Nicky Lowe [00:00:07]:
Hi. I’m Nicky Lowe, and welcome to the Wisdom For Working Mums podcast show, where I share insights and interviews that support women To combine their family, work, and life in a more successful and sustainable way. Welcome. And today I have a truly fascinating and informative guest joining me who’s going to shed an eye on a topic that’s crucial for every single one of us, whether we know it or not, and that is women’s immune system health. When I got diagnosed with burnout nearly a decade ago, I became fiercely curious about how it had happened. I’d been living the healthiest I had for years. So how did it happen? That was the question I kept coming back to. And that experience took me really on a quest to understand the factors that contributed to it.
Nicky Lowe [00:00:57]:
And there were some really shocking revelations along the way, including how medication I’d been given over 25 years previously may have contributed to the downfall in my health, damaging my immune system along the way. So when I read a post that my guest today wrote on social media A little while ago about women’s health, immunity and mental cycles, and the contraceptive pill, It spoke to the heart of my health issues and I knew I had to reach out to invite her to share her powerful insights here. And I’m really grateful that she said yes and she’s joining us. And I think you’re gonna be blown away by what she’s got to share. My guest is Doctor. Jenna Michoke, a renowned expert in the field of immunology and women’s health. She’s a best selling author, speaker, and a passionate advocate for understanding on optimizing our immune systems. Her groundbreaking research and insights have not only advanced our understanding of how women’s immune systems function, but have also provided practical strategies to help us to thrive in our daily lives.
Nicky Lowe [00:02:04]:
Doctor Jenna is a mother of twins and a keen home cook Creating recipes and rituals inspired by her farm to table Scottish roots and capturing her family’s Italian heritage. I think you’re gonna love doctor Jenna’s down to earth and really accessible insights and approach to life. So whether you’re trying to stay healthy amidst the challenges of modern life or you simply want to gain a deeper understanding of how your body functions, This episode is jam packed with valuable information you don’t wanna miss. I think you’re gonna love what Doctor. Jenna’s gonna say, and I’m not gonna keep you any longer. Let’s dive in and welcome her. So welcome, Jenna. Thank you so much for joining me.
Nicky Lowe [00:02:48]:
For those that don’t yet know about you and your work, would you mind Cheri, a bit about who you are, the work that you do, and how you came to do that work.
Jenna Macciochi [00:02:57]:
Yeah. Good place to start. I’m not really sure how to answer in the in the most but I’ll try. I’m an immunologist, and some people may not have heard of that term before, but it’s basically someone who, Works on and studies and tries to understand everything about the immune system, and I kind of serendipitously fell into this field. When I was younger, I was thinking about what to do with my life when I left school and Just we had this fascination about the human body and health and disease and immunology just seemed to answer those questions or at least try to Answered those questions somewhat, and I just had some really great mentors early on, and I fell in love with this subject area. And so I’ve kind of weaved a career, around ever since. The immune system’s really fascinating as hopefully we can Cher in our conversation today, and it’s meant that I’ve got to work in all different areas from, you know, infectious diseases to allergies and autoimmune disease and gut health. It really, is the system that sort of weaves into All aspects of our well-being, both physical and mental, and that’s, you know, one of the reasons that I find it so fascinating.
Nicky Lowe [00:04:12]:
Yeah. And I love following you on social media. And I know that at the end of this interview, we’ll share all your links, but I would encourage people to follow you because I’ve learned so much from the post that you do. So thank you for the time and energy that you put into those because there is so much, so much rich source of information in there because you really educate as well as kind of inspire. So, yeah, I can’t wait to dive into this conversation. So obviously today we’re talking about the subject of immunity. Can you explain what is meant by that and also kind of what is meant by our immune system? Yeah.
Jenna Macciochi [00:04:50]:
It’s a good place to start, and it is a confusing system. So, Please, for people listening, don’t worry. You know, you can’t quite think what is your immune system because it’s not really one thing, And it’s unlike other body systems. It’s not really in one place. Like, we can all imagine where our digestive system is. You know, we know about our Our brain and our our nervous system, and we can imagine the spinal cord, but the immune system’s kind of everywhere, and it’s made up of the white blood cells. Now these are not just in the blood even though the name suggests that. They’re found all over the And it’s also organs.
Jenna Macciochi [00:05:28]:
So I think, like, our bone marrow, our lymph nodes, our spleen, tonsils, these are all parts of our immune system. And then the whole, digestive tract in the airways because these are places where we could be exposed to germs and things that could cause us harm. So these are part of our immune system. And even things like our skin, so that’s, you know, the main barrier to stop things on the outside getting into our body. And then we have the gut microbiota or, well, any microbiota across the body, so the collection of microbes that inhabit us. These are part of our immune defenses because they help fortify those areas and act as a barrier against, things that we don’t want to get in. We tend to think about the immune system as just the thing that stops us getting infections or helps us heal when we do get an infection, but its role is much more broad than that. It’s really Preventing anything untoward getting into your body, but it’s also involved in healing and repair.
Jenna Macciochi [00:06:28]:
So, you know, if you break a bone and there’s no infection, But those tissues are damaged, the bone is damaged, it’s your immune system that’s healing and repairing that. The inflammatory response of the immune is what gives us a fever, makes us feel unwell. And there’s you know, pregnancy has a really important role in the immune system and in in that barrier between the developing baby and the mother because the baby is genetically different to the mother, so the immune system kind of negotiates We’re gonna let this baby grow even though normally we’re designed to remove things that are foreign from our body. So there’s all different roles, and, You know, we really started to open up around, the interaction between the brain and the immune system, and there’s this whole field called psychoneuroimmunology, which is looking at the role of the immune system in mental health disorders, and things like cognitive climb, things like clinical depression. So it really weaves into every aspect of our well-being.
Nicky Lowe [00:07:31]:
I love that. And I and thank you for sharing that because it just shows how complex this is. As you say, some of the misconceptions options that can come around it just being about the white blood cells or it’s just about kind of, you know, that infection kind of, Parks. And your mantra on social media is that there’s no health without immune health. I love that. Can you share what you mean by that, though?
Jenna Macciochi [00:07:57]:
Yeah. I think because it’s it’s emerged from research that The immune system is much more than, you know, protecting us in winter from those seasonal colds and flus that that it does have such a governing role on every respect of our well-being from, you know, things like how long we live to how well we recover from exercise to, you know, how Good. Our mental health is that, you know, we need to really think about the system and and care for it So that it’s gonna care for us and, make sure that we lower the risk of not just catching a cold in winter, but also, you know, the allergies, autoimmune diseases, mental health conditions, all these other, inflammatory conditions, that, you know, are are growing in, you know, modern life.
Nicky Lowe [00:08:46]:
Brilliant. Thank you. And how this interview came about, I’d I’d said to you before we hit record, I’ve probably been phoning your work for about 5 years pre COVID, pre you writing your 1st book. And I’ve loved your work, but it was a particular post that you wrote where I was like, I’ve got to reach out to Jenna and ask her to come on and have this conversation. And it was a post about Gender biases and particularly sexual, dimorphism, is it? That’s prevalent in the era of immunity. And I was like, oh my God, this Speaking to her so much to my experience of my own health. Would you kind of give some insights into to that and and speak to that if you don’t mind?
Jenna Macciochi [00:09:29]:
Yeah. Yeah. I, that was maybe a couple of months ago, the, the post on sexual dimorphism. And I’ve So taking more of a deep dive into this in in my 1st book if people are interested. But, I think it’s it’s been known in the research for a really long time, but for some reason, It’s not something that’s widely known, and it should be. And particularly within medical profession, it needs to be more considered because The way the immune system operates between males and females is really quite different, and that’s down to a lot of different things. We have the the sort of XY chromosomes where some of the immune system genes are, and, obviously, Females have an XX chromosome, and so that means, genetically, the way the immune system is going to work is just gonna be slightly different. But then we have, you know, this, landscape of hormones, which is very different between men and women.
Jenna Macciochi [00:10:26]:
And all of your immune cells, these white blood cells have receptors on their surface for the different sex hormones, so estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, and all the others, but those are sort of primary ones that have been studied in this context, and this means that the ebbs and flows of these hormones across the lifespan are shaping how the immune system is functioning. And so for women, that’s gonna be much more dramatic than for men because Once we get to that onset of menstruation in the teens, you suddenly have this monthly cycle where you have these ebbs and flows between, progesterone and estrogen that are gonna influence how your immune system functions, influence levels of inflammation in the body. And it means that that point from ovulation until menstruation, women might experience more inflammatory symptoms, aching joints or feeling a bit rundown or even being more susceptible to picking up a cold or flu, you know, if they’re around lots of people, lots of germs. And so it’s really quite stark, these differences. And one thing that I think is Most profound is that when we look at autoimmune diseases, and these are conditions that, your immune system has become dysregulated and starts attacking your own body. And so there’s a central immune deregulation going on, and that would manifest as one or other type of autoimmune conditions, like rheumatoid arthritis or lupus or, you know, there’s so many. 80% of those autoimmune conditions are found in women. I mean, just that statistic would make you think, well, we have to look at why that is.
Jenna Macciochi [00:12:15]:
And it’s not just down to this influence of the immune system, But there are, you know, there’s obviously other social factors and things like that, but it it’s quite striking. It also means that generally women are better at dealing with with minor infections like colds and flu. So the whole idea of man flu being a real thing has actually been shown by science. Men are typically not as good at coping with infections. The immune system is not as fast to react and respond. They tend to get sicker for longer. Women tend to be better at dealing with infections. Our immune systems are much faster and more efficient at getting rid of that.
Jenna Macciochi [00:12:56]:
But the downside is that some for some reason this seems to tip over into this autoimmune phenotype We’re we’re more susceptible to autoimmune diseases.
Nicky Lowe [00:13:06]:
Which is I find absolutely fascinating because part of my own health journey has been non specific autoimmune system problems. And so when you did a post about actually the menstrual cycle and how the contraceptive pill can influence this, it kind of Septive pill can influence this. It kind of joined the dots to the journey that I’ve gone on to almost be forensic about, well, how has this happened? What is going on in my body? What have been the influencing factors? And when I saw that post that you wrote about that, I was like, Oh my God. The work that you’re doing in this space is really, really powerful. Could you share a bit more about that in terms of the contraceptive Tipel, how that might influence it if people may have been on on the contraceptive pill at some point in their life?
Jenna Macciochi [00:13:48]:
Yeah. And, again, this is just something that’s been completely overlooked in the research, and I don’t wanna Anyone who has taken the contraceptive pill or is on the contraceptive pill, you know, I think that if we look in history, The contraceptive pill has been, very instrumental in some positive things around how women could function in society, but nobody stopped to think But giving these hormones to women and usually, you know, it’s given in, young when you’re young and you’re on it for several decades, nobody really stopped think, is there some side effect of that? And because we know these hormones are directly acting are immune cells. Nobody sort of looked into, like, what what might be happening there. And so the research body on this particular aspect is quite small, but we do know that hormonal contraceptives, have been linked to an increased risk of autoimmune diseases. And it’s not saying that contraceptives will, you know, a 100% lead you to get an autoimmune disease because the causes of autoimmune diseases are complex and multifactorial. But we do know that sex hormones can play a role, and we know that oral contraceptives containing synthetic sex hormones can result in changes to the immune system that might be linked to autoimmune type symptoms, so it’s sort of consequence of that. And it’s, again, not to say that would happen in every individual because every individual’s different, but I just think it’s something to be really Cognizant of, you know, especially, as I get older and I have, you know, friends with coming in the teenage years and sometimes, you know, they have, difficult menstrual cycles or they have sort of hormonal acne and is always to put them on a contraceptive pill to sort that out, and it’s kind of masking because it might well sort out that symptom, the periods might settle, the, you know, other hormonal symptoms might settle, but is there another way that we could maybe figure out ways to improve those symptoms, and reserve the contraceptive pill for If they want to use it for contraceptive contraception and, you know, just discuss other options, and maybe do a little bit more to Dig around why they’re getting these hormonal symptoms. I think just we need to ask that question, and I I get Quite a lot of heat.
Jenna Macciochi [00:16:20]:
Our social media wanna talk about this. So, but I just think, you know, what’s wrong with having a conversation about that? You know?
Nicky Lowe [00:16:28]:
And I thank you for leaning into that conversation because I can hear you’re kind of reticent about actually, yeah, you don’t wanna demonise a contraceptive form, but Equally raising awareness of this because my own experience was when I started my periods very young, I was kind of I think I was about 10 or 11. I ended up with what was the symptoms we now know of polycystic ovarian syndrome. And initially because of the acne, I was put on Long term antibiotics. I was put on tetracycline for probably 4 or 3 years at that age. Then I was given the contraceptive pill at 12 or 13 And was on that until my mum died of breast cancer at 58 and the doctor kind of went, might be kind of worthy coming off that. And Actually, a lot of my health issues in my thirties and forties contract back to, You know, as you say, it’s multifactorial. It’s not as kind of it’s not a straight line, but, yeah, that that is part of the equation. And I’m like, I’ve not heard anybody talking about this Until I saw your work, say thank you for for doing it and leaning into it.
Jenna Macciochi [00:17:33]:
Yeah. I know you know, it it’s tricky because it these things are multifactorial. But if we can at least understand one of these risk factors and maybe then question whether that’s something we need. Because like a lot of women, we go on the pill and we don’t question it, and then we stay on it for for decades. And it’s only when maybe there’s some kind of life event that we think, oh, you know, whereas if that there is a possibility to Take away that risk factor by maybe there’s other options instead of the pill, then that’s, you know, that’s So a a conversation worth having, I think. And I’d love to see more research in this area, but, Sadly, like, these sort of women’s health issues are quite understudied, and autoimmune diseases are growing in prevalence. So it’s something that we do need to work on because autoimmune diseases are lifelong chronic conditions that require serious management, sometimes some really unpleasant, drugs to get them under control, and so we do need to look at these, the risk factors and root causes. And it, Generally, I think of the immune system as a sensing system.
Jenna Macciochi [00:18:40]:
It’s it’s looking for inputs from our our environment, our diet, our lifestyle, and piecing these all together, and then that will help it decide how to react. And when it’s not getting all these inputs, because modern life brings a lot of, negative things that are not helpful for that kind of overall immune balance, then, you know, that’s when we see this rising Tired of things like allergies and autoimmune diseases?
Nicky Lowe [00:19:05]:
Yeah. No. Completely get that. So I’m imagining people are listening going, this is absolutely fascinating. And also I’m imagining them going, so what can I do? Like, what are the factors that are in my control and influence That I can focus on and we know that my, you know, my audience are busy working moms that are often in the room of their overwhelmed already and feeling stressed. But I know you’re a working mum yourself. You’ve got twins. You’ve got a you’ve got a very full and busy life.
Nicky Lowe [00:19:32]:
I’m wondering if you can share obviously your experience as and expertise as a professional, but also if you would share some of the insights from you personally about what you’ve learned in your life works.
Jenna Macciochi [00:19:45]:
Yeah. I think I always try and do everything with a lot of compassion because, as a working mom, part of my Journey in sharing the content that I do online was kind of trying to hold myself accountable as well. Like, If I have the knowledge, why am I not applying it to myself? And it it’s the same barriers that a lot of people listening will have. It’s the time. It’s Just sometimes feeling drained from being pulled in a lot of directions and, you know, making big changes to your overall diet and lifestyle can feel really, really overwhelming. And a lot of what I did around my 2nd book was just How do we get the aggregation of marginal gains? So all the little things that we can do that will over time build up To be quite impactful. And I think about, you know, everybody has their kind of Achilles’ heel. So for me, it was sleep.
Jenna Macciochi [00:20:39]:
My twins were born premature, which quite often happens with, with twins. And, obviously, when they’re very small, I didn’t get a lot of sleep That’s kind of just, the territory that you you have with very small kids, but what happened was as they got older and they started to sleep through the night, My sleep never returned, and I had a kind of hypervigilance from that, you know, that you wait all this Time to have a baby when you’re pregnant, and then they’re bored into the world too early, and they’re spending weeks weeks in the intensive care unit, and it’s kind of just not the start that you’d expect, and then suddenly they’re okay to go home. And after spending all that time with them all hooked up to machines and wires, You just, hello. Yeah. You can take them home. And I had this, like, hypervigilance about them just stopping breathing or something would happen. And I would be awake in the night and wouldn’t be able to sleep even though my kids were sleeping. And this went on for many, many, many years until I I just got myself really ill, and it was purely down to, like, the stress and sleep connection.
Jenna Macciochi [00:21:46]:
And so it’s like, what’s your Achilles heel? You know, I was if so you looked at what I was eating and, you know, exercising, I was doing all the right things, but I got re I ended up with pneumonia, actually, because I caught a cold, and I was so run down. I couldn’t fight off that cold, And I didn’t stop. I just kept going to work, doing all the things we do as moms until one day I couldn’t get out of bed, and that was much worse because then I had 3 weeks off work instead of 1 day off work, and but, you know, all the sort of stuff that goes along with trying to organize around that For my colleagues to pick up things. And, and so I always say to people, like, find your Achilles’ heel. If you know that it’s, like, Sleep is something that you’re struggling with, then just focus on that for now. And once you’re sleeping better, you know, you are waking up much Clearer headed. Feeling like you can take on a day. Feeling like you can prepare yourself something more nutritious for lunch than whatever you’re having normally.
Jenna Macciochi [00:22:47]:
That You’ve got more capacity to deal with the emotions of your kids when they come home from school, like the sort of domino effect. And if it’s something like eating and you know that you’ve got yourself in some really bad habits with your diet, then Take that just that one thing and try and just work 1 meal at a time, bringing in some small small positive changes. Because ultimately with the immune system, it’s you know, we’ve I see a lot online that people really want to be like, Take these 3 supplements, eat these 5 foods, and that’s all you need to do. And I think I wanted to know that too when I started out in this journey of Communicating immunology and writing books on it. I wanted to find the secret, like, you know, what’s the 5 things. And I realized that there wasn’t 5 things. There’s, like, five thousand things, and it’s about doing as many of them as you can consistently. And it’s, you know, it is eating well, sleeping well, moving well, Managing the stress, that connection with yourself and your your mental well-being, and then it’s getting outside and spending time in nature.
Jenna Macciochi [00:23:55]:
It’s supplementing where appropriate to supplement any gaps in your diet, but not in spite of, you know, your diet. You know, it’s working on your gut microbiome. So it’s a lot of different things. When you lay that out, you think, oh god, it’s So overwhelming, but let’s just take 1 at a time and then map it out. And I think about the example of, you know, Something simple like brushing your teeth is such a a habit that we almost do it without thinking about it. But when I my kids were small and I started trying to teach them how to brush their teeth, like it’s effort every night to remind them. It’s not it’s not like second nature to them. It’s a brand new habit, and you’ve gotta get through that sticky period until it’s becoming second nature and then needs to do it by themselves and And they they don’t need to be reminded and, you know and so it’s if you think about that and any new habit that you wanna start, whether it’s, like, Just cutting out that afternoon, like, sugar high or doing a little bit more exercise or getting more steps is It’s gonna feel really sticky in the beginning.
Jenna Macciochi [00:25:00]:
Oh, it’s just hard to change. It feels really uncomfortable to fit that into the routine. But if you just keep pushing through that short term period, it becomes a habit. It becomes part of you. And At that at that point, it’s it’s much more smooth. And I I find this example, which is From research into weight loss, and I don’t normally talk about weight loss, but it was about people who were overweight and who had lost weight and successfully kept the weight off for a long term, and they were trying to figure out what was the reason that allowed these people To keep the weight off for the long term. And one of the biggest reasons that stood out was that the people said The way they lived their life with their diet and exercise became part of their life. It just became who they were.
Jenna Macciochi [00:25:55]:
They body did it. They embraced it. It no longer felt like a chore. They just felt part of their life. And I think that’s applicable In other aspects of those healthy, behaviors that we’re all trying to strive for, it just embody it, Make it who you are. That’s something you do every day, like brushing your teeth. And I think that’s a really, really useful way to look at it rather than, I’m gonna, You know, chastised myself for 6 weeks on this, you know, health mission that’s unsustainable. It’s like, no.
Jenna Macciochi [00:26:27]:
I’m just gonna work on a couple of really small habits. And you know what? In 3 months time, I’ll just be doing them so automatically that I’ll then choose another couple of habits to build into that. In a year’s time, I’ll have really changed how things look for me.
Nicky Lowe [00:26:42]:
I love that. There’s so much goodness in there, Jenna. I think, firstly, you just sharing Your journey that actually, even though you’ve got the knowledge, it doesn’t mean that we do it perfectly and, and you really understand the challenges and barriers that stop people from from doing what we know is gonna support us. And, yeah, knowing that There are so many influencing factors but not trying to do them all. And she said, take your Achilles heel. And that piece about, you know, It becoming an identity rather than just a behaviour or relying on willpower to actually it becomes your identity and it gets integrated into your life. It’s just Who you are and what you do. Yeah.
Nicky Lowe [00:27:23]:
I think there’s so much goodness in there. And I, again, I can’t recommend people Do this enough is follow you on Instagram because what you do is you share amazing recipes and ideas for food. You also share your own like movement practice and it’s not just about exercise, as you say it’s about movement and how important that is for immune health. And, you know, all these I always get, like, nuggets from you about that. But I’m just curious about the piece about sleep because I can really Relate to that. My, my son, my first born was in and out of hospital 1st year of his life and that hyper vigilance I’m actually recognising that I, I, I became a high functioning person with anxiety I didn’t realize it. It was just that just became my norm. And I’m wondering what was it you did that helped you recover from that?
Jenna Macciochi [00:28:20]:
Yeah. That’s a really, really good point because something that I’ve posted about on Instagram quite a lot is, You know, if you have a real sleep issue, it’s not gonna be solved by sleep hygiene protocols that you find online. And in fact, they might make it worse because, you know, sleep hygiene is important, and there’s lots of science around, like, You know, having a dark cool room that’s not cluttered, getting off your phone a few hours before you go to bed, you know, not eating late at night, Going to bed at the same time every day, getting morning sunlight. Like, these are all necessary inputs for a good night’s sleep, but they’re not sufficient If you have sleep issues and, actually, when I was exploring this myself, I found that the majority of people with sleep issues, are coming from a psychological place. So it’s not because their room was the wrong temperature or they sat on their phone until The minute before they went to bed, you know, scrolling Twitter or whatever, it’s because their nervous system is is somehow switched on, and I you know, it’s like a a plane doesn’t drop out the sky when it lands. It comes down to land gently. And so I think Having a really strong evening routine is really useful. We we do that as mothers for our kids.
Jenna Macciochi [00:29:43]:
I’m sure a lot of people can late, but the effort and energy we put into that evening routine, when our when our kids are really small is huge. And that slowly over time, like, allows our kids to anchor into that. And so we do need to treat ourselves the same way. There is negatives from looking on our phone, and I’m I have a really strong phone curfew, but not so much because of the blue light and, you know, the effects of my, melatonin tone in production, but more because I’m probably if I’m scrolling my phone at 9, 10 o’clock at night, I’m probably looking at stuff that’s not good for my brain. It’s gonna be making me think or Checked the work email, and suddenly now my brain is spiraling about how to respond or what I need to do the next day or just saw some, You know, horrific news story or read a a a thread online about, you know, people arguing over something. It’s It’s probably not the type of content that’s helping my nervous system calm down gently. And so I’ve explored a lot of things, and I do think it’s a very personal journey into, you know, connecting with why you have that struggle with sleep, and I think it took a long time before I suddenly made the connection between the the circumstances of my kid’s birth and The the situation with the sort of waking in the night thinking I could hear them crying and then not being able to go back to sleep, even though they were completely sound asleep and hadn’t woken up Paul. And that awareness was sort of unlocking something and then the second part was I I started to do a lot of, like, breath work.
Jenna Macciochi [00:31:24]:
I found it was sort of the only way that I could really bring my nervous system down. I think meditation’s a really useful modality. But meditation, you you almost need Coaching, you need a teacher, you need the consistency. It it it’s quite hard at the beginning, whereas just Realizing that my breath can be automatic or I can take control of it. And there’s, like, little breath work protocols that we know can send a signal to your nervous system that you’re really calm and that can help sort of bring down that nervous anxiety that can sort of rise up in the middle of the night, and that’s been really useful. I sometimes listen to things in my headphones or just little kind of calming meditations and things in the middle of the night. And I I also accept that I will have bad periods of sleep again. It’s something I find quite interesting to think about was, you know, My husband has never had sleep problems, but he’s had bad nights of sleep, but he just kinda brushes it off.
Jenna Macciochi [00:32:35]:
Whereas if you’ve had insomnia or any kind of sleep problem, you almost scrutinize your sleep to such a degree that you don’t know what’s normal anymore. And I think just letting go of that, is quite important and knowing, okay, I’m in a really good sleep phase, then I have a difficult period at work or there’s something going on at home, and then the bad sleep starts to flare up again. I’m just saying, okay. That’s a sign. That’s a sign that, you know, I’ve I’ve got the tools to work on this to get things back to where they should be. Instead of seeing it as a negative spiral, it’s like, Oh, this is telling me something. This is information, and now I I know what sort of levers to pull to get back to where I need to be.
Nicky Lowe [00:33:19]:
And thank you again for sharing that because I think, again, people can fall into the misconception that, immune system is about the supplements. It’s about just I’m not aware. And what you’re What I’m hearing you say there is that that psychological piece about regulating our nervous systems is so important as well. And Really paying attention to to where what’s going on for your nervous system and what for you is gonna kind of down regulate it and get you into that kind of rest and digest place that can, can help soothe you. So, yeah, I really appreciate that. So We’ve covered so much, but I’m just wondering if there was just 1 thing you would hope people listening to this conversation would take away. What is it that you want people to to know or hear?
Jenna Macciochi [00:34:07]:
That there isn’t a quick fix, But there is a lot that you can do. And I think something that I found really surprising when I was researching my 2nd book was, There’s actual data, like empirical data, looking at how well your immune system is working And the effect of people being taught self compassion techniques, being more compassionate to yourself, I’m realizing that that’s really important for our health, like, our physical health. We can actually measure changes in your blood When you’re more compassionate to yourself. I just think as as moms, like, we give a lot of compassion out, and we’re often really, really hard in ourselves. And, you know, maybe there’s something in that, but that’s that’s one of the missing links that is in society in terms of our immune health.
Nicky Lowe [00:35:04]:
That’s so powerful. Like that was a whole conversation. And I love that because I I did some training with doctor Paul Gilbert who does compassion focus therapy. And that was the 1st time that I was introduced to the vagus nerve and I was like oh my god, have I not heard this before?’ And like just the whole impact that has on the body. And Yes. I love that you you’ve you’ve said that because as you you say, we are so hard on ourselves. And I think we are probably in History’s most intensive form of mothering and parenting where there aren’t any expectations and just going that Turning that compassion on ourselves can be so powerful. I know people are gonna wanna find out more about you you and your work.
Nicky Lowe [00:35:43]:
So Could you point us in the direction? I’ll put all the links into the show notes, but where would you recommend people find you?
Jenna Macciochi [00:35:51]:
So I’m most active on Instagram. I do try You use our social media, but 1 one is enough, really. And I love connecting with people. I love hearing what people have to say. So I’m pretty responsive over there, so you can hop into my DMs or post a comment. I try and get back to everyone. I do have a website, which I Update as often as I can. I put, different journal articles up there, and you can also sign up to my newsletter, letter, which is monthly.
Jenna Macciochi [00:36:19]:
And so I kind of try and drop some little nuggets into that for whatever is happening that month, Kind of move with the season, recipes, ideas, and, recommendations, so that’s a good place to get me. You can also, email me directly to you.
Nicky Lowe [00:36:35]:
Brilliant. And what’s your, URL for your website?
Jenna Macciochi [00:36:39]:
It’s just my name, which I appreciate is quite hard to spell. So w w w dot doctors, that’s d r, then Jenna, t j e n n a, and then machockey, which is m a c c I o c h i.com.
Nicky Lowe [00:36:53]:
Brilliant. And, also, you’ve got your 2 books, haven’t you?
Jenna Macciochi [00:36:57]:
Yes. Yeah. So the first one is called Immunity, the Science of Staying Well. That came out in, March 2020 just as we went into the 1st lockdown.
Nicky Lowe [00:37:08]:
Every time, Lee.
Jenna Macciochi [00:37:09]:
So it’s really it was written before COVID, and it’s just about the the science of staying well, so the science of our immune system and how it keeps us well, and it looks at a lot of different aspects of our lifestyle. And then the second one is your blueprint for strong immunity, and this was really helping people to find their own starting point because we’re all coming, You know, at different places and how to, develop your own blueprint. So really kind of guiding people through, different aspects of the health and how to make those sustainable changes.
Nicky Lowe [00:37:41]:
Brilliant. Well, thank you. And I’ll add all those into the show notes, And it just leaves me to say thank you. Thank you for joining me today, but also thank you for the work that you, you put out there because it’s been Hugely kind of important for me on my journey, and I I really appreciate it.
Jenna Macciochi [00:37:59]:
No. Thank you for having me.
Nicky Lowe [00:38:03]:
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