100th Episode! Healing Burnout and Your Health, with Raewyn Guerrero

Hi, I'm Dr. Tabitha, the gutsy gynecologist. I'm a triple board certified, OB, GYN and Functional Medicine physician. I've embraced the world of functional medicine and wellness through my own personal health journey. And I'm super excited to share my wisdom and unique perspective as it pertains to women's health. After caring for thousands of women, I've come to realize that your gut health determines your gyne health and your overall health. And it's a super gutsy thing for me to go against conventional gynecology practice to bring you the truth. No more band aid medicine, ladies. We're talking root cause resolution on this show. So if you're struggling with hormone imbalance, weight gain, period issues, anxiety, insomnia, you name it, then you've come to the right place. And I want to be your gutsy gynecologist. So welcome.

Yay.

I have a new name, the Gutsy gynecologist show. So I'm switching things up. It's my hundredth episode and it's time to, you know, keep growing and move forward. And what I've realized is through helping thousands of women over the past 20 years, that it's almost always your gut that you know, is the culprit for your root cause of your issues. So much of your gut causes hormone imbalances, food sensitivities, autoimmune conditions, you know, mood disorders, you name it. So, so what I have found to really help women is to evaluate their gut, get their gut dysbiosis taken care of, get their gut functioning again. And that includes the liver. The liver is a major organ in our digestive system. And so if you aren't loving on your liver and helping your liver do its detox processes properly, you're gonna have hormone imbalance, you're gonna have high toxic burden. And that is going to affect everything. It's going to affect your mood and your weight and your sleep and your skin, your everything. So my focus, my mission is to help you guys understand, like to balance your hormones and have amazing health and a strong immune system and lose weight and just feel amazing mentally. You have to have good gut health. You have to have proper functioning liver. So much of it comes back to your gut. So the other piece of the gutsy gynecologist is I am ready to take on the conventional gynecology system. Like, I'm ready to call BS on that and say, you know, your pills and your surgery are not the answer. That is not what will help women reclaim their health. That is A band aid solution, and it's causing new problems and new issues. And so. So it's time that we call out conventional gynecology. And that's a gutsy thing to do, you know, because I am going against the system, but our system is broken and it is really causing so many new issues. It's really hurting us as women to just hand us birth control pills and to cut out our uteruses. And I'm just, I'm done with it. And so. So I hope that you guys will continue to follow me and support me on this mission because it's about you. I'm doing this for you. I'm doing this for your sisters and your girlfriends and your daughters and your mothers. Like, we need to support each other and say enough is enough. We need to stand up and say we want different options. We don't accept this big pharma broken system any longer. There is a better solution. And it's finding the root cause of our issues and actually addressing them and confronting our poor diet and lifestyle, you know, decisions and making those hard changes. And so I need you to be gutsy with me because we need to all band together and really help each other out and say, you know what, we're going to do things a different way. We're going to focus on self care and self love. And that isn't an ego thing. It's actually a survival thing thing. And it's a beautiful thing that we need to support women and each other and teach our daughters how to do that. So I hope that you're with me for this. If you are, please hit subscribe, give me a five star rating and then share it with every woman. You know, like, share my podcast on your social media platform. Shout me out. Like, let's band together and get the message out there that you don't have to keep going to your white coat doctor who dismisses you and throws another prescription at you. That's not the solution. So I'm really excited. This is going to be an amazing year. And let's kick off my first gutsy Gynecologist show episode and definitely stay tuned for this one. You know, and the best thing about podcasts is if you don't have time to listen to the whole thing, that's fine, pause it and come back to it. It's always here. You can listen to old episodes, you can go back and listen to episode number one of the Functional Gynecologist. Like, podcasts are awesome. That. So today we're going to talk about Burnout and how that affects your physiology. And my guest today is going to give you really awesome, simple tips that you can actually start to incorporate to shift your health and make changes in your health. You know, we advocate doing testing, not guessing, and, you know, doing all this individualized medicine. But there are some basic requirements for us as humans to be our best self. It's like how we recharge our phones every night. There are certain things that we need to do to recharge as human beings. Getting enough sleep, going outside, feeling and seeing the sunlight hit our retinas, you know, feeling the ground energy come through our body, so many basic things. So this is a great episode. Let me just sing her praises real quick. My guest, Raewyn Guerrera, she is the gutsy executive coach. I love that we have the same play on names. She's committed to helping you eliminate the guesswork around your stress so that you can fine tune your biochemistry and become the CEO of not only your health, but your life. After years of chasing symptoms in conventional medicine to address her anxiety and irritable bowel, she discovered the evidence based systems biology framework of functional medicine and functional diagnostic nutrition. This approach revealed how the gut is connected to the brain, to hormones, to the skin, to pretty much all health, like I mentioned. So armed with that knowledge, Raewyn retrained as a functional health coach. She left her corporate wellness job and set up well works her online functional medicine practice and corporate wellness consultancy. So she now has a team of practitioners that work with her and they believe in lifestyle and integrative medicine as passionately as she does. Her mission is to awaken everyone who comes her way to the innate wisdom of the body. And the most cutting edge natural solutions allow true healing. So while leading wellness at Barclays between 2011 and 2016, Raewyn was a member of the all party Parliamentary group of Mindfulness in the work place. She's from London, y'.

All.

She's been featured in Huffington Post, the CW Network, numerous podcasts discussing a nutrition and psychology approach for sleep, panic attacks and anti aging by offering a personalized roadmap for how to eat, think, sleep and move through the insights she gained from functional labs. She's said to change the face of health care and create a well world. So I love everything she's doing. You're going to get a lot of golden nuggets in this episode today. So here we go. Well, welcome Rayn, to the Gutsy Gynecologist show.

Thank you so much. I'm very excited to be here.

Yeah, I'm really excited for this conversation because I feel like we are kind of on the same mission. We're trying to help women realize that so much of their health stems from their gut.

Right, exactly. And that's been my story. You know, the whole gut health, gut brain, gut hormone connection. That's, that's been the whole basis of all my work and my journey.

I would love for you to just share with my listeners this journey because I feel like we can learn so much from each other's stories. And I love that you, like, turned this into your whole life's work and passion. It's amazing.

Yeah, it's quite a funny story because I think it started off very, very early on. You know, I was a very sickly child. I was on a ton of antibiotics. I was thinking about probably about 50 courses of antibiotics in my lifetime. Always with like a chronic sinus infection. Tonsils. They wanted to take my tonsils out when I was seven and I got up and ran out of the ENT's chair. I was like, nobody's putting a knife near my throat. I knew at seven o', clock, at seven years old, like that was a very, very bad idea. So I ran. And then, you know, to the UK in my twenties. And then the lack of vitamin D after growing up in the tropics, like my immune system took such a big hit then too. And I was always sick again. And the only thing I knew was, go to the doctor, they'll give you antibiotics and then you'll get over it. But then it just kept happening and it was just recurring and recurring. And by then I started acquiring all these other horrible, you know, gut related symptoms. I became lactose intolerant. I couldn't eat pizza anymore. I was a real bummer. Couldn't eat ice cream anymore. And these were staples, you know, in your youth, right. Like you live on sort of like all the junk food, but couldn't eat all these things that I used to enjoy and started developing all these. I had eczema, terrible migraines, and my hormones had never been happy. But they became so much more like the symptoms were much more pronounced as I got older. So by the time I kind of hit my 30s and I wanted to get pregnant and that became a real issue, I realized, well, something's not working. Like whatever I'm doing is not working and I am more tired than I have ever been in my entire life. So I had to figure, figure it out and started looking down alternative routes because the traditional route, because the, the only solution that they had for me. And when I say the only, it's like, I had been to gastroenterologists, endocrinologists, urologists, all the ologists had seen them all. And everybody just kept said, well, just take this pill. And I remember one urologist wanted me conazole for like over a year. She said, you just take this once a week and you'll be okay. And I'm like, I started researching. I was like, doesn't it screw up your liver? She's like, well, there's this one study that says that it does. I was like, one study? You're basing like how you recommend medication to people based off of one study. And of course it didn't work for me. So I kept looking and eventually had a burnout in the middle of all of that, like, while I was doing my corporate job. So I was in a banking industry where everyone was working, you know, 14 hours a day, sleeping for five hours a night and thinking that they're all winning and going to spin classes for two hours every evening or running first thing in the morning. So my hormones just tanked completely because I thought I was keeping up with everyone else. But after 10 years of doing that, you collapse, your body goes into the exhaustive phase and you break down. So I had to figure something else out that wasn't about medication. And I had seen how medication had ruined people in my family. My grandfather had been on Valium for anxiety for over 20 years and it led to multiple strokes and vascular dementia. So I knew medication. I didn't want that for myself. I was like, I'm not going to end up dependent on medication for 20 years because I see what the long term effects are like. They're designed for short periods, not for chronic conditions. There's got to be a solution to the chronic conditions. So that was my first step into the world of nutrition, functional medicine and trying to figure out what is it that I am doing that's causing this situation in my body that's causing all of this dis ease. So, you know, several practitioners later eventually found someone that worked really well for me and she now works with me, which is what's amazing about the work that I do. Like, the people that I gravitated to that I found, like, okay, you know what you're doing and you know, you have the right, I don't want to call it bedside manner, but just like the right energy, like you've got a good heart. You really are genuinely into helping people. I've stuck with those people rather than the people who are just out to, you know, churn you in and out of. Because I've tried several different functional medicine doctors and therapists and nutritional consultants, but ended up with this one lady, and then she became my chief nutritional advisor when I set up my business.

Oh, my goodness. You said so many important things there. And the biggest thing was you started asking, why. Why do I have this dis. Ease going on in my body? You know, is it something I'm doing? The life I'm l. The food I'm eating? Like, you started asking and searching for those answers. And, oh, my goodness, the idea of taking fluconazole for an entire year, like, that's just malpractice in my mind. And it's really sad that that is the option that you were given, you know, when really that is not the solution. We need to figure out why. Why do you need that for so long? Right? So I would love for you to just talk about, like, you figured all of this out, and now you understand this connection between the gut and the brain and our hormones and everything like that. Where should women even begin? Should they just start asking what's going on in my body? You know, what can I do? Do they need to seek somebody out like you?

I think that's such a wonderful starting point for us to where do you begin? Right. Because when I started, I didn't know where to begin. You know, I was trusting of the medical professionals who I had been seeing my whole life, that my parents had been seeing their whole lives. My dad actually used to run a wellness center, but for medics. So it wasn't actually a wellness center. It was more for, like, an insurance company. And, you know, I always been sort of suspicious of them when I had said things like, well, I have. I'm always getting these colds and flus. Maybe I should try, like, some echinacea. And I remember one of the doctors looked at me and he said, maybe that's why you're getting your colds and flu, is because you're trying all this. This herbal nonsense. So back then, like, I was 16, and I thought, whoa, like, that's you. Have you researched it? Like, I've been reading up on it. It seems to be something that helps the immune system. Clearly, my immune system's not functioning because I'm sick all the time. So maybe I should start investigating what are the things that could help it. Now, obviously, back then, I was still looking in an allopathic kind of way, right? I was like, okay, colds and flus what solves that? Oh, echinacea. Not like, what's wrong with the imm? Like, how do you, how do you get to that? So for women who are sort of starting to question, what's going on with my body, start paying attention to the clues that it's giving you. Like, you know, do you have a sore back at a certain time of the month, during that 10 days before your period? That's called your luteal phase. Look at what's going on during those 10 days. That's a really big indicator of health. Like, what's going on with your period is a huge indicator of your health. And for me, I used to be extremely depressed, irritable. I remember seeing a psychologist who said, well, you know, you can go on antidepressants just for 14 days of the month. And I looked at her again and I'm like, but that's not the solution to my problem. Like, why are my hormones so off that I would need to go on antidepressants for 14 days of the month that people can just cycle through that and go do that for the rest of their lives? Like, she just seemed to think that that was an okay solution. So if someone makes these sort of recommendations to be like, well, how long should I be on these things? And for, you know, that's probably of the first questions you should ask. Oh, so you think that's an option? How long should I do this for? And if they say, for the rest of your life and you're like, okay, I need to find another doctor, I need to find someone else. Because the idea behind a lot of these medications is that they are designed for short term usage. The long term effects, side effects are so detrimental to your liver, to your gut, all the things that you actually need for producing healthy hormones. So if you end up being on them for a long period of time, you're just going to end up screwing yourself later on. So. So look out for the signs and symptoms that your body is giving you. So sore back, sore boobs, migraines, dodgy skin. A lot of people come to me with chin acne. They're like, it only happens like in the 10 days before my period or back acne. I'm like, okay, these are signs that you're not detoxifying. Well, these are signs of an elimination problem. And I don't know about you, but if you ever go to your doctor, like when I used to, no one ever asks, how much water are you drinking? What kinds of foods are you eating? How often are you eliminating. And when I see my clients and one of the first questions I ask is, how often do you poop? And they're like, why do you want to know that? Because this is like, this is another key indicator of health, right? The period is one and the pooping is the other. I actually call it the four P's, the peeing, pooping, perspiring, and period. So if your pooping is, like, less than twice a day, then you're technically constipated. People don't understand that. They're like, but I'm going every day. Day. I'm like, yeah, but you should be eliminating pretty much almost after every meal. So if you're having two meals a day, you know, at least you're going for the time, because that means that you're absorbing, breaking down your food properly and clearing it out. If not, then your. Your body's not your. It's slow. You've got slow motility, probably a slow oxidizer. So these are all signs and symptoms that you could be paying attention to and knowing that, okay, this is something that needs to be optimized because maybe I am going once a day, but if I should be going twice, what do I need to do to make that happen? And then what are the cons, consequences of me not going, you know, more than once a day? Is my skin not great? Do I have migraines? Do I have too much estrogen floating around? And I've got a sore. I've got sore boobs, sore back. You know, all these sorts of signs and symptoms are the things that I like people to start paying attention to. And when we do begin the initial screening process, I get them to fill out, like, these crazy, extensive forms so that I can get a really clear picture of what I'm dealing with and what they're dealing with on a daily basis.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. That's exactly what I have my patients and clients do. And it's not a day goes by where I don't get a woman who has a ball movement like, once a week, and just that's her norm. And so she accepts that and thinks it's okay. And meanwhile, she's completely backed up, full of toxins, like you said, with the acne and the migraines and she can't lose weight and the fatigue and the estrogen dominance, like. Like it all just comes back to your gut. So what are some quick, easy things that women can do to stimulate their gut motility? You mentioned a couple of them, and I Think we overlook the easy stuff like drinking more water, right?

Yeah, really simple. I keep a bottle next to my bed so that when I wake up first thing in the morning, I just take a giant gulp of it. I actually put a little bit of salt in it too. So I add elements, the salt salts, because they've got that perfect balance of minerals and mineral balancing is really important to me. So popping those in, you know, more potassium, more magnesium, a little bit, little bit of sodium. Obviously you don't want to overwhelm your system, but just enough so that it kind of keeps the adrenals in a good place. And the magnesium is really good for stimulating gut motility as well. Lots of vitamin C, fibrous fruits and vegetables, good fats. Believe it or not, we have demonized fat so much that we're afraid of it. We don't realize you actually need fat to be able to, to the bathroom. So it's not just about the fiber. You need to be consuming good fat. So avocados, if you have smoothies in the morning like I do, you know, you can pop some avocado, well, not some, but one, one avocado into a smoothie. You can add some seeds, provided you don't have any, you know, intolerances or anything. Like one lady I tested recently, she had pumpkin seed food intolerance. I was like, oh, that's a real bummer because it's so full of zinc and a bunch of other really great things. But she's like, I can't, she can have pumpkin. See, so once you test and you know what foods you should be eating, that's also a good thing to increasing gut motility. You can test to figure out like what's going on with you. In fact, that should probably be your starting point. Like do your functional lab work, see what's actually happening with your body. And not just taking these generic stuff that you find in Cosmo or wherever, whatever magazine fad is the latest diet or thing that you're picking up and just actually figure out what's going on for you. So starting with testing, then looking at including more fat, fat and good fat, and then fiber, drinking lots of water, I think that would be right there and sort of giving your, your gut a break as well. Because we snack so much, so I, I try to sort of eat within like a six hour window and we kind of cut off eating from about five o' clock here in the evening. So we sort of kind of have like, you know, I'll have like a, not even a Bulletproof coffee. I'm kind of off of coffee right now, too, so that's another one. Not on any stim, but I'm on this inulin on chicory because that's also great for. It's prebiotic, so it's a prebiotic fiber. It's great for getting the gut going. So I'll have that instead with a little bit of like powdered mushrooms, like reishi or some kind of adaptogenic herb, along with a tiny amount of collagen and hot water. And obviously hot water is great for stimulating all kinds of things. So starting your day off with some warm. Some. Something warm like that would be great. And then not having any food for a few hours until about noon and then having your last meal at five, that actually helps because it gives your. Your digestion a little bit of a rest, too, rather than constantly clogging it up, because that's what it is. That's, you know, unfortunately, we eat that. We were sitting at our desks and we're snacking or we're driving. For me, it's driving. Like, when I'm driving, I'm constantly, like, reaching for something. So I have to know, like, if I'm going to reach for anything, it's got to be like an apple, you know, not junk food, because it's very easy to grab chips.

Yeah. Oh, my gosh, what an important point. Like, give your gut a break. Give pancreas break from making all of that insulin to handle all that blood glucose. I think that's really important. And we've gotten so into snacking as a culture and like, oh, I just eat every couple hours. I got to keep my blood sugar up. And it's like, that's just a bunch of crap that was all created by the snacking industry. Right. So we really do need to get back to how our physiology was created. So I love all those tips, I think. I think that's super important. Like myself, I will fill up my water glass before bed because it comes out of my filtered fridge cold. And I want to drink it warm in the morning, so I do it at night and then I drink it in the morning. You know, I think little things like that. And like you said, adding the salt or the lemon, like, to stimulate that gut process to get going for the day. That's so important. So I love all of those tips.

Thank you. You no pleasure. And they're so easy to do. Right. Like, none of these are, you know, having a bottle of water next to your bed, not hard. Ordering some element from Amazon gets delivered to you the same day. Just putting a sachet of that not hard into your water. So I'm carrying that around with you because, like, when I drive, that's one of the things I do. I'll keep my water bottle with me with the salts in it. So that keeps me hydrated and keeps my adrenals in a really good place as well because of the salt. So there's so many simple little hacks or pearl things that you can do to. To keep your blood sugar, your adrenals, your, you know, your cortisol and everything in check while you go about your day and, you know, the world. The world's definitely changed a lot since we were younger. You know, I don't think we ever worked at this pace that we work at now. You know, even working for myself, I sometimes have to catch myself and be like, hey, I left corporate because I don't want to live. Like, I want a conveyor belt running from the next thing to the next thing to the next thing. Like, I need to breathe. I need to have moments of pause. I need to be able to go outside. Probably one of my favorite hacks is actually if you want to reset your nervous system, get outside. At one point, I was doing all my consults outside because I was just so much happier when, you know, you've got. Obviously it's winter, so it's not ideal right now, but, you know, in the summer or the spring, and you can get outside and let light hit you and hit your skin and your head and your arms and your feet and, you know, your eyes. Like, these are all things that help your circadian rhythm stay in balance. Because we're not meant to be in front of screens all day. We're meant to be outside in clean air, in nature, looking at trees, maybe climbing a mountain or a hike or doing something that's actually grounding being barefoot as well. Like, not wearing shoes, which is one of my favorites. I don't really like shoes.

I am with you. Oh, my gosh. My family's made fun of me my whole life because I'm always.

He said my bare barefoot. Yeah, same like my husband. He's like, why don't you put some clothes on? And I kind of like, why? Like, I just want to go outside and get the sun touching my skin, you know, and get my feet on the earth because it feels good. It feels so much better than being confined and cooped up and, you know, staring at a screen all day. I do worry for our children because they Are, you know, tuned into the screens from the minute they get going. And for, you know, for me, I didn't have, like, a mobile phone until I was 19. That was in 1997. 98. 98. And it was one of those horrible things with a giant antenna, like Motorola. You remember brick? It was like, an actual brick, right? Yeah. And so. And I think my first smartphone where I had, like, a screen and stuff, that was, I don't know, 2010. 2011. Must have been 2011. So, you know, the kids now, like, I was already in my 30s when that happened, but children are growing up with these things, and we're having a lot of problems with them being able to disconnect and being able to connect with other people and humans and communicate, and you can see it happen. You know, you go out to dinner, it affects adults in a huge way. Like, you go out to dinner, and you see people, they're all on their phones and they're not talking to each other. And I, you know, we have a rule. Reid and I, we're just like, put the phone away. Like, if we're sitting down, we are not doing this. Like, we're not going to be on our phones. And I get irritated sometimes if I hear it pinging. I'm like, just turn off those notifications, you know, because they're disruptive and they're interrupting actual, real connection with the people in front of you. And that's a big thing. And I don't know if you know this. There's a stat. I can't remember where I saw it, but when we're on our phones and we're scrolling, we're actually holding our breaths. So the. Not breathing is a huge factor when it comes to stress, when it comes to pain, when it comes to cortisol. So when you stop breathing, which is obviously bad in any, you know, my die.

But.

But holding your breath, it's actually creating, like, a state of fight or flight the entire time that you're doing that. So being on the phones is a. Is telling your body that you're in this constant state of stress, and then that slows everything else down, because when your body's thinking it needs to flee or fight, digestion slows, hormone production slows. So fertility becomes a problem. So if you're always on that pain, you're obviously going to end up with a ton of. Of hormonal issues as well as stressful, you know, and stress is. You know, cortisol is a hormone as well. But I'm thinking, like, fertility Issues, you're going to end up with a lot of these issues. And you know, you might not have great periods. You might not be able to think clearly because that's the other thing. Like the lack of oxygen to the brain. You end up having brain fog and, and being so distracted that it's impossible to hold a thought and stay focused. So, and these are all things that lead to burnout. Like this is how burnout manage manifest. You know, not being able to think clearly, not being able to make good decisions, not being able to remember things. I remember at the worst of my burnout, I couldn't figure out where I put my keys. I was always losing my keys. And I used to think like, if only I could have a Find my Keys app, I could figure out where this thing was. So, you know, not being able to remember, memory goes, brain fog. All these things that we don't always associate with, well, what is it that I'm doing that's contributing to this? Maybe being on the phone is one of those contributors. You know, the lack of breathing is a contributor. If you're sitting at your desk and you're holding your breath the whole time as well, and you're responding to emails that have got you in a stressed out state, perhaps that's also part of, maybe your lifestyle is contributing to it. So I think there's so many ways that we could start to become more mindful of the way that our behavior is influencing our physiology.

Oh my gosh, that's such an awesome point. I can't. I have never thought of that before. Like the fact that you probably are holding your breath and you're really just like driving that sympathetic mode. And you know, I can feel it in myself when I'm going through emails that I'm annoyed with and like reading stuff I don't want to deal with. And you know, I see it in my children when they're on TikTok and things like that. They're, they're hunched down so they're not taking deep breaths and you know, they're getting emotionally charged. That makes so much sense. I think it's just so important to get off of those things and experience life, experience real connection and communication with people. I love that. You know, I recently had a patient who, she just could not get out of bed in the morning. She was having that adrenal exhaustion. And I literally said, you have to go outside and look at the sun, like within five minutes of waking up. And she did that for I think, two weeks straight. And she had A huge shift. And it was so beautiful to see because we didn't do a bunch of major intervention. Like, that was the first thing that really got her going. And once you get out of bed and you feel like you have some energy, then we can do the work. Right? But you got to start somewhere. So. So I love all these tips that you're giving because I feel like we just have to start to do something different than we did yesterday and the day before and the day before. You know, that's the only way to get over burnout, right?

That's. I mean, you've just given me chills by what you said. We didn't do anything crazy. You just got her to get up and go outside. You know, everyone shows up thinking like, okay, we're going to do all this fancy testing and we're going to pull me on this specific diet, I'm going to take all these supplements. And I'm like, yes, that's part of it. But there is a reason why we call it dress, because diet and supplements are just part of the equation. But rest and stress reduction. Stress reduction isn't just psychological stress that you've got with your work or your husband or whatever. Stress reduction is about what are the other stressors in your environment? What are the ones that you're being exposed to daily? So are there environmental toxins? Is it a lack of sunlight? That's a. That's seriously toxic. Not having enough sunlight. That's a lack of, you know, that's a. That's a stressor. So we want to be able to remove some of these stressors and change what we can in your life so that you're more in tune with your body. Because I think a lot of the time we've forgotten that we're actually biological beings. We're not robots. We don't run on batteries the way that machines do, and we can't just. And our version of a reboot is to get decent sleep and to get outside and to get. And get in touch with the earth. Right? Like a reboot for a human is go outside, go see the sun, go spend some time with your skin, getting light on it. You know, hang out with your children or hang out with your friends, as opposed to, like, talking to people on social media. Go actually meet real people, hug them, you know, hug people. I just came back from a trip to Trinidad where my mom isn't very well, and they had a massive curfew going on. They been locked down for over nearly two years. Kind of like Australia So I was probably one of the first people who was flying in from abroad. And because I've been living. I've been living in London, Mexico. Well, the minute London got crazy and started locking everything down, I was like, okay, I'm checking out. I'm heading to Mexico. So got to Mexico, and, you know, people are very warm, and it's outside, you're outside. And sunlight, obviously, is disinfectant. So I don't really worry about a lot of the things that everybody else is worried about, because I take care of myself and my immunity system. And when I got to Trinidad, where it's a very sunny, warm place as well, but everyone's, you know, covered, and I started seeing people that I hadn't seen in a long time, and I run up to them and hug them, and they were like, what are you doing? Like, why are you hugging me? And I'm like. I was like, well, I haven't seen you in, like, two years, so I'm excited to see you. And they're like, aren't you afraid? I'm like, no. Like, why would I be? I was like, hugging is like oxytocin, and that's actually helpful for your immune system. And these are things that we need to be. This is actual science, right? But people don't seem to connect those dots. They think, oh, like, you might. They're afraid of you because you might be contagious of something. And I'm like, I already told. I was like, listen, I had it back in January. I'm immune. I'm like, I'm pretty much bulletproof. I have nothing to worry about. And I didn't even. Really, for me, I didn't even know I had it until I lost my sense of smell. So I, you know, I didn't have the fever, and I track everything. Like, I wear an OURA ring. So my body temperature hadn't really changed, not by very much. Like, by point one, you know, so nothing was really going on until I lost my smell. And then I was like, oh, boy. I think this is what this is. You know, I just started up in all my zinc and all my vitamins, and it was fine. And, you know, so I keep telling people, I said, if you do what, if you give your body what it needs, it's going to be okay. You know, and the only reason I think I've gotten it as well is because I have been on. I've been on a plane. I just gotten married. We'd had a couple of stressful weeks because there's Lots of stuff going on with planning a wedding. Sleep definitely had fallen off. Like, I was not sleeping during the two weeks leading up to the wedding and the honeymoon and all. And then, you know, we got to on the honeymoon and just drank a lot, and that kills your immune system, you know, so I'm not perfect. I am, like, you know, I'm a real person. I like to go out and dance and, you know, for a wedding, we wanted to just have a really good time, and we had everybody else having a really good time. So we all relaxed, enjoyed it, went on the honeymoon, drank a lot of margaritas a lot. And then I was like, okay. And my body just. It kicked my ass. It was like, all right, you screwed up. Now you got to get back in. You know, this is how you keep in balance when it tells you, like, right now you're depleted, and this is why you got sick. So, like, all right, now I got to pay attention again. Now I had my. My moment, my month of, like, excess, and I had to get back on track.

I think that's the best way to live. You know, you really, like you said, nobody is perfect. You're going to have moments where you're in excess, you're enjoying, you're having fun, and your body's going to let you know when it's too much. And I just think we really need to stress the point, like, we cannot live in fear. These viruses have been here long before we ever existed. We need to coexist with them. We need to figure out how to strengthen our immune system and get healthy so that we can continue to coexist with whatever viruses come our way. And like you said, hugging produces oxytocin. And having those physical, connected relationships is good for your physiology, right?

Yeah, it's your biology. You know, you flourish when you. You hug people that you love, you know, and they flourish as well. So it's been very sad to see the way that things have devolved over the last two years where everyone's afraid of each other. And we're very lucky. You know, we. We live quite far away from. Of other people, but the people who are around us, no, you know, everyone's very warm, very friendly. We don't really worry too much about a lot of things. And. And luckily, as well, in San Diego, there are quite a few, you know, functional health nuts. You know, that's how we're branded. We're health nuts. And like, well, that should be a good thing, like being branded a health nut in this day and age, right? Like if you are someone who is actually paying attention to how your body functions and what you put into it and knowing what you're going to get out of it and actually testing and not guess, you know, because let's be, let's face it, right? Like 10 years ago, I wasn't doing any functional testing. I was doing all the things that I thought were healthy. I was eating low fat. I was a vegetarian. Yeah. I think everybody I know who went through this journey has been a vegetarian at some point and realized like, it totally sucked. I hope you are not a vegetarian, by the way. No. Okay, good. So I was a vegetarian. I was eating low fat, everything. I was afraid of meat. Like I was actually afraid because I'd been fear mongered into thinking that it was going kill me. Like when the doctor, I remember I'd seen my doctor and he said, well, why aren't you eating meat? And I said, well, isn't it really bad for you? And he's like, who told you that? And he's like, you. And he's like, you need a steak. You're like anemic, like, please go out and get a steak. He's like, I'm like, but what about all the. He's like, there's nothing wrong with you getting a nice decent cut of red meat. And he didn't talk about grass fed and stuff back then. That was like I was in the early 2000s, I think it must have been like 2004. And I had been a vegetarian for years at that point while I was at university because I thought I was doing right thing by avoiding me, not realizing how much it was screwing up my body. And even when I started to eat it, I would eat it like once a month. I'd have a steak once a month around my period, you know, and when I really could have been doing grass fed organic for a really long time and benefiting from all the omegas and all the wonderful good fats that are in, you know, obviously if it's clean and organic, those are the things you're going to benefit from. But I didn't know what, you know, you just don't know back then when you're young. I was in my 20s, I didn't have a clue. So I avoided red meat thinking it was very bad for me because the food manufacturing industry was trying to push us to eating more grains. Right? They wanted people eating more grains. So I lived on crunchy, not cornflake, oh my God, like sugar. I was living on.