Hazel is a Nervous System Specialist. She helps high achievers experiencing burnout or chronic illnesses overcome their symptoms by retraining their nervous systems and brains. Hazel was in constant overdrive, working in demanding corporate roles for 20 years that resulted in multiple chronic illnesses. She continued to push through until she came to the realisation

that they were all different manifestations of nervous system burnout. She was able to heal herself and now helps others do the same.

> During our discussion, you’ll discover:

(00:07:25) What caused Hazel’s Chronic Fatigue

(00:10:00) What is the nervous system

(00:14:56) Why do people get sick

(00:23:58) The cell danger response

(00:32:03) What is the limbic system

(00:38:34) Why some people don’t get better

(00:41:55) Vagal nerve stimulators

(00:44:53) Is functional health testing effective for the average person

(00:54:37) Why is a ‘mindset first’ approach so vital for getting healthy

(00:58:13) How to help people who don’t want to get better

(01:08:34) How to start healing your nervous system

(01:12:46) What supplements can help to support the nervous system

(01:16:15) Psychadelics

(01:20:55) Hazel’s favourite nervous system regulating practice

(01:21:40) Trauma Release Exercises

(01:22:32) The biggest myth about chronic fatigue

(01:22:53) 1 book to read for people in this space

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Research Links:

• Hazel Cotton | Instagram
• Restore Your Health | Rebalance With Hazel

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Welcome to the VP Life Podcast, the show

where we bring you actionable health

advice from leading minds.

I'm your host Rob.

My guest today is Hazel Cotton, a nervous

system practitioner who works with people

suffering from chronic unexplained

symptoms such as ME, CFS, fibromyalgia,

long COVID and burnout, conditions that

often fall through the cracks of

conventional medicine.

Expect to learn why chronic illness is

often driven by nervous system

dysregulation rather than structural

damage or misdiagnosis, how chronic

stress, trauma and limbic system

overdrive keep the body stuck in survival

mode and what actually helps people

recover when tests are normal but

symptoms are very real.

Now, on to the

conversation with Hazel Cotton.

Good afternoon Hazel.

Thank you for joining us

on the VP Life Podcast.

I must admit it's great interviewing

someone in the UK for a change.

Don't get me wrong, I love every chance I

get to to speak to the people I do and

that I've looked up for years but when

they're in the States and on the West

Coast that it does get pretty tiring

pretty quickly especially when you're

trying to be cognitively functional at 6

or 7 o'clock at night.

Anyway, you've caught the story.

Before we dive into everything sort of

central nervous system and central

nervous system related today, I'd love to

hear all about it, how you ended up in

the space you're in and how you're

working with the people you are.

We've tiled plenty,

so yeah, go on to all

the detail you like.

It's great to be the Brit

and thank you for having me.

Though I have a history of chronic

illnesses, I had a lot of symptoms

throughout many years, a couple of

decades, starting off with chronic pain

which originated from a shoulder injury

actually, carrying a laptop, nothing

exciting and gradually the pain just

spread and spread and spread and I went

to see so many different people and no

one knew what to do with it.

The pain just kept on spreading.

I saw surgeons and physiotherapists and

all sorts of people and so I was in a lot

of pain for a lot of my late 20s, early

30s and then gradually

it kind of got better.

I actually was seeing a muscle activation

technique guy in New York that somehow

managed to do something with me.

I'd also had some other underlying

symptoms which now I look back were also

warning signs like painful joints in my

hands, noise sensitivity,

constant like tonsillitis ulcers, little

things that you don't really put your

finger on and then I was back in the UK

and I was going to get a

surgery on my shoulder.

Finally I was going to be ready, rearing

to go, ready to do exercise again.

Had this surgery which went perfectly

well, it was just for an impingement, it

wasn't like a big surgery and a week

later my body just crashed, crashed to

the floor and I didn't

know what earth was going on.

I literally couldn't

move, the fatigue was immense.

I developed extreme food sensitivities to

the point where I didn't even

know what I could eat anymore.

It did actually end up running a pattern

of kind of nuts and seafood but there was

lots of other random things so there was

a kind of fear created around food, not

knowing how I was going to react and it

would come on immediately and then I

would be basically just extremely ill,

like an immune

response ill, not digestive.

Then I was gradually getting better for

over three years so I had chronic fatigue

syndrome essentially.

I didn't get formally diagnosed with it.

We'll come on to diagnosis later in terms

of why I am not a massive fan of them in

general but I knew it.

I tried lots of different therapies, lots

of different things, some

of them worked to a degree.

I got myself gradually better.

I still had limitations over what I could

do but I was a lot better.

I could actually like function as a human

being and then 2020, COVID came and I got

COVID and I was no sicker

than your average person.

I mean it wasn't pleasant but it wasn't

debilitating, it wasn't

hospitalized or anything.

It did end up in a ventilator.

Yeah and then just as I thought I was on

my road to recovery, out of the weeds,

crushed down completely again and it was

just like going back in time and the fear

and panic that came over me from

thinking, "Oh my goodness, what if this

is another three years

or whatever of this?"

It wasn't just the fatigue as well.

I actually developed a really bad brain

fog and really bad noise sensitivity and

kind of was prone to overwhelm.

So when my system became overwhelmed

essentially, which could be just doing

anything to be honest, like going into an

environment I didn't like or if I did too

much of anything, which at the beginning

the window of tolerance was very small, I

would just start coming

out in flood of tears.

I wasn't actually upset as such, it was

just like the overwhelm

of the nervous system.

So the only benefit of getting sick twice

was that I knew what to do.

So I went back to all the things I was

trying previously, gradually was getting

better but the symptoms were not

shifting, especially the brain fog and I

was just struggling with this kind of

plateau and trying to just get better.

All the time that I had the symptoms for

like probably like six, seven years, I

knew that there was something not quite

right but I couldn't put my finger on it.

I knew that there must be, I wasn't sick

before so I always had the hope that I

was going to get better, I just hadn't

worked out what it was yet and then I

just came across the nervous system

because it suddenly was in the public

domain, people were suddenly talking

about the nervous system and they weren't

previously and once I found out about the

nervous system it just was like oh my

goodness this makes sense.

So I then left my corporate job, once I'd

learned how to basically heal all my

symptoms and work out how to do it, I

then retrained and I left my corporate

job and I set up my business to now help

other people who are

in similar situations.

It's around awareness of the nervous

system, awareness of what chronic

illnesses really mean, what burnout of

the nervous system really means and

helping people to get better essentially

when there's no help available in our

health system for conditions like this.

Yeah, no that's an amazing story and it

speaks to your ability to push through

which I think, and this is something

we'll come to later, where so many people

just will not only push through but

become self-reliant.

I think so many people just fall victim

to this idea that they should just rely

on their doctor and the NHS or whatever

the equivalent social welfare health

system is that the listener is

whichever country they're in.

Yeah, yeah.

So yeah, no that's remarkable and the

fact that you were able to sort of work

that out is just a sort of a world

testament to I suppose

your ability to push through.

I would love to come back to

some of that stuff in a second.

Something you talked about earlier sort

of really struck home though and that was

it almost started unfold

sort of after the initial op.

Do you think you had a negative reaction

to the anesthesia or anything like that?

No, that's what I initially thought and

what people may think.

I think that what happened was my nervous

system had been dysregulated for years.

It was susceptible to some kind of crash

as we now know, as I now know caused by

chronic extra assets in the body that

therefore weakens the functions within

the body essentially.

And I don't think it had anything to do

with the anaesthetic per se apart from it

was a I guess the operation the

anaesthetic essentially was

maybe a trauma to the body.

It was something that happened to the

body that was out of the norm.

And it just kind of threw it over which

is why when people find themselves in

these situations with chronic illnesses

there's only a number of different routes

that people come in from to get there.

Covid being one.

I don't think that Covid in general is

anything particular apart from it's a

strong virus that throws

systems off that are already weak.

There are some anomalies with Covid in

terms of the organ damage and stuff which

is kind of separate but in terms of the

post viral fatigue element, glandular

fever, other strong viruses,

Covid it's just a strong it could be a

car crash, it could be a significant life

event like a divorce, like a death.

It's something that if your system is I

don't know weeks the wrong way but like

susceptible it can it will push you over

the edge and that's why it people come in

from any number of different life stories

and what's got them there

and it's also cumulative.

So if you've got lots of small things

happening it could be just that final one

that pushes you over.

Most people are when they do end up kind

of crashing as such they probably would

look back and say I was probably quite

stressed at the time or oh yeah I think

of some other things that happened in the

past that maybe had contributed towards

it but it's generally like

retrospectively people can then attribute

what's kind of going on in their life to

then what kind of

happens to them physically.

Fair enough yeah that makes complete

sense and I suppose that's really the

perfect segue to talking about the

nervous system which is what I'd really

like to sort of to maybe dive into now

but before we get into I suppose the the

meat and the potatoes of today's

conversation which is essentially I

suppose how you fix this but at a high

level would you mind walking us through

what the central nervous system is.

Obviously it's composed of two branches

and there's also something there called

the vagus nerve but I feel if we can just

lay out that basic sort of biology and

physiology the rest of the conversation

will just flow just a

little bit more naturally.

So yeah would you mind running us through

how the nervous system works like that's

a little one-on-one as it were.

Yeah so we've got the central nervous

system and the autonomic nervous system

and it's actually the autonomic nervous

system which we pay most attention to

when it comes to dysregulation and the

chronic symptoms that people experience

and there's two putting it simply there's

the two main branches there's the

sympathetic and there's the

parasympathetic and the sympathetic is

what we know is the fight or flight it

what activates when we are in danger if

we're about to cross the road and there's

a lorry coming or if there's a bear in

the woods we would switch on and we

would, you know, symptoms have happened

like fast heart rate well coming palms

and we'd be in like fight or flight mode.

There's also then the parasympathetic

branch which is our rest and digest which

is what we should be in most of the time

it's when we are at rest it's when we're

kind of our heart rate is steady it's

when we're kind of calm and and that's

kind of the two different states that

we're in so you've got the two different

nervous system states which is then the

parasympathetic and the sympathetic and

what a regulated nervous system will do

is it will switch between the two as and

when it's needed it will switch quickly

into one and it will switch

quickly out into the other.

When you are dysregulated when you've

been in a state of chronic stress for a

long time that's when that shift doesn't

happen and you can get stuck in fight or

flight for too long and then if you've

been in that for too long you can then

end up going into shutdown mode

essentially and the vagus nerve which a

lot of people are talking about these

days is so critical it's like the longest

nerve that we have going on in our body

and it determines whether to switch on

the parasympathetic or the sympathetic

branch so it's super important that we

are able to learn how to control as such

our vagus nerve so that we are able to

then effectively switch into the rest and

digest or the fight or flight as we

needed so that's kind

of it in a nutshell.

Now that's perfect now from what I

understand there are a few different

branches of the vagus nerve is that

correct and sort of depending on which

branch you're in that's going to dictate

maybe whether you're more sympathetic or

parasympathetic and now there are various

ways that you can activate the vagus

nerve do you always want the vagus nerve

activated or is that sort of a bit of a

misnomer do you want it to sort of I

suppose vacillate a bit like everything

else in life I assume you don't want this

vagus nerve to be on

all the time as it were.

No it is around activating it when you

need to and when you need to be able to

get yourself into rest and digest more

easily and more quickly there's lots of

exercises that you could do they're

called like vagal toning exercises

essentially which is getting your vagus

nerve to be more toned especially imagine

it's like a muscle that you're using and

it's going to become increasingly used it

will increasingly know how to be able to

switch into the right state that you need

so if you were to do like any vagal

toning exercises I mean there's little

ones like just pulling your ear down and

there's ones where you can kind of follow

your finger around with your eye and

you're looking up to the right there's a

few different ones that you can do you

will generally speaking start yawning or

sighing and that demonstrates that you

are switching into the parasympathetic

because it's therefore putting you into

that rest and digest state so if you are

in a state of like anxiety and feeling

fraught and feeling kind of on edge if

you could do these practices frequently

then it will your system will get used to

kind of being in that rest and digest

state more often rather than just often

being in fight or flight continuously and

that's what you want to learn to do is

shift into the rest and digest at

parasympathetic state

as often as you can.

That's perfect thank you for breaking

that all down now I get to talk to a fair

number of experts on this podcast and the

one question I tend to ask them most of

them actually is why they feel people get

sick it's well or maybe are unwell it's

largely a selfish question I'll be honest

however it does fascinate me because so

many of these experts and they are

experts again tend to actually get people

well you're always sort of hear about how

so and so whoever has this program or has

this methodology that really works for a

lot of people now not all the time of

course because there is this idea this

biochemical individuality and but it does

pose an interesting notion and that being

that there are many sorts of ways to

optimal health anyway that will be a

rabbit hole probably for another podcast

something we could spend all day

discussing but in your view I suppose why

do we get as a society these these

chronic health conditions I know you sort

of touched on a bit already but maybe we

can dive just a bit deeper into that

it's such an interesting question I don't

think there's any catholic answer out

there I think there's lots of suggestions

and ideas that it could could be and

there isn't enough research at the moment

happening in this in this place because

most research is funded by farmer

companies and a lot of this is not going

to be giving towards profit or a quick

fix pill so I don't think there's any

hard and fast pure data on it there's an

element of genetics of which there is

research going on at the moment but it

seems that this is probably a smaller

part to play than people used to think a

lot of it comes down to the way you were

raised and your childhood experiences why

is it that some people are more

susceptible to stress and why is it that

others people could have parallel jobs or

parallel situations happening at work for

example why is it that some people get

stressed and some people don't there's

quite a lot of research that's happened

that does relate back to how you

experienced things as a child so if we

think of ACE which is the adverse

childhood experiences things that happen

to you when you were young like neglect

or abuse a lot of people when they grow

older they have chronic illnesses they

have addictions they have challenging

lives so that's fairly well known to a

degree especially around some of the

addictions and behavioral issues maybe

less so around chronic illnesses although

it's becoming more well known so that's

kind of a trauma element of too much

that's happened to you too soon too much

that you your nervous system was able to

help with at a time that's affected how

your brain has developed that means that

you are more susceptible to stressful

events essentially but there's also the

trauma which is much less talked about

which is too little too often and that is

around not having sufficient

co-regulation when you are a child and

this can come through no malintent from

the the parents it's part of the way that

some of our generations have been brought

up which is not to I guess give emotional

support it's the fact that people don't

really know how to do it some of our

parents didn't have the tools that they

needed to be able to give the emotional

support that the child needed to enable

their nervous system to become resilient

because what the nervous system really

needs in a nutshell is to feel safe it

needs to feel safe and if it feels safe

then it will be regulated and it will

everything will work as it should do but

if it feels unsafe which could be that

something bad happened but it could be

that it just didn't get enough care and

attention that seems to be a very common

pattern for people who have chronic

illnesses there's a huge correlation

between personality traits and chronic

illnesses perfectionism highly analytical

high achievers very very driven what's

that like ring and any

and if you if you then think back to when

you were a child and how these behaviors

develop of course some of it is

gymnastics to a degree but most of these

things are learned behaviors and we learn

our behaviors from how our parents were

with us or how other adults around us

were what our schooling experiences were

and so we therefore start to drive and

push ourselves so if we're constantly

trying to overachieve or push through and

put that drive we're creating that stress

ongoing stress in our body which over

time gradually just builds up and that's

why often you won't see the repercussions

of it until much later in life because

you've had an accumulation of small

stresses that are personality driven and

then you've got events that happen and

they just kind of accumulate and that

seems to be a lot of reasons as to from

my experience and from the research we've

seen is to why certain people get sick

and why certain people don't get sick

yeah that's thank you for that that's a

perfect answer I would probably push back

on the genetic piece I think I think

everything is genetics oh I'm almost sure

everything is genetics at the end of the

day when somebody has a genetic

predisposition to a

certain nervous system stance

then or not stance what's the correct

word state there we go then by default

that is going to upregulate all the

disease processes that we've that we've

talked about then we're going to talk

about I think if somebody is far if

somebody is more predispositioned to

creating more of these catecholamines

these stress hormones that then trickle

down and affect the immune system and

then sort of develop these th17 responses

and th2 responses and all the big words

nobody cares about then by default that

is going to result in a certain

individual if they have a sort of a less

than ideal quote unquote genetic makeup

being more susceptible to these sorts of

issues to begin with I mean you there are

plenty of sort of anecdotal and case

studies and reports where

you have siblings in the same environment

grow up one goes on to thrive and the

other one doesn't now if it if there

isn't if the environment's the same yet

the outcome is different then there has

to be something within that individual

that is contributing to whether or not

they succeed versus fail putting it very

black and white and fundamentally I think

that comes down to genetic differences

now of course that isn't all of it and we

discussed off air about this idea of

terrain and germ theory as well germ

theory suggests that germs are what we

need to worry about sorry and we need to

keep finding ways I suppose just to keep

on killing them off whereas terrain

theory sort of posits or argues that the

idea that if the body is well balanced

then germs I suppose are a natural part

of life and the environment will be dealt

with by the body without it causing

distress I mean this speaks a lot to some

of the stuff we've talked about or fair

about the toxic load on the body do you

think having a high toxic load is going

to contribute towards this sort of this

autonomia in general

yes I think it's a huge contributory

factor because the stress that you're

putting on the body regardless of what

aspect it is whether it's to do with the

toxic load it's to do with the

environment it's to do with your makeup

all of those things elements are

definitely going to be contributing

towards your ability to withstand

stressful events as as you evolve because

they impact all the different functions

of the body you know the liver function

you bla... go on a bit but they affect

all the different functions of your body

so toxic load is yeah I

think hugely important here

yeah I think ultimately what this all

sort of speaks to in my view again when

you sort of peel away the layers of it is

mitochondrial dysfunction the cell

dangerous one something I know we've

talked about a lot a fair amount and so

the way I view it all of this sort of

central nervous system dysfunction

ultimately drives what is I feel is the

central sort of unifying theory to what

disease fundamentally is and that is the

so-called cell danger response now I've

hopped on about this before but

essentially the CDR the cell danger

response is how our cells react when they

are threatened and in CDR they will shift

into a state of defense and that can be

triggered by any threat whether it's an

infection a toxin an injury speaking of

injuries potentially shoulder injury even

or psychological stress and instead of

focusing on growth and repair

the cell then changes its priorities

essentially working towards survival this

then affects all the other systems in the

body especially the immune system as

there simply just isn't enough energy for

the the body to function properly I'll

not get too much into the weeds here but

I suppose at the heart of the sort of CDR

model are the are mitochondria normally

which as we all know are work to act like

sort of cellular power plants making

energy in the form of ATP but when they

enter into this sort of cell danger

response a cell or response they

deliberately become less efficient it

makes complete sense if if the body's

under a threat under attack they're going

to down regulate to conserve energy it's

sort of it's a nice sort of evolutionary

way of looking at it

now it's yeah and they cut back on energy

production essentially what they also do

is they actually release ATP

extracellularly so outside of the cell

it's called strangely enough

extracellular ATP and this fuel outside

of the cell is actually then seen by the

immune system uh as a a danger signal

essentially um it's why I'm not a fan of

people just taking NAD supplements

willy-nilly because the more uh NAD

supplements you're taking the more ATP

you are producing but potentially if

you're an inflamed state you are going to

produce ATP that's then going to leak out

of the cell or out of the mitochondria

and create uh all of these issues that's

getting into electron leak and electron

electron and proton gradients and I

should stop there before everybody turns

off I suppose but yeah anyway just to

sort of run through the the CDR stages

quickly you have three of them uh it was

uh put together by a Dr.

Robert Navio who's the hero of mine

obviously and in CDR1 fundamentally what

happens is that the cell senses a threat

um mitochondrial mitochondria leak these

electrons like I said uh talked about

earlier they start to make more reactive

oxygen species which then create

inflammation and oxidase stress terms I'm

sure we're all familiar with and then

there's a shift into how the body

utilizes different types of energy

sources the mitochondria sort of shift

into this state of glycolysis where

they're not utilizing fatty acids to

reduce fuel they're using um sugars and

that's a good and a bad thing but

fundamentally you are limiting the

capacity of the mitochondria to produce

enough energy um now in theory what would

happen is um once the body has sort of

seen a threat it's sort of gone into CDR1

it will then sort of slowly transition

into CDR2 which is thought to be the

repair stage and and once the threat is

controlled I suppose the focus of the of

the cell excuse me is to shift into sort

of a rebuilding state um the mitochondria

slowly start to work again and they start

to help produce various proteins and

lipids or fats and what are called

nucleotides all of which are essentially

cellular building blocks and um you then

are able to start slowly rebuilding the

cell and then finally you have this sort

of transition into CDR3 which happens

when the cell I suppose sort of is

colloquially put it sort of reintegrates

into the network or the matrix and that

means sort of your metabolism comes back

online hormones start to be produced

properly um and you are able to then

effectively start utilizing

the mitochondria as they are supposed to

work um the challenge comes in when an

individual gets stuck in the sort of CDR1

or CDR2 states uh and they just the

individual at question just is not able

to function optimally because of this

sort of impaired energy balance this

these energy dynamics within the cell now

coming full circle if you buy into the

sort of mitochondrial theory of disease

which evidently I do um then you'll agree

that there are are likely a few triggers

here um central nervous system

dysfunction dysautonomia stress in this

context obviously being a major driver um

now there's a lot to obviously be to be

said upstream of that in terms of that

that limbic system dysfunction that I

know you're all too familiar with um but

before we dive into that rubital I

suppose I'd like to get maybe your

perspective on this and your thoughts uh

on whether or not this is ultimately sort

of mitochondrial dysfunction that is this

triggered by um well in this case stress

of some sort to another or if uh yeah

what do you think of that idea as a whole

I think if we consider how impactful the

nervous system is or the autonomic

nervous system is in terms of in um if we

think about how influential the nervous

system is on determining our overall

health then it makes sense and stands to

reason that actually it's our environment

that's influencing our nervous system

that's then creating this dysfunction

that's happening within the cells so my

view is that of course there is

dysfunction happening in the body but if

we can externally start to regulate our

nervous system then that will in turn

start to increase the overall function

that's happening in the body gradually

which is why I work with the nervous

system with the limbic system influencing

how they behave which then in turn will

then start to influence how the functions

and cells are working and mitochondria is

working in the body that is how I

perceive it which is why sometimes when

especially when after I had covid and I

was reading all these millions of reports

getting obsessed into rabbit holes of

looking for the magic fix to fix all of

these different things that weren't

working properly in the body that was

causing all these issues and why

generally speaking that doesn't help

people is because you need to take it

back up a level and go what's actually

causing this more broadly if you then

start to actually work on your nervous

system and your brain then that will then

in turn influence all of the different

functions that are

happening beneath that.

Fair enough and then I suppose I've

mentioned this term and so have you.

There's this idea of a lot of this being

controlled by the limbic system.

Now we sort of we've talked about the

sympathetic and the parasympathetic and

the vagus nerve but within the brain

specifically there's this area called the

limbic system, the limbic region of the

brain which controls a

lot of these processes.

Could you maybe break down what the

limbic system is and then how

dysregulation in that specific brain area

seems to then drive this these issues

with the amygdala and this stress

response that just seems to be ultimately

creating so much of this dysfunction.

Yes so as you mentioned we've got the

limbic system there's a couple of core

components within that.

We've got the amygdala which is our

stress alert which then informs a

hypothalamus like how to also then

respond which then triggers the hpa axis

which then releases the stress hormones

so it's got that kind of layered response

as to how the limbic system operates in a

stressful environment but it's getting

its information from the nervous system

so that's why when I work with people I

work with them on how they are feeling

and functioning in their body in relation

to how they're breathing, how they're

thinking, how they are standing, their

posture, their emotions, all of these

different aspects are informing the brain

as to whether there's danger essentially.

So if our nervous system has symptoms or

I guess behaviors which are indicating

that there is danger around like for

example I could be sitting like this, I

could be breathing really fast, I could

be thinking oh my god the world is

ending, the world is ending, oh my

goodness all these things I think the

brain's like oh my goodness there's

something going wrong here we need to

switch on this stress, this danger.

So therefore if you are presenting in a

way that represents stress or danger the

brain therefore thinks there's danger and

therefore it triggers the response and

therefore your body is

flooded with stress hormones.

Now if there is danger and you just see

you're out to like have a car curtling

towards you then there would be danger

and then you would need to have all of

those mechanisms happening and then it

would be great to have cortisol and

adrenaline to like get you out the way

and all of those things but if when it

happens with people with chronic stress

they get themselves in this pattern that

they don't even know that they're in

until you actually create an awareness

around it and I can guarantee that anyone

who has got chronic symptoms, chronic

stress, they will be doing some of those

things probably all of the

time even without knowing it.

They'll be sitting like this or they'll

be hunched like that or their breathing

will be really shallow from their chest

or they'll just be thinking negative

thoughts or just being like thinking in

an emotional way that's not conducive to

positivity which is how much our thoughts

can kind of power and empower like how

we're thinking and things so that's why

it's so critical that we work on both the

brain and the body together because they

both feed each other and that's my view

on how they work and how you then can

start to improve your symptoms is by

working on how you are responding as a

person, how you're being and then over

time your brain will start to switch out

of thinking that it needs

to be on alert all the time.

You'll stop being in fight or flight mode

all the time, you'll just start to

gradually relax and as your nervous

system just relaxes as you relax over

time suddenly your symptoms disappear and

you'll notice most people notice that

their symptoms are worse when they're

stressed and then people maybe go on

holiday for a week or they are off

selling themselves somewhere where they

don't have to think about what they're

doing oh suddenly they feel so much

better and then they go back into the

environment that made them sick in the

first place and suddenly the symptoms

have come on and if that isn't a really

strong indicator that your environment

and how you are being is influencing your

health and your symptoms then you know

it's it's just there it's it's it's clear

clear to see and everyone who I speak to

once they actually create the awareness

they start to notice it it's just that

when people have been sick for a long

time they start to focus in on their

symptoms and they almost become like

buried and embroiled in like the misery

of it and counting what symptom is coming

next and oh I can feel this and I can

feel this and what's this oh my god

what's going on so there's this worry

there's this fear there's this resentment

and self-fulfilling prophecy of that is

just feeding your brain with there's

danger there's fear let's keep let's keep

everyone in alert let's keep you in fight

or flight so it's just this ongoing cycle

that people don't know that they're in

but once you do and you're open to it and

not just expecting some magical pill from

somewhere if you're open to it suddenly

people are like oh my goodness and that's

when you can start to impact change on

yourself by actually then taking action

according to how you are

operating as an individual

so fundamentally what you're saying is

win the lotto and go and

live on a spanish island

pretty much yeah yeah although you'd have

to be careful you don't take your brain

your misery brain with you you'd have to

actually embrace it because what some

people could do when they go and live on

their spanish island is still start

complaining that it's too hot that it's

it's uh i don't know

at that point i'd to be completely blunt

i might just say you

deserve to be sick um yeah

you know some people will find that you

know the glass half full or the rain

perspective some people will find

problems with everything and they're not

willing to like make a change they could

go to the nicest place but they're still

like you know looking for the worst case

scenario everywhere and

they're the people who will

struggle the most yeah no i do think

carol deweck's book their uh mindset the

sort of the growth versus fixed mindset

is probably almost required reading when

trying to work through something like

this you sort of got to flip that

perspective on what's real what isn't um

and that you you fundamentally can heal

um even if it is difficult i mean this

obviously isn't a walk in the park but i

think well as you've just alluded to um

if you sort of maintain that mindset

around everything constant being terrible

all the time it's just going to sort of

reinforce that sort of negative feedback

loop and you're not going to get out of

it and i personally and sort of

observationally i think that's the

hardest part i think trying to sort of

convince yourself that it is going to be

okay and that you can heal and then be

consistent in that thought process that's

the trick i think personally um maybe

it's just because i'm soft in the head i

don't know but trying to maintain that um

uh yeah that's that sort of that that

that thought process and are constantly

constantly even when you are

struggling is really tricky

it is the most difficult thing and that's

why healing takes a long time and why

some people don't get better and because

it's not something that happens just

overnight you've got to have such

perseverance to keep on going when you're

not seeing those results immediately and

it is just the small things that you keep

on doing that will eventually make that

change and the other reason it's so

difficult is because you are essentially

having to make changes within your

personality potentially your way of doing

things the way you've been doing

something for decades that's difficult

and not everybody is able or willing to

do it but if you really want to get

better and just think well what got me

here is not hopeful i'm going to have to

make a change if i actually want to get

better and once you start becoming

observational about your thoughts

patterns behaviors and what's driving it

and why you're like that suddenly you can

be like okay maybe that's not as helpful

as i thought it was but it's totally what

you said about the mindset of growth

versus fixed if you've got a fixed

mindset like i speak to people all the

time who've got this fixed mindset who

won't get better because they're still

just buried buried over there somewhere

and they're not changing and they're not

open to it but there's the people who are

ready willing trying and they will get

better if they can just keep it on

consistent but it's about having it's

helpful to have like accountability

partners or people you're doing it with

to keep you motivated because it is it's

difficult and it takes a long time but

you can get there with perseverance

yeah and that's something i know we'll be

talking about later when we sort of touch

on your program um what do you think

about vagus vagal vagal nerve stimulators

um these sort of contraptions that um

sort of almost force and maybe that is

the dichotomy there um the body into uh

is that the right word things so into a

sort of parasympathetic state do you do

you think that they are effective have

you seen any um any case reports among

your community to show that they are

helpful or are they

kind of been hit and miss i

think that would be the term i would use

hit and miss i think they help some

people but they don't help other people i

tried two of them and they did not help

me um that could just be me but i do know

some people who've tried them and they

found it very relaxing and the more that

you can be relaxed the better that's

going to be for your overall health i

know some people have been overstimulated

by them and it's actually caused their

systems to crash um if you're very

sensitive so to be honest i'm totally

almost indifferent to them if they are

helpful to you give it a go but if

they're not then don't it's that kind of

one size does not fit all approach again

i mean it again it's that kind of magic

fix isn't that a quick fix if i just buy

this contraption i'll magically get

better and the other thing is that

although it may help with switching you

into your parasympathetic which is always

going to be helpful it's not it's only

one component of it it's not going to

change your patterns and behaviors so it

could well be seen as more of a temporary

fix who knows but you need to also be

looking at the bigger picture it feels

like even if it does work for you it's

still one component of multiple

components in terms

of fully getting better

yeah i like to view them um as sort of

aids so i think they can be helpful in uh

in the same way that yeah maybe a sleep

aid is effectively helping somebody to

sleep that doesn't mean that you should

just take a sleeping pill to get to sleep

every night but if you are struggling to

sleep and you have poor sleep habits you

can take the sleeping pill to support the

sleep while you are improving the habits

and i think the same thing is true of

these vagal nerve stimulators i think

that they can get the body into a

parasympathetic state which then helps

the individual maybe hopefully feel a

little better and in that during that

window of opportunity i think they it

provides somebody with the ability to

then sort of uh reinforce the the

baseline behaviors that need to be there

in order to to sort of maintain it with a

without the device and then also to sort

of heal independently of it um

okay that's a good analogy yeah

so yeah that's the way i'd like to view

them anyway um uh hey so i'd like to

close up this section of the convo but

before we get there what do you think

about testing again something we've

talked or fair about a fair amount um now

in the functional medicine space it's

kind of blown up and wherever you go

somebody is testing something whether

it's the gut your hormone levels heavy

metals whatever and and truthfully i

think it can be useful um in in the right

context when the order of operations is

maybe looked at a bit more closely um but

i do think that just testing for the sake

of testing is oftentimes not helpful um

i don't think i'm going to get any

endorsement from genova diagnostics for

that statement however um what do you

think about testing especially in this

sort of functional medicine space and for

people who are going through these

complex health issues do you think it's

effective or not ready

yes and no sometimes it will just provide

you with a lot of information and which

is overwhelming the question is does the

practitioner who you're working with know

how to resolve those issues if for

example there are heavy metals in your

body and there's a way to dispel them

then detoxification for example that's

probably going to be helpful for somebody

but a lot of the time you get all these

results there's really not a an obvious

answer for them to be quite frank if we

go back to again the functions of the

body we talk about the mitochondria it

will come back down to your nervous

system and your brain so the reason that

a lot of these tests might show that

you've got malfunctions going on is

because of that so if you work on the

bigger picture you'll find that these

functions gradually start to to improve i

went down the functional medicine medical

route um when i was sick with covid i was

put on all these different supplements

and i was you know given all these

different tests sebo all these different

things but essentially i'm not sure that

it got me anywhere because essentially

what i needed to do was learn about the

nervous system because that was the the

crux of it so you can spend thousands on

different tests i think it depends what

test you're getting who you're working

with and can they help you to do that i

mean i know you mentioned specifically

functional functional medicine but for me

if we go to the our GP and not the

standardized testing that's done that's

where i think people can fall into a huge

well of going nowhere because doctors

will send you for all of these different

tests because they don't really have

anything else to do and then they'll just

generally come back that you're totally

fine and so then the patient is then just

left with not well they had hope and now

they've got no hope so then they'll be

sent for more tests and more scans and

people can just get in this cycle of

wanting more and more and more tests

because they're like but what if it fine

what if i find this and what if it shows

this you know looking for that magical

little cure again that magical little

thing that will suddenly explain

everything so i think that whichever

route you're going down with testing you

just have to be really careful that you

just don't go down a rabbit hole when

there's no solution because unless

there's a solution for the

test result that you're getting

it's not really adding a lot of value and

it also can just create more worry and

keep you more stuck and keep you in fear

like it's just not particularly helpful

yeah uh i might push back on that

slightly i i think testing it can be

effective uh taking everything to account

you said working with a practitioner who

has an idea of what they're doing i i

think if you just go to your gp

especially when it's on the nhs for

example um not to sort of throw them

under the bus but they sort of work off

this sort of of model uh that's that's

given to them so they work off guidance

and if somebody uh presents with a

certain set of symptoms they are then

told which tests that they can run for

that individual um a classic example

being a thyroid test if you're lucky

you'll get a tsh and a t4 um for most

people that's not enough um you need a

tsh a total t4 total t3 etc you and then

and even then that just shows that

there's a problem with thyroid with

thyroid physiology with thyroid um

function it doesn't highlight why the

thyroid is wrong so that indicates to me

well that suggests to me that it's it's

not the testing that's the problem it's

the sort of the whole sort of system

around the testing that's at fault and

then you go down the route calls rabbit

hole um which is fundamentally what

functional medicine is and is supposed to

be about and that should work the problem

there being in my opinion is that

functional medicine isn't necessarily yet

standardized so instead of having an idea

of what should be tested and when um

every practitioner has their own sort of

flavor of functional medicine and

consequently you will go to somebody for

potentially for whatever let's and most

people end up with a functional medicine

physician 90 of the time because there's

some sort of overlying fatigue um so

consequently you will go to a

practitioner and they will they'll maybe

they'll test the gut or heavy metals or

hormones um and it's very very tricky to

then sort of start putting this together

without spending a huge amount of money

and then being able to actually identify

which one of these many tests is

fundamentally highlighting the actual

problem because you have a gut issue you

have heavy metals issue uh but for most

people a gut issue could be the result of

the heavy metals because something like a

candida infection can feed off heavy

metals or consequently if you have high

iron you can also have a candida

overgrowth because candida feeds off

excess iron so is that now a gut issue is

that an issue with iron metabolism is

that an issue with not enough copper okay

so let's run i'm going on a rant here a

metabolomics profile to sort of look at

all our nutrients um but then following

on from that oh wait a minute we've got

issues with b9 and b2 so it has to be a

genetic issue which probably is but

that's another kettle of fish so i think

testing is is great and i think

fundamentally that it that it works but

you have to have a very savvy

practitioner and i think in this whole

field we need more standardization which

is why i'm personally sort of a proponent

of this sort of terrain theory as a

starting point and the nervous system

regulation work that you do as a starting

point because it clears the baseline by

default and when you have this when you

have a body that is as free from toxins

and is free from stress and is as

nourished as it can be then what you can

do is you can start layering testing to

potentially find out what's still missing

but sort of starting with this well let's

just test everything let's throw the

kitchen sink at it and then start sort of

just pulling strings hoping that one of

them will uh help an individual feel

better help them sort of get symptom

relief i think that is it's just there's

no reason rhyme or logic to it and i

think that's where people really do get

uh stuck and caught up and then they sort

of feed into this sort of cycle of oh the

test says ergo i am and and anyway um

that what you've explained is why i don't

always advocate going and going down the

testing route for exactly all those

reasons like if you have the an amazing

practitioner and you've got loads of

money and you can run all the tests you

need and you kind of know how to resolve

from those different tasks then awesome

but that's such a small like percentage

of getting all those pieces in the puzzle

for the vast majority of people it's just

not as effective um yeah and as you say

it's it's unregulated it's all private um

it's it's just a my a minefield for

people to kind of get embroiled in and

you can just as you say get all these

different results and then still not

really know like what to

do about it so theoretically

great but in practice it

can be yeah challenging

yeah i think so and uh yeah it's great in

that it paints if you can do it it paints

this beautiful picture but then you again

uh at the risk of uh sounding like a

crack record uh you've got to have

somebody who can interpret this data and

um i think that's yeah and when you have

labs that are private and they aren't

sort of taught in a medical curriculum it

gets complicated anyway um i'm gonna give

my soapbox now because i would like to

get back to the nervous system um anyway

we've i suppose gone around in circles

which is likely my fault um but could you

share your i suppose overarching

philosophy with us with regards to why a

mindset first approach is so vital for

helping people to start feeling better i

know we sort of already covered this but

i'd i'd like it if we could maybe dig a

little deeper into that i mean we've

we've discussed why the biology behind

the mindset but i think if we could maybe

uh yeah talk a bit more about it from

this sort of glass half-full approach

that would be helpful for people and then

i'd love to jump into your process a

little later but if we could just be able

to start there i

think that would be great

so mindset is incredibly important for

healing recovery because it enables you

to think forward and not be stuck in the

past you need to believe that you can get

better because you're feeding your brain

with that information that you can get

better instead of the kind of the

negative cycle that you you can't so

fundamentally you need to have the

mindset element you also then can play

into like the visualization aspect of it

of visualizing um how your future can be

and how well you can be so thinking in a

positive mindset in terms of how your

future life could look like because the

brain doesn't really know the difference

in reality and visualization so the more

that you can feed it with that

information the more it's going to

receive that and then the neuroplasticity

element will happen having said that

getting well is not just about positive

thinking if it was just that simple then

we'd all be fine well not everybody

because some people will never be able to

get in that zone but it's not just about

positive thinking if i go back 10 years i

read all these books on the mind-body

connection which was essentially as i

read it was think yourself better and if

you're not getting better then it's your

fault because you're not thinking

positively enough and it's just not that

simple there is the bit i mentioned about

mindset having that growth mindset

believe you get better it's super

important but neuroplasticity retraining

the neural pathways in your in your brain

retraining how your nervous system

responds to stress they are fundamental

components to getting well you need all

of those things and before i work with

anybody i have to know that they will

learn to be able to think that they can

get well and i said that in that kind of

convoluted way because sometimes when i

speak to people and they're quite sick

they they just they're struggling to be

able to get themselves in that mindset

but they are open to it so you need to be

open to the possibility that you can

definitely get well and as you progress

you that will be reinforced because

you'll be like i i can feel i'm getting a

bit better okay i now have hope i know i

can get well so you have to be open to

the possibility that you can get well and

if you're not open to it and you're stuck

in that rut and you're not going to be

willing to move forward i don't work with

those people because they're not going to

they're just not going to benefit from

from the the nervous system

mindset kind of work essentially

hazel i i couldn't agree more again i

think mindset is completely critical and

it's important that's required how do you

work with people who have developed an

identity around their disease their

disorder um i know we were talking about

this again um previously where we sort of

noted that people will often create

literal identities around this disease

they have their instagram profiles of

facebook profiles will be littered with

fibro warrior or whatever is sort of

whatever struggle they're going through

um do you actually work with these sorts

of people at all how do you sort of take

someone who has sort of created this

sickness identity and then i suppose get

them back into a state of being of not

identifying with their illness

i haven't worked with anybody who's

actually got it put all over their

facebook profile i've worked with people

who are quite consumed with their illness

and that's quite common and quite natural

to be like that i don't know from my

experience of interacting with people who

do have the labels whether they're the

people who would be open to recovery it

feels like they've almost become

ingrained in this identity they i'm not

saying that they enjoy being there but

there's something about being stuck there

that makes them feel like they want to be

stuck there maybe there's an element of

safety around it i imagine they must have

probably some kind of fixed mindset to

actually be okay with putting that label

on making sure everybody knows that

they've got that label and from

experience they haven't been super open

to the idea that you can get well i think

that people who've been ill for quite a

long time and i'm going to say in the UK

but i think it's the same in the u.s as

well in terms of the the associations

that envelop around these conditions so

we're talking about the ME association,

the long cover association, the fabriero

association they've got a lot to answer

for to be honest because their websites

will tell you that there's no cure and

there's no solution and there's no

nothing so if you're the type of person

who believes these the doctors because

they you know they have professors they

have all these experts who kind of

support these associations and they they

tell you that so if you're the type of

person who who believes that and believe

the doctor's always right and believes

that there's no no way of getting better

then that's what you will always believe

if you're not willing to question it and

actually if i have a i'm getting trolled

trolled on anything that i put out there

um on long covid or fibromyalgia the

abuse i get is quite insane and that i'm

selling snake oil and actually conning

people because it's people will tell me

it's fundamentally impossible to get

better from fibromyalgia it's

fundamentally impossible to get better

from cfs because this doctor told me or i

read it over here or this person and or

they or they use themselves an example i

know it's impossible to get better

because i haven't got better and it's

that mentality that i've well it's not

that i wouldn't work with them i wouldn't

work with them they wouldn't work with me

because they think i'm talking absolute

nonsense but i struggle with the mindset

of people who are not open to it because

i was always believed that there was a

route to get better always i just hadn't

found it yet and to be of the mindset

where you would rather have all this pain

have all this fatigue have this terrible

terrible life that they keep telling you

about their terrible terrible life you

still would rather stick there waiting

for something magical to happen the

emitia so the association just suddenly

turned around and go sorry we got it all

wrong yes you can get better if they ever

did turn around and did that there would

be a huge shift in like people being able

to get better but until that happens um

you're going to keep having these

warriors and keep having these people who

these identities are consumed by chronic

illness you know kind of a comfort

blanket in some some ways i think you

know but it's not something

i personally can relate to

yeah no i i think you touched on a lot of

points and i think i think for what is

worth fundamentally that people get

wrapped up in these ideologies in their

belief systems because as you said

they're safe and i think um there's also

community there there are other people

who share these same belief systems and

as a result of that if you can then

identify as being part of this community

you now have other

people in your life to make

it distracting from the misery but the

community element is super important but

it is it's that safety net isn't it

yeah and it just feeds into another

ideology i mean uh people will get uh the

dietary the dietary tribes that sort of

develop are the same way aren't they

people will sort of literally tear you

apart if you dare sort of question their

carnivore or vegan diet irrespective of

whether it's helping that person or not

or irrespective and it just comes down to

these sort of these tribal belief

patterns that people pick up and again

it's it's i don't think it's got anything

to do with the diet it's got to do with a

belief system or yeah that makes them

feel safe that makes them again feel part

of this community and that's i think

incredibly powerful and nobody

fundamentally wants to be alone and when

you are not well you are for the most

part alone and that is an incredibly

unpleasant place to be so um and i and i

think i think that's maybe the silver

lining of covid and in that it's brought

a lot more awareness to these sorts of

issues broadly speaking um i mean

fundamentally what covid long covid is

sort of all things uh sort of removed in

terms of whether it's active reactivated

ebbv or whatever um it's essentially this

sort of me cfs stuff and i think that um

this awareness that's now growing as a

result of that is definitely going to do

the whole community a lot of good now

that has to sort of evolve past this

again fixed mindset of the me association

says it's not curable unless someone

happens to develop a drug that is going

to sort of solve that problem um but yeah

no i think fundamentally that's the issue

that most people have is just this sort

of this isolation and this need for

community around it and i'm being verbose

again so i'm going to stop talking but

your world becomes a lot smaller and

you're you're basically living through

the internet and we know that the

internet can be a very negative and

dangerous place and actually my biggest

bug bear with people who are chronically

ill so if somebody who say who's got had

cfs or me and they get better there will

be a group of people who say you didn't

have it in the first place because it's

not possible to get back better from it

so what i have or what you had are not

the same thing that like dismissive

accusatory behavior i find difficult to

get my head around you know putting down

other people's experiences because they

were able to actually get themselves

better dismissing

somebody else's experiences

it's just disappointment isn't it it's

almost it's just it's a envy you don't

want to acknowledge that somebody else

has been able to achieve what you've not

been able to choose yourself and i think

that it's very hard to celebrate somebody

else's win when you are still sort of

just trying to get past the start line so

i think that just comes

down to a certain level of risk

again it's the fixed mindset because you

could be of the view how did you get

better you managed to get better please

help me how did you do it you could be a

fat or you could be

like well you weren't a

human condition though isn't it it's hard

to not feel that resentment and it's and

and and if you if you feel resentment by

default it's very hard to then actually

ask someone how they achieve something

it's much easier just to sort of throw

them their anecdotal success under the

bus and say well you didn't have it as

bad as me you didn't

have it at all whatever

competition going on with who's the worst

who's got the worst symptoms who's had it