kate-berkeley-nutrition

IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT DIET

Tue, 15 Apr 2025 14:52:57 GMT

When we think about improving our health, the conversation so often starts—and ends—with food. People will cringe at parties and say, “I shouldn’t eat this or drink that in front of you.” But, you know what? I disagree. The joy of celebrating, the laughter, the sense of ease that comes from being with people you love—that’s worth far more than a tonne of wild-caught salmon.

Real health isn’t just about what you eat. It’s about how you live .

It’s about whether your body feels calm and rested. Whether your mind feels clear. Whether your days have space for connection, movement, and breath. These are the things that create true wellbeing—not perfection, but flow. Not restriction, but resilience.

Yes, the food we eat matters. It can nourish, deplete, support or stress your body. But we are not machines with a list of required inputs, that will guarantee a specific outcome. We are living, feeling, energetic beings, constantly interacting with our environment—and our health reflects the whole of that interaction.

That’s why some people eat all the “right” foods and still feel flat, anxious, bloated, or exhausted. Because food is only one piece of the puzzle.

Health is a system of energies in balance

We thrive when we have:

Deep, restful sleep: Not just time in bed, but true restoration. The kind that recalibrates hormones, clears inflammation, and steadies the mind.
Movement: Not punishment or perfection, but the kind that brings oxygen, lifts the spirit, and stirs stagnant energy—especially outdoors.
Time in nature: We are biologically wired for it. Being outside helps regulate our nervous system, digestion, and even immune responses.
Connection: Whether it’s deep conversations or a shared laugh, being seen and supported changes our physiology. Isolation is a stressor. Connection is a balm.
Stillness and joy: Our bodies crave rest—but also play, creativity, and moments that make us feel fully alive. These things restore our life force in ways that green smoothies never can.

Energy is everything

One of the most important, but least talked about, aspects of healing is energy—not the kind you burn through, but the kind you bring into a space.

When I talk about energy, I don’t mean being busy or high-vibe or bouncing off the walls. My spaniel, Radish, has that kind of energy—she literally bounces off walls, chasing shadows and patches of light, racing through life with total joy and utter chaos. I love her madly, but she’s not what you’d call calming.

Then there’s Bella, my horse. She weighs three-quarters of a tonne, a giant compared to Radish, and yet somehow she’s the gentlest soul I know. I can be working away in the yard and not even realise she’s behind me until I feel her breath—soft and steady—right by my ear. She doesn’t announce herself. She just arrives. That’s the kind of energy I believe in. The kind that settles your whole system. That makes you feel safe, grounded, and at ease without needing anything in return. I believe healing happens in that kind of presence. Not when someone charges in with fixes and formulas, but when they offer stillness. When they hold space for your body to do what it’s been longing to do: restore, recalibrate, and return to balance.

For my clients I aim to bring that kind of energy, that sense of being in flow. Of digestion that feels effortless. Moods that feel balanced. A body that feels light, strong, and yours . That’s energy. And it's affected by everything you absorb—not just nutritionally, but emotionally, relationally, and environmentally.

So if you're doing “all the right things” with food but still not feeling like yourself, take a breath. Zoom out. Ask: What else is depleting me? What else could be nourishing me?

Because healing isn’t just about what you eat. It’s about how you live. And the good news? Every part of your life can be part of your medicine.

MORE THAN SYMPTOMS, BEYOND THE LABS: HOW ANCIENT WISDOM REVEALS WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON

Tue, 15 Apr 2025 14:46:30 GMT

This blog is the one closest to my heart — because it’s been an immense learning curve for me.

As a Nutritional Therapist and Functional Medicine practitioner, I place science, lab tests, physiology, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics in the highest esteem. I’ll admit, in the past, when hearing other therapists talk of doshas, energetics and constitutions, my sceptic’s eyes would roll. I saw constitution questionnaires as akin to the quizzes in Just Seventeen —a bit of fun, but not practical. I was drawn to evidence, clarity, and explanations that made sense.

But then I came across a brilliant PhD called Sam Yanuck, while studying one of his deeply academic courses on immunology. After long, technical explanations of a pathology, his solutions were often surprisingly simple—and invariably included a herb or several. My curiosity was sparked.

At first, I was still thinking in medical terms: a pill for an ill, a herb for a symptom. I wanted to match the herb to the condition, full stop. But I’ve come to understand that herbs don’t just act—they interact , and that depends entirely on the person they’re given to.

A Global Tradition of Energetics

Ancient medical systems from all over the world—developed in isolation from one another—each discovered a similar truth: that health, and the loss of it, is deeply tied to the individual's energetic nature.

From Ayurveda’s doshas , to the five elements of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), to the Four Temperaments of Ancient Greece, these systems offer us a lens through which to view people, symptoms, and medicines. And while the terminology may differ, the foundation is simple and practical:

Is something hot or cold ?
Warming or cooling ?
Drying or moistening ?
Heavy or light ?

It’s not mystical—it’s observational. We all know the angry man with a quick temper and inflammatory conditions is hot . The snotty baby is wet . The ageing woman with paper-thin skin is dry . Likewise we know that chilli is hot, ginger too. Turmeric warms, but is also dry. Cucumber cools. Summer is hot and dry, winter is cold and damp.

We know this.

And we also know that balancing like with unlike can restore harmony.

Why I Love Ayurveda

Each system leads to similar practical outcomes, but my personal preference is Ayurveda.

In Ayurvedic though, it is simplified yet further into the three constitutions – everyone has a unique makeup called their Prakriti —which is present from birth and somewhat aligns with modern ideas of genetics. And yet Ayurveda also recognises that how we’re expressing right now, called their Vikriti , might not match that deeper constitutional blueprint.

Life, diet, stress, seasons, and environment all shift our state of balance. Much like in functional medicine these can happen unintentionally resulting in symptoms, or we can use them intentionally to rebalance and correct symptoms. True health comes when Prakriti and Vikriti are aligned—when we return to the version of ourselves that feels most at ease.

Not Anti-Science. Just Older Than Science.

These systems aren’t anti-science. They’re older than science.

Yes, some of the anatomical terms (particularly in TCM) might feel off to modern eyes, this was simply because they were coined before such intense anatomical knowledge was available. But when we understand them as metaphor, not mistake, we realise how deeply attuned these traditions were to the human body.

And when used well, constitution and energetics help us personalise treatment right away. Often, balancing the individual's energetics has a more profound effect than giving a generic herb for a textbook diagnosis.

How This Changed My Own Health

For me personally, this has been illuminating. A symptom that years of functional medicine hadn’t resolved has finally shifted —not through another supplement or test, but by correcting a doshic imbalance with herbs and lifestyle changes that suit me.

Here’s how this looks in practice:

If you feel anxious, dry, cold, and overstimulated—we don’t just calm the mind. We also warm and moisten the body.
If you feel sluggish, heavy, apathetic, congested—I’ll bring some fire back to your belly. Literally and metaphorically. Drying, lightening, stimulating herbs and foods.
If you feel hot, inflamed, and irritable—your fire needs tending, not extinguishing. We cool, soften, and moisten with care.

It’s about matching the medicine, the food, the lifestyle, and even the season to the person—not just the symptom.

Where My Paths Meet

Studying with Anne McIntyre on her Ayurvedic apprenticeship has helped me bridge what I know from functional medicine and nutrition with something deeper—something that holds the individual close to heart. This way of working isn’t fixed or prescriptive. It’s intuitive, flexible, and deeply personal.

I’ve stopped feeling like I need to choose between functional medicine and ancient wisdom. The truth is, they’re beautifully complementary. We can use them side by side—to help people feel more balanced, more like themselves, and more well .

THE MIND-BODY CONNECTION

Tue, 15 Apr 2025 14:26:35 GMT

Why no healing journey is purely physical

YOUR MIND IS NOT DISTINCT FROM YOUR BODY

Every thought, feeling, and emotional state has a physical echo in the body, a ripple of chemical messengers that you can sometimes sense in the wave of an adrenaline hit.

And every subtle change in your biochemistry, your blood sugar, hormones, digestion, inflammation, etc can shape how you think, feel, and respond. There’s a motorway of nerves running between the brain and the gut—but importantly, the traffic flows both ways. In fact, more messages travel from the gut to the brain than the other way around and so your digestive system, and thus the food you eat, has a direct line to how you feel mentally.

We do not comprise a collection of separate systems. The body and mind are in constant conversation, and when that conversation becomes disrupted, symptoms arise, and it’s not always physical such as in the gut, showing on the skin, or hormones, but in one’s mood, one’s energy, one’s drive, one’s clarity of thought.

When the Mind is On Side, Healing Begins

I have always sworn by the Hippocratic reasoning that “All disease begins in the gut”. I hate to refute the God of medicine, but the more I see in clinic, the more I think that, whilst I absolutely look to address digestion as a priority, to treat the gut without consideration for the mind is to fall short. In my experience, no intervention—nutritional, herbal, or lifestyle—will truly work unless the brain is nourished.

That doesn’t mean “just think positively.” It means we need to work with the body in a way that feels good to the nervous system. If you’re flat, overwhelmed, wired, foggy, or unmotivated, even the most well-crafted programme can feel hard to engage with.

Sometimes, the most effective place to start is with focus, energy, and emotional resilience—so that the rest of the work becomes easier to do. And yet, the diet can support that too, both are most powerful when they work in sync.

The Role of Constitution and Energetics

This is where traditional systems like Ayurveda add something profound. They remind us that different people respond differently to the same stress, the same foods, the same pace of life. I see it with my husband, a natural born extrovert, who is refuelled by parties. Whilst I love a party just as much, my different constitution means that I need refuelling with a quiet evening and a good book. Your energetic constitution shapes your experience of the world—and your path to balance.

For some, the mind needs calming. For others, it needs firing up. Some need grounding, others need movement. There’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to mental clarity, motivation, or emotional ease.

Herbs and foods can be tailored not just to your symptoms, but to your state —and that’s when they truly begin to support change.

Supporting the Mind and the Gut

Many of the herbs and practices we use to support the mind also work deeply through the body—especially through the gut, which houses its own complex nervous system. When we choose a herb for the nervous system, we’re often supporting digestion, immunity, hormone balance and mood at the same time. Here’s how:

Adaptogens help us respond more gracefully to stress. But they don’t stop at the brain—they help regulate cortisol rhythms, which improves insulin sensitivity, supports the integrity of the gut lining, enhances bacterial balance, and promotes a shift into the parasympathetic “rest and digest” state where healing can actually happen.
Nervines are often used to ease anxiety, overstimulation, or mental restlessness—but they also act on the enteric nervous system (the “second brain” in the gut). By soothing nervous tension, they ease digestive spasms, reduce bloating, and relieve discomfort that often flares up during emotional stress.
Warming herbs , known for increasing focus and mental clarity, also stimulate digestion and circulation. They rekindle digestive fire while increasing blood flow to the brain—helping us feel both energised and grounded.
Grounding herbs aren’t just for calming a racing mind. They often moisten, nourish, and soften the gut—settling dryness, tension, or hyperactivity that’s often more than just physical.
Nourishing foods support both energy and emotional stability—especially when they help balance blood sugar. And when blood sugar is balanced, mood follows.
Simple rhythms —like regular meals, rest, time outdoors, and bedtime rituals—soothe the nervous system, support digestive motility, and bring a sense of inner coherence that no supplement can match.

When we support the mind through the body, and the body through the mind, healing becomes not only possible—but sustainable.

A Rooted, Personalised Approach

This isn’t about diagnoses or big declarations. It’s about noticing when your spark feels dimmed, your thoughts feel scattered, or you just don’t feel quite yourself. Maybe you're wired, tired, flat, or fluttering from one thing to the next. That matters too.

When we work together, I consider your mental energy, emotional tone, and constitutional tendencies—because they all shape how you respond to the world, and how you heal.

You don’t need to push yourself into wellness. You can be gently guided back to centre, with the right tools, the right rhythm, and support that meets you where you are.

Sometimes, that starts with something as simple as a quiet cup of tea.

I formulated a tea I call Frayed Nerves , with herbs chosen to comfort, calm, support digestion, and gently warm the system. This is perfect for the cold and dry vata constitution. It’s a soft nudge toward presence, especially when you’re feeling scattered, stretched, or slightly over everything. Not a fix—but a beautiful beginning.

CONTAGIOUS ANXIETY

Sun, 01 May 2022 08:10:33 GMT

In my nutrition and functional medicine clinic, in Worcestershire, a vast majority of my clients suffer with anxiety. In the main, a large factor of their anxiety is their health. It is weighing on my mind. At the moment, with the threat of an unknown, infectious and fatal disease, anxiety levels are likely high for those who’ve never had anxiety before. Dramatically so for those with pre-existing anxiety. Anxiety is typically brought about by fear and feelings of loss of control. Both with the threat of the disease, the lack of an obvious solution, or vaccine, or treatment, as well as a very real threat to the economy, loss of jobs and earnings, both fear and lack of control are likely at their highest levels right now. I have also touched on this in my blog regarding despair.

ANXIETY IS MORE CONTAGIOUS THAN CORONAVIRUS

Indeed many are claiming the social contagion is greater than the physical contagion of SARS-CoV-2. The R0 is a figure you might have heard of, used to describe how many others an infected person infects. For influenza the R0 is just over 1. For SARS-CoV-2 the R0 is about 2-3. So for each person with flu, they infect one other person. For each person with covid, they infect 2-3 other people. Whilst this doesn’t sound dramatically different, if you imagine that passed through 4 stages of transmission, the flu will have reached a cumulative total of 5 people, whilst the covid will have reached a cumulative total of up to 121 people.

Consider then what the R0 of social media and the internet might be? Consider the panic during the 1919 Spanish flu, where their panic or anxiety might spread person per person. Now, in 2020, if you have panic you can share your concerns on the internet and spread it to more. You can, and likely will, indulge in internet research and find yet more to panic yourself, to drive your anxiety. The viral load of your worry and anxiety is exceptionally higher than that suffered a century ago.

ANXIETY INDUCED ADDICTION

Anxiety such as this can lead to many addictions. I’m not suggesting we’re all going to take up class A drugs, but rather that we will become, or have become addicted to mechanisms that help us try to manage this anxiety. For example, are you more glued to the news than normal, do you find yourself checking for news updates numerous times throughout the day? Or perhaps finding your usual resilience weaker than before reaching for chocolate or crisps during an evening slump. Or maybe you’ve noticed the number of bottles in the recycling following the same hockey stick shaped curve that indicates exponentiality?

As a nutritional therapist you’re probably going to expect me to lay down draconian laws, expecting you to use willpower to avoid these addictions, but that would be the least successful course of action. I know only too well that addictions are not a sign of a weak character. The hormones that regulate the body, including those that drive you to follow rewarding behaviours, are far stronger than any amount of willpower can ever be. They were designed to drive you to seek out food when hungry, information to help you adapt to your environment. They just have become damaging in today’s calorie, information, notification and access rich society. Therefore, expecting anyone just to give up would result in then expecting them to fail.

However, here are a few mechanisms that can help.

REMOVE TEMPTATION

Whilst I don’t expect you to rely on willpower, it is kind to your willpower to reduce temptation. Be conscious of what will tempt you and have it out of sight, ideally out of the house, but at least less accessible. Every time that you see chocolate, or wine, or crisps, or social media you have to use micro willpower to not succumb, even if you don’t realise you are tempted. So keep it out of sight and you won’t have such a cumulative need for willpower each day. This can be having chocolate out of sight, wine kept outside in a shed, social media apps on the final screen of your smartphone, news headline notifications turned off. Maybe allow yourself to check the news morning and night, only twice a day. You don’t need information more frequently than that.

GET CURIOUS

When feelings of anxiety creep up, or perhaps you notice it as an evening craving for whatever your poison might be, a technique you can use is to recognise it and to try to feel where in your body you feel it. Is it on the left of the right of this part of your body? Is it to the front or the back of the body? Closer to the centre of the body, or perhaps nearer the surface? How does the sensation feel? Does it change as you consider it? Perhaps it moves from place to place? Perhaps it disappears? Is it always in the same place when you feel anxious or do different subjects of anxiety bring it up in different places? This sort of contemplation brings about curiosity, and curiosity didn’t kill the cat, it kills anxiety. The mechanism is that it brings about use of your more thinking pre-frontal cortex part of the brain, rather than the panicking amygdala and calm can resume. This is why self-help books work, they bring about curiosity without hiding from the anxiety. They instigate control over something that seems uncontrollable.

GET KIND

As Abraham Lincoln clearly recognised, when we are kind to others we are kind to ourselves. There is no doubt that spreading kindness benefits the donor as much as the receiver. It’s not the perceived give and take, but rather give and receive.

Try to find opportunities to give, to help others, to care for people. Put a notice up on the village pin board offering to collect groceries, or medications. Contact friends and family to make sure they’re ok. Make connections. Sign up to help the NHS, or other local charities. Even if you are self-isolating or in a vulnerable category, there are things that you can do to help, by making phone calls, talking to lonely people to ensure they’re ok.

GET NATURAL

I purposefully used this heading for its dual meaning. Firstly, aim to get out in nature as much as possible.If you can’t, look out of your window at a tree, or the sky, or watch a bird flying by. I touched on this in my blog on exercise. Rarely has being surrounded by nature induced greater anxiety than being away from it. Aim to do this as a gentle mindfulness exercise several times a day. Ideally get out there, maybe barefoot, to feel the sensation of squelchy mud between your toes, the prickle of thistle underfoot. Concentrate on those sensations in your feet. Anxiety is never held in the feet, so contemplating this part of your body will help it dissipate.

And for the alternate meaning, aim always to be authentic. There is nothing more anxiety-inducing than living a lie and being someone that is not the real you. With every comment or action or attitude that you show to the world, question if this is really you. Consider that post you are planning on sharing on Instagram where the façade of perfection may give you delight but is unreal, and swap it for the more genuine post of the child tantrumming, the food thrown over the room, the husband picking his nose, I can guarantee the connection you will get back from friends will be more real, more heart-warming than anything plastically unreal will ever induce.

DAMPEN INFLAMMATION

There is no doubt that foods can cause anxiety. When I eat too much sugar, or gluten, it takes me about 3 days to park my anxiety at the door. These foods are inflammatory, both in the gut and it’s HS2-linked brain. The digestive tract and the brain are linked by several mechanisms allowing 2 way communication of both super high speed and generalised slower but longer-lived speeds. Therefore, those foods that cause trouble in the digestive tract can also cause trouble in the brain, whilst those that are soothing to the gut are soothing to the brain. For anyone that wants to geek out on this, there’s a great book by Emeran Mayer, MD called The Mind-Gut Connection. So eliminate the inflammatory sugars, grains and dairy foods and concentrate on oily fish, which actively reduce inflammation, a rainbow of coloured vegetables and berries that provide nutrients that enable optimal brain function.

SUPPLEMENT A GOOD DIET

I feel strongly that you cannot out-supplement a bad diet. The good diet has to be the foundation upon which optimal health is built. Once that is in place, ensuring adequate provision of a complex of B vitamins will enable glutamate to convert to GABA which is a calming neurotransmitter, whilst also ensuring the provision of serotonin, the happy hormone. If you can’t eat enough oily fish for dietary reasons, supplement with an omega 3 fatty acid, from wild-caught fish or algae if vegan. If you take collagen as a supplement, whilst it is great for the skin it can impede the absorption of tryptophan which converts to serotonin and then to melatonin, the hormones involved in happiness and sleep. So if your mood and sleep are suffering, consider pausing collagen peptide supplementation.

THERE’S AN APP FOR THAT

Guess what? I’m always at home at the moment! My clinic is fully functioning, but virtually, using video call within my secure portal, and it’s all working like German clockwork. So, if you would like to have a chat about anything – your health concerns or health interests, please email me at kate@kateberkeley.co.uk or have a look at the rest of my website to get a feel for what I do and how I practice or read more about me .

COVID-19 NEW FINDINGS

Fri, 01 Apr 2022 08:10:32 GMT

PLEASE SHARE

Today I have been reading some very interesting findings regarding Covid-19 and how it expresses in humans as compared to how it expresses in bats, and what we can learn from this in the management of the infection.

When infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, bats initiate an inflammatory response but then in response to that a negative feedback loop halts further production of more inflammatory mediators.

In contrast, humans initiate the same inflammatory response but in reaction to that they up-regulate their production of inflammatory mediators in a mechanism known as the cytokine storm, or production of the NLRP3 inflammasome. This is known to increase the virulence of the infection by increasing fluid in the lungs, leading to the development of a cough, wheezing and shortness of breath, oxygenation of the blood falling, potentially progressing to ARDS and thus needing hospitalisation. Currently pharmaceutical companies are working hard to develop drugs to reduce the damage caused by these mechanisms, many of which are being tested for covid-19.

Whilst these clever scientists research this field, there is a lot that the diet can do to assist in turning off the NLRP3 and NFKappaB inflammatory cascade. Improving the quality of our diet by eating more vegetables and berries will support both.

In particular are the following:-

Quercetin – found in apples and onions
Resveratrol – found in red grapes, blueberries, skins of vegetables and berries, particularly mulberries
Curcumin – found in the spice turmeric
Allicin – found when garlic is crushed (a key trick with garlic is to crush it at least 10 minutes before cooking it, as it allows enough time for the maximum amount of allicin to be created on contact with air)
Sleep – deprivation increases NLRP3 and inflammation
Stress – cortisol stimulates NFKappaB

So when I surprise you with recommendations for your lifestyle rather than just dietary, this is why, sleep and stress optimisation are critical!

So, keep calm, sleep well and eat lots of berries!

Much love, Kate x

COVID-19 AND DIET

Tue, 01 Mar 2022 14:59:15 GMT

PLEASE SHARE

Having shared more lifestyle medicine tips recently, I thought today you might appreciate some dietary influence.

The science of SARS-CoV-2 is rapidly unfolding, science journals are giving special priority to publishing papers on the topic and the brains of the cleverest researchers and analysts are whirling like the sufi dervishes.

In my work it is critical to have the backing of solid scientific evidence for everything we suggest, and above all to comply with the hippocratic oath of “First ,do no harm”. And so, right now with insufficient evidence, the only way of assuring no harm is to support the body with diet, in preference over supplements.

Here are a few little factoids and ways that diet can support us in this tricky time.

Antibodies are proteins that are used by the immune system to neutralise pathogenic bacteria and viruses. So let’s provide them with the precursor ingredients and eat enough dietary protein. You don’t need to eat a huge amount but vegans and the elderly can be underprovided.

Plants provide us with phytochemicals, many of which have seemingly magical characteristics. Of particular note are those that bind the same receptor that covid-19 does, thus reducing it’s capability to infect. In particular, let’s target garlic, citrus fruits (including the pith and peel), turmeric, ginger, onion and green tea.

Inflammation makes the body more susceptible to infection, so now is a critical time to reduce chronic inflammation, something that is so prevalent and yet a silent affliction, you can be inflamed without knowing it. All refined carbohydrates and processed foods will instigate inflammation. So let’s cook from scratch, eliminating anything with flour or sugar. Avoid processed foods as the fat in them is very damaging, even if the quantities might seem small.

And yet tuck in to good fats. The fat found in wild caught oily fish stimulates the same anti-inflammatory pathway as anti-inflammatory medication. How naturally cool is that?

Whilst no science has yet uncovered any direct effect of probiotics against covid-19, it has been recognised that a strong microbiome can enhance the immune system where its greatest capacity is, within the digestive tract. So eat fermented foods, a variety of colours of vegetables and fruit, and bone broth is enormously healing to digestive inflammation.

And the scary note to end on is the strong correlation between obesity and covid mortality. This is the perfect time to learn to cook, to spend time providing sustenance for your family, to take joy in eating together and to lose a few pound whilst we have a non-existent social life.

Come out of your hibernation looking like you’ve blossomed.

With love, until next time, Kate

COVID-19 AND DESPAIR

Tue, 01 Feb 2022 14:59:16 GMT

PLEASE SHARE

I must apologise for not posting a tip yesterday. Like every one of my clients and friends I have spoken to recently, I seem to have good days and bad days at getting through this weird world of coronavirus. Yesterday was a bad day and I seemed to spend all day sleeping and reading about coronavirus mechanisms of action.

This feeling of despair and powerlessness is what has inspired today’s post.

There is a spectrum of emotions with love and joy and freedom at one end and despair, fear and powerlessness at the other. So it’s no great surprise that so many I’ve spoken to are feeling tearful as we’re having fear, despair and powerlessness drummed into us with every coronavirus update we read or see or hear. Our social media pages are filled with people suffering and the symptoms they are dealing with. The news is all about the extreme cases, be they very young, or super healthy, that’s the power of the online news world.

The thing is that stress and all of these emotions actually damage your immune system making you more susceptible to infection. So it is critical, not just for your mental health, but for your physical health too, to nurture your sources of pleasure and counter your sources of despair and powerlessness.

Face to face: Today I read that studies have shown that Facetime and Skype stimulate the same brain chemicals of joy as face to face contact does, as compared to telephone which doesn’t. So try to make some time to facetime your friends and family both for your good and for theirs.

Find joy: As I write, our daughter a poultry lover who is over-excited about her duck eggs brewing in the incubator, is watching on youtube a family who have hatched an emu chick and this divine little beast is running around their house a bit like ducklings do each year in ours. I know all this joy for her is deeply therapeutic. This is very particular to her, but find your joy.

Create hope: Have something to set your heart on and put steps in place to create it. I am on a mission to make my business more online and I am on a mission to make my body more streamlined so I am loving putting steps in place to get there. Nothing has changed yet but I have hope and excitement at what I’m going to create by the time we crawl out of this confinement. What could you create to give you hope?

COVID-19 AND SLEEP, GLORIOUS SLEEP

Sat, 01 Jan 2022 14:59:18 GMT

PLEASE SHARE

I always like to practice what I preach, so today I feel a bit of a fraud. I freely admit, sleep and I aren’t exactly bed partners. I’m in awe of sleep, I think it’s one of the most beneficial things for health, if not THE best thing you can do for health.

Did you know that most health practitioners, yes, even those whose primary field is nutrition, feel that out of the health trinity of diet, exercise and sleep, sleep is the most important?

But sleep and I don’t always get what we want from each other, so I freely admit to being a work-in-progress. For personal interest, I have read pretty much everything I can get my hands on about sleep. I have tried every trick in the book. I may not be a good sleeper but I’m better than I was and, partly thanks to my avid late-night reading, my knowledge about it is pretty deep!

Critically, for this post, poor sleep is the ruination of your immune system. Even when given a vaccine, sleep-deprived twins were found to raise less of an immune antibody response, and greater susceptibility to infection, than the sufficiently slept identical twins.

Now the contrary thing is that during the threat of coronavirus and quarantine, our stress levels are high and with it the quality of our sleep is likely poor. I will come to stress management in a later post but would strongly suggest exercise, deep breathing techniques, distancing from the news, and laughter as ways of countering your stress and thus enhancing sleep.

Matthew Walker, the author of Why We Sleep, suggests 10 commandments for good sleep and they are:-

Establish a regular bed time and wake time, that remains the same on work days and weekends.
Try to avoid daytime naps, but if they are a habit, try to limit them to 45 minutes a day.
Avoid excessive alcohol 4 hours before bed, and don’t smoke.
Avoid caffeine 6 hours before bed, including tea, coffee, some fizzy drinks and chocolate.
Exercise regularly, but not close to bed.
Use comfortable inviting bedding.
Keep your bedroom well ventilated, and find a constant temperature on the cooler side.
Avoid heavy, spicy, sugar foods within the 4 hours before bed. A snack before bed can help some people, can worsen sleep for others.
Block all distracting noises and keep your bedroom as dark as possible.
Keep your bedroom for sleeping and sex only.
I would however add on one critical one… limit exposure to screens with blue light in the evening, this stimulates your wake hormones, as does the blue natural light in the morning. But natural light turns amber and red in the afternoon and evening, which stimulates the production of melatonin, the sleep hormone.

So sleep well, my followers, and I’ll be back with another tip, bright and breezy tomorrow.????

COVID-19 TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE EXERCISE ALLOWANCE

Wed, 01 Dec 2021 14:59:19 GMT

PLEASE SHARE

Yesterday, I said I’d share a tip a day on how to help support your health during the increased risk of coronavirus and the quarantine in the UK.

Today I have been pondering which is the next most important thing. And there are two that I’m battling between.

In the end I have come down on the side of exercise.

For me getting out for a daily walk has been my bliss point of the day. We’re lucky to have had wonderful weather, which helps. I suspect we aren’t far enough into the summer to gain much in the way of vitamin D but the sun has been so strong that I’ve been walking with bare arms, and I feel like I’m making vitamin D but I don’t know whether I really am.

Whether I am making vitamin D or not, I’m making contentment. Stress makes you more susceptible to infection and being out in the countryside makes you more resistant to stress. Merely looking at a photograph of a rural scene has been scientifically found to relieve stress.

The rhythmic trudge of walking is also metronomically meditative. The freedom to think is incredibly cleansing. If you’re lucky to live in the hills, which I’m sadly not, the puffing will stimulate your vagus nerve which initiates the rest and digest parasympathetic nervous system, again bringing about calm and stress relief.

It is the one freedom that we still have so try to take advantage of it and get out there. Mentally you will feel far more resilient, far nicer to your family, your waistline will appreciate it and if you’ve got dogs, they will love you unconditionally, as is their wont.

Just please be sensible. Keep your distance. And driving to a congregation point in the country just doesn’t wash. Please make sure your exercise can be taken within walking, running or cycling distance of home, driving to a beauty spot will make social distancing very difficult.

COVID-19 AND NUTRITIONAL THERAPY

Mon, 01 Nov 2021 09:10:31 GMT

PLEASE SHARE

As a nutritional therapist and functional medicine practitioner, clients and friends have been asking me to share some sage advice on health during their covid confinement.

I’m slightly between a rock and a hard place as the advice from the governing body, BANT, is that we mustn’t suggest protocols, particularly those involving supplements, targeting covid-19, because the science is so rapidly unfolding that recommendations given with good intentions have every potential for actually worsening outcomes of the disease.

Having looked in detail into the science, I agree with their advice whole-heartedly. I want to warn that nutrition and nutritional supplements are far more powerful and potent than their natural basis indicates. As such they have fabulous therapeutic benefits, but also a great risk for damage, if taken with insufficient knowledge.

On that note, please therefore consider anything you read regarding interventions for covid with caution. If it is advice regarding supplements and targeted recommendations for “immune-boosting” in particular, the likelihood is that the influencer is not registered with the governing body and it should be questioned as to why not.

However, there is no time like the present to start on a health campaign, to rebalance and optimise your health through balanced and beneficial dietary intake. None of us currently has a social life to complicate things, so we can eat as perfectly as we can forage in that jungle that used to be called a supermarket.

So I will try to share some tips and recipes to help you on your way. My advice is generalised for good health, most will help towards weight optimisation (both gain and loss depending on needs), hormone balance, digestive function, fertility, etc.

If you have any topic that is of particular interest, please let me know and I’ll target that in one of my tips!

Today’s tip is to reduce, or limit as much as possible, refined carbohydrates. They all turn into sugar in the blood. Sugar in the blood causes insulin to rise and insulin competes with vitamin C for entry into the cell. If we start the day with a high refined carbohydrate breakfast it sets the day off on a rollercoaster of blood sugar levels that will cause greater desire and need for a high sugar pick-me-up later in the day.

So my first tip is to have for breakfast a more protein-based breakfast. Cast out the toast or cereal and swap it for an egg with a spiced tomato salsa, or avocado with prawns, or leftovers from last night’s supper (so long as it’s not cold pizza!). If you like protein powders, Garden of Life do a fantastic one called FIT that comprises sprouted seeds as its source of protein, so it is high protein, high fibre, anti-inflammatory fats and low in refined carbohydrates.