How Nutrition Shapes Mental Health & Compassion | Jennefer D’Aubyn

Summary

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Compassion in a T-Shirt

Episode: How Nutrition Shapes Mental Health & Compassion | Jennefer D’Aubyn

Host: Dr. Stan Steindl
Guest: Jennefer D’Aubyn
Date: February 13, 2025

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Overview

This episode dives into the powerful intersection of nutrition, mental health, and compassion. Dr. Stan Steindl interviews Jennefer D’Aubyn—a psychotherapist and nutritional therapist—about how what we eat intimately shapes our emotional wellbeing, recovery from conditions like long Covid, and the ways we care for ourselves and each other. Both reflective and practical, their conversation explores how food choices can serve as acts of self-compassion, how therapists might integrate nutrition into psychological work, and the emerging science behind nutritional interventions in mental health settings.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Jen’s Journey: Integrating Psychotherapy and Nutrition

Timestamps: [01:41]–[09:01]

• Background: Jen describes her evolution from working in the NHS as a psychological therapist to incorporating nutritional therapy into her practice.

• Her “foodie” upbringing and personal interest in nutrition naturally interfaced with her clinical work.

• Through cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), Jen observed that changing behaviors (like eating or sleep) can sometimes be more accessible than changing thoughts—prompting her to pay greater attention to clients’ appetite, diet, and routines.

• Describes how basic questions about caffeine, alcohol, sleep, and appetite in mental health assessments opened the door to deeper nutritional considerations.

  “I started to notice how many people I was working with have one main meal a day… the rest just cruising along supplementing their hunger with coffee, tea, nicotine, maybe a biscuit or a piece of toast. So you’re thinking, where’s the nourishment in there?” (C, [05:00])

2. Nutrition in Mental Health: Practical Integration

Timestamps: [09:04]–[20:17]

• Jen shares case examples of long Covid patients where nutrition plays a critical role:

  • One only drank Diet Coke as hydration, affecting sleep and wellbeing.
  • Another, with diabetes and depression, was stuck in a tea-and-biscuits cycle, unable to muster the motivation and planning for nourishing meals.

• Emphasizes collaborative, non-judgmental approaches—focusing on readiness to change and small, achievable steps.

  “It’s really being very collaborative and finding where they want to change… You’re really noticing how this isn’t serving you. Let’s think about… the reasons to change, why you want to change.” (C, [18:09])

• Uses behavioral experiments (e.g., “let’s try swapping biscuits for dried fruit”) rather than prescriptive rules.

3. Long Covid: Understanding and Definitions

Timestamps: [21:18]–[27:23]

• Brief overview of long Covid—persistent symptoms (like fatigue and brain fog) after acute COVID infection.

• Long Covid was a term coined by patients; clinical guidelines also use “post-Covid condition.”

• Symptom range extremely broad (over 260 symptoms identified), making research and targeted interventions challenging.

• Theorized causes include ongoing immune response, residual viral material, or metabolic changes.

  “It really affects people’s felt sense of their ability to be themselves in the world because they can’t quite do things in the same way, or they get tired more quickly…” (C, [24:14])

4. Jen’s Research: Systematic Review of Nutrition Interventions in Long Covid

Timestamps: [27:23]–[34:47]

• Jen conducted a quantitative literature review to map which nutritional interventions have been studied in long Covid.

• From just 5 studies in a 2-year-old review to 43 in her own scan—an explosion of interest and research.

• Found emphasis on protein and certain micronutrients (e.g., B vitamins, magnesium, zinc, iron, CoQ10), but the research is “very broad, not especially deep.”

• Most studies report positive results, but findings are early and there’s publishing bias, so clinical recommendations are still cautious.

  “There is some similarity of thinking… It is very broad, not especially deep.” (C, [33:11])

5. Practical Takeaways: Nutrition for Recovery and Wellbeing

Timestamps: [35:54]–[45:34]

• Jen is wary of blanket supplement recommendations—focus on “food first” and personalized approaches.

• Suggests structuring meals with a “hand” method: palm for protein (knuckles for extra), fist for carbs, rest of plate for colorful plant foods.

• Stresses variety (“variety is the spice of life”), joy, and cultural fit in food choices.

• B vitamins, magnesium, zinc, and iron are highlighted as commonly studied for supporting energy metabolism.

  “Food is something that should be enjoyable. We should like it. We should enjoy it. It should perhaps be emotionally nourishing as well as biochemically nourishing.” (C, [38:37])

6. Nutritional Psychiatry and the Broader Landscape

Timestamps: [45:34]–[46:22]

• Nutritional psychiatry is a new, growing field exploring targeted supplementation and food-based interventions for mental health.

• Research led by figures like Professor Felice Jacka on population-level links between diet quality and mental health.

  “Turning down the number of ultra-processed foods… turning up the quantity of whole foods, fresh whole foods as best we can.” (C, [44:29])

• A practical rule of thumb from Jen’s mother: “If food looks closest to what it originally was, it’s probably going to do you some good.” (C, [45:20])

7. Nutrition Through a Compassion Lens: The Three Circles and Three Flows

Timestamps: [46:22]–[56:20]

• Jen and Stan draw on Compassion-Focused Therapy frameworks:

  • Threat System: Hunger as a primal threat; food scarcity as stress.
  • Drive System: Motivation to seek food/resources; pleasure in seeking and eating.
  • Soothing System: Food as comfort, social connection, satisfaction.

  “When we’ve got our food set, there’s a real feeling of feeling settled and then there’s the act of eating… it’s a social thing.” (C, [48:14])

• They reflect on how food serves all three “flows” of compassion—giving, receiving, and directing compassion to oneself.

• Stan shares a personal story: when his mother brought him chocolate milk in hospital while his daughter was ill, it became a profound moment of receiving compassion through nutrition. (B, [57:12])

8. Nutrition as Compassion-in-Action

Timestamps: [59:18]–[64:30]

• Food as a “vehicle for compassion”: making soup for a sick friend, sharing meals for new parents, community care during COVID quarantines.

• Food gifting is instinctive, physical, and emotionally meaningful. Batch-cooking meals for those in need or simply bringing snacks to an office are everyday acts of compassion.

  “I made her a chicken soup… I knew this would be easy and nourishing for her… moved by her suffering. And I loved doing it.” (C, [61:22])

• Jen realizes the potential for integrating more explicit nutrition practices into compassion-based therapy, e.g., using food as metaphors or practical rivers of giving/receiving.

9. Looking Ahead: Research and Practice Directions

Timestamps: [64:39]–[68:28]

• Jen hopes to publish her research, and envisions bridging the knowledge of nutritional therapy with psychological and behavioral change tools.

• Practical ideas for future workshops to help therapists integrate nutrition safely and effectively into their work.

• Passion for helping clients discover how good they could feel with small nutritional adjustments, always within the context of their lived experience, preferences, and culture.

  “A lot of us don’t realize how good we could feel, potentially, through perhaps some of the common habits that we’re making…” (C, [67:00])

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Notable Quotes

• On integrating nutrition and mental health:

  “When we’re thinking about depression… people might start to lose their appetite… and what that means and how that might be a part of formulation, but also in the other direction as well: food does seem to play a really important role in the kind of ups and downs of one’s mental state.”
  — Dr. Stan Steindl [09:30]

• On readiness for change:

  “It’s not, I’m not saying this is going to change your life and that’s how it’s going to be… But approaching all of these changes in that behavioral experiment way: does this feel like something you’d like to change? Let’s give it a try, see how you feel.”
  — Jennefer D’Aubyn [19:30]

• On the scope of research:

  “From five papers two years ago to forty-three now—that’s quite a lot of research activity. So lots of people are asking us this question, looking at the dietary and nutritional components…”
  — Jennefer D’Aubyn [32:54]

• On personalized nutrition:

  “We all have our own biochemistry… So I am exceedingly tentative and don’t really… say everyone should take this supplement.”
  — Jennefer D’Aubyn [35:54]

• On food as compassion:

  “Food is such a tangible compassion act experience, isn’t it?”
  — Jennefer D’Aubyn [63:20]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Introduction to Jen and food/mental health overlap: [01:41]–[09:01]
• Practical cases of nutrition in therapy: [11:06]–[20:17]
• Long Covid definitions and challenges: [21:18]–[27:23]
• Summary of Jen’s nutrition and long Covid research: [27:23]–[34:47]
• Dietary advice and practical strategies: [35:54]–[45:34]
• Compassion and the three circles: [46:22]–[56:20]
• Personal and cultural acts of food as compassion: [59:18]–[64:30]
• Looking ahead—Jen's research and ambitions: [64:39]–[68:28]

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Conclusion

Dr. Stan Steindl and Jennefer D’Aubyn offer a nuanced exploration of how what we eat affects not just our bodies, but our minds—and how our food choices can become daily gestures of self-care and compassion. Grounded in the latest research but rich with practical wisdom and human stories, this episode is an invaluable listen for anyone interested in mental health, recovery, and the intertwined power of nourishment and kindness.

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Transcript

[A]

Hi, I'm Dr. Stan Steindl. Welcome back to Compassion in A T Shirt, where we explore how compassion, when properly understood and applied, can change lives in truly remarkable ways. Today we're diving into a fascinating intersection where psychology meets nutrition with my guest, Jennifer Dauben. Jen has spent over a decade working in the UK's NHS Talking therapies for anxiety and depression services, and now specialises in supporting people with post Covid syndrome or long Covid. She's an experienced psychological therapist with training in cognitive behavioural therapy, compassion focused therapy and mindfulness based interventions. But what makes Jen's work really stand out is her efforts to bridge the gap between psychological and physical health. She's recently trained in nutritional therapy, bringing a personalized and holistic approach to wellbeing, where food, psychology and compassion all play a role. Today we'll explore how she integrates psychotherapy and nutritional therapy, what her research reveals about nutrition and long Covid, and how the way we nourish ourselves can be an act of deep compassion across the three flows. Let's play it up. And so I bring you Jennifer Dauben.

[B]

Good. All right. Well, Jen Dauben, welcome to Compassion in a T shirt.

[C]

Oh, thank you. It's delightful to be here, really delightful.

[B]

Wonderful to have you. You have a unique combination of expertise, I guess, you know, as both a psychotherapist and also a nutritional therapist. And so I was interested to explore some of that, first of all, just how, how perhaps these two areas came together in your work or what led you to, to kind of explore and integrate them.

[C]

And I thought very deeply, you know, kind of around this, it's a good, it's so interesting to think back on how did I end up here, why am I here, you know, kind of. And it's, in some ways it's. I feel almost surprised that more people aren't here in a way because it feels like such a natural orientation for me. I have always really loved food. We come from a family who's been commented who likes to eat. So it's just that I've really always really enjoyed food and it's been, can be a bit more of a priority perhaps sometimes in my earlier life when I'm out with friends and maybe they're not prioritising food so much, I'm just like, when are we going to eat? So it's always been really important to me. But then I suppose from the perspective of how that came about in my work, I'm now a psychological therapist in the UK National Health Service, the NHS And I've come through, I'm sort of, I like to say this is an old word now, but IAPT born and bred. So I'm one of those clinicians who started out as a psychological wellbeing practitioner being trained in low intensity cbt, so also known as guided self help. And part of learning to do assessments for, and that's in primary mental health care. So people with mild to moderate anxiety and depression. And so part of that assessment is asking people about caffeine, alcohol, sleep. We use the phq9, I can't remember its full name now, is it patient health questionnaire 9 or something like that? And one of the questions on there is about appetite. So these nudges, they're there, they're already there. And I think it just seems as though perhaps I picked that up a little bit more strongly maybe than, than, you know, that's just something that really spoke to me. And I think that a sort of, you know, kind of cognitive behavioral therapy cognizant, there's the work on how we think about things and what we do, behaviors, how we behave in the world, the choices that we make, the urges that we have, do we roll with them, do we go, you know, know, against them potentially? And I think that we, we notice, I certainly notice starting to work, you know, kind of in CBT informed practices that it can be a lot easier to make a choice to choose to behave differently. And that argument and deciding to set up a different behavior is a lot easier than changing one's thinking. That's a lot harder. And it requires a lot of cognitive work to do that. So when you go in for that sort of low hanging fruit, you know, kind of those quick wins, we become therapists because we're moved by the suffering that humans experience that people experience and we want to help alleviate it. So I think, you know, kind of when already started to think about, well, what's your caffeine intake like, how's that affecting your sleep, what's your alcohol intake like? It's not a big leap then to think, well, and how are you eating? You know, you told me your appetite is poor. How does that show up? And you know, it really took me by surprise. I think, you know, especially someone, as I said, so motivated by food to notice how many people I was working with have one main meal a day and that might be later in the evening as well, probably, you know, kind of at 7pm onwards. And then they're skipping meals or they're just cruising along supplementing their hunger with either coffee, tea, nicotine and maybe a biscuit or a piece of toast. So you're thinking, well, where's the nourishment in there? And I think it really fits with the biopsychosocial model that we work within in cbt. And CBT does the psychosocial really very well. We're thinking about their environment and the people around and the influence of that. We're thinking about the psychological processes internally and we think a bit about the biological processes, thinking about how I, you know, emotions and in panic disorder, how's my heart rate going and, and you know that butterflies in the stomach and anxiety. But I wonder also then about the biochemistry aspect in the biopsychosocial model. And we're constantly influencing that through the, our choices that we make in terms of what we eat and what we drink, which was already kind of there a little bit with that appetite, caffeine, alcohol. And then I practice is a bit of a prop. My favorite I found activity diary when doing behavioral activation as a step two and I would still use it now is one made by mood juice. Am I okay to just throw this? I'm going to show it in front of the camera, if that's okay. Yeah. Okay. So I really, really liked this one. It's not got too many lines across it. I think some of the other ones I can find quite overwhelming when they're in our bits. But they've got breakfast, lunch and dinner rows on here. So that one just, I think just really spoke to me and I started quite naturally using it. And so it, then when you're looking at that activity scheduling, how do I regulate my day and my week and where I put what's my best time of day and what's my worst time of day, how do I rest, how am I nourishing myself, how am I setting myself up with a day? Do I eat breakfast? Do I eat a lunch? Do I eat a dinner? So that structure when we're trying to restructure a rhythm in the context of depression, it's just kind of was there. So then it just, I started listening to more podcasts on nutrition and biochemistry. There's, there's a, oh, the field is deep, broad and deep of all kinds of people who've got ideas about nutrition. It's, it's in that, that, that health, the well being sphere. And so I started listening to some of that and getting really curious about it. But it wasn't until more recently so I carried on to do my CBT training. That was the, the Clear career pathway for me. Got my CBT qualification and then took a little bit of time, you know, because that's quite intensive training. And then when I was ready, progressed to, I did. I've done a Master's in nutrition called Nutrition Science and Practice with the Northern College of Acupuncture. And yeah, relatively recently finished. So the research that we're going to talk about today, I finished it just under a year ago and graduated last November.

[B]

Congratulations, that's good news.

[C]

Thank you very much.

[B]

Yeah, I love how you started with. Yeah, you're a bit of a foodie, I guess, is one of the things, you know, you in. You enjoy the social side of it, you enjoy the food itself. I just want to give a little shout out to your T shirt because it says, thank you very much, Sprouts are for life, not just for Christmas, which is, which is designed by a dear friend of yours, apparently. And so we'll actually put a link to that Etsy shop in the description below, just for fun, if anyone's interested. But, but yeah, there is that, you know, that sort of part of you that, that has a real sort of organic interest and even passion in that area and you just stumbled across the fact that, you know, it's kind of in there, isn't it? Even in the area of mental health. It's in there in some ways, from the point of view of how appetite or diet and so on can be a consequence of, for example, depression, people might start to lose their appetite and what that means and how that might be a part of our formulation and so on, but also in the other direction as well, that food does seem to play a really important role in the kind of the ups and downs of one's mental state or emotional state. And that in some ways, yes, there's this sort of bi directional, reciprocal thing. When we might feel depressed, we might be a bit off our food, but when we're off our food, we're only having sort of. Well, we're not having the kind of diet that really helps to nourish us and maintain mental health. So it's, it's kind of really in there. And you've developed a kind of a parallel thing. Do you find yourself really thinking nutritionally with most or all people, or do you sort of notice that there are certain times when you decide to work nutritionally and incorporate more of that alongside the psychological therapy? How. How do you make those kinds of decisions?

[C]

Yeah, really great question. I think partly I'm conscious that my, my main practice at the moment is still in an NHS talking therapy service. So I'm really conscious that my job there is to be a psychotherapist and. And I never stop doing that. And. And so then my. So that's. That's what I'm always turning up for, for. For clients. But, yeah, you know, I think different people, it's. It's whether if it's there, then I might lean into it. And I think all of us, probably as therapists, we've all got our little niches that we're particularly interested in and the things that we see and what we might lean into a little bit more than others. But, yes, only really if it shows up. So thinking about some recent clients where it has shown up, I have been working with someone who, I suppose I should also say I work with in a service specifically for people with long Covid. So that's all my patient group at the moment. And one person was particularly struggling with their sleep and there's lots of things affecting their sleep, but one of the things that we noticed was that she was only drinking diet Diet Coke. That was her only form of hydration. And I could go have an argument about how hydrating Diet Coke is for the body, but also Diet Coke has caffeine in it and if you're only drinking Diet Coke throughout the day and then you're having trouble sleeping, then that's going to have an impact on your sleep. So one of the things that I did with that client is talked with her about that offering up that psychoeducation and that. So then that reason for doing this, perhaps tricky that she might not really have wanted to do very much, but cutting down that caffeine intake and switching out her Diet Coke, what else can she switch it out for? What. What would she like? And I think we cut it down by half, so. And that's where. Which is great. You know, kind of. I was really pleased with that. You know, I would. I would be really. I would love to be curious for her about what it might be like for her to cut it out completely for a little while. Certainly done caffeine holidays myself. I've got coffee here today, by the way. So I'm not, you know, a purist by food by any means. Yeah, exactly. But it is interesting every now and again to take a bit of a caffeine holiday, but, you know, she wasn't ready for that, so I'm not going to push for it. That's where she got to. I'm going to take that with. And we did some Other sleep hygiene along it. I've got someone else as well who I'm currently working with where the whole, the hydration, nutrition is really very prominent. It's forefront and center in a way in what we're doing. It's a person who has diabetes and is also depressed. So in this really tricky place where very low motivation, they've also got long Covid, they've got fatigue and brain fog and food. Nourishing oneself is hard. It requires motivation, it requires planning, it requires perhaps sometimes eating something even if you don't necessarily. It's not the thing you really want to eat in that moment, but knowing that it's going to nourish you and maybe noticing that how that feels afterwards. And so this person is in stuck a little bit in not being motivated, tiding themselves over with tea and biscuits because they are quite hungry. They're eating most of the packet of biscuits and it's like, well, there's no point leaving two in the pack so I might as well just finish them off. So not being hungry then for any other kind of actual nutrition and, and then having these blood sugar spikes. So one of the first things that we did together was again tied in the sofa with cups of tea. Caffeine and milkiness in the tea is an appetite suppressant. So we're not going to feel hungry. So I negotiated with him that could he have a 500 millilitre bottle of water and we talked about if it's not, if you don't like water, mix up a squash, you know you can and then you're in control of the how much flavoring is and maybe you can wean. If once you've got to something that you like, you can tone it down, you kind of wean yourself off it a little bit. Anyway, he was actually quite happy to go with water. He's now sipping a liter of water a day. And when he started off doing that, he said, I noticed how much more energy that I felt just by being better hydrated. So now we're building on that with. Right, okay, let's address this low motivation around food. Let's recognize that planning meals is hard. You know, when you wait until you're really hungry and you've got brain fog and then you've got to think about what, what, what am I going to eat? What preparation does it require? Of course you're going to reach for the biscuits, for the easy food, the quick sugar hit, the fat hit. The satisfaction and the soothing. Yeah, sweet foods eating is a soothing activity. So that's where we're at at the moment is right. Okay, how can we plan this? What can I plan where food that. That I like but also nourishes me back because his cake and biscuits aren't nourishing him back.

[B]

Yeah, you allude to things like, I suppose, readiness to change or the. The really that this is a lot of this is about behavior change in a sense, isn't it? And one of my kind of other big interests is motivational interviewing and trying to help people change. And some of the usual suspects, drinking, smoking, diet, exercise or, you know, and definitely dietary, kind of nutritional sorts of behaviors are in the mix. How do you find people respond, I suppose, to these elements of treatment? Because they. They are tough, they're changes. And, you know, behavior change is difficult and there are mixed feelings quite often, aren't there, in terms of, oh, well, this. I really enjoy my sweet biscuits and I. Whatever it might be. So, yeah. How do you find people responding to this combination of treatment?

[C]

I think generally, again, I think it's one of the things about coming across it is I don't come across it in a purest way. So I'm not kind of saying you have to do this. And so it's really being very collaborative and finding where they want to change. You take this person that might the chapter Diabetes, for example. He was saying, I know this is bad for me. I've gained weight. I feel sad about that. I had been losing weight and feeling good about that. And you know, he's got cognitions like, I know I shouldn't be doing this. Which from our, you know, kind of in our CFT minds are going, oh, yes, self criticism.

[B]

That's what was in my mind.

[C]

Yeah, feeling guilty, feeling hopeless, which is maintaining the cycle. So, you know, as. As we do, I just kind of reflected that cycle back to him and in that kind of motivational interviewing kind of way, appealing to this is something that you want to change. You're really noticing how this isn't serving you. Let's think about, you know, why and the reasons to change, why you want to change, you know, kind of. And I only did this yesterday and it's fallen out my mind. But there were reasons to change as well. You know, that he was feeling improved from. From eating in a slightly different way before, but potentially going at it when. When we want to lose weight, we will kind of want to lose it yesterday. And we maybe come at it in quite an aggressive way. And it feels like we have to feel hungry all the time. And it's pretty miserable. And this is why restricted diets don't work. So it's thinking, right, okay, well that's something you want to do. So how can we do that in a way that does work? And he said, he's like, oh, you know, I know sometimes I'm not even hungry, but I eat biscuits anyway because they're sweet and I like, I like the, the after flavor in my mouth after eating them. So I'm really hearing that and say, right, okay, we'd like sweet stuff. So I wonder what can, what might be some appealing changes, you know, have you tried dried fruit for example? You know, kind of it's. We think I start off with any fruit but then think about dried fruit, things like dried apricots, dried mango, dried apple, you know, kind of these are whole foods that have all the nutrition of the, of the fruit in them. Much more nutritiously dense than your biscuits and your cakes, your kind of ultra processed foods really. And, but also has that sweetness is maybe potentially scratching that itch and it becomes a behavioral experiment. Then it's not, I'm not saying this is going to change your life and it, that's how it's going to be. But approaching all of these changes in that behavioral experiment way. Does this feel like something you'd like to change? These are reasons to do it. Let's give it a try, see how you feel.

[B]

Yeah, I love it. I can hear, I can hear the change talk. You're evoking your change talk, the desire, reasons need and ability and really helping the person to formulate a bit of a plan from there it really. The nutritional choices really can be quite profound acts of self compassion. We might come back to that though actually a bit later because I did want to actually just get into a little bit of your work and research around long Covid. You mentioned that you're really working in that area and you recently did your thesis master's research on that. Could you just give me a bit of a sense of how we're thinking about long Covid at the moment in terms of kind of definitions or diagnostically?

[C]

What's the short answer that comes to mind kind of is a little bit. We don't know which isn't a particularly hopeful message, is it? So the definition in nice guidelines that so coming very much from a UK centric perspective but across, you know, kind of. I did look at the definitions, you know, kind of the US definitions and World Health Organization and they do pretty much agree that long Covid and Long Covid is the word that came, the term came up by the people experiencing it. That's the clinical populations word. And I think, you know, I wanted to really honour that by using that word in my research. But it can also be called post Covid condition, Post Covid syndrome and in NICE guidelines what we're recognizing and the NICE calls it post Covid syndrome which is when symptoms after an acute infection of COVID 19 symptoms persist for longer than 12 weeks and or it can activate new symptoms. Symptoms that come, that are prompted even in that post acute recovery period seem to start after COVID 19 and then continue to persist. So it's a long term health condition that then kind of asks people to adjust and manage in a long term way. And some people, there's a real breadth of clinical population because you've got the clinical population who were extremely hospitalisation, you know, in a coma kind of level unwell and of course that their bodies have been quite ravaged by the COVID 19 virus and there are consequences that we can see and measure which is, you know, kind of lung scarring for example or you know, and we know that the COVID 19 virus is airborne. It gets into the body through the airways but then the virus travels to different parts of the body. We know that it shows up in the gut, we know it's significantly affecting people's kidneys and there's a whole host, I think there's something like, you know, kind of 260 symptoms that have been associated with long Covid. It's just huge because then the other side of the spectrum is those people who might have even had a mild infection like the acute part of the infection might not have been that drastic but then just never really quite recovered. That fatigue has continued, the brain fog has continued and, and it really affects people's felt sense of their ability to be themselves in the world because they can't quite do things in the same way or they get tired more quickly so they have to kind of come home and rest a bit more. And, and so some people, maybe on that more milder end, for want of a better word, some people are just about managing their life but you know, kind of, you know, kind of, but not super happily and feeling pretty rotten whilst they're doing it. And we have seen some people recover, you know, some people do, but that recovery journey is a lot longer than expected. It's, it's a recovery that, that we kind of notice in, might notice in you know, kind of months and years rather than days and months that we, what we might expect from the recovery from a normal cold. You know, sometimes certainly I remember having a common cold and I can, you know, have a persistent cough perhaps for a good few weeks afterwards. But then after a good few weeks it does resolve and it goes away and I feel my normal self again. Well, people don't feel like that in Long Covid. And so some, some people do recover and some people don't. And we don't think. I don't think we really know exactly why. And we're still trying to figure that out. What's really hard from a research and clinical perspective with Long Covid is this very broad population. So how do we define it? And then what do we target? And there's lots of different hypotheses. You know, I've mentioned already, you know, kind of the scarring effect, that the changes, you know, kind of the insults to the body directly that the virus might have had. And those are easy to identify. But why do people keep having symptoms? Is it because the virus is still there, but not in a way that it's acute enough to have acute infection, but the body, the immune system is still responding to it. That's one hypothesis. Maybe it's that there's pieces of the virus, so it's not active or being a menace in the body actively, but there's still a foreign body in the body that the body goes, this isn't me, and I'm going to mount an immune response to it. Or maybe it just switches some things on and off that doesn't work quite so well. So people who might have been. I've worked with people who might have been maybe pre diabetic and then it's tipped them over into diabetes. It seems to have potentially an impact on how the body manages its blood sugar and energy. So, you know, kind of it can be really potentially right down into that biochemical, molecular place, and we're just not really sure yet, which makes it really.

[B]

Hard and dare I say, that sort of nutritional place, I suppose too. Yes, in a way. But the fatigue and the brain fog, you know, those sound like that. I've, you know, sort of. Yeah. Been sort of heard about those from people before. Just the, the way that, you know, those two ongoing experiences or symptoms really do create all sorts of difficulties to live one's life as one used to or would want to, and very kind of painful and a lot of suffering, really. That goes along with. With those two bits. You, you did a systematic qualitative review then?

[C]

Yes, I did, yeah.

[B]

Exploring the nutritional interventions oh, and for Long Covid. Yeah, just, just give us a bit of a, an overview maybe of, of perhaps what the study entailed and what you were hoping to achieve or hoping to learn from. From the study.

[C]

So yeah, my, my methodology was. It's quite a niche one because I was coming at it, I was, I was trying to. The original intention was to do a case study like much of my cohort, and for reasons that became not, not available to me, but I still really wanted to do it in. In Long Covid wanted to make Long Covid the focus. And, and it's. You could. We've only been researching it really. You know, we were, we've been aware of. Long covered since 2021. You know, if Covid started in 2020, it was only really kind of 2021 that we started noticing some people aren't recovering and what's this about? And, and it was, it was the patients that were like, hey, listen to us. And you know, and the medics experiencing it going, hang on, other medics, you need to pay attention to this. I'm experiencing this and I'm not saying it's not in my head and I'm not making it up because it can be. It's quite unfortunate. It can be because it's a medically unexplained, you know, kind of thing. A bit like cfs, me and Ms. And their story, you know, kind of. There's a lot of dismissing and invalidating in the early days and I know people still experience that today. So the question was, well, what do we know who's doing what research? You know, what is out there? So I did this, this literature review and being with it being an msc, it's trying to find a topic, a research topic that is MSC appropriate. I'm not trying to do a PhD and I don't know if you work with research students, but I think all of us always want to go off on some kind of PhD level. Like I'm going to change the world with my research. So, yeah, narrowing that down to an MSC level. And I think we all wanted as best that we could try and shy away from a meta analysis, you know, kind of a deep statistical analysis. So my methodology is a quantitative one. So I counted, I counted how many pieces of research have been done. So kind of. And making my inclusion criteria for Long Covid that quite broad. Any persisting symptoms after the acute infection and then looking for. So that would be the population looking for the interventions where that included a nutrition aspect. There is, there wouldn't have been really enough research to make it where it's just a nutrition intervention. And I kind of wanted to know, you know, kind of start that conversation of what are we thinking? How are we making sense of this? So any intervention that involved a nutrition intervention. So in. Some people might have been rehabilitating in hospital, Some people were in outpatients, some people were in primary care. Some people were recruited to two studies to test a supplement, for example. So I counted the total number of papers where that showed up. I then counted sort of how many different nutrition interventions were done. So was it a dietary one? And if it was a dietary one, did we emphasize protein to be emphasized carbohydrates in any way? Were we looking at fats at all? Were there any specific diets? There's quite a lot in the nutrition sphere. There's a lot of. We really like the Mediterranean diet and the Mediterranean approach, but there's lots of other kind of diets as well. And so, you know, kind of what, what knowledge, what wisdom we drawing from other diets? And then I also looked at the specific nutrients. So are we looking at particular micronutrients, so vitamins and minerals and maybe other kind of supplements, like chemical compounds like our Coq 10. Some people might be aware of Coq 10. It's kind of. It's quite a common supplement out there. And we find it in face creams, I think, as well. So, you know, kind of what unplanned extracts? So I was really curious what, what have people looked at? And so I was counting those and then counting how many times they've been researched. So do they appear just in one study that I found? Have they popped up in multiple studies? So is there a commonality of thinking in how we're approaching this nutritionally?

[B]

Yeah, I mean, it's wide, sweeping and so many, you know, sort of wonderful sources of data points, you know, trying to work out, you know, what's been done, how's. How it's being done, you know, perhaps some of the. The results, exploring all these different diets. I'm sort of on the edge of my seat, to be honest. Like, what did you. What did you find? Or what. What were some of the. The sort of, the insights or maybe even surprising findings really from. From that review?

[C]

Yeah, so I found that someone else had looked at this before, a couple of years before me, and they found five papers. Two years later, I found 43.

[B]

Okay. Yeah.

[C]

So that's quite a lot of research activity. So lots of people are asking us this Question, you know, kind of and, and looking at the dietary and nutritional components that might be able to support recovery in. In long Covid. Recovery and management in long Covid. And so, and I found that there were some, some themes. So some of the nutritional aspects that that original paper found were repeated in further research in the studies that I found. So there is some, some similarity of thinking, which is nice to see. You know, kind of what I was looking for is how broad is this research? So how much, you know, kind of how wide net are we going and then how deep is it? So how many times have we tested it and tested it again to see does this really work sort of thing. And I found that it is very broad, not especially deep. And then I also had a little look at the outcomes. So when I was looking at it, did they find a positive result? Did they find they, you know, say yes, this worked or this seemed to work. Our intervention seemed to work. And I think we sort of know in the research sphere that there is a bias towards public publishing positive results more than either finding a neutral or a negative result. I did find some papers that said, you know what, we gave it a try, but actually it didn't seem to do any different. And that that doesn't. That might be. That that is the case, but it also might be they just didn't find an effect because of the way that they did the. The study. But most of my papers did find a positive result. So it's difficult to say then out of that what, you know, what's the specifics was still not quite there of yes, if you've got long Covid, do this, this and this. Take this supplement which is not quite there yet.

[B]

Yeah, it's kind of not surprising, is it? I suppose that there's a breadth of approaches considering the breadth of what the long Covid experience is. And so, you know, kind of capturing the many and varied ways that people have just tried to be helpful there, you know, nutritionally and probably otherwise as well. You know, that they've taken various approaches positive to hear though, that on many fronts there are good outcomes or positive outcomes for people, which is very promising. You work in a long covert ward and you primarily do the, the psychological therapies. But you know, I can imagine your ears pricking up at these possible ways to bring it in. What would you say in terms of. Yeah, how your, your research and its findings might inform your work supporting people with long Covid or maybe practical takeaways there for all of us? Really. Really, you know, that might be applied in clinical settings.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. So I think that the potentially safest thing to say, I suppose when thinking about nutrition it is, I feel like it's important to say, you know, kind of whilst we're all human beings and we all eat in probably, you know, some sometimes similar but also very varying ways, we all have our own biochemistry and we're all made up in a slightly different way. And so I am exceedingly, especially in my psychotherapy NHS job, I'm exceedingly tentative and don't really, I mean I notice when people are taking certain supplements, but I don't think it would be particularly safe to kind of say everyone should take this supplement. So. But nutrition approaches, diet approaches, I think it, what I took from my, my research, one of the key things is that across both diets and then some of the supplements, emphasizing protein is one that seemed to really crop up. So, you know, in ensuring that we take in adequate protein and it might be actually in, in our, particularly our western diet that I kind of would probably place myself in that it's entirely possible that in the western world we maybe not don't quite get enough good quality protein. It's quite a tricky one to kind of, to maybe get enough of. And again, kind of drawing from my own personal experience, I did a 12 week PT thing one time trying to feel a little bit better after being chained to my desk for doing MSc and working practically full time. And there was nutrition component to that and the macronutrients that, that this PT set me was kind of emphasizing protein. So I wanted to build muscle. It's hard, it's hard to increase your protein intake and you know, I'm a nutritiously conscious person so you know, kind of just thinking about, thinking about when, when making, when building a plate, there's some numbers that you can put against, you know, kind of, or percentages about, you know, kind of proportion of protein, carbs and, and then the rest of your plant foods. But what I do find quite helpful is using a hand. So a portion of meat might be kind of the size of your palm and if you're going to want to emphasize your protein intake, maybe you might like to include the knuckles as well. So something just a little bit more perhaps. And then you know, a portion of carbohydrate might be like a fist, so it might be the size of a baked potato or you know, a kind of a fistful of pasta or something like that, if that's what, what, what we eat or rice or whatever. And then the Rest of your plate would be plant food, ideally, and different colors. So you're getting the different colors tells us that there's a variety of vitamins and minerals in there. And when we're getting variety, when it comes to well being and nutrition, variety very much is the spice of life in all kinds of ways. So as best that we can. But of course we have our likes and our dislikes. So, you know, taking that in, in within the boundaries of what we enjoy because I think just sort of coming back a little bit maybe to the, the. The when sharing this information and trying to sort of nudge people in. In a way that might kind of benefit their biochemistry. At the center of that for me is always that food is something that should be enjoyable. You know, we should like it, we should enjoy it is one of those things that we get to do daily, multiple times a day, you know, and that it should be perhaps emotionally nourishing as well as. As biochemically nourishing. And that's also going to be a recipe for sustained behavior as well. If we like what we're doing, we're going to want to do it and continue to do it. So yeah, emphasizing protein, I think is potentially one of them. And if we're finding that difficult, then that may be, you know, kind of a protein shake is something that can be helpful. But I would tend to go food first as best that we can. So yeah, I think maybe some of the other themes that we saw is where were my. Yeah, so emphasizing our B vitamins are vitamins that are quite key in our biochemical processes for making energy. So I sort of see. So people often take maybe like a. See people in clinic who maybe are taking a multivitamin, for example, which is a, you know, not an unreasonable idea, and other minerals that are particularly key in our making energy, kind of addressing potentially, you know, supporting feeling as energized as the body is able to. I'm trying to offer the body the components. The body knows what it wants to do. Just if we just give it the building blocks, it will do what it needs to with it. And so maybe magnesium and zinc were things and iron were particular minerals that I was seeing a trend in the literature that these were commonly, more commonly cropping up than maybe some others.

[B]

Yeah, okay.

[C]

But I think from a diet point of view, just sort of coming back briefly. Sorry, was if we're eating, you know, kind of the colorful, as best that we can, our colorful plant foods, you're gonna hit those, right?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. You sort of said Right at the start today, you know, there are some low hanging fruit kind of changes that probably apply here as well. You know, there might be certain food choices that we can explore with clients in terms of, well, caffeine or sugars or you know, those sorts of things. Then there's just kind of that notion of a balanced diet and some of the psycho, I guess nutritional education around all of that. Maybe some of the protein seems to be, you know, interesting to consider. There's some early research that's, that's kind of, there's a bit of a theme there around all of that and perhaps the, the vitamins and minerals, the magnesium, zinc and iron ore. You know, it's interesting. It's. By the sounds of it, it's, it's still early days. Ish. But in the last couple of years there has been a kind of exponential growth in, in the, the research and, and the interest that, that people.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

To new nutritional approaches to long Covid.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And other people are getting really interested in this. Well, the fields are getting interested in this. So when we start thinking about the, the more specific, you know, kind of biochemical and specific nutrients, there's, there's an emergent field called nutritional psychiatry. And as when I was thinking about my own journey, I was thinking, oh, I wonder if I could call myself a nutritional psychotherapist. This, what would that even mean? But now that there's nutritional psychiatry, I'm very kind of tentative around maybe going down that route. And, and I would never, never, you know, kind of, I'm not a psychiatrist, I would never claim that, that, that title. But there are, there is this fear of, you know, idea of, of almost, you know, kind of using supplements and, and particular vitamins and minerals, you know, because on. Our neurochemicals are made of proteins. We kind of, we know and it was part of my step two training. Tryptophan is a precursor, is an amino acid precursor of serotonin and melatonin. So but we would maybe if someone's on an ssri, we might want to be a bit cautious about how much tryptophan is in the diet perhaps because that could be a more kind of. That can interact. Might get too much. There's a problem if you have too much serotonin in the body, which is very difficult to get to. But just the kind of things that when we're working in mental health that we are aware of already. So yeah, there's a lot of interest in nutrition and diet and mental health. You've got In Australia you've got Professor Felice Jacker who's in Melbourne I think, and doing a lot of research, really leading on a lot of research on more epigenome, epidemiology, epidemiological studies. That's a really tricky one to say. They're looking at massive population studies of influence, you know, kind of what type the ways that people eat and connect correlations with mental health. And so then, and then nudging that, can we, you know, do we have mental health, positive mental health outcomes, when we can nudge behaviors in a particular way, you know, coach people, people to eat in perhaps a somewhat more healthful way, which, you know, kind of in the most basic way to describe that, which is, you know, kind of turning down the number of ultra processed foods, those very shelf stable cakes and biscuits for example, and crisps, and turning up the quantity of whole foods, fresh whole foods as best that we can. My mum had, you know, had a lovely guide for that I've carried with me for such a long time, which is if the food looks closest to what it originally was, is probably going to do you some good versus food that, you know, it's made of things that you can't tell what it was before.

[B]

That does seem to be a good rule of thumb, I suppose, that we can follow. You've very nicely broadened back out there and I like how you sort of seem to be thinking of yourself as a psychotherapist and a nutritional therapist. You know, that seems like a really nice way to present this kind of joint combined interest that you have. But yeah, there seems to be something about what we eat and how we care for ourselves and as we sort of said early on, you know, our food choices can be kind of an act of self compassion. How do you see nutrition maybe fitting into that broader picture of, of compassion and self compassion?

[C]

I feel like the really obvious when I. What I'm thinking, what we're thinking about here is the three circles. That's what certainly comes to mind with that question. And when I think about the CFT three emotion regulation circles, I tend to start in that threat place in the threat circle and. But I suppose it also, it correlates with Maslow's hierarchy of needs, doesn't it? You know, kind of adequate food not being hungry or being hungry is, is a threat in the body and you know, kind of psychological and physiologically and you know, kind of having adequate food is one of our basic needs and it's something that we, we see in all life. Don't we all life, even plants, you know, kind of are motivated towards what. What nourishes them. Your sunflowers turn towards the sun. My turn, my plant here, because the leaves are going this way. So I was like, well, if I take you that way, I can coach you to stand up straighter again. So we're all motivated towards nutrition. So. And then. And so I've used the word motivation that makes me think of the blue circle, you know, our drive to go out. To go out, you know, kind of. And as animals, you know, kind of going out into what could be, you know, dangerous environments, rather than staying in a nice cosy home that becomes a threatening place when there's not enough food there. So you've got to go out. Got a motivation drive to go and go out and gather and collect and then. And then food itself, you know, kind of the act of eating. It's. We mentioned earlier, it's a social thing. It's that. That sitting around the fire when, when we've got. When we're experiencing plenty, when the food is there. I certainly, for me, I noticed. I notice feeling. It's a really subtle sense of soothing, but I notice feeling soothed. So. And what comes to mind with that one is I was very recently, very fortunate and privileged to have an adventure trip in Vietnam recently. And one of the things that really struck me was how plentiful it was. You know, you're seeing. You're seeing fields growing plentifully. You know, it's so warm and humid, isn't it? You know, kind of. It's such. It seems like anyway to me, such a lush environment. Food just. Just kind of grows everywhere and everyone's doing it. And all the stalls are always piled high with food all the time. And it's like, you know, and I almost wondered about waste, you know, kind of what happens when. If. When the fresh food goes, Goes. Goes not so great because we're also in a warm and humid environment. It's like, well, they've. They've got, you know, chickens and pigs and stuff, so nothing actually goes to waste. And they're. They're just so productive, they're able to maintain this. And I think it really gave me a sense of, you know, kind of from. From that perspective. Oh, it's all right here, you know, and people are right. No one looked hungry because they had no need to look hungry because there was all this plentiful fee, you know, and everyone seemed pretty healthy to me, you know, kind of walking around, not very many overweight people for example, as well. So such a really fresh diet and plentiful of it. And I noticed with me noticing that I don't know what it's like to be a Vietnamese living in Vietnam. I've only visited it. But as a visitor seeing that I was like, I felt relaxed by, by that, by seeing that. So I think, you know, kind of when we've got, you know, when we've got our food set, there's a real feeling of feeling settled and then there's the act of eating, isn't there? You know, we've talked a little bit about that as a compassion act. What, what do we choose to eat? Where are we at? I've mentioned ultra processed foods today and I eat ultra processed foods but not all the time, you know, and, and, and I think there's, I mentioned how nourishing ourselves and working with whole foods, it takes work, it takes planning. And so it's really that combination of that, that drive and that soothe working together to manage that sense of threat of not, not having not enough food.

[B]

Yeah, that's really great to formulate it around the three circles and, and it sort of is in there in so many ways. To be not having availability of food is intensely threat system activating and drive system really is all about seeking resources such as food and the sort of, the pleasure we experience with all of that and soothing system. Yeah, we really evolved to be together and sort of seek the food and eat the food or consume the food together. And that when the threat is gone and our tummies are full, then we, you know, we're sort of feeling safe and calm and secure and in the soothing system. And what do we do when our babies are distressed or crying? We pick them up and give them some food. So.

[C]

Exactly.

[B]

It's sort of in there. Although it's, it's complicated. We have tricky brains, I suppose because sometimes food becomes the way that we settle the threat system but in a way that has unintended consequences then because it sort of causes other difficulties and sometimes the soothing system, but also really just that self compassionate motivation might be about how we, you know, just delay the urge perhaps for a little while longer, you know, in terms of having that next bit of food that the drive system kind of loves, the, the high sugars or you know, whatever it might be. And so it's, it's tricky. It's.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

It's about balance, I guess.

[C]

Yeah, it really is. I'm so, so glad you brought that up because I think that's so important. To name and perhaps might be one of the reasons in some ways why, why I'm here, why I'm motivated to be here. I'm very fortunate, I would say, to have a very good relationship with food. But what exactly what you described there, not everybody does. And I wonder if that could be one of the barriers, why nudging nutrition in the way that we've talked about here doesn't happen quite so much. Maybe why that doesn't happen because it's very easy, especially in, in our Western culture, in our, in our culture of plenty where you, you can go down the supermarket and you can find all kinds of foods from around the world and these ultra processed foods. And this is an economical aspect as well, isn't it? Kind of what can we afford to fill our cupboards with that. That can perpetuate quite sometimes a very tricky relationship with food and at its trickiest end is your eating disorders. But that's not, that's not where I'm going. And I know, you know, we've got people like lots of experts in that area, but I think we're recognizing that there's also disordered eating rather than an eating disorder. So it's not quite, it's not eating disorder, but it's not a healthy relationship with food either. It's, it's not a good relationship with food. It's maybe, you know, it's, it's maybe fearful, what is this food going to do for me? Or, you know, kind of in a fearful way, how's this, if I eat this, how's this, this going to affect my body shape immediately? Which is probably, you know, kind of quite, quite a tricky experience to have because it, food doesn't affect the body. The food doesn't affect body shape immediately. It's a slow process. And you know, things like whether we're driven to clear our plate or not. You know, I remember conversations at university with people who's like, I mustn't finish my plate. I have to stop eating before I've eaten all the food on my plate. And you know, kind of cognitive thoughts, you know, rules and assumptions around that, or other people saying, I have to finish my plate even if I'm served too much, which actually I'll probably fall a little bit more into. I've been exploring that in my own personal life, being like, stop when I feel full and satisfied, not when I finish my plate. And trying to obviously serve us or something, serve myself the right amount of food for that. But allowing myself to food waste, maybe that's that's a little tricky area for me. I don't like waste too much. So we all have this and I think that's food can become incredibly tricky and the three circles can be incredibly helpful to make sense of that. But that might be why we don't have these conversations as much as perhaps we could.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, that's. That's a really nice little kind of takeaway for me really is, is that you know, talking about the three circles quite a lot and with clients and so on. But it is interesting to think about how their food choices or diet or you know, their appetite and the ups and downs of all that might also map a little bit onto the three circles as well. And you remind me of course that we're born with tricky brains that are designed for us and not by us, but we're also shaped by experiences. And so a whole range of experiences around food and, and family or culture or generational kind of changes or influences there. So there really is a lot to it. I mean in some ways from a CFT compassion focused therapy point of view, we talk about the three flows of compassion and I can imagine that there are ways to think about where food fits across those three flows, whether it's be when we're expressing compassion for others or when we're opening ourselves up to receiving compassion. And then that, that self compassion piece as well.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, yeah absolutely. And you know what comes to mind when, when you mention that as well is I don't. There's certainly especially working in offices. In an office you, you not. There's often a feeder ah. The person who's always bringing food in. I don't know if that's something that you. That you might have noticed in I have. Where you went before. Yeah, yeah. And so we, there's. There's so much around food, isn't there? It's such a social thing. And we spoke briefly just then about the, the ideal social of you know, kind of when, when you, you're with your safe people and you've had a safe meal and then you're all kind of replete and satisfied and just enjoying time together. But there can be quite a lot of tricky behaviors and rules and assumptions in families and, and societies around food as well. Can't there that. That exactly. That we're nurtured by and how we take that. That forward.

[B]

Yeah yeah. I, I often share. I did a TedX talk a couple of years ago and it was just about my, my daughter and some of her really difficult health challenges. When she was a baby really. And the way that, that also, you know, kind of affected us or me and, and one of the things that happened for her was that she wasn't able to eat food, you know, kind of orally. So she, she's on, you know, parenteral nutrition. It's all, it's all in the TED, TEDx talk. She's given me permission to talk about it. But I just remember this one moment where I was really off my food myself and I didn't, didn't really feel like it, but also didn't feel like I should or you know, given what my daughter was going through. There was a weird feeling of, you know, like I probably shouldn't, I don't deserve to eat either. And my dear mother sort of came into the hospital to visit and so on and you know, out of care and concern and compassion, she brought in a little chocolate milk and sort of said, you know, hey, how about you just have a bit of this, you know, just to got to look after yourself, keep yourself going and that sort of stuff. And it was just a really. Well, it did. This is, this is literally 20 odd years ago. And it stuck in my mind sort of thing because it was such a powerful act of compassion from her. But it was also a challenge for me to open myself up to receiving that compassion as well. And then of course gradually turning compassion towards myself to, to kind of, you know, gradually get through everything which we did. And it's all sort of a good ending. But, but that's a kind of. I don't know that I just wondered your thoughts there or whether you've come across similar examples where nutrition really is a vehicle for compassion.

[C]

I wonder if. Yeah, as a vehicle for compassion. That's so lovely because food is, is like we said before, food is something that we do every day, multiple times a day. We eat every day, multiple times a day. And, and it is, it's a very physical giving, isn't it? But there's, there can be so much compassion infused in that. So something that comes to mind and it's going to sound a little bit like I'm too Timone horn here and, and I don't mean to sound in this way, but one of the things that comes to mind is I've got a couple of examples that I had a friend who lived around the corner from me and, and she told me that she was feeling really, really rotten with a really horrible cold. And this, this was pre covered times but I was already down, you know, kind of my own you know, kind of nutrition, nutritious food kind of journey and, and, and I can't remember exactly why I felt concerned. Concerns obviously I was moved by her suffering. Anyway, the short story being that I made her a chicken soup and so, and I, I just went out to the shop and I got some, I got some chicken wings and some chicken drumsticks. So chicken with, with. With the bones on and cartilage and I think had a pressure cooker so pressure cooked it so it gets all the good nutrients out of the bones and it's, it's quite, you know, kind of more. The leg is maybe it's got a bit more nutritiously dense meat to it than perhaps the breast and makes a really, you know, kind of good, healthy fats, nourishing broth with, with the bones from it. So. And I would have pulled the bones out, I think, and then, you know, putting in some onion and some carrots and just making this, this wholesome soup. Yeah. And I think a lot of cultures have this kind of soup. I was chatting with another, a colleague one time and in. He's from Liverpool and, And they, they have scouse, I think, you know, that they make. And, and in Bahamas they have Seuss, which is the same but bit spicy that I've had as part of a hangover. So obviously my friend's partner of the time went out and got Seuss from us all because we were all feeling rotten with a hangover. So I wasn't able to stop with my friends. But I made this overnight, went round the next morning and I dropped it on a door, knocked on the door and then had to go to work and just dropped this chicken soup round because I was moved by her suffering and I knew that this would be easy and nourishing for her, whether it had kind of an impact on, on her, the course of her illness. But I think, you know, kind of that, that, that she was, you know, really moved by that and I loved doing it. That was a skill. It was something that I knew that I had to offer and I had the time. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Oh, sorry. If we, if we think about the.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Just the definition of compassion, it's that it's that sensitivity to the suffering and then taking some sort of helpful action. And I think there can, you know, food definitely can be a vehicle for compassion in that way. And I was thinking, as you was, that particular incident occurred before COVID but there was some research I was involved with mainly led by Marcella Matosh and a number of others around the world. And it was found that in fact compassion increased over Covid and the, you know, and I do remember that one of the things that we would all do is we would drop things off to people when they were quarantined at home because of COVID and drop off meals, you know, specifically. So it is a beautiful example of how all this might fit together.

[C]

Yeah. And people do it when. With new couples, don't they? With newborn ones as well. And you know, kind of, I'll make you, let's freeze batch a bunch of food for you. There you go. And you don't have to think about it. We know that you're sleepless and doing your best. And even there was a, there was a TV advert which was exactly. That was it, you know, kind of someone lives next door to a couple that just had a baby and it was crying all the time and through the night. And the neighbor knocked, then knocked on. So you're seeing this advert. I can't remember what it's advert for before. But you know, the neighbor sort of was noticing the sound, rolling their eyes perhaps a little bit. So with they're building one narrative and then the neighbor knocks on and the, the couple are like, I'm so sorry, she just won't go to sleep sort of thing. And she's like, I'm not here to complain. I've made you some food. You must be exhausted, right? Yeah. And I can't remember what that was advertising. But you know, kind of this, this giving of food that the noticing, suffering and then the offering, it's actually, it's really quite a natural, authentic thing that we do, isn't it? Yeah. I think you're getting me to realize in this moment actually that perhaps when I'm doing CFT that maybe when we're doing the flows of compassion, it's something that I might integrate, you know, kind of that, that flowing compassion, the gifting and receiving food is such a tangible compassion act experience, isn't it? Yeah, I think there's a real, real.

[B]

Room for that chicken soup for the soul type thing, as they say. So.

[C]

All right.

[B]

Yeah, there you go. Well, Jen Daubin, I really do appreciate you coming and chatting with me. What's next for you? Maybe in terms of research or maybe also just in terms of your thinking about psychotherapy and nutritional therapy and compassion and self. Compassion.

[C]

Yeah. Thank you. Lovely question. So research wise, I'm currently working on seeing about getting my write up published. So fingers crossed that in the near future I've Had a lovely couple of opportunities to talk about it and presented it at a conference. I would love to carry on doing research. It's really difficult. I don't know if it's same in your sphere, but it's quite difficult. Being an active clinician and a researcher I feel like people seem to go down one path or the other. So I don't have any current plans for further research although I have a drive for it. It's just the opportunity see if we can create that and then clinic wise I'm really excited to explore explore my my who I'm going to be as as a nutritional therapist. So because this is such a new skill for me and that one that compared to I've been working in mental health and and delivering you know kind of common working with anxiety and depression etc for 10 years now which is quite amazing to kind of think how that that time has accrued and I'm not even one year old as nutritional therapist. So my intention is to. Is to start out keeping them a little bit more separate at first. The kind of the more in depth because nutritional therapy can go such in depth and into that almost we talked about nutritional psychiatry sphere. You know, kind of how we can really support things through the nuts and bolts that that personal oriented and really emphasizing personal oriented. We're all different. We all absorb nutrients in a different way for different reasons. And this is what nutritional therapy gets into into. It's like how can I help myself feel my best self? And I'm really passionate about that because I think a lot of us don't realize how good we could feel potentially through perhaps some of the common habits that we're making and but then yeah I think you know you've given me a lot of wonderful food for thought here. I'm going to continue you know, kind of including those nudges and that awareness and the flows of of nutrition and giving and sharing food. I think is. Is going to continue to be quite integral part of the way that I work as presents to me in that very collaborative relationship. So you know if it seems like that's a part of the formulation that that work that fits with that client then yeah I'm excited to go down there and through that. I would like to. I was already noodling on an idea of of a workshop. How can I kind of through my experience in case studies, you know kind of that confidence to my psychological therapy peers to use some of this in a safe way this. Because I think that we can and maybe I can bring my psychotherapy and behavior change side to the nutritional therapy sphere and maybe do some behavior change workshops and psychological mindedness in nutritional therapy side as well. So these are the big ideas that I've got and it's forward to building.

[B]

On, well, nutritional compassion or compassionate nutrition. But whatever it is, you're doing excellent, excellent work in this area. Fascinating stuff. Jen Dauben, thank you very much for being on Compassion in a T shirt.

[C]

Thank you, Stan. It's been an absolute delight to be here today.

[B]

Great.