Jolene Park joins us this episode to talk about the importance of prioritising the nourishment of your nervous system and neurotransmitters when quitting drinking. Jolene explains why a “bottom up” approach focussing on rewiring, replenishing and repairing the nervous system is vital to the success of drinking less long term. Do you drink to relax, destress, numb anxiety or soothe an activated nervous system (most do!)? Then it is essential to incorporate resources to calm the nervous system into your sober practice. This physiological piece is often overlooked or minimised in favour of cognitive reframing work. It shouldn’t be. The good news is, Jolene provides examples of simple and accessible resources that can easily be put into practice by you or your clients. Jolene is a leading authority on Grey-Area Drinking, a TED talk speaker, functional nutritionist and health coach who coaches private clients and also trains healthcare practitioners on the importance of nourishing neurotransmitters and supporting their client’s nervous system.
Jolene's website: https://grayareadrinkers.com
Jolene's instagram handle: @jolene__park
MEG & BELLA
Megan Webb: https://glassfulfilled.com.au
Instagram: @glassfulfilled
Bookclub: https://www.alcoholfreedom.com.au/unwinedbookclub
Isabella Ferguson: https://isabellaferguson.com.au
Instagram: @alcoholandstresswithisabella
Instagram: @kidsandalcohol
Jolene Park joins us this episode to talk about the importance of prioritising the nourishment of your nervous system and neurotransmitters when quitting drinking. Jolene explains why a “bottom up” approach focussing on rewiring, replenishing and repairing the nervous system is vital to the success of drinking less long term. Do you drink to relax, destress, numb anxiety or soothe an activated nervous system (most do!)? Then it is essential to incorporate resources to calm the nervous system into your sober practice. This physiological piece is often overlooked or minimised in favour of cognitive reframing work. It shouldn’t be. The good news is, Jolene provides examples of simple and accessible resources that can easily be put into practice by you or your clients. Jolene is a leading authority on Grey-Area Drinking, a TED talk speaker, functional nutritionist and health coach who coaches private clients and also trains healthcare practitioners on the importance of nourishing neurotransmitters and supporting their client’s nervous system.
Jolene's website: https://grayareadrinkers.com
Jolene's instagram handle: @jolene__park
MEG & BELLA
Megan Webb: https://glassfulfilled.com.au
Instagram: @glassfulfilled
Bookclub: https://www.alcoholfreedom.com.au/unwinedbookclub
Isabella Ferguson: https://isabellaferguson.com.au
Instagram: @alcoholandstresswithisabella
Instagram: @kidsandalcohol
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Speaker 2:These two things will help get our pod to the people who need it. Thank you so much. So, wherever you may be driving, exercising, having a cup of tea, we really hope you enjoy this next episode.
Speaker 1:Hi, I'm Meg and I'm Bella, and we're the hosts of she's Sober Sydney. We are this naked mind, certified coaches who have each discovered that life is just so much better without booze.
Speaker 2:This podcast is for you if you're questioning your relationship with alcohol and you're looking for some positivity, love and support.
Speaker 1:Sharing our own vulnerabilities and stories helps us know we're not alone, so let's do this together.
Speaker 2:Our listeners are in for a real treat today, because we've got JoLeen Park here with us.
Speaker 2:Many of you will already know JoLeen from the revolutionary work she does on the topic of grey area drinking, and you may have seen her TED talk on this topic, which has been viewed more than 350,000 times. So JoLeen is a very important part of our history, because there's a lot out there about the mindset shift, but less so about the physiological aspect and the support needed to nourish our systems to allow this habit to stick and for life to be enjoyable. Joleen is a functional nutritionist, has studied the functional impact of food, emotions, environments and movement in relation to our bodies In private coaching for individuals, the sober choice online course for the public and the nourish method training program for coaches and healthcare practitioners. And, in fact, this is where I met JoLeen. I'm privileged to have trained as a grey area drinking coach last year and in presently a master coach, and so for me, I'm grateful that my exposure to JoLeen and to specialist hands on training continues. So I really need to zip it, stop talking, hand the mic over and just want to say a big welcome, joleen.
Speaker 3:Thanks, isabella. I am looking forward to this conversation with you. Thank you so much for inviting me on.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're welcome. So where are you and what time is it where you're at?
Speaker 3:I am in Charleston, south Carolina, and it is 5pm in the evening here.
Speaker 2:Wow, okay, well, let's get cracking. So I gave a little introduction there. Have I missed anything specific out that you may want to add?
Speaker 3:I think that covers it. It's always interesting. You know the professional bio, right, and then it's like okay, let's just have the conversation and chat. But yeah, I think that covers it Awesome.
Speaker 2:So what inspired you to farewell alcohol from your life and what worked for you?
Speaker 3:The inspiration was personally led of just personally drinking stopping drinking, restarting drinking and doing that cycle for many, many years and getting to a point of there's no more kind of fantasy or illusion or kidding myself that it's going to change, that it's going to be any different. I had stopped and restarted enough times that it was just this knowing of I don't want to keep doing this kidding myself and thinking maybe, you know, I could be a social drinker, I'll go and have a drink after a period of not drinking and just always going back to the same level of drinking. So that it was as simple as that. But it's not easy to stop. But it was that simple knowing of I just don't want to keep. I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired with this back and forth cycle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and when you got to that point, which I think I've read somewhere was around 2014, what did you do that you realized was working and that you continue to do, just to allow this new routine and habit to work for you?
Speaker 3:The first place that I went to and started was what I knew, which was the functional nutrition. I had been studying nutrition, have been certified for over a decade and had done training in 2006. Eight years before I stopped drinking did a intensive on neurotransmitters with a medical doctor who works in an integrative functional nutrition practice. Part of his work was running a holistic treatment center. He was training practitioners, nutritionists and chiropractors and medical doctors on the neurotransmitters and the nutrition of that, not necessarily under an addiction alcohol component, but that was certainly his in point. He was really interested. There was a center in Minneapolis here in the States that was working on the physiology first before the psychology. People who were struggling with drugs and alcohol would come in and they rebalance their mineral load, their amino acids, their fatty acids and work with the physical first to boost their brain chemicals, their neurotransmitters. For a couple of weeks before they got into some of the emotional cognitive therapy side of things. I did the training with him. I knew that those origins, I knew that the origins were working with the addicted brain. But again, someone doesn't have to be struggling with drugs or alcohol to boost their neurotransmitters and increase their amino acid balance, their amino acids and their mineral loads in their body.
Speaker 3:That was my entry, because I knew that and knew about supplements and nutrients and the power of going back to the basics with nutrition. I really piecemealed it together. I went back to some of that training, got online, did some internet searches of things like herbs that boost GABA and I just put together my little cocktail, so to speak, of herbs to help boost some of the neurotransmitters and treated myself. In a way it was that physician healed myself. I'm not a physician, I'm a nutritionist, but that's where I started and it worked. It absolutely worked. That was my foundation and eventually, a couple of years later, when I started working with clients, I would start with that nutritional foundation. Now, when I train coaches, I start with that nutritional foundation. That's where I started.
Speaker 2:I love it. That's what I love about the work that you do. It's going back to basics, it's the resources that we've got every day and it's really just replenishing things that we've got around us that we've almost lost touch with. Now that segues perfectly into just my next question, which is would you mind giving us a definition of gray area drinking?
Speaker 3:Absolutely Gray area is this area that we've turned a blind eye to. It's been a bit of the white elephant in the well-being and health optimization of health conversation. Until about the last decade I was teaching corporate wellness. Certainly, people are out there talking about integrative health and just health in general, but there was this blind eye around alcohol. There was this historically stereotype traditionally of that end stage rock bottom, crash and burn, hollywood style fear and loathing in Las Vegas, the wolf fall off the bus. If that's not people's situation, then they don't have a problem with alcohol. It was either that extreme, whatever we can imagine in our minds just extreme, extreme, and then there can always be somebody worse than that extreme, but then everybody else didn't have a problem.
Speaker 3:The truth is that there are some people who really don't drink. They might have a drink here and there and there's many people out there that are like that. They have a handful of drinks through the year. It's just not their thing. They have other things, might be food or something else, but it's just not a thing. Then there's that stereotypical end stage.
Speaker 3:But the problem is between those two extremes is where most people drink. We've just turned a blind eye to that and that area is the gray area. It's this overarching umbrella and many labels and terms can fall under it. So social drinking, moderate drinking, curious problem drinking, dependent drinking, addicted drinking, all of those terms. People have different comfort levels with different labels, but really it's all a gray area because there is no safer, healthy, recommended intake of alcohol.
Speaker 3:What is not gray area drinking is when people are drinking at a level that they need a medical detox. Yes, support to stop. I'm not saying that with any judgment. That's not a moral judgment. It's not a psychological hierarchy judgment, it's a physiological where's the body and supporting the body If it needs that level of support? Again, no shame or no blame. But that isn't gray area drinking, but everything else where people are drinking and having a silent internal conversation of I don't want to drink that much, but I drink that much again, and making these silent promises and bargaining with themselves. However they define and label themselves. It's under that gray area umbrella.
Speaker 2:That's right. I mean, you can not be physically addicted, but still fall in that space and it's taking up so much time and energy. You can still be fixated on it, it can still be in the forefront of your mind when you go out socializing, so you're not present and connected. And I've read somewhere there have been 10 characteristics of the gray area drinker and gosh, a lot of them. Just I know that so many people would just tick those boxes. And I also know from my own personal experience and we spoke about this the other day on Insta that I was a gray area drinker for a good 20. Probably, yeah, how old am I? Good, 20, 25 years.
Speaker 2:And had I had that kind of permission at that point and the knowledge and the information that we've now got out there, then then I may have taken a bit more notice before I morphed into the bright, flashing red zone and needed kind of more immediate help. So you know I'm so grateful that all of this work that you're doing is out there now. What I'd really love to know from your perspective is there is there's a plethora of programs and books out there that really do focus on the cognitive aspect and and that's great. More the merrier and the premise there is really that you shift the mind set first, then the behavior follows, then off you go. But what your model has is this rewiring and replenishing of the nervous system after quitting, and I'd love to know where does the nervous system fit in the process? Why is it so important to really look after it from the start, rather than forget about it or leave it till the end?
Speaker 3:Well, we've done that again. It's one of you know, kind of traditionally over the years, we want to go to the mind, you know, if we can just wrap our mind around something and understand something and mentally work through it. The problem is, is that's just not where the current neuroscience is today. The current neuroscience we talk about neuroception, and so there's this it's the internal brain, the part of the brain, that animal brain that is firing milliseconds faster than that logical brain and that's necessary to biological necessity to keep us alive, for to always be, you know, on alert, or are we safe, are we protected? And so it's a neuroception is the term where the body is reading the environment and and then giving the messages up the spinal cord to the brain, and so then the neuroception turns into a physiological state. So let's say right now, where my animal brain might pick up on something, so a sound or a scent or hear something, and then my physiological state, and this is all on an unconscious level, where some of that, you know, we talk about working with the unconscious, but it's physiological unconsciousness. So my, now my state, braces if I hear a sound or something that you know doesn't correlate within the environment for safety, and then from that state behavior happens. So now I might get up out of my chair and pick up my legs and, you know, walk out of the room, start moving my legs, and from that then there's a feeling of, oh, my heart racing. I can feel my heart like anxiety, and so, working with the feelings and the behavior, they're way up the ladder and so it's more of that mental like recognizing okay, there's, you know, we start kind of putting story to it at the end. And so we want to start with the body.
Speaker 3:And so Bessel van der Kolk, who wrote the body, keeps the score. He has lots of really famous phrases. He talks about bottom up, not top down. So that's what he, that's what he means is bottom meaning the body, work with the bottom first and then we work with the mind, because that's just the neurobiology of what happens. So if we keep trying to intellectually and mentally work with the mind, that's all great and there's benefit to that.
Speaker 3:But when we're in a stress, activated, reactive state that we flipped our lives, so that logical part of the brain is offline and the animal part of the brain, the instinctive part of the body and the nervous system is running the show. So we want to work with that part of the body, calm that part of the body, soothe that part of the body. Because that's what's been. Clients always come in and say I know this stuff, I know it. Why can I stop drinking? Because it's not about the intellect, it's not about the top going down, it's about the bottom going up.
Speaker 3:And so when we drink we're soothing and regulating with the alcohol. Initially that's a positive experience. We need to soothe and regulate the nervous system. But we want to start there and the nervous systems throughout the body we want to start with. Let's soothe and regulate the body in ways you know there's other options besides alcohol, so then that the mind gets the message secondarily, that then we can start working with beliefs and the story. But we don't start there. We have to settle the body first so that then we can work on the cognition.
Speaker 2:That makes so much sense because isn't it the case that the way our nervous system is wired and the patterns that it has in reacting to certain things, it happens from our youth, doesn't it? So? All of that kind of way that we cope internally has happened well before we start reaching and being exposed to alcohol.
Speaker 3:Well, absolutely starts, certainly in early childhood, 100%. So again, our nervous system is always reading the environment. And then we're wiring systems to you know where there's dangerous, like not going to go there again. Register that in the hippocampus in the memory. But arguably even starts before childhood. So starts in utero, in the womb. We're reacting with our mother's nervous system for those nine months in the womb. And then there's the epigenetics, before even conception of you know, there's studies about people who their great grandparents were in the Holocaust. They, you know, there are people who have never been to Germany but it was like they're great, great grandmother. But there's that passing on of the epigenetics that can set up the biochemistry, the constitution you know, different fear, responses or anxiety, and so there's epigenetics, there's the in utero piece and then certainly the environment, the lived environment as children, and all of that is is part of our nervous system, right here, right now, as you and I are talking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I know sort of keep bringing back to me, but this is, this is why I just fell in love with all that you teach so much is that I had all of these sorts of behaviors when I was quite young which I was trying to soothe with things like massive doses of sugar, like I was that person that had a massive M&M packet and was knocking it back, and really it was sort of the beginning of trying to reach for something to soothe and activated state and biting my nails and all sorts of things. So looking for things to soothe an agitated state is all part of then. Why some people would find themselves in the alcohol cycle of using that to soothe Just makes so much sense.
Speaker 3:It makes, it absolutely makes so much sense. And that's what's what's. It lifts some of the shame, a lot of the shame, and it starts to it's like that oh, this is a different perspective. Instead of character, you know, defects or self will run riot. We have to control it.
Speaker 3:It's, it's not that it's, you know, I like to look at it.
Speaker 3:As you know, the body is kind of this this, what we're working with, and just like we would work with a scared child or a scared animal and we wouldn't it's like there's, it's not, there's no shame. It's like, of course they're scared, the environment, the situation, what's happening, like it makes so much sense that they're scared. And so it's the same way with us and it's that same compassion of like, well, of course our body reacted that way, and it's not even a blaming thing, you know. Like again with a child or with an animal, we're not. So you're like, oh, the environment, let's really focus on it's just like no, of course, it just makes sense, period, yeah. And then there's ways then to soothe and to regulate that animal, that child, and support and and come back into that state again of balance and it none of it. It's not that, you know one state is bad and another state is good. It's just about recognizing and then knowing having some tools to to recalibrate and replenish and repair, and that's what's been missing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and and really using the resources that work for you, that you're drawn to, because there's a whole long list that you can reach for. Like, I didn't realize that painting was something that can really calm and work the nervous system down, which is what I immediately grabbed and did in the early days, without knowing why, and I imagine playing music and all of the ING activities that you talk about are part of it, aren't they? They're sort of just part of what you can resource and find in your everyday life to to seek to nourish and calm your nervous system down.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know. So the ING activity is something that I teach. And so there's positive ING activities painting, gardening, dancing, singing where we're active, yeah, but we can come into that flow state kind of, that zone of it slows the mind. Some people will, or they're, you know, playing the piano or taking pictures. They end in ING. So it's an active state but it but it settles our system.
Speaker 3:And if we don't intentionally actively choose an ING activity, there are also negative states that we're just trying to regulate. But you know the negatives are overdrinking, overfeeding, overspending, right, yeah. And what's interesting is the body is so smart. Because you asked me at the beginning of what did I first do when I stopped drinking? And there was a sense of going to what I knew.
Speaker 3:But I would argue with the nutrition, but I would argue that there was also that was because we can work on the physical. We can work on some of that emotional stress response or some of the energetic, spiritual, yes, and we have a knowing of where, of what's needing, of what's been depleted, and there can be that, that physical depletion of minerals and fatty acids and that type of thing, which is where I first went and it's just trusting of that's the body's priority, working on the physical but, like you're talking about the painting, there's some that's a really regulating from an emotional side. It can help bring the system out of that kind of fight or flee place and into more of a connected, engaged, calm place emotionally. And so you know, what do we first do? We often diminish it or think, oh, that's simple or silly, but it's not because the body knows what it's needing to regulate. And so I would say to people don't suppress it, Don't write it off as too simple. There's regulation happening when we're drawn to certain things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's joyful as well. It brings an element of joy and happiness and resonance in your life too, so there's all sorts of things that get drawn in. We learn a lot about our neural transmitters. We learn about how dopamine gets affected with alcohol and all the rest of it. Would you mind just giving your overview of how our neural transmitters play a role in how we feel and how we can, I guess, boost them in order to improve the whole process of taking away alcohol from our life?
Speaker 3:Neurotransmitters are the master switch in a way. So when we're talking about mood and appetite and sleep and motivation and drive and libido, all of those pieces appetite that are chemical messengers in our brain are the raw materials that either slow those mechanisms down or speed them up or keep them in this optimal place. So for feeling like our appetite is on overdrive or diminished, or our libido or our motivation to just get up and move and take action, all of those things and sleep are directly connected to the level of our chemicals. And there's four major neurochemicals that I was when I learned about them in 2006 and then now what I train with my coaches and work with my clients on.
Speaker 3:There's two neurochemicals that are we call the gas pedal of the nervous system and that is dopamine and acetylcholine. So dopamine is in charge of motivation, taking action. Acetylcholine is in charge of focus and memory. And then the two neurochemicals that are we call them the brakes of the nervous system is GABA and serotonin. So GABA is our internal kind of natural anti-anxiety neurochemical and serotonin is our natural happiness and just intent and neurochemical. So obviously we want a balance of these neurochemicals. And then there's others. There's the norepinephrine and different histamine as a neurotransmitter. So those four are the ones that I work with, and so we don't want too much, we don't want too little, and the body's always trying to regulate and keep things in homostasis.
Speaker 2:And so again it just makes sense.
Speaker 3:If we're low and depleted in certain neurochemicals, the body is kind of like alert, alert. You know we need to bring things into balance. And alcohol has an initial false positive effect where it feels like all four of those neurotransmitters are boosted to an optimal level. That feels good. So we have some initial relaxation, some initial energy, some initial like okay, focus slows the, the rumination of the mind down and that's all positive. It's the body needs to be, it wants to be in that state. So again, it makes sense that it's always interesting what people crave and to me it's not a shame like shaming of, like suppressing or gripping or controlling or you should or shouldn't do something. It's like isn't that interesting. The body's telling us right here what's been missing and deficient and depleted and then from there we can. It's just like let's just add in. The body's always given us feedback and yeah, such a good overview.
Speaker 2:I'm going to ask the question that I know lots of listeners will be asking right now, which is well, how do I know? How would I test my neurotransmitters? My GP doesn't offer it. How would I go about working it out?
Speaker 3:Well, from a functional medicine standpoint, you can do a urine test, so do a 24 hour urine collection and then send that to a lab and they'll test that to see basically what shows up in the highest amount. So let's say that GABA shows up from that urine sample, that means that we are that person is dumping GABA at a high rate, so then they're deficient in GABA. So the thing that shows up as the highest marker means that that then in the urine is what's going to be deficient. There are and I use some of this in the training there are different quizzes out there of things of you know I have insomnia, I have road rage, like those type of yes or no questions which have been correlated that seem to match up the lab tests pretty well. And I've done both. I have done a urine lab test and taken just the true false quiz.
Speaker 3:And what functional medicine says is that you know you get the lab result. Often if you take the quiz you're going to get the same result. That's been my experience. So you can do either to test, but also, as you know, you know I train my coaches and we learn some overview of some, some typical characteristics of low GABA, low serotonin. So sometimes we just talking with people you know what's kind of some patterns for them with their sleep, with their appetite, with their mood, and just having that conversation can start to give a sense of like oh, that sounds a little bit more like the drive, the motivation. That sounds a little bit more around the anxiety kind of profile, and so there's different ways to go about it. But but we can actually test.
Speaker 2:My clients love it. They love the that test. It doesn't take a lot of time and it's so revealing Because it also just creates the focus for them on it not just being about taking away alcohol. You know it's that's. Yes, it might be a goal, but there's a lot of lot of other elements that are playing into it and it can be related to the fogginess of the memory, the motivation, the energy, the sleep, and so it just allows, it just opens the door then to they have to really realize that bringing in other resources, supplements and activities are all part of it. I, I love it and I know my clients really love it as well. Would you mind giving us a little run down on nourish? So what does nourish mean? How does it work with the, the whole process of giving up drinking? Because the very name itself is so soothing and lovely. But there's real. You've got an acronym there. That is quite intentional, isn't it?
Speaker 3:It is. It's an acronym that I developed and came up with. So first again, my background of foundation is in nutrition, so it makes sense, you know kind of pulling that word and then basically what I've done. So the the nourish stands for notice nature, observe your breath, unite with others, replenish with food, initiate movement, sit in stillness and harness your creativity. And how I came up with those seven pieces is really just reading and the study and the data of the nervous system and, you know, optimization for the brain, for the body, from just a comprehensive well being state and different people have different takes on things and have different focuses. You know where they work within the well being space, but what you know, these are things that show up over and over and over. There's just a universal thread. And so, whether we're working with alcohol or something else, you know, with our own health and well being, we can't go wrong with nature, with our breath, with community, with good, real food movements. The creativity.
Speaker 3:So they're just these common threads that show up over and over and over, If you know, if people are are wanting to bring comprehensive, just calibration back to their body, back to their brain and I would argue that after drinking alcohol, that's a prime time yeah, bring that recalibration back into the system.
Speaker 2:Which leads to another really good point, because I know that I saw that you would provide some information on this recently. If you've been a gray area drinker, say, for 20 years, how long is it going to take for your system to recalibrate?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it can be up to two years, wow, wow and what's and so I'm pulling that from the data which is it's in the traditional kind of addiction data.
Speaker 3:It's called PAWS, so Post-Acute Withdrawal Syndrome, and what it's speaking to is not the initial like we're on day two of still kind of moving through the hangover of not drinking, but we're weeks, months and even a year or more out. So it's this post kind of withdrawal time of alcohol which is different than an acute, even though there is post-acute within the name. But we're not talking like those first 72 hours. We're talking way beyond it and, as you know and those listening, and it's certainly been my experience that we can be six months, nine months, 12 months, 18 months, and we can go through these different ebbs and flows with irritability, with cravings, with our sleep, and it's what that is. It's just this time of the system recalibrating and coming back into balance. It doesn't just happen in the first two days and it's like, okay, done and dusted, I'm good now without drinking. So there's this. And that's the value, then, of the gray area drinking coaching is supporting, guiding and holding, offering these resources and recalibration for clients weeks, months and years past their last drink.
Speaker 2:Oh it's fabulous. What I really love about learning from you, jolene, is that you're always willing to try new things, so there's always that element of a new resource that's out there. It's always backed by studies and research and you give it a go. We learned a lot about supplements, supplementing beans into our system, and, I think, ecstatic dancing was it choir dancing? There's always something lovely and wonderful. What are you doing at the moment that you're finding quite useful and fun? Because I know that you're always self-testing them as well.
Speaker 3:I am, yeah, and it's fun, and I encourage everyone listening to do the same. That's what this is about. It's about the curiosity, it's how I work with clients. It's that constant kind of experimenting, exploring. Variety is the spice of life. The nervous system, our psyche, our emotions need some different flavors, some different varieties. I encourage everyone to do that. But I am certainly a fan of the bean protocol I was just interviewing. That interview is going to come out soon by Unique Hammond, who does a lot of work and she's the one who really coined the brain protocol. Those listening watch for that. That interview is coming soon.
Speaker 3:But I'm a huge fan of beans and that's kind of a long conversation in itself. They have an incredible ability to soak up adrenaline, just to keep it real basic and simple. So when we're talking about nervous system regulation, a lot of us are running on that adrenaline. We're running on that flight energy, the cortisol, and so I love beans of how they just bind everything up from the bile and move it out through the colon. They're just miraculous food. Other foods don't bind up the bile that way and I've been playing with cold and hot therapy lately, so I've done infrared saunas over the years, which I love.
Speaker 3:I love the heat, so I've been doing some saunas at 140 degrees, but then also trying cryotherapy, where I go into the chamber at negative 166 degrees. So I do that and not back to back, like I'll do it on different days, but the cold exposure and I really feel like it brings out inflammation, which is important for the brain and the body overall. But the heat does the same. So I'm doing that. Hydro hydro therapy, is that what I call it? I guess I'm not really in water, but it's the heat and the cold Got you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, so good. It's actually. There's so much more out there at the moment We've actually got and I live in Sydney at our local sort of shopping area infrared saunas opening up. The whole ice cold bar things are opening up, it's all it's. There tends to be a bit of a movement. Have you noticed a lot of change in the offerings now compared to what we had when you were starting out?
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and and just in the industry, you know so I was certified in nutrition in 1999. So the trajectory and the change and how things evolve, and yes, there's trends and waves and the whole thing and there always will be within the space. So certainly this whole cold therapy is, is is the real hot thing in the moment. But there's, you know, there's some interesting science and it's also not for everybody. I think sometimes if we're in already in a really activated state within our nervous system, getting in extreme temperatures, I wouldn't necessarily recommend both hot and cold. So not everything is for everyone all the time, but yes, certainly when I stopped drinking I'm in my ninth year of not drinking it was just a whole different conversation. There's nobody was talking about the nervous system then. Now it's like it just seems like the thing and and these practices and and one of the thing I'll say too of you know kind of what I'm doing because I always liked it. It doesn't have to be this expense like where you have to go somewhere and get a song and and beans are beans are quite accessible and not pricey.
Speaker 3:But I also knitting is one of my favorite nervous system regulation pieces that I go in waves with, but I'm back on it regularly. I just love to sit in it. It's very calming and regulating and there's incredible research. There's a woman in the UK who it's it's the bilateral anytime we cross the midpoint of our body. So with the needles there's this crossing and it's it's. She's a physiotherapist and she does I mean specific research on the brain and depression and anxiety and like smoking and grief and all in how beneficial knitting can be and I would attest to it. I it's. It's very calming for me. There was a time when I tried to knit and I found it very agitating. I couldn't figure it out. But now I've gotten a practice down and I love it and it is absolutely a nervous system regulated from regulator. For me it's portable, I can do it anywhere and it's not a big expense where I have to go, you know, get in a cryo chamber.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you for that. So you've always got a lot on your plate. You're a sought after speaker. You're coaching coaches and personal coaches. I I'd love to hear where you're at in 2023 and what's what's on the horizon for you, jolene, this year.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this big question. It is because, you know, with the evolution of this conversation and the the resources, there's also this evolution of just my own, conserving my own energy, to be really honest with it, and so pulling back a bit, practicing what I preach. I've, I've something that's certainly on my radar is this whole digital detox. I think, just like alcohol was a bit of the white elephant in the room that we didn't talk about, the white elephant in the room now is smartphones and the digital world and.
Speaker 3:I'm in it. I haven't perfected this or figured it out by any means, but I don't think that we can if we're talking about the brain and brain chemistry and dumping dopamine and GABA and then scrolling our phones for however many hours a day like we can't turn a blind eye to that. So more and more I'm looking at that, experimenting in my own life. I want to talk about it more, I want to write about it more because it goes hand in hand with the nervous system, but with that said, just even the whole social media and the hustle culture and just looking at some more ways I'm going to move to sub-stack. I'll just say that here. I haven't said it publicly, but I'm getting excited about it.
Speaker 3:But it's a way to go back to the writing because I feel like my creative wings have been clipped a bit in the hustle and getting in this momentum of just what online business is. It's a little bit of a leap and some courageous risk, but as is quitting drinking, but for me, simplifying a bit, going back to writing, I want to get the book out. I want to continue to lend my voice to the gray area drinking conversation. There's still many, many that just don't even realize this conversation is happening. Yeah, then also really passionate about training healthcare practitioners and coaches, people who are working that front line, face to face with clients. This is just important for them to know this. It's a balance for me right now. I'm passionate about this work and getting the information out, but it's a dance to not burn out on it and to not get consumed in the consumer culture of the social media.
Speaker 3:I'm dancing with all of that, and it's not perfected, but it's where I'm at.
Speaker 2:Thank you for mentioning all of that, because it's very relevant for me. I'm sure it is for many practitioners, counselors, coaches in this field that may not be practicing what they preach, particularly when it comes to social media, because we're all about balance and that's what we're telling our clients, but yet we're all trying to market, we're all trying to get our name out there. There's Instagram, there are blogs, there's all the rest of it. It is exhausting and I love it when you see somebody that says, hey, I'm going on a social media sabbatical for three months. You're not going to see me. It's like permission for yourself to think, yeah, what am I doing on here so much? I need to listen to that for sure. Thank you so much. I'm going to put your website and all the rest of it in our show notes, but would you like to say where can people find you to learn more about what you offer, and gray area drinking specifically?
Speaker 3:Sure, so I'm on Instagram. Joleen underscore park is where I'm most active, but I'm shifting that a bit this year. We'll see how that goes. But check Instagram, follow me there. And then my website, gray area drinkerscom. My TED Talk is there, my podcast, my programs, my coach training so all of the info to work with me, to connect with me is, and my master coaches, who I train you being one of them, are all on the website. So go into gray area drinkerscom is really your best bet to find all the goods.
Speaker 2:Excellent. We'll put all of that in the notes. Thank you for being here with us. I'm just so inspired by all that you do. Your experience and knowledge is second to none and I've learned so much personally and I share it all with my clients, and it really has been. I know I say it so much, but it's that missing piece in the traditional training that you get when you're a counselor or coach wanting to practice in helping people to drink less. Thank you for being a guest on our podcast. Really lovely to have this chat, thank you.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me and likewise so fun to talk with you, and I'm just thrilled that you are part of my master coach team and just love knowing you and working with you.
Speaker 2:Thank you. If you don't already know, in addition to our podcasting work, we are each sobriety coaches with our own separate businesses helping people to drink less.
Speaker 1:If you are a loved one, want to take a break from alcohol, we invite you to have a look at our individual websites. Megs is Glassfulfilledcomau, and.
Speaker 2:Bella's is Isabella Fergusoncomau, so take the next step that feels right for you.
Speaker 1:Thank you.