145: What Grounding Taught Dr. Rachel Brown About Balancing the Nervous System for Better Mental Health

Meredith Oke: 00:06:00

Welcome to the QVC podcast.

Rachel Brown: 00:06:03

Oh, thank you for having me. I've been looking

Rachel Brown: 00:06:05

forward to this.

Meredith Oke: 00:06:07

So have I. I've been so excited ever since you

Meredith Oke: 00:06:09

came through the certification at the Institute

Meredith Oke: 00:06:12

of Applied Quantum Biology. I'm like, will you do

Meredith Oke: 00:06:14

a podcast? You're like, just give me a minute to

Meredith Oke: 00:06:16

integrate. So I'm. I'm glad we're finally able to

Meredith Oke: 00:06:20

do it. So I love your story and I want to. I want

Meredith Oke: 00:06:26

to start there. You are a traditionally

Meredith Oke: 00:06:29

allopathically trained psychiatrist in the uk.

Meredith Oke: 00:06:32

You work for the nhs, which is like the

Meredith Oke: 00:06:35

equivalent of working for a big hospital system

Meredith Oke: 00:06:37

in the United States. If people are looking for,

Meredith Oke: 00:06:40

you know, to understand what that means, it's

Meredith Oke: 00:06:42

like a big bureaucratic medical institution that

Meredith Oke: 00:06:48

drives everything in your country. And you have

Meredith Oke: 00:06:52

went through that system, worked in it for

Meredith Oke: 00:06:54

decades, and have now come to a place where you

Meredith Oke: 00:06:57

were able to introduce a metabolic connection

Meredith Oke: 00:07:01

between mental health and with mental health. So

Meredith Oke: 00:07:07

tell us about that journey, because that's pretty

Meredith Oke: 00:07:09

amazing. Last I checked, psychiatrists were like,

Meredith Oke: 00:07:12

metabolic health has nothing to do with it. And

Meredith Oke: 00:07:15

here you are, Here you are changing the landscape.

Rachel Brown: 00:07:20

Yeah, well, I mean, hopefully the field is

Rachel Brown: 00:07:22

developing because there's research going on

Rachel Brown: 00:07:24

worldwide now. But I have felt fairly on my own,

Rachel Brown: 00:07:27

certainly within the UK. I've been working in

Rachel Brown: 00:07:30

psychiatry since 2004, went through standard

Rachel Brown: 00:07:34

medical training and for many years, like, the

Rachel Brown: 00:07:38

main tools I had in my toolkit were medications

Rachel Brown: 00:07:41

and then referring people on for therapy or other

Rachel Brown: 00:07:45

disciplines to get involved. Um, but in 2021, I

Rachel Brown: 00:07:49

trained with Dr. Georgia Ead on the use of

Rachel Brown: 00:07:51

ketogenic metabolic therapy for major mental

Rachel Brown: 00:07:54

disorders. And then, gosh, I can't even remember

Rachel Brown: 00:07:58

when it was. But a couple of years ago, I

Rachel Brown: 00:08:01

published a book just on the topic, aimed at just

Rachel Brown: 00:08:06

introducing the subject to the everyday person.

Rachel Brown: 00:08:08

It was just everything I wanted to say, really,

Rachel Brown: 00:08:10

about other ways of improving mental health that

Rachel Brown: 00:08:13

don't necessarily involve using drug treatments.

Rachel Brown: 00:08:16

And in the last 18 months to two years, I've

Rachel Brown: 00:08:20

started the first metabolic psychiatry clinic

Rachel Brown: 00:08:23

within the nhs. So it's the only one that I'm

Rachel Brown: 00:08:25

aware of in the uk. So that's been a really

Rachel Brown: 00:08:27

exciting piece of work to do. And I've also been

Rachel Brown: 00:08:30

involved in some of the research that's been

Rachel Brown: 00:08:32

happening locally in Edinburgh, where I'm based,

Rachel Brown: 00:08:36

looking at ketogenic metabolic therapy for major

Rachel Brown: 00:08:39

mental disorder.

Meredith Oke: 00:08:40

That's so exciting. So tell us how you define

Meredith Oke: 00:08:46

metabolic health. And just for our audience, who

Meredith Oke: 00:08:48

is obviously so deep into the quantum health, I

Meredith Oke: 00:08:51

do see those two things as Kind of the same. The

Meredith Oke: 00:08:56

understanding, light and earthing and all of that

Meredith Oke: 00:08:58

is just an expansion of caring for our metabolic

Meredith Oke: 00:09:00

health. So I just want to put that out there for

Meredith Oke: 00:09:02

everybody. But how do you. How do you describe

Meredith Oke: 00:09:06

the difference? And what was, you know, what

Meredith Oke: 00:09:10

would a purely traditional allopathic take on

Meredith Oke: 00:09:15

psychiatry be compared to what a metabolic take

Meredith Oke: 00:09:18

would be?

Rachel Brown: 00:09:20

Oh, gosh, I'll try not get into trouble here. But

Rachel Brown: 00:09:25

my traditional allopathic take on. On psychiatry

Rachel Brown: 00:09:30

was to pigeonhole people into diagnoses, to group

Rachel Brown: 00:09:34

symptoms together to make a diagnosis, and then

Rachel Brown: 00:09:37

follow a standardized drug treatment protocol.

Rachel Brown: 00:09:40

And that would often involve trials of multiple

Rachel Brown: 00:09:42

different medications because, you know, it's

Rachel Brown: 00:09:46

fairly common that people don't necessarily

Rachel Brown: 00:09:48

respond to their first drug that's prescribed in

Rachel Brown: 00:09:50

psychiatry using a metabolic approach. If people

Rachel Brown: 00:09:55

don't know what I mean by metabolic, a very

Rachel Brown: 00:09:57

simplistic way of looking at it is the absence of

Rachel Brown: 00:10:00

type 2 diabetes or insulin resistance or leptin

Rachel Brown: 00:10:06

issues we could get into. But essentially there's

Rachel Brown: 00:10:10

a huge overlap between type 2 diabetes and all

Rachel Brown: 00:10:14

major mental disorders. There's quite a lot of

Rachel Brown: 00:10:16

research out there, but for whatever reason, it

Rachel Brown: 00:10:19

just hasn't really made its way into mainstream

Rachel Brown: 00:10:21

psychiatric practice. But thankfully, there is

Rachel Brown: 00:10:24

more research going on now at the moment with

Rachel Brown: 00:10:28

randomized controlled trials in process. So I

Rachel Brown: 00:10:31

know a lot of doctors are very skeptical,

Rachel Brown: 00:10:33

certainly within the allopathic world, that they

Rachel Brown: 00:10:35

need to have a randomized controlled trial in

Rachel Brown: 00:10:37

order to believe in a certain treatment. So

Rachel Brown: 00:10:39

that's where we're at.

Meredith Oke: 00:10:42

So funny. It's like I have like 500 case studies,

Meredith Oke: 00:10:46

but there hasn't been an RCT. It's not real.

Rachel Brown: 00:10:51

Okay, yeah, don't start me on that. I would

Rachel Brown: 00:10:54

personally take a case study any day over a big

Rachel Brown: 00:10:59

randomized controlled trial. And I might get into

Rachel Brown: 00:11:01

trouble for saying that, but my perspective on

Rachel Brown: 00:11:04

that is it's really. You can't generalize

Rachel Brown: 00:11:08

statistics to everyone. And if you have somebody

Rachel Brown: 00:11:10

who's actually been through their own n of one

Rachel Brown: 00:11:12

trial, someone who's implemented changes that

Rachel Brown: 00:11:16

have resulted in positive health outcomes. And I

Rachel Brown: 00:11:18

just don't think there's any denying when you see

Rachel Brown: 00:11:21

that. And once you see more than one get into the

Rachel Brown: 00:11:24

tens or the hundreds, then it's a bit difficult

Rachel Brown: 00:11:27

to deny that what they're doing is actually

Rachel Brown: 00:11:30

something helpful that could be generalized to

Rachel Brown: 00:11:32

other people as well.

Meredith Oke: 00:11:34

Yes, absolutely. And since we're on this topic,

Meredith Oke: 00:11:37

at the Institute of Applied Quantum Biology, Nico

Meredith Oke: 00:11:41

Kennedy is developing some protocols for all

Meredith Oke: 00:11:45

practitioners to follow that would have their

Meredith Oke: 00:11:48

clients outcomes be included in case study

Meredith Oke: 00:11:52

Research. So we're looking at ways to formalize

Meredith Oke: 00:11:54

that. I'd love to have, we'd love to have your

Meredith Oke: 00:11:56

input and your, your work in there as well, since

Meredith Oke: 00:12:00

we're on the topic. Okay. All right, back to

Meredith Oke: 00:12:04

metabolic health. Okay, so how did you get into

Meredith Oke: 00:12:08

this? You went to medical school, you were doing

Meredith Oke: 00:12:11

diagnoses, treating with medication and therapy.

Meredith Oke: 00:12:14

What cracked you open to some other avenues?

Rachel Brown: 00:12:18

Oh, it's really been my own health journey. So

Rachel Brown: 00:12:20

I've, I've had, I do now wonder why I trained in

Rachel Brown: 00:12:26

allopathic medicine, if I'm being perfectly

Rachel Brown: 00:12:28

honest, because I've always had such an interest

Rachel Brown: 00:12:30

in holistic health from a very young age. But it

Rachel Brown: 00:12:34

was my own personal health journey of sugar

Rachel Brown: 00:12:37

addiction, I think that ultimately got me into

Rachel Brown: 00:12:41

the nutritional side of things and eventually

Rachel Brown: 00:12:44

Paleo and then ketogenic diets and then quite a

Rachel Brown: 00:12:48

number of years of actually using a carnivore

Rachel Brown: 00:12:50

diet personally with multiple health benefits.

Rachel Brown: 00:12:54

That's just one layer though. Before I got into

Rachel Brown: 00:12:56

all the quantum and circadian stuff which just

Rachel Brown: 00:12:59

added so much more to that, that nutritional

Rachel Brown: 00:13:01

piece. But I also have a history of, it was

Rachel Brown: 00:13:07

neurodegenerative disorders within close family

Rachel Brown: 00:13:10

members that really motivated me to take a, a

Rachel Brown: 00:13:14

proper look at my own personal health. And so I'd

Rachel Brown: 00:13:16

been, I'd followed Mark Sisson and done a pr,

Rachel Brown: 00:13:19

followed a primal diet for many, many years, but

Rachel Brown: 00:13:22

was only, only kind of low carb, not necessarily

Rachel Brown: 00:13:25

ketogenic. And it was after my dad died, coming

Rachel Brown: 00:13:29

up for 10 years ago now that it really made me

Rachel Brown: 00:13:32

take a look at what I was doing and I wanted to

Rachel Brown: 00:13:34

really go ketogenic to capitalize on the anti

Rachel Brown: 00:13:37

inflammatory benefits and the mitochondrial

Rachel Brown: 00:13:39

benefits of that a ketogenic diet can provide.

Rachel Brown: 00:13:42

And so that's really what get me, got me into all

Rachel Brown: 00:13:44

of that. And, and then in 2021 I had the

Rachel Brown: 00:13:49

opportunity to train formally with Dr. Georgia

Rachel Brown: 00:13:52

Ead, who's an ex Harvard psychiatrist who's been

Rachel Brown: 00:13:55

using nutritional strategies very successfully

Rachel Brown: 00:13:59

amongst a whole host of different mental health

Rachel Brown: 00:14:02

diagnoses for at least the past 15, possibly more

Rachel Brown: 00:14:06

years. And that really formalized it for me and

Rachel Brown: 00:14:10

that gave me more confidence to actually

Rachel Brown: 00:14:11

introduce it into my allopathic practice as

Rachel Brown: 00:14:15

another strategy for people to be able to use.

Meredith Oke: 00:14:19

Yeah, that really makes sense. Like when you're,

Meredith Oke: 00:14:21

when you're able to have a mentor and a structure

Meredith Oke: 00:14:24

and someone in a community of, of people who are

Meredith Oke: 00:14:28

in your same situation, they were psychiatrists,

Meredith Oke: 00:14:31

now they're doing this, it makes it, I mean it's

Meredith Oke: 00:14:33

really hard to Go out on a limb by yourself. So

Meredith Oke: 00:14:37

good for you for finding that and working with

Meredith Oke: 00:14:39

her. That's fantastic. And I'm really, I've. I'm

Meredith Oke: 00:14:44

really interested in your description of

Meredith Oke: 00:14:46

metabolic health as basically like the prevention

Meredith Oke: 00:14:49

of type 2 diabetes. Like that is really simple. I

Meredith Oke: 00:14:51

haven't heard it put that way, but it.

Rachel Brown: 00:14:53

Oh, really? Yeah, that's my. I've got quite a

Rachel Brown: 00:14:56

simplistic way of thinking about.

Meredith Oke: 00:14:57

No, it's perfect because usually you try to

Meredith Oke: 00:15:00

describe what it is, but it's. But it works just

Meredith Oke: 00:15:02

as well to describe what it isn't, which is like

Meredith Oke: 00:15:05

an absence of your body's inability to function.

Meredith Oke: 00:15:11

Like metabolic health is basically just saying

Meredith Oke: 00:15:14

like your physical health affects your mental

Meredith Oke: 00:15:16

health, which really makes sense.

Rachel Brown: 00:15:20

I know it shouldn't really come as a surprise,

Rachel Brown: 00:15:22

but I think the way I view it, part of the

Rachel Brown: 00:15:26

problem within modern medicine is the fact that

Rachel Brown: 00:15:28

we split the body up into different bodily

Rachel Brown: 00:15:32

systems and silos of medical specialties. And

Rachel Brown: 00:15:34

there's not a very holistic approach that gets

Rachel Brown: 00:15:37

taken. And so often my training was just all

Rachel Brown: 00:15:40

about, as I say, making diagnoses to follow drug

Rachel Brown: 00:15:43

treatment protocols. And so it's really

Rachel Brown: 00:15:46

refreshing to be able to view things more

Rachel Brown: 00:15:49

holistically and from a different. Through a

Rachel Brown: 00:15:51

different lens, essentially.

Meredith Oke: 00:15:54

Yes. And I think that's really the future. It's

Meredith Oke: 00:15:59

funny, in business there's this saying, I forget

Meredith Oke: 00:16:01

who said it, but business models are just a

Meredith Oke: 00:16:04

process of bundling and unbundling, where it's

Meredith Oke: 00:16:07

like you think of now streaming channels. We had

Meredith Oke: 00:16:10

a few and then we have like hundreds of them. So

Meredith Oke: 00:16:13

that was the unbundling and now they're getting

Meredith Oke: 00:16:14

packaged back up together, which is like the

Meredith Oke: 00:16:16

rebundling. And I feel like that applies to

Meredith Oke: 00:16:20

science as well. And I, like, we're coming out of

Meredith Oke: 00:16:23

an era where everything was hyper specialized and

Meredith Oke: 00:16:27

separated from each other. And the real future of

Meredith Oke: 00:16:31

health is to bring everything back together, like

Meredith Oke: 00:16:33

overlaying psychiatry, psychiatric medicine, what

Meredith Oke: 00:16:38

with regular medicine, with quantum physics, with

Meredith Oke: 00:16:42

nutrition, and bringing all of these things back

Meredith Oke: 00:16:45

together. How, how have you worked through that

Meredith Oke: 00:16:50

as a, as a doctor and as a seeker?

Rachel Brown: 00:16:55

Oh, gosh, it's difficult. I'm not going to say

Rachel Brown: 00:17:01

it's been easy because I think there's quite a

Rachel Brown: 00:17:04

lack of education and understanding when it comes

Rachel Brown: 00:17:07

to thinking about cellular health and ultimately

Rachel Brown: 00:17:11

mitochondrial health, although hopefully that's

Rachel Brown: 00:17:13

coming a bit more into the mainstream via the

Rachel Brown: 00:17:16

nutritional research that's being done. And

Rachel Brown: 00:17:21

colleagues such as Chris Palmer, for example, in

Rachel Brown: 00:17:23

the book that he published about brain energy and

Rachel Brown: 00:17:25

the role of mitochondrial health when it comes to

Rachel Brown: 00:17:28

mental health disorders. But I do feel like

Rachel Brown: 00:17:30

there's a real tension between how I'm expected

Rachel Brown: 00:17:34

to practice within allopathic medicine and then

Rachel Brown: 00:17:37

my knowledge of how the body works, looking at it

Rachel Brown: 00:17:41

through different. A different lens, such as

Rachel Brown: 00:17:43

quantum biology or circadian biology. And so I do

Rachel Brown: 00:17:48

struggle with that to an extent still within

Rachel Brown: 00:17:50

allopathic medicine. So as much as I enjoy

Rachel Brown: 00:17:54

speaking about nutrition and other lifestyle

Rachel Brown: 00:17:56

approaches to people, I'm aware that that's not

Rachel Brown: 00:18:00

commonplace within mainstream medicine, and I

Rachel Brown: 00:18:03

think it should be. Really?

Meredith Oke: 00:18:05

Yeah, I think we're getting there. I feel like

Meredith Oke: 00:18:09

everything's kind of imploding right now and

Meredith Oke: 00:18:11

we're going to get to put it back together in a

Meredith Oke: 00:18:13

new, pick up the pieces and build something new.

Meredith Oke: 00:18:17

And so you've addressed this by kind of having

Meredith Oke: 00:18:21

two separate businesses almost. You have your job

Meredith Oke: 00:18:24

working for the NHS and then you also work

Meredith Oke: 00:18:27

online, separate from your psychiatrist

Meredith Oke: 00:18:32

credential.

Rachel Brown: 00:18:34

Yeah. So I. I trained in functional medicine

Rachel Brown: 00:18:38

probably around five years ago now, and when I

Rachel Brown: 00:18:42

did that, that was really refreshing to me

Rachel Brown: 00:18:44

because it started to explain why people were

Rachel Brown: 00:18:46

having certain symptoms which I hadn't felt so

Rachel Brown: 00:18:50

much that I had been explained during my

Rachel Brown: 00:18:52

standardized, my standard medical training. And

Rachel Brown: 00:18:57

in terms of my private work that I do, what I was

Rachel Brown: 00:19:00

tending to see was people coming through where

Rachel Brown: 00:19:02

they felt as though the system had failed them.

Rachel Brown: 00:19:04

So they tried quite a number of different drugs

Rachel Brown: 00:19:07

and they either hadn't worked or they'd ended up

Rachel Brown: 00:19:10

with side effects such as type 2 diabetes from

Rachel Brown: 00:19:13

some of the psychiatric medications, or just

Rachel Brown: 00:19:17

other adverse effects from being on medication

Rachel Brown: 00:19:20

too long term. And once we were sort of diving

Rachel Brown: 00:19:24

under the hood to have a look at what was

Rachel Brown: 00:19:26

actually going on with them, I can say fairly

Rachel Brown: 00:19:29

reliably, since I've done the quantum and the

Rachel Brown: 00:19:31

circadian biology training, that there's not a

Rachel Brown: 00:19:33

single person I've ever spoken to in my private

Rachel Brown: 00:19:36

practice, or the nhs for that matter, who is

Rachel Brown: 00:19:39

doing the circadian stuff. Right. So there's so

Rachel Brown: 00:19:43

much that can be done. But also when we were

Rachel Brown: 00:19:46

doing investigations, which I don't tend to do a

Rachel Brown: 00:19:48

huge amount of now, knowing what I know now, but

Rachel Brown: 00:19:51

initially when I was doing investigations, what I

Rachel Brown: 00:19:53

was finding was that people had major gut

Rachel Brown: 00:19:55

inflammation, even in the absence of a clear

Rachel Brown: 00:19:59

diagnosis, such as celiac or inflammatory bowel

Rachel Brown: 00:20:01

disease. And it wasn't until we could sort out

Rachel Brown: 00:20:04

their gut inflammation, you know, we had to sort

Rachel Brown: 00:20:08

out the gut inflammation and the metabolic

Rachel Brown: 00:20:10

dysfunction to be able to get the mental health

Rachel Brown: 00:20:12

symptoms to improve and resolve. And I'VE had a

Rachel Brown: 00:20:15

number of people with both inflammatory bowel

Rachel Brown: 00:20:17

disease and major mental health health diagnoses,

Rachel Brown: 00:20:20

where time and time again I've seen them relapse

Rachel Brown: 00:20:23

both disorders at the same time. And so a huge

Rachel Brown: 00:20:26

area of interest of mine is gut health and how

Rachel Brown: 00:20:29

that relates to brain health or mental health as

Rachel Brown: 00:20:33

well.

Meredith Oke: 00:20:34

How does it relate?

Rachel Brown: 00:20:36

Oh, hugely. So, gosh. The gut and the brain are

Rachel Brown: 00:20:42

connected via the vagus nerve, so the whole

Rachel Brown: 00:20:45

nervous system regulation and nervous system

Rachel Brown: 00:20:47

piece comes into both mental health disorders and

Rachel Brown: 00:20:51

autoimmune disorders. However, there's also

Rachel Brown: 00:20:55

signaling that goes back and forth between the

Rachel Brown: 00:20:58

two in terms of chemical and immune messenger

Rachel Brown: 00:21:03

signaling between the gut and the brain. And

Rachel Brown: 00:21:06

essentially, when you have leaky gut, you can end

Rachel Brown: 00:21:08

up having leaky brain because the gut barrier and

Rachel Brown: 00:21:11

the blood brain barrier are very similar in form

Rachel Brown: 00:21:13

and function. And if you have dysbiosis, so

Rachel Brown: 00:21:18

unfavorable populations of bacteria within the

Rachel Brown: 00:21:21

gut, this can cause a leaky gut barrier, which

Rachel Brown: 00:21:25

then in turn can cause a leaky blood brain

Rachel Brown: 00:21:27

barrier and an activation of immune cells in the

Rachel Brown: 00:21:29

brain and inflammation. And then this is when

Rachel Brown: 00:21:32

mental health symptoms can arise and

Rachel Brown: 00:21:35

neurotransmitter pathways can be dysregulated.

Rachel Brown: 00:21:37

You know, if you want to go to that extreme

Rachel Brown: 00:21:40

level. But I always come back to mitochondria

Rachel Brown: 00:21:43

because there's crosstalk between the gut

Rachel Brown: 00:21:44

microbiome and our mitochondria back and forth.

Rachel Brown: 00:21:47

So there's so many different ways that you could

Rachel Brown: 00:21:49

look at this, Right?

Meredith Oke: 00:21:51

Yes. And so if we think about it as healing the

Meredith Oke: 00:21:54

mitochondria, we're healing everything, the gut

Meredith Oke: 00:21:57

and the brain. Tell me what leaky brain symptoms

Meredith Oke: 00:22:01

look like. What's leaky brain?

Rachel Brown: 00:22:06

It could be anything. So it could be brain fog,

Rachel Brown: 00:22:10

poor concentration, it could be depression,

Rachel Brown: 00:22:13

anxiety, even psychosis. So anything really,

Rachel Brown: 00:22:17

that. That affects mental health. And, you know,

Rachel Brown: 00:22:22

there's a clear subset of people, even with

Rachel Brown: 00:22:25

depression, that we know they have raised

Rachel Brown: 00:22:26

inflammatory markers and so you know that there's

Rachel Brown: 00:22:30

fairly reliably inflammation going on there. But

Rachel Brown: 00:22:32

just anything really is what I would say based on

Rachel Brown: 00:22:35

what I've seen.

Meredith Oke: 00:22:37

Right. So leaky brain is sort of like the

Meredith Oke: 00:22:40

precursor to any kind of. Of mental health

Meredith Oke: 00:22:42

symptom that.

Rachel Brown: 00:22:44

Oh, yeah. I mean, it's not. I think there's so

Rachel Brown: 00:22:47

many environmental toxins that we're surrounded

Rachel Brown: 00:22:49

by that it's just not a great idea if your

Rachel Brown: 00:22:52

brain's protective mechanism isn't robust to try

Rachel Brown: 00:22:55

and keep those out. And from a functional

Rachel Brown: 00:22:58

medicine perspective, we tend to think along the

Rachel Brown: 00:23:00

lines of the body tends to store toxins within

Rachel Brown: 00:23:03

our fat. And the brains are fatty organs. And

Rachel Brown: 00:23:06

there's plenty of research showing that among

Rachel Brown: 00:23:08

certain groups of diagnoses, there can be issues

Rachel Brown: 00:23:11

with heavy metals, other environmental toxins

Rachel Brown: 00:23:14

that can increase the risk of having certain

Rachel Brown: 00:23:17

mental health symptoms.

Meredith Oke: 00:23:21

It's really just incredible to me that we treat

Meredith Oke: 00:23:26

all that, with the starting point being a pill. I

Meredith Oke: 00:23:29

mean, I'm not against taking. Taking medication

Meredith Oke: 00:23:32

if that's what's needed. But if you're talking.

Meredith Oke: 00:23:35

If you have a patient who has leaky gut, leaky

Meredith Oke: 00:23:40

brain, whose mitochondrial mitochondria is

Meredith Oke: 00:23:43

dysfunctional, who's metabolically dysfunctional,

Meredith Oke: 00:23:46

and the first. The first intervention is to go to

Meredith Oke: 00:23:51

a medication like, of course it's going to cause

Meredith Oke: 00:23:54

terrible side effects because the. The system

Meredith Oke: 00:23:56

can't handle anything really well.

Rachel Brown: 00:23:59

Yeah, absolutely. And this is something I really

Rachel Brown: 00:24:02

struggle with now because there's very clear

Rachel Brown: 00:24:05

research, I think. Dr. Cynthia Culkin is a

Rachel Brown: 00:24:08

researcher within psychiatry, and she has shown

Rachel Brown: 00:24:10

really clearly that having insulin resistance, so

Rachel Brown: 00:24:15

metabolic dysfunction, causes a leaky blood brain

Rachel Brown: 00:24:20

barrier or blood brain barrier dysfunction, and

Rachel Brown: 00:24:22

this increases the risk of having persistent

Rachel Brown: 00:24:25

mental health symptoms that don't respond to

Rachel Brown: 00:24:27

standard medications. And my struggle now is that

Rachel Brown: 00:24:30

a lot of the medications I have to prescribe

Rachel Brown: 00:24:32

within psychiatry actually increase the risk of

Rachel Brown: 00:24:34

metabolic dysfunction, such as the risk of type 2

Rachel Brown: 00:24:38

diabetes. And Dr. Culkin's research has been

Rachel Brown: 00:24:43

incredibly informative because they were able to

Rachel Brown: 00:24:45

show if they can reverse the insulin resistance

Rachel Brown: 00:24:47

and people's symptoms can go into remission

Rachel Brown: 00:24:49

again, even if they've been unwell for quite a.

Rachel Brown: 00:24:52

Quite a long time, a number of years. So that's

Rachel Brown: 00:24:55

something I really struggle with now. And just

Rachel Brown: 00:24:57

try to. All I can really do is try to take

Rachel Brown: 00:25:01

informed consent if I'm in a position where I

Rachel Brown: 00:25:03

have to offer medication to somebody just to try

Rachel Brown: 00:25:06

to explain whether they'd be interested in using

Rachel Brown: 00:25:09

different approaches and to make sure that they

Rachel Brown: 00:25:11

know the potential downsides to trials of

Rachel Brown: 00:25:14

different drugs.

Meredith Oke: 00:25:17

Wow. Gosh. A little heartbreaking. Okay, let's

Meredith Oke: 00:25:21

focus on the fun stuff, which is what? All the

Meredith Oke: 00:25:24

things we could do that are fairly

Meredith Oke: 00:25:27

straightforward and don't cost a lot of money and

Meredith Oke: 00:25:31

don't require going to the NHS or whatever the

Meredith Oke: 00:25:34

equivalent is in the country you live in. Okay,

Meredith Oke: 00:25:36

so let's talk about. We've established that a

Meredith Oke: 00:25:40

healthy gut and healthy brain are completely

Meredith Oke: 00:25:42

connected. Let's talk about the gut microbiome

Meredith Oke: 00:25:46

from a circadian perspective. So why is it so

Meredith Oke: 00:25:50

important to have regulated circadian rhythms?

Meredith Oke: 00:25:54

Why is that so important to our gut?

Rachel Brown: 00:25:57

Because our circadian rhythms control our gut

Rachel Brown: 00:26:00

microbiome, essentially, and they're also

Rachel Brown: 00:26:02

involved in controlling our gut barrier function.

Rachel Brown: 00:26:06

And if we think about inflammation in the brain,

Rachel Brown: 00:26:11

you want to build a really robust gut barrier

Rachel Brown: 00:26:13

because you get into a situation where you're at

Rachel Brown: 00:26:16

risk of developing autoimmune system symptoms if

Rachel Brown: 00:26:19

your gut barrier is leaky or you have intestinal

Rachel Brown: 00:26:22

permeability. And so if you don't have robust

Rachel Brown: 00:26:25

circadian rhythms, then there's a high likelihood

Rachel Brown: 00:26:29

you're going to have problems with either

Rachel Brown: 00:26:31

intestinal permeability or dysbiosis in the gut.

Rachel Brown: 00:26:34

And if you have dysbiosis, it's more likely you

Rachel Brown: 00:26:37

have a leaky gut and, you know, vice versa. And

Rachel Brown: 00:26:40

so it just becomes a very vicious cycle. And

Rachel Brown: 00:26:43

sadly, what I see too often is that people tend

Rachel Brown: 00:26:46

to be sleeping in, not seeing the key morning

Rachel Brown: 00:26:50

light. Circadian rhythm dysfunctions, just, just

Rachel Brown: 00:26:55

pervasive from what I can tell from speaking with

Rachel Brown: 00:26:58

people and working with clients.

Meredith Oke: 00:27:01

Yeah, no, it's. Nobody paid. Nobody has good

Meredith Oke: 00:27:06

circadian rhythm unless they do it on purpose. In

Meredith Oke: 00:27:08

our current world, I think between the screens

Meredith Oke: 00:27:11

and the light bulbs and putting on sunglasses

Meredith Oke: 00:27:13

every time you leave the house, like, it's, you

Meredith Oke: 00:27:17

know, I know people who have very active outdoor

Meredith Oke: 00:27:19

lifestyles, but they wear sunglasses from the

Meredith Oke: 00:27:21

minute, like walking the dog at, you know, at

Meredith Oke: 00:27:24

seven in the morning, all the way on, all through

Meredith Oke: 00:27:27

the day. And it's. So it's something that we have

Meredith Oke: 00:27:30

to think about intentionally. Okay, so help me

Meredith Oke: 00:27:33

understand. So, so pretend I'm someone who comes

Meredith Oke: 00:27:36

to you. I'm. I'm very nutritionally aware, I eat

Meredith Oke: 00:27:41

really well, but I'm still experiencing symptoms.

Meredith Oke: 00:27:44

And you're telling me that, like, the light is

Meredith Oke: 00:27:49

going to affect my gut. Like, how is, how is that

Meredith Oke: 00:27:54

happening?

Rachel Brown: 00:27:56

So we have a master body clock in the brain and

Rachel Brown: 00:28:02

then lots of peripheral body clocks, including in

Rachel Brown: 00:28:04

the gut. And if you have robust circadian

Rachel Brown: 00:28:08

rhythms, the two will be coordinated. So I often

Rachel Brown: 00:28:11

explain it as a bit like an orchestra. So the

Rachel Brown: 00:28:15

suprachiasmatic nucleus in the brain, the master

Rachel Brown: 00:28:17

clocks, like the conductor, and you've got all

Rachel Brown: 00:28:19

these other orchestra members elsewhere as the

Rachel Brown: 00:28:22

peripheral clocks. And they should all be playing

Rachel Brown: 00:28:24

in time and keeping rhythm. And if that's not

Rachel Brown: 00:28:28

happening because you're getting the wrong light

Rachel Brown: 00:28:30

signaling, it essentially descends into chaos at

Rachel Brown: 00:28:36

a cellular level. And that we could equate to as

Rachel Brown: 00:28:39

inflammation in a simplistic sort of way. And so

Rachel Brown: 00:28:43

in order to build robust circadian rhythms,

Rachel Brown: 00:28:45

people need to be getting, ideally sunrise and

Rachel Brown: 00:28:49

then the UVA rise. That happens an Hour, an hour

Rachel Brown: 00:28:52

and a half after that. And there are very clear

Rachel Brown: 00:28:55

connections between, you know, like blue, blue

Rachel Brown: 00:28:59

light getting your cortisol going to get you up

Rachel Brown: 00:29:02

and running for the day, impacting on energy

Rachel Brown: 00:29:04

levels, and then the UVA light being intimately

Rachel Brown: 00:29:08

involved in all of the neurotransmitter pathways

Rachel Brown: 00:29:11

and hormonal pathways and kickstarting all of

Rachel Brown: 00:29:13

those biochemical pathways within the body. And

Rachel Brown: 00:29:16

so if you're not getting that, those key times of

Rachel Brown: 00:29:19

morning light, then chances are you're going to

Rachel Brown: 00:29:21

have dysfunctional neurotransmitter pathways and

Rachel Brown: 00:29:25

thyroid hormone and sex hormones and a

Rachel Brown: 00:29:28

dysregulated stress hormone axis. So there's

Rachel Brown: 00:29:33

quite a few pieces of the puzzle there.

Meredith Oke: 00:29:36

It's so amazing. I mean, obviously I talk about

Meredith Oke: 00:29:40

this a lot, but every time I hear someone explain

Meredith Oke: 00:29:43

it, I'm like, wow.

Rachel Brown: 00:29:47

It'S.

Meredith Oke: 00:29:47

We're so. Yeah, I just, it's. I'm like, wow. It's

Meredith Oke: 00:29:51

like almost like I'm hearing for the first time

Meredith Oke: 00:29:53

because we're just so disconnected from this

Meredith Oke: 00:29:58

level of understanding. Right. Like, yeah, when.

Rachel Brown: 00:30:02

And then.

Meredith Oke: 00:30:03

Yeah, go ahead.

Rachel Brown: 00:30:05

Yeah. I was just gonna say my next bugbear would

Rachel Brown: 00:30:08

be all the screens in the evenings and then

Rachel Brown: 00:30:11

nobody sleeps very well. Who's not paying

Rachel Brown: 00:30:13

attention to trying to mitigate the blue light

Rachel Brown: 00:30:16

toxicity? And everyone's melatonin is suppressed

Rachel Brown: 00:30:20

because they're on a screen in the evening. And

Rachel Brown: 00:30:22

not mitigating the blue light that's going to

Rachel Brown: 00:30:24

suppress your melatonin. And then people are

Rachel Brown: 00:30:27

living indoor lives, so they're not getting the

Rachel Brown: 00:30:29

benefit of full spectrum light from outside,

Rachel Brown: 00:30:33

especially infrared, that's going to boost all of

Rachel Brown: 00:30:35

our melatonin production all throughout the body,

Rachel Brown: 00:30:38

within our mitochondria. And I think so many

Rachel Brown: 00:30:43

people are just deficient in the key antioxidants

Rachel Brown: 00:30:46

for good cellular health. I don't know. There's

Rachel Brown: 00:30:48

just so many different. There's so many things we

Rachel Brown: 00:30:50

could talk about. It's hard to pick one right key

Rachel Brown: 00:30:53

area.

Meredith Oke: 00:30:54

But light. But light programs, all of it, is what

Meredith Oke: 00:30:57

you're saying?

Rachel Brown: 00:30:59

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Because I, having

Rachel Brown: 00:31:03

been through the quantum biology certification

Rachel Brown: 00:31:06

and then board certification, light is upstream

Rachel Brown: 00:31:10

to everything else in the body. So there's been

Rachel Brown: 00:31:14

this myopic focus on biochemistry, which I

Rachel Brown: 00:31:19

suppose suits the pharmaceutical industry in

Rachel Brown: 00:31:22

terms of drug treatment protocols, but really

Rachel Brown: 00:31:26

light sits upstream to all of our biochemical

Rachel Brown: 00:31:29

processes, even in the body. And so the first

Rachel Brown: 00:31:31

thing, the foundational thing we need to consider

Rachel Brown: 00:31:33

is the environment we put our body in and the

Rachel Brown: 00:31:37

light that we're exposed to, essentially for the

Rachel Brown: 00:31:40

photoreceptors in our eyes, but also the

Rachel Brown: 00:31:42

receptors on our skin. You know, it all matters.

Meredith Oke: 00:31:46

Right, so the quantum is upstream of the

Meredith Oke: 00:31:50

biochemical of the chemical, obviously. So.

Rachel Brown: 00:31:54

Yeah, absolutely.

Meredith Oke: 00:31:56

So when you talk about the. Have our gut having a

Meredith Oke: 00:32:00

clock, that clock is supposed to sync with the

Meredith Oke: 00:32:04

one in our brain which, which is programmed

Meredith Oke: 00:32:07

through our eyes. So is there, are there clocks

Meredith Oke: 00:32:12

in the gut that need direct light as well? Like

Meredith Oke: 00:32:17

those photoreceptors? Are they like, should I be

Meredith Oke: 00:32:21

putting my tummy in the sun?

Rachel Brown: 00:32:23

Yeah, yes, okay, absolutely, yes. So there's

Rachel Brown: 00:32:27

really, really interesting research showing that

Rachel Brown: 00:32:29

UVB light in particular can improve the diversity

Rachel Brown: 00:32:34

of the microbiome and it's supportive, one might

Rachel Brown: 00:32:37

argue, essential for optimal gut microbiome and

Rachel Brown: 00:32:41

gut health. And. But you know, there are other

Rachel Brown: 00:32:45

aspects like photobiomodulation, like using red

Rachel Brown: 00:32:48

light therapy that can also be supportive because

Rachel Brown: 00:32:51

it's supportive of mitochondrial function, but

Rachel Brown: 00:32:53

also for cellular health and melatonin

Rachel Brown: 00:32:57

production. And. But yeah, the full spectrum

Rachel Brown: 00:33:00

light piece on your abdomen is absolutely

Rachel Brown: 00:33:03

supportive of gut health. I would say fairly

Rachel Brown: 00:33:06

essential to prioritize if you can. I don't

Rachel Brown: 00:33:09

necessarily live in a very high UV index country.

Rachel Brown: 00:33:13

So yeah, there's that.

Meredith Oke: 00:33:16

Right. But the, even the circadian aspect. Okay,

Meredith Oke: 00:33:20

so, so say I'm. I'm a client, not in the NHS

Meredith Oke: 00:33:26

side, in the side where you can do whatever you

Meredith Oke: 00:33:28

want and I come and I tell you what I eat and it

Meredith Oke: 00:33:35

all sounds good. Like my diet is pretty dialed

Meredith Oke: 00:33:37

in. Okay, so what you're telling me is that like

Meredith Oke: 00:33:43

if I change the timing, even if I don't change

Meredith Oke: 00:33:46

what I eat, I just change the timing of when I

Meredith Oke: 00:33:51

eat, that's going to have an effect and also the

Meredith Oke: 00:33:54

timing of when I get light. Because I find this

Meredith Oke: 00:33:58

so interesting that we like, is we all think,

Meredith Oke: 00:34:02

like if you want to change, they got to change

Meredith Oke: 00:34:03

the food. Change the food, like say the food is

Meredith Oke: 00:34:05

whatever. It's amazing. It's 10 out of 10. Like

Meredith Oke: 00:34:08

there's still things to do.

Rachel Brown: 00:34:10

Oh, for sure. Yeah. Okay, you don't. So I like

Rachel Brown: 00:34:15

people, so I don't want to dismiss fasting. I

Rachel Brown: 00:34:19

think there can be lots of health benefits of

Rachel Brown: 00:34:21

fasting, but I practice intermittent fasting for

Rachel Brown: 00:34:25

quite some time and I used to skip breakfast and

Rachel Brown: 00:34:28

then I ended up tanking my hormones as a female.

Rachel Brown: 00:34:31

And so I think there's nuance around who can do

Rachel Brown: 00:34:35

lots of intensive fasting and who might need to

Rachel Brown: 00:34:37

be a bit more careful that way. So I quite like

Rachel Brown: 00:34:41

people to eat breakfast, if they can, in terms of

Rachel Brown: 00:34:45

improving their Leptin signaling and giving the

Rachel Brown: 00:34:47

body the signal that it's safe and you don't have

Rachel Brown: 00:34:51

to be pumping out lots of cortisol. I really

Rachel Brown: 00:34:54

don't like when people have coffee on an empty

Rachel Brown: 00:34:56

stomach in the morning because they're probably

Rachel Brown: 00:34:58

just going to be pumping out even more cortisol

Rachel Brown: 00:35:00

and dysregulating the whole stress axis there.

Rachel Brown: 00:35:04

But one really crucial piece is to not eat for

Rachel Brown: 00:35:07

several hours before you go to bed. Because your

Rachel Brown: 00:35:09

body's not meant to be digesting food overnight.

Rachel Brown: 00:35:12

Your gut needs a break and it needs to be able to

Rachel Brown: 00:35:15

rest and repair overnight. So you would be making

Rachel Brown: 00:35:18

sure that you're blocking the artificial light so

Rachel Brown: 00:35:21

that all of your circadian rhythms, your

Rachel Brown: 00:35:24

biological clocks know what time of day it is.

Rachel Brown: 00:35:27

And then they know their program to repair the

Rachel Brown: 00:35:30

gut overnight. And there's a period of some

Rachel Brown: 00:35:32

fasting overnight for your gut to be able to

Rachel Brown: 00:35:35

renew and repair. So that's. That's all really

Rachel Brown: 00:35:37

important.

Meredith Oke: 00:35:39

Right. Yeah. I remember, like, sort of on my

Meredith Oke: 00:35:44

journey, we started regulating our circadian

Meredith Oke: 00:35:46

rhythms and we actually, I mean, you don't have

Meredith Oke: 00:35:51

to move to do this, obviously, but it just

Meredith Oke: 00:35:54

happened to be at a time when we were moving

Meredith Oke: 00:35:55

anyways. So we were living somewhere where it was

Meredith Oke: 00:36:00

kind of. It was warm out most of the year, which

Meredith Oke: 00:36:02

is really nice. But we started to do that and we

Meredith Oke: 00:36:06

took. We started taking it really seriously. I'd

Meredith Oke: 00:36:08

been doing it for a few years, but I just took it

Meredith Oke: 00:36:12

like to a whole other level. And we had a lot. I

Meredith Oke: 00:36:15

had a lot of improved health outcomes. And then.

Meredith Oke: 00:36:21

So after, I don't know, like a month and months

Meredith Oke: 00:36:24

and months of doing that, for some reason I

Meredith Oke: 00:36:26

hadn't. I hadn't applied the timing of what we

Meredith Oke: 00:36:30

ate. So we. We added that in and I just moved

Meredith Oke: 00:36:36

dinner earlier. And like, the entire family lost

Meredith Oke: 00:36:39

weight. It was during COVID so everyone had

Meredith Oke: 00:36:40

gained weight because of. Was so messed up. But.

Meredith Oke: 00:36:43

And every. The whole family lost weight. And all

Meredith Oke: 00:36:45

I did was make dinner earlier. I didn't even

Meredith Oke: 00:36:47

change what we were eating.

Rachel Brown: 00:36:49

Right. Yeah. Just shows you it was crazy. Yeah, I

Rachel Brown: 00:36:53

am. Yeah, I just, I. Did your sleep improve when

Rachel Brown: 00:36:57

you did that? Because I. Yes, I often. So we were

Rachel Brown: 00:37:01

away seeing family recently and they tend to eat

Rachel Brown: 00:37:03

later. And so to be sociable, we would go out for

Rachel Brown: 00:37:07

dinner, but would be a couple of hours later than

Rachel Brown: 00:37:08

I wouldn't usually finish eating. And then I just

Rachel Brown: 00:37:11

know I didn't sleep as well. And then my aura

Rachel Brown: 00:37:14

ring was telling me your heart rate was higher

Rachel Brown: 00:37:17

overnight. Try not have. Try to not have a meal

Rachel Brown: 00:37:19

too close to bed. You know all this stuff. I know

Rachel Brown: 00:37:22

already, but yeah, it's interesting, isn't it?

Meredith Oke: 00:37:26

Yes. No, totally. If I eat too late, I will wake

Meredith Oke: 00:37:29

up in the middle of the night with an elevated

Meredith Oke: 00:37:32

heart rate. I'm like, oh, I just finished

Meredith Oke: 00:37:34

digesting.

Rachel Brown: 00:37:35

Yeah.

Meredith Oke: 00:37:36

Like I. And it, it feels a little bit like I

Meredith Oke: 00:37:40

don't drink anymore, but it does feel a little

Meredith Oke: 00:37:42

bit like being hungover and it's just okay. I

Meredith Oke: 00:37:46

feel like, I feel like such a hot house flower,

Meredith Oke: 00:37:49

but I'm like, yeah, I'm like, I'm a little

Meredith Oke: 00:37:50

hungover. I had, we were at a party a few weeks

Meredith Oke: 00:37:54

ago and they had, they brought in like this thing

Meredith Oke: 00:37:59

to make pizza over the fire so that instead of a

Meredith Oke: 00:38:05

caterer, they had like this big wood fire oven

Meredith Oke: 00:38:10

and they were making the pizzas and they started

Meredith Oke: 00:38:12

serving them at like 8 o' clock at night. So

Meredith Oke: 00:38:16

again, to be sociable, I had some and it was

Meredith Oke: 00:38:19

delicious. But the next day my husband was like,

Meredith Oke: 00:38:23

do you have allergies? Like, what's like. And I'm

Meredith Oke: 00:38:26

like, I ate pizza at 9 o' clock at night. He's

Meredith Oke: 00:38:29

like, oh, it was like I had a hangover.

Rachel Brown: 00:38:35

Yeah. Oh. I mean, I've become really antisocial,

Rachel Brown: 00:38:39

as in, it's just not my thing anymore to go out

Rachel Brown: 00:38:43

in the evenings and be in really like lit up

Rachel Brown: 00:38:46

places, especially in the winter. You know, it

Rachel Brown: 00:38:49

almost feels, once you've been practicing this

Rachel Brown: 00:38:50

kind of lifestyle for a while, it almost feels

Rachel Brown: 00:38:52

painful in a way to put yourself in some of those

Rachel Brown: 00:38:55

situations. Yeah. Because you just see such a

Rachel Brown: 00:38:57

contrast between when you're doing everything

Rachel Brown: 00:39:00

right and then some of the occasions when you

Rachel Brown: 00:39:03

have to deviate from what you would normally do

Rachel Brown: 00:39:07

and then you can instantly sort of see the impact

Rachel Brown: 00:39:10

of that.

Meredith Oke: 00:39:12

Yeah, I know, totally. And even so, when, I mean,

Meredith Oke: 00:39:15

we don't. I don't go out at night very often for,

Meredith Oke: 00:39:19

for those exact reasons. And every once in a

Meredith Oke: 00:39:21

while I'm like, all right, let's be sociable. And

Meredith Oke: 00:39:25

yeah, there's, there's a price to pay. But you

Meredith Oke: 00:39:27

know, it's good to see people. So occasionally,

Meredith Oke: 00:39:32

occasionally I'll do that. So let's talk about

Meredith Oke: 00:39:40

grounding. Is that a piece that you've, that

Meredith Oke: 00:39:43

you've added in and that you see benefit from in

Meredith Oke: 00:39:45

terms of mental health as well?

Rachel Brown: 00:39:50

Yes. I can probably speak more personally because

Rachel Brown: 00:39:53

I don't know who. I've got a few people, I don't

Rachel Brown: 00:39:55

know how reliably they, they implement the

Rachel Brown: 00:39:58

grounding but, yeah, that's something that I do.

Rachel Brown: 00:40:03

And in fact, I just seem to do more and more and

Rachel Brown: 00:40:06

more of it. And from a gut health perspective, I

Rachel Brown: 00:40:11

found it particularly helpful to actually eat

Rachel Brown: 00:40:13

meals grounded outside because of the nervous

Rachel Brown: 00:40:16

system regulation that it gives you, kind of

Rachel Brown: 00:40:19

pushing you more into the parasympathetic rest

Rachel Brown: 00:40:22

and digest nervous system state. So I know from

Rachel Brown: 00:40:27

some of the investigations I've done that

Rachel Brown: 00:40:30

sympathetic dominance is an issue that I have,

Rachel Brown: 00:40:33

but I often see it in clients as well,

Rachel Brown: 00:40:35

particularly people with autoimmune disorders and

Rachel Brown: 00:40:38

mental health disorders. So I think there's been

Rachel Brown: 00:40:40

so much stress in the last five years, and

Rachel Brown: 00:40:44

obviously, lives just tend to be fairly stressful

Rachel Brown: 00:40:47

these days. A lot of people are really stuck in

Rachel Brown: 00:40:49

that sympathetic dominant nervous system state,

Rachel Brown: 00:40:52

and that makes it very difficult for your gut to

Rachel Brown: 00:40:55

work optimally. So, yeah, I personally choose to

Rachel Brown: 00:40:58

try and eat my meals grounded whenever I can, but

Rachel Brown: 00:41:01

otherwise try and spend as much time outdoors and

Rachel Brown: 00:41:04

in contact with nature.

Meredith Oke: 00:41:07

So when you say sympathetic dominant, you're

Meredith Oke: 00:41:10

talking about being in a, like, more of a fight

Meredith Oke: 00:41:14

or flight or more of a state of tension versus a

Meredith Oke: 00:41:18

state of. Of rest and relaxation.

Rachel Brown: 00:41:22

Yeah.

Meredith Oke: 00:41:22

Is that okay?

Rachel Brown: 00:41:25

And sorry, my dog's barking in the background.

Meredith Oke: 00:41:29

That's fine. We like dogs. They take us outside.

Meredith Oke: 00:41:35

So tell me how. Practicing circadian rhythm

Meredith Oke: 00:41:45

regulation and grounding and earthing being

Meredith Oke: 00:41:47

outside. So you're saying that that has an effect

Meredith Oke: 00:41:50

on our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous

Meredith Oke: 00:41:56

systems in addition to everything else we've been

Meredith Oke: 00:41:59

talking about. Tell me more about that.

Rachel Brown: 00:42:02

Yeah. So there's research showing that you can

Rachel Brown: 00:42:05

improve if you want to do measurements such as

Rachel Brown: 00:42:08

heart rate variability, which would be a

Rachel Brown: 00:42:11

measurement to an extent of how much time your

Rachel Brown: 00:42:14

nervous system is spent in the sympathetic

Rachel Brown: 00:42:16

dominant state versus parasympathetic. You can

Rachel Brown: 00:42:19

see that there are improvements in heart rate

Rachel Brown: 00:42:21

variability with more grounding. But people have

Rachel Brown: 00:42:24

also done imaging studies showing systemic

Rachel Brown: 00:42:30

reduction of inflammation throughout the body by

Rachel Brown: 00:42:32

practicing grounding. And then from a quantum

Rachel Brown: 00:42:36

biology perspective, I suppose we might be

Rachel Brown: 00:42:38

thinking of it in terms of pulling in electrons

Rachel Brown: 00:42:41

into our body to build up redox potential. And.

Rachel Brown: 00:42:44

And. Oh, gosh, I don't feel quite like Carrie in

Rachel Brown: 00:42:48

terms of being able to discuss easy water, but

Rachel Brown: 00:42:51

that's a piece of the puzzle. Yeah, they're like,

Rachel Brown: 00:42:54

optimizing, essentially, having good, good

Rachel Brown: 00:42:57

cellular charge is what good health is about. And

Rachel Brown: 00:43:00

so just put pulling in the essentially unlimited

Rachel Brown: 00:43:04

supply of electrons from the Earth's surface

Rachel Brown: 00:43:06

through your skin and into your body is

Rachel Brown: 00:43:08

absolutely supportive of good health.

Meredith Oke: 00:43:11

Right. And because I've heard, I heard you say a

Meredith Oke: 00:43:14

few times, like, doing this helps you feel safe.

Meredith Oke: 00:43:17

Like eating breakfast, putting your body in the

Meredith Oke: 00:43:22

light it's supposed to be in and the environment

Meredith Oke: 00:43:24

it's meant to be in. These are bringing in, like,

Meredith Oke: 00:43:28

actual feelings of safety because our body is

Meredith Oke: 00:43:31

experiencing what it's supposed to experience or

Meredith Oke: 00:43:37

how it, how should we unpack that?

Rachel Brown: 00:43:43

I just, I just think of it as trying to balance

Rachel Brown: 00:43:45

your nervous system response. So particularly the

Rachel Brown: 00:43:51

grounding and spending time outdoors. I mean,

Rachel Brown: 00:43:55

there's so many benefits to being in nature and

Rachel Brown: 00:43:58

green spaces in terms of negative ions. There's

Rachel Brown: 00:44:02

all sorts of stuff you could talk about, but

Rachel Brown: 00:44:04

essentially it's just shifting so that your

Rachel Brown: 00:44:06

nervous system response is more balanced and more

Rachel Brown: 00:44:10

in the rest and digest and the safe sort of phase

Rachel Brown: 00:44:13

as opposed to being activated all the time and

Rachel Brown: 00:44:16

stressed and lots of cortisol. And I just think

Rachel Brown: 00:44:20

too many people are stuck in that state, myself,

Rachel Brown: 00:44:24

myself included. So I always make as much

Rachel Brown: 00:44:27

concerted effort as possible to do things to try

Rachel Brown: 00:44:29

and regulate nervous system response. And I see

Rachel Brown: 00:44:32

that that really is an essential piece of the

Rachel Brown: 00:44:34

puzzle for clients to try and overcome chronic

Rachel Brown: 00:44:37

symptoms of any kind, really. Because I sometimes

Rachel Brown: 00:44:45

think about, you know, like, our thoughts have

Rachel Brown: 00:44:47

frequency, if you think about it from a quantum

Rachel Brown: 00:44:49

biology perspective. And fear is one of the

Rachel Brown: 00:44:51

lowest frequency states to be in. And often fear

Rachel Brown: 00:44:58

goes hand in hand with sympathetic nervous system

Rachel Brown: 00:45:01

activation. And so just anything you can do to

Rachel Brown: 00:45:04

support your body, to be in more of a relaxed

Rachel Brown: 00:45:07

state, you. You need to be in more of a relaxed

Rachel Brown: 00:45:10

state to be able to heal and for the body to be

Rachel Brown: 00:45:11

able to do what it, what it does best, which is

Rachel Brown: 00:45:15

heal. When you give it the right set of

Rachel Brown: 00:45:16

conditions and circumstances. Does that make

Rachel Brown: 00:45:19

sense?

Meredith Oke: 00:45:20

Yeah, that makes so much sense. And I think, I

Meredith Oke: 00:45:24

think, yeah. I mean, I really resonate with what

Meredith Oke: 00:45:27

you're saying that we're stuck in

Meredith Oke: 00:45:28

parasympathetic, which is the more stressed out.

Meredith Oke: 00:45:33

Sorry, sympathetic. Which is the more stressed

Meredith Oke: 00:45:36

out when. And we want to spend more time in

Meredith Oke: 00:45:39

parasympathetic, but we don't even realize it.

Meredith Oke: 00:45:41

Like, I, I do think that's so true. Most people,

Meredith Oke: 00:45:46

men and women, it might show up differently, but

Meredith Oke: 00:45:50

we are living in that. And I notice it, I notice

Meredith Oke: 00:45:56

it when I get startled. Like if, if, if someone,

Meredith Oke: 00:46:00

you know, walks in the room and I didn't realize

Meredith Oke: 00:46:01

they were there. I didn't realize someone was

Meredith Oke: 00:46:03

home. And like, all of a sudden there's someone

Meredith Oke: 00:46:05

like, like that. And if I'm, if I'm in a relaxed

Meredith Oke: 00:46:09

state, I'M like a little bit startled. And if

Meredith Oke: 00:46:12

I'm, but if I'm in that sympathetic state, I

Meredith Oke: 00:46:16

literally feel like I'm having a heart attack for

Meredith Oke: 00:46:17

a second. Like I'm, and I, and I. It makes me

Meredith Oke: 00:46:20

realize like, oh, I was, I was already right at

Meredith Oke: 00:46:24

the line. Like my startle reflex had to go into

Meredith Oke: 00:46:26

overdrive. And it's just those little moments

Meredith Oke: 00:46:30

where I'm like, oh, I need to maybe go meditate

Meredith Oke: 00:46:34

or something. Go meditate outside or something.

Meredith Oke: 00:46:37

How do you, how do you experience personally and

Meredith Oke: 00:46:40

through, you know, what you've experienced, seen

Meredith Oke: 00:46:42

with, with patients and clients? What does it

Meredith Oke: 00:46:45

feel like and look like to be stuck in, in, let's

Meredith Oke: 00:46:50

say, sympathetic overdrive?

Rachel Brown: 00:46:53

Do you know, for me personally, I didn't even

Rachel Brown: 00:46:55

realize that I was in a sympathetic nervous

Rachel Brown: 00:47:00

system dominant state. So I, well, in retrospect,

Rachel Brown: 00:47:06

so it's a hard one to, to really pinpoint. So, so

Rachel Brown: 00:47:10

I think a lot of people are stuck in that and

Rachel Brown: 00:47:12

they don't realize it. And I was one of those

Rachel Brown: 00:47:14

people. So I was aware that sometimes I would

Rachel Brown: 00:47:16

feel stressed or unhappy for particular reasons.

Rachel Brown: 00:47:22

But I ended up doing some hair tissue mineral

Rachel Brown: 00:47:25

analysis that showed quite clearly where I was in

Rachel Brown: 00:47:29

terms of my sympathetic nervous system response.

Rachel Brown: 00:47:32

And then having that information kind of made me

Rachel Brown: 00:47:36

reflect more, I think about how I was feeling in

Rachel Brown: 00:47:38

my body and internally and, and then I've done a

Rachel Brown: 00:47:42

few other things since, you know, like practices.

Rachel Brown: 00:47:44

And I just noticed that you can have such

Rachel Brown: 00:47:46

benefits from just simple practices such as

Rachel Brown: 00:47:50

grounding. I went through a period of time doing

Rachel Brown: 00:47:53

some cold plunging. I haven't done that for a

Rachel Brown: 00:47:55

while now. But I, I, yeah, that was fairly

Rachel Brown: 00:47:59

addictive at the time when I started it last year

Rachel Brown: 00:48:03

and other, you know, other therapies, you know,

Rachel Brown: 00:48:05

like even sound therapy. I'm a huge proponent

Rachel Brown: 00:48:09

actually of sound therapy and the impact that can

Rachel Brown: 00:48:12

have on your nervous system as well. So I'm

Rachel Brown: 00:48:16

probably rambling at this point, but there's, it

Rachel Brown: 00:48:18

didn't, it wasn't very obvious to me as the take

Rachel Brown: 00:48:21

home message that I was stuck in that, that

Rachel Brown: 00:48:23

state, if I'm being honest.

Meredith Oke: 00:48:25

Yeah, no, that's what I think is super. So

Meredith Oke: 00:48:27

interesting that we're talking about this is

Meredith Oke: 00:48:29

because it's not necessarily like you're in a

Meredith Oke: 00:48:32

panic attack all the time. You're just in, it's,

Meredith Oke: 00:48:35

it's like a slightly elevated state, you know,

Meredith Oke: 00:48:39

of, of like, I don't know, vigilance maybe, or

Meredith Oke: 00:48:44

you're just sort of like, like that feeling like

Meredith Oke: 00:48:49

the, okay, I'm here's how I would describe it for

Meredith Oke: 00:48:51

how it feels for me. It's like the difference

Meredith Oke: 00:48:53

between if I'm driving my car somewhere I've

Meredith Oke: 00:48:55

driven a million times and I don't really need to

Meredith Oke: 00:48:57

think about it, versus it's dark and I'm a bit

Meredith Oke: 00:49:01

lost and I don't know where I'm going and my GPS

Meredith Oke: 00:49:02

is broken and I'm driving, like, do I turn here,

Meredith Oke: 00:49:05

do I turn there? Right. And I feel like a lot of

Meredith Oke: 00:49:09

the time I'm living life in that kind of like in

Meredith Oke: 00:49:16

that mode versus the other mode where I'm still

Meredith Oke: 00:49:19

driving but I'm like in a totally relaxed. I'm

Meredith Oke: 00:49:22

like. It's not like I'm not having to think about

Meredith Oke: 00:49:25

it as it's not like clutching at me. That's how

Meredith Oke: 00:49:30

it, that's how I would describe it.

Rachel Brown: 00:49:33

Yeah, that's a good description. I was just

Rachel Brown: 00:49:35

thinking just to reflect on that probably years

Rachel Brown: 00:49:39

ago, I remember when my dad was teaching me to

Rachel Brown: 00:49:41

drive or there's somebody. I think it was my dad

Rachel Brown: 00:49:44

and I remember him saying to me, you know, like,

Rachel Brown: 00:49:46

are you, are you worried about something? And I

Rachel Brown: 00:49:48

hadn't realized, but I was leaning forward in the

Rachel Brown: 00:49:50

seat. And so something I tend to do if I'm a bit

Rachel Brown: 00:49:52

on edge, like that would be not to sit back,

Rachel Brown: 00:49:54

relax to in the driver's seat, but to be leaning

Rachel Brown: 00:49:57

forward, on alert for, you know, like something

Rachel Brown: 00:50:01

unexpected to be happening. So. Yeah, that's a

Rachel Brown: 00:50:03

good, a good analogy.

Meredith Oke: 00:50:05

Yeah. So we get in there and then we get stuck

Meredith Oke: 00:50:07

there. And so all of these practices that you're

Meredith Oke: 00:50:12

recommending support us to feel safe because I

Meredith Oke: 00:50:18

think that's part of it too. I'm, you know, now

Meredith Oke: 00:50:20

that I'm thinking about it, it's like I maybe

Meredith Oke: 00:50:23

even don't want to get out of the sympathetic

Meredith Oke: 00:50:25

state because I might not do as good a job. I

Meredith Oke: 00:50:29

might forget stuff. I might not be as on top of

Meredith Oke: 00:50:31

things as I want to be. And I don't trust that I

Meredith Oke: 00:50:35

can get it all done from the other mode.

Rachel Brown: 00:50:42

Okay. It's a bit of a fear based mindset.

Meredith Oke: 00:50:46

Yeah. I mean, it's not active all the time, but

Meredith Oke: 00:50:48

it's, you know, I do think that that's part of

Meredith Oke: 00:50:51

it. It's like, well, isn't it? You know, because

Meredith Oke: 00:50:55

I'm looking around at everyone around me. I'm

Meredith Oke: 00:50:57

like, yeah, we're mostly like in go, go, go mode.

Rachel Brown: 00:51:01

Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, I'm somebody. I guess

Rachel Brown: 00:51:05

people have different personality traits, don't

Rachel Brown: 00:51:07

they? But I'm I'm somebody who can't. I get bored

Rachel Brown: 00:51:10

so easily and so I always have to be doing

Rachel Brown: 00:51:12

something. And so I think some people find it

Rachel Brown: 00:51:15

easier to relax than other people. And so for

Rachel Brown: 00:51:19

those of us who are a bit more driven, that type

Rachel Brown: 00:51:22

of personality maybe need to put a bit more

Rachel Brown: 00:51:25

effort into making a concerted effort to do

Rachel Brown: 00:51:28

relaxing activities and make sure you are

Rachel Brown: 00:51:30

actually, it's true.

Meredith Oke: 00:51:34

I remember, I think Irene Lyon always makes this

Meredith Oke: 00:51:38

point that the people who most need to regulate

Meredith Oke: 00:51:40

their nervous system don't do it because it's.

Meredith Oke: 00:51:43

She's like, it's really boring.

Rachel Brown: 00:51:48

Yeah.

Meredith Oke: 00:51:48

I'm like, it is really boring.

Rachel Brown: 00:51:52

Yeah, yeah. I'm guilty as charged.

Meredith Oke: 00:51:55

Same.

Rachel Brown: 00:51:56

Yeah, same.

Meredith Oke: 00:51:58

So, you know, it's all a work in progress and

Meredith Oke: 00:52:02

yeah, you know, I'll get there. So from, from all

Meredith Oke: 00:52:06

of your journeys, it's. Is there anything like,

Meredith Oke: 00:52:09

are there, you know, like what thoughts do you

Meredith Oke: 00:52:13

have that you know, maybe don't have published

Meredith Oke: 00:52:17

studies to support them? They're just kind of, I

Meredith Oke: 00:52:20

always like to know like what people think. You

Meredith Oke: 00:52:22

mentioned earlier about our thoughts having a

Meredith Oke: 00:52:25

frequency, our emotions having a frequency. If we

Meredith Oke: 00:52:29

could just like, you know, go totally woo. I'm

Meredith Oke: 00:52:32

not holding you to any of, you know, I'm not

Meredith Oke: 00:52:34

going to be like, well, I don't know if that's

Meredith Oke: 00:52:35

true. Like we don't care. We just like your

Meredith Oke: 00:52:38

intuitive feeling of how you see things based on

Meredith Oke: 00:52:45

all the, all your experience and all your studies.

Rachel Brown: 00:52:51

I think a big concern I have about the way

Rachel Brown: 00:52:55

medicine is practiced is that it often induces

Rachel Brown: 00:53:00

fear or a fear state in people. And I have

Rachel Brown: 00:53:03

concerns that that in itself, itself can prevent

Rachel Brown: 00:53:07

people from recovering. So I think mindset is

Rachel Brown: 00:53:11

huge and the way we look at things and how we

Rachel Brown: 00:53:14

think about things and I don't know that I can

Rachel Brown: 00:53:18

quote any particular studies that reference.

Rachel Brown: 00:53:23

There might be studies out there, I just haven't

Rachel Brown: 00:53:24

seen them. But about which types of thought have,

Rachel Brown: 00:53:27

are associated with what level, what frequency.

Rachel Brown: 00:53:31

But I think for most people it would be easy

Rachel Brown: 00:53:33

enough to, to be able to see that. Joy,

Rachel Brown: 00:53:37

gratitude, those, those kind of thoughts are the

Rachel Brown: 00:53:41

highest frequency and then there's a whole sort

Rachel Brown: 00:53:44

of sliding scale all the way down to fear being

Rachel Brown: 00:53:47

one of the lowest frequencies. And yeah, I mean I

Rachel Brown: 00:53:51

can talk about lots of woo stuff. I don't know if

Rachel Brown: 00:53:54

I want to, but I'm fascinated by and still

Rachel Brown: 00:53:59

learning about things like biogeometry and our

Rachel Brown: 00:54:03

biofield and bioresonance and our thoughts

Rachel Brown: 00:54:09

absolutely come into all of that. For sure.

Meredith Oke: 00:54:15

I love it. Listen, this is a safe space. But I

Meredith Oke: 00:54:21

understand since you still technically work for

Meredith Oke: 00:54:24

the nhs, you maybe don't want to go there, but is

Meredith Oke: 00:54:29

your, like, intuitive feeling that these are all

Meredith Oke: 00:54:36

completely valid realms to explore?

Rachel Brown: 00:54:40

Yes, 100%. No. No wavering on that.

Meredith Oke: 00:54:45

Yes, love it. 100%.

Rachel Brown: 00:54:51

Yeah.

Meredith Oke: 00:54:56

So, just to wrap up, I just want to go back to

Meredith Oke: 00:55:01

something I heard you and Kelly Ritter talking

Meredith Oke: 00:55:05

about on her podcast, Quantum Mental Health. And

Meredith Oke: 00:55:09

you said something that was interesting to me,

Meredith Oke: 00:55:11

where somebody can. A patient can come to you and

Meredith Oke: 00:55:14

their labs are all great, but you can just look

Meredith Oke: 00:55:17

at them and be like, you are metabolically

Meredith Oke: 00:55:19

unhealthy. And I want to talk about that because

Meredith Oke: 00:55:22

that's been the experience that I had that

Meredith Oke: 00:55:24

experience, and I know so many people did with

Meredith Oke: 00:55:27

traditional medicine, where it's like, it's

Meredith Oke: 00:55:29

almost become a meme now on the Internet,

Meredith Oke: 00:55:32

there's. There was a meme I saw of people, like,

Meredith Oke: 00:55:35

standing around a coffin at a funeral being like,

Meredith Oke: 00:55:37

your labs are perfect. So I just want to talk

Meredith Oke: 00:55:44

about that for a minute because, you know, you

Meredith Oke: 00:55:46

understand that side of things so deeply with

Meredith Oke: 00:55:50

your medical background. Talk to the person whose

Meredith Oke: 00:55:55

labs who's getting that feedback from their

Meredith Oke: 00:55:57

physician. Like, your labs are good. I don't

Meredith Oke: 00:55:59

know. I guess you're just kind of tired, or I

Meredith Oke: 00:56:00

guess you're just kind of, whatever, aging. And

Meredith Oke: 00:56:03

how do you. If you are looking at somebody

Meredith Oke: 00:56:07

setting the labs aside, like, how do you see

Meredith Oke: 00:56:09

what's going on with them?

Rachel Brown: 00:56:12

Oh, I mean, I. I always automatically bring it

Rachel Brown: 00:56:15

back to mitochondria. Mitochondrial health and

Rachel Brown: 00:56:16

function. So, you know, there's really

Rachel Brown: 00:56:22

interesting research talking about how people

Rachel Brown: 00:56:24

present with symptoms when about 70% of their

Rachel Brown: 00:56:28

mitochondria are dysfunctional. So I think it was

Rachel Brown: 00:56:30

Dr. Douglas Wallace who published that research.

Rachel Brown: 00:56:33

I've heard Carrie obviously speak about that. And

Rachel Brown: 00:56:38

do, you know, even just coming from a nutritional

Rachel Brown: 00:56:40

perspective. So the low carb community, for

Rachel Brown: 00:56:42

example, we know that people who follow ketogenic

Rachel Brown: 00:56:46

or carnivore diets won't necessarily have the

Rachel Brown: 00:56:48

same lab ranges as the standard lab ranges. And

Rachel Brown: 00:56:52

the standard lab ranges are pretty much on

Rachel Brown: 00:56:55

average, done in a sick population, if that's not

Rachel Brown: 00:56:59

too controversial. And I. Something I really

Rachel Brown: 00:57:05

detest, and probably, if I'm honest, I've been

Rachel Brown: 00:57:08

guilty of myself coming through the whole

Rachel Brown: 00:57:10

allopathic training system is when people are

Rachel Brown: 00:57:14

dismissed or even gaslit and being told that

Rachel Brown: 00:57:18

something's all in their head, or there's no

Rachel Brown: 00:57:20

evidence for their physical symptoms that they

Rachel Brown: 00:57:24

have or mental health symptoms, I think it tends

Rachel Brown: 00:57:27

to happen more with physical And I just always

Rachel Brown: 00:57:33

think that my philosophy is that we are supposed

Rachel Brown: 00:57:36

to be in good health as long as we are in the.

Rachel Brown: 00:57:38

Putting our body in the right environment and

Rachel Brown: 00:57:40

giving it the right exposures and nutrition. And

Rachel Brown: 00:57:44

if you have a difficulty, it's a sign that there

Rachel Brown: 00:57:46

is something deeper going on at a cellular level

Rachel Brown: 00:57:50

that maybe isn't necessarily showing up in a

Rachel Brown: 00:57:52

blood test because even just, you know, like

Rachel Brown: 00:57:55

certain minerals are held within ourselves and

Rachel Brown: 00:57:58

not necessarily reflected in blood tests. And so

Rachel Brown: 00:58:01

if you're doing a drawing, a blood test, you

Rachel Brown: 00:58:03

won't necessarily know what you're intracellular

Rachel Brown: 00:58:05

mineral content or composition is like. And

Rachel Brown: 00:58:09

there's so much nuance there and I think there's

Rachel Brown: 00:58:11

so much that we don't know. And I, I personally

Rachel Brown: 00:58:15

dislike the arrogance of modern medicine at

Rachel Brown: 00:58:18

times. So I, I would never claim that I know

Rachel Brown: 00:58:22

everything or that we understand absolutely

Rachel Brown: 00:58:25

everything about how the body works, but I think

Rachel Brown: 00:58:29

having a quantum biology perspective certainly

Rachel Brown: 00:58:31

sheds a lot more light on things than, than just

Rachel Brown: 00:58:34

going by standards tests. So I would always say

Rachel Brown: 00:58:38

to people to, you know, get a second opinion or

Rachel Brown: 00:58:42

just don't be afraid to try to think critically

Rachel Brown: 00:58:44

yourself or research things yourself and don't

Rachel Brown: 00:58:48

just automatically accept advice verbatim that

Rachel Brown: 00:58:51

you're given. Just, you know, I think I always

Rachel Brown: 00:58:53

encourage people to try to understand things

Rachel Brown: 00:58:55

themselves if they can, if they're interested in

Rachel Brown: 00:58:57

that, so that they can make the best decision

Rachel Brown: 00:59:00

possible for their own health.

Meredith Oke: 00:59:03

Yeah. Yeah, I love that. I think, yeah, we just

Meredith Oke: 00:59:09

need to keep looking. There's always, there are

Meredith Oke: 00:59:12

always more answers. And I know sometimes not

Meredith Oke: 00:59:15

advocating to like be obsessive about it. I

Meredith Oke: 00:59:19

certainly am not, as you can tell by my 8pm pizza

Meredith Oke: 00:59:23

eating. But there is always, there's always more

Meredith Oke: 00:59:28

like, there's just always another door to open.

Meredith Oke: 00:59:31

Um, and they, they all layer on top of each

Meredith Oke: 00:59:34

other. So I, you know, I love that you're sending

Meredith Oke: 00:59:37

that message. And then you mentioned earlier,

Meredith Oke: 00:59:41

you're like, I don't even know why I studied

Meredith Oke: 00:59:42

medicine. And it's funny, I've, I've had so many

Meredith Oke: 00:59:44

doctors say that they're like this, that wasn't

Meredith Oke: 00:59:47

like. I've always felt drawn to the more

Meredith Oke: 00:59:50

holistic, healing modalities. I don't know why I

Meredith Oke: 00:59:52

went into medicine, but I feel like you were all

Meredith Oke: 00:59:55

called to do that because we need the voices that

Meredith Oke: 00:59:59

have both. So I appreciate you putting yourself

Meredith Oke: 01:00:02

through that system because, you know, it just,

Meredith Oke: 01:00:07

it gives you a different, a different perspective

Meredith Oke: 01:00:11

and a, and a way to shift the paradigm that can't

Meredith Oke: 01:00:14

happen just from Someone who, from someone who is

Meredith Oke: 01:00:17

looking at it from the outside. So. Okay, I

Meredith Oke: 01:00:22

think, I think you followed your soul's journey

Meredith Oke: 01:00:24

and we all appreciate it.

Rachel Brown: 01:00:26

Yeah, I'll go with that. Hasn't been 20 odd years

Rachel Brown: 01:00:31

wasted so.

Meredith Oke: 01:00:33

Not at all. Not at all. And you know I'm just

Meredith Oke: 01:00:38

want to acknowledge you for having, having the

Meredith Oke: 01:00:40

curiosity and the courage to look outside your

Meredith Oke: 01:00:43

profession. It's not easy. So for people who

Meredith Oke: 01:00:46

would like to work with you because you do have

Meredith Oke: 01:00:51

an offer outside of, you know, being a

Meredith Oke: 01:00:54

psychiatrist with nhs, how do, how do people find

Meredith Oke: 01:00:56

you?

Rachel Brown: 01:00:58

Yep. So from a social media perspective,

Rachel Brown: 01:01:01

Instagram is probably the best place to find me.

Rachel Brown: 01:01:04

I'm most active there. Or I've got a website I

Rachel Brown: 01:01:09

can get you to link. If people want to find out a

Rachel Brown: 01:01:13

bit more about me and, and yeah.

Meredith Oke: 01:01:15

And you they can like book a session or book,

Meredith Oke: 01:01:18

book a consult with you through your website.

Meredith Oke: 01:01:20

Okay. And that is just tell me what the URL is.

Meredith Oke: 01:01:23

Is it Dr. Rachel Brown?

Rachel Brown: 01:01:26

It's Dr. Rachel S. Brown dot com.

Meredith Oke: 01:01:28

Okay. Dr. Rachel S. Brown dotcom. We'll put the

Meredith Oke: 01:01:34

link in the show notes but sometimes people just

Meredith Oke: 01:01:36

listen when they're driving or whatever so I

Meredith Oke: 01:01:39

always like to say it loudly. Dr. Dr. Rachel S.

Meredith Oke: 01:01:44

Brown dot com. Okay, Rachel, thank you so much.

Meredith Oke: 01:01:47

I'd love to do this again sometime. Feel like

Meredith Oke: 01:01:50

we're just like this was like the warm up and.

Meredith Oke: 01:01:54

Yeah. Any final thoughts you want to want to

Meredith Oke: 01:01:57

share with the crew?

Rachel Brown: 01:02:01

Just, I just, I never want people to lose hope

Rachel Brown: 01:02:04

even if they're in a seemingly dire situation

Rachel Brown: 01:02:07

health wise because I think there's always more

Rachel Brown: 01:02:10

that can be done as you say and you just have to

Rachel Brown: 01:02:13

be questioning and willing to look for solutions.

Rachel Brown: 01:02:18

So just want to bring a message of hope really

Rachel Brown: 01:02:20

and healing because I think that's possible.

Meredith Oke: 01:02:24

Thank you. I love that. Thank you Rachel. See you

Meredith Oke: 01:02:28

soon.

Rachel Brown: 01:02:29

Oh, thank you for having me.

Meredith Oke: 01:02:37

Sa.