At one point, I was so sick of being asked if I’d tried yoga that I got a sticker for my mobility scooter that said “Yes, I have tried yoga. No, it didn’t work”. If I had known then that some types of yoga aren’t even physical, maybe I might not have got it! Today’s guest is my friend Sayeeda Alam, who is a dedicated yoga teacher and Ayurvedic lifestyle advisor passionate about holistic well-being. She considers herself 95% healed from CFS and believes in the power of offering tailored practices to others looking to find balance in body and mind.

If this episode inspires you to take up a form of yoga, especially a non-physical one, I’d love to hear from you. My Instagram is linked on the show notes for this episode and my DMs are always open!

In this episode, we’re chatting about:

• Why Sayeeda found yoga essential to recovery and different types of yoga you can try too
• How trauma can affect you physically, not just mentally
• Why accepting your chronic illness is so important in healing from it
• The changes Sayeeda made to her lifestyle that she feels helped her

For more information on topics discussed in this episode, links to connect with me or my guest, or to learn more about me and my coaching, check out the full show notes here!

DISCLAIMER: Everything mentioned in this podcast is only my/my guests’ opinion and should not be a substitute for seeing a medical professional. Please seek advice from your doctor and confirm with them that they are happy for you to implement something you heard on the podcast.

Men can often find it much harder to open up and be vulnerable with others than women do, but have you ever considered how this could impact them when they find themselves struggling with a chronic illness? Diving into this topic and so much more with me is Mike Watts, the co-founder of an online educational company with his wife, Kate Northrup, whose mission is to help women create a better relationship with money, sex and power. Mike also shares his experience with being hit by a car and how stress set off a chronic skin condition that took him years to overcome.

In this episode, we’re chatting about:

• The impact stress had on Mike and how it triggered a chronic illness
• Balancing work, life and health and why you need to know the limit of what your health will allow you to do
• How men’s healing journey is different to women’s
• Opening up to others, being vulnerable and asking for support

For more information on topics discussed in this episode, links to connect with me or my guest, or to learn more about me and my coaching, check out the full show notes here!

DISCLAIMER: Everything mentioned in this podcast is only my/my guests’ opinion and should not be a substitute for seeing a medical professional. Please seek advice from your doctor and confirm with them that they are happy for you to implement something you heard on the podcast.

In this first ever guest episode, I’m joined by Dr Aisling Quiery, an NHS GP with a background in addictions work who also works as a Compassionate Inquiry Practitioner, Maturation Coach, and psychedelic guide at Imperial College London. Through her additional training beyond a medical degree, her lived experience of anxiety and long Covid, as well as using psychedelics as a healing medicine in the jungle with Dr Gabor Maté, Aisling is uniquely placed to discuss the limitations of modern medicine when it comes to chronic illnesses and talk more about why GPs should be empowering their patients to look beyond test results for answers about their conditions.

In this episode, we’re chatting about:

• What Aisling believes are the main limitations of the medical model from her perspective as a GP
• Aisling’s own experience of anxiety and long Covid
• Why it’s important that GPs validate their patients’ experience of chronic illness or trauma but also empower them to heal themselves
• The idea that psychedelics can be used for healing and Aisling’s own experience of this
• How Aisling’s body remembered her birth, and how implicit memories are held in the body but are often not able to be recalled

For more information on topics discussed in this episode, links to connect with me or my guest, or to learn more about me and my coaching, check out the full show notes here!

DISCLAIMER: Everything mentioned in this podcast is only my/my guests’ opinion and should not be a substitute for seeing a medical professional. Please seek advice from your doctor and confirm with them that they are happy for you to implement something you heard on the podcast.

I’ve got a bumper episode for you today and it will definitely be one you’ll want to grab your notebook for! If you’ve had a question about the nervous system or regulation - I probably answer it here. I’m giving you an overview of the nervous system and polyvagal theory, diving into some regulation techniques for each state, as well as discussing what dysregulation actually looks like and how you can start to expand your window of tolerance. If you’re at the beginning of your healing journey and have no idea where to start, this is the episode for you!

In this episode, I'm chatting about:

• The three states (dorsal, sympathetic and ventral) in polyvagal theory
• What dysregulation is and what regulation looks like
• How dysregulation impacts chronic illnesses
• What stress cycles are and how to expand our windows of tolerance
• Tools we can use to move between the three states

For more information on topics discussed in this episode, links to connect with me, or to learn more about me and my coaching, check out the full show notes here!

DISCLAIMER: Everything mentioned in this podcast is only my/my guests’ opinion and should not be a substitute for seeing a medical professional. Please seek advice from your doctor and confirm with them that they are happy for you to implement something you heard on the podcast.

Trying to recover from ME/CFS when you have no idea what works is not an easy thing to do - I’ve been there! Whether it’s acupuncture, the Perrin technique, veganism, pilates or therapy, I’ve tried it all. In today’s episode, I’m diving into what worked for me! This is the second part of two “my story” episodes (do go and check out part one first!) where I’m sharing much more about the recovery side of things and how I discovered that what was working was nervous system regulation.

In this episode, I’m chatting about:

• Allll the different things I tried while attempting to heal ME/CFS
• How I discovered that being vegan worked for my body
• Realising that what worked was nervous system regulation
• Adaptations I would make to my life in order to stay functioning
• How I live my life now!
• Why I went to Ibiza and Miami alone and the things I learnt about myself on these trips

For more information on topics discussed in this episode, links to connect with me, or to learn more about me and my coaching, check out the full show notes here!


DISCLAIMER: Everything mentioned in this podcast is only my/my guests’ opinion and should not be a substitute for seeing a medical professional. Please seek advice from your doctor and confirm with them that they are happy for you to implement something you heard on the podcast.

I’m so glad you’ve clicked on the first episode of the “Calm Your Nervous System” podcast! I really don’t hold back while sharing my story in this one, and I just know you’re likely to see yourself in my story. Whether it’s missing my GCSE mocks, abusive relationships (slight trigger warning for this episode for sexual trauma, though no details are shared), workplace discrimination or when I was told to sit on the floor at a Beyoncé concert (yep…🙄), I’m letting you in on my ME/CFS journey. And be sure to subscribe, as in episode 2, I’m going into how I started to recover - so I know you’ll love that episode too!

In this episode, we’re chatting about:

• Catching glandular fever and missing my GCSE mocks at 15 that started my journey of becoming unwell
• All the jobs and relationships I had and how I became more and more ill because of them
• Finally getting an ME diagnosis and why I felt so happy about it
• The workplace discrimination that came from needing adaptations as a disabled person
• Making changes to my life and what I did in order to stay working while I was so ill

For more information on topics discussed in this episode, links to connect with me, or to learn more about me and my coaching, check out the full show notes here!

DISCLAIMER: Everything mentioned in this podcast is only my/my guests’ opinion and should not be a substitute for seeing a medical professional. Please seek advice from your doctor and confirm with them that they are happy for you to implement something you heard on the podcast.