S3E23 · Clare Power: Stress Modulation

- Welcome back to the Virtus Performance podcast as we approach the end of season three. I've been on the podcast for a few weeks in a row now. - Yeah, you're doing well. - Good to get some continuity in. - Ramping up. - And you might hear by the voice, we've got our first dual guest of season three, Claire Perry's back again. - Yes, I am. Thanks for having me again. - Thanks for coming back. - Oh, pleasure. - What's been happening in your world since the last time we had you on the podcast? - It's been busy.

It's been great though, really busy with nutrition, which I'm loving, like really nice diverse bunch of clients. Yeah. - You seem to be pumping like seminars and like team projects. - Yeah, done some corporate seminars now, which have been brilliant, a few sporting clubs as well. So yeah, it's nice getting out and working with different bunches of people. Yeah. - Yeah, networking. - Yeah. - What are some of the main teachings you've been trying to pass on to those groups? - I think for the sporting clubs, they usually want to know how to fuel right for their sport and how to recover better.

And I always love myth busting as well. Like, especially this time of year, there's so much out there, like, you know, all these fads kind of sifting through all of that. That's really empowering for me to teach it and for these people to learn. And I think with corporate seminars, I focus on that as well, but also managing things like stress and sleep. So, and trying to improve the immunity as well of the workforce, 'cause the workforce has just taken such a beating over the past few years. So people are really looking now into corporate wellness, like they're putting a lot, they're investing a lot more into it.

- Yeah, it's like, it's an expense that makes sense. So like, if you look after your workers and make sure that they're healthy and they're not sick and injured, then they're gonna pay you back tenfold. - Exactly, yeah. - It's a pretty good segue into why you're here. You said it has been a hectic year and you touched on stress there. That's why we have got you into the studio, I say the studio, it's just our little boardroom. It's getting to a time of year that is pretty hectic, like it's a relaxing time of year and it's good that we connect and touch base with loved ones and unwind a little bit, but it is a stressful time of year.

So we've got you on the podcast just to chat about stress, I guess what it is, the acute and long-term effects of chronic stress, some things that our listeners can do to help sort of negate that. And I guess the importance of stressing what you do as a nutritionist, as a nutrition coach, do you first wanna touch on that and why you're so big on stress modulation in what you do? Because I guess from an outsider looking in, you'd think, oh, Claire, you're just a nutritionist, like why do you care so much about stress? - That's right.

And when people come in for their initial consultation, I do spend quite a lot of time talking to them about their mental health and their levels of stress. And if they're comfortable with it, I really try and dig quite deep. Because for me, if somebody's stressed or tired or depressed, following any kind of plan is just gonna be so, so much harder. I mean, if anyone thinks about the last time they were stressed, how it affected the way they move, how much they move, and how they eat, and maybe how much they start relying on things like alcohol or whatever it may be, it's the foundation of my work.

You know, if those things are happening, I can't expect you to be following any kind of plan, successfully, really, yeah. - So it's more like an adherence sort of thing, like how are they gonna adhere to a certain plan that you give them? - Exactly. - And this is probably an obnoxious question for me, but is it gonna have any sort of interference on the way that their body sort of handles certain foods or perhaps absorbs nutrients? Like is there any sort of? - Yeah, well, a big one I see is irritable bowel syndrome. So lots of gut issues people can be experiencing.

And when I get scratched beneath the surface, their levels of stress are quite high. And that's just playing havoc with their guts. And also there's some research out there now that suggests when we do suffer from stress, like particularly chronic stress, it can really deplete our nutrient stores. - Yeah, so it's the sort of thing that you may not notice like in the short term, but it's decades down the track that this chronic exposure to stress can really start to wreak havoc on you. - Yeah, exactly. There's one, actually, I remember a quote now. - Here we go.

- Someone once said to me, "Genetics load the gun, "but your environment pulls the trigger." And I just think that's, yeah, that's so, so true. - If you listen to the "Quick-Fire 30" episode, Claire was really struggling to think of quotes. And we agreed that we're big quote people, but we're not ones that just have them stored in the back of our brain and can just fire them off like that. So I guess for our listeners, we all know what stress is. And I think most people, they just think, oh, it's work stress, it's relationship stress.

But what is stress and how can we, and what's the best way that you believe we can just define that for our listeners? - Well, there's two different kinds of stress. There's acute stress, so if we feel frightened or we're nervous before an interview or something, that puts us into fight or flight mode. And that's, we're equipped for that as humans. Like we release the right hormones, adrenaline and cortisol, and that's what makes us either fight or run away. And we're used to that now, the stress peaks and it goes away. But chronic stress is when we have kind of smaller stresses that are just happening over and over.

And basically our stress response system just gets fatigued basically. And our body reacts to that in a negative way. - One of my absolute favorite quotes is, I can't remember who by and where I heard this, but it was humans aren't wired to be always wired. And that's a really, really good way to explain that chronic stress thing. Like, yeah, we're really well equipped to deal with short bursts of stress because it goes all the way back to, I guess, when we were living in the jungle and hunter gatherers however many thousands of years ago,

when we needed to run away from predators or we needed to catch our food, you get that little burst of cortisol, adrenaline, like whatever hormones it is in that stress response. And that helps you and gives you a little boost to get away from a predator or catch your food, whatever. But again, we're not always wired or we're not wired to be always getting hit with those bursts of hormones. And then yeah, long-term it can cause some havoc. Do you wanna go into a bit of detail about the harm that chronic stress can have on the organism?

- Yeah, well not only, like I said, it impacts your choices. So it impacts how much exercise you might do, how much sleep you get, your food choices, your alcohol dependency, things like that, which are gonna have negative health implications. For example, we can gain weight, body composition becomes unfavorable. It can push our blood pressure up. If we're not eating right, then we can run into problems with long-term diabetes, obesity, and blood like cholesterol can go up as well. So there's serious health implications and inflammation is huge as well. Stress is a big cause of inflammation in the body, which then has those same knock-on effects, yeah.

- And it doesn't make sense when you think back to hunter-gatherer time, like increasing blood pressure and increased alertness and all these things. Again, there are these physiological changes that can help you escape and escape with your life from a predator, but again, just getting bombarded with that over and over and over, it's gonna catch up with you. - Yeah, absolutely. Tired and wired is what I used to describe a lot of people I see who are suffering from stress. Yeah, that's how they feel, that sums it up for them. - Yeah, we'll just touch

on the types of stress as quickly before we go into, I guess, what we can do to, I guess, negate chronic stress and a thing called hormesis, which we'll touch on in a bit. But there are a few different types of stress, 'cause as we said before, it's not just what people think, whether they think it's work stress or when you're stuck in traffic or you've got the shits with a friend or a partner. And what you're gonna realize is everything is a stress. Literally everything is a stress, but it's the amplitude of that stress, which is gonna determine how much it's gonna fuck with you, I guess.

And we have physical stress where training is a stressor. - Yeah, but it's good stress. - Stress is the poison, but it's also the cure, which we'll touch on in a bit. Do you wanna touch on nutritional stress? 'Cause again, that's another physical stressor. Any absorbed substance can be a stressor. - Yeah, yeah, well look, if we have a poor diet, then we're gonna miss out on nutrients. And we need that full complement of nutrients for everything to work in our body. Like on a biological level, we need that. We need everything there so it functions optimally.

Yeah, so if we're having a poor diet, then we're gonna miss out on those nutrients and we can, long-term, it can lead to deficiencies, which are not good. And people don't often don't even know they have a deficiency 'til they have bloods done. Correct it and then feel amazing. So yeah, and then also the food choices, we might be consuming more processed foods, which are going to lead to inflammation. So refined, too many refined carbs. I'm not a carb-phobe, but too many refined carbs and sugars. - That's everything in moderation, eh? - Yeah, and trans fats as well.

Like if we're looking for junk food for whatever reason, then we're gonna be consuming more trans fats, which are just, you know, our body doesn't like them. We shouldn't be consuming them often at all. So yeah. - Yeah, and I guess it's all connected, hey, 'cause that's gonna increase your stress and that's gonna increase the, I guess, permeability of your gut and it's gonna be linked to things such as irritable bowel syndrome, like you said, and it's just all connected, hey? - Yeah, absolutely, yeah. And some foods can directly affect our stress. You know, if

we are running high on stress, too much caffeine is only gonna exacerbate that feeling as well, and blood pressure's gonna go up and breathing's gonna go up. So some foods can have an immediate effect on your stress levels. - I'm one that loves coffee, loves caffeine, but I'll always sort of audit, I guess, my life and sort of where I'm at. And if I've had a really, really hectic or stressful few weeks and I'm feeling really, really wired, then I'm probably gonna try and avoid coffee for about a week, 'cause I know caffeine, that sharply spikes your cortisol sort of more than almost any substance on the planet.

- Yeah, that's right. And all these foods we seek out when we are stressed or tired, like alcohol, for example, you know, it gives you such a short-term fix, but the long-term effects are just only gonna make it worse, yeah, but yet that's what we seek out, you know, caffeine, processed food, alcohol, yeah. - Do you wanna touch on mental stresses for the audience? - Oh, that, I mean, like you said, it can come from so many different areas in your life, yeah, but I think the impact of things like social media is not helping.

I think, sadly, we're seeing such a loss now of human connection, like, because, I mean, even kids now, they're just on screens the whole time and we're, yeah, we're just not having that human connection anymore. Like, I was in a waiting room the other day and everyone was on their phone and I just thought, this is so sad. You know, before phones, you would have said hi to the person next to you or maybe you would have paid someone a compliment and made their day, you know, and that's just not happening, but yet human connection,

we know that that is fundamental for our happiness, our wellbeing, and I think it's such a shame, and also the dopamine we get from using social media as well like we used to, dopamine is our reward chemical, so we used to get a dopamine fix by achieving a task or helping someone out or doing something that makes us feel good, gives us reward, but now we get a dopamine fix from a like on social media. - Yeah, so it used to be like this delayed gratification sort of thing, and now it's just instant, instant, instant.

And just touching back on those micro-stresses that can chronically build up and wreak havoc, I guess, social media and phones and notifications just going ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding all day. I guess that is just a little micro-stressor that over years and decades is gonna build up and start to really cause a bit of havoc. - And it's escapism as well, like looking, getting lost in your phone is escapism for a lot of people who are suffering from stress because when you're looking at your phone, like watching a movie or anything, you know, you're just taken away from whatever's causing the stress.

So we're not dealing with it. - Instead of confronting it, you're just running away and hiding it. - We just get our phones out, feel nervous, feel worried, anxious, you just get your phone out so you don't have to deal with it. - Yeah, it's an experience I had a few weeks ago, I just had a hectic sort of couple of weeks and I tried to meditate, tried to sit there and meditate and all I could do and all I wanted to do was just reach for my phone and like as soon as things got

a bit, a bit uncomfortable in the meditation or I got a bit bored or anxious or sad, I just wanted to grab the phone and like start scrolling, but it's, you're right, it's escapism. - Yeah, yeah, it is. - Yeah, literally not confronting what you're feeling. - You know, and it's the same as using alcohol or gaming, you know, it's another addiction basically that we're using to escape, yeah. - We'll touch on hormesis, so hormesis is essentially, it's a way we like condition ourselves to be better equipped at coping with stresses and there's a number of things we can do like training, as we touched on before, physical training is a type of hormesis.

Are there any other types of hormesis that you like and recommend to your clients? - There are so many ways to help yourself and I think actually we're at a good time, even though people are suffering more with stress and poor mental health, the health system is overwhelmed, right? So people aren't getting in to see psychologists and getting the help they need. So they're being forced to explore other methods of helping. So breath work is one that I'm recommending to other clients. I've found I've used it and it blew me away. It was so powerful. So I'm a big advocate for that and recommending that for people.

And there's so many therapies, it's hot and cold therapy. And I also just recommend for people like self-love as well. I for a long time was like, well, what does that actually mean? But for me, it means like honoring your body and your mind and taking the time for you to do stuff that you enjoy, like fill your cup. Stop putting everyone else first for a moment in time or even better a day and do the things that you love to do and fill your cup. - Absolutely. And I think people get confused with self-love as well and they think it's like eating a huge block of chocolate and like drinking, getting pissed, like, and you know, like, yeah, sure.

Like if there are things you enjoy doing, everything in moderation, but like real self-love for me is, as you said, filling your cup up and stop serving other people and putting time in yourself so you can train, get a really, really good night's sleep, drink lots of water, like that's true self-love in mine. - Yeah, I agree with you, yeah. - Hey, touch on breath work. Any sort of forms of breath work types? Do you have any sort of protocols for the listeners? - Well, I've tried like the Wim Hof and things like that. It didn't really go that well for me, but so I explored guided breath work, which we did together one time.

So you've got a breath work instructor who you lie down, get cozy, it's all really nice, it's not confronting, it's not scary in any way, and they guide you through it. And for me, I have any trauma that's there or any stresses that are there. If you're ready, they come up and you just can't help but have this amazing release. And things come up and you go, oh yeah, I've a completely different perspective on that now. I'm gonna react to that differently now. You can see how you should be reacting to something. So it was very, very powerful for me, but it had to be guided.

It's not something for me that I can use an app and just go and do by myself. Maybe after having guided breath work for a while, you were able to do that. - You really need that facilitator in the room? - Yeah. - Yeah, okay. - And I think, if you're doing ice bathing or something, then I would definitely rely on my breath to get me through something like that, yeah. But that's almost natural instinct anyway, you gotta listen to your body for that one. - I'm one that's had a lot of success with a Wim Hof, and that's both guided and unguided.

And with the guided version, there's literally just a YouTube video, just like a 10 minute YouTube and Wim Hof himself, just like guide you through it. But if for those that don't know, it's literally, so 30 really, really deep inhales. So he will say fully in, and it's like a, just almost a sigh to exhale, because I think where people go wrong with their Wim Hof breathing is they're just, and I've just made everyone deaf that's wearing earphones, that's listening to this. - It's hyperventilating. - Yeah, it's hyperventilating. But essentially when we breathe in and

take air into our lungs, it's gonna be hard for the people that aren't watching this on YouTube to see what I'm doing with my hands, but your thoracic cavity expands a little bit. When that space expands, the size of your heart will actually get bigger. There's a little thing in there called sinoatrial node. So it detects the heart getting bigger, sends a signal to the brain and back to the heart, and then the blood flow through that heart will actually increase. So when you bias big inhales, you're actually increasing your alertness, and the opposite is true for exhales.

So I find when people wanna calm themselves down, or you're lying in bed and you're struggling to sleep, sometimes biasing those really big, long exhales is a good way to just calm the system, slow that blood flow, and relax. - I think if you've never done it before, a good place to start is to observe the way you breathe. Particularly when you have a stressor, an acute stressor, observe how you're breathing, and then you'll notice that you're only breathing in this very top half of your body. - Very shallow. - And quickly and shallow. Yeah, and observe how that's making you feel physically as well.

That's a good place to start, just raise awareness of how you're breathing in the first place. - You touched on ice bath before. What are your experiences with cold exposure? 'Cause we haven't got you in the bathroom at Virtus. - I've done it once. - Have you, I missed out. - I did it once. - Oh, I'm not crazy for it, not mad for it. I have other ways of helping reduce my stress, yeah. I don't think yet it's for me, but a very good friend of mine is deeply into it, and breath work, and he's determined.

He's actually, on Friday, gonna start taking me through these things, so I'm open-minded. - Is this Anna's husband? - Yeah, yeah. - Gotta get him on the podcast. - Actually, yes, he should. - We'll let you host that one. - Yeah, yeah, absolutely. - Where was I going with that? You had other methods of cold exposure, you said. I remember, I think it was lockdown time, you got to the bay every morning. - Yeah, actually, if I'm gonna do cold, I prefer to do it in the bay, because I like being in nature, and there's a few more distractions in the bay as well.

Maybe we should stay within, but I do like being in nature, yeah. - So for mine, I'm the total opposite. I do love myself a bay swim, but now that we've got the ice bath here at Verdis, it's like, I could just do a three-minute bath, or I could go in the bay and it's gonna be windy, and I'm gonna get sandy, and like, hey, maybe I'm just being a bitch about it, but. - Well, I love the beach. I grew up in England, nowhere near the water, so for me, it's still a novelty. - Yeah, that's not gonna wear off anytime soon.

Whereas I grew up in Hamilton and then went to Ballarat. We had no beaches, but the novelty's probably worn off now. - We touched on breathing and noticing the way you breathe when you are in stress, and you see it when people hop into the ice bath for the first time ever, and you see what happens to their breath. Their shoulders, they go up near their ears, and they're almost hyperventilating. They can't even breathe, so one thing we told them to do, which I touched on before, is to slow your exhales down, and that's gonna help calm the system.

That blood flow through the heart's gonna slow down if you can just slow the exhales. Nice, deep inhale, exhale, and that's just gonna calm the system, whereas what do people do when they hop in the ice bath, which is an incredibly stressful situation. Your body's literally trying not to freeze. They hyperventilate, and they go into that state of stress, eh? - Well, you know, it hurts. - Yeah. - Yeah, that intensity, it hurts. - It's quite an intense stress response. - Yeah, yeah, it is. I think for some people it might just seem like, God, they're nowhere near ready for it, so I like to try, rewind, and find things that they are ready for.

I love the daily dose. That's what I've kind of created, this little plan called the daily dose. - Go into that for us. - The dose stands for dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins. So there are happy hormones and chemicals. Like dopamine, for example, we're used to getting that now from our phones, so I'm encouraging people to get dopamine away from their phones, go back to-- - What, from that more natural? - Yeah, just completing a task, helping someone out, getting that reward or response. - Engaging with a loved one sort of thing. - Yeah, oxytocin, yeah, human connection, touch, intimacy, that kind of thing.

Endorphins, training, serotonin, sunlight. Like, if people can get their daily dose from those natural methods, it's a good place to start. - How do you go about implementing that with your clients? Like, do you literally have like a checklist with a D-O-S-E and they just tick 'em off each day? - Yeah, yeah, exactly, and if we're just starting out, just shoot for one a day, you know, then add another one. If you've got someone else doing it with you, that's really helpful, yeah. - Yeah, so one day you might do a D, one day you

might do serotonin, one day endorphins, the next day oxytocin, and then try and, you know, by the end of a few weeks or months, be ticking all four off every day. - Yeah, takes a bit of time, like dopamine, for example, 'cause we are used to having it instantly now, we have to remember that it's not instant gratification anymore. It takes a little bit of effort. - Yep, so you can't get your dopamine just by opening up Instagram and seeing you got a few likes and tick that one off, right? - Yeah, you gotta actually pick a task, for example, and do it, yeah.

- Yeah, cool. I wanna touch on sauna. You a bit more privy to sauna as opposed to ice bath? - Yeah. (laughing) You knew I was gonna say that. - Absolutely. - Yeah, I do, yeah, I love the sauna. I just completely realize, I love the feeling it gives me physically, it's comforting. Yeah, like I don't mind the sweat. I don't find it uncomfortable at all. So for me, it's time you go in there. You don't take your phone, you go in there and just enjoy that, for me, that comfort and complete relaxation. - And I think where people go, not necessarily going wrong with sauna, just me personally, I don't like to do it this way.

They take their phone in, they scroll social media, like whatever, and for me, it's a place where I like to get away from that and just be still for 30, 45, 60 minutes, however long you choose to do it and just be still and go within. It gets challenging, one, even if you're not in a 60 degree sauna, it gets challenging just sitting there doing nothing for however long. But then combined with the fact that sauna is hard, it's not like an ice bath where it's like an instant, oh shit, it's like I'm gonna die. It's a slow burn and I myself actually find sauna a lot harder than ice bath for that reason.

It gets to the 30, 45 minute mark and you start really getting in your head. It's like, shit, how long am I gonna have to push this till I die? How long am I gonna push this till I actually pass out and you're dripping in sweat and I love sauna, but for me, I find it a lot harder than ice bath, like substantially. Sauna benefits. - People, some people find it really, really helps with the recovery from sport. - For me, yeah, probably just reduce saunas a little bit. Yeah. Sweating as well, I feel like, I don't know how much we actually do detox in the sauna really.

But it feels like it, doesn't it? - And I'm the exact same, I know when you read a thing on Instagram or you go to a sauna place and it says sauna benefits like detox, I know like deep down, I don't think that's actually true. - We've got a lymphatic system for that. - Yeah, but I still like to think of myself when I'm in a sauna, like I'm getting all this shit out of me and like, it's still nice, a nice placebo, which we might talk about a bit later, placebo. - Yeah, but it's also just time out for me.

Sometimes we have to force ourselves to stop and like we were saying, like fill your cup, stop and have time just being with yourself and take yourself away from the chaos. People are not making time to do that. Yeah, but they'll find time to look at their phone for 20 minutes, I'm like, well, how do you feel after looking at your phone for 20 minutes as opposed to how do you feel if you go and do something, go for a walk, sit in the sauna, how do you feel after doing something like that? You've got time to look at your phone, you've got time to do that.

- And I still fall into that trap myself, like I'll be like, I don't have time to meditate, I don't have time to journal, whatever and then I would have spent the last 15, 20 minutes on TikTok, Instagram, whatever, like shit, that's time I could have been putting into me instead of getting these cheap dopamine hits. - Yeah, well, for people who say to me they don't have time, I'm like, well, we all do, you can find that time even if it means getting up 15 minutes earlier, like if you lose 15 minutes sleep, you're gonna be okay.

Get up 15 minutes earlier and put that time in. That time for you is a health appointment in my opinion, it's just as important as any other health appointment like your GP or going to the gym or the dentist or the Cairo, whatever, it's just as important, so put it in your diary. - Yeah, that's such a great perspective and it's something I've started to incorporate, like treat your gym sessions, your ice bath, your sauna, like your walks, meditation, whatever, like treat it as if it's an appointment and it's booked in, like book it into your Google calendar, your diary and treat it as an appointment, don't miss it, like you can't, don't cancel on that.

- And you can use-- - You'll get a cancellation fee. - Yeah, have you heard of the three, two, one method? - Nah. - So if you have something in your diary, like going for a walk or whatever, you make sure that your runners are on, you're ready to go and when your alarm goes off or it pops up, that appointment, you say three, two, one, go and you go because within three, two, one, you don't have time, your brain doesn't have time to talk yourself out of it. Otherwise, you will talk yourself out of it, you go, oh, I'll just do this, oh no, I've run out of time now, I haven't got time, here we go again.

- That's what I do with the ice bath, just three, two, one, in, go. - Yeah. - So I literally, it's like, as much as I do it, I still get anxiety around doing the ice bath, like and I still try and talk myself out of it and like procrastinate and like put off getting in there, but you just gotta do it, you gotta do hard things. Do you have a sauna protocol that you follow? And yeah, there's hundreds of different methods, different temperatures, durations, et cetera, is there one that you particularly follow yourself or you just-- - I like it as hot as, so I don't know what that, it goes up to.

- Nah, it goes to 60, I wish it went up about 80, but. - Yeah, as hot-- - That's the job. - As hot as I can get it, I love the heat. And I just use it for complete, I lie down in it. - Nice. - Yeah, completely zone out, yeah. - And yeah, there's hundreds of different protocols that we could give to recommend, like what I do is I go for about 60 degrees, again, hot as it goes, 30, 45 minutes, sometimes an hour if I've got the time. - Yeah. - And then

just try and sit with it, breathe, it's gonna get stressful, it's gonna get uncomfortable, but that's that hormesis, it's conditioning your cells to actually dealing with stress, because that's gonna then have carry over to other stressful situations, because as we said, doesn't matter whether it's training stress, you're fighting with a partner, stressed about work, the physiological responses are all the same, it's just those release of those hormones, cortisol, adrenaline, increased blood pressure, it's all the same. - Yeah. - Doesn't matter if you're in a sauna or an ice bath training so if you can train your cells to deal with it in one situation, it will carry over to others.

So for me, my general rule of thumb when I'm in a sauna or an ice bath is I just go in there until I'm feeling uncomfortable, which in an ice bath is straight away, in a sauna it takes some time, and uncomfortable to the point where it's like, hmm, this is hard and I wanna get out of here pretty badly, but I can't stay in. - Yeah. - And then anything beyond that, it's probably time to get out because yeah, again, it's a stress and too much, it's not good. - No, I mean, it is gonna build resilience, but you don't want to turn yourself off it as well.

- Yeah, that's a really good point. - Yeah, you don't wanna push yourself too hard that you never wanna do it again. - Yeah, that's great. And the same goes with training, I guess, too. If someone's, we call this like the accumulation of stresses if someone's had some emotional stress going on there, they might have a little bit of an injury, might've been eating bad food so they've got some nutritional stress, and then they go and flog themselves with training. Again, training is a huge stressor, then you gotta be able to recover from all that and a lot of people aren't quite doing that.

Do you wanna touch on recovery from stress? - What you mean acute or chronic? - Probably more acute, probably my bad wording. So things like such as sleep, water, nutrition. - Yeah, so nutrition, because stress is, exercise is a stress, like we said, and we need to protect ourselves from a nutritional standpoint from that stress. So that means fueling yourself correctly for training and refueling correctly after training. The people who don't refuel after training really pay for it later on in the day. You know, they get hangry, they get tired. - So that's a big crash, isn't it?

- Yeah. - Is that a blood, it's my obnoxiousness, is that a blood sugar thing or? - Yeah, basically you've depleted your stores when you're training and if you don't refuel them, you're just gonna crash through the rest of the day and then once we get tired and hangry, our food choices are gonna change. Our body just wants energy now so it's gonna seek out possibly fast food, processed food, sugar, refined carbs, which is gonna spike, blood sugar back up and we're just gonna crash again the other side. - And I've literally felt this in the last 48 hours.

I've had that experience and downstairs from the Christmas party on the weekend, there's this big box of like a gingerbread house and I've pretty much ate an entire gingerbread house just chasing that quick fix and crashed even harder. - So yeah, we need to refuel after training to prevent that from happening and that keep our energy going for the rest of the day. 'Cause you know, if we train really hard and don't do that, we're just gonna crash and then our overall activity for the day, even though we've had a hard training session, overall our

movement and activity level might have dropped through the floor because we're smashed, don't eat and then you end up on the couch the rest of the day. So we need to keep moving and you need to fuel to be able to do that. - That's a really good point. - So nutritionally supporting our training and then obviously hydration. - I was just about to say, how many of your clients drink two or three liters of water a day? - They're getting better. - Yeah, good. - They're getting better, so good. - I should, I'll change that wording.

How many new clients come to you and are drinking two or three liters of water a day? - Hardly any. I mean, I have some clients that don't drink water. - Oh, it's nuts. - I say, well, just start with a glass in the morning. Like start your day with water before, like hydrate before you caffeinate. That's a good another one. - It's that sort of like, you don't wanna turn them off at thing, you're disgust with the sauna. Like if someone's come to you and they don't drink any water, you don't wanna like immediately say, right, I need you drinking three liters of water later in the morning.

Later in the afternoon. - No, they can't do it. - You'll turn them off. - Yeah, they can't do it. Start in the morning with a glass of water. And the cool thing about once people start drinking more water is their body responds by giving them thirst signals. So they wake up in the morning feeling thirsty and they want that water. So that's really good to see. Yeah, so if anyone is not drinking enough. - So is that something, sorry. - Yeah, I just say start with that glass in the morning and then see how your body responds.

- So is that something you find in people that come to you and they say they don't drink water, they say that they're not thirsty? 'Cause that's something else. - Yeah, they don't realize that they're existing in a state of chronic dehydration. They don't know actually how shitty it's making them feel until they're hydrated and they go, "Oh my God, I've got so much energy." - That's crazy that you say that. 'Cause we have a lot of people like in their onboarding sessions, they say like, "I'm just not thirsty, I just don't drink water." But that's just 'cause they've lost that signal for thirst.

- Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's so easy to get it back. And then a few days that their signal comes back and it's great. - Sleep, any tips for sleep? How do you go with your sleep? - I'm sleeping like a baby at the moment, it's great, yeah. So yeah, everyone says, "Oh, how much sleep should I be getting?" It's different for everyone, really. Some people genuinely are okay on their sleep. Some people need a lot of sleep. And it changes through your life as well. Like I was always a kind of needs nine, 10 hours.

Like that's what I needed to function well. - Are you just training at a high level of output or? - Yeah, I think just, yeah, I'm starting to think it has a bit more to do with age, I think. 'Cause my life is just as busy now as it was when I needed that much sleep. But I just don't need as much sleep. So I'm kind of running just as well now on between seven and eight hours. So it's just changing, just evolving. But so many things you can do to improve sleep. Obviously, screen detox is where I like to start.

You know, avoiding that blue light an hour before we go to sleep. - So you're saying not scrolling social media in bed. - Yeah. - Excellent. - Don't even take your phone to bed. Like charge your phone in another room. Get an old fashioned alarm clock if you need it. But keeping screen, like no TVs in bedrooms. No screens in your bedroom at all. Just reducing the blue light because that interferes with the release of melatonin, which is our sleepy hormone. And it's also a really powerful antioxidant. So we want melatonin. - And then having the same bedtime routine as well.

Like set yourself up, like warm showers can help. - Oh yeah. - Carbs are good for helping you sleep. So don't be that person that doesn't wanna eat carbs after six. - You said warm showers and something circling back to the ice bath thing. Like one thing that I tell the footy players that I work with and a lot of people that come into the gym is like, if you love your ice bath, your cold shower, that's great, but like don't do it so close to bedtime because that's a sharp, sharp increase in that cortisol. That's gonna fuck with your ability to produce melatonin.

That's gonna fuck with your ability to fall asleep. Or even if you do fall asleep, have a really, really restful and regenerative sleep. Some of the things I do that are a little bit left to fear, but they help me have a phenomenal night's sleep. Some nights I really struggle with my sleep, but I actually, they're targeted at snorers. I don't think I'm a snorer. They're nasal strips. So they actually open up your nasal airway and help you get more air in through your nose, which apparently breathing through your nose is gonna help you stimulate that parasympathetic state a little bit better and help you just rest and recover and have a really deep and restful night's sleep.

I've swapped my bedside lamp. I've swapped the light bulb out for a red light. So that emits no blue light whatsoever. And like my reds, my bed rooms all red and looking pretty cool at night. And yeah, it's actually a really, really relaxing vibe at night, same. Phones off on airplane mode. 'Cause I like swear by white noise. I got to sleep with my white noise on and that comes through my phone, but I'll whack on an airplane mode. I won't be looking at that after a certain time. And then I like to wind down by watching something.

I used to have a bit of a nighttime routine where a phone would be off and I'd try and meditate and journal and like do some breath work. And I found I was really, really struggling to get to sleep. And what my coach said to me is like, it sounds like you're not switching off. You're switching on. And you're like doing all these chores before bed and it's almost becoming, you know, choresome. So what I found is I bought a pair of blue light blocking glasses, the ones with red lenses. So they block out a hundred percent of blue light and I just unwind with a really, really cruisy TV show.

So that's something like The Simpsons or I'm really into Friends at the moment. How I Met Your Mother, just like a cruisy TV show. So not something like Breaking Bad. It's going to get you amped up and stressed and up and about and keep you awake. And I find I get halfway through a 20 minute episode and I'm like starting to melt and fall asleep. And then I'm out like a light. So that's been, there's some of the things I'll do and they've been game changers for me. - That's really interesting. - And I still struggle with sleep.

- Yeah, you mentioned white noise. Have you heard of brown noise? - Yeah, actually when I said it is actually brown noise, I just call it white noise, yeah. - Yeah, brown noise is helping quite a few of my clients. People who say I can't meditate 'cause I can't switch off. Whereas brown noise is a different frequency, isn't it? So it's really effective for ADHD. - Yep. - I've listened to it and it's actually really hard to think about anything else while you're listening to that noise. So it does definitely quieten the mind. - And I've slept with it for a long time, but I've never done meditation with it until literally a week or so ago.

And I was going so well that I'd literally fallen asleep during like five days straight of meditating. So it worked too well. - Yeah, but you've got to practice these things as well until you find out what's right for you, like you've done. Like if people just give it a crack one night, it doesn't work and give up. You've got to stick with it for a few nights. - It's the worst thing you could do a few nights. Yeah, I'd say like at least a month of nights, like really give it a good crack. And that's what I did with journaling before bed.

And I did it for probably three or four months. But yeah, it got to the point where it was just a chore for me and I wasn't getting anything out of it. And that's not to say don't do journaling at all, but just perhaps do it in the morning. - Yeah, yeah. - And hey, doing it before bed might work for you. It just didn't work for me because I'd be really tired and I would have unwound and would be ready for bed and I'd get into bed and I was like, oh shit, I haven't done my journaling.

I'd get up and so yeah, don't become a slave to your habits, figure out what works for you, but don't dismiss something after two nights of it not working for you. Like really lean into it and give it a good crack. - And journaling I love in the morning actually, because I ask people to set intentions. So it might only be a couple of lines in the morning, but you know, set intentions. Pick a couple of things that you're gonna do for yourself today that are gonna make you feel good. And then at the end of the day, you can go back to that journal and reflect.

So set intentions and then reflections at the end of the day. It doesn't have to be pages. - Do you have any like sort of guided journaling tips? 'Cause it's not like, you know, it's there's a few ways you could do it. You could just do a big mind dump and just write or like there's also structured journaling as well. Like what do you have a preference for? - It just depends on what's happening with that person on that day. So yeah, if setting intentions, I love writing them down, makes you more accountable, the more

likely to happen and then reflection at the end of the day, you can either, you know, you go back to the intentions and either give it a tick or a cross, mark it out of 10, how it made you feel. If your mind is, you know, working over time and it's full of chaos, then like a big mind dump is brilliant as well, yeah. I love, Lachie touched on this as well recently. That writing list, that's great. And I actually get people to do it in practice with me when they're overwhelmed. It's like, okay, let's write a list of all the things that are worrying you.

And now we're gonna split it into a list of things you can control, list of things you can't. List of things you can't, screw it up, throw it away. List of things you can. Okay, well, let's put them into priority order. What do you have to deal with right now? Okay, well, how are we gonna deal with it? What can we deal with next week? You know, just break it down, yeah. - Yeah, no, and that's something similar to what my coach said to me is like literally write a list of all the things that

are giving you grief or anxiety or stressing you at the moment and then make a little pie chart and then try and like, you know, percentage out and section out how much each thing is giving you grief. Then a few dot points, why is this thing giving me grief and anxiety? And then on the next one, what can I do about this? Is there anything I can do about it? If not, piss it off. - Yeah, yeah. - Lovely. Any more on the journaling? - Just give it, if you haven't given it a go, give it a go.

- Yeah. - Yeah, but go out there and treat yourself to a really nice book. You know, that's why I said-- - Yeah, go to Officeworks and get a real-- - Yeah, get a really nice one. Have it by your bed, have it in your bag, whatever. Just keep it with you and practise it before you decide whether or not it's worth, you know, gonna work for you. - Cool. Do you wanna touch on your personal experiences with stress over the years and I guess how it's negatively affected to you and then what you've done and how you've got to where you are now?

- Yeah. I'd say the last three years probably been the most stressful of my life. So I had, you know, family breakdown and lost my dad and then COVID hit all in one fell swoop. So, and I also fell out of love with training. I just didn't have the energy. I don't think I had the mental capacity because of the way I was feeling mentally. I had no energy either. So I quickly got into bad habits. So I wasn't training. Also, I wasn't getting my endorphins going. And then I-- - Not getting your daily dose. - No, not getting my daily dose at all.

No, so it was really, really hard. Like everyone else probably found it really, really hard to implement good habits during the lockdown. So I didn't address or help myself to deal with any of the things that I've been through. And I was using escapism. So I was using my phone or I was turning to alcohol or just suppressing everything that I should have been dealing with. And I actually think it caught up. I think I was running on adrenaline and survival mode and then I think the last, actually the last this year, it finally caught up with me physically.

And my immune system was shot. So people say, oh, maybe it's 'cause we're in lockdown. We weren't exposed to any germs and viruses. I'm like, well, there's like 6 million germs and viruses on my dishcloth right here. I'm sure I was still exposed. - Yeah, absolutely. You're still getting out in nature and going for walks. - Yeah, so that's a good argument for another day. How much the lockdown impacted our immune system or was it the stress? - For me, it was the stress. So this year I just had such a bad run of sickness and I just thought I've got to sort myself out to get on top of this.

So I just made myself accountable. I was making sure the training happened even though I knew there was gonna be an interruption to that training. Like I had surgery a couple of weeks ago. I was like, no, it'd be so easy for me to go, what's the point? - There'd be so many people that would just say, oh, I'll just wait till after surgery. - Yeah, and I was like, no, because then it's gonna be even harder to start up again afterwards. So I just gave myself a good talking to basically and said, right, you're gonna train, you're gonna start drinking more water, you're gonna start eating better.

'Cause I talk to people about this all the time. I'm like, just practice what you preach. Cut down alcohol massively, which has been a game changer. It was so easy at the end of the day to think a glass of wine was gonna de-stress me and unwind. - No, it actually wasn't. It was exactly the opposite. - That's it, it probably feels like it's making you unwind, but in reality, it's gonna dehydrate you, that's gonna mess with your sleep. - Yep, all those things. - Gut irritant. - Yeah, I got so fed up of being sick all the time.

I just had to take that action. And now I'm feeling like a million bucks, yeah. - Nice. - I'm just doing the things that I tell everyone else to do. - Practicing what you preach. - Absolutely, yeah. - So we're coming into the crazy time of year. As we said at the start, it's a relaxing and great time of year to connect with those we love, but with it comes a lot of stress. Is there any pieces of advice that you'd give the Virtus family and anyone listening to this podcast for this time of year? - You've just got to be a little bit selfish and start putting yourself first.

I mean, Christmas is a time where we just think about pleasing everyone else, the kids, the family, you know, with presents and food and our time, but we've got to take a step back and make sure, you know, looking at that period ahead, we've got time scheduled in there for yourself so you don't get burnt out. - Is that like booking in the appointments, as we said? - Yeah, keeping your routine, booking appointments, and learn to say no. - Yeah. - You know, if there's all these social events, if you don't want to go, if you're depleted, just say no.

It's okay. People are offended. That's their problem. - That's their problem. Yeah, but a good friend will understand. - Yeah, absolutely. - Someone that truly cares or they'll understand. - Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I've had a lot of conversations with people around alcohol at the moment, you know, and they really worry that when they go to a social event, people go, "Why aren't you drinking? "Come on, have a drink, it's Christmas." Like, just say no, thank you. And if they have an issue with it, that's probably because probably they wish they had the power to do the same thing.

- Yeah, yeah, they're jealous. - Yeah. - That's something I've found that I've gotten a bit older. Like, your friends aren't gonna care that much. Your real friends aren't gonna care that much if you're not drinking or you go home early or you don't go to an event. It's more of like a, 'cause it hasn't been this long ago, since I've experienced that, it's more of like a, you know, a teenage or early, a really, really early adulthood, like 18 to 21 year old sort of thing where people will get the shits if you're not drinking or not coming out.

But once you grow up, like, people don't care. - Just, you know, have a look at your people pleasing. You know, you try to have people please a bit too much. Like, your real friends will support you if you don't wanna stay up all night and drink. - Well, yeah, yeah. And that's something I found during the lockdown of 2021 that I sort of really, really explored. I was, I'd just moved to Mornington, so I was away from, like, all my friends that were over in Geelong and Ballarat and Hamilton, Melbourne, everywhere. So I was completely on my own, just wanting to lock down.

So I thought, oh, well, I'm not gonna be spending money on going out or seeing my friends. And if you're on my own, I may as well. So for three months, I just dialled right into my health and I was like, no alcohol, just everything clean and organic and, you know, there were times where I did sneak over to Geelong or up to Ballarat or the city or wherever to see my friends and they were all completely supportive of the fact that I wasn't, you know, doing anything harmful to my body in that time. - Yeah, that's-- - Yeah, your true friends will get around you.

- Yeah, they will. And if they don't, then, yeah. - Piss 'em off. - Piss 'em off, yeah. - Lovely. - I agree. - Anything more we haven't touched on? - (sighs) I think, yeah, I can't think of anything off the top of my head, but, yeah. Just keep, just, yeah, take a step back every now and again. That's what I say to people and pay attention. How you're breathing. Pay attention to your calendar. Has it stressed you out to look at it? You know, where can you reduce stress? Remove some stress even better. Yeah, especially at this time of year.

Yeah, it's not your responsibility to please everyone. That's what I'd stay nice with, yeah. - Stop people-pleasing, say no. Your friends will understand. - Yep. - Lovely. Have a very, very Merry Christmas. Claire, what are you doing for the Christmas period? - Just hanging out, not going anywhere. Just hanging out at home with the kids. Yeah, hoping for some good weather. - Still got a full house? - Still seven kids. Yeah, they'll all be with us for Christmas, which is pretty cool. Yeah, lots of fun. - You've just had a fair bit of family down. Are they all back home now?

- Yeah, so my partner turned 50 and I surprised him with getting 10 of his family over from around the world. So it was pretty epic. - They're not hanging around for Christmas? - No, my mother-in-law is, yeah, she's here. She's a great help, yeah. - Beautiful. - Yeah. - Very lovely to have you back on the podcast again. - Thanks for having me. - This will just about be the end of season three, but season four will definitely get you back on and talk whatever you want. - Yeah, have a good Christmas. - You too, been a pleasure.