Episode #180 Dr Cordelia Peel on On becoming unstuck and living your healthiest happiest life!

July 22, 2023 Ian Dawson Mackay ALL PODCAST EPISODES, LEVEL UP YOUR HEALTH, MINDSET & MENTAL STRENGTH, TRANSFORM YOUR LIFE 1:24:10 0 Comments

TODAY's GUEST IS Dr Cordelia Peel!

Today’s guest is Dr Cordelia Peel!

Cordelia has been a medical doctor for over a decade working in acute specialties including emergency medicine, trauma and stroke. Her medical training enabled her to work in South America where she trekked up mountains, slept in a hammock and delivered medical care to local indigenous people, and also in Zimbabwe, where she carried our research to facilitate CRADLE (Community Blood Pressure Monitoring in Rural Africa; Detection of Underlying Pre-eclampsia) which has now taken off in over 10 countries with the purpose of reducing maternal mortality and morbidity.

Whilst Cordelia loved aspects of being a doctor, deep down she wasn’t feeling deeply fulfilled or having the impact in the world that she desired. She was aware that there was something more to her, that she wasn’t fulfilling her true potential or living the kind of lifestyle she wanted to. 

As a consequence of being stuck for some years, Cordelia suffered from high-functioning depression and eventually found herself on the burnout continuum. Shortly after she lost her 47 year old brother to suicide. With such a stark reminder of how short life can be, Cordelia decided to take her career and her life in a new direction.

Cordelia now works with achievers who are feeling trapped, restricted or compromised in some way to excel, become extraordinary and create ever-increasing levels of both health, wellbeing and external success. As a high-performance coach, her work is dedicated to helping people get their sparkle and their ‘A game’ back and achieve success whilst maintaining a healthy life and positive relationships.

 She now lives a nomadic life but plans to settle down in one of her favourite cities, Barcelona in the near future.

I would like to dedicate this episode to the memory of Dr Peel’s brother. 

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KEY POINTS, Links & Actions

Here are some key points that I would advise you to concentrate on

  • “I think one of the thing is is that we’re not really taught how to manage stress and the problem with it is is like if you learn how to in terms of burnup. For example, 1 of the biggest causes of burnout is chronic stress that is not. Well managed. So how do we go about managing that stress if we could reduce our stress or manage it then we would be putting ourselves back into the thrive state. So the problem with stress is that it’s it’s the continuous doses of it and we need to learn a ways to kind of manage our stress reduce it and so we’re not in a chronic stress state and then unlikely causing damage at a biological network.”
  • The vast majority of the calls Cordelia dealt with were stress related. We all suffer with stress, it is not healthy to try and endure it or live with it. You can work on improving your ability to deal with it and maintain a healthy amount of stress in your life with some modifications. It does not make you any less of a man to work on the level of stress in your life and how you deal with it. 
  • Dr Peel tragically lost a brother to suicide but talks openly about it, to helps others. She feels that being vulnerable, it gives others a chance to be vulnerable, as bottling up stress can lead to suicide and she wants to help anyone struggling find a healthier approach in life.

  • Suicide is the leading cause of death in men under 50. 

  • “… another mistake that people who stay stuck make is wanting everything figured out every perfect detail set out before they take action and all what I always remind people of is that you’re never going to have every single step played out are you and lot of the time these steps reveal themselves, we only need to really know this first 1 or 2 and then and then they but then they kind of will reveal themselves as we move through our process of creating the change”

  • “The first thing I’ll say is okay so this is so I’ll get them to list out all their fears and I’ll say to them if we if we are what what is the cost of us not taking any action where might you be in six months One year five years ten years let’s get really really clear on that and let’s think about what the physical the emotional the mental the financial costs to you could be and let’s get really really clear and then let’s then let’s think what could be the benefit. Of trying what about if we were successful in creating this change or even had a partial success. Let’s list all those benefits out. Let’s get really really clear on that you keep doing this this is where we think that you might be in six months one year five years twelve years you make that change. Okay. This is what all the benefits could be and where you could be in six months one year and look how good that is then okay, okay, you’re scared I get that so let’s start.”

  • “We care too much about what others think and that’s something I see come up time and time and time again in my in my clients. And that’s where the perfectionism is coming in … worries about rejection, worries about other people’s perceived standards, and that’s where we see the highest cases of depression anxieties with that type of perfectionist. And so yes, they are going to be very nervous about creating change and failing at it but we have to adjust our expectations and as perfectionists, we have very high expectations, you’re not going to get it right first time, it isn’t going to be perfect you know, but at least you’re doing something you’re making progress you’re stepping forwards … Those mistakes and those failures are part of the process and that’s where we’re going to really learn … But god you know, those rock bottoms teach us so much more than mountain tops ever.“

  • A food diary has been a big help with fixing some serious gut health issues I was enduring for a while (along with Yakult once a day), so by reviewing what foods cause flare ups, sick feelings, inflammations etc, you can remove these from your diet to avoid issues: “The first thing I think we’ve got to realize is that you know diet plays a huge role in our in our mental health and you know when I Coach a coach from 4 pillars mind body ambition and relationships and so … what should you eat shouldn’t be anything that upsets our gut Microbiome … processed food and fried foods are particularly bad and I’m not saying you know … not trying to be a killjoy here. This isn’t about leading a perfect life right? because we’re not.. We’re here to enjoy life, life is fun. But if you’re eating these things consistently every day then they’re really really going to be impacting your mental health I Mean how do you feel after you’ve eaten? … Do you actually feel good in yourself after you eat that … How does that make you feel, it might feel good at the time, but later they’ll say oh I felt really slumped or I had no energy or I felt a bit down or I felt a bit flat.“

  • “… okay, you’re scared I get that so let’s start. What are your fears or list them out now. Let’s look at the facts because I think whenever we’re dealing with uncertainty. We need to focus on the facts. You know what? What do we know about that and I think that’s 1 thing I’ve really really learned over the duration of my and coaching is not just to say to people do this. But why? So what’s the end. Why am I asking you to do that. What’s the evidence. What’s the facts behind that’s supporting this action that I’m asking you to do. And then I think in terms of dealing with any kind of fear. It’s exactly what I did with myself when I made this transition and I do with clients … set the sphere and and put it under the microscope and we say okay, what are real fears … I learned this from Tim Ferriss … And we say okay, what are all the ways that we could kind of prevent these fears from happening. What could we do to to stop these things from coming into occurrence …  your doubts, your what ifs, your worst case scenarios, what actions could we take and then I say okay, let’s imagine that all of these things came true. What could we do to repair them and suddenly in you are building yourself a strategy for change because you’re saying you’re looking at what you want, you know the benefits and you’re thinking. Ah oh these are things that need to prevent my worst case scenarios all these things that I’m worried about from happening and then I have a backup plan and plan b. If the shit hits a fan. This is what I’m gonna do and I think suddenly that makes people feel in control. This gives people clarity and actually this gives people a really clear plan of action to kind of move forward more confidently with that change.“

 

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by Dr Cordelia Peel MBBS BSc (@drcordeliapeel)

  • We must live our life for ourselves and not for others, our mission and our purpose, not what your parents, partner or others want or expect you to do: “When we’re trying to fulfill somebody else’s expectations … my dad always wanted me to become a doctor and I’ve had a troubling a troubled relationship with him throughout my life and so by me doing what he wanted me to be I gained some kind of love and some validation and some approval. And that felt good, but what it meant that I had to do was to kind of create a life that was successful according to his definition of success and at no point did I define what success meant to me and what that looked like and not only did I have to create a life that was successful, according to his (version of) success … but then I started to question hang on a minute What are my values. What’s important to me. What’s important to the way that I live and work. What’s my definition of success. What’s their vision that I would actually have for my life that reflects my values and is it aligned with what his expectations and when I realized it wasn’t then it was time to change”

  • Dr Peel recommends that we take Omega-3 tablets: “Recommended dose on that is about one gram a day” and you can achieve that by ” “just by eating 3 pieces of oily fish a week”

  • Signs of stress can include being unable to sleep, loss of appetite, being more emotional than normal, more irritated than normal and so on. In modern society, working all week-long, burning the candle at both ends etc is almost seen as a badge of honor, at how much you work, but we need to develop a healthier way to view our workload and establish a decent work & health balance. 

  • “Nothing stays the same. You know. Everything’s always changing and evolving and becoming something (new) … even when we are in the depths of despair, things keep moving and just think to yourself this 2 shall pass”

  • “I think there’s this big misconception … that the longer and harder that we work, the more successful we will be … it’s something we have to put ourselves through in order to be successful and … we tie our kind of value our self worth up in external things in our job in the amount of money we make.”
  • “1 of the questions I love asking is if you want to solve this problem if this was to continue where do you fear ending up in six months in one year three years by these where do you think you’ll be … ask yourself that really honestly and get a really clear view of what your … staying silent might mean for you in six months, one year, five years, ten years, is that a trajectory you want to be on?“
  • “Comparison is a really dangerous game because it makes us feel worthless and inadequate. We have that whole fear of missing out … and with the rise in social media use that’s becoming more and more of a problem and it really really generates feelings of inadequacy in us … comparison is futile because life is unfair in that way. We’re all different right? We’ve all got different strengths, different skills. We’ve all had different backgrounds, different numbers of experience, different education and so really trying to make a proper comparison is is really really very Hard. So I Think when we find ourselves comparing ourselves to other people which is a major thing that perfectionists … is actually trying to use … is to actually use that use that kind of frustration to motivate you to make some positive change in your body and how you feel in your body and trying to use it as a motivation rather than just get stuck in the comparison.” 

  • “Other things I think are important are, depending on what you’re suffering from is magnesium magnesium so supplementation can be really good to improve our sleep, tumeric as well has has anti-inflammatory properties and we know that stress is linked with inflammation, and taking anything to reduce that inflammation can be really really positive so there are lots of things that we can do or can eat,  say are the omega 3, vitamins b and vitamin d I think we always think about vitamin d as just our bone health. But oh my god vitamin d has play’s a huge role in our brain health and our cognitive abilities and a lot of studies have shown that a correlation between vitamin d levels and levels of depression. So you know and we can get that vitamin d from obviously dairy products and actually being in the sunshine and things like cod.“

 

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by Dr Cordelia Peel MBBS BSc (@drcordeliapeel)

  • Depression does not always show itself as restricting your ability to perform or get out of bed. There is a variation of depression known as ‘High functioning depression’ where you can perform to a high level at work and life etc, but still feel the lack of self-esteem, worth and confidence in yourself as person, as someone with the typical depression faces.
  • A problem of modern society is that we tie our own self-worth and value to our possessions and how we are doing when we compare ourselves to our family, friends and neighbors and trying to fulfill the expectations of us by others rather than our own true mission in life.
  • You are worth more than your job, worth more than the car you drive, your true value is in the joy, fun and friendships that you give those in your life. Your true value in life is how you create love, warmth, friendship and connection with those in your life, and what you can give back to others to leave the world a better place by you being in it.
  • You should interview your therapist the same way you would interview someone for a job – they should not look down on you, they should be a friend, a mentor, and a supporter, willing to listen to you talk and support you find the best options for you. 
  • ” … collection of multiple different microbes in your gut and they communicate with your brain in two ways: you’ve got a direct line of communication or vagus nerve and then they release chemicals to your brain. So when you’re looking after your gut they’re telling your brain (that) We’re happy. Everything’s good and your brain is settled but when they’re unhappy, then they’re releasing chemical messages which communicate that we’re under threat … they have a huge role in the form of the inflammation (stress can bring along with digestive issues) … So your gut is a very important point in terms of stress.”
  • “When we’re in nature. We’re telling our brains. Everything’s cool. Things are safe.” Try and spend at least five minutes early morning out in the sun, and preferably in nature to relax and take some calming breathes. 
  • You know and I think we really need to really think about our tech borders so things are get the phone out of the bedroom. The bedroom should be for sleeping and sex. “
  • Stop beating yourself up about your past: “… it a waste of time, I would be challenging that did you really waste your time, you telling me that you got nothing from that, you took no value from it, you didn’t learn everything from it, it didn’t help me grow and develop as a character. … using that past healthily to motivate you for change … I think when we get stuck in that kind of rumination that beating ourselves up, that self-deprecation, that’s when it becomes unhealthy because it’s not generating anything Positive. So I think it’s about using those past mistakes … looking at what they gave us, what value we’ve got you know, what we can learn from them and then trying to use that to propel us forward and in terms of just responding to those things … it’s kind of using those … experiences to motivate, change moving forward and to really define what you want? what you don’t want, what you stand for, what you won’t stand for, that’s how I would use those kind of experiences.”

 

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by Dr Cordelia Peel MBBS BSc (@drcordeliapeel)

  • Not all stress is negative, but the methods we use to deal with the emotions and feelings it generates, tends to be negative. 
  • “I’ve learned to listen take what I thought was useful and kind of bin the rest and put the boundaries down and I think that that’s really really important and you know in terms of (saying to them) I really respect you, I really respect your advice but you know what I’m going to do it my way … I’ve got to make mistakes I’ve got to I’ve got to do all that myself. Let me do it. This is my life and and you know it’s my right to do it my way”
  • “… we weren’t put on this earth to make our parents happy and I think so many of us get stuck thinking that that’s what Ah what we’re here to do right, we are here to live our life, our purpose, and do what makes us happy … we need to just do that. We need to take confident steps to do that and we don’t need to over-explain ourselves.“
  • People can try and deal with stress using many methods, such as excessive drinking of alcohol, eating too much, taking illegal drugs, casual sex and so on. 
  • “… when we are in an acute stress strain … we’re experiencing stress (and our) blood pressure’s going up, heart rate’s increasing … a release of glucose into the blood so we can deal with with a threat that we’ve got to fight off … there’s insulin resistance so that sugar stays in your blood … your brain goes hyper Reactive. There’s improved concentration of Focus. So everything in that stress response is doing what it’s trying to do is to help you deal with a threat to fight something or flight so anything that is deemed non-essential: Sexual Organs digestive processes production of Qua certain hormones like sex hormone is switched off so that’s why we see digestive problems in stress because it’s being switched off. It’s deemed non-esential. We don’t need to digest food. We need to fight this lion that’s in front of us right.”

  • “The problem is with modern living is we were basically built biologically to be able to deal with acute bouts of stress. You know a normal life. Thriving about with acute bouns of stress. But because of modern living and the way that we work we are chronically stressed meaning that we’re just having repeated doses of stress without any recovery in between it and that is the problem because when we go from acute stress to chronic stress.”

  • “… another thing is sleep. You know I think it’s important to have a cold room … We want that room cold and we want it really really really dark“
  • Relationships are a massive area of work with Dr Peel “… no matter what people come to be with, they’ll always come into it … when we’re at home, that’s the time to nurture those relationships, too often we’re sat or a kitchen table eating dinner with our phones in our hands you know texting, why aren’t we sitting around having real conversations and connecting with people because that sense of belonging and connection is just so important for our mental wellbeing? You know it’s absolutely integral and so we’ve got to enhance that. Let’s get rid of technology and let’s sit around the table and eve or just spend quality time.“
  • “I Think men actually need to spend some time alone in solitude away from the noise … of your family or the noise of your work … just time alone, whether that’s going for a hike, time in Nature, going out on your surfboard, whatever that kind of looks like for you”

LEVEL UP Time WITH THIS KEY LESSON!

We must live our life for ourselves and not for others, our mission and our purpose, not what your parents, partner or others want or expect you to do: 
“When we’re trying to fulfill somebody else’s expectations … my dad always wanted me to become a doctor and I’ve had a troubling a troubled relationship with him throughout my life and so by me doing what he wanted me to be I gained some kind of love and some validation and some approval. And that felt good, but what it meant that I had to do was to kind of create a life that was successful according to his definition of success and at no point did I define what success meant to me and what that looked like and not only did I have to create a life that was successful, according to his (version of) success … but then I started to question hang on a minute What are my values. What’s important to me. What’s important to the way that I live and work. What’s my definition of success. What’s their vision that I would actually have for my life that reflects my values and is it aligned with what his expectations and when I realized it wasn’t then it was time to change”

 

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by Dr Cordelia Peel MBBS BSc (@drcordeliapeel)

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About the Author
I’m a podcaster who interviews great examples of people to discuss and highlight the methods, hacks, tips and procedures you can use in your own life to help you develop and better your life. I would definitely not consider myself an expert, so to improve, I ask them and action it in my own life! My personal journey has been marked by awkwardness and awesomeness, OCD and ‘OMG’. I have suffered with depression, shyness, unhappiness and lack of focus and motivation so I know what’s it like to feel lost and hopeless. Back then, I wished I had a podcast to listen to and find actual fixes and concrete action steps and not just unobtainable suggestions and promotion of their products but couldn’t find it … so I made my own!

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