Jaime Hartman (00:06):
Welcome to the AIP Summit Podcast, your go-to resource for taking control of your autoimmune health, presented by AIP Certified Coaches. Hi, I'm Jaime Hartman.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (00:16):
And I'm Marie-Noelle Marquis. And we are here to equip you with the tools, knowledge and support you need to effectively use the Autoimmune Protocol.
Jaime Hartman (00:22):
And today we are bringing you a special episode exploring the importance of mental health and the mind body connection for autoimmune health. Typically, we release new episodes every two weeks, but this one is coming out early to coincide with Mental Health Awareness Week in the UK, which is May 12th through the 18th, and it is also Mental Health Awareness Month here in the United States. I'm not sure why we need an entire month when our friends across the pond get by with just a week, but I could speculate!
Marie-Noelle Marquis (01:03):
As both Jaime and I know how important mental health is in the context of autoimmune health. We wanted to devote a special episode to the topic, but neither of us are. So we invited our colleague, Bianca Clarke to join us today to answer some of our questions to share a bit about her healing story as well. Bianca is a psychotherapist and an AIP Certified Coach with a particular special interest in working with clients with autoimmune disease. In fact, her practice name is the Autoimmune Therapist. Bianca, to get things started, can you tell us and the listeners about the type of clients you see in a one-on-one capacity and the services that you offer in that context?
Bianca Clarke (01:42):
Yeah, of course. Firstly, thank you for having me. Really excited to be on here, especially in time for mental health awareness week and month. So yeah, so I see lots of different people on a one-to-one basis, I tend to see clients with depression and anxiety disorders, so things like OCD, health, anxiety, generalized anxiety disorder, all the different anxiety disorders, but also PTSD and trauma. I see lots of stress and overwhelm, especially at the moment. A lot of people are experiencing stress. And of course, as you said, I do have a particular interest in working with people with autoimmune disease and actually people with what I call stress sensitive conditions. Most of us know with autoimmune disease, stress is a bit of a flare up for some of us or most of us even. But also things like fibromyalgia as well is something I see a lot in my practice too often people come to see me for a variety of reasons from the autoimmune community.
(02:41):
So sometimes it's because they're very aware that stress flares them up, and so they want to manage their stress to produce flare-ups. For some people, they want to work on trauma and in particular trauma that they feel led to the diagnosis of their autoimmune disease or led to the start of the symptoms. And some people see me just because they want to manage their medication, manage their diet, and they need a bit of support with that. So I do see a range of different people, which makes my work really exciting because I never know what's going to come through my door. But ultimately it is all about helping people to reclaim their life back in some way, whether that is the life that felt like the life they had before autoimmunity or a new version of their life, one where we adapt and things change and they put those necessary changes in their life. So yeah, I see a wide range of people. That was a really long way of saying that, basically
Marie-Noelle Marquis (03:37):
What made you put your focus on autoimmune disease?
Bianca Clarke (03:40):
Yeah, I think for me, I just felt really passionate about supporting other people with autoimmune disease because of my own personal stuff and just how difficult the journey was. And there are so many professionals that I'm sure you guys know, you've probably been through it yourself, but there's so many different professionals that you end up seeing as part of your autoimmune healing journey even before you know that it's an autoimmune disease. And it feels like sometimes it feels like no one quite gets it or fully understands. And I think that's the same in the therapy world as well, that there are some therapists that don't quite get it, the mysterious nature of the symptoms, how symptoms come and go, and really how it can affect your mental health and then how your mental health then can affect the condition as well. And so I thought, well, somebody needs to help other autoimmune clients with this. And I thought, well, yeah, let's go down that route research more fully understand the effects of the mind and the body and how they interlink because I just felt there was a bit of a gap there previously.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (04:45):
Were you already working as a therapist and then you sort of decided to hone your focus a little on autoimmune disease or?
Bianca Clarke (04:54):
Yeah, so I am trained in cognitive behavior therapy first. That was my main modality of therapy, and I trained in that in 2015, so about 10 years ago now. And then just throughout my career I just studied different modalities of therapy like EMDR, eye movement, desensitization, reprocessing therapy, really long name, so I don't often say it and also work on the nervous system and things like that. So yeah, I've been a therapist for a long time, but more recently in the last few years since my own diagnosis, I thought, yeah, I want to narrow down and help other people that have been in the same boat as me.
Jaime Hartman (05:31):
And you have a program called the 14 Day Autoimmune Calm Journey. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Bianca Clarke (05:37):
Yeah, so it is a really simple journey, this program, and I called it a journey because I didn't want to call it a challenge, but it is quite like a challenge to learn different resources and different skills and techniques to help you start to relax your nervous system, calm things down, and just get a sense of balance again, ultimately trying to reduce stress, which then leads to prevention or flareups hopefully. So yeah, call it the 14 Day Autoimmune Calm Journey rather than challenge, because I feel like journey just sounds a bit kinder, there's a bit less pressure, and you can take this at your own pace, but ideally in the 14 days if you can. But it does give you some really foundational strategies to start to manage stress going forwards and often quite key strategies that sometimes we miss or we forget about or actually we don't even know that they exist or that they could be helpful for us. So it gives a bit of accountability as well that there's something to watch every day. And it's really, I was going to say basic, but it's not basic stuff, but it's very simple to implement and you can fit it into your life within five, 10 minutes a day.
Jaime Hartman (06:48):
We'll be sure to put a link to that in the show notes so listeners can check that out. Now, our listeners are always interested in the origin stories of AIP Certified Coaches, especially if we have a diagnosis story that some of them can relate to. And I know that you found AIP after you were diagnosed with connective tissue disease, but that wasn't until after you'd been suffering with symptoms for 10 years. What was that journey like for you?
Bianca Clarke (07:17):
It was long and it was difficult, and funnily enough, I always say 10 years, but actually it's been longer than 10 years. It was 13 or even 14 years now, but I'm stuck on this whole 10 years mark. And I dunno why. And I was reflecting on this and I was thinking, why do I always say 10 years? But I think it's because I truly started to work things out about three, four years ago. And so that was that 10 year mark of what I felt was suffering. And then it's been the last three, four years of actually starting to move forward, starting to learn what's right and wrong for my body and what works for my body. And even what worked for my body three years ago is not the same stuff that works for my body now. And things keep evolving and changing, but I feel so much more in control now and that I know what to do and I have an answer and I can know the right thing because I have a name for this problem now, if that makes sense.
(08:16):
But yeah, 10 years ago, or see, I've said it again 10 years, 13, 14 years ago when everything started, I just really didn't know what was going on. And it's not helped by the fact that all the different doctors and the different professionals you see all just look at you a bit like, oh, well, I don't know. They can't make sense of it. And it just really felt like my body was not working other, I could see other people doing the things that they love, they could eat what they want, and my body, it just wasn't doing that. And so I started to just feel even more hopeless. What is wrong with me? What am I supposed to do? How do I help myself get better? And it even got as bad that I remember I was in a personal training session with my PT at the time, and he was confused.
(09:07):
He was saying, well, one week you're able to progress really well and the next week it's like you regress and you can't do the same thing you could do the week before. And I was like, yeah, I don't get it. Can somebody please explain what is going on? And so for a good few years, that was my life of figuring out what is wrong with me, not understanding, thinking I was just completely different from everybody else and everyone else can make sense of their stuff. And I was always on the verge of feeling like I had the flu as well, just constant flu-like symptoms, but without properly getting the flu. And that didn't make me very fun to be around at work. I was always very snotty and very yucky and brain fog and ulcers and everything in my mouth. It was horrible. And at the time, because there was no name or answer for what was wrong, I just thought, well, I've got to keep pushing through.
(09:58):
And that's what I did. I kept pushing and pushing and pushing, working full time, exercising really hard, eating things that I knew deep down were bothering me, but I didn't want to cut them out. They were nice things and I just was getting worse and worse. And so in the end, I saw a functional medicine doctor who kind of shone the light really for me on this whole elimination diet type thing. So she was quite expensive to see actually. And also the supplements that she would recommend for quite pricey as well. And so I took those things thinking I can't keep this up for long because I can't afford it, but she signposted me to an elimination diet, which I dunno what it was called, I dunno if it had a name, but she just gave me a list of things to avoid basically. And I felt a little bit better doing that.
(10:50):
And so it gave me a bit of hope and this idea of eliminating things. And then in the end I forgot about all that and I just carried on doing what I was doing before getting worse again. And then I came across AIP and the only reason I came across AIP is because I finally had a diagnosis. So I saw a rheumatologist who eventually did blood tests and they found the positive a NA and just linked it with my symptoms and said, it sounds like what we call undifferentiated connective tissue disease. He said the symptoms didn't quite match up to one thing like lupus or rheumatoid A or anything like that, but it was more, I dunno the word he used, but my symptoms were kind of everywhere basically. But you couldn't pinpoint a name, but that was the name. It's called UCTD for sure.
(11:38):
It gave me meds, which I reacted to. And then I thought, Nope, I need to do this for myself. So I researched, found AIP diet, and within two months I felt super and I couldn't believe it that all I'd done was I say, all done. It's not easy, is it changing your diet? But in a way that is all I'd done. I changed my diet and I felt superb. Within two months I lost 10 kilograms in weight. I wasn't expecting to lose weight, but I did. And I thought, oh, this was probably a lot of inflammation I was holding. Brain fog started to clear and I just felt overall better. My joint pain went, a lot of my symptoms went. And so I felt good for a while and then I was hit with a massive flare up, which was triggered by stress. And so yeah, I thought, wow, I've got this under control.
(12:30):
But then this stress came out of nowhere and it was something that I couldn't control, but it was a stress that I had no choice but to live with it. And because again, I was focusing on work, I was focusing on looking after my kids, I wasn't looking after myself within that stress. I should know better. I'm a therapist, I need to practice what I preach, but sometimes we just don't do that for some reason. And so yeah, that stress led to a major flare up and then I realized actually I need to start putting things into place that I would tell my clients to put into place and I need to do it properly and I need to go all in on it. And so I started looking and researching a bit more about the nervous system and the effects of the immune system and the links with the nervous system and how they work together, but also on the endocrine system as well, so the hormones and how all of these things affect each other. And as I started to do more of that work for myself, I started to feel better again and again, I'm at a place where I feel more in control again, and that is with diet, but also with working on my nervous system and my psychological health in the same way that I would guide my clients to. So that's my story.
Jaime Hartman (13:47):
Wow, that's so powerful. And I think we were nodding both Marie-Noelle and I were nodding all through this like yes, yes. Been there, did that, experienced that. People always wonder when we talk about diet and timeframes, so do you mind telling the audience if your diet is still the original AIP elimination diet or have you been able to reintroduce some things? What does that look like for you now?
Bianca Clarke (14:10):
I did the first phase or the elimination phase for a good year before I reintroduced anything, partly because I did feel a bit apprehensive. I thought, wow, this has really helped me. I don't want to just throw something in the mix that might send me off track again. So I was really reluctant, but then I thought, no, I want chocolate. And so even though it didn't quite follow the rules of when you should introduce certain things, I thought, no, I really want chocolate. And I found a chocolate that was compliant and I had it and I didn't react to it in any way. It didn't bother me. And I was like, yes, I can have this piece of chocolate within moderation of, and then yeah, I've slowly started to introduce more things, but I've done it based on what I was missing. So again, I introduced cheese after that, which is something that probably or isn't next on the list of reintroductions, but I've just wanted it.
(15:06):
And so I introduced that and then I started to introduce a few other things. So yeah, I am in that phase of reintroducing things, but quite slowly actually. And there are some things I have found I did react to, which I was a bit gutted about. So things like eggs, I really enjoyed eggs before, but actually it's a no-go for me, but I'm really grateful to finally fully understand what I react to and what bothers me and how it bothers me. So with the eggs, it was really interesting, really eyeopening actually. So I introduced, I think it was the egg yolk first. Yeah, it was the egg yolk first. And I noticed when I had that, I got quite mucusy, it really affected my throat.
(15:53):
It wasn't very nice cardio mucusy symptoms. So I thought, okay, that's what egg yolk does to me. And then a few weeks later I tried egg white and I was thinking, well, it's probably going to be quite a similar effect if I do react to it. But I thought, no, maybe I might be okay. But actually what happened with the egg white was all of a sudden I had a massive mood drop and I was like, wow, I was floored. I was thinking I did not expect that kind of reaction to egg white. But yeah, I think it's just been amazing that when you do eliminate things, you can really start to understand what affects you and how, and it can be really shocking at times, but really informative
Jaime Hartman (16:32):
And so informative and powerful even when the feedback is something you hadn't really hoped for. When you find out this is not going to be a food that works for me, a lot of times there's that feeling of almost gratitude for that because while I wish I could have eaten that food, it's so good to know why I am avoiding it and then to make that a priority. Very empowering when you think of it that way.
Bianca Clarke (16:55):
Definitely, definitely.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (16:58):
And I love what you mentioned too, that you felt like it impacted your mood because people will be like, okay, well what symptoms am I looking for? If I reintroduce and I react, is it the twain pain? Is it, and a lot of people will forget that, oh yeah, I didn't think about it, but I did feel down or I did feel more anxious or So again, the mental health part. So as Jaime was saying at the beginning of the recording, may is Mental health awareness month here in the United States and the 12th or the 18th of May is Mental health awareness week in the uk. So we'd like to talk a little bit more about why is it particularly important for people with autoimmune disease to be aware of mental health. And first, do you think are people with autoimmune disease more likely to have mental health disorders?
Bianca Clarke (17:46):
Yeah, there is a strong link between autoimmune disease and mental health conditions like anxiety and depression. There are various reasons. So there are a lot of studies and there's a lot of research and lots of literature out there now actually that suggest that for quite a lot of people with autoimmune disease, there is a history of trauma, whether that's from childhood or whether it is in adulthood, that there is a bit of a history there. And sometimes a trauma can be what starts some of the symptoms of autoimmune disease. There is more coming out about that, but for many people it's a relatively new concept or idea that there could be this trauma link with trauma. It's not always your typical trauma or what you typically think of as trauma. So when I say what you typically think of as trauma is things like a car accident or seeing somebody get really badly hurt or something like that.
(18:48):
But sometimes these traumatic events or distressing events could be other things. It could be longer term, maybe emotional abuse or neglect or things like that that can link to the onset of autoimmune disease. So there's a lot of research about that nowadays. I can't remember, there's a book when the Body says No, and I think it's by, is it Gal Mar? I think it's not Bessel VanDerKolk. He's another big pioneer in the field of trauma and how it affects the body, but so is Gabo Mar as well. And so yeah, there's lots of books on this kind of thing now. So there's that link with trauma and autoimmune disease, but also living with a chronic illness is difficult. It's really tough. It changes your life completely and sometimes it feels like it can just turn your life upside down overnight, especially when you get that first onset of those symptoms and then you never quite feel the way that you did before.
(19:48):
Again, that can be really difficult. And living with that, having to manage the symptoms of a chronic condition can be really tough, which can lead to symptoms of depression and anxiety. Also things like health anxiety creep up quite a lot with autoimmune disease, this fear of what might come next, the fear of what might be the fear of what life might look like in five years time. Am I still going to be suffering in the way that I am now? Is it going to be worse? Is it going to be better? There's a lot of uncertainty and that can obviously lead to a lot of anxiety. But the other thing to note is that I guess inflammation, inflammation is the key thing that underlies all the autoimmune diseases. And inflammation doesn't just affect the body, it affects the brain as well. And so again, there's that kind of mind body link between autoimmune disease, so the mind can affect the body.
(20:42):
Body affects the mind, and it's a two-way street really. We know that the nervous system plays a key role as well in immune function, but also immune function plays a key role in your nervous system health. And so it can feel like one big tangle of stuff, but when we start to understand it and make sense of it and really just remember that there is a connection between mind and body and they are separate things, but they're not, they come together and we must treat them together. I think when we make sense of that, it can feel easier to start to manage what's going on, manage the symptoms, manage how we feel about it, and start to lessen the depression and anxiety that can come with this stuff. So ultimately, none of this is in anyone's head or anything like that, but it is a two-way connection that we've got to work on mind and body.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (21:33):
How can a person know when they need support from a mental health professional versus when they can self-manage their mental health?
Bianca Clarke (21:40):
I'd say it's completely normal to have ups and downs. Of course, everyone has ups and downs, but if your symptoms like low mood anxiety, hopelessness, or even emotional overwhelm, if they start to interfere with your everyday life, they start to interfere with your relationships, your ability to manage your health, then I'd say that's a sign that it might be time to get support. There are self-management tools available and I think they are really useful and I think they really help someone to be proactive in their care and working on the difficulties, but they can only take you so far if you are stuck. So I think self-management stuff is really helpful, but if there's ever any doubt as to whether you might need something more, then I'd say it's probably time to seek a bit more. If you are questioning, if self-help stuff is enough, then it probably is time that you do seek help from a therapist and even then you can have an assessment with a therapist and they can let you know whether you need a course of therapy or if you probably could manage with some self-help stuff.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (22:52):
If self-management like you're saying is not enough in a situation, what kinds of therapy or professional treatment do you think would be helpful?
Bianca Clarke (23:01):
There are so many different modalities of therapy nowadays that it can feel like a massive sea of these different therapies and one does one thing, one does another, and you think, I don't know what do I need? But again, I think if you seek a therapist and they do an assessment with you, they understand your difficulties and what you're looking for. They can signpost you in the right direction, whether it is continuing with them or whether you need a different type of therapy. But the therapies that I work with, so I do cognitive behavior therapy, which is CBT for sure, that is a very powerful therapy to help you more with the present day stuff and how to forwards. So it gives you a range of tools, techniques and skills that you can use to manage your mental health. And what am I trying to say here?
(23:57):
It's called a talking therapy, but actually I'd say it's more of a doing therapy. So you go to your sessions, you talk things through with your therapist, and then they give you skills and homework basically that you can use throughout the week because you don't want to just improve that one hour a week that you have therapy. You want to improve all of the hours in your week, and that will be with taking stuff away and really making changes in your everyday life. So CBT is incredible. There's some people that don't like CBT at all. I'd argue that maybe they haven't had the right therapist, but CBT is evidence-based and it is so helpful for so many people. We've got EMDR as well, which is another one that I do. So eye movement, desensitization reprocessing therapy, that one is really great for trauma and working through distressing events that have happened.
(24:50):
So if you felt that you needed to talk about the past or you needed to talk about a specific event that happened that you think has contributed to the way that you feel in the here and now, that's a really great therapy. It helps the left and right hemispheres of the brain talk to each other to process the memory so that we can start to file it away in a part of the brain where it's not just popping out and causing us problem basically. So with trauma, sometimes that can happen with a distressing memory that it just pops up as flashbacks or it can be strong feelings that come out of nowhere. EMDR helps you pack it away and put it in the right place in the brain basically. There's also somatic approaches. So there are some therapists that do somatic work, which somatic is another word for the body basically, and that can work with your nervous system.
(25:37):
So the nervous system is this thing that we can't see, but it is in our body. It's a complex network of nerves. And even though we might say, oh, it's just nerves, these nerves do so much for us. They do so much for us and they play a massive part in how we feel. And so you can find therapists that are somatic or polyvagal informed, that's a word that we might use polyvagal, and these kind of therapies are gaining a lot of traction and they are becoming more popular. And that's because they are helpful, they are truly helpful. One thing I would say though is that there are a lot of people out there calling themselves therapists that aren't therapists, and that's because anyone can use the title of therapist. So there are some people out there that might do a four week course of training in some kind of therapy, but actually that's not a true qualified accredited and licensed therapist. So just watch out for those therapists because they're not true therapists and do seek someone that's got experience that they are truly licensed and accredited. And what's the other thing there? Yeah, just see what experience they have as well because there will be some therapists out there that they haven't got the experience of working with chronic illness, for example. And actually for people with autoimmune disease, we definitely need someone that has experience with chronic illness and especially with illnesses like ours, which is very mysterious. Doesn't always make sense.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (27:18):
Is there a place where someone who has an autoimmune disease to begin that search to find the right type of provider for them? Is there a resource?
Bianca Clarke (27:30):
I don't think there is actually. If there is, I haven't seen it. It would be a case of just searching online and searching different therapists and typing in keywords like chronic illness or autoimmune mental health and just putting in some keywords. But yeah, that could be something that might be worth setting up actually is a network of therapies that do work with autoimmune conditions and chronic illness and something that's easy for people to find because it's not easy to find a therapist and also to find the right one for you.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (28:05):
Right. Yeah. There's a next project. One more question I have for you, Bianca. What are some of the physical health benefits that come when somebody actually gets care for their mental health? How does that translate the physical health?
Bianca Clarke (28:26):
It translates massively, and it's something that we often, often miss or forget actually, that it's not just our physical health that we need to look after. It's not just about diet or physical activity and medication. Actually, it's about looking after our psychological, our mental health as well. And so when we work on our mental health, as we start to lower levels of depression and anxiety, even lowering things like stress as well, it reduces inflammation. And for us with autoimmune disease, that's ultimately what we are looking for is reduce inflammation in our body. And that's what will happen as you start to reduce the depression and anxiety. Another thing as well is digestion. So digestion becomes better and improved as we start to lower levels of stress in particular improve sleep. So if you want to get good night's sleep as well, you definitely need to work on those worries, work on that anxiety and start to just calm things down.
(29:26):
If we go to bed and we've got a head full of worry and anxiety is just going to put us on higher up, our cortisol is going to increase and we're not going to be able to get to sleep. And if we do get to sleep, we're likely to then wake up again in the middle of the night and our body's just not rested enough to be able to calm itself down and just be able to rest fully. So there's so many different reasons as we might want to work on our mental health to improve our physical health, and especially for us, there is that regulation of the immune system as well. Our immune systems are often quite unregulated, of course, or dysregulated should I say, but working on the nervous system and mental health will help with that. And also pain as well. So as we work on our anxiety and depression, pain signals become less too.
(30:13):
And that's another key thing as well is that a lot of us are living with pain. And if we can start to lower those feelings of pain and start to, I was going to say live a pain-free life ideally, but we will feel pain at times. But as we start to lower that pain sensitivity, of course, we'll then feel able to do more, which then impacts on the depression further. And so what happens is it really creates a positive vicious cycle, sorry, a positive cycle. That's not a vicious cycle anymore, but one that is positive for us and helps us to live in the way that we want to basically.
Jaime Hartman (30:44):
I actually like that phrase of a positive vicious cycle. Let's take back the word vicious, and it's vicious in a good way. You talked about digestion right away, and that made me think too, that we're always talking on this podcast and everything we do as AIP Certified Coaches that AIP is not just a diet, but obviously that's a big part of it. The foods that you do and don't eat are really kind of why we're all here talking about this, but if your digestion is struggling, is impaired for any reason, you're going to not get as much out of that diet piece as you would otherwise. So right there is again, that idea of everything connects and then sleep. We know we need to get plenty of good beneficial sleep. So you touched on all of those things, which really shows how everything's so interconnected,
Marie-Noelle Marquis (31:31):
Right? Yeah.
Jaime Hartman (31:34):
All right. Well finally, Bianca, for our remaining time here, we end every episode of this podcast by telling listeners that we're committed to helping them elevate their wellness journey to new heights. Can you give them one or two practical action steps that they could implement this week, which would help them elevate their wellness journey?
Bianca Clarke (31:56):
Definitely, definitely. And I think what I'm going to suggest will help with the digestion piece actually that we've just mentioned there and with sleep. So hopefully this will be useful for many of the listeners. So the first thing I would suggest is to just take a moment each day to just check in with yourself and how you're feeling. Check in with your nervous system. And the way that we can do that is just by pausing. A lot of the time we just keep charging through life. We don't stop. But actually just take a moment to pause, place a hand on your chest or your belly and just notice how you're breathing. You might notice that your breathing is quite rapid, it's quite shallow. That might signal to you that you are a bit stressed or you are quite anxious and that you do need to take a bit of time out. But just paying attention to how your body's feeling, how it's reacting, how it's breathing.
(32:45):
It can be a real moment of just that awareness and just noticing and making sense of what is going on for you. Quite often we're just living not even in our bodies. We're not even living in our heads, we're just on autopilot. So it just makes you stop. So that's the first thing to do, just stop. And that could be the gateway to start regulating ourselves. The second thing would be to just create a micro moment of safety, a bit of safety or calm in your day. So it might be just stepping outside for a few minutes of sunlight. So this is something actually that I think the younger generation are calling sun gazing nowadays or something like that. They've got a fancy name for it nowadays, but actually it's just getting outside and getting some sun just closing your eyes and feeling that sun on your skin in a way that maybe we don't do that we just take for granted.
(33:33):
And really noticing the feeling that that brings and how nice that feels for us. It might be something like setting a boundary with somebody that you've really wanted to set a boundary with. Maybe someone has upset you in the past and you just want to be able to speak that to them and just set that boundary. Or even it might be just taking a few deep breaths. As I said before, I think in other podcasts and things I've done with you guys or in one of the summits actually about the breathing and how our breathing is something that can really start to ground us. The way we breathe is something that can make us feel very anxious or it can have the opposite effect. It can make us start to feel rested and grounded. And so just taking a few deep breaths into your tummy can just help calm things as well and give you that micro moment of safety.
(34:22):
So one of the most relaxing ways to breathe that I tend to teach is what we call 4 2 6 breathing. And so that's in for four seconds. Hold it for two and then out for six seconds. The reason the outbreath is longer than the in-breath is to stimulate what we call the parasympathetic nervous system. So that is the opposite of your fight and flight. It's the rest and digest response in your body. And that's where I said this might be helpful for sleep, but also for digestion as well. So just taking a few of those deep breaths. Something that we often take for granted because we breathe all day every day, hopefully, but the way we breathe, we can start to basically hack what's going on inside our body. And so yeah, if anyone's interested, I do have a free guide on that. It's called the Restful Breath, and it's on my website, bianca Clarke.com, and it's completely free, but it can just talk you through a few different ways of breathing that might be helpful.
Jaime Hartman (35:19):
Great. And I was just going to ask as we wrap up for you to remind or let everybody know where they can find you. So your website again is,
Bianca Clarke (35:27):
It's biancaclarke.com. So that's Clarke with an E,
Jaime Hartman (35:30):
Right? And I'll put a link in the show notes, but I want to make sure you said Clarke with an E in case anybody's listening and doesn't see that so they can find you. Alright, thank you so much for being here with us today. Bianca. Listeners, once again, we want to remind you that AIP is not just a diet, but a protocol with multiple branches and that there are multiple ways to approach it. And through this podcast, AIP Certified Coaches bring you resources so that you don't have to do AIP alone.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (36:01):
Bianca, thanks again for joining us. We'll be back with another episode in two weeks. So make sure you subscribe to the AIP Summit podcast and your favorite podcast player if you haven't already.
Jaime Hartman (36:11):
And if you'd like to leave us a rating and a review, it will help others find this podcast where we are committed to helping you use the power of the Autoimmune Protocol to elevate your wellness journey to new heights. The AIP Summit Podcast is a Gutsy By Nature production. Content presented is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
