Raewyn Guerrero: I'm doing well. It feels really good to wake up in sunlight after 20 years of not talking sunlight in the UK.

Claudia von Boeselager: You've had such an amazing contrast, right?
But I want to start with your beautiful accent that you have, Raewyn. Can you tell my audience where exactly this wonderful accent comes from?

Raewyn Guerrero: Oh, thank you. The accent's from Trinidad. So I was born in Trinidad, which is an island in the Caribbean, very close to Venezuela. You could actually swim to Venezuela if you wanted to. We can see it from when you wake up and look over the mountains.

But then I moved to the UK when I was 22, right after my 22nd birthday. And I lived there,, in London, until - it's, kind of, off and on until about 2017. And, sort of, going back and forth. So I built my business going back and forth off my laptop from 2017 when I left my corporate job.

Claudia von Boeselager: So yeah, it's quite neutral, but every now and then you can pick up on this beautiful, sort of, island feeling, which I just adore.

So Raewyn, what I'd love to kick off with is why, in your view, is aging optional?

Raewyn Guerrero: Oh my gosh, I love this question. What a wonderful way to begin.
Because everything that you do is either building your body up or breaking your body down. As simple as that. Like, if we had to really bring it down to anything.

So that means that you have the power to be in control of what's going on with you. And that there's so many amazing tools right now, being alive in the 21st century, that can help you understand what's going on with your unique biochemistry. So we can check telomerase length. You can check these things and look at, and there are ways to learn how to reverse aging through just one of those types of tests.

There are all these other tests that look at oxidative stress, and we can see how that's affecting the body. And then look at how we can reverse that as well, 'cause then you're like, oh, I know what my baseline is, and now I know what I got to work backwards from, right?

So there are lots of wonderful new labs that can help you do that. And then that helps you modify different lifestyle factors, right? So if you see, like, okay, I've got a lot of oxidative stress or I've tested my gut and I can see that, you know, it's leaky and I'm not absorbing nutrients, then I can look at, well, maybe I can get infusions temporarily. Or I can fix what's going on in my gut.

So everything that we can do now through the beauty of this functional or holistic preventative approach means that we can actually turn back the clock on many instances. I think, was it you who did it recently and you were able to see that you're chronological, your -

Claudia von Boeselager: Biological age -

Raewyn Guerrero: Your biological age was actually going backwards. You were at, like, 35 years old?

Claudia von Boeselager: Yeah, nom from 40, and now it's gone down to 26. So I've increased the gap from 11 years to 14 years. And I want to get it down to 20 and then keep it there till I'm 120 or 150. So let's see.

Raewyn Guerrero: Yeah. Well, I mean, you look amazing. So, and people, when I tell them that I'm over 40, I'm 43, they're just, they're -

Claudia von Boeselager: And 23 I'd believe you, too!

Raewyn Guerrero: They're like, what are you doing? And I'm like, I said I'm doing all the things that I tell other people to do. I'm walking my talk, right? Like, I'm moving, I'm rebounding, I'm getting my lymph going. I'm dry brushing. I'm taking my supplements. I'm making sure my gut's working well. I'm testing every six months.
And I do that. I test every six months. I run, like, five labs that I always want to check that everything's going okay with me -

Claudia von Boeselager: What are they?

Raewyn Guerrero: So I like looking at my gut because I've always had gut problems. I've been on multiple courses of antibiotics since I was very little. And by the time I hit my thirties, I had full blown IBS and a whole bunch of other yucky things that came along with it. So I'm always looking at how can I optimize it. Because it has always been a source of a lot of my woes, right?

So gut health testing is one thing. Organic acids is another. I want to see what my antioxidant capacity is like. How my mitochondria functioning. The other thing is my hair tissue mineral analysis, like, I'm in love with that one. And that's a really simple test.

Claudia von Boeselager: I haven't tried that one.

Raewyn Guerrero: Yeah -

Claudia von Boeselager: I've heard great things though. Can you walk through, sort of, the process of that and what results you get?

Raewyn Guerrero: You've got nice long hair. You go from the back of the nape of your neck, from the root, you get about a tablespoon full of hair. I know it sounds like a long, right? But you take from different places, right?

So you got a tablespoon full of hair. Yeah, you don't pull it, you cut it. Because people are like, can I just pull it out? And I'm like, no, you go and you cut it. And you fill up your tablespoon. And you send it back to the lab. And then they tell you things about like your minerals, right? So, like, are you dumping calcium, for example. Because when we're under a lot of stress, and people who've experienced a lot of trauma - and believe it or not, a lot of my vegan clients are not absorbing calcium. It's all ending up in their soft tissue. So they end up with a lot of joint pain.

And so it tells us weird things like that. It also tells you about the presence of heavy metals, like, you have arsenic, mercury, aluminum, those sorts of things, that can have, like, really detrimental effects on your absorption of nutrients, as well as-

Claudia von Boeselager: Cognition -

Raewyn Guerrero: As well as, like, fostering, like, certain microorganisms that thrive in these sort of toxic environments. So, like, candida and mercury, they tend to go hand in hand. So if you're eating a lot of fish, or, like, deep sea fish, you might be mercury toxic, and then you might have problems with candida. But the thing is, it's all about, like, balancing minerals as well, and then opening up detox pathways. So the lack of being able to detox effectively is probably one of the number one things that I see in my practice.

I see women who probably only go to the bathroom once a couple of days, every three or four days, some people once a week and they have to, they need a laxative to do that. They're not sweating enough. They're not exercising or moving enough. Probably because they are tired and burnt out, but they're not getting that, sort of, they're not going to saunas.

So, like, the Three Ps is what we call it. So they're not peeing, they're not pooping, they're not perspiring. So you're not clearing toxins out of you. So you're, sort of, sitting in your toxic soup a lot. And then that can lead to this buildup of all these other undesirable, you know, heavy metals, bugs. So I like doing these tests because they tell me, like, are my detox pathways working well? Like, am I holding on to anything that shouldn't be there?

And then there's the Dutch hormone test. And it also looks at your cortisol.
Yeah.Which is also useful to know, like, am I living in harmony. Are my hormones - are they balanced, as well? So there are these tests -

Claudia von Boeselager: Especially for women, right? I mean, it's so essential to see what levels you're on and if you need HRT, because I think a lot of people don't realize how, from when perimenopause actually starts, and how much you can age if your hormones are off, right?

Raewyn Guerrero: Yes. And, you know, people start looking at their hormones after there's already a problem, but I'm trying to catch you before there is a problem. So you can start learning, like, okay, is my estrogen in check? Is my progesterone in check? Is my DHEA? And we look at different things. And metabolites. And it's a very simple urine test.

So pretty much everything that we're doing here doesn't require blood work. It's stuff that you can do at home. It's kits that you order, they get sent to your house. You do it in the comfort of your home.

The only one that requires blood work is actually a food sensitivity test, and that's usually a fingerprick test.

In the US, there is a lab that I like people to actually go to and get it. But if I've got clients in the UK, that isn't an option so we use a fingerprick test at home.
And those sensitivities change over time, depending on what's going on with your gut. So you might be sensitive this month to, I don't know, blueberries, let's say - and random things too, because people are like, I'm eating really healthy. I'm like, yes, but why is your gut leaky? Like, when we run the gut tests, we see it's leaky.

And if you're eating that well, and you're avoiding all the things that we know would cause a leaky gut, then why do you have a leaky gut? And usually we can see that food sensitivities play a big part in that. So if you remove some of the trigger foods - and it doesn't have to be forever, it's just until we heal up the lining of the gut, then you can return to some of those things.

Claudia von Boeselager: I think that's so essential as well, because some people assume that then if they get what they consider almost, like, a death sentence of a food sensitivity, they can't have it for life. And I think one analogy of it is just, like, if your body is so inflamed because of stress and other factors, of course you're going to be so much more sensitive to things. And it's, like, retest in six months, or if, you know, if you do that detox program, sort of what you were saying there. Because typically they tend to go away.

Not always, but I think people shouldn't be scared to actually do the test in the first place because they don't want to know, because they don't want to have to cut it out for life. But knowing that it's not for life, that it's just for a time, I think is really helpful. And then you're helping your body as well, right? So -

Raewyn Guerrero: Absolutely. And, you know, what's important for people, that I would love your listeners to understand, is that there is a huge difference between a sensitivity and an allergy, right? So a sensitivity is something that is acquired. And, as you mentioned, you used that wonderful word, or terrible word, inflammation. The more inflamed you are, the more sensitive you're going to be. And what we have seen is that people, as they start getting older and they start losing enzymes and you start to acquire more and more sensitivities - because as we get older, our digestive capacity does change, just like our hormones change.

So we lose the ability to break down foods as we get older. So that's why older people tend to be a little more windy, because it's, it's harder for them to break food down. That's why we use enzymes to help us break it down because we start losing enzymes as we get older. Just as we start to lose muscle tone as we get older.

So there's so many of these things that you can start to do to start improving the way that you absorb food. Because the absorption, you know, it's not just what you eat, but it's also a hundred percent what you're absorbing, what you're converting into energy, what you're converting into, you know, amino acids, let's say, like, very common with - not attacking vegans, I'm just saying, like, they don't tend to get the level of nutrients that they need from the foods that they're eating. And one case very recently, you know, her hormones aren't doing really well. And she's got this predisposition to endometriosis and polyps and growths and multiple surgeries and all sorts of things.

So we're trying to like reverse that. So I said, you know, tiny amounts of animal protein, what you can stomach, even just bone broth. You know, eggs if you can. You know, and she's been doing it and she's noticing a huge change to her energy, to her brain fog straight away. Her weight's starting to shift, because for years she'd been trying to lose weight.

Her thyroid. When we first looked at it, her TSH was, like, over 4. Now, in the space of, like, six weeks, it's dropped to 2.5. So it's starting to trend. Her metabolic rate is starting to change already in just, like, six weeks.

So very simple things. Like, that's the power of food. It's not just, like, you know, weight loss. But it is literally about what's the information that you are giving to your cells. How are you programming your cells? Are you programming them to, like I said, build you up? Are you programming them to break you down? And getting the right balance of nutrients, making sure that you're absorbing them, is such a big part of my work. And what I would love to see more of in the traditional, sort of, fields as well.

You know, because I've been to multiple doctors. I grew up around doctors. My dad used to run an insurance company where they would create, like, these wellness centers, and I'm using that in inverted commas because it was literally just on-site GPs. Onsite dentists. Onsite optometrists. And onsite physical therapists. So they weren't really wellness centers, they were doctor's offices.

So I grew up with a lot, a lot of doctors. Which is why, every time I got a cold or a flu, they'd just give me antibiotics. And by the time I was 14, I couldn't understand, like, why am I always sick? Literally every month I've got a tonsil infection. A sinus infection. A chest infection. An ear infection. And they're like, oh, well, you know - no one ever talked about what I was eating. Like, never. They never ever discussed it -

Claudia von Boeselager: Because they don't teach it in medical school. And I think that's the issue. I think Dr. Jason Fung, who has the brilliant protocol for reversing type two diabetes said that, you know, in his, I think it was, six years of medical training, he had one hour of nutrition training. And, I mean, nutrition is the medicine you feed your body, and, as you said, the programming you give to your cells, every day. Several times a day.

And it's just such a fundamental piece of human beings that it's so incredible that the medical system has not completely revamped and started really much more focusing on that, right?

Raewyn Guerrero: Yeah. So I think that, you bring that up, that doctor's training does not involve nutrition. And the doctor that I work with in the UK, so I, I'm overseen by a medical doctor, Dr. Nathan Curran. Who's probably one of the more progressive traditional medical doctors, but because he's done functional medicine training and environmental medicine training. He's South African, but he's been living in the UK just as long as I have.

We have very similar stories. It was very strange how we met. We met through Barclays because he was the onsite GP at work. And I kept going to him. I'm like, oh my God, I have another sinus infection. I have another thing. And he says, you know, you really need to look into what's going on with your immune system. And this is like in the 10 minutes that I would get with him because that's how long the appointments are, right? And I said, what do you mean? He said, well, there's something going on here. He said, you know, have you looked into taking probiotics? And that's as much as he could give me. And just giving me that little nugget, like, I ran with it.

But he has been one of the first people in the UK to introduce vitamin infusions, even when it was very fringe, like, you know, about 12 years ago now. Very, very fringe. And it was something that, as a practice, we used to offer - with COVID it became very difficult to be able to do that. So things are changing now, like, we're evolving, pivoting, trying to figure out new things. But, at that point in time, that was something that he did.

And trying to teach people about amino acids. Like I was saying about the vegan, you know, we're talking about food and how it's information. And when I explained to her, I said, look, you know, your whole body is made off of, like, fat and protein - obviously there's carbon and all these other things, but what helps create those things, right? All these different minerals.

So you need protein because your neurotransmitters are made from amino acids, right? Your hormones are made from amino acids. How are you going to create the right levels of hormones or produce hormones, even, if you're not consuming amino acids. And you can get the complete amino acid profile from eating animal protein.
Unless you work with the nutritionist who really narrows it down for you, like, exactly what you need to do with hemp and rice and pea and all the other, you know,

Claudia von Boeselager: Concoction, yeah.

Raewyn Guerrero: Exactly, the other concoctions, but it's a lot simpler to get it from an animal source. A clean animal source, ideally, as well, right?

Claudia von Boeselager: So grass fed or wild caught for seafood -

Raewyn Guerrero: Grass fed. Grass finished, very important too, because they could be grass fed, but at the end they feed them a lot of corn or soy.

Claudia von Boeselager: Ah, interesting. Okay.

Raewyn Guerrero: Yeah. So that's also something that's been coming into my field too, because I've been learning a lot about that. Like, free range, as well, in the US doesn't always mean free range or that they're eating grubs. They're still probably finishing them with corn or soy, which are GMO products.

Claudia von Boeselager: And my understanding as well is free range in the US can also mean that they're in a big barn. And there's like millions of them in a big barn. And that at least they're not in a cage, so they're considered -

Raewyn Guerrero: Yeah -

Claudia von Boeselager: free range, but they're not getting proper daylight. They're not getting - like, I mean, it's horrendous. I think that -

Raewyn Guerrero: It is pretty horrendous.

Claudia von Boeselager: A few documentaries, if people are interested, if they want to be shocked a bit. One I saw was What The Health, I mean, that would put you off a lot of things, things as well, but it's really horrific. So, you know, rather eat less meat and seafood, and then the ones that you do, you invest in yourself and actually buy better quality.

Raewyn Guerrero: Exactly.

Claudia von Boeselager: That it's there too. But, Raewyn, can you talk about your journey. Obviously, your father with his insurance and having the things, but you went, first of all, into a corporate career. So with Barclays. And what transferred with you, so you got the nugget with the idea with probiotics, but what was that shift that happened for you to say, you know, this is my calling. I'm going to change my career, I'm going to change my focus, and focus on transforming other people's lives?

Raewyn Guerrero: Well, I think the focus has always been on transforming other people's lives. So I'll give you a little bit of background into that too. Because that's probably one of my biggest drivers and why I came to the UK. Because my grandfather had been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, but we had a relative who was a physician who used to just hand out valium to him like it was sweeties.

So every he you ran out of his script, he just called his nephew and be like, hey, can I get my script again? And I didn't know all of this. I was little at the time. So I didn't know. It's only as I got older, I understood what was going on.

And, after 20 years of being on valium, like, daily, combined with poor nutrition - he was a bodybuilder so he was a very big proud man. He used to cycle everywhere. But as he started getting older and these medications started really damaging his brain. And there was never any therapy that was recommended to him. In the Caribbean, that was just not a thing. Men are very macho and very strong and they don't go and talk about their feelings and they don't cry.

And, you know, he had this whole image of being this big, strong bodybuilder guy. He had, like, 23 inch biceps. He was huge. Right?

He was a big man, but he had, like, all this fear. I always think of him as, like, the cowardly lion from The Wizard Of Oz, because he should have had this huge roar, but instead he had, like, all this fear about, like, just random things. Just, you know, like, oh, if we didn't call him within five minutes, he was like, oh my God, have you ended up in a ditch? Like, why haven't you picked up the phone? And he'd just keep calling and calling and calling.

And by the time I got home, he's like, oh my God, I was so worried. I had to take a valium. And you're like, it's only been, like, two hours. What's, you know, I left you - you know?

So he had, like, a lot of panic and anxiety about all these things. And it was very hard to watch. And when he got his first stroke, he ended up in a wheelchair. He was not old. He was in his 70s, you know. He had to stop lifting weights. He had to - all the things that made him happy, he had to stop doing. And that was hard because it was seven years of a very, you know, he just deteriorated over seven years. It's not a slow death. Because it was, like, a stroke and then it's dementia, right? 'Cause it damaged his brain. So then that became very difficult to watch.

So I wanted to learn, well, how do you stop anxiety, and how do you deal with it without taking pharmaceuticals? So one of my main missions is to get people off of drugs. Because you do not have a valium deficiency. You don't have an omeprazole deficiency, right? Like, you don't have a PPI deficiency. You don't have a lipitor deficiency. Something in your body isn't working. And these symptoms, instead of masking them with the medications, I always say it's like, when you have a fire, do you turn off the fire alarm or do you go and look and find out where the fire is in your house and put it out?

So that's my job right now. To help people like, okay, we've got symptoms, that's your fire. Let's go figure out where it is, right? We're not turning off the fire alarm with the meds.

So I got into all of this because I'm like, I have to study psychology, I need to figure out how to help other people so they don't end up like this.

And, through doing that, it led me into HR because when you come out of university in the UK, you're in debt. So you're, like, I need a job ASAP. So I went straight into corporate because, you know, it pays well. I could work in HR. I could help people there. I think very quickly I realized I wasn't really helping anyone, I was helping the bank. And it was all about policy and not so much about actually helping people.

So, while I was there, I retrained in hypnosis and hypnotherapy and CBT. So I was doing that alongside my day job. So I was always one of those people, like, I always had, like, three jobs when I was in university. And then when I went into banking and I realized I'm not really sure this is the thing for me, I really want to help people and I'm not getting to do it. So it took me about a year and a bit to finish my hypnotherapy training while I was there.

And I remember telling my then boss, I said: "Hey, I actually want to quit. I want to go do something else." And he said, no, no, no, you can't do that. You can't do that. Because, you know, I was doing well. And he said, I don't want you to go. And he said, what would make you happy? And I said, well, if I could help people and I felt like I was actually making a difference. And we had a very candid conversation.

And it happened over years. It didn't happen in one day. It happened over years. And I'd be like, I'm just not happy with the situation. And he said, well, what would make you happy? And I'm like, I would really like to be able to do this. And he said, okay. He said, give me a couple of years, I'll make it happen. And he kept his word. He did. He actually did. He kept his word and I was able to set up a wellbeing program while there.

And it took on several evolutions, like, it just changed over time. Different managers. And the culture itself became a little bit toxic because everyone wanted to own it.

Claudia von Boeselager: As often happens with good ideas, right? Everyone was like -

Raewyn Guerrero: Everyone wanted to own it. And everyone wanted to, like, micromanage me. And I've always been a very creative person. A free spirit. I've always had tons of ideas. Very entrepreneurial. So, you know, my dad is like that. To this day, he's, like, 69. And he's still setting up companies and doing things. Yeah. Like he is an incredible human being. He's so visionary. He always has, like, big, big ideas.

So I've always been around that kind of energy. And then to get into this place where I'm thinking initially, I'm like, I've got the power to do whatever I want with this. And I started doing that. And then within about three or four years, it just started getting commandeered by other people. And they were trying to put me in a box. And I ended up burning out, like, because I'm trying to fit into somebody else's mold.

They kept saying, I said, we don't really know where to place you, where to fit you. Why can't you just do one thing? I'm like, I've never been able to do just one thing. And why should I do just one thing when I'm trying to do everything to help everyone?

So it didn't end well. Or it did end well because, you know, unfortunately my health took a big hit, my mental health, my physical health, my anxiety kicked in then and my panic attacks. And I used to hate going to work on a Monday, on a Sunday night, I would just be up in the bathroom all night, just dying. Just from panic and my stomach turning inside out. So. Years of doing that, like, I had about a year and a half of being in that sort of state - like, two to three years of being in that state - and realizing I need to do something else.

And, you know, it led me to functional medicine. Like, I started questioning. And one day I'd arranged for, like, a functional medicine practitioner to come into work to talk about children's health, right? And she was talking about antibiotic overuse and, you know, had a lot of parents and stuff in the room. And everyone wanted to hear about, like, well, what can we do to keep our kids healthy?

And she talked about this whole thing with antibiotics and how it lowers your immune system, because most of your immune system is in your gut, like 80% of it. And if you get constant colds and flus, and if you've got eczema and you've got all these - and migraines, and - and I'm like, oh my God, those are all the things I have.
So up until that point, I had thought, like, oh, mind-body connection. If you get the mind right, the body will follow. But she was talking about, if you got the body right, the mind will follow. Right? And I had totally missed that, like, yeah, I had missed it until that, like, that was my lightbulb moment. I said, I need to work with someone like her. I need to find out what's going on with my body.

Because I would use hypnosis to help with my IBS, and it would help, but it wouldn't help me prevent it. So I didn't even know, like, my foods were triggering it. I didn't know any of these things were causing it. I just thought, oh, it's my anxiety. So if I breathe properly and if it meditate it will calm down. And it would, it would calm down, but it would never go away. You know, I'd still be managing it, rather than reversing it. I don't want to manage it. And I don't want other people to be like, oh, I'm managing my IBS. Or I'm managing my anxiety. No, you don't have to live with it. And, you know, case in point, like, a lady who came to see me, she was diagnosed with SIBO, but she had generalized anxiety for years, and had been seeing a counselor and a CBT person.

And when we finally started working together - she'd had panic attacks that kept her in bed She couldn't actually get out of bed. She was a nonfunctioning person. Couldn't help her children. Couldn't help her husband.

And now she's playing basketball. She's running around, going on trips to Devon, going in the car. She used to hate getting in the car, it used to give her tremendous anxiety, getting in the car. Totally different. And we started talking about CBT and she said, I've done that to death. I've been doing it for 10 years. It's not helping me. I said, okay, well, we're going to work on healing your gut. And, you know, six weeks in, six weeks of healing the gut, and she's like, it's just gone. The anxiety. It's like, I don't wake up anxious anymore. I'm not afraid of anything. I'm not freaking out anymore. And I said, that happened to me, like, one day I had panic attacks and then within four to six weeks, all just, kind of, gone. Just disappeared. Yeah. From testing what was going on inside my gut?

Claudia von Boeselager: What do you think is the driver of - 'cause they say obviously the gut is the second brain, right? What do you think is the driver between something like a panic attack and gut health? Where do you think those correlation links lie?

Raewyn Guerrero: Well, what I've seen over and over and over in clinical practice, and obviously what I've read in the literature, is that, we talk about amino acids. So most people are nutritionally starved. They probably do have some sort of leakiness, or even sometimes a food sensitivity can create a panic attack. And people don't even know that it's linked to that. Obviously there are thought processes that go along with that. So I'm not saying that it's only one thing. What I'm saying is that it's integrated, right?

So there is a mind-body connection, but there definitely is that body-mind, it's bi-directional. So the lack of nutrients, the right balance of minerals, that's one of the big, big things that I've seen. Like, people not eating the right balance of nutrients, having, probably, too many carbohydrates, not enough protein or even good fat, our brain is 60% fat.

So if you're not consuming the right amount of fat or the right quality of fat either. So quality is also important, like, you don't want to be eating loads of trans fat. You want to be consuming, obviously, lovely oily fish, the omega 3s. Those are, sort of, where you want to be channeling and putting your focus on.

So where do I see the link between anxiety and panic attacks? Like, it's literally just all down to biochemistry and neurochemistry. So if your biochemistry's off, your neurochemistry is going to be off. And for me, that was my story. And it's the story that I've seen repeated over and over again. That, yes, you might have a situational anxiety, I'm not discounting that. Like, I was in a toxic environment. It made me unhappy. But I was also not absorbing food. Because I had all these problems going on with my stomach on top of it.

So it's important to address both. And that's what I aim to do when I work with people. I do integrate hypnosis and CBT and positive psychology into sessions. I don't allow people to, I call it BMW, bitch, moan and whine, for more than five minutes. So I love using all these little acronyms. So everything gets that. Yeah. It's like, you got your three Ps, you've got your three Bs, boundaries, breaks and breath work. And then we've got BMW. So, bitch, moaning and whining. You get five minutes to tell me what's not working. And then we're like, okay, where do we want to get to?

And we set up, like, a visioning kind of exercise. Like, how do you really want to feel? Because we know what you don't want to feel. How do you really want to feel and how are we going to get you there?

And the food can help us do that. But, yeah, the mindset's a big, big part of it too. You know, when we see a negative thought coming up, an automatic negative thought - the ANTs - when they come up - okay, where has this come from? And how do we reframe it? How do we choose something, how do we choose something? And that is a really important concept for people to grasp. These are choices that they're making. And the awareness, coming to the awareness. And that's why working with someone is good, because if you stay stuck in your head, it's very easy to spiral out of control, right? And you can go downward really, really fast. But when you have someone who's saying, okay, do you realize that that's probably not the most helpful thing?

What would be more helpful? How would you address that? What would be a nicer thing to tell yourself? Because what you're telling yourself right now isn't really helping you. It's, it's -

Claudia von Boeselager: Absolutely.

Raewyn Guerrero: Yeah, right? So there's a huge piece that's around mindset, but there's also, like, let's work on the biochemistry. Rather than using drugs, I'm using food, right?

Claudia von Boeselager: Food and mindset as well. And I think that that's the beauty of this as well. And I think, you know, really to hone in, you know, for people to, first, take, look at this as a step, like, what is your mindset? What is your self-talk with a lot of things? And then also, like, what is your biochemistry? And like, what are the tests to do to check, to make sure everything is okay? You know, it's a process of elimination, but, like, why not start with the things that are good for you? Versus going straight to chemicals, and then having all the consequences and side effects that come out of that as well. And so really just empowering people to take their power back as well. Right?

Yeah. Empowerment. And, you know, someone I saw wrote something about a week ago, she said, you know, when people ask you how to improve your mental health, I recommend one, remove caffeine because it's a nervous system stimulant. Remove alcohol because it's a depressant. Remove the TV and the news and the media. She says it's a continuous cycle of fear porn, right?

Raewyn Guerrero: And then you want to take off the apps from your phone because they're creating ADHD, they're making you anxious. And the more that you're on your phone and the more that you're scrolling, we've seen that there are studies that show that people stop breathing. And when you stop breathing, you actually create like this reaction, this anxiety, like a physical anxiety in your body, not just a psychological, you create - so then you can start to hyperventilate. So you're actually creating this problem later on.

And then you remove sugar, most addictive, damaging drug, more addictive than cocaine. And it creates all of these highs and lows. It impacts your cortisol. It impacts your hormones, right? So your sex hormones, because cortisol is a hormone too. It's a stress hormone. So we've got, like, these different types of hormones and cortisol is one of them.

If you have got problems with one set of hormones, you're going to have problems with all your other hormones. And I've seen it with the women with estrogen dominance and problems with fertility and problems with menopause later on in life.

Your cortisol is out of whack or your blood sugar is out of whack. Naturally, your sex hormones are going to be out of whack. Your DHA is probably not going to be great.
So you have to think of all these things, like, how do they all impact each other? Look at it as a system rather than individual parts. So if you think of a car, and I love car analogies, because I think people just get it when you explain it like this. You know, go to the mechanic, the car is not working. What does he do? He doesn't just check the tires to see that the car is not working. He's going to go and look at the oil. He's going to look at the carburetor. He's going to look at the kind of gas you've been putting into it. He's going to check everything. So why, when you go to your doctor, you say you have a headache and he only says, well, take a pain killer. And he's not looking at, well, why have you got the headache? Where is it coming from?

Is it, you know, are you dehydrated? Which is probably one of the number one causes of headaches, right? Are you drinking enough? Are you eating something that's creating the headache? Are you not sleeping? The first thing is, like, well take a Paracetamol. Or a Tylenol. Or whatever. And that's not a solution. That's a bandaid. We want a solution. Why are you getting the headaches?

Claudia von Boeselager: Completely. And I think it's making that mental shift away of, like, retraining the mind to look for the underlying cause. Like, your body is trying to tell you something so solve for that versus just trying to have temporary relief. And obviously, through marketing in the Western world, we're just thrown that, like, oh, quick fix, you know, like, get rid of your headache in 10 minutes or whatever the case may be, but then it'll come back again.

Raewyn Guerrero: Yes, exactly. 'Cause rather than finding out, well, where is it coming from? Like, I saw a lady yesterday, who's saying, I've had PMS for years and I've been taking Tylenol for three days every month for the last 20 years. I said, do you have any idea what that's doing to your liver and to your gut? And I said, you know, you probably aren't absorbing food. Your hormones are just going to get worse. Because you're already in your thirties and things don't get better when you keep doing those sorts of things. And she said, well, I'm not ready to change anything yet. Can you just tell me a more natural painkiller? And I thought, oh boy -

Claudia von Boeselager: Where do I start?

Raewyn Guerrero: Yeah, we're missing the point here, like, a natural painkiller, like, remove the toxic food. Like, don't take anything new, just start taking out the things that are causing the problems. Right? 'Cause she said I'm not cutting out grains, and I'll cut out dairy, and I'm not cutting out sugar. I go, wow. Okay. Well, then I can't help you -

Claudia von Boeselager: Do you want to get better or do you not want to get better, as well?

Raewyn Guerrero: And that's the thing, like, some people really want that magic bullet. They want one thing. And I - sorry to disappoint you. There is no one thing. It's all the things. 'Cause I get that a lot. They say, okay, tell me what diet I need to follow. I'm like, your problem isn't about your diet. It's about the way that you're living. You know, SIBO, or small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, which I get to see a lot, which is usually, it comes along with anxiety a lot. You think you can, like, go to sleep at one o'clock in the morning and wake up at 8:00 AM and then go into meetings, and go back to back to back to back to back, and not breathe, and not eat, and then drink in the evening, and think that your stomach's going to heal and that you're going to deal with these problems.

Like, it doesn't work that way. It's like, oh, well, like I meditate and I run. You're missing the point. Like, your lifestyle needs to change. The way that you're working, the way that you're engaging in the world, needs to change. So the lifestyle has to have an overhaul.

And that's why, it's not easy, like, that's why you need a coach. That's why you need someone to help you. Okay. Well, this week we're going to focus on one thing. Just, what's the one thing that we can work on this week. We're not going to do all the things all at once. Because some people think they've got to, like, I've got to do it all today. I'm like, no, you don't have to do it all today. But gradually they'll adapt. And, you know - and you have to understand your motivations for these things, too. Because being unwell, like I've seen with my mother, you know, she had cancer and it took her life, and she stuck with the traditional model. She did the whole chemo radiation thing until it literally killed her. Like, the chemo actually killed her in the end. So it's -

Claudia von Boeselager: I'm so sorry.

No, but it's one of my big motivating factors too. Like, seeing that medications don't work. You know, and meditation and all these other things are way better solutions. And understanding your body and your neurochemistry and your biochemistry through the types of labs that I like to run. And just tuning into, well, what are these symptoms talking to me and saying, and do I need a translator?
And, you know, my job is to translate. 'Cause they're like, I don't really know what this means. And I'm like, okay, well, these labs are going to help us translate what's going on. Right? And then I'm going to sit down and correlate it with what's going on with you.

But disease is the most expensive tax that we pay, sachin Patel said that recently. He said that's the most expensive tax that we pay. And I've seen it, like, you think, okay, investing $5,000 into functional medicine, as opposed to the $25,000 that you spend over a lifetime on Lipitor alone. Right? 'Cause that's what someone does when they're on a medication for 20 years.

And that's, like, a conservative estimate. Because usually that one medication leads to you needing to take multiple medications. I'm being conservative, $25,000 over 20 years. Right?

And then you're not learning any new skills on how to reverse that illness. You're just acquiring more illnesses and symptoms as you get older and your quality of life begins to degenerate.

Whereas you invest into something that you learn how to listen to your body, how to pay attention to it. So it's almost like you're going to school. And that you're going to come out with, like, a Masters or something in your own biochemistry and learn how to manage your own health. So that you can thrive as you get older, but you don't age, you know?

So back, to make it full circle, back to your initial question, right?

Claudia von Boeselager: Yeah. And I absolutely love it.

And then I think, you know, we're both singing from the same hymn sheet with this as well, because it's so empowering. You know, it's not giving your power away, it's taking your power back. It's learning what you can do. And humans are complex creatures. And you need to understand what works for you. And so it's just having, you know, a coach or someone you know, like you as well to help decipher, okay, I need to focus more on the guts. Someone else maybe needs to focus on other lifestyle changes. Like, whatever the case may be. But it's getting that baseline, getting to the bottom of it.

Starting with testing. Everyone knows when something's off, you know? You can tell when you're cognition, brain fog, you don't sleep with anymore. Whatever the case may be. IBS and the rest of it. And it's, your body is telling you, like, alarm, I need support because I'm not able to solve this myself anymore. And I think that it's really helping people to get help early. Do the tests early, because ignoring it, we all know where that goes to.

I mean, I've had Dr. Dale Bredesen on as well. You know, Alzheimer's and cognitive decline is a 20 year in the making disease. It's reversible, but you need to catch it on time.

Raewyn Guerrero: Completely.

Claudia von Boeselager: And so many other illnesses as well. And if you catch it on time, you can reverse it. It's not just a matter of reversing it, but it's actually thriving and living in such a high energy state that, what does that free up your time and energy to do. Well, you could be doing amazing things in the world, right? So that's -

Raewyn Guerrero: That's it.

Claudia von Boeselager: Part of my mission as well. Yeah.

Raewyn Guerrero: Yeah. I love that. And I think that's why we connected because I could see that we were on that same path about, like, literally giving people back the tools. Like, showing them how powerful they are. How powerful the body is. I always say, I say, my mission is to awaken everyone I meet to the innate wisdom of the body. Because it is wise. And when it's malfunctioning, it's telling you, like, pay attention to me. This is how I'm saying pay attention. Because when people come to me with health anxiety, and like my body's not working, my body's not working. It's trying to kill me. No, it's not, it's actually trying to save you. It's trying to tell you what to fix.

You know, and when you turn that around, you shift that, they're like, oh really, like, it's talking, that's what it's doing. It's telling me what I need to pay attention to.
And that solves a lot of health anxiety straight away. Like, just from that mindset of, like, oh, well, I need to translate what it's saying. And then people become a lot calmer and they're like, okay, don't need to freak out. Like, my palpitations are not a heart attack. This is something else. It might be my thyroid. And I need to go and figure that out. Let me go get the blood work done or let me get the gut health work done or whatever it is.

And then we get answers, right? And we're not in that state of, like, is it this, is it that? Like, no, we get clarity. And then we get a roadmap. That's the beauty of the testing.

Because your body is the vehicle. It's taking you to where you want to go in life. And how are you going to get there if you don't have the roadmap, right? How are you getting there without the roadmap? So you need, like, the GPS, that's what the tests are. They're like your GPS. Right?

Claudia von Boeselager: Yeah. I mean to do GPS, right, you need to know where your baseline is, where are you starting from? You can't -

Raewyn Guerrero: Exactly.

Claudia von Boeselager: Fly to Singapore and you're not, you don't know which airport -

Raewyn Guerrero: Exactly. Yeah. So that's what I love about this work. Like, it just, it's so precise. And you mentioned everybody's biochemistry is unique. And that's why some people might do really well being vegan. Some people really, really won't.
And they might be able to eventually go back to that after we correct certain things. Or we help them figure out, like, well, maybe you don't need to be a hundred percent - like, I have a friend of mine who actually works with me as well every now and then she does like talks and stuff. She was the former head of wellbeing for RBS and we, kind of, met at the same time while I was working at Barclays. And we had very similar stories. The burnout thing.

She retrained and nutrition at the Institute For Optimum Nutrition in London. And she calls herself The Naughty Vegan. Because she knows that being a hundred percent vegan is not great for her body, but every now and then she will have some eggs, or she might have a burger. Because she knows that, okay, around my cycle, I'm very low in iron so I need to up my red meat intake, even if it's just for, like, a week. Right? So she's, like, I'm The Naughty Vegan.

So even that, like, if you really want to be more, plant-based, great. But just know that at some point your body might need certain things at different - and particularly for women. Like, women's bodies are so unique and interesting and complex, and we need things at different times of the month. Like, even the way that we exercise should change at different times of the month. Like, when you're going through your cycle, you know, on the days that you're on, you don't want to be doing hardcore intensive exercise, you want to be doing more restorative things.

And it changes our brains as well. Like, we're better in planning mode immediately after you finish your period. So you're really good at strategizing then. Like, really, really good. And then the 10 days before, you can be more foggy and you probably need to rest more. And just, kind of, do things that are automatic, as opposed to trying to set up anything new. So it's all these wonderful nuances about the body that, you know, you get to learn about. And you get to learn to live in harmony with your circadian rhythms. And also your rhythms as a woman.

And I love working with women because they are so tuned in to what's going on.

Claudia von Boeselager: Yeah. I actually did a podcast episode on the female biorhythm and I've held talks on it as well because it's really enabling women, and I also come from a banking and a tech startup background as well. So very male dominated in that expecting - and this is why many women burn out because, you know, men's testosterone levels throughout the month, within the 24 hour window, they go up and down, right, testosterone, but during the month they're pretty much the same. So it's no problem day in, day out doing the same thing.

Raewyn Guerrero: Yeah.

Claudia von Boeselager: Whereas essentially women are for different people during the month. And it's knowing which superpowers you have at those times, times of the month, is that if you can plan your schedule accordingly - and I'd really love, you know, for companies even to open their eyes. 'Cause if you enable and empower women to be at their best, and plan strategically, like, what they can do.

So as you're saying as well, like, you know, during the time of your cycle, well, that's more reflection, self-care time, but have a slower pace. And then you go into the, sort of, strategizing, planning, thinking big, creative. To the ovulation phase where, you know, your estrogen and your testosterone are at its highest level, it's like, that's closing those sales deals. That's, like, shining, holding the presentations 'cause you're glowing, right? And you're really bringing your best.

As progesterone starts increasing as you're at a later stage of your cycle then, as well, it's really, really great for, you know, getting that to-do list done. So, by enabling yourself and planning accordingly, you can, A) practice more self care, which is what everybody needs, because I think we're all so tough on ourselves, particularly women, we always look at what we've done wrong versus what we're doing right.

But also to allow you to shine and really be at your best in the way that suits the female biorhythm. So yeah, I think it's really empowering.

Raewyn Guerrero: Yeah. I'm 100% in agreement with you. And, you know, it's that, unfortunately, the world has evolved for men, right? And it's only now that we're seeing more and more female-led businesses. And hoping to see that there are more changes.

And I'll give you a classic example of this. Like, my husband, he is a 4:00 AM, wake up person. Like, he was up at 4. And I left banking 'cause I said I never wanted to do that ever again. 'Cause I used to live like that. And I'd go running at 5. And then be at my desk by 7:30. And, you know, work until really late. And no wonder I burnt out, right? 'Cause that's just not sustainable.

So when I married him and I saw - because I was single for a while before I married him - and adjusting to somebody else's bio rhythms is interesting because I had come into my own where like I have a really nice, slow start to the day. I have my meditation. I drink my cup of coffee. And I write in my journal. And then I plan and I get into a really nice, relaxed, easy head space.

And then I exercise. I do maybe a little bit of Pilates or some yoga. A little bit of rebounding. Nothing crazy, nothing hectic. But just enough to, kind of, gently wake myself up because I know that's what I need in order to thrive. But with him, it's, sort of like, 4:00 AM, on the go, da da da da da, because - yeah, and that's exactly what it is.

And I started comparing myself a lot, I'm like, oh my God, I'm not doing enough. I'm not doing enough. And I'm telling myself, I'm not enough. I'm not enough. I joined a Mastermind that's only women. All women. And I realized that everybody had this exact same problem with their partners. It's not a problem, but it's just feeling this, sort of like, inadequacy. Like, oh my God, I'm not doing enough. I'm not doing enough. And it's because, like you said, our rhythms are different. And that's where I learned a lot about that.

Like, I'd known a little bit about chronobiology before and, like, how you should time exercise and all those sorts of things. But understanding our own individual female biorhythms was such a, and I thought, I don't need to push the way he's pushing. I work differently, and that's okay. You know, I work differently, and I work differently at different times of the month and that's fine. And I don't need to keep telling myself, like, I'm not enough.

And then that creates, like -

Claudia von Boeselager: A whole cycle -

Raewyn Guerrero: You know an anxiety, like, an anxiety. And then what kind of energy are you putting out into the world then? And, you know, I'm very much into the energy that we're putting out as well. Right? Like, that's huge for me because, you know, if you're putting out fear and anxiety into the world, what are you going to be getting back?

And what I want to be putting out is, you keep using that beautiful word, empowerment, empowerment, love, well, ultimately everything that's happening is a cry. Our body's talking to us to get us back to loving it. Like, it's all about self-love. Ultimately, that's where it all comes back to. Like, you're ignoring me. I'm telling you pay attention to me so that you can love me again. Right? And -

Claudia von Boeselager: And the more you ignore it, the more it will make sure that you have to start paying attention and like -

Raewyn Guerrero: Yeah, that's what they say. You know, I was saying that about my mom. I said, you know, she didn't want to spend money on organic food or whatever. And it's like, and then you've got to go for a scan and blood work. And that's like $200,000. You know, these scans and things they're expensive. And when you have to go for chemo, that's expensive. Like, disease is expensive. Organic food is not expensive. You want to do a cost-benefit analysis. You know, when you're sick, everybody else in your life is impacted. Everyone. Everyone. It's not just you.

Claudia von Boeselager: It's so painful as well. And my mother suffers from dementia, and through Dale Bredesen's protocol and testing, what we discovered was it was due to lack of HRT, so lack of hormone replacement therapy after a hysterectomy back in the 90s and -

Raewyn Guerrero: Bless her.
Head trauma. So she doesn't have ApoE 4 gene. I actually have a single copy, which my father also has as well. So if I do nothing, I would have a 30% lifetime chance. But -

Raewyn Guerrero: Yeah, but you're doing everything. Exactly.

Claudia von Boeselager: Yeah. I'm trying. I have my moments, but I'm trying my best. We are human.
But it's so painful. And I think that's a really important point to say as well, is that when your health, or your loved one's health, deteriorates, it affects, like, a huge peripheral of people around it. And it's -

Raewyn Guerrero: It's a ripple effect in the wrong way.

Yeah. And when you get your health right, there's a ripple effect in the right way. Like, that's the, that's the kind of ripple effect we want to create, like. Lots of healthy vibrant people living their purpose, living their passion. Because I do talk about this a lot. Like, when I get my clients, like, yes, we start working on diet and supplements. But, by the third session, people are starting to feel so much better because we're already, like, into week six by then. And now they're thinking about, well, now I have all this energy, what do I do with it? What do I really want? And then we get into hopes and dreams and start to, creating, like, what kind of life do you want to create?

Like, do you want freedom from this current job? Do you want freedom from this current relationship? 'Cause freedom becomes a big part of it. Like, now I suddenly have the freedom because my body's not holding me prisoner anymore. Now what can I do? Like, what can I do. So, you know, that's the ripple effect that I'm really, really into.

And I love that you and I are having this conversation about it. And I'm sorry to hear about your mom.

Claudia von Boeselager: Thank you. Yeah, unfortunately she was too far, so Dale Bredesen and his team there, they were doing clinical trials. So with the MoCA score, right, the Montreal Cognition Assessment, a 30 is obviously perfect. So they had successful clinical trials of everyone from a MoCA score of 18 and above, were able to reverse them back up to 30, which is just phenomenal. So people who already had declined, but mild to moderate.

And by the time I had discovered all Dale's work, it was already at 11.

Raewyn Guerrero: Yeah.

Claudia von Boeselager: So unfortunately, too - too far gone. And it's just so painful because, again, she was like the shining lights and sounds a bit like your father as well with the, you know, serial entrepreneur and doing a thousand things.
And, you know, it was really painful. I think, two weeks ago - she's someone who probably, hands down, between our companies and things like this has helped thousands of people. And she was involved in the Northern Ireland peace process and things like this as well.

Raewyn Guerrero: Wow.

Claudia von Boeselager: Yeah. And she had it like an epiphany moment with her memory loss. And she said, but I'm not of use anymore because I can't help people. She had really, like, identified with herself that it's about, she has to help people and now she can't help people.

And it was just heartbreaking to see. And she was very upset about it as well. And I think, you know, it's just, this is part of, for me as well, the passion, like, and I've obviously gone through my own health challenges. But this is reversible had we caught it on time. And there's so many other people out there and I've had people contact me, and some people, some clients as well, who are nervous that this might happen to them. And it's getting that shift away from the denial, I'd rather not know about it, and it's a death sentence, and I'm just going to stick my head in the sand, to actually empower them - so, again, the word - but to let them know that there is protocols, there are things you can proactively do. And you can not only just, you know, eradicate it, but you can also actually move into a thrive state and live really, really well.

And then think what you can do in the world.

Raewyn Guerrero: Yeah.

When you get to that point.

Yeah. Do people know that the gene is only, like, I think it's only 8% of people who have Alzheimer's or dementia actually have the gene for it. Only 8%. Yeah. It's only 8% of the people who actually, yeah. So the rest of it is acquired. 92% is lifestyle.
Claudia von Boeselager: Yeah.

So this is what I really liked with, I don't know how familiar you are with Dale's work, but there are 38 different drivers to causing cognitive decline.

So one is, like, high mercury levels. And some people have still mercury fillings. It's like, you need to get those out and you need to detox. There are protocols, what you can do, to reverse things. Low vitamin D levels. There's so many different facets. Also your gut health plays a huge role as well.

So I guess it, hopefully by people hearing this and they might think, like, oh no, there's 38 things and how am I going to get to the bottom of it. You know, by doing the testing and then solving for that -

Raewyn Guerrero: Yes.

Claudia von Boeselager: You're miles, you're light years ahead.

Raewyn Guerrero: And don't do it alone. Don't do it alone. Yeah.

Claudia von Boeselager: Exactly. Exactly.

Raewyn Guerrero: You don't go and try and fix your car, you don't go on YouTube and try and fix your car or go to a Facebook group to try and fix your car, you take it to a mechanic, right? You don't DIY your car. You don't DIY the roof of your house. Don't DIY your body. Go to somebody who knows what they're doing. Whose probably lived through it too, because then they have the empathy to deal with it as well. I always recommend that. Because when you find people who don't have the empathy and are very dismissive, it's can be quite jarring.

I mean, I've seen lots of ologists. I saw, like, gastroenterologists, urologists, gynecologists, endocrinologists. I saw them all. And, you know, no one talks to you like you're a human. Like, seeing how that worked. And they didn't all talk to each other either. So they're all quite happy to put you on different drugs that you didn't know how they're reacting with the other thing.

So, you know, I've been through what I call the medical merry-go-round. I've been through that. And I've seen my family go through it. And lots of people show up to me after they're exhausted from trying to figure it out with their traditional primary care providers or even their consultants and specialists.

And no one can give them answers. And then they come here and we do these labs and they say, okay, well this correlates with that, this, you know, this bacteria, dah, dah, dah. Your liver is not doing its job. It's, you know, and straight away they're like, oh my God, this actually makes sense to me now, like, this actually is starting to answer all these questions now. Now what can we do to fix it? I'm like, great. We're ready to do that. Good.

And, you know, sometimes people who aren't believers initially, like, I don't really think I need to change anything about my food. Like, I had one lady recently, she had a lot of pain and she said, well, I don't think I need to change my food. But then when we got the labs and I showed her, like, what was going on with her gut bacteria and what was linked to rheumatoid arthritis, and all the things that were going on, and a high gluten starch diet. And she's like, oh boy. Okay. Okay. I gotta change. I gotta change it. I'm like, you know, seeing it just made her, lit her up and she's like, yep, I'm ready to go.

So, you know, sometimes getting the data is important. You know, this is very evidence-based.

Claudia von Boeselager: Yeah. And I think that's really phenomenal to actually have the data.

And it even starts with, sort of, you know, the watches and sleep trackers and things like that that we can have. But I think it helps a lot of people.

Raewyn Guerrero: The Oura rings!

Claudia von Boeselager: The Oura rings, exactly. To actually see what's going on, you know? And, I mean, I used to be so unforgiving with myself. I'm like, why am I tired? And again, I've, sort of, sleep-deprived. In my 20s, I could manage on, like, three, four hours of sleep at nights. But then obviously things started progressing, and gut health issues, et cetera. And then there's extreme brain fog and all the rest of it. But when you actually see what's really happening and how your body is resting, you can act from there. So I think it's not just tracking to track, but actually to then take steps and measures to improve it.

And I think that that's where the empowering point comes in with these devices.
Raewyn Guerrero: I couldn't agree with you more. And there's something that I use with my clients. I have a platform or portal, like a health portal, and it syncs with the wearable tech. So that I can see what they're up to. And then when we meet, we can talk about, well, you had a really good week. It looks like you weren't sleeping this week. What's going on? You know, and it really, really helps. I can see how active they've been. And all that stuff. And it's just so useful, like. I think, yes, we say it over and over, like, you cannot manage what you don't measure. So you gotta be measuring. That's how we track progress.

I don't want you to become obsessed with measuring either. Like, I make sure that that's not a thing. Like, I don't want anyone feeling like, oh my God, I've got to check my, if my sleep's completely off, like, am I going to die? I'm like, no, this is not, you know, 'cause sometimes that can happen with health anxiety.

You know, if you've got a lot of health anxiety, I'd say, well, we're not probably going to measure everything straight away. We'd work on doing some CBT type work and a little bit of hypnosis to calm you down before we get into measuring. But for people who aren't too fearful, who are like you, who are just proactive, who just want to be, like, I just want to be on top of this, then you do that.

So, yeah, these are great tools. I'm a big fan. I've been wearing an Oura Ring since 2019. Three years. And I swear by it. Like, I love the data that it gives me. I love it. And then I recently started wearing a blood sugar monitor, one of those glucose, the NES.

Claudia von Boeselager: Yeah, I've done that as well.

Raewyn Guerrero: And that was, you know what was really crazy about that? Like, I saw, so I eat pretty much low carb. You know, I have berries and things like that. And I do like my sweet potatoes, but in general, it's more like protein, a lot more protein than carbohydrates. And more vegetables, fiber. But I hadn't changed anything about my diet, but I was doing these presentations in the UK for a company and I was doing like 12 o'clock UK time, which was like 4 o'clock in the morning, San Diego time. So I was getting up at, like, 3:00 AM. Going to bed at, like, 9:00 PM. Getting up at 3 to get ready for my presentation. And my blood sugar, even though my food had not changed, my blood sugar went bananas for, like, a week.

Right? Even though it was, like, one day out of that week.

Claudia von Boeselager: Wow.

Raewyn Guerrero: Right? It took a while to settle down. My heart rate variability as well, like, went a little bit bananas. So just from, like, not getting proper sleep, waking up too early, you know, 'cause even if I went to bed at 9 -

Claudia von Boeselager: Your biorhythm.

Raewyn Guerrero: It was still, yeah. I was just, everything was just, my biochemistry was just totally off.
So yeah -

Claudia von Boeselager: It's really great to see as well. And I think for me also, through having the Oura Ring, and seeing I was waking up at night and kind of thing, you know, what's going on, I didn't even realize I was waking up. And I was wearing the continuous glucose monitor and seeing that, I thought it was doing great with my intermittent fasting, but I was hypoglycemic.

So my blood sugar was so low that it was causing a cortisol response in the body to get the liver going in essence, waking me up. And causing, then, brain fog and, like, things during the day, because obviously I was waking up and didn't realize it. And I wasn't having my nice sleep cycles. So through that tracking, it really gives you the tools to figure out, you know, hang on a second, like, something is off, let's get to the bottom of it. And having a spoonful of almond butter, that has no sugar or palm oil in it, before bed just maintains those levels.

Raewyn Guerrero: Those levels. Yeah.

Claudia von Boeselager: Which is -

Raewyn Guerrero: And then you sleep beautifully, like, wonderfully, you know?

Claudia von Boeselager: Nice sleep cycles and things as well.

Raewyn Guerrero: Yeah.

Claudia von Boeselager: Raewyn, what excites you most about the future of longevity, health and wellbring?

Raewyn Guerrero: I think, thanks to COVID, even though it was horrible for humanity, I actually think it was part of the great awakening. Like, it's a Renaissance for people realizing, oh wait, my health actually is in my hands.
So I feel like, even though this was a massive moment in our history, it's a massive moment for lots of other good things too. It's, I think, for people starting to read more. To tune into podcasts. To listen to people like Dale Bredesen. Lewis Howes. Tom Bilyeu. Daniel Amen, who's, like, one of my favorites. Tom O'Brien. Like, I see more and more people looking and seeking, like, real answers. So I think what excites me the most is that there are more and more people waking up. We are going to have that collective consciousness shift because that I think is the way that we're going to be able to deal with, God forbid, the next pandemic.

We have a pandemic going on anyway, long before this pandemic, of chronic disease. That's, you know, obesity, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, like, all these chronic diseases that we saw was playing a huge part in the people who were actually becoming very unwell, right? So -

Claudia von Boeselager: And mental health pandemic I would say as well, particularly coming out of COVID.

Raewyn Guerrero: Exactly. So, you know, what excites me the most is that people are going to wake up to the fact that their health is in their hands. What I'm hoping is that we'll see more and more companies, right, actually start taking action around these things. And start investing. Because their wellbeing programs that I'm seeing, like, you know, in 2011, when I started the wellbeing program at Barclays, there were like maybe, I dunno, five Fortune 500 companies that I was aware of that were doing anything around it.

Now, if you go on LinkedIn, there are wellbeing jobs everywhere. Wellbeing officer jobs all the time. I get them sent into my inboxes and wow, you know, 10 years ago, this wasn't even a thing. And now everybody wants a wellbeing officer. Companies want to start taking care of their employees. What I'd love them to start doing is phasing out health insurance and actually including these types of things. Like, the proactive, rather than waiting for someone to break a leg and needing an x-ray. 'Cause that's all that health insurance is really good for it. Sorry to say.

But actually looking at, well, how do we give people, like, an allowance for investing in functional medicine, lab work, and coaching? So that's what excites me the most that there's this shift in reactive health care to be more proactive. And that healthcare actually becomes health focused rather than disease focused.

Claudia von Boeselager: Exactly. It's not, at the moment, a lot of things are sick care, but yeah, that opportunity to be in wellbeing, well care. And, I mean, it's such a logical benefit and such a knock-on effect for society, for families, for employees, for companies. I mean, it's just such a win-win.

Raewyn, you recently brought out a book that is already super successful, but can you share some more details about your book Corporate Dropouts: From Employee to Entrepreneur?

Raewyn Guerrero: Thank you for letting me talk about the book. I figure we have to talk about it. 'Cause it obviously charts my journey through burnout. I'm a contributor to the book. So there are 19 other authors. And we all have almost identical stories. So it's quite interesting reading everybody else's story and realizing everyone had this, like, physical crash, like, we all had this physical kind of crash and "come to Jesus" moment, Damascus moment, whatever you want to call it, and realizing I can't go on like this. It's not worth it.

Because, when you crash, what happens? Your company just changes the cog in the wheel. They're like, you know, they're like, well, thanks for your service. Peace.
Yeah. Good luck. And you're like, wait a second, I've been killing myself for you, and - it's like a bad boyfriend and you have to break up with them.

Right? Like, okay, I can't keep doing this. 'Cause you're like a bad boyfriend.
So the book, the book came out in February on Kindle. We have literally just released the paperback and there's a summit that's coming along with the book in about two weeks from today. So we're 28th of April, and the summit launches on the 11th of May.

So yeah. So super exciting because the paperback has just launched and we wanted to get people excited about that, that they can have - and we've made a couple of revisions to it since the Kindle. It's funny when you see it and sealing your book in print is quite interesting.

And I'm working on my solo book right now. That's why I'm in Mexico. I'm here figuring out the solo book and creating basically - I said there's no DIYing to health, but it is a DIY manual. Like, what you would do, exactly, like, if you'd work with me one-to-one. It's, sort of like, charting that and all the questions that I would ask. And there's lots of opportunity for self-reflection, lots of quizzes to, like, self-assess what's going on with you. So in the absence of doing labs, things that can help you identify where your weak links are.

And so I'm working on that right now. I couldn't just stop. I told you I do, like, three things at once, right? So I'm, like, promoting this one and also working on the solo book. So that by the time I'm out of here, I have my first draft done.

Claudia von Boeselager: Amazing. I'm going to take some tips from you because I want to also do July, August, blocking off to do my book proposal as well. I want to bring out a book also because I feel like, particularly also for women, there is a space missing around a practical guide book. You know, I have a lot of neuroscientists doctor friends, and it's all very, you know, they quote clinical trials, et cetera, but it's how does one, you know, that's busy, and need practical, like, what do I need to -

Raewyn Guerrero: Applied, right? Yeah.

Claudia von Boeselager: And it's holistic as well, because it's the mind. It's, you know, mindset what we were talking about as well, but then also some physical things as well. And it doesn't need to be super complex. It's like, how do you keep it simple and implementable for busy people that really want to thrive? So, yeah.

Raewyn Guerrero: Yeah, exactly. And, you know, the way that books are evolving right now too, you don't need to go down the traditional publishing route. You don't have to have 300 pages. It could be as short or as long as you think it needs to be, right? Like, if you can give somebody something valuable that they can use straight away and they can like, oh, I can do, like, five assessments and figure out which route I need to go down.

And that's what I love about books. They're life-changing. There are many books that have changed my life. And I want to be able to like, okay, so if someone says, I can't afford - and I get it a lot, like, I have a free Facebook group and I try to help people a lot through that, but they have to actually sit down and do the work. And they still message me in the backend and they say, well, how do I solve this? I say, look at the video.

And then I think if I had, like, something tangible to hand to them that they could actually walk away with and, you know, rather than being on the computer or the thing, they actually physically look into it and be like, okay, let me do these exercises. And the book is designed for you to write all over it. Like, write. You know, tick things off. You know, there's affirmations in there and they're like, all, like, daily affirmations. Recipes. Like, so it's packed full of - it's the same thing. It's about mind, body and spirit, because I do feel - we could focus on the body, we can focus on the mental health, but if we're not focusing on purpose, what lights us up, you know, those things you're missing out, you're missing a big, big trick.
And even, like, some sort of energy-type practices. Like, how do you, you know, qigong. You know? Reiki -

Claudia von Boeselager: I do that every morning in my morning priming as well. Yeah, it's a great way to get into the body as well. So, yeah.

Raewyn Guerrero: Yeah, exactly. So it's all those things. Tai Chi. Qigong. Things like that. Like, incorporating all of that into the work, like, how to build energy. And even trying to direct people, like, the type of healer you might need, you know? Just, sort of, giving them that direction.

I think it's very, very important for us to have, like, these manuals. That's what I - it's called Become The CEO Of Your Health. That's the new one. Become The CEO Of Your Health. And it's a manual. It is -

Claudia von Boeselager: I love it.

Raewyn Guerrero: It's literally a DIY. I said don't DIY your health, but do that first, and if it doesn't work, then come see me.

Claudia von Boeselager: Number one.

Raewyn Guerrero: Yeah.

Claudia von Boeselager: Where can people follow what you're up to, Raewyn? And we can obviously mark this in the show notes. Social media, your website, what are your handles?

Raewyn Guerrero: Yeah. So I would actually like to gift your listeners something today.

Claudia von Boeselager: Oh, thank you.

Raewyn Guerrero: So I have a five-day mini-course. It's a series of five videos. They're not very long, 10 minutes is the longest, but it's all around the gut-brain connection.

And by the end of it, the idea is that you're going to be reducing anxiety. And you're going to be hopefully calming down whatever fire is going on inside of your gut as well. Just for some simple tips around, like, what to eat and that kind of thing. So I'd love to be able to gift people that. So it's on well-works.co - and if you go to services, it's under 'free mini course'.

So there's, like, a little services tab and you click on that and there's like a free mini course you can sign up for.

Claudia von Boeselager: Wonderful. Thank you so much. I think that that's exciting, I'm going to check it out myself and have a look.

And so that's your website, and then for social media to track what you're up to, are you on Facebook or Instagram?

Raewyn Guerrero: Yeah, so I have a wonderful Facebook group. Anyone's welcome to join. You know, I said part of my mission is awakening people to the innate wisdom of the body and the goal around that is so that we can create a well world. So I have well world, so it's facebook.com/groups/wellworksworld - and, yeah, all one word.

So very easy spot to come and hang out. I share lots of videos in there. Lots of great discussions happen in there too. And I show up every now and then, I come in once a week, or once every two weeks, and do a Live.

Claudia von Boeselager: Fabulous. We'll link everything in the show notes as well.
Do you have any final ask or recommendation, or any parting thoughts or message for my audience?

Raewyn Guerrero: Prevention is better than cure. Always, always my mantra. And the best investment you'll ever make is in yourself.

Claudia von Boeselager: To quote Warren Buffett, right?

Raewyn Guerrero: Yes. Yeah.

Amazing. Thank you so much for coming on again. And, yeah, I look forward to continuing the conversation.

Yeah. Thank you so much. This has been a lot of fun and I hope it inspires and empowers people.

Claudia von Boeselager: Me too.