The Therapy Edit - One Thing with Dr Jenna on the impact of self-compassion on immunity

Episode Date: March 31, 2023

In this latest episode of The Therapy Edit, Anna is joined by Dr Jenna Macciochi, immunologist, health coach, author, lecturer and twin mum, as they discuss her One Thing: the incredibly powerful impact that self-compassion can have on our immunity.Of course, the usual pillars of health - sleep, movement, nutrition - play a role in keeping us healthy, but what if we could reduce negative infammation in our bodies and live a healthier life simply by being kinder to ourselves?Listen in as Dr Jenna breaks down the science behind the mind-body connection, in her typically straightforward and accessible way. It's mind-blowing!Find Dr Jenna hereFollow Dr Jenna on Instagram hereBuy her book here

Hello and welcome to The Therapy Edit with me, psychotherapist's mum of three and author Anna Martha. Every Friday, I invite one guest to tell me the one thing they would most like to share with mums everywhere. So join with me as we hear this dose of wisdom. I hope you enjoy it. Hi, everyone. Welcome to today's guest episode of The Therapy Edit. I'm really excited to have with me today, Dr. Jen Machoki. She is an immunologist, an author.

She's got books called Immunity, The Science of Staying Well, and also Your Blueprint for Strong Immunity. She is passionate about delivering and communicating all the scientific information in a way that can really allow us to put things into our lives, whether it's around habit, whether it's around how we shape our kind of our lifestyle. how we approach food or with the aim of building better immunity. I love her Instagram. Jen, I absolutely love your Instagram. I learn so much every time one of your posts kind of, every time I skip over it on my feed, I learn so much just about immunity,

stuff I never would have thought about before. And yeah, and it's how you communicate the science in a way that we can actually take and implement in our lives that will benefit our immunity. because we're always talking about all these bugs going around or these viruses going around and our reaction might just be to kind of wash our hands a little bit extra but there is so much more that we can do to support ourselves, isn't there?

Yeah, it's such a fascinating topic. I'm glad you liked the Instagram. It's like my own little sandbox for ideas and I love that I can interact with people and really get to share lots of this fascinating world that I'm so passionate about. And what kind of led you to learning more about immunity? Is it, did you enjoy the science?

Is it the science that you love? And then just finding ways to, I guess it's driven by passion, isn't it? To get it into the hands and hearts and minds of people in a way that we can understand it. Yeah. I mean, I think I probably didn't have very good advice on careers when I was younger. I don't know if any of us did back then. but I stumbled into the field and then sort of fell in love with it. And I think I was sort of in my 20s working in London,

you know, complete burnout for the first time. And I thought, gosh, I know all the stuff about this one system in her body which keeps as well. And I'm not applying any of that to myself. So it's kind of a wake-up call to be like, well, you know, I've got the tools at my fingertips. I know what to do. So why not try and stuff?

applying that to myself and then sharing that more widely. Because there's a big gap between the sort of new cutting edge science coming out and that trickling down to large audiences. And I think nowadays we have all these mechanisms to share through social media and podcasting. So it's speeding up and closing that gap, which is wonderful. So it's been a really nice journey to be part of that. That's amazing. Because I think if I was to read, I love reading the medical journal, a piece of research every now and again, but it can be really hard just to kind of grasp What the heck? What are the takeaways here? How can I actually apply this, you know, these words that I don't necessarily understand into my life. And that is what that is what you're so passionate about doing and do so well is taking all of that knowledge and sharing it with people in a way that is really implementable and all those light bulb moments you have on your feed of, oh my gosh, wow. I can do, I can do this and I can positively impact my family and myself. So thank you so much. for all that you do. And I'm really excited, really excited to hear the one thing then with all that

amazing knowledge that you have. What is the one thing that you would love to share with all the mum's listening? Yeah, I mean, I'm sure when I generally talk to people about the immune system, the first things that come to mind are, you know, cold and flus or vitamin C, those kind of things. And so I've been on this journey to, because I was really convinced that there's much more to it than that and there is. And there was a big sort of revelation for me as a mother going back to work for the first time when my kids were small when I stumbled upon some research around self-compassion. So that's my one thing. And this was something you didn't necessarily think about when you think of your immune system. But it was based on these studies where they were

teaching people how to employ self-compassion in their lives and be more self-compassionate. And they found that when we get stressed, so the sort of bad type of stress, it can induce an immune response in the form of inflammation. So this is a kind of bad type of inflammation. We have two in our body. We have helpful inflammation. And then we have the one that's more sort of precursor to lots of chronic health problems that we know we need to sort of get rid of.

And when people are taught self-compassion techniques and then experience these stressful moments in their life, they had a significantly reduced inflammatory response. So this negative inflammation that we don't want could be reduced just by being kinder to ourselves. And I was like, whoa, you know, mind-blown. Wow. Because we have all these, you know, anti-inflammatory.

diets, anti-inflammatory supplements, we get told exercise as anti-inflammatory, getting a good night's sleep as anti-inflammatory. And, you know, as a mum, like I have twins and I found it really difficult going back to work when they were small and that transition. I just didn't sort of deal with it very well. But, you know, you're not getting good sleep, even though everything's telling you sleep is so important for your immune system and for your general well-being. You might not be eating very well because you're very sleep deprived and you're adjusting. to being back at work and, you know, exercise, you might not have time to go to the gym. You're re-establishing what exercise looks like for you now as a mother, which could be very

different to before you had kids. But what you can do is be self-compassionate in those difficult moments. You might not be able to do the other stuff very well, but you can probably take a moment to just have a bit of self-kindness. Instead of mercilessly judging, criticizing ourselves, for all our inadequacies and shortcomings, we can be kind and understanding when confronted with those moments that we feel like a failure. And I think I don't know about anyone listening as a parent,

but I certainly get confronted with those moments far more frequently than I did before having children for some reason that kind of self-criticism sort of amps up a bit, doesn't it, when you have little ones to be responsible for? Wow. this is, this is wild. This is incredible.

I'm just sat here. You can kind of see me just shaking my heads like in amazement. Because I've, I've been speaking for years about self-compassion. I would say that self-compassion has totally changed my life and how we can move to that place where it takes a lot of intentionality and it can be quite tiring and draining starting to bring another narrative into that self-critical dialogue that is often, you know,

running through our mind. but in time we can strengthen that and it can often then amazingly turn to be the more dominant and often more responsive voice. So it is possible and I've always gone on about the benefits to self-esteem and the other relationships that we have in our minds and how that relationship that we have with ourselves is the most important one. But now you're adding a whole other incredible layer to this conversation that says not only is it good for all of those things, but actually there is research to show that as we

develop this compassionate response to ourselves, we are actually supporting ourselves in a very powerful and physical way, lowering that negative kind of inflammation in our body and building our immune system. Yeah. This is incredible. And we see this is like empirical data. We can measure it in people's blood. And it just, for me, I'm really fascinated by this mind-body connection at the moment. It's really hooked me in. And, you know, just really opening that conversation about the things that we have in our head are very physical as well. And we do have those sensations that butterflies in a stomach or, you know, maybe feeling a bit breathlessness or, you know, if we're panicking about something, we get physical sensations. But we don't really always kind of,

integrate the two together and really when I started looking at the research on this and you can you know these ways of measuring our immune system that are very empirical and hard data coming out but just through accessing our sort of psychology which I just found fascinating yeah I think I think for many years I used to the way I saw myself was I am a head that owns the body and this body is just a tool that I have and it gets me around me being my head and I think it could be a real journey in recognizing that we need to be listening to our bodies our bodies are part of who we are

and there's a lot of chat now around the gut and how gut health is so important in helping us produce some of the hormones that worked towards kind of good mental health like serotonin and impact our sleep but yeah that that self-compassionate voice and how you're right we might not be getting the sleep we need

we might not be getting the nutrition we need but actually this is one thing we can start doing now so for those listening who are thinking my gosh this is incredible but Jen what does that even look like I haven't even noticed that I have a critical voice

until this moment when you start you've got me thinking but what do what do I do to develop that self-compassion that will help my immune system that will help my body Yeah, I think it's, first of off, like, the awareness piece. I mean, this is sort of based on my own personal experience with this,

is just having that awareness that we do have that critical voice that might be being amplified, particularly, you know, in that journey of motherhood. And realizing that we know from the science that that just isn't helpful, like, you know, getting really crossed with ourselves for something we consider a personal form. failing is not a good stimulus to get us to succeed at that thing in the future. So, I mean, the classic example is sort of healthy eating, you know, and then we go and devour a whole tub of

ice cream and then spend the next 24 hours feeling terrible about ourselves. That feeling bad doesn't help you on the journey to maybe making small improvements to your diet. So it's just stopping that sort of critical judgment and just being warm and understanding towards ourselves if we feel inadequate or do something that we're unhappy with. So it's stopping that flagellation with self-criticism and just recognising that we're all imperfect and being quite gentle.

I think it's a bit of a journey because it certainly isn't something that I could do overnight. I was really struck by the research and then it was that constant pause and awareness that made me slowly start to bring it into my everyday life. And then feeling like we're the only ones, so this sort of common humanity, that, you know, it's only us that, you know,

could be in this situation. And then the sort of final piece, which is one of these three elements of self-compassion, the self-kindness, the common humanity, and then the final piece is, really mindfulness and I think that's again with the sort of slowing down just stopping and having that moment with yourself to have that conversation reminding yourself that you care about yourself because then you are able to care for the other people in your life that you love

such as your children and you will of course encounter frustrations and come up against you know bumps in the road or do things that fall short of what you set out to do and sort of just opening ourselves up for that and being a bit more mindful about how we react in those moments. And it really feels like a superpower. I just think, why did no one tell me this? Why did they get to this age before I learned this stuff? It should be taught in school, shouldn't it? It's in the school curriculum. It should be. And I think I've learned so much through parenting about my own dialogue in the way that I speak to my children because there is no way that I would

talk to my children the way that I have spoken to myself historically. And it brought to mine a moment this morning where my daughter was having a tantrum on the stairs and I had to get everyone out to preschool and school. And like, I think what I have done to myself in a way is previously, it's kind of shout at myself, you know, think, you know, Anna, come on, you need to put yourself together. You need to, we need to get going. This is ridiculous. Stop being silly over something so insignificant and I would never say that to my child and if I had done what would have happened it wouldn't have helped it wouldn't have helped her feel seen and validated and comforted and what I try to do don't always do this perfectly of course is get down to her level and

give her a cuddle and comfort her in that and then we're far more likely to find a way to get out the door and I think I've had a client say to me you know but the critical voice that keeps me in check. It keeps me motivated. It keeps me doing well and driving forward when actually it may well. It does work. But what are the costs? Yeah. You know, there are mental costs and it, it's damaging to our self-esteem. We're consistently bullying ourselves. But you're also saying here that not only that it's not great for our physical health, yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I think that was something I, my immediate reaction, just learning about self-compassion was like, oh, but But if I start doing that, it's all going to fall apart.

Like, I need to have this, you know, beating myself up because that's what drives me forward. But then I was like, well, actually, then when I zoom out and look at it, there are costs. And I'm not happy with these parts of, you know, how I'm dealing with certain situations. So I think in some ways, sometimes you hit that sort of rock bottom moment when you're like, what else do I have to lose? But to give this a try. And I think being a mother, you want your kids to have tools to. effectively navigate life. And so I thought it's really important that I learn this because I want them to learn this so that they're going to be kind to themselves. And they're at the age now where

they're starting to come home from school with feelings of inadequacy about something that happened or, you know, those difficult social situations. And so it's important that they are able to learn and understand how to practice self-kindness to themselves. And so then I have to also hold myself to that as well. And I bet they'll be benefiting, and I often think this, when I am being kind to myself and just hearing myself and leaving that margin for humanness that I think when we're super self-critical, there's little margin, is there? There's no, we're either done it right or we've done it wrong when we need punishing. Yeah. And actually, when we add that margin back in, you know, it's like, well, we're trying to do, we're trying to do a good job. And I know that in my

body, I feel calmer when I approach it like that. Yeah. It doesn't mean I'm less productive. It doesn't mean that I do things less well. It just means that I'm bringing humanness into it. And I can feel that they're more relaxed when I'm not on edge, beating myself up. Because I think our nervous systems, our bodies are always kind of responding to each other as well, a level that perhaps we don't, we don't always see. So that is so, that is so incredibly powerful. So you're saying it's about awareness to begin with just start to be aware of how you're talking to yourself think about adding back in that that margin for for humanness and try and introduce a different calm or compassionate way and

your benefit not only in your mind but in your body too that is amazing thank you well it's changed it's obviously changed your life and I know that there'll be so many going away from this podcast and feeling like it has changed theirs as well So to finish off, I would love to ask you some quickfire questions. I haven't told you, I know, you're a bit surprised I have told you what they are. But don't worry, don't overthink them. But Jen, I'd love to hear, what is a motherhood high for you? Oh, just watching those moments.

Like being an observer, you know, when you just catch them and they don't know they're being watched and they're just exploring who they are. And the garbage time, I call it. You know, it's not all about the big events. It's just about enjoying the time when you're just doing nothing, you're just hanging out, the new agenda. And that's, yeah, that's really nice. That makes you happy.

And what's low for you in motherhood? Oh, God. So many, I think, just that is that hindsight. Now I look back when they were really little, and I was like, oh, if only I knew, like, no, no, I would have dealt with that really differently. I think a law was when I went back to work, I felt like I couldn't tell people that I was a mother of young children. I had to have this kind of face on of professionalism.

And I didn't want people to think that being a mum was somehow affecting my performance. And actually now I'm very opposite. I'm like, you know, I'm very much advocating for working mothers and making sure that we are protecting people in that situation. And yeah, so it's been a big 360. So there's been a shift. Yeah, but that time of that mask,

all that was going on at home when you were in that professional space. It must be hard. And what's one thing that makes you feel good? Anything about you? Something that makes you feel good. Oh, yeah. Just being outdoors, being in nature,

being in green space, just, yeah, noticing how nature deals with the seasons, you know, like those frosty mornings and just thinking, oh, it's so beautiful. And just thinking, oh, you know, it's cold. I don't want to get out of bed. I don't want to go to work. But just being like, look how nature is coping with this.

It's just, yeah, it's nice. And just realizing the seasons change and we can change too. Oh, and wonder is so good for our mental health. And I'm sure you would be able to say that it is so good for our bodies as well and our immune systems. And how would you describe to finish off motherhood in three words? Oh, gosh. It's challenging one. Yeah, a roller coaster, an oxymor.

and yeah the biggest sense of purpose that I could ever imagine yeah yeah that resonates well thank you so much and I encourage people to head over to your Instagram your Jen Machoki had to ask you about your beautiful your beautiful name now I think I got it right and also just if you want to learn a little bit more about all of these incredible things that you can do to support your your immune system and your body and, you know, your family's immune systems as well. Her books, Immunity, The Science of Staying Well, and also your blueprint for strong immunity, all totally cutting through the jargon and giving you really implementable, understandable information. So thank you so much. Thanks, Jen. It's been lovely chatting to you.

Thanks for having me. Thank you for listening to today's episode of The Therapy Edit. If you were enjoyed it, please do share, subscribe or review because it makes a massive difference to how many people it can reach. You can find more from me on Instagram at Anna Martha. You might like to check out my three books, Mind Over Mother, Know Your Worth, and my new book, The Little Book of Calm for New Mums, grounding words for the highs, the lows and the moments in between. It's a little book. You don't need to read it from front to back. You just pick whatever emotion resonates to find a mantra, a tip and some supportive words to bring comfort and clarity.

You can also find all my resources, guides and videos, all with the sole focus of supporting your emotional and mental well-being as a mum. They are all £12 and you can find them on anamatha.com. I look forward to speaking with you soon.