I created the BodyMind programme to help people who have long term, complex and chronic conditions.
I help, teach and support you to undo unconscious responses that are causing problems (not your fault) and learn a system of practical strategies and techniques that you use to re-regulate your nervous system. This in turn allows the body to reinstate healthy responses leading to improved health and wellbeing.
I receive recommendations from Consultants, GPs, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and complementary therapists here in the UK and advise you to consult your doctor, have tests and obtain a diagnosis before considering the programme. I offer a free call to gather information from you as well as answer your queries, to assess whether I can offer the right kind of help.
Please see Next Step at the bottom of this page, where there are some questions for you to answer if you want to enquire.
“In a survey of 66 respondents diagnosed with CFS/ME, who did the BodyMind Programme, 80% reported they had continued to sustain good health for over two years”
see more below
The Programme
The Programme starts in our free conversation and emails, gathering information from each other. There may also be some things to sort out and ways to make a start. Then we have a series of sessions in which I listen, teach, explain and support you to make some gradual but profound changes. We will discuss your specific triggers and talk in depth about how stress response works and how it can get out of balance causing other body systems to become dysregulated. There will be audios and videos to help you learn several strategies which, when used together, help you reboot the nervous system completely so you can resolve physical and emotional symptoms. You do have to be ready to engage and be proactive to get the recovery you are seeking.
“Any treatment which reduces the stress response will improve chronic fatigue syndrome and many other conditions”
Professor Leslie J Findley, MD, MRCS, DRCOG, DCH, FRCP speaking on Radio 4 Consultant Neurologist with Barking, Havering and Redbridge NHS Trust
Dysregulation of the nervous system and the overproduction of stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, can become a chronic problem causing dysfunction to many normal, automatic body functions. This then leads to a confusing array of mental and physical symptoms. But you can be informed, supported and empowered to address the underlying cause of long term illness and conditions, to break the vicious cycle of ill health.
You will learn in detail how stress hormones effect your body. You also learn how your own personal triggers create physiological responses.
I then teach you how to use techniques to stop the unconscious stress response and replace it with positive responses that allows the body and mind to function normally. The reduction in stress hormones allows the body to return to homeostasis (a state of equilibrium) which in turn allows the immune system to function well again. Digestive and brain function also improve and gradually you can reduce or eradicate your symptoms and create sustainable improvements to your health.
I teach you how to use NLP language, visualisations, brain rehearsal techniques, coaching and movement to stimulate new neural pathways in your brain. You will notice positive improvements very quickly and then build on these to improve and maintain your health.
I help you to understand the issues and learn new skills, then amalgamate them into sustainable habits and responses. As you integrate these into normal life, they become easier and more automatic. Rewiring the nervous system does require commitment and repetition, so you will need to be quite determined at times to get good results. Persistence will help too!
For some people there may be severe symptoms, past failures at recovery, historical trauma and other persistent issues that lead to stalling or setbacks. But we identify the obstacles and keep moving forward as we gather evidence of every little improvement until they start to grow and become habitual. You build your healthy responses ‘brick by brick’ until you have created a safe and worthy new ‘home’.
To help recovery become a long term reality, clients have lifetime access to my private Facebook support group. The BodyMind Programme is not a formula with a set time frame and different people will benefit from different amounts of the content. Lastly, because it is more of a framework on which to hang the specific needs of each unique person, you will get as much support as you need to get the results you deserve.
The Science
The amygdala are the two parts of your brain responsible for triggering the fight or flight response. This is a normal, healthy response designed for survival and when the danger is over, we revert to ‘homeostasis’, i.e. normal body function. But when we experience a lot of worry, anxiety, or fear, and especially during chronic illnesses like chronic fatigue syndrome and M.E., the amygdala become highly sensitised which leads to the brain and body becoming stuck in “stress response”.
The stress response is perpetuated by our thoughts, feelings and emotions, that fire up particular neural pathways in the brain. Repeated firing of the neural pathways leads to them becoming so established that the response happens automatically without us even realising.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence therefore
Aristotle
is not an action, but a habit.”
So in order to improve our health, we have to become aware of how we are perpetuating the stress response. We cannot rationalise ourselves out of it and we have to repeatedly reprogamme the brain and body with new life enhancing thoughts and feelings. In doing so we destabilise the stress response pattern as new positive responses become established between the brain and body.
To look at research click here.
Through repeatedly practicing life enhancing thoughts and feelings, we can literally retrain your body and brain into new patterns of health and wellbeing. The picture shows neurotransmitters (electrochemical messages) passing between one neuron and another. If this particular pathway is fired often enough, it will become an automatic response. By using the BodyMind techniques you will create new, automatic responses in the brain and body that lead to better health…the results speak for themselves.
But this is a real physical illness!
Stress is the body’s reaction to a change that requires a physical, mental or emotional adjustment.
External stressors may include work, sleepless nights or money problems. Illness itself is stressful, as it may limit your ability to do ‘normal’ things and it may also affect your relationships. Increased stress hormones affect the mind and body and can become a chronic problem. There is much research now that shows long term or chronic stress has a devastating effect on our immune function.
In my opinion, many powerful stressors also come from within. Low self-esteem, lack of confidence and fear of the future are all fairly common. But because they are experienced so often and feel so ‘normal’, they too create stress hormones.
Part of the training programme is learning to spot the internal stressors, as they are often unconscious responses.
Whilst a diagnoses is useful in many ways, it can also add an additional stress factor to the life of the patient, as concerns for the future increase. This can create a vicious cycle that contributes to maintaining conditions like chronic fatigue syndrome and M.E. or even making them worse.
In relation to pain
Pain is transmitted from the periphery to the brain via the spinal cord. Many scientists believe that pain messages are controlled by “gates” located in the spinal cord. It appears that when we experience stress, anxiety, fear, depression, memory of pain and crises, pain gate function is affected. The gates do not work properly and allow pain signals through which would otherwise be regulated.
Long-term illness can also make you more vulnerable to anxiety and depression. The more your body’s stress system is activated, the more sensitive it becomes, and the harder it is to switch it off.
Multiple Sclerosis
Researcher, D. Bulijevac, PhD, a neurologist with the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, reports that researchers found that periods of stress doubled the risk of MS patients developing new symptoms, or a more severe form of their existing symptoms. He speculated that this is probably because chronic stress weakens the immune system. British Medical Journal, 2003.
To find out more on this subject you may wish to go online and research ‘stress response’ and how long term stress affects various body systems.
Recommended books
“A cautious, scrupulous investigation of how the brain can help heal our bodies. It is also an important look at the flip side of this coin, which is how brains damaged by stress may make bodies succumb to physical illness or accelerated aging…
Wall Street Journal
Includes over 40 pages of notes and references to studies and scientific papers.
Jo Marchant is a science journalist and author based in London. She has worked as an editor at New Scientist and at Nature and has written on topics from the future of genetic engineering to underwater archaeology.Her science training includes PhD in genetics and medical microbiology from St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical College in London and an MSc in Science Communication from Imperial College London.
Symptoms
People with many different diagnoses have reported relief from the symptoms below
BodyMind survey results*
The results below relate to 66 respondents diagnosed with ME/CFS.
Overall Improvements
On the improvement scale of 0 – 10, 83% scored between 8 and 10.
Young people
12% “improved” and 88% “greatly improved”.
Sustained good health
80% reported sustained good health.
Length of illness
This ranged from 3 months to 30 years. The average was 8 years.
Severity
36% were severely ill. Of these 4% “improved” and 87% “greatly improved”.
(*Please note that results vary from person to person)
Practical details
How can I complete the programme?
I (Kate) work one-to-one with each client, going at a pace that works for you. As Covid is still around and I also have clients all over the world, I only work online and prefer Skype as it’s free, global, no fuss, instant calling. But of course we can work together on Zoom, WhatsApp or just phone if you prefer.
In the first few weeks you will learn enough to start getting the good results you need for full recovery. It’s simple but not easy and you do have to engage fully in this kind of therapy. Some people have past stresses and trauma that need looking at in more depth to understand how to overcome those things too. For some lucky ones, it can be a reasonably straightforward process that doesn’t take too long and for others it may be more lengthy. No two people are the same.
So to give you an idea, some people travel quickly and can feel recovered in about ten sessions. Many more people take fifteen or twenty sessions and a few need more ongoing support to deal with tricky problems. Your job, relationships or life situation may be challenging, but I don’t give up on anybody, so if you are engaged in the recovery programme, with help, you will recover one way or another!
Fees
I charge £75 per 1 hour session, usually done once a week. This also includes all the Programme notes, videos and audios that I send you, text contact between sessions (if you need it) and lifetime membership of my private Facebook support group.
There is no set number of sessions as it depends how you are getting on. So you pay by BACs transfer, ideally on the day of our session, so I don’t have to do extra admin and reminders! Or you can use PayPal if you are outside the UK or prefer to spread your payments on a credit card.
Coaching sessions
I also do coaching and therapy sessions for people who don’t want to start the whole programme from scratch.
Maybe you have tried other therapies or programmes but still struggle. Or perhaps you would benefit from new strategies to deal with unhealthy relationship issues. You can understand and learn practical ways to navigate through many of life’s challenges, whether you want to heal old wounds or recover from physical symptoms. I am happy to discuss whether my proactive approach could help you.
Next step…
I am very interested to know all about you (or your loved one) to see whether I am the right kind of help. I am not going to suggest you can recover until I feel confident it is totally possible. So I would like to know how you have arrived at this difficult point.Please feel free to email me some details answering the questions below… kateinsuffolk@gmail.com
What have doctors said about your symptoms and have you had tests or a diagnosis? How long have you been struggling with symptoms? What are your symptoms now and how do they affect your life? What is/was your work/school/uni situation? Did you enjoy it or not…give more info. What have you tried to get well? Did anything help? Did you have any difficulties accumulating before symptoms arose, or stress growing before illness took over? or do you have past issues with people, job, school or childhood difficulties? How would you or friends/family describe you?
At this moment, I do have a waiting list so I cannot book anyone in immediately I’m afraid. I can let you know roughly how it’s looking, but each client takes as long as they take, so there is not a precise start date I can offer until it becomes available. It is likely to be quite a few weeks or possibly months. I am happy to add your name to the list with no obligation and if you find quicker help elsewhere, I am only going to be pleased you get well sooner rather than later!