STRESS & decision making heading into 2022.

The following is the transcript of a talk I gave on ‘STRESS and decision making around the current pandemic’ as part of a global freedom rally.

I’m going to define a few terms throughout this talk just to ensure we are all on the same page. Firstly:

DEFINE: Physiology is branch of biology that deals with the the physical and chemical phenomena involved in the functions and activities of life and living matter (such as organs, tissues, and cells). In clinical practice this sits somewhere in the middle of the mind (psychology - subjective in nature) and body (think physiotherapy - objective) and includes to management of metabolic issues such as obesity, heart disease, diabetes etc.

Now, a look at the current health landscape, keeping my comments in this talk to ‘western culture’ which we as Australians fall under. We, as a culture, are on a decline in health across the board – this was evident before COVID. Physically and mentally things are on a poor trajectory, and people with no confidence in their health are understandably concerned. This pandemic has put forward the narrative that the answers to the current health problems lie in some new, complex medication and its continual use. Now, as much as modern medicine has saved countless lives, it is also the 3rd biggest killer of humans behind heart disease and cancer. Health isn’t a reflection of your vaccine status, it’s a reflection of your lifestyle and choices.

I put forward the idea that more answers to the health issues plaguing us today are to be found in nailing your basic physiological needs - how well you breathe, sleep, move and eat. That’s where I practice from, that’s my businesses tag line and it’s how I help improve the quality of life of my clients.

Next definition is:

DEFINE: STRESS – anything we perceive as a threat which results in a physiological response (HR, BP, cognitive changes). This can be physically in front of us, or a product of the mind – either way our body responds via our physiology. Things happen under the hood.

Helping people understand their unique stress response is perhaps the area of physiology I have been sharpening my edge on for the past few years. In working with war veterans to manage PTSD and physical pain, with children who are neurodivergent (ASD/ADHA), through to professional mma fighters. The more well equipped you feel to handle the stressors of your life, the better. This extends beyond the individual also, as they improve their ability to be less emotionally reactive, they have the potential to excel further (sporting context) or simply be a better father/mother/friend. As those who are stressed for prolonged periods of time can make poor decisions and burn bridges. We’ve all been upset and said something we regret later.

But stress is what drives us in the same way an explosion is how most of us travel. The small explosion in a combustion engine is how it operates, not enough and the car won’t start, too much and it will blow up, just the right amount at the right time… you’re in for a ride. Stress is the same, and ‘throttle control’ when it comes to stress, is a skill worth learning.

Let’s talk about the stress of COVID. And no matter your political ideology or belief system, I’m going to try and speak about the over-arching experience for all of us in this country as it unfolded. The shared reality we are all in today.

The simple fact I need to preface political ideology when I’m speaking about health is a red flag. Politics, capitalism, and perpetual corporate growth muddy the waters of health in ways I don’t think you can understand unless you’re entrenched in it. I assure you it’s worse the might you think.

What’s also difficult is that reality has so many possibilities today. So much information comes to us via personal devices that run on concerningly addictive algorithm that know you better then you do.

NEIGHBOURS can be living in two very different realities, and the scary part is they both think they are right.

The shared reality we are currently experiencing is a bit of a hard pill to swallow if we are honest with ourselves. There are things you need to say in hushed tones, depending on where you are, that shouldn’t need to be quiet. Things are tense and reality, regardless of your choices, is uncomfortable. People are understandably afraid – but what if we didn’t need to be?

What if we don’t need this ‘new normal’ of compulsory medications, segregation, and perpetual fear. What if we simply need the old normal + COVID? Like every illness before it, there are things you can do to limit your risk of contracting it, and plenty you can do to help treat it if you were to become ill. But I’ll get to that a little later.

Let’s look about when this new COVID stress started. At the time I was working exclusively with war veterans – mostly elderly people with numerous co-morbidities – so my team and I were paying close attention. I needed to help them manage their fear and anxiety daily.

What was evident very early on was the media reporting was always dramatic (click bait entertainment). After a little deeper look with a clinical eye, that is to apply critical thinking to my field of expertise, it wasn’t what it seemed. Also, people who pointed this out, or provided positive ideas such as supplements, like Vit D, to help manage illness or reduce risk – were shadow banned, censored or had their character assassinated. Another Red flag.

For context, we understand how an illness works (or destroys) by assessing its pathophysiology – What does the pathology (illness) do to your physiology – then we can sort of reverse engineer ideas to try help.

This catastrophising was a problem – I would see it on the TVs at the gym all day – It played to our fears and emotions, relentlessly. Media companies were, and are, printing money off playing into this. Commercial radio and TV, which prior to this were struggling to compete with the YouTube/internet streaming services, just got a 100% tax rebate for dividing a nation at the whim of pollical leaders. Red flag.

Fear works though, especially when our attention is the real currency these companies want – attention = data = marketing = billions. A simple example of this fear cycle is how they tracked this illness.

First it was positive cases, then hospitalisations, then deaths (local/global), then back to hospitalisations, then back to cases, then in our country ‘exposure sites’ and ‘number of people exposed’ Thanks to those tracking apps that fed them data to scare you with. See the game? what’s the biggest number we can flash across the screen/radio to keep you afraid. This is not what you do to keep your community safe, it never has been.

So, as I was paying close attention and doing my own research – which became a meme insinuating that if you do your own research you’re an idiot. That’s not to say everyone should either – as I said this is my field or employment and over 6yrs of university study.

We were told to ‘listen to the experts.’ But when ‘health experts’ resemble soft cheese stuffed into a power suit, I start to question their expertise. A retort to that was – ‘oh no the bureaucrats (soft cheese) get their information from the experts.’ Cool, who are they? What are their qualifications? how many are lawyers and career politicians? Can any of them run up a few flights of stairs without fear of cardiac arrest? Like a complex maths problem, can I see how they worked out their answers? That kind of transparency would have been refreshing.

And quite frankly I would get so disappointed being told by these people, that health is a measure of your vaccine status, not physiological measures, and capacities.

Imagine if a real health passport was implemented early on – where you needed to go through strength, endurance, body composition and mental health evaluations prior to being able to use elements of society? Coincidentally people at high risk from COVID would do poorly on elements of this have to stay home. But back then it would be discriminatory to lock people out of society, and instead they resorted to blanket policy around lockdowns, social distancing, and mask mandates, even if the closest covid case was 500km away.

You couldn’t disagree with this either or you would be ridiculed publicly, many people’s worse nightmare. When the people in charge actively encourage you to not investigate or ‘look into’ something, just ‘do what your told’ we have another red flag. Add to this the very clear gag orders released by the AMA to GPs – ‘follow the party line or else’ – GIANT red flag. Medicine should be devoid of political ideology. Politics is the land of lies, false promises, coercion and corruption – keep that shit away from medicine. This killed open discussion with your GP – so maybe that’s why things were missed?

Things such as supplement considerations like Vit A, B5, D, E, liposomal Vit C, and glutathione. Particularly for those at high risk or high fear. To address fear, you use understanding and capacity building, not continual exposure and threats.

Stress supresses our immune system in a very real way, hence the wisdom in the saying ‘don’t worry yourself sick.’ But we know fear gets more clicks and politicians, historically, love a chance to play God. A concerning trend in a societies where traditional religion dies is that politics often starts filling the gap. It gives people a group identity and we all love a good ‘us vs them’ story.

I’m afraid however, that many out there are just a little mistaken about who the ‘them’ is. Its not your parent, friend or colleague who maybe thinks differently to you. It’s the people and companies who think dividing families is the way forward. Politely, fuck them.

If hospitals being overrun are a concern, where are the extra ICU beds promised? Where is the public discussion and debate of relevant TREATMENTS once sick – seems to be the logical next step if we were to stick to health principals. Would give a lot of people some piece of mind also.

So now we are here, Covid has been around for nearly 2 years and it never got close to its initial mortality estimates and we understand how to manage and most importantly treat an infection. That’s the most important thing because the vaccine didn’t do what they told us it would. There have been countless breakthrough cases and deaths of those deemed ‘fully vaxed’ in our country and around the world. That alone should have thwarted the idea of mandates as this treatment only provides safety to the individual – yet we have premiers saying that covid ‘will hunt down the unvaccinated’ and one of the today show types ran a segment saying ‘should you invite the unvaccinated over for Christmas, should you sit next to them at dinner, how do you know if they are vaccinated.’

This push to divide houses and communities is disgusting. In its truest sense it makes my skin crawl. This places unnecessary stress on everyone, regardless of what side you’re on. If you think the unvaccinated are walking death traps, the associated fear of this world view may result in be you being afraid of your family members/neighbours and you not leaving the house often. That’s a stressful way to live your life. And if you take care of health in different ways and believe your body can take on a virus with a small risk of death, power to you, but they want to lock you out of society. Stressful things.

As I’ve already said, stress of a high level over time, eats away at us physically and mentally. So why would you push this narrative in the name of health? In the name of gaining attention, profits, and power – sure. But not health. This rhetoric makes us blinded by fear and emotionally reactive – we say and do silly things in this state. We are susceptible to false idols – I struggle to understand worship of the likes of Fauci, bill gate, dan Andrews, and Anastasia Palascak by rational minded people.

This division is hurting everyone, most importantly or alarmingly is its effect on children. I also deal with paediatric mental health clients and any psychologist worth their salt has a 6-8 month wait list. Children pick up on much more than many parents can comprehend and they are often more skilled than their parents on the internet. That means they are seeing the stories of kids dying of issues related to the jabs and that they now want to ‘rush to approve’ these vaccinations for them too. I feel for these kids, they are about as close to 0 risk of serious illness from a COVID infection, and if they did get it they would be provided with dramatically more effective immunity. What are we doing? That is a whole different talk, however.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel.

I feel we are at a turning point and things can shift if we stop acting from a place of fear, panic, and stress. These make us selfish and narrow minded. The only way you can think that vaccinating children and segregating society based on a medication that is mediocre at best, is if you’re afraid. And that’s okay, but you don’t need to be. Because everyone can potentially catch and spread covid – unfortunately. But as I keep saying, there are things we can use to help reduce your risk of death – so relax and maybe start having that conversation with your doctor or health care provider? So that way you’re prepared, across the board, to take on what life throws at you.

Maybe you said or did some silly things through this pandemic out of fear, maybe it’s uncomfortable to admit you were wrong and you’re sorry. That’s because it is uncomfortable, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. Many of the most important things are uncomfortable at times, however when you’re honest it inspires more honesty in others.

And now is a good time to get your health together in a real way if you’re afraid of this illness. Which we now know means a lot more than a jab. It means going outside for walks as often as you can, sitting and slow your breathing down, drinking more water, speaking to your friends, family, and community about things you come together on – focus on the similarities you share, we have plenty - and embrace the differences. Feel the life come back into you.

Everyone keeps saying ‘history repeats itself’ when referring to some of the negative, authoritarian aspects of our leaders – and they are correct in their concern, let’s not have that happen again. But let’s look at this aspect of history – the roaring 20’s – it came after the Spanish flu pandemic (which thank god this wasn’t) and inspired the great Gatsby. That’s because of the shared struggle everyone had to go through brought everyone together and life was a party.

While we didn’t go through the same pandemic in the sense of viral deadliness – the complete mismanagement of this thing on a global scale has left its mark on all of us. We want to go back to life plus covid. If you’re at risk be smart – do what you need to do to feel safe and allow everyone else to do that same thing. When you seek safety from sources outside of yourself, you’ll never find it, we can’t control others, only ourselves. If an organisation or group tells you otherwise, or that they will control people for you and your safety, I would be skeptical of their approach. It often results in more suffering for all.

So, let’s all just get out come together, stop giving these organisations that push division our attention and dollars, and move forward with freedom and love.