because often too, people go, oh, how many things am I, how many am I supposed to hear? Oh, I can't remember how many are supposed to taste. It it's really not that important. It's because the whole activity is it gets you out of your head and what you're anxious about, it gets you back into your body and your surroundings, and you're taking you're taking all these sensations, external and internal, and it's getting you out of your anxious head. It's like breaking that cycle. You know, another great thing for anxiety is movement, going for a walk, especially, you know, nature is our great, you know, natural distressor.

SPEAKER_02 21:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 21:50

You know, doing a little bit of yoga or tai chi is amazing for grounding for anxiety. You know, talk walking. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Outside walking. What did we talk about in one of the other episodes? Taking your shoes off and putting your feet on bare grass.

SPEAKER_06 22:06

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:07

You know? Yeah. Like when was the last time you did that? I um or the beach. Yeah. Standing in standing in the ocean or the water when it's lapping up on your feet. Powerful. That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_06 22:20

Walking meditations are amazing too. You know, be bare feet if if you can ground yourself grass or or sand and mu you music singing. Singing stimulates or singing humming stimulates the vagus nerve. Yes, you're you, you and your oms.

SPEAKER_02 22:39

You're a very good om.

SPEAKER_06 22:41

But that stimulates the vagus nerve. So our parasympathetic nervous system. Um listening to your favorite music. Wow,

Anxiety Tools: Breath, Grounding, And Movement

SPEAKER_06 22:50

you listen to your favorite music and it can get you out of any kind of anxiety, you know, depression, dark moments, um, can really be helpful.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Yeah. And how and and it's so good that we live in the technological age that you can have all your different playlists on, you know, your device and or however it is, and you go, okay, so this is my drive praylist, or this is my you know, exercise playlist.

SPEAKER_06 23:17

Yeah, actually, you used to have to make mixtapes.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

You know, I know, right? You used to have to sit down and press, press, play, and record at the same time. You have any idea the stress, the stress.

SPEAKER_06 23:29

I had my polish my boots uh, you know, deaf leopard soundtrack.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

Oh, see, there's a whole generation that going wrong. And then when you listen to what are they talking about?

SPEAKER_06 23:38

When you listen to the that music from you go back to a point in time, and you listen to that music again, it takes you back to a point in time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

It's the soundtrack of your life.

SPEAKER_06 23:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

You know, and oh, absolutely. And I reckon everybody would relate, you know. Like I've got certain songs that as soon as that song comes on, no matter where I am or what I'm doing, it takes me back to not not a year or not a an event, it takes me back to a day.

SPEAKER_06 24:08

A point in time, right?

SPEAKER_01 24:09

Yeah, like an visualize it. Yeah, absolutely. Very, very cool.

SPEAKER_06 24:14

Music libraries are yeah, such a powerful thing to have in your toolbox.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

Yeah. And so what about um if we, you know, find ourselves experiencing the emotion of anger?

SPEAKER_06 24:26

Yeah, and I think we need to normalize anger as well. Anger is not the problem, it's often how we deal with our anger and how we express it. So anger is a normal emotion and response to a stressor, but how are we dealing with that anger and what's our behavior around it? So, you know, we can have in our toolbox, okay, I'm feeling angry. Perhaps I need a physical release here. It could be going and doing heavy weights at the gym. Um doing, you know, like a getting a boxing bag or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

Um, on the surface, that sounds like a good way to deal with anger, like in a healthy way. Yeah, yeah. Because go for a run, do something.

SPEAKER_06 25:18

Often you if you've ever been angry, you've you feel it viscerally, right? It's it's the tension and the yeah, the gripping on in the body, it needs a release somehow. So, and it could be even giving yourself a little bit of time out and removing yourself from a situation that has made you angry. And again, as we were talking about in our communication podcast of letting someone know that, hey, I'm I'm feeling pretty angry right now. I need a moment, but I will get back to you. We will talk about this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

When I've calmed down, when I can think a bit clearly.

SPEAKER_06 25:59

Now's not the right time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

Once again, self-awareness.

SPEAKER_06 26:04

And having that assertive communication, remember, it's not aggressive or hurtful communication, but assertive when we're calm can help release anger. You know, I was really angry, you know, yesterday, and this is what set me off. And then, you know, problem solving, it's, you know, and again the curiosity, why did that make me angry? What was it about that, or what was it about that person that I reacted in that way? And, you know, even times it could be I was really tired, I was overtired, you know, I haven't slept in days. I'm stressed with work and it's, you know, manifested. And then looking at sadness, this is, you know, something that's very real for me at the moment with dealing with grief of the loss of my beautiful dog of 13 years. And I know that I've just had to be in the last week really kind to myself and allowing myself to grieve my best mate. Yeah, of course. Of course. And and taking that time, you know, and initially I needed I needed a day to just, you know, process it. And then I needed to connect because the next day all of my friends and family were obviously checking in to see if I was okay. So I'm like, yep, I I need to talk about this. So having self-compassion and kindness appeared.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

See, see, see their relationships, you know, effective, you know, interpersonal relationships, powerful to help you get through the grief, communication, you know, the your friends reaching out to you, knowing that you're going through this stuff. Um, you know, coming back to, like you said, you know, harp on about it, but it's the full circle moment here, you know, we're in the la we're going through the last of the life skills, but comes back to that in the first episode, the foundation trios, self-awareness, knowing that okay, I'm I'm allowed to feel this grief. Yeah, you know, right now.

SPEAKER_06 28:14

And I really noticed, I've even said it to you, you know, my like I'm really flat. I'm flat today, my energy is flat, and that's okay because I'm grieving. Yeah, of course. And you know, having a creative outlet, the the night that my dog Peppa passed away, I journaled. I journaled the crap out of it. And it was it was a way for me to express my grief as well, you know, in another way. For some people, it can be art or poetry. I've received some beautiful poems from some of the participants on the PTSD program. Like they're expressing their gratitude or their pain through through poetry and through journaling. So it can be really helpful for for sadness and grief.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

Yeah, that's cool. Because it, you know, self-compassion. Sometimes you just gotta love yourself, you know, and allow yourself to be where you are in the moment.

SPEAKER_06 29:21

Yeah, it's uh it's uh it's okay for me to feel this.

SPEAKER_01 29:25

Yeah, and and the same the same with the emotion of of feeling overwhelmed. You know, because there's a lot of there's a lot of people that are probably feeling overwhelmed at the moment, you know, like if you've got you know work commitments and family commitments and financial commitments, if you work for yourself or you're responsible for staff, you know, like this yeah, you know this is life. Yeah, this is life. And and you know, if you're following what's happening in the news constantly, that can be overwhelming for you if you're if you're one of those people that takes all that shit on.

SPEAKER_06 30:01

Yeah. You know, so you don't or even just the simple to-do list, you know, can be overwhelming. And then, you know, we procrastinate because we, you know, procrastinating is easier than often doing all the things on our to-do list. But if we, you know,

Music, Memory, And Vagus Nerve Hacks

SPEAKER_06 30:20

break our tasks into smaller steps on it, like for me, I love a to-do list. I've got a little you know, journal that I take everywhere with all my admin type things in it, and it's tick things off. And sometimes I've even done a task and I will write it down and then tick it because because it's like it feels good.

SPEAKER_01 30:44

We've done the exact same thing because yeah, you you look back at your day and go, why is there nothing in that morning? And then you go, okay, I actually did this, I did this. I'm writing that down, I'm ticking it off. I've done that all the time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 30:56

And I've I've started to learn now to overcome procrastination. I try and do my hardest task first.

SPEAKER_02 31:04

You've got to do it. You've got to do it.

SPEAKER_06 31:06

You feel like the weight off your shoulders, because procrastinating for years, it's like this. ADHD.

SPEAKER_03 31:12

Hello. I'm pretty sure I'm undiagnosed.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

I tell you what, one of the biggest things that I think has helped me out, and I've just reread this book, and that's Stephen Covey's Seven Spirit, uh, Seven Habits of Highly Successful People. Yes, I've actually got that book. The four quadrants of your to-do list. Yeah. And I've got to tell you, it is a game changer. I'd totally forgotten about it.

SPEAKER_06 31:40

Yeah. You know, what's in the four quadrants? Can you remember?

SPEAKER_01 31:44

Okay, you've got quadrant one is critical and important. Yeah. Right. So these are things that you've got to get done today, whatever, you've got to reply to this, you've got to get back high priority. Right. The second quadrant is not in not urgent, but important. Right. Okay. So this is the quadrant where you're building your career. Okay. Right? These are all things that you do that are career oriented. Yeah. Quadrant three is for memory not urgent or urgent but not important. And then quadrant four is like not important, not urgent. You know, and so and so like, and it gives you if like in all honesty, look, if you type in Stephen Covey's four quadrant things into Chat GPT, you'll get a you'll get a bit much better bloody summary of it than what I just gave you.

SPEAKER_06 32:43

Yeah. No, but it's good, it's breaking the task up.

SPEAKER_01 32:46

That's right. And the whole thing is, is that it tells you that you need to spend like the way in his book, he explains it to lead a productive life, you need to spend as much time as you can in quadrant two. Right? They're not they're not urgent tasks, but they're important.

SPEAKER_06 33:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:06

Right? These are the ones that are building your career. These are the phone calls that you're making to agents. Like for me, these are the ones that, you know, planning podcast episodes, working on artwork, writing comedy material, working on building a new corporate presentation or something like that. Anything that is career oriented is in that, is in that, and and you very quickly see what you can drop off and what you can delegate, you know. Like I think quadrant three is the quadrant where a lot of things in that quadrant should you should be able to delegate to other people.

SPEAKER_06 33:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:43

You know, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 33:44

Yeah, that's good. That's helpful to prior, I think, you know, prioritize.

SPEAKER_01 33:48

Yeah, because overwhelming, you know, we all feel overwhelmed. I mean, seriously, you know.

SPEAKER_06 33:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:53

And and and look, there's so many different, you know, we all love a good acronym, don't we? Don't we love a good acronym? Everybody loves a good acronym.

SPEAKER_06 34:03

We love we love them in the military, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_01 34:05

I've got I've got one. I've got one, my Hailes Hale program. Oh, yes. Human Laughter Education.

SPEAKER_06 34:11

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 34:11

Oh, yeah, I'm all over it.

SPEAKER_06 34:13

Um fancy you got your own.

SPEAKER_01 34:17

Oh yeah. Got your own actually. Sure, I'm the first person in history that's come up with human laughter education. So the one that I want to chat about, though, is the rain technique. It's because it's a popular mindfulness one, it's self-compassion. So rain, R-A-I-N. So the rain, the R stands for recognizing the emotion arising in yourself, you know, come harpen back to that self-awareness. So recognizing what's happening. The A is allow it to be there, you know. Allow yourself to sit in that emotion, sit in your grief, sit in your sadness, whatever. And you know what? We talk about grief and sadness, but also happiness. You know, allow yourself to be happy.

SPEAKER_06 35:01

Yeah, that can often be, there's can be guilt and shame around that. Allow yourself to be happy. Joy and happiness after, you know.

SPEAKER_01 35:11

After in a grieving process, you know, like I went, I went through it so much when um when my father was dying of

Normalising Anger And Safe Outlets

SPEAKER_01 35:20

he had or my stepfather was dying at nine brain tumours, and I would go from I would go from his hospital bed to drive across town, go to the comedy club and walk on stage and do a gig.

SPEAKER_06 35:37

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 35:38

And and and I'd be backstage just a wreck going, fuck, how can I possibly do this, you know? And and the other comics were going, just worry about the first couple of minutes, just worry about the first couple of minutes. And then I'd go out there, and every one of those shows in that time, in that time period, was a banger. You know, it was because I was just out there and I was just letting it all out, the venom. Yeah, you know, and and they were all great shows, great fun, and I'd come off stage feeling happy, you know.

SPEAKER_06 36:06

Yeah, and I actually needed that.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

I never allowed myself to feel it. You know, when I look back at it now, because this is 20 odd years ago, yeah, you know, I look back at it now and I go, I never allowed myself to be happy because I felt guilt because I came so common. I came off I came off stage feeling that euphoria that you've experienced when you've just done a great gig.

SPEAKER_06 36:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:30

And then the reality would hit that, you know, I sh I shouldn't be here having a good time and all of all of that jazz, you know, when when in actual fact you know, laughter is like therapy, yeah. Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah. And for me personally, like giving that to other people, what I got out of it is your therapy is amazing, yeah. Yeah, but I I I didn't allow myself to sit with the happiness, you know. So, you know, recognising what's happening is one an emotion, but allowing yourself to to sit with it, you know, you're allowed to be happy.

SPEAKER_06 37:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:07

You know, like it once you're grieving you're in a grieving situation, at some point you're gonna laugh again, you're gonna you're gonna love again, you're gonna play again, you're gonna do all of these things again.

SPEAKER_06 37:18

Yeah, and they're they're beautiful emotions to go through.

SPEAKER_01 37:22

Yeah. So right recognize, allow uh the A is uh sorry, the I is for investigate, you know, where do I feel this where do I feel this happiness in my body? Where do I feel this anxiety in my body? Where is it where is it hitting me? And then the N in rain is for nurture, you know, offer yourself some compassion, like we're saying about being compassionate about ourselves, taking that self-care, you know. So, so yeah, recognize, allow, investigate, and nurture. So yeah, my friends, have a crack at using that technique, you know, before you get all wound up in it, you know, before you get that anxiety build up because there's so many different, you know, like we're saying about DBT is another one. Dielect I always dialectical behavioral. That's it, thank you. I always I I don't know why I struggle with that word.

SPEAKER_06 38:17

Oh, I struggle with so many words.

SPEAKER_01 38:18

There's no judge no judgment, no judgment, excellent word judgment-free zone, ladies and gentlemen. That's right. Yeah, when emotions don't fit the facts, you know, do the opposite action. So, example like a anxiety, you might feel okay, so like we were talking before about if you're feeling in a depression and you're feeling this anxiety about reaching out, you know, and and seeking some doing some help seeking behaviour or something like that, you know, your emotion is saying avoid, avoid, avoid, you know, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it. But in actual fact, you know, trying to do it anyway.

SPEAKER_06 39:00

Yeah. Yeah, finding a way to do it anyway, whether that's with the support of someone, I was just gonna say have a s yeah, yeah, a supportive network.

SPEAKER_01 39:10

Someone someone that you can ring up and say, look, I really want to do this thing today, but I'm I'm just feeling so anxious about it. I'm feeling so wound up. You know, are are you able to come and help me go and do this, that, or whatever, you know? Yeah. I think is is really important. Reaching out reaching out to other people is is especially when you're all wound up, it's so important. Anger, you know, like we're talking about doing the opposite reaction, you know, anger. If you're feeling angry, you know, you just want to attack. You know, like you're sitting at the travery and someone's cut you off, or you're doing, you know, whatever at the shops and someone's pissed you off. You just gotta you gotta take a breath and you know, calm try and calm the farm. You know. Anger is anger is such anger is an interesting emotion because we seem to go like I had a time in my life where I was super angry at everything. Yeah, you know, and I would go from zero to a thousand, you know, like I can't imagine that you doing that now. Yeah, I know now, but like like it was I I can tell like it was I was going through you know, I lost my father, lost my stepfather. I had one of my best mates in the world was bru you know, brutally diagnosed with pancreatic cancer when he was fifty, you know, and he was the big, you know, fittest guy you'd ever meet. It it's you know, sometimes life's not fair, right? Yeah. And and I was having, you know, work problems with gigs and people not paying and all this sort of stuff, and and there was so much anger bottling up in me. It was incredible, you know. And it was actually that was at the time where I got the proper diagnosis to go from depression to ADHD. Ah right, because I'd I'd moved, I'd moved from Brisbane to the Gold Coast and changed my doctor, changed my psychologist, all that sort of stuff. And it was it was the new diagnosis and the new regime of morning routine and you know, starting to learn how to meditate, learn, you know, learning some mindfulness techniques myself, which we're gonna talk about shortly, and and you know, journaling and all this sort of stuff, and just getting it out, you know. And so I I you know it's it's weird, like people see me get angry now and they go, Oh, why are you so angry? You've never seen me angry.

SPEAKER_06 41:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:53

You know, like and I feel I feel so glad, I feel so grateful that I've been able to put all that behind me now. Yeah. Because I look back at when you're feeling angry, it's so overwhelming.

SPEAKER_06 42:10

It is, it takes over and it really And it increases your impulsivity.

SPEAKER_01 42:15

Yeah. You do stupid things when you're angry. And say things you don't mean. Yeah, you say things you don't mean, yeah, you do stupid things, you know, and you can be you you can be a harm to others or you can be harm to yourself. Yeah. You know, like at at the worst time I was a harm to myself.

SPEAKER_06 42:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:34

You know, I got so angry about something that I punched a wall and broke two bones in my hand.

SPEAKER_06 42:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:39

You know, because I was so angry about everything that was happening.

SPEAKER_06 42:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:43

You know.

SPEAKER_06 42:45

When you look at it with uh awareness and reflection, you realise what was behind that anger. There was a lot going on. Oh, there was, yeah, and there's a lot of emotion and a pain that was behind that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:00

Yeah, and and it was a transitional phase as well, like when you say there was a lot going on, you know, like everything that was happening with, you know, death in the family, finances, relationship stuff, all this sort of gear, and and you know, it's the old saying, there's only there's only so much a koala can bear.

SPEAKER_06 43:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:19

Well then How much can a koala bear, right?

SPEAKER_06 43:22

I mean But the and they're big ticket items. They are big ticket items. You know, so yeah, no wonder it was overwhelming. And I think just quickly, it's really before we move on to mindfulness, it's really important to just have a quick discussion, I think, around when you were saying, you know, just reach out to a friend, just do it anyway. I think uh something that comes up a lot with participants in the pro in my programs is around I don't want to be a burden. And you would you would know this through your suicide research as well. Burdensomeness is a burden. can't see there's a word I can't see. Burden burdensomeness.

SPEAKER_01 44:02

Burdensomeness. Which is which is I don't want to be a burden. It's a big red flag for suicidal behaviour. Isn't it?

SPEAKER_06 44:09

And it it it is a common theme is that I don't I don't want to reach out to my friends. I don't want to reach out to family or or you know do it anyway because you know asking someone to do that for me I feel like a burden. And that's what we always say is, you know, can you reach

Shame, Avoidance, And Reaching Out

SPEAKER_06 44:30

out to a certain amount of, you know, people, is it five or six people, hey, if I'm in a if I'm in not a very good place, will you be, will you be on my bus? Will you be someone that I can you know and based on their responses and you know most people do not ever get a rejection you know it's like yeah I want to be that person for you. I want to be on your bus. Because often we think we're going to be a burden but we're actually not you know those that are close to you want to be there to support you and help you.

SPEAKER_01 45:05

Yeah of course of course you know and that's you know like the burdenseness is a you know we're talking about that emotion and it being a big red flag for suicidal behaviour. So I just want to I just want to say at this point if you ever hear this sentence or something similar my friends and family would be better off without me around yeah you know that's a warning sign. Yeah you know that that because unfortunately they they believe it to be the case and you know it will never ever ever be the case that anyone will be better off. Um and so if you do hear that that person you know needs some help. Yeah you know you need to try and find a way to if if you're on the phone to them, you know, find out where they are are they by themselves do they have access to means to harm themselves you know here in Australia do you call Triple Zero or wherever you're listening whatever the emergence you know do you need to call the police to do a welfare check to check up on them you know don't be afraid to make that call yeah you know because yeah the research shows us that burdensomeness is a is a big driver for self-harming behavior unfortunately so yeah I'm glad you brought that up.

SPEAKER_06 46:20

I thought it was important that we we talk about that because it's not always easy for someone to reach out.

SPEAKER_01 46:26

Yeah. And so yeah one of the big things that uh turned me around in relation to helping me ditch on my anger was mindfulness. It's a beautiful thing. It is I remember I remember when I was diving right into it right at this you know because when you first learn about certain things you become a bit of a sponge for all of the information you want to take it all on board you know and and you know the big thing about living in the moment you know you've got to be in the moment. Yeah and uh and I remember I I'd watched a movie uh the way of the peaceful warrior I think it was oh yeah you know and there's all these all these different moments and and so I think I got to the point one day where I I felt like and when I look back at it now I go oh you're such a dick so I was like mindfully walking through a doorway right so because you because you think about doing this task that you do automatically you grab a door handle you turn it you open the door you walk through you close the door right yeah but if you do it mindfully you're feeling how the handle feels in your hand you're turning the knob slowly you're feeling all of the latches unlock the all of those barrels unlock the latch and then you're pulling on the door and you're feeling the weight of the door and how much what how much energy it takes you to physically open that door and then you're deciding how much of the doorway is open before I can actually walk through it and like say you fully mindfully walking through this door right and I look back at it now and I go I must have been so painful back then.

SPEAKER_06 48:14

Because I was just about to say someone with ADHD trying to open a door mindfully geez Louise no that's a challenge in itself isn't it because it's such you know but you you know what I'm saying like that's that's just livid in the moment isn't it yeah yeah it's like you know a famous mindfulness practice is the washing of the dishes you know you're feeling the the temperature the water temperature and the the suds and you know you're just you're just washing the dishes you're just that's nothing else is happening you're just and you're feeling all of the sensations and so you know what is mindfulness a lot of people you know confuse or have the misconception that mindfulness and meditation is sitting in the omposition, you know, all Zen and emptying your mind. And it's you know you've got to be still and there's got to be nothing and you're not allowed to think of anything and you've got to empty your mind and that's gotta be the worst thing you can say to someone is to say clear your mind. Yeah it's like it's because then w what you fall it into the trap of is fighting against your mind and really mindfulness is about just paying attention to the present moment without judgment. Just where am I right now? I am here and it's just surfing you know I like to say just surf your thoughts just let them come and go.

SPEAKER_01 49:52

I love the fact that it's an it's such an ancient practice that has got modern research now supporting so much with this like the saying laughter is the best medicine being around since biblical times you know and now now there's research to show science to back it up and the same with mindfulness and meditation and stuff you know like I mean yeah I love the fact that there's modern research supporting all these ancient techniques.

SPEAKER_06 50:21

Yeah absolutely so talk to us about John Kabatzin's oh yes so he really brought mindfulness research into the present day and he developed the eight week mindfulness based stress reduction training MBSR and it's now widely accepted you know in hospitals allied health I've I've done the program myself and it's been shown to you know clinically it has been shown to reduce stress and anxiety improve focus and attention improve emotional regulation that we've been talking about enhance self-awareness that we've also been talking

Mindfulness Myths And Practical Presence

SPEAKER_06 51:10

about helps to improve relationships and actually changes they've shown changes in the brain.

SPEAKER_01 51:19

So is this a course that you actually physically went did somewhere or is this a course that you can do online?

SPEAKER_06 51:26

Yeah so you can do both. So the one that I did was offered to Should be able to find a link to this that we can put in the show notes? Oh it's delivered in many different organisations so I'll just put the I'll just put the name of that in yeah just put put the name of the eight week MBSR if you can you can Google it and have a look at courses in my area or online courses. I did one that was specifically for ex-serving people so there was a cohort of ex-serving members and it was you know Department of Veterans Affairs were were really encouraging that so and I'm pretty sure it's in the veteran hospitals in the US now so widely accepted because of all of its positive benefits.

SPEAKER_01 52:20

Yeah because we're gonna do something at the you know like with all the algorithms and the the our devices you know our minds are constantly wandering like it's amazing how many times can you think about this when you when you're a say a teenager say you're in your early twenties you go to the doctor you go somewhere and you sat in a you had to sit in a waiting room right okay yeah and if they didn't have magazines there or or whatever you pretty much just sat there and you looked around you might have started up a chat with the person beside you or something you know same thing on a train or a bus or whatever you know you'd look out the window and you'd you'd actually be observing and engaging in in the world around you you know whereas I can't believe the amount of times I've been on a plane at an airport you know shopping centre wherever and or or waiting in a waiting room and just every single person is on their phone. Oh yeah you know lining up for coffee it's it's soon as you can't line up for coffee without it's a con constant d distraction I mean seriously if you can't if you can't line stand in a line for coffee for about three to four minutes without but it's automatic.

SPEAKER_06 53:42

I think a lot of people do it you know it's an it's an automatic thing now our phones are always in our hands. Like I when I go to the gym, you know people take forever to do their sets now because they sit and scroll on their phones between sets where you used to have a chat to someone it was much more of a social scrolling or are they trying to take a selfie oh we have rules in my gym you're not allowed to take photos so which is great. No photos or videos which is great but they still sit and scroll and I'm like can I work in with you? I want to use that machine and you know 15 minutes later they're still scrolling. You know it's become and the average person spends about seven hours if you look at your screen time the average person spends at least six to seven hours on their device a day.

SPEAKER_01 54:36

It's a lot. It's frightening it is absolutely frightening like I know I've done that experiment recently to uh to see what my screen time was look look like and it was it's mortified.

SPEAKER_06 54:49

Oh absolutely I looked at one time um how many times I picked up oh yeah it's got the pick up the how many times um I haven't looked at it for a while but yeah I think it was like two years ago or something around then I looked up how many times I actually picked up my phone in a day and I I was shocked. I can't remember off the top of my head what it was but it was like warm I can't remember pick up my phone like every few seconds kind of it's like in the hundreds yeah you know and you can you didn't think of it because it becomes automatic it's autopilot it's autopilot and that's like when we look at our mind and what our brain is doing our brain is constantly trying to hook us into distraction to hey you've bringing this to your attention you need to think about this you need to ruminate about it you need to we need to problem solve so mindfulness is really not trying to empty our mind or you know switch anything off it is really just noticing what's coming up no judgment let it come and go dropping the struggle dropping the fight with it yeah I think the biggest uh the biggest barrier to people not meditating is them saying I can't meditate. I tried that yeah yeah they'll say I can't meditate. I tried that once and you know it didn't work for me. We gotta keep going.

SPEAKER_01 56:19

So so from I'll I'll give you my dear listeners I'll tell you how I overcame that you know ADHD brain trying to figure out how to, you know, because this was uh what 2010 when I learned to to do it. And and I recommend this to anybody who wants to try and dip their foot into meditation because I can attest for how benefit beneficial it is start with a guided meditation. Yeah start by finding someone whether it's on YouTube or an app or whatever there's so many of them out there right but it's got to be something that the the the three criteria that I think you gotta you really want to look for is the person's voice. Yeah right has got to be soothing and calming and it can't be an an accent that distracts you or something right so it's got to be a person's voice that you're happy to listen to.

SPEAKER_03 57:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:25

The second one is it's got to be a time it's got to be a length of time that you can easily manage. You know because there's some that will go for five minutes, some that will go for 45 minutes, right? So deciding how long you've got that you want to dedicate to this in the morning five, ten minutes, whatever so the timing is this is the second one. And the third one is if it's got the I preferred the guided meditations that have like the theta rhythm in the background the oh yeah the uh alpha the alpha waves the sound right because it helps you get into that state right so they're the three things right and so I was listening to what was called an inner wisdom meditation that went for 40 minutes when I first started right

MBSR, Phones, And Attention Drift

SPEAKER_01 58:20

and I quickly felt like after about I was experiencing the benefits and I was feeling like everything in my life was starting to fall into place but then the more I investigated meditation and and mindfulness and all this sort of stuff the more I realized as much benefit as I was getting out of listening to the guided meditation I would get even more benefit out of the silence. So it was probably six months to a year of listening to guided meditations before making field isn't it it's something you've got to work up to before making the step to the silent meditations and then it was a step down time wise. Yeah yeah you know because I was going from listening to someone for 40 minutes to only being able to sit in silence myself for about ten.

SPEAKER_06 59:19

Yeah you know just focusing on my breathing yeah because it can be like 10 minutes, five minutes it can be really challenging.

SPEAKER_01 59:27

Yeah absolutely and the the longest I've ever done like I've got friends mine that do these Vipassana retreats where they sit in silence for days on end and all that sort of stuff. It's full on but like when I was at the height of my practice I was doing 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes at night. Yeah that's as that's as that's as the maximum that I ever got to. Yeah you know which is excellent. And now it's back to 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes at night. Yeah which is great yeah well it's yeah it's it it it is yeah it's some days are easier than others and some days I don't do it. I don't do it every day. Yeah and I miss out days, you know, like the same with my journaling I don't and that's the thing folks is you've got to give yourself some slack you know you can't put all this pressure on yourself.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:19

Yeah I've noticed um you know especially if you have that all or nothing thinking you know oh I've got to you know I've got to meditate for an hour a day and I've got to journal and I've got to do this and I've got to do that. Often then we make it so overwhelming we go from doing it all to not doing it to not doing it. So you know it's it can even just be you know the mindful minute.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:45

Yeah you know that's the thing is just doing something.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:48

Yeah. You know like in my ref referencing another podcast episode I've got about uh journaling there's a look up that episode about journaling and the what framework which is W A double T what action taken today Ah nice you know so I've got the three things what action taken today for me personally you know whether it be meditation journaling walking squats Oh god the squats not doing it you can barely walk today folks because he did too many squats it's not funny that shit's not funny I don't know what you find the music about it's hilarious um what a shame this is the last episode that have it so they'll never be invited back you'll be invited back so what action for me what action for my career what I what action for others you know yeah so so just showing up just doing something so what would a mindful minute look like well you can set a timer or you don't even have to watch the clock but it can be helpful when you first start to even just watch the you know second hand go around a clock and just you know focusing on your breath you know if you can experiment with lengthening the exhale being longer than the in breath you know helps to calm the nervous system slow the heart rate and really just allowing the mind if the mind starts to wander it's okay just notice it without judgment without trying to force or change thoughts I'm not trying to struggle with it and then just come back to your breathing. So we're just letting it come and go and that's it it's just can be really short and uncomplicated. So and but we can also while we're breathing thoughts coming and going softening the shoulders you know releasing tension just noticing where in the body that you might be still holding or gripping onto tension and you can do it anywhere and no one needs to know that you're taking a minute. You know you can while you're waiting for your coffee instead of scrolling on your phone you can just be focusing on your breathing.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:22

And so sitting at the traffic light.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:24

It's an amazing reset for the nervous system you know and it's something so easy and effective. And then you can just build you can build over days weeks months you can start up start from one minute and build to five and just managing your expectations often it's the pressure that we put on ourselves I must meditate I must empty my mind you know and I see the guys that come to my practices that you know I'm really encouraging them just you know don't don't fight it let it let it go you know she's sweet no pressure.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:06

Yeah yeah and I s because I see the more they're trying to force the the meditation you know the agitated and I thought it was really interesting what you were saying the other week about the research study that you found about the benefits of journaling a couple of days a week.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:29

Yeah two or three days a week is as effective as effective every day.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:33

Yeah because I know you know there's been a lot of research done around you know meditation and what it does to the mind and and brainwaves and all that sort of stuff. I'd be interested to know if there's research to do a similar thing you know like even if even if you did a meditation practice two or three times a week it's got to be you know yeah absolutely even if it's once a week you know it's you're still going to see benefits obviously a more frequent dose even better.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:04

And what I have noticed in my own personal practice because I have been doing it for so many years now I noticed throughout the day that without even consciously thinking of it I will just breathe I just did you didn't breathe in if you didn't hear that through the microphone I just took a nice light slow slow deep breath but it's I I kind of it becomes a becomes automatic um because you're doing it you know so regular.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:41

I love the I love the fact to bring you I love the think sort of mindfulness in everyday activities throughout the day. Yeah I know what I was talking about before with the walking through the door was pretty extreme, right? Yeah you know like that was a bit painful to yeah yeah I do apologize for that but you know what I'm But that's that's you know, I'm sure there are people that would practice it to that extent. You know, like that's that's being like totally zoning in on it. But you know, the easiest way to do it, mindful eating, you know. One of the things that he talks about in the uh the movie The Way of the Peaceful Warrior, Nick Nolte's characters, brilliant movie if you get a chance to check it out. He's got his young protege there and he's and and he's got

Starting Meditation: Guided To Silent

SPEAKER_01 1:06:30

a plate of food in front of her and he's like I I went into it, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:34

And as opposed to just sitting and being mindful with each mouthful. And I gotta tell you, I I don't do it that often, but I find that when I go, I'm gonna eat this meal mindfully, right? I feel like I get full a lot quicker. I don't eat as much.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:52

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:53

For some reason, I don't know why that is. Yeah, definitely. But I just find myself going, Because that's enough.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:00

You well, you're giving your body enough time to, you know, naturally have those cues of okay, you know, your hunger hormones are actually having time to go, you know what? Leptin is increasing to say you've had enough to eat now.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:18

But not only that, noticing the colours of the food, you know, what does it smell like, what's the texture of it?

SPEAKER_06 1:07:25

Yeah, you know. And this is uh something that can be really challenging for people that have higher demanding jobs, not just you know, military and first responders, but you know, a lot of people that are in high stress, you know, work environments that are teachers, yeah, that are eating, like rushing and eating at the desk, not having or you know, I know paramedics, you know, they're often eating while they're driving in the car, they're trying to, you know, doing a really long shift and they've m skipped multiple meals because they just have no food and no time. So so then it's you know, eat what you can, get it in your head, you know, and yeah, so mindful eating can be a bit of a bit of a challenge. But I tell you what, when you do it, there's the my like the mindful chocolate exercise. Oh, what's that one? Well, you just like take a square of chocolate. Uh there's sometimes you can do it with uh some dietitians and then it will use a like a sultana. But you just place it on your tongue and you're not allowed to bite into it or anything yet. But you take your time, you you look at it, you smell it. You you put it on your tongue, you taste it, and you go, oh wow, I've taken all this time to have a square of chocolate, but you really slow the whole process down. You're like, now what you know, you're just noticing the reaction in your mouth and the texture, the taste, all of those things, and you don't eat, want to eat anywhere near as much chocolate, but you're really savouring all of the sensation, I really want some chocolate now. I think I'm salivating me want a slab of chocolate. I'm salivating a bit to stop and get some chocolate on the way home.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:18

Well, you're saying that I was thinking to myself, this is so much more enjoyable than my my story about fucking turning a door dog.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:26

Yeah, yeah, that was great. I'm so another one.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:29

I've got gave it a crack.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:31

Gave it a crack. Mindful walking. Mindful, oh, I love mindful walking. And it it's funny when I was mindful walking my dog every now and then, I would leave my phone at home. And it took a bit for my kids to adjust. Like, Mum, you can't leave your phone at home. Because I'm like, I need I want to go for a walk with my dog and be completely disconnected. But when I first started doing it, it was I felt, you know, bare. I felt, you know, nude. I felt naked without without my phone. But I'm like, when I was a kid, I used to walk the dogs without, you know, without my phone. If I can't take 45 minutes to go for a walk without my device.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:17

Without a as a safety thing, not having your phone with you. Is that what your kids are saying? You need your phone, need to keep your phone with you for safety purposes.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:25

Yeah, maybe, but I'm just, you know, walking. I'm not walking in anywhere risky areas, you know. Just walking in the where I live. Yeah. You know. And yeah, enjoying the experience. But yeah, mindful walking and you can also mindful walking with a meditation. You can actually find walking meditations that you can have as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:53

Listen to in the with your buds, get your buds in. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:57

And just walk with no, it's not for ex it doesn't have to be for ex well, it is exercise, but it's the per not the purpose of it to be anywhere or to be, you know, burning so many calories and so many steps.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:12

I find the uh mindful walking occurs naturally if you walk along the beach with uh and you and you and you walk with your feet like you know, up to your maybe ankles or your shins and the w and the waves coming up. You can't help but be that's that's mindful walking at its best, I reckon. Beautiful. What about listening? Mindful listening.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:40

Well, I think this is when we were talking about our communication, you know, active listening, just really giving the person that you're speaking to your full attention without the distractions of your phone or you know, TV anything going on in the background and really noticing your own body language, the words that you're using, your tone. I had to practice this a bit when I first started going into clinic that you know, when I get excited, I talk really fast and lots of energy, and that's just how I communicate, but that's not always appropriate. You know, so sometimes okay, I've got to slow the way of doubt talking and you know, because I guess it can be overwhelming, it can be. Give someone anxiety being in my presence because I'm talking too fast. But it's you know, and oh, and yeah, really don't plan your response, don't try and fix and solve. We're not planning responses.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:53

You've just reminded me of something that it was an acting exercise that oh yeah. Back to that, right?

SPEAKER_06 1:13:01

So I like no, I like your acting exercises, your tree and your Yeah, well this is to do this is to do with energy. Ah right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:10

And so and it's a scale of one to seven. Right? Yeah. So one being no energy and a sloth, seven being manic energy and full on, and four being neutral.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:31

Right? That's great. And they taught us this because like in each scene they would say, what energy is the character in in this scene? Does he start as a two? Okay. Does he walk into the room a two and does he end up a seven and go back to a three? And like, you know, you'd analyse it all that sort of stuff, and like like you're hearing you you talking about, you know, having to pull yourself up, going, Oh shit, I'm a little bit, you know, I get excited and I get wound up. Yeah. You know, you're going, you're going six or seven, you know, and I think.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:03

But the person that you're with could be a two.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:06

That's right. And now I talk about it with other comics about on stage when

Everyday Mindfulness: Eating, Walking, Listening

SPEAKER_01 1:14:10

you're doing a gig. You know, you come out to do a one-hour comedy show, you can't be the same gear the whole way. You know, you've got to come out where they're at, it may be a four, take them up to seven, go back to two, give them a break, be a one for a little bit, up to five, drop it back, you know. And yeah, it just reminded me of that when you were saying I can be overwhelming when I get excited. I'm like, well, we've all been there.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:37

Too much, Jody Allen.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:38

Too much.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:39

But we do it on the the Triumph over trauma program in the mornings. We check in on, you know, from a zero to ten. What's you know, what's everyone's energy this morning? And then it really helps me, you know, if we if I'm seeing people are feeling a bit flat, we can check in throughout the day. Where's everyone's energy at right now? And I can adapt the program a little bit based on everyone's energy and and meeting everyone where they're at.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:07

So yeah. Another mindful practice, something that we do every day, is showering or washing your teeth, brushing your teeth, combing your hair, some type of grooming or self-care, you know. Yeah. Just noticing, you know, when you're brushing your teeth or you're combing your hair, or you're having a shower, you're feeling the water coming down over you. Yeah. So it can be one of those things that there's so many things that you can do when it if you go, you know what, I'm gonna I'm gonna mindfully do this. Just gonna slow this down, slow this down and take notice in a little moment.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:41

Yep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:42

It's what it's all about, being in the moment. In the moment. So talk to us about the stop practical strategy.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:50

I I really like the stop practice acronym, another acronym. We love the acronym. But stop is a very easy one to recall. And it's when we're feeling stressed or overwhelmed, we S is stop. So stop what you're doing. Take a pause. Take a pause. Look around. Yeah, we can look around if you like. T is for take a breath. Just take one big deep breath. And then O is observe. So what's happening? What am I thinking? What feeling? What sensations are coming up? Just tuning in with our body and our mind. What is it telling us? And then P is proceed. So just continuing with awareness. So we're feeling overwhelmed, we're just gonna stop, take a breath, what's happening, and then we continue on our way. And it can be so simple, but it can really be a break between reactivity and you know, us flipping our lid.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:09

You know, for example, I had a client who was a police officer that would go to, you know, a shopping center car park and feel really overwhelmed and then anxious, and then he'd get angry at anything that was going on in the car park. He felt it was a really, was he gonna run into someone that he didn't want to run into? And he found the stop acronym when he went home really helpful when he started noticing, oh, here we go. This this You can feel it.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:46

It's self-awareness.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:48

Yep, it's coming up, it's coming up. Stop, take a breath. Yep, I know what's going on. Okay, I'm gonna go into the shopping center. I'm gonna or I'm gonna go into my car and I'm out. So, yeah, it's something that you can use throughout the day.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:07

I like I like the idea of the using it at a point of transition in your day. Yeah. You know, like you come you come home from work and you know, I'm sure everybody's got their own rituals when they come home from work, what they you know, they might it might be a case of, you know, you get you get out of your work clothes, or you have a shower, you have a shower, you you know, you've play with the kids, whatever it is that you do, you know. But I think in that transitional phase is is a good time to stop and be mindful and go, I'm s I'm I'm out of that mode now, and now I'm getting into this mode, or or vice versa, you know, you've you've had a wonderful morning hanging out with your partner, you're going to work, you've been hanging with the kids, whatever. Traffic, you got all the green lights, it's great, you know, and you you you you get to work and it's like, okay, so now I'm now it's my transition. This is a transition.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:09

Transitions, I think, are super important. We talk about this with the tradies a lot, you know. You take your tool belt off and your boots off. You know, you you're walking through the door, you've transitioned from you're the trade to as you walk through the door, all of those, you put your tools on charge and to bed, yeah, and your boots are you know out the door. Like you come inside and you're your dad, your cousin, friend, yeah, whoever you are, you're walking in the door and you've transitioned from you know, from from that role into your Yeah, we have so many transitions during the day that you don't really think of, really.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:51

When you think about it, you know, like you go, man, we we do a lot of transitioning.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:56

Yeah. It's like uh, you know, if you work from home a lot, like for me I've found it helpful. I get into work clothes. It's I'm usually barefoot. But I've yeah, the same, yeah, yeah. Because I used to just wear my yoga clothes or shorts and uh and and I so I would really easily you know be going off doing domestics and things, whereas now I'm like, no, this block this morning, I'm in work mode. I got my work clothes on, yeah. And I'm in the office and the door is closed, and this is my work time.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:34

Because sometimes I do the same thing, I close the door even if I'm home by myself.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:39

Yeah, yeah, I did that today. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:41

Which is weird really when you think about it.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:44

But it's it but it creates that barrier that this is my office space, this is my work space.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:50

And you know, when you do do a bit of work from home, it can be really hard to have the boundaries.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:57

It's so hard to have boundaries when you work from home.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:01

You know.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:01

But those transitions too when you're at home from okay, I've got my work clothes on, I'm working, and then okay, I'm not. So then, you know, we're what are we doing to transition from one role to another? So yeah, the stop is a really short, you know, it can be 30 seconds, no one again needs to know that you're even doing it. Can be really short and effective. Another favorite tool to reset the nervous system is the body scan, also known as yoga nidra, or as what's his name? Huberman, Professor Huberman calls it non-sleep deep rest. He wanted to give it a non-yogi term to make it more acceptable for the wider population. But really, it's um and yoga nidra in yoga is what we call like a yogic sleep. So you're still, you're not necessarily asleep,

STOP And RAIN: Quick Reset Techniques

SPEAKER_06 1:22:00

but you're at at rest and you're still aware. Some people will fall asleep in a body scan. Usually when I'm doing them, they're falling asleep. Um, but I've been doing them for a very long time.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:12

So your dulcid tones.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:15

It's like my mission. This reminds me of this actually reminds me of another acting exercise, the body scan. But we used to they used to get us to lie on the ground, right? This was before we were doing physical movement classes, right? And in actual fact, I've used this over the years as if I'm really tense, this is a great way to relax. And you say you're lying on the ground and you you imagine your feet, you're starting at your feet, you imagine your feet to be big slabs of red jelly.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:48

Ah.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:48

Right? Yeah. And you just sit there and you focus on them being red jelly. It's a lot better when someone's talking you through it. Yeah. You know, you hear someone go, they're red jelly, your feet are red jelly, you know, you can see them glistening and you can right. And then they heat up and they melt into the floor.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:08

Ah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:10

And then you do the same for your lower legs.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:13

Red jelly heats up, melts into the floor.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:18

And I gotta tell you, by the time you get to your chest, you're gone skin. You're a puddle.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:24

Yeah. You're a big puddle. Literally. Well, visualizations, very. Yeah. So when I think of body scanning.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:34

When I think of body scan, that's like jelly.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:37

Yeah, there you go. Love it. But really, you know, a body scan is just going like you said, you know, you start at the feet, where I'll often start at the head. So depending who's, you know, teaching it, yeah, it's just going through parts of your body, bringing your awareness.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:56

Are you a fan of are you a fan of the ones I where you have to tense up the muscles and relax them?

SPEAKER_06 1:24:05

That's different. That's progressive muscle relaxation. Right. So that can be not everyone likes PMR. It can it can actually be quite challenging and some people will not find it.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:18

It sounds stressful to me. Well Because it sounds like you're gonna get heaps of cramps. Like that's what a tense muscle to me.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:29

What I have noted, because I teach it regularly, is that, and I always bring the caveat that you you might find this works for you, but you also might not. So I'm just you know, just be open and give it a go. And I think the most frequent challenge that will come up is that, you know, because you're get guiding them through it now, tense and release your hands, tense and release your forearm, tense and release your upper arm. And for some of the over, you know, can be overthinking it a little bit or get a bit confused, or well, hang on a minute, how do I you know, how do I tense my whole thing?

SPEAKER_01 1:25:12

It can be hard to isolate. How do I isolate that part of my body?

SPEAKER_06 1:25:16

I get a bit of because I've got a PMR track and a Yoga Nidra body scan on Insight Timer, the app, and some of the feedback from the PMR is I found that really hard. And what do you mean I tense my whole body? And it's like, well, just imagine you're tensing, tensing your whole body, but people are really getting into their head about, well, how to, how do that doesn't make any sense to me. So it can actually stress some people out, but it can be beneficial for people with ADHD or people that find a stillness practice really challenging.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:54

So it's tensing and releasing, and it can also for people that maybe disassociate or disconnect from their body, or have, you know, really avoiding they might have pain or trauma, they disconnect from their body. So it can be a way of bringing them back into the physical body and just going around the body and checking it out, and it can get them out of their head. So it I always encourage the people to, you know, give these things a tr a try. Like PMR for me, like I teach it, but for me personally, it it doesn't float my boat. But oh, yoga nidra, the body scan. I I listen to body scans every night. It's how I go to sleep. And I never very rarely make the end. It just gets you out of your head into your body, and yeah, magic. Yeah, right. So you're just noticing sensations through your whole body without judgment. And you can do short, start off with a shorter practice, move into a longer one. Yeah, lots of lots of evidence behind that now, which is great. Doing things like mindfulness and body scans.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:14

Anything to help you sleep, I'm a fan of. Yeah. Yeah. Big fan of that because I know sleep's a well, we're gonna talk about that shortly, but yeah, so mindfulness, you know, that's it's don't overcomplicate it. Yeah, don't overcomplicate it. Yeah is a big thing, isn't it? You know?

SPEAKER_06 1:27:34

It's often our expectations of what we should be experiencing. In these kind of practices, I think um people can place too much expectation and then it becomes, you know, a barrier. So and then it just goes out the window where it's you know, it's a process.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:55

So so w when I'm doing it these days, doing meditations, you know. I let myself experience whatever it is thought that sometimes in actual fact uh and I know you and I have spoken about this before an idea will just pop into my head. Like in actual fact, I I I find sometimes when I meditate I find I miraculously get answers to problems or things that I haven't or ideas for something that I go, that's a really good idea. I need to actually get up off my cushion and actually write that down because I'm afraid I'm gonna forget it, it's that good an idea. Yeah, I do that. And and so I allow myself to think some about whatever it is, you know, because I know there's the there's all those different methods, you know, the thoughts, what are the thoughts doing?

SPEAKER_06 1:28:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:55

Let them float out the river, let them fly by the sky, and yeah, yeah you know what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:01

Well, there's a really a great another great exercise, it's uh very popular in acceptance and commitment therapy act is the leaves down the stream exercise. And it's just you know, getting your thought, popping it on a leaf, sending it on its way down the stream, just let it go. If it comes back, that's okay. Pop it, pop that thought on a leaf, let it go, and it's uh just a mindfulness practice of

Body Scan, PMR, And Better Sleep

SPEAKER_06 1:29:30

just letting the let the thoughts come and go. Yeah, and uh yeah, it's really lovely.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:37

Yeah. Well, talking about lovely, here we go. We are at the last of the life skills for L episodes, and it is Jodie Allen's wheelhouse. We've saved the best till last. Here we go, and we are talking, ladies and gentlemen, about lifestyle medicine. Yes, I lifestyle medicine. I love the term, I just love the term lifestyle medicine.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:10

Yeah, because it's well, people go, what is lifestyle medicine?

SPEAKER_01 1:30:14

But it's a really allen?

SPEAKER_06 1:30:17

Well, I think we did discuss it at the beginning of the um podcast, but we can, you know, just briefly go over it again. But it's really bringing in these pillars of health, these core pillars that we know through evidence that lead to us living our best selves with a healthy mental and physical health, and it's really looking at it in the preventative space, how if we're, you know, meeting these core pillars and doing as much as we can consistently, we can prevent disease.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:00

Yeah, and the thing I really love about this is that it is evidence-based. You know, this isn't airy fairy, juju, ja ja, whatever, you know, the American College of Lifestyle Medicine framework is an evidence-based, high value care model designed to treat, reverse, and prevent chronic disease by addressing root causes through these six core pillars that you're talking about. And, you know, this is early intervention at its core. This is keeping the population healthy at its core, isn't it? You know, and the fact that it's based in evidence is, you know, it's so good. So let's run us through the six pillars, Jody.

SPEAKER_06 1:31:42

Alrighty. So our first one is nutrition, which I get to see as a clinical nutritionist, I get to see the benefits of if I can improve someone's diet, I can significantly improve their physical and mental health. It's as straightforward as that. What does the nutrition look like under a lifestyle medicine model is very similar to the Mediterranean diet, which is the most studied diet in the world when it's it comes to mental health, and it's promoting a whole foods, predominantly plant-based, you know, minimally processed, as close to nature as possible. So it's really Is there meat in this diet? Yes. Yes, yes. So it's predominantly fish and you know, there's chicken, but there's less red meat in the Mediterranean diet. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:47

Which there's whenever I've heard whole whole food plant-based, it it always think I think of it.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:54

Thank you for clarifying that, because I did say yeah. So it is uh predominantly plants and small amounts of meat. Yeah. More say eggs, fish, chicken over red meat is the Mediterranean style diet, and healthy fats like olive oil, avocados. So it's butter. Butter. Butter makes everything better. Butter makes everything better. Yeah, so it's just a as the evidence has shown time and time again with a Mediterranean style diet, we've been able to, in groups of people with depression, we've been able to see a remission of their depressive symptoms with as little as it within twelve weeks of improving their diet. So I get to also see it within two weeks in our program of nutrition intervention with our participants, the impact that it has. Well, that's incredible, isn't it? Yeah. So it's very powerful.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:06

And it's not on it's not only the food that they eat, it's the it's what they're drinking as well, you know?

SPEAKER_06 1:34:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:13

Because the amount of times where I've come into the program on a Friday night and I open the fridge and I'm like, it's all the only thing in here is kombucha.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:24

You know? I'm like, oh, I don't even care how many times you throw a tantrum, there is never going to be soft drink in there. I think, oh man, I suffer guys. The kombucha. And you know what? I believe that kombucha sales, you know, Australia wide have gone up because solely because of I only allow for them to have kombucha water.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:48

Yeah, for those people that don't know, tell us what is kombucha. Well, it's not kombucha, it's a kombucha. Kombucha. Right. Sorry. Kombucha.

SPEAKER_06 1:35:01

Well, it's a fermented drink. It's based on tea, and there will there is sugar, but it's consumed by the fermentation process, and it has healthy bacteria in it. So it's it's good for you and it's good for your gut. So we promote it also in Are there different flavours? Yes, there's different flavors. You can make your own or you can well, back in the day you only could make it yourself, but now it's widely available in the supermarket. So, you know, the qual quality can can vary, but yeah, it's a great alternative to because we do know that soft drinks and artificial sweeteners impact the microbiome, the bugs in your gut.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:48

So we need to Oh, look, I'm not saying that every time I look in that fridge I want there to be cans of coke or sprite in there. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying, no, no. It'd be nice if there was a beer in there. No, no, no, no. Okay, so uh that's pillar one, nutrition.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:07

Yeah, I could bang on about nutrition for an hour.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:11

Well the contact details for Jodie Allen are in all of the show notes, ladies and gentlemen. So if you want to if you want to hear Jodie bang on about nutrition.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:24

So yeah, can't over. I don't know what I'm about to say, but I cannot express enough. That's right. How important nutrition is. Nutrition is everything. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:37

Yep.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:38

The next one is physical activity, and you know, really physical activity is anything that you can fit into your life and schedule that hopefully you enjoy, that is consistent. And, you know, I love exercise, but there's times where I'm not motivated to do it. But I know that doing the hard things and, you know, I rarely rarely regret a workout.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:08

So it's been interesting

Lifestyle Medicine: Six Evidence-Based Pillars

SPEAKER_01 1:37:10

recently. I've learnt the fact that lifting weights is better for the brain than doing cardio.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:16

Oh, yeah, there's we're we're moving into I can't remember where that research came from, but it's something about I don't know, about you know BDNF, brain derive. That sounds familiar, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:28

Yeah, it's like fertilizer.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:31

More effort for your brain to process lifting heavy things than it does to like, you know, go for a jog or something like that.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:38

Yeah, yeah. There's uh a real drive now towards strength training and all the the benefits, not just for for bone and muscle health, but brain health as well. Get pumped up people. I'd do a bicep flex right now, but no one needs to see that.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:00

Are you just doing that because you can isolate that muscle? Is that every time I think of the weights, I think of the Seinfeld episode where Badia goes, yeah, I'm huge.

SPEAKER_06 1:38:10

Huge, huge. And you know, even uh like exercise snacks and habit snacking, which we'll talk, I think we talk about a bit more about habit stacking towards the end. But you know, like for me, while I'm cleaning my teeth, I'll do a wall set. You know, it's I've got a chin-up bar over the door on my way to the bathroom. So I pass it, I've got to do a few chin-ups. Like it's are you serious? Shh, I've got the band. I do have to have the I almost thanks for that. I almost got away with saying I'd do a few chin-ups. Okay, I can only do one and a half by myself, but you put the band on there, I can do more.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:56

I don't I don't know what you're talking about with the band, but anyway.

SPEAKER_06 1:38:59

Well, it's just a band that you put around the chin-up bar and you put your foot through it and it helps to lift you up. It gives you a little bit of a boost. No, it's not cheating, it's helping.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:13

It's a boost.

SPEAKER_06 1:39:14

It's a like a booster seat.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:17

Good, good.

SPEAKER_06 1:39:17

But it's, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:18

Well, look, I'll look the fact that you've got it there, you know, you you every.

SPEAKER_06 1:39:23

Don't be dissing my channel. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:27

No, I'm I'm saying it's impressive the fact that you've put it in a place that you go, every time I walk through that doorway, I've got to do that thing, you know.

SPEAKER_06 1:39:35

Well, it was my surf coach that he used to say, like, every time you go to the bathroom, you've got to do uh like five pop-ups. So pop-ups just start becoming like something that you don't even think of. So I what's a pop-up? A pop-up when you gotta get up onto your board from laying down to popping up.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:39:59

Can you give us an example of speak? No. Cool. Not that I'm an amazing surfer. Um yeah, so it's getting exercised. The recommendation is 150 minutes of moderate activity a week. A week yeah, a week, 150 minutes. Two and a half hours. But you can break that up. So I also found some research. So whilst, you know, the recommendation is to do, you know, half an hour of exercise a day, for some people that's really not practical. They've got families working long hours or shifts. The weekend warrior, there's a study I read about the weekend warriors doing all of their exercise. So maybe going for a big cycle or going for a you know, a hard hike of, you know, doing a long duration. Two and a half hours in one year. But going and doing, yeah, a an intense block of exercise on the weekend was as effective as doing exercise on a daily basis. Really? Which I found great for because I work with a lot of, you know, people that it's just the daily exercise thing adds to their already really stressed state and adds to guilt and expectation, all those kind of things. So it's like, well, is there a way that you can get all this in? So I've got guys going out doing really long cycles or trail riding or you know, going for a two-hour surf, and you know, it's yeah, where can you squeeze it in? Or is it something that you can do, you know, go on a bike ride with your kids and things like that. So it's what can you fit in reasonably and and get moving? Sleep hygiene. When we talk about sleep hygiene, so the recommendation is that most people generally need about seven to nine hours sleep a night. For us night owls, that's not always achievable, is it? Because we're often against, you know, the society's, you know, work rhythm. But sleep hygiene, when we talk about sleep hygiene, it's not a cure for sleep, but it really is what are the things that we do during the day and early in the evening before we go to sleep to set ourselves up for a good sleep. So we want to prioritize restorative sleep. How are we going to do that? And that's things like minimizing screen time, blue light. You can wear blue light blocking glasses. I wear them every night in the last couple of hours of the evening. No stimulating activities, not um working out too intensely before sleep.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:05

I've heard so many, so many things about sleep recently, like this great book out called Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker. Yeah, that's pretty interesting.

SPEAKER_06 1:43:15

Yeah, and he's got a sleep series podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:18

Fascinating to think that I'm sure that I I remember him saying there isn't one system in the human body that doesn't benefit from sleep.

SPEAKER_06 1:43:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:31

You know, which is crazy when you think about it. And and I remember you know being a little bit heartbroken listening to that audio book at the fact that you know you the whole theory about you can't catch up on sleep, you know, you and all this sort of stuff, and and you know, the like the power naps and all that sort of gear and the so putting nutrition and sleep in the same thing, right? So what's the I d I I can't remember he was saying about a certain amount of time before bed is the last you should be eating because like there are a lot of people.

SPEAKER_06 1:44:09

Yeah, the general rule general rule is not eating two to three hours before sleep. Because you shouldn't be going to you know, often a lot of people will be snacking late at at night. Well that's what happens to me.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:24

I'll go, you know, you do a gig, like light night workers and performers and stuff. And after the no I gotta tell you, no matter how much I eat before I do a show, I walk off stage, I'm starving.

SPEAKER_06 1:44:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:39

You know, even though I've just been standing there talking, yeah, I'm hungry at the end of it. And then you're driving home, it's 10 30, 11 30 at night, and your food options are not that great.

SPEAKER_06 1:44:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:54

You know, you you're getting cheese, you you're getting service station ch ham and cheese sandwiches or egg and letter sandwiches or something like that, or little yogurt and and muesley, but that's it.

SPEAKER_06 1:45:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:07

You know, and and mean you're starving, but then you you're gonna go to bed an hour later.

SPEAKER_06 1:45:12

Yeah, yeah. And that's um, you know, it's the quality of it's it's okay, you know, if you have been working and you you are genuinely hungry. I'm probably talking more about the mindless, you know, snacking and treats and things.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:29

D M's.

SPEAKER_06 1:45:31

Yeah, but I mean you can have absolutely if it's an hour before bed and you have been working and you're really hungry, there are bet there are things that you can eat, a little bit of protein and a little bit of carbs. So it might be in the shape of having some nuts and some blueberries or a little bit of plain, you know, Greek yogurt and some nuts. Like there's better things that you can have if you are genuinely

Food, Kombucha, And Mood

SPEAKER_06 1:46:00

hungry. Yeah. Because we don't want to be digesting, you know, heavy, fatty, high sugar foods before you're meant to be sleeping, because sleeping's meant to be a restful, non-digesting, you know, state.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:18

Because it's to do with your heart rate, right? Like when you're when you're processing food, your heart rate's increased.

SPEAKER_06 1:46:24

Well, you yeah, you're well and metabolism. Your metabolism's increasing.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:28

And that's what inhibits your ability to fall asleep properly.

SPEAKER_06 1:46:33

Yeah. Well, and if you're, you know, if you're having something that if you've had sugar, you know, there's blood sugar dysregulation that can be occurring while you sleep. It can be why you also wake up during sleep. You could be underfed or overfed. There's so many things, probably don't really have time to go into all of all of that. But yeah, simple, just simple, simple hygiene, sleep hygiene rules for yourself, you know, dim lights, turning the lights down, really creating that environment, a cool room, comfortable bed, you know, setting up your environment that's conducive to I'm winding, give the brain the cue, I'm winding down for sleep now. You know, makes but if you look up sleep hygiene, just Google sleep hygiene and you'll get some great practical tips. Stress management, we've talked a lot about you know, stress reduction techniques, which is a lot of the breathing. We've talked about breathing exercises, mindfulness, you know, exercise walking, those kind of things.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:44

So really stress management, and once again, getting into your brain falls into place with all of the life skills. Self-bringing self-care, self-awareness, problem solving, dealing with your emotions, you know, all of that, being able to make decisions, being informed, critical decisions, and all, you know, critical thinking, creative thinking, informed decision making helps manage your stress as well. So it's that like, you know, they all keep interacting. They all interact with each other, that's right. Substance avoidance.

SPEAKER_06 1:48:18

Yeah. So under lifestyle medicine, they really flag this as one of the poor important interventions in you know preventing disease and ill health is eliminating or reducing smoking, alcohol, and substance, risky substance use. So we know that like alcohol disrupts the gut, interferes with sleep. So even just, you know, avoiding or reducing those substances can help improve, you know, our physical and mental health and you know, social connection, as we've talked about, you know, maintaining friendships and relationships, finding your tribe is super important for mental health. So we've only, you know, we could go into great deep dives to all of these pillars, but there that's kind of just touching the surface of them.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:25

It's a great list. It is a great list. It is a great list. If you want to do a deep dive into it, it's the American College of Lifestyle Medicine framework, nutrition, physical activity, sleep hygiene, stress management, of substance avoidance and social connection. Like yeah, it's it's brilliant. And lifestyle changes, you know. It's saying that, you know, I've read where it says that it they can be as effective as many medications for s some conditions.

SPEAKER_06 1:49:54

Absolutely. And you know, if we can bring all of these factors into Someone's lifestyle, we know that we can reduce or eliminate some medications. So we're never saying, you know, go off all your medications and this is all you need to do. We would never say that, but we know through evidence and I know through, you know, clinical experience is that if we can improve a lot of these pillars in someone's life, we can really have a positive impact on their on their health. And, you know, we've had guys on 20 plus medications reducing them by half within months. So, you know, with in line with their medical practitioners and their psychiatrists, we can work on titrating down some medications by bringing in some, you know, lifestyle improvements. Powerful stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:00

So it is powerful stuff, but let's play, you know, the devil's advocate now because, you know, modern life and modern day life and the you know hectic, flat out lifestyle that everyone's leading is is pretty full on, you know. So and a lot of the time modern life works against a healthy lifestyle, you know, because we've got to be at work, we've got to be doing this, we've got to, you know, kids have got to go to school or footy on the weekends, or you know, you've got kids commitments and all that sort of stuff. And and aside from all of that, we're in an age where we've got information overload, you know. Like you and I both know that you can, you know, you can find a research study to support the pros for the summer thing and then the cons against something else, you know. And and a a lot of people I think when they dive into something like this, they hit it with a you know, it's all or nothing. You know, yeah, I'm going. I'm going I'm going flat out on this, you know, because everyone loves a good fad, right? Yeah, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_06 1:52:02

When they jump on board, jumps off, then it all then it all goes out the window, you know, and I think it's the small, consistent actions that move the needle to the direction or in the green, however you want to look at it, the most. Yeah. So we don't we don't have to be, I think there is a lot of guilt around all the things we should be doing.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:52:31

You know, I I read uh recently where a woman said, you know, if one more doctor says to me, What are you doing to look after yourself? Um, because she had three kids with, you know, high needs, she said, I'm just going to scream. But, you know, because time time was not something that she had the privilege of, you know, finding for herself. So it's what what can you do and what small actions can you do?

SPEAKER_01 1:53:02

Well, that's that's where the habit is that the habit, you know, you've because we've all got our um existing habits that we do, you know, like brushing our teeth at a certain time of day or doing this in the morning, having a coffee, feeding the pets or whatever it is. And habit stacking is one of my favourite.

SPEAKER_06 1:53:20

I'm a I'm a big fan of habit stacking.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:23

So talk us through what that is.

SPEAKER_06 1:53:24

So one of the one of the ways that we can affect the most positive change with bringing in a new habit is we stack it with an existing one. Because habits are around cues, timing, the

Movement, Strength, And Weekend Warriors

SPEAKER_06 1:53:40

behavior, and the reward. So if we already have an existing habit, we already have that timing in the cue there, and we're just attaching it to that. So, for an example, is like what I said, you know, I'm going to the bathroom, I'm going to do three chin-ups. I'm going to brush.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:00

It was two half an hour ago. Yeah. Shh shh.

SPEAKER_06 1:54:02

No, I'm going to do three with with the band. With the assistance, all right. Stop it. How many put how many chin-ups can you do?

SPEAKER_01 1:54:12

Dunno. Seems like a pointless exercise to me.

SPEAKER_06 1:54:15

I'm proud of my one.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:17

It's like a pointless exercise to me. Why would I want to do a put why would I want to do a chin-up? What's up, what's above that, what's above that bar that I can't see here.

SPEAKER_06 1:54:27

I think one of the shh one of the easiest, moving right along. One of the easiest ones is, you know, the wall, the wall sit while you're brushing your teeth. Like everyone can do that. It's so easy.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:39

It's a cool one.

SPEAKER_06 1:54:40

And it's great for your thighs. You know, same with in the morning, the first thing I do in the morning is big drink of water. Yeah. You know, like it's beside my bed. So drink of water, you know. I do have I do have a couple of habit stacks that I've set up. Feed on floor, drink of water. What's your habit stack?

SPEAKER_01 1:55:00

After I exercise, I jump in the pool. Yeah, nice. And before I sit in my chair at my desk, you know, I've got a cupboard in the spare room, in my office it's and in the cupboard is where I keep my meditation mat and cushion. So it's easily access it's easily accessible. So I I work on the theory that I don't sit there at my desk until I've sat there on the cushion. Even if it's for five minutes.

SPEAKER_06 1:55:36

Yeah. Yeah. That's great.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:40

It's kind of a strict habit. Sitting at your desk isn't really a habit, is it?

SPEAKER_06 1:55:45

Yeah, but it's well it's a it's some it's a process. It's uh it's the the cue is there.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:55:54

So you're connecting it them together. So and then it takes less effort, you know. So yeah, and it's just working out.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:04

Oh, there's so many of these, isn't there? You know, like I've heard people say, you know, when you brush your teeth, stand on one leg one day and stand on another leg the other day, or when you put it in balance. When you put your socks on, put your socks on one way one day and put them on the first mix it up, you know, you or your shoes, if you usually put your left shoe on, put your right shoe on first, or and because uh all a lot of these things are to do with brain health, aren't they? You know.

SPEAKER_06 1:56:32

Well, and it's helping to rewire the brain and that as well. Like you're embedding you're embedding new um like when it comes to habit change science, it's anywhere, you know, a habit can take from 14 days to I I can't remember off the. Yeah, no, well the new re the research is looking more at it's much broader than that. So it can be anywhere from, you know, the minimum, it can be a week or two weeks to for some people it's 300 and something or other days. I can't remember off the top of my head, but it can be almost a year. So for some people a new habit can be really quick. So the old 21 days to the it's that's very simplistic and it's it implies that 21 days works for everyone. But research has shown the same habit change can for one person happen in a couple of weeks, another one will take another person will take a year. So it's very individual and it varies widely. So how can you make a new habit something that you want to change a lot more easier on yourself? Is yeah, stacking it onto something else. So you could start with one new habit. Go get your chin-ups happening or squats, or do squats while the coffee machine's going and the little push-ups against the kitchen bench. Settle down, settle down, getting a bit carried away.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:09

There's no more squats going on any tourists.

SPEAKER_06 1:58:11

Alrighty, let's integrate this stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:13

Okay, let's pull it all together, but let's let's get all this together. Yeah because we have covered so much over this last four four episodes, and and like this last one, you know, I know we've gone on on a bit, but it really does bring it all together, you know. Managing emotions helps you regulate your internal experience and improves your emotional regulation, which is incredibly important. Mindfulness helps you be present and increases your emotional awareness as to what's going on around you, and and lifestyle medicine, as as JD's just outlined with the six pillars, so incredibly powerful stuff, which is provides physical foundation, support meant uh support healthy lifestyle choices and improves emotional regulation, supports mindfulness practice, and will not you know, all this stuff's not only good for your physical health, but it's going to be good for your mental health as well. So, you know, the the the 12 life skills as they s as they s have spread out over the last four episodes, Jody, as like, you know, we put them together for a specific reason, my friend. So if you haven't already listened to the first three episodes, in to get just to rundown, episode one, we covered this foundation of your life skills, which was self-awareness, knowing yourself, stress management, how to regulate the pressures that we all find ourselves in in daily life, and and problem solving, how to address the challenges that we have in our lives. And then we went into the thinking trio, Jodie.

SPEAKER_06 1:59:52

Yeah, episode two was the thinking trio. We went through the critical thinking, which is you know, evaluating clearly, creative thinking, which is generating solutions, decision making, uh helping us to choose wisely.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:08

And then we were all about connection in episode three. If you haven't already listened to it, communication, how to express yourself clearly and effectively for the betterment of your relationships and and your your work life, your professional life as well. It's not personal but professional communication and relationships, how to connect more meaningfully with the people in your life is very important and and to go hand in hand with that empathy, understanding, understanding deeply.

SPEAKER_06 2:00:39

And then and

Sleep Hygiene That Actually Helps

SPEAKER_06 2:00:40

then this episode, winding it up with Episode four, we went through our emotion management of regulating our feelings. We talked about mindfulness being present in the moment, and we just went through the lifestyle medicine, how we can live well through the pillars of health. And how they all support each other.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:05

They do, they do all support each other. Self-awareness helps emotion manage manage of your emotions and stress management. Can use, you know, not only mindfulness, but self-awareness, problem solving uses critical and or requires, I should say, requires problem solving requires us sometimes to think critically and and think creatively. And communication requires empathy. Yeah. You know, relationships, what do they need?

SPEAKER_06 2:01:37

Emotion regulation.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:38

That's right. And what benefits from lifestyle medicine, Jody Allen? Absolutely everything. There you go. You heard it here first, ladies and gentlemen. What benefits from lifestyle medicine? Everything. Everything. Hey, bumper stickers coming to a car do you. So uh the 30-day, the 30-day integration challenge, my friends, that have tuned in for the four episodes, and thank you for joining us on the journey. So uh we uh want to approach it this way to give you a bit of a call to action as we wind up the uh the four episodes of the Life Skills Masterclass. So each day we ask you to chat focus on one of the life skills, you know, that we've covered over the four episodes. And and just, you know, go today is going to be my day where I'm gonna look at critical thinking, or I'm gonna manage my emotions, or I'm gonna try and be more self-aware today, or I'm gonna lean into my relationships today, you know. Choose choose one of the life skills for a day and and cycle your way through all the twelve of the life skills that we've focused on, you know, like your lifestyle medicine day might be, you know, going back to those six core pillars and going, okay, I'm gonna address my sleep or whatever it is. Yeah. And and it's it's the best way is to build it gradually, isn't it?

SPEAKER_06 2:03:09

Yeah, small, small steps consistently make the biggest impact. So we're building our habits gradually. And I always talk about, you know, when people ask what is the best diet or what is the best, you know, sleep hygiene, and it's really working out what is best for you and what can you do for the rest of your life. So this is what I do, this is my this is my process, this is my routine, I do what I can without judgment, without guilt. Progress, progress over perfection. Progress over perfection. We're not seeking perfection, that's where that expectation comes in and can often often make things even more difficult for ourselves. We're celebrating the small wins, and maybe by day 30, you know, you've practiced each life skill maybe two or three times. Can you continue beyond the 30 days what actually becoming your lifelong skills? And maybe there's a little reward for yourself at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 2:04:19

Yeah, give yourself give yourself a little reward, you know. That's right.

SPEAKER_06 2:04:22

What's what's what floats your boat? That's it.

SPEAKER_01 2:04:25

What have you what have you been putting off that you go, oh I wouldn't mind doing, you know, and and it what a great thing to reward yourself, you know, at the end of 30 days and and and let us know. Let us know, my friends, wherever you're listening, if you are gonna take up the 30-day life skills masterclass challenge and and just let us know your experience of how these life skills are integrating into your life and how you've been able to, you know, make your life a little bit better day by day. Yeah. You know, doing doing a little things little things for yourself and and the people around you because ultimately you look after yourself, the people around you benefit as well.

SPEAKER_06 2:05:07

Yeah, absolutely. It's not just for you, it's for and the positive impact that you have on people around you because often when you make positive change, it inspires others.

SPEAKER_01 2:05:21

So the 12 life skills, four episodes, one comprehensive framework for living well, you know. I wish I could take credit for the fact that we put these life skills together, but we can't. It's the world the World Health Organization has got the life skills, right? Yeah, what do they do? What do they do, right? We added mindfulness at lifestyle better, so of course, right? Game changes. Yeah, game changers. So uh you now have a complete set of life skills framework, my friends. These skills are evidence-based. Everything that we have talked about is based in evidence and uh which is incredibly important. You know, if you go back and you listen through the four episodes, you'll notice that each one has, you know, there's practical, actionable things that you can take to uh use these life skills in your in your everyday life. And and they they they'll work if you practice them.

SPEAKER_06 2:06:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:06:19

You know, like it's not gonna it's no silver bullet, it's just doing a little bit, a little bit day by day, because you know, we're not pretending to have all the answers and have it all figured out. It's a everything is a work in progress.

SPEAKER_06 2:06:32

Yeah. You know, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 2:06:34

It's it's all a work in progress.

SPEAKER_06 2:06:36

Yeah, and we're evolving. I think, you know, if we just look at life that we're an evolution and we're constantly learning and evolving, and and hopefully in these four episodes we've uh been able to share a bit of our learnings and experience, our lived experience and that as well. We're certainly not perfect, are we?

SPEAKER_01 2:07:02

So over over the over the because you know, as we do what bring this series to an end, has there been any of those twelve life skills, Jodie, that stand out for you as the ones that you go, yeah, maybe those ones I think are my favorite?

SPEAKER_06 2:07:16

Uh I don't know about favourites because I I love it all, but I think you know, the going over the critical thinking, creative thinking, because that's not something that I often sit in that space. So it was it was good to kind of go over that and have a bit more of a think about too,

Stress, Substances, And Social Connection

SPEAKER_06 2:07:40

that how yeah, what times have I used that in my in my life? So I found that really helpful. But you know, and thinking about how everything as we went along, everything went back to the start, they're all interwoven with each other, they all bounce off each other, and it's just the little, you know, the things that we were sharing were not complicated, not technical, yeah, not expensive, you know. It's um everyday things. Everyday things. Um, and if it's just one thing that you take out of these podcasts and integrate into your life, I would be very happy with that.

SPEAKER_01 2:08:24

Yeah, absolutely. Well, on a personal note, I want to say thank you so much for agreeing to be my co-host for this series. And you know, it's been great. I know that it's been a lot of work and it's been a lot of time that I've I've hijacked you for given everything else that you've got going on. So I do really appreciate it. And and hopefully, hopefully, I have it bird the bridge that you won't come back. I hope you'll come back at some point.

SPEAKER_06 2:08:56

No, thank you for inviting me along on this ride. It's been a lot of fun and I've really enjoyed it. And yeah, it's been great. It's been a great experience.

SPEAKER_01 2:09:05

It has been very cool. So in all of the uh the notes for these four episodes, and and if you haven't already checked it out, Jodie has got her own standalone episode, which is the one leading into the uh life skills masterclass. So check that out. So yeah, I'll make sure that all of Jodie's contact detail, like you know, Jodie Allen Nutrition webs uh website, Instagram, you get a LinkedIn handle, don't you? Of course. Of course you do. Jazz. All that jazz. So we'll make sure that we put all of that up there as well. So yeah, it's one of those things, folks, that you get out of it what you put into it, and you know, we've put a lot into putting these four episodes together, so we hope that you've got a lot out of it. You know, we really do. Yeah. Because it's, you know, we live in a time where there's so much turmoil and and angst and negativity in the world and uncertainty with the way that, you know, global pol policies and polit political st unsta b insta unstability unstability. There we go. There's a word for it. We need to wrap this up. Instability, right? So uh we just we just want you to we want you to be happy and we want you to be well, you know. Yeah and and that's it.

SPEAKER_06 2:10:24

And it's our whole purpose, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 2:10:26

Yeah, absolutely. So so uh yeah, I don't think I've missed anything. Here we go, winding it up. So back to business as usual with the upcoming podcast episodes. I'm uh I'm not sure who my guests are gonna be over the coming weeks, and I've got a couple of solo episodes coming out, so there'll be a pulse episode with some research and that sort of gear. So yeah, keep an eye out. But in the meantime, like I said, Jody, thank you so much for joining me for the last four weeks and then your your own episode before that. And yeah, wherever you're tuning in, my friends from around the world, as always, please be kind to yourself, be kind to those around you. Hope you've enjoyed the Life Skills Masterclass series. Jodie Allen, thank you very much.

SPEAKER_06 2:11:12

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 2:11:14

Thank you for listening. The information contained in this podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes. It is not intended, nor should it ever replace advice received from a physician or mental health professional. Want more info? Visit the LumterClinic.com.au. If you enjoyed the episode, please do ahead and subscribe. And thanks again for listening to the Love the Clinic Podcast. With your host, in the comments,