Meredith Oke: Welcome to the QVC podcast.

Rachel Brown: Oh, thank you for having me.

I've been looking forward to this.

Meredith Oke: So have I.

I've been so excited ever since you came through the certification at the Institute of Applied Quantum Biology.

I'm like, will you do a podcast?

You're like, just give me a minute to integrate.

So I'm.

I'm glad we're finally able to do it.

So I love your story and I want to.

I want to start there.

You are a traditionally allopathically trained psychiatrist in the uk.

You work for the nhs, which is like the equivalent of working for a big hospital system in the United States.

If people are looking for, you know, to understand what that means, it's like a big bureaucratic medical institution that drives everything in your country.

And you have went through that system, worked in it for decades, and have now come to a place where you were able to introduce a metabolic connection between mental health and with mental health.

So tell us about that journey, because that's pretty amazing.

Last I checked, psychiatrists were like, metabolic health has nothing to do with it.

And here you are, Here you are changing the landscape.

Rachel Brown: Yeah, well, I mean, hopefully the field is developing because there's research going on worldwide now.

But I have felt fairly on my own, certainly within the UK.

I've been working in psychiatry since 2004, went through standard medical training and for many years, like, the main tools I had in my toolkit were medications and then referring people on for therapy or other disciplines to get involved.

Um, but in 2021, I trained with Dr.

Georgia Ead on the use of ketogenic metabolic therapy for major mental disorders.

And then, gosh, I can't even remember when it was.

But a couple of years ago, I published a book just on the topic, aimed at just introducing the subject to the everyday person.

It was just everything I wanted to say, really, about other ways of improving mental health that don't necessarily involve using drug treatments.

And in the last 18 months to two years, I've started the first metabolic psychiatry clinic within the nhs.

So it's the only one that I'm aware of in the uk.

So that's been a really exciting piece of work to do.

And I've also been involved in some of the research that's been happening locally in Edinburgh, where I'm based, looking at ketogenic metabolic therapy for major mental disorder.

Meredith Oke: That's so exciting.

So tell us how you define metabolic health.

And just for our audience, who is obviously so deep into the quantum health, I do see those two things as Kind of the same.

The understanding, light and earthing and all of that is just an expansion of caring for our metabolic health.

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

But how do you.

How do you describe the difference?

And what was, you know, what would a purely traditional allopathic take on psychiatry be compared to what a metabolic take would be?

Rachel Brown: Oh, gosh, I'll try not get into trouble here.

But my traditional allopathic take on.

On psychiatry was to pigeonhole people into diagnoses, to group symptoms together to make a diagnosis, and then follow a standardized drug treatment protocol.

And that would often involve trials of multiple different medications because, you know, it's fairly common that people don't necessarily respond to their first drug that's prescribed in psychiatry using a metabolic approach.

If people don't know what I mean by metabolic, a very simplistic way of looking at it is the absence of type 2 diabetes or insulin resistance or leptin issues we could get into.

But essentially there's a huge overlap between type 2 diabetes and all major mental disorders.

There's quite a lot of research out there, but for whatever reason, it just hasn't really made its way into mainstream psychiatric practice.

But thankfully, there is more research going on now at the moment with randomized controlled trials in process.

So I know a lot of doctors are very skeptical, certainly within the allopathic world, that they need to have a randomized controlled trial in order to believe in a certain treatment.

So that's where we're at.

Meredith Oke: So funny.

It's like I have like 500 case studies, but there hasn't been an RCT.

It's not real.

Rachel Brown: Okay, yeah, don't start me on that.

I would personally take a case study any day over a big randomized controlled trial.

And I might get into trouble for saying that, but my perspective on that is it's really.

You can't generalize statistics to everyone.

And if you have somebody who's actually been through their own n of one trial, someone who's implemented changes that have resulted in positive health outcomes.

And I just don't think there's any denying when you see that.

And once you see more than one get into the tens or the hundreds, then it's a bit difficult to deny that what they're doing is actually something helpful that could be generalized to other people as well.

Meredith Oke: Yes, absolutely.

And since we're on this topic, at the Institute of Applied Quantum Biology, Nico Kennedy is developing some protocols for all practitioners to follow that would have their clients outcomes be included in case study Research.

So we're looking at ways to formalize that.

I'd love to have, we'd love to have your input and your, your work in there as well, since we're on the topic.

Okay.

All right, back to metabolic health.

Okay, so how did you get into this?

You went to medical school, you were doing diagnoses, treating with medication and therapy.

What cracked you open to some other avenues?

Rachel Brown: Oh, it's really been my own health journey.

So I've, I've had, I do now wonder why I trained in allopathic medicine, if I'm being perfectly honest, because I've always had such an interest in holistic health from a very young age.

But it was my own personal health journey of sugar addiction, I think that ultimately got me into the nutritional side of things and eventually Paleo and then ketogenic diets and then quite a number of years of actually using a carnivore diet personally with multiple health benefits.

That's just one layer though.

Before I got into all the quantum and circadian stuff which just added so much more to that, that nutritional piece.

But I also have a history of, it was neurodegenerative disorders within close family members that really motivated me to take a, a proper look at my own personal health.

And so I'd been, I'd followed Mark Sisson and done a pr, followed a primal diet for many, many years, but was only, only kind of low carb, not necessarily ketogenic.

And it was after my dad died, coming up for 10 years ago now that it really made me take a look at what I was doing and I wanted to really go ketogenic to capitalize on the anti inflammatory benefits and the mitochondrial benefits of that a ketogenic diet can provide.

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

And, and then in 2021 I had the opportunity to train formally with Dr.

Georgia Ead, who's an ex Harvard psychiatrist who's been using nutritional strategies very successfully amongst a whole host of different mental health diagnoses for at least the past 15, possibly more years.

And that really formalized it for me and that gave me more confidence to actually introduce it into my allopathic practice as another strategy for people to be able to use.

Meredith Oke: Yeah, that really makes sense.

Like when you're, when you're able to have a mentor and a structure and someone in a community of, of people who are in your same situation, they were psychiatrists, now they're doing this, it makes it, I mean it's really hard to Go out on a limb by yourself.

So good for you for finding that and working with her.

That's fantastic.

And I'm really, I've.

I'm really interested in your description of metabolic health as basically like the prevention of type 2 diabetes.

Like that is really simple.

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

Rachel Brown: Oh, really?

Yeah, that's my.

I've got quite a simplistic way of thinking about.

Meredith Oke: No, it's perfect because usually you try to describe what it is, but it's.

But it works just as well to describe what it isn't, which is like an absence of your body's inability to function.

Like metabolic health is basically just saying like your physical health affects your mental health, which really makes sense.

Rachel Brown: I know it shouldn't really come as a surprise, but I think the way I view it, part of the problem within modern medicine is the fact that we split the body up into different bodily systems and silos of medical specialties.

And there's not a very holistic approach that gets taken.

And so often my training was just all about, as I say, making diagnoses to follow drug treatment protocols.

And so it's really refreshing to be able to view things more holistically and from a different.

Through a different lens, essentially.

Meredith Oke: Yes.

And I think that's really the future.

It's funny, in business there's this saying, I forget who said it, but business models are just a process of bundling and unbundling, where it's like you think of now streaming channels.

We had a few and then we have like hundreds of them.

So that was the unbundling and now they're getting packaged back up together, which is like the rebundling.

And I feel like that applies to science as well.

And I, like, we're coming out of an era where everything was hyper specialized and separated from each other.

And the real future of health is to bring everything back together, like overlaying psychiatry, psychiatric medicine, what with regular medicine, with quantum physics, with nutrition, and bringing all of these things back together.

How, how have you worked through that as a, as a doctor and as a seeker?

Rachel Brown: Oh, gosh, it's difficult.

I'm not going to say it's been easy because I think there's quite a lack of education and understanding when it comes to thinking about cellular health and ultimately mitochondrial health, although hopefully that's coming a bit more into the mainstream via the nutritional research that's being done.

And colleagues such as Chris Palmer, for example, in the book that he published about brain energy and the role of mitochondrial health when it comes to mental health disorders.

But I do feel like there's a real tension between how I'm expected to practice within allopathic medicine and then my knowledge of how the body works, looking at it through different.

A different lens, such as quantum biology or circadian biology.

And so I do struggle with that to an extent still within allopathic medicine.

So as much as I enjoy speaking about nutrition and other lifestyle approaches to people, I'm aware that that's not commonplace within mainstream medicine, and I think it should be.

Really?

Meredith Oke: Yeah, I think we're getting there.

I feel like everything's kind of imploding right now and we're going to get to put it back together in a new, pick up the pieces and build something new.

And so you've addressed this by kind of having two separate businesses almost.

You have your job working for the NHS and then you also work online, separate from your psychiatrist credential.

Rachel Brown: Yeah.

So I.

I trained in functional medicine probably around five years ago now, and when I did that, that was really refreshing to me because it started to explain why people were having certain symptoms which I hadn't felt so much that I had been explained during my standardized, my standard medical training.

And in terms of my private work that I do, what I was tending to see was people coming through where they felt as though the system had failed them.

So they tried quite a number of different drugs and they either hadn't worked or they'd ended up with side effects such as type 2 diabetes from some of the psychiatric medications, or just other adverse effects from being on medication too long term.

And once we were sort of diving under the hood to have a look at what was actually going on with them, I can say fairly reliably, since I've done the quantum and the circadian biology training, that there's not a single person I've ever spoken to in my private practice, or the nhs for that matter, who is doing the circadian stuff.

Right.

So there's so much that can be done.

But also when we were doing investigations, which I don't tend to do a huge amount of now, knowing what I know now, but initially when I was doing investigations, what I was finding was that people had major gut inflammation, even in the absence of a clear diagnosis, such as celiac or inflammatory bowel disease.

And it wasn't until we could sort out their gut inflammation, you know, we had to sort out the gut inflammation and the metabolic dysfunction to be able to get the mental health symptoms to improve and resolve.

And I'VE had a number of people with both inflammatory bowel disease and major mental health health diagnoses, where time and time again I've seen them relapse both disorders at the same time.

And so a huge area of interest of mine is gut health and how that relates to brain health or mental health as well.

Meredith Oke: How does it relate?

Rachel Brown: Oh, hugely.

So, gosh.

The gut and the brain are connected via the vagus nerve, so the whole nervous system regulation and nervous system piece comes into both mental health disorders and autoimmune disorders.

However, there's also signaling that goes back and forth between the two in terms of chemical and immune messenger signaling between the gut and the brain.

And essentially, when you have leaky gut, you can end up having leaky brain because the gut barrier and the blood brain barrier are very similar in form and function.

And if you have dysbiosis, so unfavorable populations of bacteria within the gut, this can cause a leaky gut barrier, which then in turn can cause a leaky blood brain barrier and an activation of immune cells in the brain and inflammation.

And then this is when mental health symptoms can arise and neurotransmitter pathways can be dysregulated.

You know, if you want to go to that extreme level.

But I always come back to mitochondria because there's crosstalk between the gut microbiome and our mitochondria back and forth.

So there's so many different ways that you could look at this, Right?

Meredith Oke: Yes.

And so if we think about it as healing the mitochondria, we're healing everything, the gut and the brain.

Tell me what leaky brain symptoms look like.

What's leaky brain?

Rachel Brown: It could be anything.

So it could be brain fog, poor concentration, it could be depression, anxiety, even psychosis.

So anything really, that.

That affects mental health.

And, you know, there's a clear subset of people, even with depression, that we know they have raised inflammatory markers and so you know that there's fairly reliably inflammation going on there.

But just anything really is what I would say based on what I've seen.

Meredith Oke: Right.

So leaky brain is sort of like the precursor to any kind of.

Of mental health symptom that.

Rachel Brown: Oh, yeah.

I mean, it's not.

I think there's so many environmental toxins that we're surrounded by that it's just not a great idea if your brain's protective mechanism isn't robust to try and keep those out.

And from a functional medicine perspective, we tend to think along the lines of the body tends to store toxins within our fat.

And the brains are fatty organs.

And there's plenty of research showing that among certain groups of diagnoses, there can be issues with heavy metals, other environmental toxins that can increase the risk of having certain mental health symptoms.

Meredith Oke: It's really just incredible to me that we treat all that, with the starting point being a pill.

I mean, I'm not against taking.

Taking medication if that's what's needed.

But if you're talking.

If you have a patient who has leaky gut, leaky brain, whose mitochondrial mitochondria is dysfunctional, who's metabolically dysfunctional, and the first.

The first intervention is to go to a medication like, of course it's going to cause terrible side effects because the.

The system can't handle anything really well.

Rachel Brown: Yeah, absolutely.

And this is something I really struggle with now because there's very clear research, I think.

Dr.

Cynthia Culkin is a researcher within psychiatry, and she has shown really clearly that having insulin resistance, so metabolic dysfunction, causes a leaky blood brain barrier or blood brain barrier dysfunction, and this increases the risk of having persistent mental health symptoms that don't respond to standard medications.

And my struggle now is that a lot of the medications I have to prescribe within psychiatry actually increase the risk of metabolic dysfunction, such as the risk of type 2 diabetes.

And Dr.

Culkin's research has been incredibly informative because they were able to show if they can reverse the insulin resistance and people's symptoms can go into remission again, even if they've been unwell for quite a.

Quite a long time, a number of years.

So that's something I really struggle with now.

And just try to.

All I can really do is try to take informed consent if I'm in a position where I have to offer medication to somebody just to try to explain whether they'd be interested in using different approaches and to make sure that they know the potential downsides to trials of different drugs.

Meredith Oke: Wow.

Gosh.

A little heartbreaking.

Okay, let's focus on the fun stuff, which is what?

All the things we could do that are fairly straightforward and don't cost a lot of money and don't require going to the NHS or whatever the equivalent is in the country you live in.

Okay, so let's talk about.

We've established that a healthy gut and healthy brain are completely connected.

Let's talk about the gut microbiome from a circadian perspective.

So why is it so important to have regulated circadian rhythms?

Why is that so important to our gut?

Rachel Brown: Because our circadian rhythms control our gut microbiome, essentially, and they're also involved in controlling our gut barrier function.

And if we think about inflammation in the brain, you want to build a really robust gut barrier because you get into a situation where you're at risk of developing autoimmune system symptoms if your gut barrier is leaky or you have intestinal permeability.

And so if you don't have robust circadian rhythms, then there's a high likelihood you're going to have problems with either intestinal permeability or dysbiosis in the gut.

And if you have dysbiosis, it's more likely you have a leaky gut and, you know, vice versa.

And so it just becomes a very vicious cycle.

And sadly, what I see too often is that people tend to be sleeping in, not seeing the key morning light.

Circadian rhythm dysfunctions, just, just pervasive from what I can tell from speaking with people and working with clients.

Meredith Oke: Yeah, no, it's.

Nobody paid.

Nobody has good circadian rhythm unless they do it on purpose.

In our current world, I think between the screens and the light bulbs and putting on sunglasses every time you leave the house, like, it's, you know, I know people who have very active outdoor lifestyles, but they wear sunglasses from the minute, like walking the dog at, you know, at seven in the morning, all the way on, all through the day.

And it's.

So it's something that we have to think about intentionally.

Okay, so help me understand.

So, so pretend I'm someone who comes to you.

I'm.

I'm very nutritionally aware, I eat really well, but I'm still experiencing symptoms.

And you're telling me that, like, the light is going to affect my gut.

Like, how is, how is that happening?

Rachel Brown: So we have a master body clock in the brain and then lots of peripheral body clocks, including in the gut.

And if you have robust circadian rhythms, the two will be coordinated.

So I often explain it as a bit like an orchestra.

So the suprachiasmatic nucleus in the brain, the master clocks, like the conductor, and you've got all these other orchestra members elsewhere as the peripheral clocks.

And they should all be playing in time and keeping rhythm.

And if that's not happening because you're getting the wrong light signaling, it essentially descends into chaos at a cellular level.

And that we could equate to as inflammation in a simplistic sort of way.

And so in order to build robust circadian rhythms, people need to be getting, ideally sunrise and then the UVA rise.

That happens an Hour, an hour and a half after that.

And there are very clear connections between, you know, like blue, blue light getting your cortisol going to get you up and running for the day, impacting on energy levels, and then the UVA light being intimately involved in all of the neurotransmitter pathways and hormonal pathways and kickstarting all of those biochemical pathways within the body.

And so if you're not getting that, those key times of morning light, then chances are you're going to have dysfunctional neurotransmitter pathways and thyroid hormone and sex hormones and a dysregulated stress hormone axis.

So there's quite a few pieces of the puzzle there.

Meredith Oke: It's so amazing.

I mean, obviously I talk about this a lot, but every time I hear someone explain it, I'm like, wow.

Rachel Brown: It'S.

Meredith Oke: We're so.

Yeah, I just, it's.

I'm like, wow.

It's like almost like I'm hearing for the first time because we're just so disconnected from this level of understanding.

Right.

Like, yeah, when.

Rachel Brown: And then.

Meredith Oke: Yeah, go ahead.

Rachel Brown: Yeah.

I was just gonna say my next bugbear would be all the screens in the evenings and then nobody sleeps very well.

Who's not paying attention to trying to mitigate the blue light toxicity?

And everyone's melatonin is suppressed because they're on a screen in the evening.

And not mitigating the blue light that's going to suppress your melatonin.

And then people are living indoor lives, so they're not getting the benefit of full spectrum light from outside, especially infrared, that's going to boost all of our melatonin production all throughout the body, within our mitochondria.

And I think so many people are just deficient in the key antioxidants for good cellular health.

I don't know.

There's just so many different.

There's so many things we could talk about.

It's hard to pick one right key area.

Meredith Oke: But light.

But light programs, all of it, is what you're saying?

Rachel Brown: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Because I, having been through the quantum biology certification and then board certification, light is upstream to everything else in the body.

So there's been this myopic focus on biochemistry, which I suppose suits the pharmaceutical industry in terms of drug treatment protocols, but really light sits upstream to all of our biochemical processes, even in the body.

And so the first thing, the foundational thing we need to consider is the environment we put our body in and the light that we're exposed to, essentially for the photoreceptors in our eyes, but also the receptors on our skin.

You know, it all matters.

Meredith Oke: Right, so the quantum is upstream of the biochemical of the chemical, obviously.

So.

Rachel Brown: Yeah, absolutely.

Meredith Oke: So when you talk about the.

Have our gut having a clock, that clock is supposed to sync with the one in our brain which, which is programmed through our eyes.

So is there, are there clocks in the gut that need direct light as well?

Like those photoreceptors?

Are they like, should I be putting my tummy in the sun?

Rachel Brown: Yeah, yes, okay, absolutely, yes.

So there's really, really interesting research showing that UVB light in particular can improve the diversity of the microbiome and it's supportive, one might argue, essential for optimal gut microbiome and gut health.

And.

But you know, there are other aspects like photobiomodulation, like using red light therapy that can also be supportive because it's supportive of mitochondrial function, but also for cellular health and melatonin production.

And.

But yeah, the full spectrum light piece on your abdomen is absolutely supportive of gut health.

I would say fairly essential to prioritize if you can.

I don't necessarily live in a very high UV index country.

So yeah, there's that.

Meredith Oke: Right.

But the, even the circadian aspect.

Okay, so, so say I'm.

I'm a client, not in the NHS side, in the side where you can do whatever you want and I come and I tell you what I eat and it all sounds good.

Like my diet is pretty dialed in.

Okay, so what you're telling me is that like if I change the timing, even if I don't change what I eat, I just change the timing of when I eat, that's going to have an effect and also the timing of when I get light.

Because I find this so interesting that we like, is we all think, like if you want to change, they got to change the food.

Change the food, like say the food is whatever.

It's amazing.

It's 10 out of 10.

Like there's still things to do.

Rachel Brown: Oh, for sure.

Yeah.

Okay, you don't.

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

I think there can be lots of health benefits of fasting, but I practice intermittent fasting for quite some time and I used to skip breakfast and then I ended up tanking my hormones as a female.

And so I think there's nuance around who can do lots of intensive fasting and who might need to be a bit more careful that way.

So I quite like people to eat breakfast, if they can, in terms of improving their Leptin signaling and giving the body the signal that it's safe and you don't have to be pumping out lots of cortisol.

I really don't like when people have coffee on an empty stomach in the morning because they're probably just going to be pumping out even more cortisol and dysregulating the whole stress axis there.

But one really crucial piece is to not eat for several hours before you go to bed.

Because your body's not meant to be digesting food overnight.

Your gut needs a break and it needs to be able to rest and repair overnight.

So you would be making sure that you're blocking the artificial light so that all of your circadian rhythms, your biological clocks know what time of day it is.

And then they know their program to repair the gut overnight.

And there's a period of some fasting overnight for your gut to be able to renew and repair.

So that's.

That's all really important.

Meredith Oke: Right.

Yeah.

I remember, like, sort of on my journey, we started regulating our circadian rhythms and we actually, I mean, you don't have to move to do this, obviously, but it just happened to be at a time when we were moving anyways.

So we were living somewhere where it was kind of.

It was warm out most of the year, which is really nice.

But we started to do that and we took.

We started taking it really seriously.

I'd been doing it for a few years, but I just took it like to a whole other level.

And we had a lot.

I had a lot of improved health outcomes.

And then.

So after, I don't know, like a month and months and months of doing that, for some reason I hadn't.

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

So we.

We added that in and I just moved dinner earlier.

And like, the entire family lost weight.

It was during COVID so everyone had gained weight because of.

Was so messed up.

But.

And every.

The whole family lost weight.

And all I did was make dinner earlier.

I didn't even change what we were eating.

Rachel Brown: Right.

Yeah.

Just shows you it was crazy.

Yeah, I am.

Yeah, I just, I.

Did your sleep improve when you did that?

Because I.

Yes, I often.

So we were away seeing family recently and they tend to eat later.

And so to be sociable, we would go out for dinner, but would be a couple of hours later than I wouldn't usually finish eating.

And then I just know I didn't sleep as well.

And then my aura ring was telling me your heart rate was higher overnight.

Try not have.

Try to not have a meal too close to bed.

You know all this stuff.

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

Meredith Oke: Yes.

No, totally.

If I eat too late, I will wake up in the middle of the night with an elevated heart rate.

I'm like, oh, I just finished digesting.

Rachel Brown: Yeah.

Meredith Oke: Like I.

And it, it feels a little bit like I don't drink anymore, but it does feel a little bit like being hungover and it's just okay.

I feel like, I feel like such a hot house flower, but I'm like, yeah, I'm like, I'm a little hungover.

I had, we were at a party a few weeks ago and they had, they brought in like this thing to make pizza over the fire so that instead of a caterer, they had like this big wood fire oven and they were making the pizzas and they started serving them at like 8 o' clock at night.

So again, to be sociable, I had some and it was delicious.

But the next day my husband was like, do you have allergies?

Like, what's like.

And I'm like, I ate pizza at 9 o' clock at night.

He's like, oh, it was like I had a hangover.

Rachel Brown: Yeah.

Oh.

I mean, I've become really antisocial, as in, it's just not my thing anymore to go out in the evenings and be in really like lit up places, especially in the winter.

You know, it almost feels, once you've been practicing this kind of lifestyle for a while, it almost feels painful in a way to put yourself in some of those situations.

Yeah.

Because you just see such a contrast between when you're doing everything right and then some of the occasions when you have to deviate from what you would normally do and then you can instantly sort of see the impact of that.

Meredith Oke: Yeah, I know, totally.

And even so, when, I mean, we don't.

I don't go out at night very often for, for those exact reasons.

And every once in a while I'm like, all right, let's be sociable.

And yeah, there's, there's a price to pay.

But you know, it's good to see people.

So occasionally, occasionally I'll do that.

So let's talk about grounding.

Is that a piece that you've, that you've added in and that you see benefit from in terms of mental health as well?

Rachel Brown: Yes.

I can probably speak more personally because I don't know who.

I've got a few people, I don't know how reliably they, they implement the grounding but, yeah, that's something that I do.

And in fact, I just seem to do more and more and more of it.

And from a gut health perspective, I found it particularly helpful to actually eat meals grounded outside because of the nervous system regulation that it gives you, kind of pushing you more into the parasympathetic rest and digest nervous system state.

So I know from some of the investigations I've done that sympathetic dominance is an issue that I have, but I often see it in clients as well, particularly people with autoimmune disorders and mental health disorders.

So I think there's been so much stress in the last five years, and obviously, lives just tend to be fairly stressful these days.

A lot of people are really stuck in that sympathetic dominant nervous system state, and that makes it very difficult for your gut to work optimally.

So, yeah, I personally choose to try and eat my meals grounded whenever I can, but otherwise try and spend as much time outdoors and in contact with nature.

Meredith Oke: So when you say sympathetic dominant, you're talking about being in a, like, more of a fight or flight or more of a state of tension versus a state of.

Of rest and relaxation.

Rachel Brown: Yeah.

Meredith Oke: Is that okay?

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

Meredith Oke: That's fine.

We like dogs.

They take us outside.

So tell me how.

Practicing circadian rhythm regulation and grounding and earthing being outside.

So you're saying that that has an effect on our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems in addition to everything else we've been talking about.

Tell me more about that.

Rachel Brown: Yeah.

So there's research showing that you can improve if you want to do measurements such as heart rate variability, which would be a measurement to an extent of how much time your nervous system is spent in the sympathetic dominant state versus parasympathetic.

You can see that there are improvements in heart rate variability with more grounding.

But people have also done imaging studies showing systemic reduction of inflammation throughout the body by practicing grounding.

And then from a quantum biology perspective, I suppose we might be thinking of it in terms of pulling in electrons into our body to build up redox potential.

And.

And.

Oh, gosh, I don't feel quite like Carrie in terms of being able to discuss easy water, but that's a piece of the puzzle.

Yeah, they're like, optimizing, essentially, having good, good cellular charge is what good health is about.

And so just put pulling in the essentially unlimited supply of electrons from the Earth's surface through your skin and into your body is absolutely supportive of good health.

Meredith Oke: Right.

And because I've heard, I heard you say a few times, like, doing this helps you feel safe.

Like eating breakfast, putting your body in the light it's supposed to be in and the environment it's meant to be in.

These are bringing in, like, actual feelings of safety because our body is experiencing what it's supposed to experience or how it, how should we unpack that?

Rachel Brown: I just, I just think of it as trying to balance your nervous system response.

So particularly the grounding and spending time outdoors.

I mean, there's so many benefits to being in nature and green spaces in terms of negative ions.

There's all sorts of stuff you could talk about, but essentially it's just shifting so that your nervous system response is more balanced and more in the rest and digest and the safe sort of phase as opposed to being activated all the time and stressed and lots of cortisol.

And I just think too many people are stuck in that state, myself, myself included.

So I always make as much concerted effort as possible to do things to try and regulate nervous system response.

And I see that that really is an essential piece of the puzzle for clients to try and overcome chronic symptoms of any kind, really.

Because I sometimes think about, you know, like, our thoughts have frequency, if you think about it from a quantum biology perspective.

And fear is one of the lowest frequency states to be in.

And often fear goes hand in hand with sympathetic nervous system activation.

And so just anything you can do to support your body, to be in more of a relaxed state, you.

You need to be in more of a relaxed state to be able to heal and for the body to be able to do what it, what it does best, which is heal.

When you give it the right set of conditions and circumstances.

Does that make sense?

Meredith Oke: Yeah, that makes so much sense.

And I think, I think, yeah.

I mean, I really resonate with what you're saying that we're stuck in parasympathetic, which is the more stressed out.

Sorry, sympathetic.

Which is the more stressed out when.

And we want to spend more time in parasympathetic, but we don't even realize it.

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

Most people, men and women, it might show up differently, but we are living in that.

And I notice it, I notice it when I get startled.

Like if, if, if someone, you know, walks in the room and I didn't realize they were there.

I didn't realize someone was home.

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

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

And if I'm, but if I'm in that sympathetic state, I literally feel like I'm having a heart attack for a second.

Like I'm, and I, and I.

It makes me realize like, oh, I was, I was already right at the line.

Like my startle reflex had to go into overdrive.

And it's just those little moments where I'm like, oh, I need to maybe go meditate or something.

Go meditate outside or something.

How do you, how do you experience personally and through, you know, what you've experienced, seen with, with patients and clients?

What does it feel like and look like to be stuck in, in, let's say, sympathetic overdrive?

Rachel Brown: Do you know, for me personally, I didn't even realize that I was in a sympathetic nervous system dominant state.

So I, well, in retrospect, so it's a hard one to, to really pinpoint.

So, so I think a lot of people are stuck in that and they don't realize it.

And I was one of those people.

So I was aware that sometimes I would feel stressed or unhappy for particular reasons.

But I ended up doing some hair tissue mineral analysis that showed quite clearly where I was in terms of my sympathetic nervous system response.

And then having that information kind of made me reflect more, I think about how I was feeling in my body and internally and, and then I've done a few other things since, you know, like practices.

And I just noticed that you can have such benefits from just simple practices such as grounding.

I went through a period of time doing some cold plunging.

I haven't done that for a while now.

But I, I, yeah, that was fairly addictive at the time when I started it last year and other, you know, other therapies, you know, like even sound therapy.

I'm a huge proponent actually of sound therapy and the impact that can have on your nervous system as well.

So I'm probably rambling at this point, but there's, it didn't, it wasn't very obvious to me as the take home message that I was stuck in that, that state, if I'm being honest.

Meredith Oke: Yeah, no, that's what I think is super.

So interesting that we're talking about this is because it's not necessarily like you're in a panic attack all the time.

You're just in, it's, it's like a slightly elevated state, you know, of, of like, I don't know, vigilance maybe, or you're just sort of like, like that feeling like the, okay, I'm here's how I would describe it for how it feels for me.

It's like the difference between if I'm driving my car somewhere I've driven a million times and I don't really need to think about it, versus it's dark and I'm a bit lost and I don't know where I'm going and my GPS is broken and I'm driving, like, do I turn here, do I turn there?

Right.

And I feel like a lot of the time I'm living life in that kind of like in that mode versus the other mode where I'm still driving but I'm like in a totally relaxed.

I'm like.

It's not like I'm not having to think about it as it's not like clutching at me.

That's how it, that's how I would describe it.

Rachel Brown: Yeah, that's a good description.

I was just thinking just to reflect on that probably years ago, I remember when my dad was teaching me to drive or there's somebody.

I think it was my dad and I remember him saying to me, you know, like, are you, are you worried about something?

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

And so something I tend to do if I'm a bit on edge, like that would be not to sit back, relax to in the driver's seat, but to be leaning forward, on alert for, you know, like something unexpected to be happening.

So.

Yeah, that's a good, a good analogy.

Meredith Oke: Yeah.

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

And so all of these practices that you're recommending support us to feel safe because I think that's part of it too.

I'm, you know, now that I'm thinking about it, it's like I maybe even don't want to get out of the sympathetic state because I might not do as good a job.

I might forget stuff.

I might not be as on top of things as I want to be.

And I don't trust that I can get it all done from the other mode.

Rachel Brown: Okay.

It's a bit of a fear based mindset.

Meredith Oke: Yeah.

I mean, it's not active all the time, but it's, you know, I do think that that's part of it.

It's like, well, isn't it?

You know, because I'm looking around at everyone around me.

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

Rachel Brown: Oh, for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm somebody.

I guess people have different personality traits, don't they?

But I'm I'm somebody who can't.

I get bored so easily and so I always have to be doing something.

And so I think some people find it easier to relax than other people.

And so for those of us who are a bit more driven, that type of personality maybe need to put a bit more effort into making a concerted effort to do relaxing activities and make sure you are actually, it's true.

Meredith Oke: I remember, I think Irene Lyon always makes this point that the people who most need to regulate their nervous system don't do it because it's.

She's like, it's really boring.

Rachel Brown: Yeah.

Meredith Oke: I'm like, it is really boring.

Rachel Brown: Yeah, yeah.

I'm guilty as charged.

Meredith Oke: Same.

Rachel Brown: Yeah, same.

Meredith Oke: So, you know, it's all a work in progress and yeah, you know, I'll get there.

So from, from all of your journeys, it's.

Is there anything like, are there, you know, like what thoughts do you have that you know, maybe don't have published studies to support them?

They're just kind of, I always like to know like what people think.

You mentioned earlier about our thoughts having a frequency, our emotions having a frequency.

If we could just like, you know, go totally woo.

I'm not holding you to any of, you know, I'm not going to be like, well, I don't know if that's true.

Like we don't care.

We just like your intuitive feeling of how you see things based on all the, all your experience and all your studies.

Rachel Brown: I think a big concern I have about the way medicine is practiced is that it often induces fear or a fear state in people.

And I have concerns that that in itself, itself can prevent people from recovering.

So I think mindset is huge and the way we look at things and how we think about things and I don't know that I can quote any particular studies that reference.

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

But about which types of thought have, are associated with what level, what frequency.

But I think for most people it would be easy enough to, to be able to see that.

Joy, gratitude, those, those kind of thoughts are the highest frequency and then there's a whole sort of sliding scale all the way down to fear being one of the lowest frequencies.

And yeah, I mean I can talk about lots of woo stuff.

I don't know if I want to, but I'm fascinated by and still learning about things like biogeometry and our biofield and bioresonance and our thoughts absolutely come into all of that.

For sure.

Meredith Oke: I love it.

Listen, this is a safe space.

But I understand since you still technically work for the nhs, you maybe don't want to go there, but is your, like, intuitive feeling that these are all completely valid realms to explore?

Rachel Brown: Yes, 100%.

No.

No wavering on that.

Meredith Oke: Yes, love it.

100%.

Rachel Brown: Yeah.

Meredith Oke: So, just to wrap up, I just want to go back to something I heard you and Kelly Ritter talking about on her podcast, Quantum Mental Health.

And you said something that was interesting to me, where somebody can.

A patient can come to you and their labs are all great, but you can just look at them and be like, you are metabolically unhealthy.

And I want to talk about that because that's been the experience that I had that experience, and I know so many people did with traditional medicine, where it's like, it's almost become a meme now on the Internet, there's.

There was a meme I saw of people, like, standing around a coffin at a funeral being like, your labs are perfect.

So I just want to talk about that for a minute because, you know, you understand that side of things so deeply with your medical background.

Talk to the person whose labs who's getting that feedback from their physician.

Like, your labs are good.

I don't know.

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

And how do you.

If you are looking at somebody setting the labs aside, like, how do you see what's going on with them?

Rachel Brown: Oh, I mean, I.

I always automatically bring it back to mitochondria.

Mitochondrial health and function.

So, you know, there's really interesting research talking about how people present with symptoms when about 70% of their mitochondria are dysfunctional.

So I think it was Dr.

Douglas Wallace who published that research.

I've heard Carrie obviously speak about that.

And do, you know, even just coming from a nutritional perspective.

So the low carb community, for example, we know that people who follow ketogenic or carnivore diets won't necessarily have the same lab ranges as the standard lab ranges.

And the standard lab ranges are pretty much on average, done in a sick population, if that's not too controversial.

And I.

Something I really detest, and probably, if I'm honest, I've been guilty of myself coming through the whole allopathic training system is when people are dismissed or even gaslit and being told that something's all in their head, or there's no evidence for their physical symptoms that they have or mental health symptoms, I think it tends to happen more with physical And I just always think that my philosophy is that we are supposed to be in good health as long as we are in the.

Putting our body in the right environment and giving it the right exposures and nutrition.

And if you have a difficulty, it's a sign that there is something deeper going on at a cellular level that maybe isn't necessarily showing up in a blood test because even just, you know, like certain minerals are held within ourselves and not necessarily reflected in blood tests.

And so if you're doing a drawing, a blood test, you won't necessarily know what you're intracellular mineral content or composition is like.

And there's so much nuance there and I think there's so much that we don't know.

And I, I personally dislike the arrogance of modern medicine at times.

So I, I would never claim that I know everything or that we understand absolutely everything about how the body works, but I think having a quantum biology perspective certainly sheds a lot more light on things than, than just going by standards tests.

So I would always say to people to, you know, get a second opinion or just don't be afraid to try to think critically yourself or research things yourself and don't just automatically accept advice verbatim that you're given.

Just, you know, I think I always encourage people to try to understand things themselves if they can, if they're interested in that, so that they can make the best decision possible for their own health.

Meredith Oke: Yeah.

Yeah, I love that.

I think, yeah, we just need to keep looking.

There's always, there are always more answers.

And I know sometimes not advocating to like be obsessive about it.

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

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

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

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

And then you mentioned earlier, you're like, I don't even know why I studied medicine.

And it's funny, I've, I've had so many doctors say that they're like this, that wasn't like.

I've always felt drawn to the more holistic, healing modalities.

I don't know why I went into medicine, but I feel like you were all called to do that because we need the voices that have both.

So I appreciate you putting yourself through that system because, you know, it just, it gives you a different, a different perspective and a, and a way to shift the paradigm that can't happen just from Someone who, from someone who is looking at it from the outside.

So.

Okay, I think, I think you followed your soul's journey and we all appreciate it.

Rachel Brown: Yeah, I'll go with that.

Hasn't been 20 odd years wasted so.

Meredith Oke: Not at all.

Not at all.

And you know I'm just want to acknowledge you for having, having the curiosity and the courage to look outside your profession.

It's not easy.

So for people who would like to work with you because you do have an offer outside of, you know, being a psychiatrist with nhs, how do, how do people find you?

Rachel Brown: Yep.

So from a social media perspective, Instagram is probably the best place to find me.

I'm most active there.

Or I've got a website I can get you to link.

If people want to find out a bit more about me and, and yeah.

Meredith Oke: And you they can like book a session or book, book a consult with you through your website.

Okay.

And that is just tell me what the URL is.

Is it Dr.

Rachel Brown?

Rachel Brown: It's Dr.

Rachel S.

Brown dot com.

Meredith Oke: Okay.

Dr.

Rachel S.

Brown dotcom.

We'll put the link in the show notes but sometimes people just listen when they're driving or whatever so I always like to say it loudly.

Dr.

Dr.

Rachel S.

Brown dot com.

Okay, Rachel, thank you so much.

I'd love to do this again sometime.

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

Yeah.

Any final thoughts you want to want to share with the crew?

Rachel Brown: Just, I just, I never want people to lose hope even if they're in a seemingly dire situation health wise because I think there's always more that can be done as you say and you just have to be questioning and willing to look for solutions.

So just want to bring a message of hope really and healing because I think that's possible.

Meredith Oke: Thank you.

I love that.

Thank you Rachel.

See you soon.

Rachel Brown: Oh, thank you for having me.

Meredith Oke: Sa.