Dr Anne Alison - From NHS GP to Wellness Pioneer.

Dr Anne Alison | From NHS GP to Wellness Pioneer

In this episode we're joined by Dr Anne Alison — GP, founder, and the inspiring force behind Vale Wellness in Cowbridge, Wales. Anne's story is one of courage, vision, and an unshakeable belief that healthcare can — and should — be so much more.

After nearly two decades serving patients within the NHS, Dr Anne took a leap of faith and founded Vale Wellness: a pioneering, multidisciplinary private healthcare clinic offering GP services, physiotherapy, psychology, nutrition, NESA therapy, and more — all under one roof, with a genuinely personal touch.

We explore her journey, her passion for running, and why she believes that treating the whole person — not just the condition — is the key to a healthier, happier life.

A truly inspiring listen.

📚 Book Referenced

⚠️ Title note: Referenced in the episode as "Ultra-Processed Humans" — the correct title is:

Ultra-Processed People by Dr Chris van Tulleken (2023) — available from all major booksellers.

🔗 Links & Resources

Vale Wellness, Cowbridge

🌐 www.valegp.co.uk

📧 enquiries@valewellness.co.uk

📍 London House, 89 Eastgate, Cowbridge, CF71 7AA

📱 @valewellnessgp on Instagram

🏃 @vwdr_ontherun on Instagram

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Subscribe, leave a review, and share with someone who needs a little inspiration today. Available on all major podcast platforms.

Transcript

Darren Gentle 1:58

Hi, Dr. Allison. Thank you very much for joining us on Island Life Stories. your story I think is very inspirational. I think it's gonna resonate with a lot of people listening to this, and I can't wait to get into it. obviously it revolves around a diagnosis, I thought let- let's, talk about Dr. Anne Allison, pre-diagnosis. what was life like before everything changed for you? Okay. life was a bit crazy, a bit busy. As, you've got kids, you understand how it's difficult to manage your sort of life and work balance, and I must admit, I never did it particularly well. So I'm, first of all, I meant to say thank you for having me on. It's so lovely. It's really lovely to see you, and I think you don't mind me saying that I know you because I have looked after you and your family, been your GPs, and also, helped with getting you out there to St. Helena with your, assessments and medical things and stuff like that. So yeah, so I've known you for a little while now, so thank you for having me on. It's lovely to talk to you and to catch up. but yeah, so I'm a, I'm an NHS GP, so I, qualified a long time ago now. I've been a GP for about 25 years. work in Cowbridge, a small village in, South Wales. and I, yeah, so as, before COVID, I think I just ticked along quite nicely, like so many healthcare professionals did. We went into work, we looked after our patients, we went home. COVID hit, and of course, life changed quite dramatically for everybody, didn't it, in, in many different ways. and I think the health service, a- as I'm sure everybody knows, struggled massively when it came to COVID. And, during that time, it, we were able... we weren't really able to reevaluate anything because we were just so busy hoping and trying to look after people and make sure everyone was okay. That it was, yeah, it wasn't a particularly pleasant time, but, for anybody, for doctors or for patients. And then I think after COVID seemed to settle down, the health service has just been so battered that I don't think it can really cope with what we're dealing with at the moment. So it's all a very unsatisfying situation at the moment. working as an NHS doctor, I know a lot of our patients are not happy with the service they're getting from us, even though we're absolutely trying our best. and I'd like to say that we're actually not happy with the service we're giving either. it's, it's... Life's difficult at the moment in the NHS. but yeah, so I am an NHS GP, as I said, have been for a while, and I'm also, a mum of two children, and I'm also, somebody who likes to go running. I'm somebody who owns, part owns a restaurant, so does a bit of baking for a restaurant as well. So I think you'd probably call me a portfolio GP in the fact that I do a lot of different things, which is, it probably keeps my mind sane, to be perfectly honest. Oh, yeah. I didn't realize you part own a restaurant. Yeah. yeah. So I do the baking. I do some of the desserts for the restaurant, so that's my Friday job where I just, yeah, sit overlooking the sea baking cakes. It's great. I love it. Yeah. Yes. So, um, COVID hit, but that I don't know if, the people I've already spoken to, COVID was in itself pretty much a turning point in their Absolutely. it gave everybody a chance, I think, to stop and look think about their direction and where they are and where they're going, didn't it really? for you it, it was more obviously from an NHS side of it, a work side of it. Yeah it threw everything up in the air work-wise and it was just a different place to work, coming out the other side, Yeah. absolutely. the waiting times have extended massively, and we had to learn as GPs to deal with a lot of things that we'd normally just send into hospital, because we couldn't send into hospital, and the waiting times were so long that we had to deal with a lot more technical and difficult cases. But, y- you learn, don't you? and this is what we do in medicine. We're all adaptable a- as humans. But, yeah, it wasn't a particularly pleasant time to work. and particularly with just, everyone got so poorly and of course, all of the post-COVID residual sort of problems that we've seen as well, the long COVID issues. people have had blood clots in different places. There are lots of different things. But, Mental health. Mental health, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. yeah, just talking about the physical there, but the mental health, absolutely. that's been huge, and particularly when you look at perhaps the kids who have been in school or not schooled, homeschooled during that time, not had that normal sort of social education and environment. it was difficult. But, but during COVID, I identified a breast lump, and, being a doctor, I'll be totally honest, Darren, I examined myself and thought, "Oh, it's fine. It'll be fine. it's nothing. It'll be okay." booked an appointment eventually to go and see someone because, I needed a specialist opinion. And then, and almost didn't go to that appointment because I was so busy that day with, I was in a clinic, and I was overrunning with my clinic. One of my colleagues took one of my patients, which was really kind of them, and I just thought, "Oh, do you know what? I'll make another appointment. I won't go." And fortunately did go. my, colleague said, "No, you've gotta go. You've got the appointment. Just get going. I'll look after your patients." and yeah, went into a breast assessment and bless her, my consultant was somebody I knew already and, I think it's always difficult sometimes to treat fellow doctors because, I don't know, it, it's just hard. It's easier in many ways 'cause you speak the same language, but it's just, it's difficult as a doctor to be a patient, and it's difficult as a doctor to look after a doctor sometimes. So I, I had all the tests. I had, mammograms and ultrasound and biopsies and and said to her, I said, if I was a betting lady, are you betting that it's cancer or not?" 'Cause she didn't really wanna say, and she said, "Yeah, I think it probably is." and I got a diagnosis of breast cancer. and that was during COVID, so it was when you had to go in- into hospital on your own. You still had masks on. You didn't have anybody with you. yeah, it was an interesting experience then being the patient rather than the doctor, and not one that I particularly enjoy, I'll be entirely honest. But, it has taught me a lot, so I think you've always gotta take the positives out of the situation, haven't you? yeah even though you're a GP, I'd imagine just taking that information in is still quite difficult, isn't it? Yeah. hit you It's not something that anybody can prepare for really, I don't No, and I think the first couple of weeks as you wait for your biopsy results, which obviously will give you more information, you have more scans, MRIs, all of those sorts of investigations. And no matter who you are, and no matter who you see, and no matter what pressure you put on the service, these things don't get done quickly. It still takes a couple of weeks to get any form of official diagnosis. And th- until you've got that diagnosis, you can't make a plan, you can't s- you can't work out what's gonna happen in terms of treatment. So you've got that horrible two weeks in limbo where it's just not, it's just not pleasant. Everything goes through your mind in terms of, God, what could it be? it, you always think about worst case scenario. I think it's human nature, isn't it, really, to think that way. and I was then really lucky in that, it seems a silly thing to say, but if you have to have a form of breast cancer, I had probably the nicest and easiest of all to manage. So I, I didn't have any metastatic spread. It was literally just, within the breast tissue itself, which was great. So I didn't need any chemotherapy. I just had the, the cancer removed and then had a course of radiotherapy. and then that was pretty much it. I remember going into my oncology appointments and, they were wonderful, they were lovely, but I walked in and they went, "Oh, why are you here?" I was like, "Oh, okay. yeah, I'm, I'm, my name's Anne, I've got bre-" They're like, yeah, we know all of that, but actually you don't need to be here. You're fine. You just get going, just carry on and do stuff." And I remember thinking, "Oh, okay." And it was great, don't get me wrong, that was the best thing I could possibly hear. But I And it was, of course it was still during COVID, so you know, you literally couldn't talk to anybody. You were sat on your own in a waiting room full of other people that had been diagnosed with cancer. I left. I didn't have anyone with me because you didn't, 'cause it was COVID. And I just left thinking, "Oh, okay." it was the strangest experience. It was wonderful, don't get me wrong. I am, I was so happy to have that sort of diagnosis which meant that I, the treatment, fortunately, touch wood, I'm four years post now, and has been successful. There's no recurrence. I keep having annual checkups. Everything seems to be fine, touch wood, fingers crossed. but yeah, just a really odd experience. it feels like it was, almost feels like it happened to somebody else now. It's really strange. But it caused a lot of, no, it didn't cause a lot of issues, but it made me think a lot about where I was and what was going on in my life, and how I was looking after myself or not looking after myself. and what I needed to do in the future in order to stay alive, but also to be able to carry on living. Yeah. I, I think what you said, a bit earlier as well hits home a bit that even a GP can have, the s- s-same sort of attitude as probably most of us would have in that, "Well, it's only a lump. I'll just ignore it. It's nothing to worry about. I've got loads of st- I haven't got time to, to look at it or do anything. I'll put it on the back burner as my, as on my list to do." Exactly and that's probably not the advice you'd give a patient yourself, but, you would, you acted probably exactly like a patient would react really wouldn't you? Just, yeah, this is it. I wasn't a doctor at that point, I was a patient. And if I'd been a doctor, I would've really said, come on now," given myself a strict talking to and booked that appointment. But, yeah, So I think, a diagnosis like this is really useful for me as a doctor because it means that I can then I don't know, you just have so much more understanding into the psyche. You've just experienced something. You've experienced being a patient, and as a doctor, we don't often do that. We're useless patients. We're really bad patients. We do everything we can to avoid being a patient. I've got one good friend who's an ENT consultant, who works with me in the clinic, and, I introduced myself to him a couple of years ago. Our kids are friends. and he said, yeah, you won't know me because I've never been in to see the doctor." And I was like, yeah, he's a male consultant surgeon. He's never gonna come and see me at all. Even if his leg's falling off, he'll, you know, work something else out. Oh, brilliant. obviously coming out of COVID, and coming out of that diagnosis, you've had to stop and think and decide, right, I need to change things Yeah, absolutely. I think a few different things happened. the health service, as we've talked about before, just h- wasn't coping before COVID and has just unfortunately is now coping less and less. and I think I was very much of the opinion... I was always, as a youngster, I was always really sporty and into sort of looking after myself and being healthy, and then you you get a bit older, you go to uni, as we've talked about before. You know, the first year of uni is all about learning who you are and going out and enjoying yourself and perhaps testing your alcohol tolerance perhaps, and those sorts of things. medical school's five years obviously. you do your medical school. You then do the most ridiculous thing where you go and become... it's a little bit different now actually fortunately, you'll, you'll be pleased to hear. But you go and become, back in my day, we were house officers, and you would work like 100, 120-hour weeks. You'd do sessions where you'd start on call on a Friday morning, and you wouldn't finish until a Monday evening, and you wouldn't sleep during that time, and y- you just think, "Oh my God." in terms of looking after patients, they've now realized that perhaps isn't the best idea, is to have a doctor looking after you who's not slept in three days. So that's great. But, at the time, that's just what we did, and we worked really hard. We played a bit too hard as well. So all of that sort of stuff. you just that's what we did. so didn't look after myself at that point. Then, of course, you then, you get qualified. You then have a family. You then, stay up all night looking after your kids. You run around like a taxi service, all of that. So it- you just... I know y- I know you totally appreciate this, but you just don't look after yourself, do you? And nobody does. And it's really not good You, you put yourself further down the pecking order. other, everyone else is priority above yourself. and it shouldn't be like that because if you stop functioning, then everything else right. Everything else falls apart, doesn't it? yeah, y- no, you're absolutely right. And I, but I think what I realized is that when I then was able to take stock, when I had the diagnosis, I was really fortunate in that I took a c- few months off work, and during that time I looked at, why I had the cancer. And I've got no family history of anything like that. I'm a fit, healthy, young woman. I eat reasonably healthy. I don't drink a great deal. I don't smoke. I exercise regularly. So in theory, there wasn't any reason why I should have had breast cancer, but, but did obviously. And I think I looked at it and thought, actually, when I really critique my life, I've been working stupid hours. I don't sleep particularly well because you're constantly thinking I quite often, you'd laugh at this, Darren, I quite often wake up in the morning and I've been thinking about a patient overnight while I've been asleep in my subconscious brain, and I'll wake up and I'll go, "Oh, that's the di- right. That's the diagnosis. Brilliant. I'm gonna give them a ring. Let's try this treatment." But I suppose correspondingly, your brain doesn't switch off very often, and it sh- it should do. yeah, I think all of these don't give any, give yourself any downtime, and it's not through any fault of your own, it's just you're not able to, It's just a busy life, isn't it? everyone's busy. we're all really busy doing stuff. But I think we all need to be looking after ourselves, and I think having a diagnosis of cancer, which does make you question your mortality, you do think, "God, you know what? I am gonna die at some point." Whereas, when you're younger, you don't think you're ever gonna die. And I think I particularly, I felt quite let down by my body. I And I think that's quite an interesting point, in the fact I just thought, "Why is my body not getting rid of this cancer? Why have I become somebody that has been diagnosed with cancer and had to have treatment for it?" But then when I really looked back, I, looking at my lifestyle, I thought, a- actually, this is obvious why I Or, I can explain why I might have developed cancer." Because I wasn't sleeping properly, my diet wasn't particularly great because I was eating ultra-processed food, and I wasn't probably having enough fruit and vegetables, and, and I wasn't getting that, I wasn't meditating. I wasn't getting my brain calm. all of those things are all risk fact- risk factors for cancer. So I think, that was, that's my thoughts as to why I probably developed cancer. But it was good to be able to identify perhaps reasons why, because then I could do something about it Yeah And I kind, I then went on to think, what can I do about this?" And I decided to do a diploma in lifestyle medicine. So that's very much, it is what it says on the tin, it's looking at aspects of lifestyle and how your health can improve. and I think we're realizing now that actually there is so much to our lifestyle that can affect our health, negatively affect, but also positively affect our health. And it, it's all the basic stuff, Darren. It's literally, it's just as we just said, it's making sure you're getting enough restful sleep that's actually gonna help your body repair and recover. It's not putting poison in your body, so you know, not drinking too much alcohol, drugs, ultra-processed food, all of that horrible stuff. It's making sure you're getting good nutrition, good nourishment so that your body can fight these illnesses off. It's making sure that you exercise on a regular basis, good social connections, good mental health, all of these things. It's not rocket science, and in fact, it's what all of our predecessors did years and years ago, but we've almost lost a bit of that really. So the, me having that diagnosis gave me that downtime. I had a few months where I literally just focused on my lifestyle. I walked, God, I was walking, 20 miles a day at one point. My poor dog, she literally, she lost so much weight. Her paws were raw. But just had a really good reset and at that point thought, "Do you know what? I to do something about my life. I need to change things dramatically." And not only do I need to change things dramatically, but with that information that I have, I wanna really be able to empower other people to do the same thing as well. Because, we just don't do it, and we all know that we should look after ourselves. But there is really good scientific evidence that, will give you that, that good, that push, that reasoning as to why we should be looking after ourselves from a lifestyle point of view. Yeah, I completely agree. and what we touched on earlier, it's so easy to forget to look after yourself It is put things, put, like I said, put yourself down the pecking order, う um, in, in terms of priority and not giving yourself any time or, attention that you need really. not even deserve it, you need. and it's, I know, look, both mentally and physically, it's like looking after a garden, you've gotta do a little bit every day to, to maintain it and to make sure your mental health is good and your physical health is in a good place. small steps, little but little and often. absolutely if you don't do that, then things can start sliding, and it's a difficult, it's a difficult thing to get back up from as well, isn't it? Yeah And unfortunately, and I think this, again, this will, your story will resonate with a lot of people. It takes something like that's happened to you for you to stop and realize what's been going on, what's hap- what's happened. Yeah. absolutely right. And I wouldn't wish, yeah, a cancer diagnosis on anyone or a serious illness on anyone or any form of negative life event. But for me personally, it has really made a massive difference in that, I'm always somebody that thinks, there's always a positive to every sort of situation. You can- there is always something positive that you can take out of something negative that's happened to you. and yes, I had breast cancer. It was pretty grotty, but actually my life has changed dramatically since then, and it's all for the better. it's, it was, if you can say it, it was a positive thing to happen. Strange to say, isn't it? But yeah, that's how I feel. So the, and we, you just touched on it there before I, interrupted, but you basically decided, I've helped myself. I'm, I know what I need to change myself. I wanna take other people with me. I wanna help other people as well." So does, did that then just lead directly into, the Vale Clinic, Yeah. Yeah, abs- Yeah, absolutely. I think it's very difficult to not be a firefighter within the NHS. You literally... it's very much just, "Right, well, that's a symptom that you've got. That's a problem. There's the medicine. Off you go. Good luck." and I just felt there was so much more to medicine than that, and so much more to patient care. and actually, the health service at the moment is about to fall off a cliff, and we can't... I don't know how we're gonna save it. But certainly what we do need to do is we need to prevent that illness from happening in the first place. prevention is always better than cure. I... yeah, I then opened up Vale Wellness, my, my private clinic. again, started off as a little... oh, you... honestly, you would've laughed. You know my practice manager, Jo, who's literally my right-hand woman, amazing. Absolutely she's incredible. I could not do it without her. But, I met her a few years previously, and, we, we just kept in touch. And I went into her back garden one day in the summer, and I just said, "Oh, Jo, I'm gonna open up a little, just a little private GP clinic, just, I'll maybe do a couple of hours a week. can you give me a hand just doing... maybe answering the phone, typing a few letters?" And that's how Vale Wellness was born. A- and of course, as you know, it's now a, a three-story building in the middle of Cowbridge. We're private GP. We... but we've got a real holistic touch to it. So we've also got, we've got physiotherapy, reflexology. We've got, facials and massages, 'cause they're obviously, great for life. We've got podiatry. We've got lots of other, different specialties. We've got a consultant psychiatrist who comes in and does breathwork and meditation with us. We've got Pilates. and we've got lots of consultants that come in and do clinics as well. So typical medicine, so cardiology clinics, ADHD clinics, respiratory clinics, dermatology, all of those sorts of things. but yeah, I wanted to be able to... I was getting increasingly frustrated with the NHS and the fact that we were literally just the tip of the iceberg, firefighting. And also our hands are a little bit tied in the NHS. I don't know whether people realize, but we are only allowed to prescribe certain things. We're only... We need to act within certain guidelines and certain protocols, which the vast majority of the time are very useful. but sometimes it's not in the best interest of the patient to act in that way, and I think, protocols are formulated by looking at lots of studies of middle-aged white men. and right, this will work for them. But that doesn't mean it's gonna work for a perimenopausal woman with crazy hormones going on, and the same thing that works for a white middle-aged man isn't gonna work for them. So I was getting frustrated with- Not being able to do a sort of tailored, individualized, bespoke healthcare for somebody when I knew perhaps that what we do in the NHS wouldn't be the best thing for them, but it would be the only thing we could do for them. So opening up a holistic medical wellness clinic just gave me that opportunity to be able to practice in a way that I thought was better for the patient. So it's been lovely to have that sort of space to be able to do it. and it's a private clinic, obviously, which means patients have to pay to see me and to, access the services that we provide. but we do lots of other sort of stuff like educational events which are free. We do educational walks. So really, really keen to be able to educate people and be able to pass on everything that I've learnt that I have found so useful in terms of everything, in terms of general health, in terms of cancer prevention, in terms of strong. but giving that back individuals, share that which is why something like this is so useful, to be able to talk to people via podcast perhaps, and information that way Absolutely, yeah. and I think I, I love what you've done w-w-with the clinic, and I think it's just so accessible where it is as well. You're not having to go to, like an industrial park, far end of Cardiff or something like that to, out of your way to, to do something like that. It's, this is something in the high street. it can become part of, and it probably is part of a lot of people's daily lives or weekly routine. but I think also as well, it dovetails with the NHS as well, the NHS obviously we is desperately need that for many things. But i-if somebody has an option to go somewhere like the Vale Clinic where they can, access things a lot more quickly, う obviously paying for And the fact is it's expanding all the time as well with all these different, options. It's just outstanding. Love it. The service is amazing, I gotta Oh, thank you very much. Y- I've got the most incredible team there. they, they I've been really lucky actually in the fact that I've mostly employed friends and people that I know, and particularly consultants that I've respected and know are excellent. all consultants are really good, but particularly friends of mine. and the team I've got there now are so passionate, and they're so passionate and so caring regarding patient care. But we're all singing from the ha- same hymn sheet in the fact that we- all we wanna, we- all we wanna do is look after patients, all we wanna do is to try and keep people healthy. And, we've had some spectacular results from people who... I've got one lady, and, oh, she just resonates with me so well and I, I'm sure she will with some of your listeners, but she's a lady who, She's a teacher. I know you know a teacher well. She's a teacher. and she was just generally struggling with everything. So she was overweight, her cholesterol was high, family histories of problems like that. She suffered from, really nasty migraines that were quite problematic for her. and she d- wasn't really exercising a great deal, two young children. Wasn't getting on well in work particularly, or finding it a struggle, sorry, more than not getting on, just finding life a struggle in general. and she's come to the clinic, and we've done lots of different things with her. we've approached her health from lots of different angles, including things like reflexology and massage and things like that. she's recently... We've just had a new medical device come into the clinic, which is an autonomic nervous system regulator. I know, it's mind-blowing. can I tell you a little bit about it? Yeah, you know. You know, you've, you've read all the science behind it, haven't you? You know. Can I tell you a bit about it, Darren? Yeah. oh, brilliant. So it's, it's called a NESA device, and it's a Spanish device, and actually all the football teams in Spain all use it. but it works on the autonomic nervous system. So the autonomic nervous system is something that we all have. It's, the autonomic nervous system is responsible for everything that we don't think about. So your pulse rate, your blood pressure, your bladder contracting, your bowels working, everything, your immune system, all of that sort of stuff. But it's the stuff you don't even know. It just happens in the background, and you don't even know about it. But there's two aspects. You've got your, your sympathetic, which is your fight and flight. So that's the adrenaline, and the cortisol responses. It's when you need to run away from a dinosaur and things like that, Your heart rate goes up, your blood pressure goes up. But it's that typical, oh, my God, crazy, busy, th- stressed sort of feeling. And then you've got your parasympathetic, which is your rest and repair and rest and digest, which just lets everything work nicely. and unfortunately, you know what I'm gonna say, our sympathetic is bonkers and crazy and ridiculous and causing us problems in terms of stress, not sleeping, immune problems. Maybe cancer, all of those sorts of things. Whereas our parasympathetic is pretty useless because it just doesn't get any time, any downtime. the... So basically, this machine, you sit there for an hour with gloves and socks on, and it just runs a electrical current through the body, and it just recalibrates your autonomic nervous system. it's fascinating, and we've seen some incredible responses. you know me, I'm all about the science. I want- there needs to be good science behind what we're doing, which I believe there is. but actually seeing patients benefit from it, seeing a lady with an overactive bladder who's up six times at night, who is knackered and not coping because she's so tired. She came in, and she's only getting up twice at night now, and looks phenomenal. she's come in, she said, "Yeah, I hoovered all my house. I did this. I did that." so things like that, that I'm able... you'll never be able to access that on the NHS because there's no funding for it, but it doesn't exist in the NHS. But something like that is... You're not gonna get any side effects from it. It's probably gonna work because we've all got autonomic nervous system dysregulation in some way, shape, or form. it's just amazing. It's just so lovely to be in a position where I can offer this to patients. That Yeah. I want to go on that. Yeah. When you come back, you're on it. You're on it. In fact, we'll get everyone on it, your whole family. It's brilliant. I must admit, I've been taking it home occasionally, been going on it myself. but going back to what you're saying though, you're still, a, an NHS GP, but on top of that now you've also got a private clinic. So where does the time come from for you to say, "Hang on, I need a bit of me time"? 'Cause it seems like you've doubled your workload now. Are you, do you take part in all of the therapies, the classes that's going on in your own- Ah, I would love to. Wouldn't- that would be really sensible, wouldn't it? But as a doctor, it's do as I say, not as I do, sadly, at the moment. But yeah, no, I... Do you know what? Yes. So as I said to you, I take this machine home, so I do some stuff at home. I do go to the Pilates classes, we do sometimes. I will be accessing reflexology at some point. but yeah, it's hard to find the time to do everything really, isn't it? But I think I... one of my best friends, who's a GP up in Scotland, she said to me, "Okay, so you're an NHS GP almost full time. You're doing..." I just need to tell you, Darren, so I'm doing a diploma in lifestyle medicine, I'm doing a diploma in this Nessa machine that we're doing, and I'm also doing a master's qualification in menopause. So yeah, w- my best friend said to me, she said, "Do you think you might be taking a little bit too much on for the time being?" I was like, "No, it'll be fine. It'll be fine." she was totally right. It was, it's way too much, and I'm literally... You know when you feel like you're... I don't know, I feel like sometimes I'm spread so thin that I'm not really doing anything particularly well. but I think, it's... So The Vale Wellness is now two and a half years in. We're in... Oh my gosh, we're in an entirely different situation now to where we were two and a half years ago. So I think sometimes it's really nice to take stock. We don't often do it because we're so busy trying to develop the practice, push forward, but just to take stock and see actually how far we've come. and I have, we're talking on a Friday at the moment, and I was just saying to you that I've been baking cakes this morning for our restaurant. I've also been out for a really beautiful, I didn't go that far, 7K run in the sunshine, listening to Metallica. So you know, it It's really better than that. you can't get better than that. Than west wind? in West Wales. yeah. yep, down near Saundersfoot, so yeah, so it's lovely. So I think, yeah, you, I do need to practice what I preach. You're absolutely right, and I do try and do that. But I think that gives me a better understanding actually of how do all of these things which we know are gonna make us better. But yeah, I definitely, I do try and do a bit of bit of breathwork. I try and do all of that stuff because I do know how beneficial it is. and I think actually, if you look after yourself, so good nutrition, exercising regularly, bit of mindfulness and breathwork, if you do all of those things, you actually function better as a human. So you function better in that you can work harder, you sleep better. you're, I think, you think, "Oh, I've not got time to do it," but actually doing those things makes you time because you're more productive and everything works better. So- Yeah, and I guess, obviously the being a, an N- an NHS GP, it's got its own rewards. You're helping people, um, very sick people sometimes. But then I think going then towards your clinic and it's your own business, it's something you've started from scratch, I imagine that's very rewarding as well, isn't it? Yeah. it is really rewarding. I did totally underestimate how much time and how much money it would take to set it up. it, I know, nobody makes any money out of a business for the first few years, do they? but it's just the time. It's the time that it's been taking. but every single day I see... I was telling you about the... Sorry, I f- I, I was halfway through telling you about the lady who was having the migraines and all of that. Yeah, and she's ended up on this NASA machine, and she's doing, really brilliantly. But she's actually applied for a couple of new jobs since she's been seeing us, and she's got a couple of new jobs, and she's now an advisor for, I don't know, some council or government or something. I don't quite know. But j- just making that difference. This lovely lady has changed her life with our help. And, I don't know, it just, there's something that they, when you do medical school, Darren, when you go in for your interview, they, everyone says to you, "Oh, don't say that you wanna look after people, because no one will give you a place in medical school to do that. You've gotta make up all this nonsense about how you really like science and biology and you wanna be part of a greater good or whatever." All of this stuff in terms of your interview. All I wanna do is look after people. It's just in my psyche. It's in my nature. That's the reason I went to medical school. And doing it in my private clinic, I can just do it in a better way how do you see the future, now? Because obviously the, from the COVID era to now, your life has changed quite dramatically. do you look quite far into the future, the near future? would I be right in saying you'd want the, the clinic to be, looking after itself a bit more and a bit less sort of inclusion of yourself? Or would you prefer... Are you still looking to expand even further, on the services you're Yeah, absolutely. the thing with medicine is it's so fluid. There is always something new, and, e- even just to stand still in medicine, you- you're constantly reading new papers, listening to new research. I do a lot of my medical education via podcasts, which are brilliant. medical podcasts these days are fantastic. I can When I'm out running, I can, if I'm not listening to Metallica or Nirvana, I can, get a podcast on. but yeah, I think particularly with my clinic, because it is mine, and I'm able to take it in whichever path I want, I think we It's just a matter of looking at the new sort of techniques and services and medical devices and other sort of treatment options that there are available and out there. and I think th- what I am able to do, because it's my place, and I have, sole creative input into what goes in there, along with Jo, obviously, giving us the g- her advice and her, expert counsel. I, yeah, I think I- I've really enjoyed being able to go down the holistic path, because I know a lot of I think we've lost a lot of, of knowledge, sadly. I think, back 100 years ago, all these people that were, chewing on willow bark for pain relief, and they were, d- giving acupuncture as anesthesia, all of these sorts of things. I think we've things have changed, haven't they, in Western medicine, and we've almost gone, "Oh, that's a load of nonsense. Let's just shove everyone on drugs and do this." And, and actually, I think things need to go back a few steps, and I think when you actually do look at those sorts of techniques, the acupuncture particularly, massage, reflexology, reiki maybe, naturopathic medicine. I've got a lady joining the clinic who is, a herbalist. So she, yeah, so she, and she's done extensive courses. she's really well qualified, knows a lot about herbal medicine. I think a lot of people are wanting to go back to that. I think they're fed up with big pharma saying, "You must take this drug. You must take a statin. You must take aspirin. You've gotta do this," when actually we've all got the power within ourselves to be able to change our lifestyles. And do you know, I say to people, it, that it makes me laugh that I'm gonna say to you now, Darren, I can tell you a couple of things. I can give you a treatment that I can guarantee will make you feel amazing. It's gonna reduce your risk of heart attacks, strokes, cancer, dementia. It's gonna improve your mental health. It's gonna make you feel so good, and it's not gonna give you any side effects at all. And what would you say to that? Would you be like, "Oh my God, yes, please"? Yeah. Yeah.

Dr Anne Alison 36:15

It's

Darren Gentle 36:15

ju- it's just changing your lifestyle. It is literally exercising, meditating, getting your sleep right, and getting good nutrition. it's not difficult, but we've ki- we've lost that, I think, and I think it's really sad that we have, and I think we need, I think we need to get it back. I th- I think people's lives have become so busy Yeah wh- whatever they're trying to cram in between work or whether it's family time. A lot of people are carers now as well, and I think that's, that, that's a lot, mentally and physically exhausting as well. And you just... It's so easy to forget Yeah yourself in it all, isn't it? And it's so easy to get lost. but I think li- like you're doing and like you're saying, it, it's... I think you need to allocate time regardless. No, no matter what's going on in your life, you've got to give yourself some time Yeah. absolutely, and I think it, it makes you a healthier person in every way, physically and mentally. And I think by doing that, actually it does make you more productive. It, it makes you a better parent. if you're not stressed, if you're not literally pulling your hair out because you've been able to have that 15 minutes of doing a bit of yoga in the morning, that's beneficial for everyone, isn't it? and I- don't get me wrong, I'm not, I do appreciate that life is really hard for a lot of people. I, and a lot of us are very lucky in what we have, and the time and the facilities that we can access. But there are ways that you can do all this. just going for a walk, going for a 10-minute walk, something like that is so easy. Trying to not have ultra-processed rubbish and trying to make some healthy choices, which, isn't gonna happen every

Dr Anne Alison 37:51

time.

Darren Gentle 37:52

It should, but it won't. But, for those people who are struggling either financially or struggling with, being able to have the time to do those things, I think what I see my role and where I want to help is at least being able to educate people so they know what is good for them. Because I think at the moment, I, look, I'm really embarrassed to say this actually, Darren, being a doctor of however many years, but I remember up until about maybe four years ago, five years ago, yeah, before the cancer, not really thinking about what's put in our food. So not really thinking much about the preservatives, the additives, the stabilizers, the emulsifiers, all of those sorts of things. And then I read a brilliant book, which I don't know whether you've read, but it's the, oh, God, Chris van Tulleken book, The Ultra-Processed Humans, is it called, or something like that? Oh, amazing. You need to read it, and actually, if we can put it in the notes at the end of this, I would literally recommend it to absolutely everybody. But it just got me thinking, and then I thought, "Flipping heck, we're actually putting all of this stuff in our body, which is, it's wiping out our gut microbiome. It's causing horrendous inflammation within our bodies. It is, it's ruining our metabolic health," all of those things that give us heart attacks, strokes, cancers, those sorts of things. And, we look at the health figures, and we see the fact that more people are having strokes and heart attacks than ever before. More people are diabetic. More people are obese. More people are, experiencing cancer than ever before. And you think, what is it that..." It's not as if the air... the air is changing, 'cause of pollution, but what is it that's changing? And I really strongly feel that it's a lot to do with what we're putting into our guts, and, you look at the, all of those chemicals, and it really upsets me actually that the government aren't doing anything about... I don't know anything about politics. I could never be a politician. It's a thankless task. and I really don't know the details, but what I do know is medicine, and I know a lot about gut health and about metabolic health and microbiome and lifestyle. And what I do know is that if you are putting in a load of ultra-processed crap, you are gonna- increase your risk of all sorts of diseases, and you're gonna feel pretty shocking. but I ha- I had an epiphany where I just thought, "Oh my God, yes, we are. We're doing all of this," and it is making a real... It's causing massive problems for our individual health, but also health as a society. and of course, the, all of, all that entails, people not being able to work because they're poorly, people having to take benefits, from the state because they're unable to work because they've had illness. it, it's huge. It's huge Yeah, absolutely. yeah. And it, it goes hand in hand with exercise, isn't it? So It does. why would you wanna put all that ultra-processed food in your body to, to counteract all the good work you're Um, you're absolutely right I've read countless, self-help books, that sort of thing. But I think one that that, that's quite applicable here is, "Atomic Habits" in, in that it's important to identify what the problem is, which is I think that's the biggest challenge for most people, Yeah in thinking, I'm doing far too much. I'm not looking after myself. I need to change what I'm doing." I think once you've made that decision, then it's... I think it's you don't look at it as a big mountain and think you've gotta change everything all at once. Start making small changes often, and then make those little changes become habits. So you- you're cooking for a few weeks and you're getting into that. That's great. "Okay, I'm gonna start doing quite a bit of walking now." and then, and just quietly weave it into your life and then those changes will slowly build up into something, much, much bigger, I think. Y- yeah, you are so right, and that's what it's all about, isn't it? It's just making the small changes which are entirely manageable, and then all of a sudden, six months down the line, you've made five or six small changes, and actually they're so impactful on your life. but they've become habits. As you say, they've ingrained. you do that walk now. You do run- walk up the four flights of stairs to get to work. You do, I don't know, cook from scratch, as you say. just all of these, they're small things, but you just need to do one step at a time. It's like anything in life, isn't it? you wouldn't go and run a marathon without doing a bit of training first, would you? some people might, but you wouldn't if you were normal. th- that's brilliant. Thank you so much for joining us today, Dr. Allison. It's been amazing. Such an inspiration talking to you. I think it's real... Like I said at the beginning, a lot of people are gonna resonate with your story, and I think it's just totally inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us. Oh, luck with the baking. Thank you very much. I, actually, after you've said all that, I'm gonna go make a chocolate fudge cake. So as I said, I know. Yeah, but at least you know what's going into it. I was gonna say, it's all healthy ingredients Lovely to speak to you. Thank you so much for having me on, and I look forward to seeing you soon, and give my love to everybody. Will do. Thank Thanks, Darren S-

Speaker 42:28

And that's a wrap on today's episode of Island Life Stories. A huge thank you to Dr. Anne Allison for being so open, honest, and genuinely inspiring. If her story has made you stop and think, even just for a moment, about how you're looking after yourself, then I think she'd say that's exactly the point. Anne's message is such an important one. It's not about big dramatic changes overnight. It's all about small, consistent steps. A walk here, a better night's sleep there, swapping the ultra-processed stuff for something a bit more real. Little things that, over time, add up to a completely different life. You can find all the details for Dr. Anne Allison and Vale Wellness in the show notes, including how to get in touch, where the clinic is based, and the book she recommended, Ultra-Processed People by Chris van Tulleken. Genuinely worth a read If you've enjoyed today's episode, please do take a moment to like and subscribe, whether you're listening on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or watching us on YouTube. It honestly makes such a huge difference and helps more people find the show And come and join the conversation over on social media. You can follow Island Life Stories both on Facebook and Instagram. I'd love to hear what you've thought of today's episode and who you'd like to see on the podcast next Until next time, take care of yourselves, and I'll see you on the next one