Far 2 Fabulous

Embracing East and West: A Holistic Approach to Future-Proofing Your Well-being

May 30, 2024 • Julie Clark & Catherine Chapman • Episode 21

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 Can the brain truly heal itself? Join us on Far Two Fabulous as we unravel the secrets of neuroplasticity and rehabilitation with the extraordinary Helen, an occupational therapist from the NHS who has transformed her own health journey into a holistic practice. Discover Helen’s inspirational story of overcoming chronic fatigue syndrome through acupuncture and how it led her to embrace both Eastern and Western medicine. We’ll explore her innovative approach to health that integrates Shiatsu and other alternative therapies, offering a truly comprehensive perspective on wellness.

In this episode, we delve into the world of brain injuries and the remarkable role of occupational therapy in recovery. Helen gives us a deep dive into the science of neuroplasticity, illustrating how the brain can rewire and heal itself even after significant trauma. We’ll discuss the varied causes of brain injuries and the profound impact they have on individuals’ lives, highlighting the importance of continuous learning and adaptation. Through personal anecdotes and professional insights, Helen sheds light on the transformative journey of patients regaining their lost skills and independence.

But it’s not just about the injuries—stress plays a colossal role in our overall health. We’ll explore the often-overlooked stress response of "appease" and the critical importance of touch and connection for mental well-being. Learn how neuroplasticity aids in habit formation and how integrating movement and cognitive activities can bolster your resilience. As we look to the future, Helen shares invaluable advice on preparing for life’s uncertainties, including end-of-life planning. This episode is packed with actionable insights to help you future-proof your health and build a more holistic, connected life. Don’t miss this journey towards empowered well-being with the multifaceted Helen! 

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For more information about Julie Clark Nutrition, click HERE
For more information about Catherine Chapman, click HERE

We look forward to you joining us on the next episode.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Far Too Fabulous hosted by Julie and.

Speaker 2:

Catherine, join us on a mission to embrace your fabulousness and redefine wellness. Get ready for some feistiness, inspiration, candy chats and humour as we journey together towards empowered wellbeing.

Speaker 1:

Let's dive in. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. Now we have a guest with us today, a fabulous one, of course, and a little bit unusual. I think not that you're unusual, helen, just the fact that she's got so many strings to her bow and we thought we would ask her to come on because in our last episode we were talking about future proofing your health, and Helen is, amongst other things, an occupational therapist and OT for the NHS I'll get her to introduce herself fully in a moment. But also she is very much about holistic health and she'll tell you all about Shiatsu and other things she does. So we thought she'd be a perfect guest to talk about future proofing your health. Yay, welcome, helen.

Speaker 2:

Hello, hello, hello, hello. Tell us all about you. Tell us what you do, who you are and where you come from.

Speaker 3:

Oh, how long have we got, okay? So yeah, I'm Helen. I live down in sunny Devon and get to see the sea every day, which is really important for my well-being, and I love it. And that's a choice that I made to be near the sea. I love it. I'm an occupational therapist, as Julie said. I've done that since the year dot really.

Speaker 3:

I graduated through school and went through uni and went straight into OT and it's a really interesting and varied career. I ended up gravitating towards working in neurological rehab. So the people that I'm working with have had a neurological issue, be it a stroke or a brain injury, work with multiple sclerosis, motor neurone disease and things like functional neurological disorder, amongst others. So it's a really wide ranging caseload which is pretty challenging at times, um, but I it's just so fascinating really, um, yeah, so that's that's my three, three days a week job. The other two days a week I run my own private practice, um, and that's where I'm a practitioner and a lot of clients that were coming to me were really coming to me because of stuck and stored emotions and traumas, and what I noticed is a lot of people were coming in the door and saying, oh, you know, I've got a shoulder problem, I've got a knee problem, I've got a neck problem, I'm getting headaches, I'm getting digestive issues and actually underneath those physical symptoms, surprise, surprise, there were issues with trauma or emotions or things that were feelings that were stuck. And what I've noticed with that work is that by releasing and working on that level, oh look, my knee pain has improved and my and suddenly have more movement with my neck and things like this. So I was in OT, as I say, since about 93. And I went through this is going to be no surprise to listeners to your podcast because I've been hearing your own introductions.

Speaker 3:

I experienced chronic fatigue syndrome in my 20s and I got really, really poorly with it to the point that I was really going to have to give up work. Got really, really poorly with it to the point that I was really going to have to give up work. And, um, I, western medicine didn't really have much to offer. They just said sleep well, eat well. I had an amazing GP and he was really up front with me and just kind of said I there's nothing I can offer you, um, really, other than that sort of basic self-care. So I found acupuncture and I had about a year's worth of acupuncture which resolved the issue for me. I was very fortunate in finding that at the right time, receiving that treatment and going for that and never had an issue with it since. So it kind of took me from being in very Western medicine health and seeing that actually traditional Chinese medicine and Oriental medicine has that another spoke to the wheel.

Speaker 3:

Really, what I've found now is that I kind of turn up with clients as Helen so I can't really pigeonhole myself. You can't kind of walk in and dump a load of knowledge that you've got. You end up walking in and saying, okay, I see you've had a brain injury, but clearly this is a massive life event. Clearly this is not only with your neurological problems that you have with movement, with thinking, with all these different skills, but it's also been a massive life event and so people have that trauma. They have that anxiety, that fear of what you know is going to happen next, of adjusting to how things are now, and there's a huge emotional content to that too. So I'm finding that I'm bringing all sorts of skills to all sorts of sessions, um, and really just just coming across as Helen, really holistic Helen. I like that. I might steal that totally, helen. Well, that is, that has been done.

Speaker 2:

Yes, well, lucky, lucky NHS is. I was thinking the same. All I can say, because it's um, it's often quite one-dimensional our, our kind of standard training, like with, with nurses, even with, yeah, physios, ots and doctors, it's, it's very one-dimensional. So being able to bring in all of those skills is just incredible.

Speaker 3:

Thank you. I love having a foot in each camp, as it were, in each world um, I kind of talk to people with my western medicine head on, um, but western medicine I often you know it has its place. Let's not mistake that. It has an amazing role and as a member of the NHS team, I know just how hard all the staff are working to really give good care. And, I have to say, the colleagues that I work with I love being part of an NHS team, the knowledge, the skill, the passion that they bring to our daily work. I'm part of a really amazing neuro team and, yeah, it's, it's quite awe-inspiring to to work with these colleagues.

Speaker 3:

But western medicine has a limitation. It's a very linear thinking and I always kind of joke that if you can't give it medicine, inject it or cut it out to western Western medicine, it doesn't kind of exist. So for people who had things like fibromyalgia, with things like chronic fatigue syndrome, even things like functional neurological disorder, which is a newer kind of diagnosis that's been come through more recently, these things were kind of oh, they're just in your head, they just don't exist, until they're starting to realize actually this is a client group, this is a a whole you know issue that that's coming up. Traditional Chinese medicine always looks at things from a slightly different viewpoint, but it's still looking at the same thing. It's just looking at it with a different view. As I say, and a lot of western medicine tends to be about addressing symptoms rather than the actual cause.

Speaker 2:

Putting the plaster on top rather than dealing with what's underneath.

Speaker 3:

It is, and so in shiatsu we often would describe western medicine as kind of trimming the grass, whereas traditional Chinese medicine is about digging out the root so that that grass stops growing where you don't want it to be. So it would put together symptoms that Western medicine wouldn't recognize. If somebody is experiencing profound grief, there may be lung issues, there may be skin issues in how this deep emotion is actually manifesting itself, and so to someone who's a western doctor would kind of go why would that make sense? But to someone in the TCM world goes oh yeah, totally that that fits. And I often have conversations with people saying okay, you've come with this, then I bet you're having issues with this, this, this and this as well, and they're like how did you know that? So it's, it just kind of is a different viewpoint, but I love seeing both sides of that. You know that view really.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it is nice to have that two-sided approach. I think During the pandemic I looked at training to be a doctor for many reasons.

Speaker 3:

As you do as you do, do as you do, that is, as Julie does as we've established that's the most Julie statement I think I've heard. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

I looked at two things. I looked at how do I get to be a politician and it impact change, because I can't sit back and watch this shit show anymore sorry, mama score, but I don't have another word for it um. And then the other thing I looked at was wouldn't it be great if I had a doctor's training with my nutritional knowledge? What a combination. How powerful would that be, and maybe I could influence other people in the western side, as you would call it? Um.

Speaker 1:

But the training involved is, oh just, it's too much, too much for me to take on at this age, it's massive yeah, with my family, and, but I did actually look at that because I think, um, you know, the doctors don't have training in nutrition. I think things are starting to to change, but I often I often think what a lovely world it would be if we could all work together and share this knowledge, but a lot of the time we're just going in different directions. I'm trying to do one thing with a client and the doctors, I'm doing it all with the medication and the side effects of the medication, and that it's so frustrating.

Speaker 2:

That's so interesting, though, because I guarantee even with seven years medical training, you wouldn't be doing things any differently to the way that you're doing it now.

Speaker 1:

It's only that, in general in our society, people would recognize you as a doctor far sooner than they would recognize you as a nutritional therapist yeah, exactly, which is why I'm now also looking at doing a phd, because you're bored so that I can get the title, because it opens up doors and allows you to, you know, be able to share your knowledge a bit more, and it enables me to do some research in some of the subjects that I particularly like I mean, I'm 30 days looking at that, but it's been coming. You know when things come at you. Several times it got mentioned to me by a friend and then something else happened, and then someone else says I was like I got their attention to this phd.

Speaker 3:

It's all the nudges follow the nudges.

Speaker 2:

It's making me feel tired just thinking about it. Julia, I can't watch.

Speaker 1:

The thing is though I know we're going up on a tangent, I will pull it back in a minute. The thing is is that this is what I found when I did my nutrition degree. Right, that was hard work, but I so loved it that it wasn't hard work yeah, yeah I just enjoyed it. Immersing myself in that subject was was brilliant.

Speaker 2:

So if I got to do that on a deeper level, yeah part of me thinking I'll get a lot from that just knowing the good that would come from it, that you could spread out into the world yeah, and then I could be officially dr judo, because I do get called that a lot by people as well. You know you don't need the qualification. We know that you, that's a whole other podcast conversation, isn't it?

Speaker 3:

why do we need a certificate? Why do we need a title?

Speaker 2:

okay, oh, we're all, we're all, uh, victims of that whole.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, let's get, let's get another certificate, let's let's do another training right before we really go off on a tangent because it's too late. We've done it again just also for anyone in your back, ladies, bringing you back.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, for anyone that doesn't know, all three of us we helen used to live literally over the road from where we are recording this right now. She, uh, used to go to what she left us. She left us for another of sea view, um, and, and she, we all used to go to choir together. So there, and, and helen and I also did our subconscious transformation training together. So there is, there is lots and lots of overlap. So if you think that we just randomly found this lady that's got lots of great qualifications that fit in with us, we have, but we know her anyway we meet.

Speaker 3:

We meet the people we are supposed to meet in life and uh, you know you ain't getting rid of me, so, no, I have the privilege, I do. I have the privilege of calling these two amazing ladies my friends and um, I love how we talk about things, that we're all in on the same song sheet of how to work with them and address them and really, you know, help these people that are out there.

Speaker 2:

That need it. See what she did there about that with the choir on the same song sheet.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, she misses the choir I do miss is her.

Speaker 2:

They'll tell you what helen, the, the, the altos miss you. They miss julie too, because she's over with she's over with me now. And the sopranos, I know, I know, right, I have seen, let's come back.

Speaker 3:

I've got so much to tell you about with neuro things, okay, right?

Speaker 1:

so on the last episode, we were talking about kind of taking for granted the things that we can do now at this age. So you know there's there's a bit of an age gap between me and Catherine. We said it was about 10 years, didn't we? But I know Helen and I are the same age and definitely something does shift a bit when you go into your 50s, I think, in terms of thinking about. You know your movement, your joints, your bones, you know all health things you you currently take for granted. So I've been thinking about it a lot and being very specific about the types of things I do to help how I'm going to age, basically because I don't want to be restricted. And so we thought, with your all your many hats, but coming from an ot perspective as well, we're dealing with people who have had an, a brain injury, where suddenly, the things that they did take for granted they now need to relearn and do um.

Speaker 3:

We thought we'd have a chat about that really yeah, I mean, I think one of the first things to say with my neuro caseload is it's really not just elderly people I'm working with. So, um, you know, strokes is not just a client group of elderly people. Yes, there's obviously a heavy proportion of, but you know, strokes. There are kids with strokes, there are young people with strokes for all sorts of different reasons. I also deal a lot with people with brain injuries, be that from a traffic accident, be that falling down the stairs, be that from an assault, be it from all sorts of different issues, and that often happens to younger people. So, not to put a real dampener on things, but stuff happens. You know, and I think it is quite tricky for the clients that I'm working with, the patients that I work with in OT, tricky for the clients that I'm working with, the patients that I work with in OT, that all of a sudden, the things that they, as you say, took for granted they were a busy parent, they were working, they were doing this, they were doing that, they were remembering lyrics for songs in choirs and things like this All of a sudden these skills are really challenged or really impaired and they go from being very feisty, independent people to suddenly needing help themselves and that's a real mega role change for them and takes a lot of adjustment. But also hopefully, what I can do is help them regain some of those skills. I thought it'd be quite helpful. When we talk about aging, there are a lot of things that people assume about how our neurology works, and what I wanted to do is just talk a little bit about neuroanatomy without getting my you know anatomy geek on too much, just so people kind of understand. There's been a lot of talk in this fabulous podcast about stress, about the impact of different lifestyles, about your four pillars of self-care and looking after yourself, but I thought if we understand the actual mechanism behind it, maybe that helps it stick a little bit more.

Speaker 3:

So, just to start with, our brain is this central computing system and it just controls everything. So part of our central nervous system is also our spine. So people don't realize that our spine makes decisions for us. If you put your hand on something hot, your hand is withdrawn quicker. That's a decision made at spine level, not at brain level. So our central nervous system is an amazing responsive system. It's taking in phenomenal amounts of information all the time. I think I read recently that just visually per second, we take in the data equivalent of like 72 films just visually per second. So our brain is sorting that and it's kind of looking at it and saying do I need to pay attention to that? No, I can bin that. Oh, that looks like something, I'll fit it with that over there. And it generalizes and it distorts it to fit it in the box nice and neatly. It's doing this constantly and so we're using our energy all the time and a lot of very automatic processes.

Speaker 3:

Um, we have in our brain 86 billion neurons and I find that just number boggling. You can't even kind of comprehend it. They're set at birth, so we're born with those. That's how it is. And for a long, long time everybody kind of said oh right, okay, if you damage those neurons, they're set. You can't change that. But actually what we're showing in, and it became clear after a while that you can change things and although you I'm going to there's a caveat here although you don't grow new neurons, what you can do is reconnect and re-change how they are connecting and working together.

Speaker 3:

So we've all heard about grey matter and white matter. If you imagine your brain a bit like a cauliflower. All the outside edge is the grey matter. That's all the thinking bits, the processing bits and that's our like hardware and we have different zones that do different things. So the front part of our brain is actually looking at what we call our executive functions. It's looking at how we prioritize things, how we make safety judgments, how we pick up social cues from other people, um, how we organize ourselves and all these things, um. At the side we would have other parts of our brain which actually deals with. On the left it would be language and very analytical, very mathematical, and on the right is far more perceptual and spatial and creative. At the back we have balance and we also have vision. But each area doesn't work on its own. So when you're doing a movement, you wouldn't just have that bit functioning.

Speaker 3:

Doing a movement, you wouldn't just have that bit functioning. It's actually a whole network. If you watch in a functional MRI scanner when somebody is doing a task, it's lighting up like fireworks all over the brain, or should be. It's really networking and actually between all those billions of neurons we've actually got connections. So if you imagine your hardware and then you've got your cable and then you've actually got like an extension, if you imagine your hardware and then you've got your cable and then you've actually got like an extension cable so you're going to plug that in and then that's actually going to another extension cable and that's networking with a whole load of other wires. So we've actually even got like 150 trillion synapses or connections and they change. They change all day, every day.

Speaker 3:

So what we're talking about is complete what we call neuroplasticity, and that's a big word for just basically saying your brain remodels constantly. We are always learning. So the minute you hear this fact or the minute you're listening to something, you see something, your brain is actually remodeling there then that moment. So we're constantly in a state of restructuring ourselves. So why this is all really important, I think, to understand, is that actually we understand that how it's best for us to learn and how it's best for us to support it. Because if we're learning in a way that is actually connecting and connection is going to be the word that I'm going to talk about a lot here what we want to do is actually make sure we're inputting all that information in the best way and actually creating an environment in the best situation possible.

Speaker 3:

So this is why things like your four pillars are coming in if you've got your hydration. If you haven't got your hydration, these connections are not functioning properly. Therefore, you can't connect across. You can't make that function happen properly if you're not putting the right fuel in the car. If I've got a diesel and I'm putting petrol in, that's not going to work and that's what's happening if we're putting all the rubbish food in instead of all the, you know, essential nutrients that we need. That you guys have been talking about in previous episodes. So this is why these four pillars are incredibly important. One of the things that impairs function a lot is actually this stress reaction, stress reaction and I genuinely honestly feel that stress is the biggest pandemic that is happening to this world, and I know people are talking about it, but do people realize at what level this is actually affecting us? Now? I know this.

Speaker 1:

You don't even realize that they're stressed. This is what I see in my clinic, when, when we talk about it, they have no, no awareness of it. And yeah, I would agree with you, I think it's absolutely huge.

Speaker 2:

I'm loving that as a major tangent is that we were talking about future-proofing mainly physical, weren't we? We were talking about Julie doing backflips and being able to get up off the floor and those sorts of things, but actually future-proofing yourself by making sure that you deal with your stress levels is massive.

Speaker 3:

It's massive, massive. So first thing to say is you know, julie, you've mentioned that the adrenals, you know, are the boss of the endocrine system and actually, um, the amazing guest you had on previously was talking about the vagus nerve being the boss of the nervous system. Our emotions are the boss of all of these. So they are the real. How we perceive things, how that information comes into us, and whether we're even recognizing what is a threat or not, before we're actually starting that whole cascade coming down through the hypothalamus, the pituitary and into the adrenals, before all of that endocrine is starting. The beginning is actually our perception of things. We've also had a lot of hearing, a lot about the fight and flight and even the freeze reflex. But there's a fourth one there's appease and what I think a lot of stress that people do not recognize is this appease, response to stress, and it's where we're actually saying okay, it's where we will people please, it's where we will swallow down our own reaction to things. It's where we're always putting other people first. It's where we're saying my needs don't matter. It's where we're saying all of these things, where we're actually swallowing down, we're suppressing where we're actually swallowing down, we're suppressing what we truly want to do and that's actually one of the things that I'm so, so passionate about at the moment is teaching people the value of we talk about. We hear about self-care, we hear about put yourself first, but we also now know if we connect that with being a stress response, that actually always people pleasing is causing a stress response which is affecting our gut, which is affecting our immune system. Every time we are going, oh yeah, okay, then let's do it your way or let's put you before me. We are actively damaging our immune systems and our health response and our stress response to things like high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, raised cholesterol, all of these things which, of course, create things like heart problems and strokes. Yes, the mineralization of the body and you know, things like osteoporosis is coming and diabetes. Osteoporosis is coming and diabetes. So you know where we're looking at physical health and we're looking at our mental well-being. This is coming back into the TCM view.

Speaker 3:

It is utter nonsense and I'm going to call BS on this one of separating physical and mental well-being. It is literally impossible to do that and I feel this is my words, not the NHS's words, but I feel that that has happened because of the way. It's a top-down system. With the NHS we are funded in health. There is a separate funding for mental health. It's what fits in the boxes, but it's a complete nonsense of it being separate and actually we have to view people as a whole person and not actually separate them out into these different factors.

Speaker 3:

So in terms of actually future-proofing surprise, surprise, here's the mic drop we've got to deal with stress and actually looking at I'd invite people that are listening to really look at okay, where do I appease? And maybe people aren't recognizing that that is a cause of stress. If we're always, you know, conceding to others wills, if we're always having to be, um, for example, a new mum or someone who's quite dominant in a, in a relationship where you're always having to be there to give them attention they're always demanding that attention from you that's a stress too. So actually having that self-protected self-care time, that one-on-one, that alone time I love a good meme, I love a good quote and I've got one recently and it says my alone time is often for your own safety.

Speaker 2:

That's so good and it's absolutely, absolutely right. We don't give ourselves that time. And that's the point where we get to like have those conversations with ourselves, we get to know ourselves, we get to tap into our own intuition, which we've totally like blocked out. We just turned that off. It's, it's kind of gone in the woo-woo box, yeah, and modern society has totally lost that ability. And I almost feel like that is even the step before that, because if you've got your own, if you're in touch with your own intuition, you act on it. You don't stuff what you're thinking down, you don't do or don't do something that you would do normally, and then it doesn't sit in your body and rot. I'm literally, when you're talking about like not saying things out loud, I am just visualizing people just pushing stuff down and sitting in their stomach and just and just giving them gut rock, quite literally probably.

Speaker 3:

We've all done it. We all work with other people. We all know we have a list. We've got to get through at the end of the day. You know we've got a to do list. We might only do the top skim of the first few things. We're all mums here, us three. There are times where you prioritise other people. I think there's also about that choice and I know we've done a lot of work, Catherine, with Laura and with our subconscious training. And I know we've done a lot of work, Catherine, with Laura and with our subconscious training. And actually I find one of the things she found really interesting is a bit of a reframe on. Instead of saying I can't afford something, it's like I'm choosing to spend my money on this. So, as a parent, if, say, my daughter wants some attention for something or other, and I'm like oh.

Speaker 3:

I've got loads to do, you know. Then I'll kind of say, well, I'm going to choose to do this later and I will focus on giving her that and actually just having that locus of control is shown to actually lower stress. So, people, there are some amazing studies showing that people who are more isolated, people who are actually putting others first all the time, have an impaired immune system and a lower response and healthy response. So that's why people are talking about it. This is, you know, and I wonder, with so many health issues that are coming. People are living longer.

Speaker 3:

Medical care is helping people to live longer, but they're having a lot of comorbidities, that is, lots of different diagnoses of issues together that maybe people weren't surviving that long to have it. I remember 15 years ago, you know, having some people on the ward that would be, um, you know, in their 90s. I was like, wow, I've got a 92 year old on the and now I'm dealing with, you know, gents and ladies in there like 98, 99 and regularly, and I find that phenomenal, just that extension I've seen that extension in my career of age and how long people are living for. But it's also meaning you have more complex needs with your healthcare. At times I'm also seeing lots of people in their 90s who are fit as fleas and they're just living amazing lives and it's all about how they're choosing things and how they're deciding things for themselves. Autonomy is a huge antidote to this. Appeasing, and I think, that locus of control, that idea of independent choice and the feeling of it, is a real good stress busker there.

Speaker 2:

Do you think that that is what the, the autonomy, that choice is what differentiates the? The fit as fleas, to use Helen's term, in comparison to the ones that are not as fit as fleas, to use Helen's term, um, in comparison to the ones that are not as fit as fleas?

Speaker 3:

I think that would be a really interesting place to look. I don't know the answer to that. I have suspicions, but um, it, it's got to impact. You know it is a stress response if you're always appeasing others and, um, yeah, I think that would be really. I would love to see western medicine jump on that. I really would love to see some studies on that. Just yet, though, I always live in hope I'm if I'm, nothing if not that's a PhD subject right there how's that for alignment?

Speaker 3:

get on with it. Anyone can do it. Julie, you can, okay. So when we're talking neuroplasticity, we're talking about creating pathways and remodeling, and one of the things that I often say to my patients because they're like well, I used to be able to do this, why can't I do this now? And that can be moving an arm, that can be in terms of their thinking, that could be to do with memory, it could be with word production, all of these different things, literally every skill that you use between balance, recognizing an object, knowing how to use it, being able to coordinate things. They're all things we have learned and we have created a pathway since infancy.

Speaker 3:

What happens with something like a brain injury or a stroke, for example, is that there's a I describe it as roadworks. So your trip down to the local shop, you've got a huge roadworks, they've closed the road and you can't get around there and you have to go a different route. So that's the way you always go. That's automatic. You can't get around there and you have to go different routes, so that's the way you always go. That's automatic. You don't even think about going that route. It's automatic. It's a nice big, super fast highway. But what we need to do through rehabilitation is actually then practice a different route. So we're going to go and the first time you go around you go well, if I go down this road, where's that going to come out? Or it might go here, okay, so we'll try that, and that's a bit what rehab is like. So we're going down, we're finding a diversion around it and then, as the roadworks carry on and on and on, that becomes your new route and a little pathway gets busier, so it becomes a road, and then that road gets busier, it becomes a dual carriageway and then it becomes a motorway and it comes super fast, everyone's whizzing through it and it becomes the new automatic and actually the roadworks don't end up, they end up pedestrianizing that road just because that kind of worked, and so we end up with the new route as our new route to the shops. And that is really what is happening with neuro rehab that I'm doing with patients, in that we are actually trying to reroute around the area of damage, um, and that can be amazingly successful it's.

Speaker 3:

I shouldn't sound so surprised about my own job, but people you know, see, when they first have a big neurological event, they see how they come out and they're like, oh, my goodness me, this is really challenging. But I've seen people improve and improve and improve and even years after an event I have seen people making changes and improving. And, okay, it's slower than the initial sort of six months to a year, but there is this amazing ability to the brain and they're now showing. This is the caveat that's coming in. There is some new research and this is literally in the last few years where they're showing that new nerve cells are actually being generated in the very central part of the brain. So this is like major revolution. This is like wow, who knew? Um?

Speaker 3:

Biology always, our human biology always amazes me with what it can do. So when we're talking about habits, when we're talking about creating new habits and I loved your habit stacking that you were talking about, that is so gone on my list of things doing today and we're talking about making it permanent this is what we're doing when we're practicing these habits. We get the subconscious on board. Who's going oh, that's new, I don't know about that, let's ignore that.

Speaker 3:

And then we're kind of talking about it. We do our affirmations, we get the subconscious on board, we say look, it's not so scary, it's kind of friendly. This is, this could be a good idea. What do you think? Have another look at it. We do our affirmations, we get our subconscious on board, we're doing our habits, we keep practicing that and actually this little tiny little connection that goes you know what that kind of worked last time? Hey, maybe let's keep going and doing that. And that's where it actually becomes practice makes permanent. So it really is a bit of a bit of an old statement, but it is, practice makes permanent and it does make sense it's a great visual actually.

Speaker 2:

I really like that visual with the roadworks and then creating your path around the outside and then and that becoming your super highway, and and you're exactly right, that's exactly how our our habits then start to our new habits that we start to form. So we could, we can create those roadblocks ourselves, you know totally be, in an accident or an incident, absolutely so.

Speaker 3:

I'm talking from the point of neuro injury here, but, yeah, this is wholly applying to normal neurology, you know, and and people who are well and healthy and just wanting to make a few tweaks and changes. So, because we're talking about not one bit of the brain works on in isolation, we're talking about connection, and we're going to come back to that again because actually connection is massive. Connection is, I think, one of the basic things that actually we really need to look at, because we talk about connection with others. So, putting my little shiatsu hat on here, when we look at the heart energy, we connect with our community, with our family. We build our heart energy and we supply that heart energy and nurture it through connection, through hugs, through chatting with friends and having a good laugh Guess what? Through singing. This is one of the things that heart energy works on. This is why choirs are so fabulous big shout out there. Um, so, on a real macro level, how we connect with other people. And, again, studies have shown that students that were in isolation have worse immunity responses than people who were well connected. So, you know, when we went into lockdown, some people really liked that little protective bubble, other people. We were really separated from all of our support mechanisms we normally use from a self point of view.

Speaker 3:

It's really important to do that tuning into our own body, to understand what our gut is telling us, the vagus nerve oh, I could talk for hours on that. What it's telling us, what it's saying, what are we feeling? Does that feel? Are we saying yes when really we feel no? Why don't we just say I don't want to? That's a really valid reason. We don't have to have an excuse. You know we've kind of layered all of these expectations.

Speaker 3:

So, to tune in with ourselves, I can send you a little picture of a really fabulous point that you can actually just press and actually sit with yourself. It's actually right in the centre of your sternum, your chest bone, and my Qigong teacher says it's in between where your nipples are, where or should be, which always makes me laugh. I just love that. But you know what helps you remember where it is and all you have to do is literally just put your finger I'm going to invite you two ladies to do that and anyone listening just pop your finger onto that point in the center of your chest, there, right in between that area, and actually just take a breath there. Just take a breath in and release and just coming in it brings you inwards, it brings you into yourself, it takes you out from the whole world and what you're interacting with to come in and tune in with your body a little bit.

Speaker 3:

This is a fabulous, fabulous point for anyone who's feeling a bit jittery, a bit um, anxious, a bit out of the you know, out of sorts. Um, it really centers you, it really keeps you grounded and it brings you back down. Um, so that's in terms of ourself. And then on a micro level, where we're looking cellular, you know, we're talking about these neurons connecting. We're talking about how that connects with our gut and our health and our heart rate and our all of our endocrine system and all of those other amazing things.

Speaker 1:

So connection really is such a massive word there well, we know from the pandemic the impact on people's mental health from those lockdowns and isolation and because I see a lot of children. Those children that are now around age five and six are really struggling with their immune systems. There was a, there was a lot of kids that had delayed speech and other things going on, but there's a lot of cold after cold after cold with that age group due to that. What you just said about the immune system yeah, yeah, it's massive.

Speaker 3:

And also, if you want to go to the other end of the spectrum, where you look at elderly people who may be in more isolated places, they might be living by themselves, they might be in, you know, care facilities where they get to see lots of people, but they might not get touched, they might not get hugs. Um, you know, I have a rule 20 second minimum for a hug. It's there's physiological changes that actually happens when you hug and, um, anyone who knows me, uh, knows they get hugs and I've even had hugs off people who don't hug. So I take that as a huge compliment. But it's so important for our heart rate. And if you haven't got a person you feel comfortable with hugging because let's not appease here, let's only hug when we want to. Um, you know, go snuggle up with that cat, go get the cat purring, get the dog cuddling. You know, go have a chat, you know, a snuggle with whoever feels, um, you know, safe and comfortable to do that with. It's so, so important.

Speaker 2:

Um, yeah, it's it really is buddy go hug I touched on the um, the blue zones a couple, a couple of episodes ago and that was one of the. The big things that connected them all was that was that community was with, was that connection. It's an absolutely huge part and I and I, I think, because it's so, because it's so simple, I think people overlook it often.

Speaker 3:

I have quite a few people that come to me for a shiatsu, for a monthly or six weekly um, and they are people that live by themselves and they come just for a health maintenance treatment, um, and actually one people that live by themselves and they come just for a health maintenance treatment, um, and actually one of the things they say is they just love touch and it's body work. So shiatsu, for anyone doesn't know about it, is working with the natural energy in the body. You remain fully clothed and, um, if anything, I tend to bundle people up with blankets and and work through that. But it's just having that touch and actually there's a sense of in shiatsu world we talk about the sense of having that comforting pressure because it mimics the pressure of the fetus in the fluid, in the amniotic fluid in the womb and that pressure, that actually how we were growing. It's a really nurturing, really um, helpful sensation.

Speaker 3:

To be inputting people with dementia too. They're losing a lot of this connection. I forgot to talk about white matter. I'll come on to that. Just realize I've mentioned dementia, um, and with you're saying it now, I know as I say, I forgot it.

Speaker 3:

There you go. Hey, we're all human, um, so I think, with dementia, one of the things that I've, you know, learned recently is really interesting is that actually having a physical pressure they like to have like almost like a, not a corset, but a kind of tighter body area on them to have lots of contacts when they're sitting, make sure there's lots of cushioning around them to actually give them lots of sensory feedback. Feedback because the brain is actually shrinking. Some, a lot of those connections are getting lost and the brain is searching for them. It's a bit like when your phone's looking for wi-fi, the brain's looking for that, and so if you can give it lots of sensory input, what's happening is people are then more cognitively present and able to interact with families better and be more present, you know, consciously present. So that's really good.

Speaker 3:

So we talked about grey matter all being the outside of the cauliflower, but actually that's all the thinky bits and the processing bits. The white matter that you hear about is all of the connections and that's where things like dementia they've noticed with issues with the white matter is actually where you're actually getting. They've noticed with issues with the white matter is actually where you're actually getting a lot of the issues. So you'll have a lot of balance problems, a lot of falls, a lot of depression. Um, difficulty multitasking, so like walking and talking at the same time. Um, and the white matter is a huge area of research, particularly in things like dementia.

Speaker 2:

So, um, hydration, hydration, hydration I was going to say what is there anything we can do for that yeah yeah, I mean, it really is about your four pillars.

Speaker 3:

You know it's it's coming back to that, but understanding why those are so important. It's the hydration, it's the fuel for these cells to function in an optimum setting. Um, otherwise, you're, you're, you know you're, you're asking it to struggle and that's going to take more energy. I think our brain takes something like a 20 percent of our energy 25?

Speaker 2:

I think, yeah, absolutely. So it's that playing on easy, like we talked about.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, you know let's make that simple. Let's close some of those tabs down and let's, you know, get the other ones. And we haven't got 10 tabs open and music coming from somewhere we don't know it's let's, let's keep it just one or two open so we're focusing. One of the things you can do, future proofing that. I would advise couple of things. One I would say is actually about life balance. That's about managing stress. You know we're all gunning to fill in a billion things, working full-time, doing all these different things. You know that's, at the end of the day, people, when they are dying, don't say I wish I'd worked harder, I'm glad I didn't ask for help. You know it's so true. And actually you know we need to learn those lessons here and now for our quality of life, for our life balance. So we're not actually shortening our lives.

Speaker 1:

Let's enjoy it while we're here are dealing with families that are still relatively young, because we've had kids later in life, yeah, but also parents are becoming reliant and ill and they're trying to work and it's all going on.

Speaker 3:

It's so difficult to get that balance right, yeah yeah, and actually it makes it more important, um, to actually do the self-care too. Because this whole sense of putting yourself you know, it's the oxygen mask on the aeroplane, isn't it? It's if you are not in good health, if you are not in a good place, if you are not restoring your battery and your energy, how can you possibly give best care to other people? It's not. I think a lot of people get tied up with self-care because they think it's it's me instead of them. But it's not, it's you, so that you can yeah them and and, and that's really, really important.

Speaker 3:

We talked a lot about uh, well, I talked a lot, that's fine, it's who I am. We talked a lot about connections, um, and so it will not surprise you that the people who do best in rehab and do best later in life are people who are active. Things like chigung, things like tai chi amazing evidence showing because that's working with movement and with our thinking skills at the same time, there's visual imagery going on at the same time as just movement, kids going on at the same time as just movement. Kids like to learn and they like to have movement to integrate that information. Also, when we're trying to work something out, the reason why walking when we're trying to work something out is because all that cross-patterning happens between all the different parts of our brain. We're walking and we're processing information. It's opening all of those channels for that to happen. That's why a good walk really helps when we're trying to fathom something out or when we're trying to digest something so brilliant.

Speaker 2:

what was coming up in my head just then was that resilience, um for like, if stuff's happening all the time within your life, it's always going to happen, and it's having that, having that resilience within yourself, having ways of coping with it, having ways of dealing with it or having ways of transmuting it rather than stuffing it down or allowing it to kind of rot inside you, but also creating that resilience in your body just in case something happens Again, just in case you have an accident or an incident or something that you then need to be on really good footing to be able to recover from.

Speaker 3:

Because if we've pre-established those tools, then what we're doing is saying, oh, I've got this pathway already here, I've got this pathway already here, that's what I'm accessing, instead of then having to navigate you know the diversion around the roadways and learn new skills. You know it's a no-brainer. Oh my God, that was the worst pun. That was good.

Speaker 2:

That is future-proofing. It really is. That is it right there.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So, helen, you spoke about hydration being very important, the the balance dealing with stress.

Speaker 3:

You were going to say another one and then I think I interrupted you well, I think I interrupted you actually, and then I interrupted you one of the things I would like to talk about is I know that I'm working in healthcare and I often work with people at end of life and a lot of people, even after they've had a neurological event young people. We're so digital and we've got passwords in our head and we've got thumbprints on things and we've got, you know, a billion passwords to everything. But if you have a memory problem, if you have a concentration problem, people are not setting themselves up practically beforehand. There is something you can set up with something called a digital legacy, so that people can actually access things like social media and your digital files and have legal access to that, say after the event of. But I do have a lot of people who say I'm so frustrated because I want to get into this particular document, but I cannot remember for the life of me what that was. So you need to have some kind of strategy, get, have those conversations. What do you want to happen?

Speaker 3:

The number of people that have had an unforeseen event and the family say, well, I don't really know what they want to happen at this point. Wills, power of attorneys, digital legacies, organ donations these are all things that, I'm sorry to say, can happen at any point of life, and in western society we don't talk about death, we don't talk about the realities of if we need help suddenly and we're not in a position to be able to express ourselves or make ourselves clear, and it causes so much difficulty and so much trauma for the relatives around. Have those conversations with people. Set it up in advance. It's not for old people, it's for everybody. Make sure that's all. Get your house in order and it's not, I think, being negative or, you know, a bit dramatic, but it's genuinely really helpful should you ever, heaven forbid, need it. Um, have those conversations with people.

Speaker 2:

It's really, really important I think we need an entire episode on on death. I think yes we did.

Speaker 1:

We have said that we were going to do that at some point so important, I think, such an important like helen and myself.

Speaker 3:

I guess in our, in our jobs, we probably come across people that are that are dying, maybe more frequently than other people, and so I feel more comfortable about talking about it and then, but and then I forget that everybody else doesn't feel like this as well often not, and I personally had a lot of experience of a lot of bereavement and that was part of the trauma that I've had to work through myself, um, in terms of processing those emotions and traumatic grief, um, and that's been a amazing, amazing, helpful process to go through to actually work on that.

Speaker 3:

But it means that I'm actually really open to talking to people about death and whatever your religious beliefs, whatever your um philosophical beliefs, it's really important to actually not be so fearful, I think, because people don't talk about it, it becomes an unknown and it becomes a more fearful thing. But actually I have seen some incredibly peaceful um passing away and it's it can be quite a privilege to witness that experience, um, you know if, if that is is the situation. But I also know, like with my OT work, that we work with people with um end stage of neurological issues, um for, like, motor neurone disease or such, and you know there are amazing things that can be really helpful and supportive to people so that it's hard enough to lose that person um to death anyway, but then to just not have all the additional traumatic issues around that as well is is really supportive and really helpful. So, yeah, really really important. So I think it's really important to just prepare things and and have that sorted out. Um yeah, amazing.

Speaker 2:

I did not see future proofing going that way.

Speaker 3:

But you're absolutely right yes maybe future proofing for, yeah, we can look after our own health, but we also care about people around us and maybe future proof for them yeah, good, good call yeah, definitely, no, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

Which is what? Which is what us being an example as well, especially, we've all got daughters being that.

Speaker 3:

Be an example for them, so that they automatically future-proof themselves too yeah, it really can prevent a whole world of stress and difficulty after an event, and it's I can't tell you how helpful it is having things out clearly and discussed beforehand, so at any age. So I think really um, I don't know, I guess I'm witching on a lot, but it's um, I guess the things I'd leave you with would be connections. Make your connections um, prepare a bit in terms of your toolbox. Get those patterns in, get those um. You know, let's be clear, I don't want to see any of you on my caseload. What we want is healthy and happy and you know, living a stress-free or at least manageable stress life, uh, where it's a healthy stress and not depleting us. But get all of those amazing programs in place. There's so many health benefits to avoid going down neurological issues. If we can address stress and we can address those health ramifications from them, it would significantly reduce the risk of these kinds of neurological issues afterwards.

Speaker 1:

Indeed and drink your water. Drink, drink, drink your water. I'm always banging on about this. Cheers Always. It's a biggie.

Speaker 2:

Oh, my goodness, I have enjoyed this discussion so so much. I thought we were quiet listening to your sound, but you've actually shut us up again yeah, I was just listening.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, this is great every day is a school day, and I haven't even started on the shiatsu yet oh well, maybe we'll have to do that on a whole other episode as well, because I think that would be really fantastic. I've been lucky enough to have shiatsu treatments with you and they oh, when you were talking about that pressure, I can literally, I can literally feel it. I can feel that pressure and I can feel that comfort.

Speaker 1:

Just ah, it's a very nice therapy so good oh my goodness me, thank you, helen.

Speaker 3:

I think things like somatic treatments and even social prescribing. They're dawning on western health now and it's becoming more mainstream and accepted and it's hallelujah, thank you, goodness me, you're catching up.

Speaker 2:

Let's, let's well, they're not. They're not burning us at the stake anymore. So I mean that's a start, right, we'll take that I so would have been.

Speaker 2:

So good, if you want to carry on this discussion. Helen is already in the Far Too Fabulous Facebook group, so you can send her questions in there. As you can see, she'd be very willing to answer them and we can carry on the conversation over there as well. We are really wanting this facebook group to be a interactive community, so please come and join us in there, and and the more that you participate, the more interactive and bigger the community grows and is more helpful to everybody exactly well, I love that episode.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, helen. Thank you we'll see thank you bye, bye bye.

Speaker 2:

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