Nik Dodson is a health science and biohacking expert who empowers high-performing individuals and teams to unlock their full potential by optimising the body, mind, and soul. He specialises in using DNA methylation pathway testing to uncover gene traits and breaks that impact energy, mood, recovery, and long-term health—allowing for precise, personalised interventions through targeted supplementation and nutrition.

Blending functional health coaching with the latest in biohacking and genetic science, Nik helps clients reduce resistance, increase energy, and build sustainable habits that elevate their personal and professional lives. His 1:1 coaching and group masterclasses are designed to move clients beyond quick fixes and into long-term, data-driven wellness.

Whether you're an executive, founder, or high-pressure team member, Nik’s approach offers a powerful blueprint for lasting performance, clarity, and fulfilment, rooted in your biology.

> During our discussion, you’ll discover:

(00:05:56) What drew Nik to work with high performers

(00:06:34) What is burnout

(00:14:26) How the drive to succeed increases stress and burnout

(00:20:03) The physiological side of burnout

(00:28:02) How the mind and the body are linked in terms of stress

(00:35:16) How does stress drive burnout

(00:43:18) Strategies to get into the right mindset for healing

(00:55:52) How genetic tests help provide a framework to start healing

(00:57:40) What is methylation and MTHFR

(01:09:00) What are Nik’s thoughts on caffeine

(01:11:14) The best supplement to help deal with burnout

(01:16:41) Biohacking technologies to help with burnout

(01:24:47) The 1 most important daily habit

(01:25:22) The best adaptogen for dealing with stress

(01:25:52) The best book for high achievers with burnout

(01:27:26) Top 2 biggest red flags for high achievers

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Research Links:

• Action4Health - DNA Testing & Health Optimization
• Nik Dodson | LinkedIn
• Nik Dodson | Instagram

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https://vitality-pro.com/

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Welcome to the BP Life Podcast, the show

where we bring you actionable health

advice from leading minds.

I'm your host Rob.

My guest today is Nick Dodson, a high

performance coach and the

founder of Action for Health.

Nick works with driven entrepreneurs and

executives to help them recover from

burnout, restore energy, and build

sustainable performance without

sacrificing their health.

Expect to learn what burnout really is in

high achievers and how it differs from

simple stress or fatigue.

Harmbition, modern work culture, and

consistent stimulation can disrupt the

HPA axis, sleep, and hormones.

And the practical mindset, lifestyle, and

physiological strategies Nick uses to

help high performers recover and thrive.

Now, onto the

conversation with Nick Dodson.

Hi Nick, great to have you on the show.

I think we actually first met very

briefly at the Health Optimization Summit

last year when Collette was there,

obviously, doing some recording.

And then again, earlier in the year when

myself and a colleague attended one of

your marketing events.

Now, I know you are something of a jack

of all trades and please take that in the

best way possible and that you've got a

pretty diverse background.

Of course, we have the time, so would you

mind sharing your story, who you are, how

you got started, and then we can dive

into today's topic, I suppose, which is

essentially burnout.

Sorry, well, basically,

my name is Nick Dodson.

I'm the founder of Action for Health,

which has been a business that I've had

now for a couple of decades.

And basically, I'm health and science

biohacking coach, helping high performers

optimize in three areas that will be

mind, body, and soul.

And I use DNA methylation pathway testing

to identify genetic traits that impact

energy, mood focus, recovery.

Then we create a personal plan like a

blueprint to go forward so it's

individually structured.

And this is whether I'm one-to-one

coaching or whether I'm group coaching.

When did this start?

Goodness me.

I'm a passion-driven person.

And I believe that when passion meets

purpose, then you get fulfillment.

And in life, your purpose is always

looking for your passion.

So when these two things meet, that's it.

That will drive you forward.

And I've had lots of discussions in this

area with lots of different people, and

everybody is driven in some way.

And it's usually that

thing that you have interest.

And this is the thing that's interested

me for a long time, helping people to

optimize their life.

I spent a time as a counselor,

mindset coaching.

This was before mindset coaching was

actually known as mindset coaching.

So I worked in that area.

I've been qualified in nutrition for a

great many years and practice like

forensic nutrition now,

which is like detective work.

So we work backwards in that.

And also work on the coaching side.

I have spent time as a, I've had a career

as a physical therapist,

working in sports, physio.

And I'm retired from

that side of things now.

But in with that was

the rehabilitation side.

So I worked in gyms with people,

rehabilitating with the

biomechanics and the kinesiology.

So I've got a good understanding of

exercise, physiology and the biomechanics

and everything else that goes with that

and all the anatomy and physiology and

everything that goes with that.

So basically, if you round all that up

with other interests,

it, I don't have any hobbies, but I have

a very lot of interests.

So it gives me a lot of time to focus in

a lot of directions and bring it all

together because I think I have a friend

who's somewhat of an expert in his double

PhD and he's very

interesting person to talk to.

And he knows a lot about

what he knows a lot about.

But outside of that,

yeah.

So you know a lot about very little, but

very little about anything else.

Which is really, I thought we sort of

agree on that sort of definition of an

expert, somebody who knows more and more

about less and less.

Yes.

So that would be so the definition of the

world's greatest expert would be somebody

who knows everything about nothing.

Pretty much.

So I don't claim to be an expert as you

sort of introduced me.

I just have a lot of interests that I'm

able to bring together.

And it sort of helped me in a lot of ways

to build to not so

much bring a diagnosis,

but to have a good

understanding of how to help people.

And I've been here for 60

years on this planet now.

So it's given me a lot of experience and

a lot of time to build to put this

together and sort of pull it all in.

It's just like pulling

a net in really well.

You go fishing, you throw your net out

and then you just pull it all back in

again and you see what you've caught.

And that's the way I've

sort of been over the years.

So no, that's great.

And I'd love to come back to the forensic

nutrition a little bit later on.

I like what you touched on specifically

about having no hobbies.

I think you have a lot of hobbies.

I just think that they're sort of tied in

directly to what you do on a daily basis.

I think hobbies are what you

fundamentally love at the end of the day.

I think a lot of people get trapped in

this sort of desire, this need to find a

hobby when ultimately what they should be

doing is sort of incorporating their

hobbies into this sort of daily life,

creating their purpose from

that point going forwards.

But yeah, that's maybe my

epic sort of dull view on it.

So we'll let that one slide.

But anyway,

high performers, the sort of the client

base that you are that you sort of

predominantly work with.

What sort of I suppose drew you to

wanting to work with these sorts of

people to begin with?

These are the kind of

the movers and the shakers.

I mean, literally the difference between

your average person, the high performer,

is somebody who just says, I don't want

to sit back and let it out around me.

You know, I want to be

an atmosphere changer.

I want to get in there and

do something I want to make.

I want to put my footprint on life.

I want to change things.

You know, you don't want to.

You know something in science, I've

studied a lot in science.

So in science, so we had mainstream

science and then we had peer review.

It's great.

Fantastic peer review.

But if we only stuck with peer review,

we'd still be stuck with candles.

We'd be a country of

amazing candlemakers.

We wouldn't have had the light bulb.

We wouldn't have had any of these

fantastic inventions

that came from the fringes.

So I sort of like that.

And I think I like these high performers

because some of them are a bit out there.

But you know something, I love them all

because it brings us all together and it

pushes the development.

You know what I mean?

And in business, I

think it's really good.

I think people are developing in business

now and the businesses start small and

they can grow if you can scale it well.

You know what I mean?

They can grow very quickly.

But I don't want to see people burn out

in the way to get in there.

And whatever success looks like to you

because it looks different

to a lot of different people.

So, you know, I want to help people get

to that place in life

where they are successful.

They can not just support the self and

the families, but they can support

communities and others and

things, you know what I mean?

In many ways.

Yeah, that's the perfect answer.

Thank you for that.

Yeah, I suppose we may as well jump into

burnout, what it is.

I mean, I think it's a term

most people are familiar with.

Excuse me.

Well, at least they've heard of it.

Honestly, though, I don't think many

people kind of really do know what it is.

I mean, I've got my thoughts, of course,

and those having sort of a fairly strong

biological underpinning, I suppose, and

which I'd love to get your feedback on.

However, I suppose, as you're in the hot

seat, really, how do you define the term

or slash the condition, what it really

is, burnout, I mean?

Burnout.

And a really interesting question.

Let me just start it with this.

I had a really

interesting question, right?

And somebody asked me, and they said, how

do you work through burnout?

I said, that's a really interesting

question because you

can't work through burnout.

You have a built-in firewall, and that's

called burnout, and it stops you from

getting any further than that, because if

you could, you'd get a

complete adrenal failure.

You'd get a

complete...it's like loss of life.

It's like an end of disease.

Yes.

It works.

It would allow you to decline very fast.

It would allow you to basically hit your

worst in the quickest possible time.

So burnout's like your firewall, and it's

stopping you from going

any further beyond that.

And there are symptoms and signs of

burnout, and I think most

of us know what them are.

Now, this is how I define it.

So I've got an 80-20 rule.

It means for every 20% I

put in, I get 80% back out.

So my full concentration in my creative

time has usually worked

like in one-hour bursts.

And I think I've got an attention span of

full, 100% attention span

of about 40, 50 minutes.

Is that practice principle?

Yes.

So basically, when I'm working with this,

I look at when I am being productive, if

I'm creating something

and I'm being productive.

So I'm looking at creative thought, and

I'm looking at what I'm putting in.

And everybody time blocks the day-to-day,

but you have got to time block your day

in a way that's going

to be productive for you.

So you're using lots of

little-- I do, anyway.

I use lots of little bursts.

You know what I mean?

So it's not that I do a little bit and

have a little bit of a rest.

I do something, and then I go into

something else, which might be a little

bit of a rest for me.

So there might be something more physical

than that is mental.

And I'm usually working with this because

the impact of actually doing something

physical is when you do something

physical, like if you do some resistance

training, you're actually releasing BDNF,

which is actually boosting your brain.

You know, you're actually

regrowing your brain cells.

I mean, it's a proven thing.

Now you can go anywhere.

You can look at it on

Google and whatever.

And there's lots of other benefits.

So I like to have the energetic bursts

and things during the

day and like to put it in.

So I'll work for so long and then I go

and have a power walk and then I'll go,

you know, do some more work, some

different work, some

creative stuff maybe then.

So my time it is, it's blocked into, you

know, productive time and then things

that I just need to do.

You know what I mean? But the thing is, with the way I look at

it with the 80-20 rule

is like, is if I'm on it,

I can usually put 20% in and get 80% back

and it's usually creative.

Now, when this starts to fade, that

becomes like 50-50 and then it can

reverse and it can be the 80-20 and put

80% in, getting 20% back.

That happened, surprisingly enough, that

happened about eight weeks ago because I

were putting that much stuff together and

I were looking into new things and I were

doing a couple of plans, couple of

blueprints for people.

And so I'm working and I'm doing like,

you just eight hours back to back and

then I'm like working into the evening

and I'm getting printouts and things.

And I'm thinking, you know, going to the

gym was not a joy for me.

For a little short period of

time, it was not a joy for me.

So basically, now, as a high performer

myself, I'm on the sort of cusp of I

don't have to push it too far before I

could go into burnout.

So that's why things I know we'll talk

about later, the supplementation, the

lifestyle, the other

things and what have you.

And it's difficult for somebody like me

and other high performers to sort of

reign it back in and say, there you go,

have this quiet life.

It's like, no, that's

just dumb and boring.

I feel like I'm wasting my life.

I feel like I'm waiting to expire.

So I've got to be doing

something all the time.

I'm not ADHD in that, but I am somebody.

My brain is lit up all the time.

So I find it difficult to do nothing.

So I really do

identify with these people.

But I find that I get the I can just go

down a list of things.

Right.

So basically, it's a lack of

focus, a lack of enthusiasm.

If I'm lacking in the

uses, I'm like, why?

I always ask the wise.

And I would encourage that with anybody.

I ask yourself why?

Because your wise is

your own way to start with.

You know, I mean, but

there's lack of clarity.

So, you know, there's lack

of focus and lack of clarity.

So focus, I can't focus on the thing.

And clarity is what I'm seeing.

What's coming back to me.

So I'm getting that.

So some people call that brain fog.

And then there's decreased output.

So there's what what can I actually do?

You know, it's like my

output, physical as well as mental.

And then the equation to that is every

day tasks become harder till eventually

I'm sat there and I'm staring into space

like for a couple of minutes at a time

thinking, what am I doing?

You know what I mean?

And that's when it says to

me, right, that's burnout.

You've just encountered burnout.

So it's a complete rest from the things

that are causing your burnout and then go

and enjoy the things

that give you a great input.

You know, so whatever they may be.

So I did a little bit a little bit of

work in the gym and I went out and did

some walks and different things and, you

know, went for a drive and, you know, I'd

add some organic

coffee and things like that.

Just little, little, little, little,

little fixes, little, little fixer ups

things, you know what I mean?

And looking at another thing as well is I

have I do I do brain gym and some people

just say, oh, you're just playing games.

I'm like, no, playing games.

They actually teach you to look for the

things that you can't see because if

you're trying to solve the problem and

you're just going like,

yeah, it's like, this is

the questions that I ask.

What am I missing?

What is it that I am not seeing that's

hiding in plain sight?

And these things help you

to see the bigger picture.

It's like playing two tier chess.

You know what I mean?

You're not just looking at

when you're looking at two.

So these things and you start smaller on

these games and they

become bigger and bigger.

So I do that and I do that a couple of

times during the day.

And now I'm really quick on the games and

I can complete games like in a couple of

minutes before it took about, oh, twelve

minutes, twenty minutes.

Fair enough.

So in a nutshell, just for the audience,

you would sort of define burnout as the

as the disproportionate amount of effort

required to get the same results that you

previously got for a lesser amount of

effort when it comes to being productive.

If you were to sort of

summarize it in one sentence.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then obviously, along with that,

you're going to get symptoms like

fatigue, brain fog, depression, sort of

this anhedonia, lack of desire to want to

do stuff, et cetera.

OK, perfect.

So, yeah, just to carry on from that.

Let me use an example.

So I've got a friend I've

been helping out at the moment.

He's been through a bit recently.

Some physical issues, of course, and then

just a really high stress load.

Really, he fits into this demographic,

actually, this high achiever demographic.

He's in his early fifties, very a type,

very driven to succeed.

We've been down a lot of rabbit holes in

conversation together.

And he really is the epitome of somebody

who's burnt the candle at both ends.

Heck, I mean, if there's a third end,

he'd probably try and burn that, too.

Oh, he'd torture.

Maybe an obvious question, but how does

this sort of this drive for achievement

just amplify the perceived level of

stress that ultimately ends up with

individuals like him burning out and in

the hole, so to speak?

This is an interesting one, because I

could only answer this

from what I found in me first.

And then I just thought, well, if that's

my case, then is it is

that the same in other people?

And I measured this variable.

And yes, it is.

When you're doing something that you love

and you're passionate about, you've got

more chance of burning out in that

without realizing that you're burning out

because stress is perceived pressure.

So it's how you feel internally about

what you're facing externally.

But you know, when you love what you're

doing, I mean, when you're passionate

about it and you love what

you're doing, it's no stress.

It's a joy.

It's a joy to do it.

So you'll keep doing it.

So you'll keep going and you'll keep

going and you'll miss a meal

and you'll miss some time out.

And the problem with that is, is that you

are actually going towards stress because

your body recognizes all these stresses,

all these internal things, but you don't

feel stressed because that kind of stress

is not an internal job.

You're basically encountering these

stress things and these

tiredness and what have you.

So you can eventually hit this wall of

burnout without even knowing it.

So I would say that has been the biggest

lesson for me to learn in the because I

found things I was so passionate about

and so purpose driven.

And I loved what I were doing so much

that it was no stress to me.

And the pressure, there was

no real perceived pressure.

It's like, yeah, I can do this.

I'll just really, it's

like, yeah, I'll run all day.

And that's what it was.

And I will like that.

And then the next thing

is like, what's happening?

What's happening?

So you've still got to pace yourself.

And that's what I would say, because the

older you get, the more determined you

are and the more experienced you are.

And sometimes that can work a little bit

against you because you think you know.

But the one thing that I have learned is

that the more I think I know, the less I

know about what I think I know.

And it's a bit of an enigma in that.

But the point is, it's

like when Socrates said,

oh, good to me, what is quote now?

I forgot.

I forgot.

I've got a brain fog.

But the basic premise of it, I haven't.

I've just like, it just

slips my mind in the moment.

The basic premise is that when you think

you know, there's a lot more that you

don't know that you could know.

The only true knowledge

exists in knowing we know nothing.

So that's where he

basically explains it from.

So when you think you know it, and it's

like, yeah, you think you're a bit of a

self-proclaimed expert in this now.

And it's like, there's so much more that

you don't know about that.

Because when I think about science, I was

like, remember the fact that a friend of

mine were telling me, a scientist friend

of mine, he says that as scientists, we

don't truly understand water yet.

We don't understand why the water

molecule H, you know, the H2O, when you

think about that hydrogen and oxygen and

white form something that's wet that

quenches your thirst that

takes up 80% of your body.

So I just think that explains it for me.

Yeah, so sort of the Dunning-Kruger

effect to an extent, would you say?

The idea that I suppose it's a cognitive

bias where people believe that their

ability to excel in a specific area, and

they've got a low ability in that area to

begin with is, and then they sort of tend

to overestimate their own

abilities, consequently,

and end up sort of, yeah, in that sort of

that loophole, essentially.

Okay, yeah, that's perfect.

Okay, I'd like to sort of maybe say we're

into chatting about some of the

physiological side of burnout, the

biological endopinings, you might say.

Now, I know there are a lot of theories

out there as to why people burn out

physiologically, and just for the

audience, what is happening to biology on

neurology when we are burning out,

including the downregulation of hormones,

the dysregulation of the circadian

rhythm, which is our daylight cycle and

how we sort of move

from one to the other.

Now, all of this is governed by something

I'm sure you know, called the

hypothalamic pituitary axis or the HPA.

Can you work us through this stress

system in the body, what the HPA is, and

then fundamentally, why it goes wrong?

As soon as you start applying stress to

your body, so your body's working

normally, you would normally

have a fat burning pathway.

When you go into a stress situation,

you're going to, there's two things

that's going to happen.

You're going to

stimulate glucocorticoids.

So basically, you're going to come

straight out of normal regular fat

burning, and you're going

to go into burning glucose.

This is going to affect

your energy straight away.

So this is why people who are in stress

quite a long time, they don't tend to be

able to lose body fat and

they have a lot of visceral fat.

So when we send them for body statting on

a DEXA scan, we find that they're usually

quite heavy in the visceral fat around

the middle area and things like that.

And if they are tested in that,

they find that there's a lot of

indicators that are indicating stress in

their life in one way or another.

The obvious outcomes, I want to keep

straight to the point, the obvious

outcomes in this is like, when you're in

this area, there's a lot of things like

your insulin spikes, which is going to

shut off your fat burning.

These are things when people are coming

to me and they're saying, "Why am I

gaining weight and I'm eating less?"

And I'm saying, "Well,

this is the big thing."

So basically,

the number one thing that insulin does is

it prevents fat burning because you go

straight into that

glucocorticoid pathway.

So you're basically getting the adipose.

You can end up with skinny fat because

you can actually burn

muscle out with this as well.

So the stress hormone addiction, that's a

big one that I've come across because

people just say, "No, I'm not."

And I said, "Well, why are you

self-sabotaging because you're working

into situations like this that

basically give you this buzz.

So you're getting this adrenaline buzz

that's attached to the cortisol.

So you're creating, you're looking for

the situations that are actually creating

this and you're loving it and you're

chasing after it

without even realizing it."

So, you know, that's the other thing.

The poor sleep, as it leads into that, I

mean, these are all the outcomes of it.

The poor sleep, well, if you've been

racing all day and your

cortisol levels are up,

so you're going to find it

difficult to sleep at night.

And that's going to be either difficult

to go into sleep or

difficult to stay in a sleep.

And the other thing as well, if your fat

burning pathways are not working

properly, you're going to

be functioning on glucose.

So if you go to bed on glucose, I

guarantee you that

you're going to spike insulin.

So that's going to get you up two to

three times during the night.

So that's going to be sleep disturbances.

And then when you wake up in the morning,

the thing is, right, most people think

the day begins with the morning.

Well, when you think about when morning

begins, it's a minute after midnight.

Yeah, definitely.

I'd love to come back to those morning

routines a little later on, too.

Yeah.

So that's the main thing

that I'm looking at there.

So if you set yourself up

for a good night's sleep.

A good night's sleep

starts the morning before.

That's your data, isn't it?

That's it.

That's exactly as I see it.

Yeah, definitely.

So again, just to summarize, you talk

about glucocorticoids, which

are hormones like cortisol.

And in the brain, and correct me if I'm

wrong, but the way I view it, you have

this area of the brain called the

hypothalamus, which then sends signals to

the pituitary gland,

another brain region.

This pituitary gland then signals the

adrenal glands and other tissues in the

body to produce a bunch of hormones,

predominantly glucocorticoids, as you

talked about, things like cortisol, as

well as the catecholamines, things like

adrenaline, non-dramnol, etc.

And all of these molecules then work in

the body in a positive

way and a negative way.

What they can do is they can support the

production of energy.

Cortisol works hypothetically at the

level of the liver to produce a stored

sugar, which then gets

into the bloodstream.

And then what happens is over time, if

this stress response isn't correctly

controlled by the body, you end up with

high levels consistently of these

hormones that then create a lot of

metabolic dysfunction, which can not only

interfere with metabolism and, as you

alluded to, things like muscle loss and

fat gain, etc., especially around the

belly and around the thighs, where you

have a lot of these

places of cortisol combined to.

But you also have a downregulation of the

neuromodulators or neurotransmitters,

such as dopamine, that then work in

conjunction with these hormones.

And consequently, as a result of this

metabolic soup, this mess that's going on

in your biology, you end

up in this "burnt outstay".

Would you say that that's just a fair

overview from just a high level?

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, in the evening,

you put together your thoughts in the

day, you disassemble them at night, so

when you're talking about catecholamines

building up during the day, they have to

be metabolized at night.

So obviously, you need to raise your

serotonin levels, so you've got other

things that are needed in there.

So you've got your B2 that's

needed, your B6 that's needed.

And this is one of the things that I'm

dealing with people at the moment with

the methylation and the conversion.

So the metabolizing, the catecholamines,

the upregulating, the

serotonin and things like that.

So basically, they can sleep.

This, that is the big pendulum swing.

I'm facing quite a lot at the moment with

people who are coming to me and saying,

when I'm talking about

it, like sleep hygiene.

So that's everything that's taking

somebody from actually preparing to sleep

to actually trying to sleep in their

case, you know what I mean, or not

sleeping, whatever, and then getting into

the next day tired because they think

that they've not slept.

They've just not had a great sleep.

Yeah, definitely.

No, that's great.

I'd love to sort of come back to I think

that falls under the sort of the forensic

nutrition that you talked about that

earlier, identifying sort of these key

micronutrients that support the

production of all the enzymes, all the in

the body that then helped

you to function optimally.

And without these, you end up with this,

this dig, dysregulated HPA

axis, as we'll talk about earlier.

Nick, I know mindset

plays a huge role in this too.

And it's almost, I mean, the way I see

it, the mind and the body connected.

So the same end, let's let's use another

example, the same friend I was chatting

to earlier, we were talking about about

stress, not being anything more than a

perceived state that our

biology then reacts to.

An example there could be a child who is

made to work in an underage capacity, say

they're 12 year olds and they're in sort

of they're in manual labor.

They're not necessarily enforced labor,

but they're in manual labor.

Now, the way I see that a few hundred

years ago, that would be

considered completely normal.

And in the large parts of third world,

that is considered completely normal.

Now, in modern society in the UK and

America, the first world, where children

grow up with this

understanding that that's bad.

If they then end up in a situation like

that, they then end up with a very high

stress load and potentially the ability

to sort of develop this

sort of trauma response.

Now, point being is and of course, that's

a sweeping statement, but that our minds

dictate to a large extent what we

perceive to be stress and what we then

perceive to be trauma.

And I know that there's obviously there's

a very much a connection there.

My point in all of this is really to me

that highlights the fact that our

perception of stress ultimately governs

how that stress will then affect our

physiology, if that makes

sense in your following.

Do you agree with this that A, well, A,

that the mind and the body are linked in

terms of bringing this back to burnout,

well, burnout, and then B, do you think

our perceived understanding of what

stress is going back to what you said

earlier, really, about stress is only a

stress if we perceive it to be a stress,

i.e. if, sorry, and this is going down

many reptiles and getting convoluted.

But if we enjoy something, it's

consequently not seen as a stress,

although the body doesn't isn't able to

differentiate that

necessarily at a fine level.

So bring it all together.

A, do you agree with me?

If not, that's fine.

B, do you think that we are that the way

we identify our stress in

life affects physiology?

And then C, how do you view this whole

mind-body connection?

On the most, I agree with you.

I can add to some things.

I mean, that's

fundamentally completely logical.

You know what you've just said, and if

you were to work through it and you give

it to any person, you would work through

it, they said, but of course, of course,

and I'd say, of course, of course,

because the thing about it is, is that

perceived stress is the biggest thing.

We've all got different giftings.

So, you know, if I give somebody

something that's that they're not gifted

for it, that they don't they don't have

any purpose in trying to

dislike, why are you giving me this?

This is a difficult task.

To me, I've always worked at the things

that I am good at to

become better at those things.

Many years ago, I used

to work in management.

I used to manage.

Yeah, I know that would have

stress in it, to be honest.

But I developed some

really good techniques.

And later on, I went to university and I

studied a lot of different things.

And I were able to bring

a lot of insights to that.

But this is what I found.

I'm a perceived stress.

Right.

So basically, I give somebody a task that

they have no passion for, and they have

no real ability in that

that's going to cause them stress.

So somebody else is going to love that.

You know, the old one man's meat is

another man's poison kind of thing.

You know what I mean?

One man's rubbish is

another man's treasure.

And I find that there's people that have

incredible giftings in things that I

would just find that find that thing

incredibly stressful.

Office work and the admin.

Oh my goodness.

I have a friend that is just

an absolute amaze ball at it.

Right.

Absolutely brilliant.

You know what I mean?

Shuffles, papers, round and great on the

computers and things like that, you know,

and great with all the

AI and everything else.

No, it's not that I'm

not any good with AI. I

am.

And I'm understanding it more and more.

And I think if you learn the fundamentals

now of working with AI, you can scale

things so that you don't need to be

passing things around and

saying, can you help me with this?

Can you help me with this?

Because basically AI does it all and you

don't have to pay it a thing.

You just have, well, sometimes there's

subscriptions and

things, you know what I mean?

That's it.

That's about it.

So yeah, perceived stress.

This all ties a lot of things in to

gifting and to passion.

And I have always worked on the things

that I am good at and the

things that I am not good at.

I wouldn't try and become great at

something that I'm never

become going to become great in.

In life, you're either going to do

something or you're

going to be great at it.

And you know, you know, if you want your

car repairing, you're going to take your

car to a great garage, a great mechanic

and things like that.

You know what I mean?

You've got to go to somebody

who's great at what they do.

Somebody who's like, yeah,

yeah, I'll see what I can do.

No, you're going to be great at it if

you're going to do it.

And that's the way I see things in life.

So what makes you great at it?

Because you'll love it, because you're

passionate about it, because it's the

thing that drives you.

It's the thing of interest.

And if you don't know your passion, I

always said, find something that you're

interested in and work

towards it with your whole heart.

And that will bring out your passion.

You'll find your passion in that and your

interest in the things

that you're drawn towards it.

And that is spiritual side, because

you're drawn into that thing.

You know what I mean?

Try not to be drawn into it.

You'll be drawn into it no matter what,

because that's what your

passions join you towards.

So these are things that you, there's

things that I do and I never

seem to get tired about them.

And people just go, how

can you keep on like that?

How can you hypothesize or how can you

keep working on these problems?

I'm going to say, no problem.

It isn't a problem.

You know what I mean?

It's actually like a joy to work on it.

But don't give me any office work to do,

because I am going to find that somewhat

of a problem when I get

further down the line.

So, you know, that sort of sums up, you

know, and it's, I think it's

individuals, individual gifted.

And you can come up with types.

You know, there are different types,

personality types and different things

like that, you know, and then we look at

more extroverts and introverts and we

look at all these bits in between.

But individuals, we're

all complex and unique.

Of course.

And then how sort of bringing it back to

burnout once again, how do you think, how

do you view this stress is

then affecting the physiology?

I mean, I know we talked about that

earlier, but how was that stress then

driving that burnout process?

I think that's maybe a question we've not

yet sort of really asked that.

I think a lot of maybe the audience would

be interested in knowing why does stress

then, even if you're in this state of

flow, ultimately lead you potentially to

the state of becoming dysfunctional in

what you're trying to

achieve with all of that said.

I mean, I know that we could

have a whole podcast on that.

So feel free to keep it brief.

But how do you view that?

If we took it like what you mentioned

earlier, again, the HPT, right, when

we're looking at that,

everything's a flow within that.

So it's keeping it halfway there.

Now, you wouldn't get up in the morning

if it wasn't for stress, because

obviously cortisol has to raise.

So cortisol is a good thing, but you get

too much of it and it's a bad thing.

So basically, it's keeping it, you know,

it's keeping that needle

somewhat in the middle.

And that's it really, a

mash of self regulation.

And we all this is what a big thing.

And I remember, I was involved in this in

a big talk and a big debate going back

like about two years, self regulation, it

was the big it was on

everybody's tongue back then.

How do I correctly self regulate?

And the thing is, is you

look at people's habits.

And if you study people well, you can see

different methods of self regulation.

And that's the one of the ways that we're

going to deal with stresses building up

too much input and things building up and

things that are okay.

Why is it some day?

Why do you have a bad day when you go to

a lot of different things and then

suddenly one day is a bad day.

And then obviously, when you're coming

down to phrase it and you're saying,

because I learned to say,

you know, it's not a bad day.

I'm having a challenging day.

You know what I mean?

I'm having a difficult

time and things like this.

And I started to word things because I

looked at the words more and what the

words actually mean to me.

So that's the mental effect.

You know what I mean?

That's the stress

coming out of what I think.

That's the perceived stress.

But the actual stresses is where I am

when I get up in the morning.

So if I'm rested and I check my heart

rate in the morning and my heart rate is

not varied by 10 beats.

It's not up by 10 beats

or something like that.

So I wake up in the morning, mine's about

58 to about 60, something like that.

It's fairly good.

But if I had a morning when I was telling

you about like a few weeks ago, and I

woke up and my heart rate was about 68 to

72 in the morning, I

thought, this is not good.

You know what I mean?

And I was looking at things and I didn't

really, I couldn't put my

finger on any one thing.

You know what I mean?

I thought I worked out that

was just a regular workout.

But it's the many

littles that make a mooch.

So there I was.

So I had to look at things and I had to

basically like go, right, I'm just going

to met myself, take a few more breaks and

do a little bit less.

And so basically I can try and stop that

cortisol from going sky high.

So when your cortisol's up with your

adrenaline, so you're paying lots of trips to the toilet.

Doesn't matter how much, how much you

mineralize the water you have, you know,

how many electrolytes you have, you will

go to the toilet a lot.

And that's one of the ways and then your

mouth will get quite dry.

And you're noticing these these telltale

signs and it's like, yeah, my stress

levels are up and I need

to do something about it.

So good thing, bad thing, it can be good.

It can be good because you need to raise

that cortisol levels, but it can be bad

if it's out of control.

So it's a, it's something that's really important.

It's something that you, the way you feel

can affect it a lot more

than you think, really.

So, and I find today there's a lot of

people getting stressed out about the

state of the world today.

And people just tell me you just carry on

like, like, like

you're just not bothered.

And I just say, I am

concerned, but I'm not worried.

Of course not.

Because worrying doesn't solve anything.

It's, it's, it's your locus of control.

I mean, I'm horrendous.

I couldn't tell you what's going on the

world the moment beyond my beyond what's

sort of thoughts out the front door.

But to me, unless it has direct bearing

on my life, my ability to make money, my

ability to care for those I love, etc.

It doesn't hold any value to me.

Now that's not to say I don't care, but

I'm in a position where fundamentally,

unless I either, let's

just choose a random example.

Now I have, I have no understanding of

politics whatsoever.

Probably to my detriment that there's

obviously something terrible going on in

the Far East moment with Israel and and

Paris, excuse me, Palestine.

Yeah.

Now, I don't have a, I'm not, I don't

have an opinion on that because I don't

know enough about it.

So I don't feel I

should have an opinion on it.

And I can get worked up about that and

really sort of braze my stress levels,

which is what a lot of people do.

They have all American politics if you're

in the UK, or whatever, or even British

politics if you're in the UK.

But the way I view it, you, you

fundamentally can't change anything about

those circumstances, not really.

I mean, maybe you can if you pour your

heart and soul into it.

And if that's something

that you want to do, awesome.

But 99.99% of the

human population aren't.

So my view on that sort of thing is,

don't worry about it, because

fundamentally, it's not going to change

anything other than your stress levels,

which is going to drive

more problems in your life.

Maybe, maybe it's a bit of a selfish

view, but I don't think it serves anyone

sort of getting wrapped up in that sort

of superficial for the want of a better

word, those sorts of superficial issues

when you should ultimately just focus on

what's yours and what's in

your, again, locus of control.

That's really good, because I say

something to people on a regular basis.

And whether they like

it or not, here it is.

If you want to make a change, let that

change begin with you because you'll make

the biggest change because you will

directly affect the lives of 10 people

and indirectly and other

10 people outside of that.

So you can bring a big change to people's

lives around you and definitely your own

life and you'll live longer and then the

way you treat other

people will be a lot better.

And if there's something that you can do,

that you need to do,

then do it within that.

Definitely.

I was listening to Dan

Martel the other day.

He's an entrepreneur business guy.

And I'm paraphrasing here because I'll

probably get it wrong, but he said, "Help

people achieve what you want out of life.

So if you want more money, help people

achieve more, get more money.

If you want health, help

people get their own health back."

That sort of thing.

And I think that speaks volumes to what

you've just said as well.

Absolutely.

You reap what you sow.

You know what I mean?

So basically you sow into people.

You sow that good into people.

They're going to sow that again because

you can't sow good into...

If you sow an apple tree, you're not

going to get anything other than apples.

So whatever you sow good into a person,

that is going to be passed on.

So by doing that and investing into

people in such a good way like that, how

are you going to get

anything bad coming from that?

You're not.

It's going to return.

Seed produces like kind.

So that is absolutely 100%.

So I agree with what you're saying about

your paraphrasing, but that's by now,

that is really good.

Yeah, no, I like it too.

And again, it's not mine, but it's...

And I suppose it's another way of

describing karma, but ultimately by

focusing on this, again, what things you

can control and things that you can

improve in other people's lives.

And by not focusing on the minutia that's flirting around the world, the same thing.

So by not focusing on the minutia that's flirting around the world, the small

things that don't matter in your world,

you can then just ultimately reduce that

stress level and sort of

just eat the best you can be.

Anyway, Nick, we have suddenly got very

philosophical, which is great.

However,

I think we've got a bit of track.

So let's get back to it.

Now we've really sort of

jumped into what Bernard is.

We've taken a pretty deep

dive down that rabbit hole.

I'd love to sort of dig into some of your

favorite tools and strategies, if that's

okay, to help people get an understanding

of how to work through burnout.

And then I've got a hypothetical case

study that we could

work through afterwards.

But starting off, what are your sort of

your go-to strategies maybe off the bat

to help people get their mindset right?

Because, and I think we'll agree on this,

but I think when starting out helping

somebody, you generally have to get the

clients buy-in in terms of

mindset from the beginning.

Because otherwise, it's almost pretty

pointless going forwards, I'd imagine,

because you're just going to stack

modalities, you're going to take them to

take supplements, do tests, etc.

But unless they've got this mindset piece

right to begin with, I don't think, and

correct me if I'm wrong, you

are going to make much headway.

So yeah, how do you deal with the mindset

piece first and foremost,

strategy-wise, of course?

Mindset.

Mindset has been around

since time immemorial.

So basically, we've talked about

different things over the years, mental

attitude and different things.

And we focused on being positive.

And mindset is really the way you think,

and it operates within mind frame.

So mind frame is your perception.

And you always have

perception versus perspective.

So it's always, it is always, it's

expectation versus observation.

So it's basically what you perceive

versus what, which is what you would

imagine and how in your mind you see it

versus what you

actually with your eyes see.

And perspective is

always your final view.

So that's your frame.

So you put both these together,

perception versus perspective.

Right.

And that's your overall mind frame.

Imagination operates within that.

So that gets you from where you are to

where you want to go.

So basically, this is your mind's not,

your brain is the organ, but your mind

will take you externally,

will take you outside of that.

So this allows you to look to focus and

see things that you do not yet possess,

but you can step into that

and you can possess that.

Right.

And you can see that that's the clincher.

This is how a lot of

people achieve things.

So basically, that's

operating within the frame.

Mindset operates within the frame.

So basically, if you look at the frame,

the frame is the frame picture.

And I would say like the best way to do a

jigsaw puzzle is this basically always

assemble the frame and then fill it in

and then fill in the biggest areas with

the greatest detailing

because then that becomes easy.

It's easy to see things.

So you're making it easy for yourself.

So then the mindset set is

just a set of instructions.

So you just say what you see.

But if you can see clearly, it's easy.

It's easy, Rob.

You just say what you say.

What used to be on TV and you used to

say, say what you see.

I forget the catchphrase.

Catchphrase.

Right.

So basically, you are just then you're

putting, you're verbalizing, vocalizing

what you're actually seeing.

So that's a set of instructions.

So you can't create the instructions

until you see what

exactly what you need to do.

So what I do is when I look at somebody,

I'm just thinking, nobody wants chaos.

Nobody wants chaos.

And I'm looking and I

can I will never name drop.

People come to me and I'm

thinking, that is chaos.

That is absolute chaos.

That is what you what you

seem to thrive in is chaos.

And what I need to do is to put order to

that because, you know, that you can't

create anything out of chaos.

But if you put order to chaos, so like

you want to create something, but

everything's all over the place.

So you have to put order to

it and then you can build it.

You can structure it.

So that's a building site.

Right.

So basically, somebody comes

to me and I just say, right.

So we're going to begin.

We're going to begin with

how you go to bed at night.

So we're going to look at basically not.

We don't have to bring

any science into this.

We just have to basically look at habits

and habits function within routines.

So or it could be called the subroutine,

you know, whichever one you know, some

people call it, you know, they don't they

don't call it routines.

They call it rituals.

You know what I mean?

But whatever you want to call it.

So basically, you've got a routine and

then you've got a subroutine.

So that's a habit.

And the thing about habits is you

probably heard of habit stacking.

And I did mention it the last time we

spoke, habit stacking, where basically

people set goals to achieve.

And then that's an all out thing.

So how many goals can you set yourself

without it taking up all

your time and all your mind.

So you set yourself a lot of habits,

takes anything from 21 days

to 321 days to establish habit.

That's three weeks, 321 days.

So you establish habit.

There's ways to establish that quicker.

But when you've got that habit, habit

becomes a routine in your life.

If you put these things back together,

you got habit stacking and habit stacking

helps you achieve goals

and big goals as well.

So you've got a routine

then that you can work from.

And by the way, it's underpinning

psychology that you can't get through a

day, you can't get through your life

without having routines because the most

of your day is actually routine and

subroutine and the things that you do.

Because I once tried going through a day

and there were nothing routine.

And I totally broke my routine every

single time in every step through the

day, mentally going through things.

I was exhausted by lunchtime, mentally

exhausted because I've gone through

everything new or mentally exhausted.

But having said that, I did do some

driving, but I want to make a

conversation at the

same time I was driving.

Somebody was keeping me

accountable, by the way.

And so this is this we're very tiring.

So you look at your routines and your

routines will get you through a day

without you actually having to burn out

mentally because mentally, a lot of

thinking requires a lot of energy.

And a lot of people are not fueling for

that energy anyway, or they're putting

the wrong kind of fueling.

You know what I mean?

So this is keeping people accountable.

So your bedtime routine.

So there's a lot of

simple things in this.

I want to say it's very simplistic.

So you just follow the routine.

So the routine comes from it is if you

have the mindset lights, like people said

to me now, do you have to

send me these vast reports?

I said, I condense them.

I've condensed it to 90 pages.

You know what I mean?

When I've sent up these DNA reports, I've

said, I've condensed them to 90 pages,

but I've also done your re-collective

where I've done a blueprint plan for you.

Don't bother reading the report.

It's just so you've got it if you want

to, but you need to look, just look at

the blueprint

because, oh yeah, that's it.

Yeah, I'll just follow that.

And it's structured.

And I say it's got lots of nice pictures

in and it's got referrals for supplements

and things like this.

You know what I mean?

So really then you do this and this takes

you into a good night's sleep.

If you follow all these things and you

tick every single one of these tick

boxes, that takes you

into a good night's sleep.

And if you, and if you have the, you

know, if you've got problems with

methylating and you know, and you, so

you, you first of all going to practice,

put the practice in for the habits and

then you're going to look at, you know,

whether you're methylating correctly,

compT genes, MTH, et cetera.

I'm sure you know all this, but the point

is, is you need to, this needs to be

functioning properly for you or you, or

you're not going to be converted and your

brain's going to be lit up.

You know what I mean?

When you're asleep and

we're going to have problems.

So we set that right and

then you get up in the morning.

Then you've got your morning routine.

The first thing that you need when you

wake is to get into a

good place, a good headspace.

You don't need to be stepping, stepping

straight into chaos.

So the first thing that you need to do is

put something that will

establish that into your day.

So the first thing that I usually do is I

don't allow myself to think about how

tired I am or anything else.

That's your prefrontal cortex.

And so basically I

won't allow that in a day.

So I'll just get up and this is where my

routine comes in autopilot straight in.

I turn the shower on, step into it cold.

A lot of people got a lot of, what can I

say, cold plunging was a really big thing

at one time, but a lot of people got a

lot of setbacks through

being in the cold for too long.

It's cold immersion, right?

Get in, get out.

Don't sit in there for minutes.

For five minutes. 30 seconds to a minute

if you're feeling brave.

I think that's

definitely where people go wrong.

And then all of a sudden they've got huge

amounts of cold soul in their system and

no way to break it down effectively.