The 5 things you need to do for ultimate wellness

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Welcome to Behind the Drapes.

I'm your host Brent Draper aka Drakes, and I'm Shanlee Draper and we're here to talk about stuff according to us. Hey guys, it's Draper here and I was naked on the Golkos Highway.

Yoah, buddy, She's made to give her You are a strong woman.

So today we've got an incredible wound by the name of Angela Davies here with us in the studio. And first and foremost, Ange is a really good friend of ours who we adore and we feel so grateful to have in our lives. And second to that, she's got an amazing story. So she climbed the corporate ladder for over fifteen years, only to unfortunately crash and burn kind of hard after her mental health and well being started

Thank you, thanks for having me.

So good to have you here. So Ange, let's dive straight in. You had a really extensive corporate career. You worked in the banking sector. There something happened, right so, I think it was twenty twenty two. You're driving in your car and something happened and that really shifted everything for you when it came to your career and your health. So can you tell us about that time please?

I guess long story short, I had a really tough year that year. Personally, I had a miscarriage three days after my birthday, after I'd on my way home from Eden Health Retreat. Ironically, I was quite traumatic. My neighbor had to drive me to the hospital. Lamb was away. It was just a bit of an ordeal. And then two weeks later, the floods hit in the Northern Rivers and I reckon about seventy percent of our customers on our.

Book or impacted by those floods.

Huge, so very quick I had to forget about what happened two weeks ago and turned to just help our customers. Somehow and advocate for them, help our teams. Our Lizma office was entirely underwater, and so very quickly focused on that. And then Liam got diagnosed with a chronic health condition two months after that, and so there were just multiple things that had happened that alive, right, this stuff happens in life.

But instead of stopping and.

Looking after myself, I just kept pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing. And I was in a client meeting in a really hot shed and I just felt myself feeling dizzy, the walls closing in, and I just excused myself. Thank god one of my bankers was there and could continue with the meeting. And I left and I jumped in you know the bank fullell drive and got on the freeway, and I honestly thought I was having a heart attack, Like my heart was pounding.

Out of my chest. I could not see, Like.

I was like so scary driving like.

Drop one hundred and ten kilometer an hour road, so not even just in the backstreets.

And I pulled over because.

I was like I can't breathe, Like I was like something's happened, going to die, a full body shut down what it felt like, and so I pulled over on the side of the road. I called Liam, my husband, and I was just like, something's wrong, like I think about having a heart attack. And he's like the calmest man you've ever met, and he was just like just breathing.

Hell just happened?

Like, and so, being the maniac and atype personality that I am, immediately I was like, what happened? So I think I need to study psychology. I don't understand what happened. Probably about two weeks after that, I found a way to apply for my master's in psychology because I was like, I need to figure out what happened.

What happened after that when she realized you weren't having a heart attack, which is like so common, right, like so many people that don't understand what you know anxiety is or panic attacks that's the sort of common theme that you hear is that they think they're having a heart attack, which is so scary. And you were so young. How old are you now, thirty eight? So you were yeah, thirty thirty six six, Yeah, so so young.

Yeah, So I thought I was like, was that a panic attack? Like I thought that, But then at the same time, I was teaching twenty pilartates classes a week, at the same time as working sixty hours in banking a week.

And so and dealing with a flood crisis by the way, Yeah, so like not just working normal hours, like people were really heavily relying on you and in bad situations.

Yeah, absolutely, And that continued for months and months, and so I was like, oh, I've got to get ready to teach my polarates class. So I just went back to it, back to it. Yeah, same as when I had the miscarriage. I was like, oh, I think I could need to go teach polarates, and my doctor's like, you need to go to the hospital immediately.

Yeah.

So this is why I had.

The panic attack, because I was not listening to what my body needed and it screamed at me until I listened.

Of course, it did. Yeah, well that's what they say, right, Like, if you're not listening to it, or you kind of you're not listen to your brain, your body will tell you what to do.

Yeah, but it will stop yep.

So okay, So this happens, and then you start thinking, okay, I need to figure out what happened to me mentally or psychologically. There there's something not right. Yeah, and you decide I'm gonna gree study, which is funny because like, let's just add one more thing to the plate, you know, like I'm very busy, ye, so let's add Masters of Psychology. What happened from there?

So I got accepted, and I was like, how am I going to do twenty hours of pilates, fifty to sixty hours of work, and then twenty to thirty hours a week of Masters.

Like I'm a banker, you do the maths. There's no space for that.

And so very quickly I realized I was going to have to quit my full time job. Yeah, I couldn't do it, and it was really important for me to study, and so I didn't quit immediately. I guess working in finance, I'm very conscious of making sure that I had enough when I did quit, and so I saved six months worth of my salary before I felt comfortable to leath.

Yeah big call. Yeah, like that's a huge poor to quit your job. Yeah, just a job. You had a very big career with a lot of people that were relying on you. You were like, no, I need to go first.

I've never done that in my life.

Like it was always my team before me, anyone else before me. And also so much of my identity was tied to what I did. You know, I wasn't just a I was ange and this is what I do, and so there was a lot to unpack. But I just knew I'm very much a person who goes with my gut with a lot of things, and I just knew that was what.

I had to do.

Amazing, So let's talk practical steps. So what did you actually do because we can talk about like, you know, then I went and studied, and then I decided to quit my job. But like that stuff didn't happen straight away. No, I didn't just like magically overnight and start feeling better. I don't imagine. I know, you know the amount of stress that you carried, you know, trauma and those kind of things and stuff takes a while to sort of dissipate,

Yeah, and a big risk, right, you know, you're giving up a really good job. I guess I had dropped the ego and I was like, if we really need money on stack shelves at Coles.

Like, you know, for me, I'm like, I knew that we would be okay. And I knew once.

I got accepted that I needed to save, and so I was a maniac, like I scrutinized every bit of my budget. I knew what I had to save and I knew that if I had six months up my sleeve of my salary, that I'd be able to last probably about a year.

A yeah, yeah, yeah, that's amazing.

So I was like, if I just say that, that just gives me the buffer to just go and study and feel.

Okay, did you have to pay for your study upfront?

Well, you can put it on hex what's it called?

If you?

But then I did that, then I paid it.

This was really hard for me, and as someone who does not like to relax and does not like quiet time, because I felt like I had to hustle from such a young age. I felt like, what am I missing out on? If I'm not hustling? Am I being lazy? You get ahead by hustling and working. And all of this taught me in twenty twenty two that you have nothing if you don't have your health. And it sounds like a cliche to say, but that was right there

And I would say it took me a full year to really heal the burnout while I was studying.

I mean, your nervous system would have just been absolutely firing. Yeah, Like you would have just been a bit of a result. Yeah. Like it's a bit of a hot message in terms of like your brain probably couldn't even compute certain things because you were that burnt out.

And I couldn't remember anything. I'd say things to people and then I'd repeat it, and I was like, am I getting Alzheimer's? Like quite seriously, I was like, am I developing dementia?

Like?

Why can't I remember this stuff?

But it was just because when you're in a stressed state or a traumatic state, your brain doesn't lay down memories. Your body starts letting go of functions that it doesn't need, and your brain in particular when you're stressed, because it's like I've got to send everything.

To deal with the stress. So it took a whole year.

And is that why they say that people who have trauma in their childhood don't remember? Like can have people say that don't remember the childhood.

Yeah, when you're in a traumatic state, your brain doesn't lay down memories and so it takes for you to feel safe typically for those to come back. So I

But I think more.

Important than that is being able to just take time to pause and check in with how you're really feeling, because it's very easy to keep going, going, going, going, going and not know how you're feeling. Changing your environment is really important as well, because everything is the same in your environment. So I say a lot, you've got kids, when do you get a moment? I say to take the micro moments because if you look at your screen time on your phone right now, how many hours is it?

So could you when you.

Do the groceries and maybe drapes has got Bowie and Alfie's at school, sit for five minutes in the car and do some of the Stanford breathing, you know, big signing through the nose, extra sip of air, big long ex How there's a really really good tool. It's called implementation intentions. So it's part of a behavior change model. And what it is is you create a handful of if then sentences. If I'm feeling anxious, I.

Go for a run.

If I'm feeling overwhelmed at home, I go for a ten minute walk around the block.

Yeah.

If I have five minutes before an appointment, I do my Stanford breathing.

Yes, not a scroll Instagram because it's accessible to me and it's a quick dopamine hit.

Absolutely.

A really good way to stop the scrolling is to turn your phone to grayscale. If you want grayscale, so it's like black and white.

Never heard of it? Oh, I did do that. I do not disturb. I love that. Yeah, but then I find myself like turning it off. Sometimes. Yeah, Like eight o'clock at night, I'm like, cool, do not disturb by Like eight thirty, I'm like in bed about to watch Bloody Vanda Pump Rules, And I'm like, oh, under, Like we're so dumb. We set ourselves up for failure.

All the time. No, we're not dumb. We are not dumb.

The apps are playing to what they know our brain wants. Like, it is not us being dumb. Our brain knows it's going to get that little false dopamine hit every time that it looks, and you get a new little like or a new piece of information. There are two things that are really helpful for that. There's an app called opal okay that you install on your phone and you set what apps you want to shut down and from what times, and once you've set it, you cannot unset it.

But the day that's what the iPhones do with screen time?

Is that?

Why is it different?

I don't think it is the same.

So it actually shuts the apps down like you cannot oh you can't open.

Them, okay, because you can on the iPhone like Instagram. I've done that and it's like do you want another fifteen minutes?

Yes?

I do of course I do. I'm not going to just shut that shit down.

Okay, people does not allow the fifteen minutes you say eight pm to eight am. I want no emails, no text messages, no Instagram, no Facebook for that time that you set it for.

The twenty four you cannot.

You can't do it.

It's daring.

I love this. Yeah, this is really powerful because yeah, the iPhone doesn't really set you up for success with that.

Well no, because the iPhone wants you on the iPhone and then gray scales are other good ones. So it turns your phone black and white, super easy to do in your settings. Once you've turned it black and white, if you open Instagram a couple of times, you'll just.

Be really, it doesn't look appealing. Pile it. We can't because our phones are recording, butilotte very appeal.

I'll show you after. It makes it very unappealing to look out.

Yeah, so you just kind of get bored of it. Brains that there's no color on border forget. Okay, amazing. Do you leave your phone on loud when it's in the other room because for me, I know this is odd, but I always think, like my dad lives in Perth, what if something happens to my dad and they need to contact me in the middle of the night. My mum lives in Brisbane, she's on her own. What if she needs someone. This may sound like an excuse, but

So you can keep it in your room, but put it so that you're not when you're lying in bed, you would have to get out of bed to.

Go and get it.

Yeah, there's resistance.

There's resistance.

Create resistance in your environment, and the more resistance, the less likely you're going to be able to get up and get it. The other thing you can do is put override on, so when it's on sleep mode or do not disturb, you can have certain contacts that override that do not disturb.

Right, And so if Liam Ring's on my do not disturb, his call will always come through on louch.

Okay, maybe I need to do that again. Amazing. Well, there's some great practical steps. First and foremost, the other thing is I feel like it can be so overwhelming to do personal development. Like most of us have jobs. If we have children, great, if we don't, we're still busy. There's a lot of stuff going on, it feels like for me and kind of going through what I've seen Drapes go through with his mental health, there was no way he could have gone back to work after Master Chef.

There are two things that I say, lower the bar, Always lower the bar. How many times have you looked and be like, oh, I don't have an hour, I can't go do a workout, but can you do five squats in the kitchen?

Yeah, Like it.

Sounds silly, but those five squats immediately released dopamine and just help you to lift your mood a little bit.

You know.

I always think it's about the little.

Small things that you can implement instead not and you know, it's not about out doing a three hour morning routine day. Andrew Huberman, Andrew Huberman, but you know.

Dope, And I talk about this recently. The days of four thirty a and wake ups, walking on the beach, doing the workout, having a coffee at a cafe, like those days are gone for us.

Yep.

I took a long time to kind of rewire my brain of like shit, I can't do that anymore. I've got a kid, but now I don't know how to feel good in the morning. It was really hard when we first had Alphae to get back to like our morning routine and what worked. But like you just said, it was kind of okay, I can't do all the things I've got to do. What do you say instead of y instead not and amazing?

And meet yourself where you are? You know what I mean? Like, if you know you've got maybe.

A five minute window, what is something you can do in that five minute window that's going to make you feel really good? And there's a lot of research that actually says for movement for your brain, doing ten minutes every day is much better than trying to do an hour twice a week.

Okay, So consistency, right, Consistency its every day you move every day, don't you even like on a Sunday, Yes, every day when most people having rest days. Your lig's still moving.

Even if it's just a walk, you know, like for me because I know it's important to my brain. It's about proof points, and it's going to feel like it's a bit resistant at the start. You know, you're just like you might not feel that different. Some things you might feel different straight away, but after you're doing it for a while, you will realize, particularly when you stop,

I get that. Yeah, of course they are.

Yeah.

They've studied people and then their children and their children for eighty years for this study, and they have found that not only is it the key to happiness, it also helps to prevent Alzheimer's and dementia, anxiety, and depression. And so invest in your relation like they are the share market, like, really spend time investing in your relationships. Movement like so much science around movement. Good nutrition yeah, and sleep.

Yeah, these things all feel so simple, but they're not.

They're simple, not easy.

Most of my friends have jobs, nine to five jobs. Yeah, funnily enough, everyone that I'm friends with here on the Northern Rivers, everyone owns their own businesses, right, so we don't have this kind of resistance. But what if you're working in a job and you've got Sally who is being awful to you. She's a relationship that you have in your life. You need to work closely with her. Is that going to impact us?

Absolutely, it impacts you.

But having hard conversations is really important too, and being able to bring that up to your leaders. And if it gets to the point where it's that bad, I always say, remove yourself from the environment.

You would absolute dream job, just get out.

If I would remove myself if it was impacting my health. And it's not always immediate, and it's not easy, don't get me wrong. Like it is not immediate and it's not easy, but it's about putting steps in place to remove you that can cause significant mental health issues.

I feel like that's one of the main things. Yeah, And I don't know if it's like I'm a woman, so I'm only speaking from my perspective and I'm speaking on behalf of my girlfriends. But I don't feel like men have this stuff in the workplace. We're talking about relationships now because obviously we can control to a certain degree our relationships in our own home. We can say I don't want to be married to you, anymore, and we can go our separate ways. We can control them

Yeah, it's definitely not easy at all.

I challenged that idea having worked in HR for a long time before I went into banking.

Men have the issues as well.

Okay, absolutely, they just don't always verbalize it or talk about it, and they deal with it in different ways. And usually my experience is that they are a little bit sneakier or they undermine rather than having like digs at each other face to face.

Okay, they don't want to say, hey, this behavior is not okay fax zi reason. Yeah, therefore, just like tell them the boss the issue your.

Job, or like sabotaging work or things like that.

What relationships are impacting my health right now? Yeah, which it sounds kind of funny to say that, because no.

I say do a relationship audit, I say, always do a relationship audit.

Like, so I encourage doing just a well being check in once a month, How am I going?

Where am I at on those five things and just taking a moment to reflect and do a relationship audit.

How are my five closest people to me? How am I feeling with that? Have I checked in on them recently? You know it's not a way something bad, It's like, oh my god, maybe I haven't called that person. I'm going to just give them a call next time I'm in the car.

Amazing love that, Yeah, and that obviously fosters beautiful relationships as well and being supportive, you.

Know, absolutely so.

And your best habits to implement for our mental health and wellbeing. You've just talked about the five different areas that impact our mental health and our wellbeing. What are some habits that you give us to implement and how do we actually implement habits? Because we've just had these conversations, it's so easy to like turn off, do not disturb or whatever. How do we get them to actually embed

You may feel more resistance, But discomforts not always bad. It's good for our brain. When we do something uncomfortable, it makes our brain grow.

Okay, and Tira.

Mid singular cortex, which is our willpower.

Part of our brain grows when we do something that we don't want to do.

That's hard, phenomenal.

This is what I tell myself when I'm doing things I don't want to do.

Yeah, I'm going to the gym. I don't want to pick up those weights. I'm like, no, my brain is growing today.

I'm getting a bigger brain after this. Yeah, bigger brain, better life.

Yeah, love it.

We should for that. Yeah, Okay, cools, the best habits, inflement. What are we looking at here?

So mindfulness yep, breath work every step of the way. I think a lot of people have barrier to meditation. They think we've got to sit there with our legs crossed and our arms together and we don't have to think about any of our thoughts and it's actually not that at all, and just quickly lowering the bar with all of these. Okay, you mentioned earlier before we came on.

Yeah, but I probably check females. Yeah that's the problem.

Yeah, So put your phone on gray scale, stick that phone in your bag in the back where you can't reach it, and just take some moments to do some breath work.

So there are a couple of things.

There's a great playlist on Spotify called Meditations that you could literally just play through your car. Don't do it while you're driving because that could be dangerous. Or the Stanford breathing, so it is scientifically proven to lower your stress levels in the quickest way possible.

Yeah. Okay, so let's go through that one again.

We can do it together. Yeah.

So you take a nice big in how through your nose, extra sipervera at the top, big long sigh out. Do that five times over and that will immediately reduce your stress levels. So they have scanned brains while people do this breath work, and it shows the brain changing while you're doing it, which is phenomenal. The other thing people do when their stress is take a big in how you know people do that?

They take a bigin O.

God, I have been sigg so much treeson. They're like, ah that, yes, yes, the.

Sigh is the relaxation, so just know that the ex hel is the relaxation. That's what switches on our parasympathetic nervous system rest and digest. When you inhale, it's switching on your stress response. So just make sure that you're exhaling longer than your inhale.

That's so interesting. I don't think a lot of people would know that. I feel like people think that the breathing in Yes, what did you say.

The parasympathetics, it's a calming breath. No, it's the ex hel that is your calming breath.

Okay, which is why when you do yoga and meditation with like it instructed, they're always telling you to breathe out into your belly, like as.

Much as you can possibly breath belly. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean if you think about it, you think about our ancestors. They've been chased by tigers, et cetera. They would have been holding their breath. Right, you're holding your breath because you're on edge. So let the ex hel out really.

Long x hels.

Okay, So that's easy. I can do that.

Great nutrition so Excess sugar has been shown to increase anxiety, depression, inflammation, which is damaging to our brain. So just try and reduce sugar. The easiest way to reduce sugar is swap it out for protein. So you're making meals anyway, You're not having to do anything extra. Just make sure you're getting protein with every meal.

Yeah but you say that, but I don't want to swap out my Loco Love chocolate at nighttime for a piece of steak.

Well, so I think Loco Love is actually really good for you.

Okay, but start your day with protein, so eggs, protein smoothie, something like that.

It just helps you throughout the day to lower the sugar cravings.

So if you start your day with protein, helps lowder those sugar cravings, which ultimately gives you a smoother mood and reduces anxiety and depression.

Okay, it makes you don't want to reach for the stickers bar at two o'clock.

Yes, exactly, less yep movement. So like I said, lower the bar ten minutes? Can you fit ten minutes in?

We can? And so this is it. It is lowering a bar. I think like we're looking around all these people going like you know, oh, this Instagram account with this fit chick. Like today I saw this woman. She does five crazy hit workouts a week. Then she does like something on a Saturday, and like something on a Sunday, and I'm like, I'm never going to be able to do that. Yeah, I mean maybe one day, but not

Something's better than nothing.

This is all I can do right now, right because if.

You don't have fifty two minutes to do your workout, you're not.

Going to do a workout at all. No, exactly, So it's ten minutes better than no minutes.

Yes, you are absolutely correct. I know that, and I hear that, but my brain still thinks like I've still got to do the whole thing. You're right, it is just changing.

It's real brain. It's hard and it takes time.

It does take time, and so I'm not going to say you'll do it for a week and you'll be like, on right, it's hard, it's not easy, and you'll fall off right, but just get back on doing your ten minutes every day. You'll then be like, Okay, I've got a bit of time. After this ten minutes, I can up that to twenty minutes. And then the habit is already stuck and you're just increasing the habit.

And can I just say to new mums, lower the bar and then lower it again.

Yeah?

Great.

Next, hip relationships, The science shows an eight minute phone call or an eight minute conversation is enough to create true connection.

So give someone a call next time you're driving somewhere.

Use your car time wisely, So call someone for eight minutes once a week.

It's all it takes, so achievable.

Yep.

And then the last one's sleep. So I say sleep is the underpinning of everything. Now, if you were a new mum with a baby, sleep is not going to be easy for Youah, so over index on the other four. Okay, don't be hard on yourself with that, particularly if you're a new mum.

Yes, so I love that. Again, it's lowering the bar and going like I can't control this little part one of my five, but I can control the other five. What do you calls manage? What are these five things?

I just call them the five wellbeing wheel, like it's part of the wellbeing wheel. Ultimately, they create I say, they create a well armor or buffer because we can't control.

What happens in the outside world always.

But it means that when those things hit us, they just hit us a little less tough.

You know.

It's like you know those people who do the fencing and they've got the you know, the best thing on, like a bulletproof vest, right, it just slows down the impact a little bit. But if you don't have a newborn, what I say with sleep is try and keep consistent sleep and wake times really important because it helps our circadian rhythm and it helps train your body that when it gets to a certain time it's time to wind down.

If you can keep that, if you can't.

And if you've had a really bad sleep deprived night, get your eyes out in the bright sunlight. So the minute that you're up and out, get your eyes out in the bright sunlight. I know winter it comes a little bit later, but that actually kick starts your circadian rhythm for the day and it helps you wake up.

Okay, so we're not wearing sunglasses.

No, don't wear sunglasses. You need it into your eyes directly. Obviously we live in a high UV country, don't we walk around all day without you know, sunglasses, etc. But first ten minutes in the day the UV is low, get out and get.

Some light in your eyes.

Son, your eyeballs, sun your eyeballs. Didn't know if that was a thing.

Yeah, okay, very good to kick start your circadian rhythm. Great, even if you've had a bad night sleep.

Beautiful MOBI part of it, all the work you're doing, it's amazing. I love this conversation. Thank you and thanks to your time.

Thanks for having me.