We are joined, uh, by Sarah Bayless.

The, the theme of this fireside is Eat well, lead well.

Uh, and for us, this idea of leadership and self-leadership underpins a lot of our work in the Happy Startup School.

We talk about building businesses and making change, but that, that kind of work, we believe starts from the inside out, which means, before we lead others, how do we lead ourselves?

And if we're gonna lead ourselves, how are we taking care of ourselves?

So I'm, I'm looking forward to that conversation with Sarah today.

What does that mean for her, particularly also, what does that mean in terms of thriving?

So we're gonna explore.

Multitude of topics and we'll see how, where it goes.

But before that be for anyone who is listening who hasn't met you or come across your work.

Sarah, how would you, uh, please share just a bit of a, a, a potted history, uh, however you wanna put that as maybe describe what you do now and, and who you help and how you help them, and then how you got into this work, however you wanna describe that.

thank you.

As I said, it is lovely to be here.

I am a registered nutritional therapist, so I have a private practice in Bristol.

I see clients come to see me for sort of a host of different reasons, but it's generally in the area of optimizing health, improving metabolic health, um, understanding potential risk factors.

St people who are struggling, with anxiety, stress, energy.

And so, my job is to very much understand their health history, how they're living their life today, and what's the impact of their environment on their health, and then how to help them thrive or feel better.

And, um, and we do, I do that through a number of, number of different ways.

Um, but at the core of everything that I'm doing is nutrition, um, helping people eat better.

Um, and I like to frame it in this idea of, Creating energy for life.

That's how I like to think about it when we, when I'm working with people, how do we give you the energy so that you can do what you want to do in your life?

So nutrition is very central to that.

But outside of nutrition, I will look at stress, I will look at sleep, I will look at, um, almost the seven pillars that we've talked about or we're gonna maybe introduce today.

I'll talk about potential purpose, uh, relationships.

And, you know, my job is really assessing where they're at now and how they are thriving in their current environment.

and together I work with them over a number of weeks or months, depending on their goals and where they're at.

And we take small steps to help them feel better and we'll work out together what that looks like in terms of actions, but also how we're gonna track that.

So some clients'll run functional testing, I'll look at blood, some may look at stress hormones.

I may look at gut.

Some clients I don't do any testing and we just work on direct actions changing, changing food, changing environment, getting outside, managing stress, helping them find what their stresses are.

So it's really, really quite broad in terms of the offering I provide a client, but the root of it we're just coming back to how can you thrive in the context of the world that you are living in.

I originally started my career in, um, marketing and events.

And that choice was um, sort of not directly intentional.

I was led down that path based on where my education took me.

Um, so I spent about 15 years or so.

Working in, um, both agency and client side, delivering marketing campaigns and event campaigns.

And, um, that environment sort of took its toll on my health, of which there was a sort of triggering change of job that helped me see how I wasn't thriving.

And I started to make some shifts.

And my first initial shift was actually what I ate and how I ate.

And I noticed some fundamental personal differences in my own energy.

And I was like, oh my gosh, why don't we know about this?

And that took me to this space of going, right, I'm going back to school.

I, I need to study, I need to understand what's happening, how our body works, what our body needs, and what do we need to do to thrive and function?

and yeah, I did that and, uh, requalified and then set my business up about five years ago.

And this sort of leads me to where I, where I am, where I'm today.

I'd like to just delve a bit more into your story because you went back to study.

Yeah.

And as I understand it, studying wasn't your favorite thing at the beginning.

Mm-hmm.

So.

Maybe just share a bit of that story because there is, well, I think there's some gold in there that would be helpful to share.

Yes.

I mean, I, I was quite severely dyslexic at school, so my journey towards getting my degree was a very tough journey.

And it was a, it was a journey where I had to hide my struggles with the education system and, and, find a way to teach myself to learn.

And so the whole journey to, to get through the education system was almost, um, felt like fighting for survival.

It was not about thriving or finding passion or what you're gonna deliver in this world or what your purpose was.

It was just.

Get through, just try and get through.

And I think, you know, we're very much sort of built in a society where we are told we have to get a degree or we have to get through that.

And now I think things are changing.

When I was younger, dyslexia wasn't really well recognized, or I had a number of occasions where I was chucked out schools.

and it sort of led to this belief of, you know, I'm pretty stupid.

And so this, this feeling sat behind me for a long time.

And so when I finally got into the workplace, it was like, oh, oh, it was like a massive relief.

This was over, but actually it wasn't over.

I was just taking the, my disabilities or my challenges just into a new environment, into another setting.

And you're still being judged, you're still being critiqued.

and I guess the biggest shift for me was that when I found nutrition for my own journey to improve my health.

it became something that I was so passionate about.

The ability for me to get over my fears was gone because I was like, if I want to do this, I just have to keep going.

And it was, it was almost like there was no choice, right?

If I wanted to do nutrition, I had to go back to school.

I had to face those fears and I had to study.

And the biggest fear was that I hadn't done it for 15, 20 years.

I'd forgotten what that process was.

And then I was going into an area that was quite scientific.

It's obviously very, very different to marketing.

and it was, it was almost like I was gonna give it a go no matter what.

'cause I had nothing to lose.

And I think that was what came outta it.

I had absolutely nothing to lose, but I had everything to gain.

And it's like we get to a point where we stay the same or we make a de decision to change.

And a.

A push behind that was also that my daughter was very young.

She, I, I'd had her, she's about nine months old.

Um, I didn't want her growing up to see her mom unhappy in her job.

I wanted to empower her.

And it was like, this is my opportunity now.

You know, the world is telling me to do this.

I love this.

And I think the other side of this is when I was working in marketing, I always built really good relationships.

I felt like I met the most wonderful people, though the job was stressful.

I was, you know, reaching myself into bed and out the environment was hard.

I loved people and I thought, well, this, this role feels right for me.

I found something that I finally, I could get in my teeth into, and almost the passion for it over, as I said, would overcome the fear of the study or, or the how hard I had to work.

And then I was moving myself into a career where I was working with people, and it was like, everything just felt right.

And if I failed, no one needed to know, did they?

No one needed to know if I didn't get through, if I didn't get the qualification, nobody needed to know.

And so what if I didn't get it?

Who really, who would, who would sort of care?

So the other thing that's incredible about this journey is that because I had to go back to face the challenges I have being dyslexic, I ended up coming out of my three years studying nutrition with this, passion for learning.

So not only had I gone back to the education system and then I got through it, I now wanna learn more and more and more.

I wanna read more.

Like I didn't wanna read books before then, so it's almost like nutrition taught me how to overcome some of my own educational challenges.

So it is like a, a win-win for me.

yeah, and I'm ever so grateful for that.

And it feels like it's sort of meant to, meant to be.

And it, you know, it comes back to.

And I think you, I think you both talk about this a lot.

If we can find the purpose for ourselves and the love of something, it can overtake any, any fear.

and, and I think that is what I'm incredibly grateful for.

And that is what I wish for our education system to help our people find their purpose.

And then it doesn't matter what potential disability or challenge you have, you are more likely to fight through it.

The way I am, I'm hearing that is particularly maybe the environment and the education system, uh, the obstacles that are put in our way seem like a way to prove ourselves.

Mm-hmm.

If you get over this, if you get over this, then you are a good person.

You know, you are a clever person.

You, you pass the, the test as opposed to what I hear with your journey with learning about nutrition.

The, the obstacles were there, but it was just something you needed to get through 'cause you wanted to get to the other side.

It doesn't, it wasn't a measure of anything.

It was just, well I'm just gonna have to learn and learn how to learn and I've gotta push through.

But there was nothing about fear, failure or success.

It was like, I just gotta do it if I want to get to where I wanna get to.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think within the, I think I'd had the time out, the education system.

I think the thing with the school environment, it is, you know, you're constantly tested, you're constantly judged all of the time.

I've had a bit of a break, a break from that.

And I think that without that passion to drive through that testing, there is no purpose is there.

And the education system doesn't enable us to set that purpose.

So we have the freedom to drive through all of those challenges.

Of, of whether that's being, you know, that persistent testing, um, and all the times you're persistently testing, you're putting each individual under so much pressure to perform in such a short period of time, which is judging their ability in a, in quite a harsh environment.

Right.

And you know, you to, to, and I was thinking about this the other day about the schooling system and testing.

You know, you, to fully function in that test, you must be hydrated.

You must have ate well, you must have slept well.

You must have the right mindset.

You must have the people behind you going, I'm here for you, otherwise you are not gonna do your best.

And that is a lot to ask and to perform in that session.

And I was thinking about this because my daughter's just done, you know, she's only in year seven, but she's done a whole load of tests.

And it really made me think about, and, and a lot of this is coming down to what I do in my job actually.

It's about.

You know, every day is in somewhat a level of test to what we're trying to achieve in our job or, uh, our purpose.

And, you know, that's what nutrition is, isn't it?

It's it's setting you up to have the greatest strengths to deal with your environment, whether that is doing a school exam or whether that is running a workshop or, and when we have, you know, like I'm now with my daughter, drink that water because I know you're gonna think better.

put a little bit more focus on the things that we have control of.

We have a greater ability to achieve what we want to achieve.

And maybe that's a part of my journey as well.

What, when I was thinking about, you know, when I was retraining, I was eating well, I was drinking lots of water, I'd learned a lot, my nutrition was a completely different place to, it was when I was doing marketing and events.

So, you know, part of it is that.

I was feeding and fueling my function to be able to, you know, in some ways think more clearly.

optimizing the conditions for you to perform as opposed to running a marathon on the broken leg.

It's like, just make sure that you've got, yeah.

At least address as much as you can so maybe we can drift into that.

It's like, what are these aspects, what is it about nutrition that impacts our state of mind, our resilience, our creativity and what energetically Yeah.

What, what, what could you share that you, you discovered or was really helpful for you?

Well, I think what was very helpful for me is when we look at nutritional biology, I.

We know that certain foods can make you more stressed and certain foods can feed you, so you can feed yourself in a way where you're gonna become more stressed.

So if you are more stressed and you'll put yourself in a, a stressful environment, then you are not gonna thrive as well.

And the biggest learning for me was coming out of, the training is that when we know how to feed the body, um, we have a greater ability to manage our resilience bucket to deal with what life throws at us.

What we don't know is what that looks like.

So many of us know, okay, well I understand I shouldn't be eating processed foods.

I understand that sugar's bad for me.

I understand that.

Make drinking caffeine too much.

Caffeine can make me feel wired.

I understand that I shouldn't be drinking every day.

Okay?

So we all understand that.

But when we go, okay, so what is it you should be doing?

People go, well, they sort of know what good food looks like and they know it's meant to be whole food.

And people generally try and eat well, but they don't know.

Okay, so what is my hierarchy of choices when it comes to map nutrients?

What does, what does an ideal plate look like?

Where should I be focusing my attention?

How should I build my nutrition to build my function?

And so, you know what, you know what I came out of understanding from uni?

Um, and the training was that.

Food is, um, it's more than just fueling the body.

So food is information, it tells a message to the body, and the bunch body then functions in response to that.

And there are certain things that the body needs, um, that cannot make.

And we must feed the body to do that.

And I think understanding nutrition from that perspective.

So there's nutritional biochemistry, what do I need to feed my body that it cannot make, is the priority in which I teach my clients to eat.

And so then, you know, your, you have a better capacity to feed their brain, to keep their blood sugar stable.

When we keep our blood sugar stable, we can keep our cortisol down.

So it means we're more resilient to deal with stress.

And I can, I can explain that relationship if you want me to.

and then when we feed in that way, what you do is you, you provide.

Low burning, consistent energy that you can access throughout your day so that you can thrive within that workplace.

So you can do the things that you need to do.

and the other part of the, the major learning that I took away from my own experience was that when I was in marketing, I didn't really eat.

I would skip most meals and might eat dinner, but I wouldn't really eat properly.

I might snack all the time.

And I had really irregular energy, and, uh, poor sleep, high stress felt word all the time.

And it's, it's when we feed the body in alignment to what it needs, when it needs, you can have a whole host of energy that is, more available to, for you to use.

Okay.

and.

That's basically what I learned.

But even beyond, even beyond that, you know, that is just the pure basics of nutrition.

When you think about, when I think about individuals, you know, when we feed the body, what it needs, and we have the other inputs that are working, right?

Where that's sleep, that stress, um, that's rest, that's movement.

The body operates on these seven systems.

And when these seven systems are balanced, you are a, you are well-rooted and oil organs function well.

And at the very basics, when you think about every organ has a cell and every cell is working together for that organ to function, that cell needs energy and we provide that energy to that cell.

But if we provide wrong energy, that cell won't work as well.

So then that organ won't work as well.

And so then the whole system doesn't work as well.

And when you think about, illness and disease, what we're trying to do is get the seven systems in the body balanced.

And it does come back to those core roots.

You know, if you imagine yourself as a tree, when the roots are strong and they're grounded, you feed these seven systems and then all of the branches of that tree work, whether that's immunology, um, endocrinology, gastroenterology, cardiovascular system, all of the branches work when we have solid roots.

Um, mm-hmm.

I'm also curious about how much this varies from person to person as well.

Like how individual some of this, um, support that you give people is, Everything is incredibly individual and I think that's a really important thing to say.

And when I think about metabolic health, which for me is the metabolic health means how well the body.

Converts food energy into chemical energy to function well.

And at the, at the root of all modern diseases, whether it's cardiovascular disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, neuro diseases, most of it is rooted in poor metabolic function.

So the fact that you are not feeding the cells well to take on the energy and then to make their own energy to function as well.

So it's almost like the way into nutrition, get your blood sugar balanced, and, um, that is very unique to everybody what that looks like.

And what's even more interesting is that in middle life, which is, you know, where I am now, it is the most important time to protect your metabolic health.

Because when we protect our metabolic health, we have a greater reduced risk of disease.

Okay?

And metabolic health can be a silent disease.

can be, some people do feel symptoms of poor metabolic health, which is generally, um, low energy, potentially anxiety, potentially nervousness, um, cravings after food, brain fog, sluggishness could have some digestive issues.

So things that people can normalize.

Some of these are symptoms that you just think are just you and you begin to normalize.

But essentially what metabolic health is, it's sort of divided into two sort of areas.

I like to think about it.

So one is about, you know, blood sugar.

And when we eat in a way where we can release energy from our food into the blood system, slow at a very slow rate.

So we eat a meal, blood sugar, the food enters the digestive system into the bloodstream at a very slow rate like this.

So your energy availability to your cells is going up slowly.

And it's staying there and providing this constant energy burn.

So you are releasing slow energy to the body.

the cells take on that energy slowly and then they provide, and then they burn that to create a TP and so that cell can function.

When you're thinking about the relationship between blood sugar and cortisol, it's when we provide the body with fast, hard burning energy.

So if you imagine a fire and you shove a load of gasoline on it, you're gonna get this massive burst of fire and then it's gonna go out and lots of us eat in that way.

So we eat in a way where blood sugar rises incredibly quickly, too fast for the body to cope with that.

It overproduces a hormone called insulin, and that hormone is, um, produced by the pancreas.

And insulin's job is to get energy from the blood into storage sites.

so body overproduces insulin, because the sugar's going up too fast and.

Any one time the blood you, you should have no more than a teaspoon of sugar in your blood, okay?

'cause any more than that, you are driving a risk of inflammation.

So you're eating in a way where blood sugar goes up very fast, insulin comes in, pushes this blood sugar very down, fast and hard.

What ends up happening is your blood sugar drops below normal levels at very harsh and far fast rate.

The brain sees this as an emergency and says, okay, my human sugar is dropping too fast.

Okay?

They're not gonna have the energy they need to survive.

So we are gonna put sugar back into the system for you.

So it pumps cortisol, which is our stress hormone because cortisol's job is to mobilize you in times of danger.

So it increases sugar into your system 'cause it thinks you're gonna run, fight, or flee to increase the sugar into your blood.

And your blood sugar starts rising.

so you can eat in this stressed way where you are on this sugar rollercoaster.

And what happens is initially you feel the energy come in, you feel a bit great, and then suddenly your energy starts to drop and you start to feel wired, tired, angry.

You almost start craving more foods.

And so then go back to the sugar or the caffeine or, um, a processed food and you can end up on this stress rollercoaster.

And all you're doing every single time is just, burning through this energy, burning through this cortisol, and it's affecting your mind.

It's potentially driving up anxiety, it's affecting your energy, and it can, it can even go through the night and impact on sleep.

So the core foundation of nutrition 1 0 1 is just balance that energy and when we do that, we have ability to, say sustained.

I think more clearly have less anxiety, and fuel our body to survive well.

And I think that, once we get that right, then we can work on, you can work on anything else that you may be struggling with.

And the things that drive the blood sugar up hard and fast are generally, you know, processed foods, sugar, caffeine, too many carbohydrates in one session.

and, and as well as not balancing your meals, which is why I come back to this idea of, nutritional biochemistry, really feeding the body what it needs and cannot make.

And a lot of that comes from eating good amounts of protein, eating good amounts of fiber, eating good amounts of healthy fat to help balance that blood sugar.

And that was how I lived basically when I was back at, my marketing world, I was living on, on this sort of borrowed energy.

In some ways, the way you look at it is you can feed yourself to give you good energy or you can feed yourself to give you bad energy, I just wanted to, um, highlight a question and maybe whether you can answer or not.

Rachel was asking if you have any specific advice for cellular, cellular energy in terms of those dealing with long covid or Emmy type conditions.

Is there anything there that you know about that you could share?

Well, interestingly enough, the second part to the story I didn't mention, and, and thank you Rachel, 'cause you've reminded me, is that once the sugar is outta the blood and is, moving into cells, right, so the, the, the cells then use this energy to create a TP and that is.

All about mitochondrial health.

So these mitochondrial, these tiny powerhouses that sit in every single cell and their job is to convert the food energy into chemical energy.

And that chemical energy enables that cell to function.

Therefore, that organ to function, to cellular energy is all about balancing blood sugar that I've just said.

And then really looking after mitochondria.

And mitochondria are, you know, the, the powerhouses of each cell.

And you know, it's really interesting and the more I learn about this, the more important these, these cells are, is that, there is a belief that most modern disease is rooted in mitochondrial dysfunction.

So the body is the, the, the, the cell, the mitochondrial is un unable to convert food energy into the chemical energy.

So you can feel like you're, you are in me or on covid.

And, and those mitochondria are, you know, pretty delicate.

And one of the, there's many things that can cause damage to them.

One is inappropriate eating.

So flooding the system like I've just talked about.

The second part of it is these mitochondrial need vital nutrients, micronutrients to do their job.

And there's this thing called electro transport chain.

And they need to move these electrons for electrical transport chain to create a TP and they need looking after.

And there's a whole host of nutrients that are needed in that.

And I talk a lot about this, and I touched on a lot of this in the book.

So that's one part of it.

The other part is that, if there's inflammation in the body, so whether that's inflammation because the gut is not working very well, there is dysbiosis in the gut, which is also linked to total cellular health.

Whether you are stressed, whether you're not getting enough sunlight, whether you're not resting enough.

Whether you are not moving enough, all of these can impact our mitochondria health and our cellular health.

And therefore, how well those mitochondria work.

What's incredibly interesting is that, you know, these mitochondria need light, you know, natural light outside.

We, they thrive off light.

And one of the biggest stresses in our environment today is, artificial light.

So we're going artificial light, particularly that's coming from blue light, which is mainly from, you know, LEDs, screens, um, laptops, all those sorts of things.

They overprocessing too much of that increases cortisol and that can also have an impact on mitochondrial health.

And on the flip side of it, not getting enough light outside.

Being in natural light that the sun provides, also has an impact on our health.

And, and I think when it comes to your Rachel question, it comes to, you know, me and long covid, there are multiple factors that can affect that cellular energy.

So it's what you're eating, how well you are sleeping, what your stress is like, how much exposure to natural light you're getting, how well is your gut functioning, are there any nutrients that you are low on?

So it's almost, you almost have to assess all of those areas and go, okay, where are the weaker points and how can we, how can we support them to, to enable that cellular energy to, to work better?

the way you've answered it, I think it gives us a nice, Uh, logical segue into these broader aspects around health that you're talking about.

Mm-hmm.

And maybe now we can expand if you'd like to just expand on these, these seven pillars, these seven roots that you were talking about before, and just share what they are and, and then maybe a little bit about what they mean for you.

Yeah.

Okay.

So when we, when I think about resilience, I'm thinking about life energy.

Okay?

So what we're thinking about is the energy for you to do the things that you want in your life.

and when you think about energy, there is sort of two parts to this.

There's the energy that you create from the food that you eat.

And there's that self-efficacy energy from the environment around you.

We all know that some, some days we have more energy because the people around us, we know that stress can deplete our energy.

And so these seven systems all play into this energy idea of, you know, optimizing life energy.

And when we look at today's environment and we're looking at growing those really strong roots that you can be this beautiful tree that functions in this world.

From, from my learning and the training I've done is that these are the seven routes that give us that stability to thrive.

Okay.

So one is stress, um, or one is nutrition.

We sort of touch on it and that, and that's quite broad.

Um, you know, we've only just touched on a small area of it.

So the other one is stress.

And I think we are in a.

Uh, a society that is quite stressful.

And whether that is the fact that, um, your job is stressful, whether that's your family life is stressful, whether that is the fact that, the toxins from the world around us, the air we breathe, the light we see, uh, the news we hear we're, we're in a, a bubble of sort of higher levels of stress.

And it's not the type of stress that we get when, you know, when we think about ancestral days where we're actually fighting for our food or trying to catch our food, it's not that type of stress, but it's, it's a type of, um, environmental stress that we're all exposed to.

And, you know, stress is a good thing on one part, but on another part it's a bad thing.

So too little stress means we don't get motivated, right?

So stress creates cortisol.

Cortisol drives dopamine, right?

We need that, that drive.

We need that cortisol response at the right time of the day to give us the energy to thrive.

But too much stress is debilitating, right?

It steals our resources, it breaks down our muscles, and we can become depleted and it can disrupt our circadian rhythm.

And so when I'm working with a client, I, we work through identifying what their stresses are.

And we talk about this idea that stress is not something that you can remove, but it's something that you have to learn to, plan for when you can or if you can't plan for it, how to recover well from it.

So stress long term, they, beyond seven days is when it becomes chronic and chronic stress can drive inflammation and that can drive disease.

So one of the things I do with my clients is work out what is it in their life that's causing 'em to feel stressed and.

A part of this is about really identifying what their stresses are.

And then once we identify it together, we work out, okay, well how do we recover for it and how do we plan for it?

And it's just a conversation we have.

And then there are a number of tools I use to work with clients around this as well.

Um, so in moments where you are feeling extremely anxious or you're feeling the system is becoming overwhelmed, how can you get yourself outta that situation?

And what I try and teach my clients is that stress is in our control, which is what's so beautiful about it.

'cause we have a stress system and we have a de-stress system.

So we have the parasympathetic nervous system and the sympathetic nervous system and we can control them.

And it's once we have a greater understanding of the things in our lives that drive our stress, we can use tools to activate the rest and digest system to come out of that.

And it's a bit like going to the gym.

Every time you go to the gym, you are stressing a muscle and that muscle gets stronger.

And this is what I work with clients about.

It's about every time, it's about using the tools to build their resilience to those stresses and to recover better.

And I think, you know, what I find is that some clients take it for granted and they don't really think about, they don't really think about what it is in their life that's depleting their energy and causing that level of stress.

And I think just having that conversation can be quite interesting.

and you know, as I said, a part of that is environmental, you know, not enough light.

uh, as well, and I'll just move into that actually.

So.

One of the other really important pillars is natural light.

And I think when you think about how the body functions, the body functions on a system called circadian rhythm.

That basically means, um, a study of what the body does over 24 hour period.

And it does certain things at certain times.

So we can function really, really well.

And there's two hormones that set this circadian rhythm.

One is cortisol, one is melatonin, and melatonin is our sleep hormone.

And cortisol is our weight hormone per se.

So we need cortisol at the right time of the day and the body to feel grounded and to function well.

Um, uses the eyes to understand what time of day it is and therefore what hormones it needs to secrete to function.

Therefore, what the cells need to do when.

And one of the most important timekeepers to tell the body the time of day it is, is light.

From the sun.

So when we get up in the morning and we see morning light, the body uses receptors in the eyes to tell the brain that it's morning.

The brain then tells the body that it's morning and it sets off a clock.

So then every single cell does what it needs to do to function well.

And what we are seeing in our environment is a very lack of natural light.

People aren't seeing the light from the sun, and the light from the sun is made up of, visual light and in, and invisible light.

And all of those spectrums are important to our health.

In fact, this subject I could talk a lot about, but it, it goes down to even how a metabolism works.

And so seeing morning light.

It's what gives us our energy.

It gives us that cortisol to get us out of bed, to function, to fill that drive we have in the morning.

And then cortisol then drops as the day goes on, and it should be at its lowest at night.

So it can produce melatonin, which is our sleep hormone.

You cannot have melatonin cortisol high at the same time.

So they, they, they, they work in opposites.

So the good, the a morning cortisol peak enables an evening melatonin peak now at night to enable that melatonin peak, we need to make sure when the sun goes down, our environment is dark, Because blue light in our environment tells the body that it's in the middle of the day.

So if you're coming home from work and it's.

It's the evening, you should be moving into this restoration restore mode.

You should be starting to secrete melatonin.

So you're starting to feel sleepy.

You walk into an environment that's brightly lit, your eyes will look at the lights, they'll see the blue light.

It will tell the body it's the middle of the day.

Your body will increase cortisol and stop the production of melatonin.

And so you become slightly more stressed in the evening.

Your heart rate goes up slightly, your heart rate availability goes down.

Your sleep quality is impaired.

And so when you're thinking about those core roots that I've been talking about, so stress and light, light in itself can be a stressor if we're not getting the right light in the daytime and we're getting the wrong light at night.

And this is what seems to be happening more and more and more.

And what's really important about your light environment at night?

Is to, you know, make sure that you dim your lights, you know, you to stay off your screens, you get into bed at night and it's pitch black, and you can start to help push these signals to support function because at night we need to restore and we need to rest.

And we can only do that when we've, cortisol is very low and we've got no food in our stomach.

another area is purpose, and I sort of touched on that today, you know, purpose around is, is driving that motivation.

When you have a purpose, you can drive your motivation to make sustainable change, um, movement, we need to be moving.

and that can be, I mean, movement is very personal.

And again, I work with a, a clients on, um, I.

Giving them uh, a way in to begin that, whether that's walking or I will work with, um, movement specialists, but generally we are made to move or we need to move.

When we move, we increase our muscle mass.

We support our muscle mass.

It helps balance our blood sugar.

It sends our anti-inflammatory signals or over the body.

It reduces inflammation, supports brain function.

you know what's interesting about everything I'm saying is everything is connected.

So everything we do is connected to how we function.

And I think, a part of the journey that I do with clients and myself is to analyze your environment, analyze those inputs.

Are they working for you?

Are they working against you?

And it's about changing one thing at a time.

And it might be you work on nutrition for a year, then you might work on stress management for a year.

You might work on sleep for a year to sleep as the other pillar.

And when it comes to sleep.

The most important thing is light, right?

Light at the right time, and the, and ensuring that the environment is very, very dark at night.

And I'm often changing, you know, I'm also thinking about purpose and relationships and that should they come together.

But I think the part of relationships comes back to this life energy piece.

People around us give us energy to thrive and function.

And so relationship is in incredibly important to individuals, all of us.

And, and when you look at the, the research on loneliness, you can see how loneliness can drive up inflammation and chronic disease.

And I think there's some stats that show you that loneliness is, smoking a cigarette is better than loneliness.

Better.

Yeah.

And I, so I think that we are human beings that live together and we need to function together and perform together.

And so, you know, it is really important part of the health picture.

And it is something that I do assess with my clients, you know, with, if I feel that we need to get them in, we need to think about those relationships and whether it's, whether it's community groups, whether it is, you know, literally spending more time with your friends.

I think there was one goal I set myself this year, which was one night a week I, or day a week I'm seeing a friend because you get lost in your environment.

You get very busy with work and family.

And you lose connections.

And I think those connections give you energy and your friends give you energy.

And it's about providing that whole energy for life feeling.

So I think it's a really important aspect of health and something that shouldn't be, you know, shouldn't be forgotten.

And I think within purpose as well, this is very much rooted as well in self-belief.

You know, a part of that is about really believing that you can do anything you want in your life.

and how I, how I feel about that whole belief pieces when we can spend more time thinking about grounding those roots.

And whether that is, getting time away from your day, being in light, having time in nature, really sensing yourself and what is important to you, you can then start to really think about, Believing in yourself more.

And I like this phrase of like, if the more we unprocessed things, the more clearer our thinking is.

And whether that's unprocessed, light, outprocessing, food processing technology, know, in some ways even on processing process relationships.

Yeah, processing relationship.

I'm not how to think about that one.

And I, I feel like it's, yeah, it is about trying to feel grounded and centered and clear.

And I think sometimes to do that, we need to do more away from work and more away from our world, get ourselves into night and nature, and then we can be clearer.

A lot of.

Our intention with these conversations and with all the work that we do, is to inspire action to motivate people to do the things they need to do.

And, and what you're saying here is great, is foundational work to, to give us the resilience and the, you know, the purpose and the, and the strength to do the stuff.

and I'm hearing a lot about us just like shifting into, uh, helpful behaviors is it seems to be part of this and I'm now relating it to my daughter.

Mm-hmm.

In terms of like, what is this message and whether my daughter or any young person now, this message that we can give about the way we, um, nourish our bodies.

There isn't just about denying this, I can't have this, you know, there's like an association that I can see where people have with food that, oh, I can't eat this and I can't eat that because it will cause this.

Is there a way that you could, that, you know, to talk about how we nourish ourselves that doesn't remove the joy, but at the same time bring some intentionality to it?

I don't know.

Just help me, Sarah, please.

I mean, this is, this is such a complicated question and I think it really does come down to the, per the individual, because it's what do they, what are they seeing as being restrictive, you know?

Um, because actually even the idea of feeling restriction in itself, even without eating, is having a stress response to that individual.

Okay.

And then you're yourself in all sorts of, sorts of loops So I, I think I can't answer that question specifically for your daughter.

'cause I think we'd need to go a little bit deeper.

But the way I look at this is the fact that, the closer we can eat to nature the better.

and this is more difficult with children than it is with adults.

The idea is that I want people to eat with intention and the idea of not what I cannot have, but what can I have and how does that food make me feel?

And that is everything that the book is trying to do, I'm trying to do is get people to think about what can I have to make me feel good.

And when we eat better like that, then we can intentionally go and enjoy a food that.

May not be as good for us, but the intention is there and it's from another area.

So for example, let me say I'm going out for cake with my mum, That intention is a relationship with my mum.

I'm having a connection with her.

We are building something together and I'm intentionally gonna to eat a piece of cake, but I'm not doing that every day, but I'm doing it there and then, and I'm giving myself permission to do that.

I think context is really important.

So I can't answer that.

Quest can't answer that question as well, but the idea is that I don't like to fuel people from a place of restriction.

And that's not why I like to think about it.

And I think particularly with, you know, children, they are growing, They, their amount of energy that they need is more than what an adult needs.

And we need to fuel that energy so that they can fuel the function for their day.

And so the least thing you can do is restrict children.

And we know they shouldn't be eating processed foods, but if we can feed them well at home and teach them what good looks like, then we can inform them how to make better decisions.

And that's sort of how I work with my daughter.

This is what we're eating for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

We're eating as a family or lunch obviously at school.

And this is what I, why we're gonna eat this food.

it's enjoy it together.

Um, and I think it's, that's also such an important thing.

Community around the table, family around the table, eating together, enjoying together, cooking together.

All of all of those things are so important.

So you and I, Carlos will have a separate conversation on our own about this.

do you think you can know what makes you feel good at that age?

Because I certainly have noticed the effect that food has on my body as I've got older.

But I dunno if I would have that awareness then I think you can.

I think my daughter feels it all the time.

she always, she just doesn't eat certain foods at school 'cause they make her feel bad.

She'll even say to me, mommy, I want some veggies.

I think you can.

but I also think it has less of an impact on you when you're younger because you're more resilient because your cells are young, right?

Everything's mm-hmm.

Working well as we get older, you know, metabolic health, like contin a continuum.

We're born perfectly healthy.

And then what we need to do as you get to Middle Ages to protect that health and then we have to work a bit harder, our kids have more of variability around that.

I think we are seeing data now about the impact on processed foods, on, you know, on behavior and kids and function.

So we know it's having a negative impact.

and it really just comes down to the individual.

Like you could just shift someone's breakfast and get 'em really enjoying it and I promise you, you can eat healthy and enjoyable.

You know, there is absolutely ways to do it I'm always thinking about snacks in my daughter or clever ways to make things and, It's about education as well.

And you know, we, we know that if you're buying something from that's highly processed, it isn't good for you.

But there's no, there's no harm to saying, I'm gonna make you a beet troop brownie with low sugar or made of bananas and it's gonna be just as yummy.

Um, but it takes a little bit more plant planning, a little bit more intention than just popping down the shop and picking something up from the supermarket.

, if you wanna know more about what Sarah does and you want to get her advice, where would you like to point them to?

Sarah?

Um, probably my website.

also, I do write a newsletter biweekly, and I share, I try and share as much as I possibly can via my newsletters, just giving people advice on everything.

And so if nobody's signed up to them before, I'd be more than happy to share.

All of them with someone if they want to just message me.

Uh, yeah, so my website, I'm also on LinkedIn and Instagram.

I'm not so great with my socials, but I try and I do try and put my energy into my newsletter and obviously you can get in contact directly with me Lawrence, what are, what are you going away?

Um, lots of phrases I hadn't heard before that I'm now gonna Google.

Um, mitochondrial Health being one of them.

Um, so yeah, fascinating.

Just so much goodness there.

And what am I taking away?

Yeah, just this, well, the seven pillars really, which ties in the lot to our works.

That's reassuring in some ways that it's not just about.

Eating better, but actually this balance of purpose and stress and light and yeah, all of the stuff that I feel is important and I know what, when I get those things, I feel better.

So yeah, it's reassuring to know that, yeah, on the good days that that's what I need.

And again, maybe while feeling a bit low at the moment, not getting much natural light, I think is a big thing.

So I thought it was just, I don't know, those who get seasoned affected disorder, but actually I think probably everyone affects it is affected by that.

Um, and just the balance.

Yeah.

You talked about good energy versus bad energy.

So yeah, as I've got older, energy is, is an important thing, isn't it?

So yeah, that's my two Toth.

How about you Ka?

Um, I'm appreciating the systemic view of this, where it isn't just one thing and how I'm hearing even this idea of, Blending food, relationships and purpose.

You know, they're all interconnected.

For me, coming from an Italian Filipino heritage, it's all about family and food and, and rhythms of life and, and how that can get lost in a nuclear family that has busy parents, busy professional parents doing stuff and being intentional about this is, is something that I'm, I'm reaffirming and remembering.

The other aspect for me is, is the intentionality aspect of this is like I'm, what I'm wanting to be more curious about, learn more about is I love food less so since I've lost my sense of smell, but I'm still a big fan of food.

I enjoy cooking.

and remembering that gathering around the table is an important aspect of eating, not just the food, but then also just trying to tune in.

I.

Because I, there's lots of stuff I love to cook, but just understanding more about what this type of food, what kind of impact this type of food can have on our bodies, and to be maybe more intentional about the menu for the week.

It's something that I do regularly.

It's like my wife and I spend a Saturday morning working out what we're gonna cook for the week primarily.

So we don't have to think during the week, but also to now I think add this layer of like, okay, it'd be interesting to know, okay, what, what's the energy cadence?

What's the nutritional aspect that I can bring into this practice?

As well as what tastes nice?

'cause being man of a certain age, I'm much more aware of protecting my metabolic health.

Uh, I love to pass that on to my kids.

Not only the joy of cooking, the joy of food, but the awareness of what food means.

And that's why I was really interested in talking to you, Sarah.

So there's a lot that I'm taking away, but most of all, if I was gonna encapsulate being more intentional about the joy.

And the metabolic benefit around this stuff and how to mix those two.

How about you, Sarah?

How are you leaving us today?

well, I'm, um, incredibly grateful to be here and to talk to you both.

And, um, so thank you for that.

And, you know, I guess one of the part, you know, parting messages I'd like to share and, and message to my own self and what I think about every day is everything is about doing the basics really, really well.

And I think we lose sight of how powerful they are.

and if you take anything away from this call is to think about how well you're doing the basics.

Choose an area and just do it a little bit better.

And for me, that always starts off with the, the first thing in the day, if that means a bit more light.

Better breakfast that is gonna be mm-hmm.

Enough power to, to, to get you to, to begin to feel different.

and I feel like nature has given us all the tools that we need to really thrive and function.

And actually the body is incredibly amazing and it heals itself.

We just need to put it in the environment in which to do so.

The idea that's come to me now is, like you were saying, you know, spend one year on each thing.

Seven year course from Sarah Bayless.

I know.

Help me cry.

In seven years no one's allowed to shut the doors.

If anything, you've made Grace put down her pot noodle, so that's success.