4.17 - Living with Long COVID: Disability and chronic illness

Okay, hi everyone. I don't know why you said okay at the start of that, don't need to do that. Get it together please. I'll just chip that bit off. If you were to ask me what my values were before and after becoming ill, I'll probably do it the same, but actually my ability to live the values and actually believe the values are very different now compared to before. Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of 80% Mental The Podcast, all about the psychology of sport, performance, health and well-being. My co-host Leah is back with us today, Leah. What's going on? Anything? How are you? I'm good. I'm good actually. I've been not particularly well last couple of weeks. Nothing major, just like a bit of flu cough, I can't shift. Doing alright, sun's out, it's a nice day, summer, as things where you are. Things are good, they're, yeah summer, it's juneteenth today, so I'll date our recording. It's been particularly warm this week, it's going to be blistering next week and I'll be in Florida for that, so that'll be great, perfect timing to be 1 million degrees on the surface of the sun. But yeah, it's been not horrible. Cool, which dog have you got with you today? Friedrich Von Trap. Was Doug Williams today? Doug Williams is asleep and he is right on the other side of my camera. No, very well. It's fascinating. But Friedrich is being particularly velcroy today. Yeah. Well, as fascinating as dogs on the other side of the camera are for podcast listeners, we'll get on with the podcast and introduce our guest for today. It's an absolute pleasure to have our guest back on the podcast because he's been on before and I just want to introduce Dr Andrew Woodley, welcome to 80% welcome back to 80% mental. Hello, thank you for having me on and yes, it is coming back, but last time we were on this was the haunted house episode. That's right. Yeah. Providing us with random case examples and situations and how would you deal with it and sort of comparing, so that was probably about four years ago now, so yeah, at least that happens since then. Yeah, and we will get into a lot of what's happened since then in a little bit. I just want to sort of give you a little bit of an introduction for listeners who might not know who you are. So if you are unfamiliar with Woodley's work, Andrew Wood is a performance psychologist and keynote speaker, father and a, I'm going to do that again. Andrew Wood is a performance psychologist and a keynote speaker. So for those of you who are unfamiliar, Dr Andrew Wood is a performance psychologist and a keynote speaker. He was also a student of mine about a hundred thousand years ago at Sheffield Hallem University. I've got my teeth in today. Christ almighty. I want to speak. I would dry one more time. So Dr Andrew Wood is a performance psychologist and a keynote speaker. He was a student of mine a million years ago at Sheffield Hallem University studying sport and exercise science and has then gone on to study for his master's degree and his PhD at Staffordshire University. Woodley's, is it fair to say specialises in REBT? Is it this sort of underpinning? Yeah. I'd use expertise loosely, but that's probably my area's specialty. I can talk a little bit about REBT and how that works as a sort of therapeutic approach in a little bit. But you also spent a long time working in disability sport, particularly in blind football and you're currently working in women's football with the FA. So we'll talk about some of that stuff throughout the episode. But yeah, welcome. Welcome to 80% mental. Thank you very much. And again, thanks for having me on. Just the rewind a bit. Not in the FA, I'm working with you with a GNS different team. Sorry. I didn't want to end that. Just in case people lean, go, it starts with the FA. That's fine. I'm going to, what I'll probably do is I'll wait until we finish this and I'll just record myself introducing you. Just edit it in because I'll absolutely fuck that up horrendously badly. Were you welcome anyway? So it's great to have you on. So I guess to start with then, I gave a little bit of your background just then. Tell us a little bit about your experience and training. What drew you to psychology in the first place and kind of where did you start? So I, probably quite typically, I did a sport science degree like a huge percentage of the population in the country and you're sort of heading in the direction that you think's the right one and what you want to do. But I'd probably say from the age of 11 to about second university, I was probably quite in stagnant. I didn't really know what I wanted to do and where that purpose and meaning was in life. And you do jobs, you're finding out, you're trying things. And then I remember, of course, you won on my tutors at university and also I remember one of our final year sessions with Joanne Bart and Jeff Brecken and they were doing about this is the pathway to being a sports psychologist and this is relatively new and this is what it looks like. And I'd always had a fascination with psychology, playing sport, but there's never a pathway so actually you don't go and choose it as a career. But soon as that sort of came up on the screen, I remember the session vividly and I thought this is exactly what I want to do because it sort of encapsulates all the things that are important to me in terms of what I enjoy but also what maybe I'm actually seem to be naturally good at but also what there was a demand for in the world as well as it combined all those things together. And then I just went on a hunt for collect, are they seem to spend about three years collecting a lot of certificates essentially? So don't the masses have to do a diploma then had to do a, then it went on to do PhD in stage two to become qualified. So although it felt like more time in education actually the work began in the interest and started then. So ultimate allows me to do a job where being on BBC Sport is part of my role or looking at Sky Sport is part of my job role and that's that's just incredible. So yeah and since then I haven't at back really in terms of sport psychology. Awesome. So you found that kind of purpose and meaning that you were maybe looking forward in sports psychology. So obviously you've done a lot of practical work as well as the academic stuff. Like tell us a little bit about some of your experiences there and you have a lot of disability sport particular. Yeah so as part of my PhD I was supervised by Jamie Barker and my intern and I was super lucky to have them as supervisors but also the connections that we had and I ended up doing some work with Paralympic and Paralympic sports, a partner research which was applied and off the back of that I started working regional talent centres. So these are talent centres which then go on to the sort of elite para football set up and this can be you know death players it could be cerebral palsy, it could be partially psited and also blind or called BWB1 which is the most severe sort of visual classification. So we're starting that and then then I had my work work my way through I then ended up sort of failing to work with England blind football team off the back of that really and then yeah I ended up spending five years there sort of really integrating with the team and understanding and perhaps rather fortuitously that time spent around disability disabled athletes was actually going to prove to be particularly useful down the line for me as well. So blind football, yeah you ever watched Blind Football? I have in the Paralympics I have yeah. Okay I don't I don't get it I don't it seems unfathomably difficult. Yeah it is and did you ever go at it when you were? Yes they they took pleasure in letting me have a good tip just all of a sudden you're in it felt like you're in their world now yeah and it was a very scary isolating place put it that way because it just breathes because we're so I will thinking about like what senses do I predominantly like rely on it's probably I'm visual probably first and soon as that goes yeah it is it's scary but they essentially just use a ball I think it's got a ball bearing in which then makes the noise and they use guides and talking to each one communication with each other to then allow them to basically ascertain a picture a visualization of what is actually happening even though they can't literally see anything so yeah it's impressed very impressive yeah it's really really impressive the skill involved is I it's crazy to me yeah it's yeah yeah it's incredible and one of one of the things about it is because it's actually quite physical I know you've got the word football in it it's probably a bit like a balance between rugby and basketball and that sort of into and nature both as a quality because in sport and you know society you can normally brace for impact we can avoid impact can't you whereas actually inside football this big lads play in and sometimes you can't avoid for these are unexpected hits so often they're like concussion would be quite a big problem so wearing headguards was a thing that came in as I was working with a team and also coming back from injuries broken noses all these type of things are really coming to play so I think psychological that was a big part part of the game in terms of feeling confident and being able to play but also letting go of that um guarantee that you're going to be okay because you never know what might be happening sometimes of course it had an idea but it was you know slightly more unpredictable compare to society so I think one of the things I think which we tried to avoid right is like with any marginalized group of like putting them all in one like lump group so I think one of the things that could potentially be really difficult for somebody working with within a disabled population like how do you navigate avoiding that trap of getting into this like group think about like what disability is and how do we um yeah make sure that we are not sort of lumping all and like thinking like this is what disabled people are yeah yeah yeah it's it I think first and foremost just having that being conscious about that is probably a good first step because it lets things that you're probably thinking about them and that's important and when I first you know join the team I did the thing that most people do trying to read up as much about and research much about the specific group you're working with and there wasn't a lot to be honest in terms of how to support um so I think I went in with the idea of trying to get as much knowledge as possible but by the time I started work with the team you realized that actually it's the setup was very typical of a an elite Portland setup you've got multi-disciplinary teams you've got tournaments you've got competitions you've got organization performance directors you've got goals you want to meet so actually broadly it's very very similar in terms of that high performance elite focus but there are probably a couple things that really stood out to me which I wasn't a maybe typically used to first one was around like um levels of autonomy when people with various disabilities and it's trying to navigate when is it that we need to help when is it we need to support versus when is it that actually we need to just let them get on with that and um over time you get used to it and it's fine because obviously blind we're going to we're going to airport we're going to guide them through airport security all those things really critical things you do but there's also other times where they're completely able to do that on the road and I think sometimes with disability is something I've seen and also experienced myself now is that um you can be sort of infantilized when people do it without realizing because you think you know you can't do much therefore you probably can't think like an adult and you're probably a bit more like a child and we need to help these things where and the sort of credence to what you say reduces a little bit and it's quite interesting to see that in um yeah see see that happen from like the first perspective but I guess what I really learn is that yes you can't generalize and across the ball but broadly they are very extremely capable people especially what players I was working with you know these I should imagine the players I work with are some of the most competent blind people you get in the country because of their ability to manage a job manage work, manage relationships and then do all these types of things but also travel around on trains and do have that complete independence and really live meaningful successful lives at the same time so that was really I guess um impressive to see but it shouldn't been impressive because it's quite typical at the same time yeah I guess there's like this element of the way you'd work with any athlete is utilizing the strengths that they already have and the skill set that they already have so it's kind of identifying what skills does this person have and how can we use them in a performance type environment yeah that's it and it's a nice reframe that I think about in terms of strength so what they do because when you put people in a position where their parameters of life are much narrower or different to the typical able bodied individuals you have to be flexible and adaptive and how you do that and also psychologically because maybe you can't you can't say that I can't just go and a little walk over there I have to wait for someone to walk me over there what if I need to toilet I can't just go to the toilet I need someone to help me to go to the toilet but all I'm also trying to have a conversation with someone else and then you're managing your internal emotions so I think by sometimes not being able to control the environment you're in actually helps those people must start really managing how they manage their own emotions irrespective of the environment and allows them to become sort of emotionally aware and a bit more resilient to the sort of challenges of everyday life because everything is just a little bit more complex and you have to look a little bit more forthward everything that you do so I think it would be a challenge for at least from like thinking through this of finding that balance of like understanding their their very specific and unique challenges that someone who is visually impaired must have while also not like putting them on a pedestal of like oh my god you're amazing for like being able to overcome and achieve and like you know and I think because like we also we don't want to like I don't know what the word I'm looking for is like we don't want to make it into something that it's not but also like respecting that it is it can be something that is very difficult to navigate in a world that is built for people who are not visually impaired and you know at the same time I think it's very much one of those situations where if you have sight can be difficult to relate in some way because it's such a different experience you know yeah yeah you're absolutely right and I don't interested conversation with one of the athletes recently I met up with one of the players and was talking about we were just talking about disability and changing our experiences and saying that actually from their perspective it's not actually that bad it's actually perceived to be more worse from these particular athletes anyway that is actually worse we're actually the perceptions you can't live meaningful lives you can't be these when the reality for them they're living they're doing all sorts of incredible things and actually it's relatively normal for them and one way I got around that and that's probably you know this is this sounds so simple and this isn't going to blow anyone's minds and unfortunately but you know when I was unsure of anything or wanted help I just asked them like how best can I do this and maybe because I'm lazy but it will just such an effective technique to ask them say how can I help or how can I best do this because I don't know and they'll go yep just do this and then it's it's so straightforward and that's I think that's all you need sometimes is someone to just so you don't have to complete the empathise and understand just ask how can I best help is a quite a simple way to look at it yeah I mean you say that that's not going to blow anyone's minds but actually like that that's something that I think people find quite I think it might yeah no but I think it's something that some people might find quite difficult to do out of a sense of I don't know embarrassment or awkwardness or or whatever but I think yeah that's not actually as easy as you might as you might might think but it's such a like say a simple simple thing to do yeah yeah it's yeah it's so simple and I guess it may maybe take some confidence some security to ask people how can I help but I think it shows that you don't have any preconceptions I think when you're coming with some preconceptions about how you think that person either needs help that's when issues problems come up so yeah over my time with the team it was just yeah sort of a classic client-centered sort of approach was the most successful well I think also like it is a good reminder for being client-centered like you said that like that there I think it can be easy for us as practitioners in whatever field it is to perceive ourselves as the expert right of like I'm the expert in sports psychology you are coming to me for help right and and the desire to want to fill that but remembering that like but in this context I may not be the expert right and that's why having that question of like okay so I have this particular expertise but like how it pertains to this exact thing I might not know and so reminding ourselves as practitioners to take that step back and to be and to place and to center the client I think is super super important and that's so yeah so applicable to all sports as an air perspective of who you work with it's the idea that you are the sort of the epicent of your sport and you're the expert in that area and this is what I bring and let's work together and collaborate on that and there'll be times where I need to pick your brains and also be times when I'm going to hopefully give you some useful stuff to think about so yeah so now it's a difficult balance to find and not one you're always able to find straight away when you first start practicing and I think it's taking time to do you know better at those skills actually I think going beyond sports psychology and beyond you know being a psychologist it's actually just like a really useful way of going about your everyday life right I'm not the expert here I have a set of expertise and you know I know about this particular thing but like how can I help you like what are you bringing to this right approaching things with curiosity rather than that kind of like expert mentality I think it's just like I think we should all probably do a bit more of that so what do you want of the one of the areas that you draw on really heavily in your work I know is REBT so rational emotive behavior therapy and I just want to spend a little bit of time kind of digging into that we don't really normally do that so much on this on this podcast kind of talk about specific approaches so no but I'm really curious I'd like to kind of like I know a little bit about it I wouldn't say I'm an expert on it I'd love for you to tell us a little bit about REBT and kind of how that how that works so yeah REBT is a form of conservation therapy so I'm sure people are listening are very familiar with CBTs so REBT is essentially one one type of those and it's probably one of the old I think it's one of the oldest and it's quite unheavily underpinned by stoicism and stoic philosophy as well as other things and it's created by a chap called Albert Ellis used to be a psychoanalyst and got quite frustrated so we ended up thinking right kind of be more effective and functional and helpful in helping my clients so off the back of that he creates a rational mode of behavior therapy which looks obviously it looks at the way people think about themselves and situations but what it really makes it distinct from other types of approaches is that it looks at people's core beliefs around irrational rational beliefs and basically what it says is that these core irrational beliefs are rigid they're illogical they're unhelpful they're extreme and they're probably a part of our ancestry to some degree or an evolutionary they're sort of there for a reason but perhaps in today's society where everything's a little bit nicer more civilized relatively speaking relatively yeah very yeah relatively relatively speaking and therefore these sort of beliefs aren't particularly helpful and actually a self-defeating and the the beauties the right word but the thing about this is that everyone have these beliefs and you can't just suddenly control A and delete these beliefs and go right I want to be rational actually it's about how could we be more rational in these moments the thinking ways which are more helpful what kind of beliefs are we talking about yeah like examples so and the four core beliefs that you might come across and people this might be more familiar with in this terms of one is around demanding beliefs so I would like so you let's use something like success or achievement I really would like to be successful therefore I absolutely must and the must bit is there there right okay actually a bit and then then you have a belief around and like low frustration tolerance whereas people think things are completely intolerable or unbearable which we know isn't true because things might be extremely difficult it doesn't mean they're unbearable because unbearable essentially means that you can implode on the spot and just disappear and then we have an authorizing belief which might be more familiar in terms of thinking something is the end of the world 100% bad and it's different to catastrophizing which is thinking something is slightly worse than it is authorizing this thing is something 100% bad so I might say oh you know go drive down the road on the motorway so I might grab me up and I'll feel like it's awful it's the end of the world and I'm like react in a really really big way when reality we know that it's probably not and then the final one which is probably feels like the strongest one is around the sort of generalization that and it's quite self-downing so because I messed up today I might do a really bad podcast today then might come across really badly that makes me a complete failure so you sort of over-gevelizing sort of particularly instances across the board and and that's quite profound and quite a significant core belief that it impacts anxiety, anger issues, depression and it comes from clinical settings but we've sort of gone right let's think about how the musical performance. So these are beliefs that we we kind of all have and I'm pretty sure people will resonate with the examples that you've just given there when we break them down that they're not rational they're kind of irrational thoughts but we just believe them to be true the problem is that we don't rationalize them so this is where our ABT comes in right? That's it yeah so the process would be like and the reason why they're considered irrational is not based on like subjectivity or so are we think that doesn't make sense they're not true they're based upon these sort of arguments that we use to dispute and one is like are these beliefs actually true? Second is is it logical does it makes does it make sense for that belief to be true just because I want a Ferrari Pete does it mean I must have one and logically you could argue that it's probably I'd like that to be the case but doesn't mean I have one yeah and then also which I think is the probably the best the most useful part is looking at terms of like helpful are these beliefs helping you get to where you want to get to or is it taking you away from where you get to so that's sort of a practical element and also factual element of it so we sort of dispute and then you replace them with more rational alternative so they're like cousins in terms of the irrational rational ones and you have the rational ones and the aim is to just really lift those up and these aren't like your everyday sort of thoughts where you're walking round you're thinking oh that's terrible I'm a complete failure these are sort of deep in court so rather than like shifting just sort of superficial thoughts you're more shifting people's core philosophies about how they view adversity and which can be quite profound when you get it right. Yeah Leo is this something that you've come across or something you use with your work with athletes? Yeah I actually do because I work a lot with self-talk with a lot of my athletes and so a lot of that is sort of like challenging those those core beliefs of I use a lot of like countering right so it's like okay if you are in fact the worst cross-country runner in the you know on your team what's your evidence for that give me prove me prove it to me I'm willing to accept the fact that that might be true so tell me why you think this is true right and then kind of like do it like almost like a socratic questioning of you know objectively like your division one athlete so like you can't be the worst yeah on the planet right so let's talk through that for a second and sort of like have them build their case and then they usually can't yeah oh well I've actually have accomplished some things I actually do do these things and then I flip it around I did this with a gymnast that I was working with and we were working on like trust of trusting herself right and I was like you give me the reasons why you should be able to trust yourself right and sort of like challenging this belief of like I don't know if I can pull it off I don't know if I can do these things it's been bad in the past and I don't know if I can handle it if I fall again and sort of like building up that resiliency towards adversity of like okay if you do fall like what's the worst thing that what's happened in the past how have you handled it like yeah you know and sort of like oh I actually have done this before and sort of like challenging if I do this I'm not going to be able to handle it and helping them see like well you actually've done it already you have done it you can do this and so building up reframing that belief of like in sort of like that objective way of like oh I actually have evidence of this that in a roundabout way creating that dissonance between their belief and between their objective reality of like what they have actually done yeah take take an effort to court I believe is the yeah yeah right we can use but it is about kind of creating that sort of evidence it was kind of fun because he was like I'm terrible at running and I was like okay why and he was like why just I feel like I'm dying and I was like everybody feels like that when you're running buddy like I don't know like you're running a five-minute mile I think that's like you're gonna it's gonna be hard yeah what's I guess what's what's interesting about the the RBT and makes it distinct and maybe more like stuff like cognitive therapies that it it sometimes well you can challenge a sort of more superficial inferences so like oh you know Pete's Pete disrespect sorry I'll keep using his example Pete but Pete disrespect me today and then I didn't by the way no he did I saw it yeah to be wrong Pete disrespecting me today and rather than as a practitioner he's saying no I was there I didn't know I don't think he was disrespecting you you know it was actually this rather than sort of because actually he might have been doing it and that's us that the truth sometimes especially in sport there's things that do happen so what it in RBT accepts that's the situation and he goes okay so you have been disrespect for does it mean you have to be respected all the time is it terrible does it make you a complete loser if you're respected and actually know so like a baseline level you can deal with disrespect in a healthy functional way rather than thinking actually trying to tell yourself actually no no no no he was just had a bad day I was one off it still loves me he still thinks I'm amazing bloody blood type stuff and sort of helping them because if you can tolerate that then anything else can be a sort of little bit more yeah that's all right yeah well I do think you're amazing um for your record um we're throwing a little bit of a break there and then we'll come back and talk a little bit more about your your own kind of personal experiences this is the 80% mental podcast I'm here with Dr Andrew Wood Leah Washington as always we've been talking about Andrew's experience working in disability sport and we've just been talking a little bit there about R-E-B-T rational amount to behavior therapy as a way of perhaps working with some of the unhelpful irrational beliefs that that we have Woody I want to switch gears a little bit and you've kind of mentioned it a couple of times in the in the first part there but I want to talk about your experience of becoming disabled yourself and you know what kind of experience is through through the COVID pandemic I guess the best way for me to do that is to kind of just give the floor to you and ask you to tell us a little bit about your your experience so yeah like many people five years ago were all caught of guard in terms of the COVID pandemic and I ended up getting COVID like most people relatively mild thankfully and then for whatever reason which we're starting to understand it just never left my body and whereas for other people they seem to just shake it off they felt a bit rough weeks later it was okay of course there was the much more serious side of it but across the general population everyone seemed to sort of relatively shake it off and whereas for a subgroup and which I was involved in was that it ended up sticking around and what we generally know now is that it essentially the virus basically then triggers other viruses which are hanging around in your body beforehand which you didn't know were there then it sort of crates them and then it just never leaves so it causes this sort of cardiovascular illness disease in a complete immunological dysfunction and basically chronic inflammation across entirely your body so I ended up just going backward and backward and backward and I was 20 for the mange to marathon at the time and I remember my last run being 34k thinking right that's my last run I'm ready to go now and then you know week later I couldn't walk up stairs and then I'm thinking all right I'm just going to shake this off now this are maybe a few more weeks I'll be fine and that weeks turn into months and then months turn into years and then we're still here five years later and at the worst part of it was when I used to get in the the vaccines and I'm not anti-vaxed by any stretch but the vaccines didn't make me worse and to the point that November 20 no over I think it's December 2022 I went basically back to bed and stayed in bed for the year that was it I couldn't by that point I couldn't talk to anyone I couldn't really listen I had to build as headphones on because any sound sensitivity was really bad and I had no energy so I had 15 steps I used to count these steps every day and that was my limit I could walk to the toilet once and that was it everything else had to be done in the bed so I basically always become like buried alive and those is about six to nine months when I was in that point that was definitely the darkest darkest period and because it wasn't like oh you've just got like a long flu and you'll get better that you people in these situations don't we're very rarely get better so there's no empirical evidence to say that you get better yeah there's people's you know chronic fatigue syndrome are still in a dark room you know four decades later trying to understand why is it them that they're the ones in that room so it was very very dark but then had to go that private route medic medically and then ended up starting to sort of layer on and thankfully the research is catching up into terms of how to help people so the silver lining is there's so many people with long Covid that actually there's a need if you look at it cruelly there's a financial need to help these people as well as an altruistic one so the research is getting there and starting to understand what's really going on but yeah I guess the physical side is one thing peat and lear but there is the psychological side was probably the most interesting because yeah tell us a little bit about that it switched your it basically switched my nervous system into this sort of threat state for whole time the petrol threat state so I was relatively relaxed quite peaceful person before with this and then when it happened all of a sudden I was extremely attuned to the threat my body felt like it was always in drive state and always worried about something happening and there was definitely a link between those two might be sort of they will nerve stuff it might be obviously nervous system things going on but there was certain disruptions between those and yeah that had a that had a big impact so when there's a physical it was also the mental side that yeah it was challenging so I guess when you were you know when when this first happened and you're in that state of kind of not really knowing what's going on um like talk us through that if you don't if you don't mind you know could we talk a little bit about you know beliefs and thoughts and and and tackling some of those like what was kind of some of the things that that were going on there for you um yeah but the first bit was probably the hardest um because you're in a position where you've been told by doctors that you're dealing with COVID badly mentally and so I was like you know you know even I feel like it's having heart attacks in the shower you know can breathe can barely walk I was like look I was running marathons like ultra marathons last year and they're telling you that this is probably maybe psychological so that was extremely difficult to be like oh is this what oh this is what gas lighting probably feels like yeah on a highest level and they probably don't realize they're doing it either they weren't purposely doing it it was this was just then doing it so difficult and we will know the the sort of culture of high performance and high performing people are very driven it's not about perseverance the body will follow where the brain goes and that's all fine and that mentality that we try and help in instillian athletes we also probably to some degree I definitely harboring myself and is that exact mentality is by far the worth mentality to have in those situations because you've got to stop and let go and just stop trying to drive through and grit your teeth because this actually was in the honest like this so chronic conditions the more you grit your teeth the more you try and persevere the more you get and there's no guarantee that you'll ever get back so I was in a very very unfamiliar place mentally and also like socially my part I've found it difficult because I'm not no longer the person that I was because you weren't able to do jobs care for your kids and all these types of things so yeah it was a very slippery slope and it was a very dark period in the time for sure and at my worst I reckon I was yeah I was yeah suicide over about six months most days I was probably really really trying to stick it out just because of just because of everything really yeah I think you know one of the most difficult things for me that I'm kind of hearing is like when a chronic condition happens like this I think sometimes it's really difficult at least from my perspective I'm not trying to speak for you hoodie um of the constant comparison of like what you are versus what you wish you were or what things used to be and and finding that that new like normal of okay well like I know that this is what you want it to be but it's not that yeah you know and and I think that is probably I could see for me being one of the most difficult parts of that process being sort of stuck in wanting it to be something that it's not yeah yeah you get the nail on the head I think that or never will be right never will be and I've probably I've definitely got to the point where there's 11 acceptance acceptance easy to talk about hard to truly believe in I think and even though I intellectually knew that's the way I need to think believing in experiencing it was a completely different ballgame um so that took time and darkness and those experiences but yeah it does shift over time for sure but yeah so yeah hit the nail on the head there I think and I think also like it just generally speaking whenever I hear you know speaking is like a healthcare professional myself when I have a patient who whose condition may or you know maybe it is psychological or maybe it's being made worse by their um their psychological state it's so frustrating when I hear other medical people being like well there's nothing wrong with you it's psychological it's like well the psychological part is the thing that is wrong right like you can't say like like clearly I'm in a bad state so like there is something wrong with me even even if it is a psychological you know mechanism yeah that doesn't mean nothing's wrong yeah right and I think that it's just it's so frustrating and it's so frustrating you know I actually had a a chronic pain or a chronic pain athlete that was referred to me and and part of the process for her was like I believe your pain is very real I just don't think it's a physical mechanism and I think for her that was like such a mind-blowing thing to hear of like you are absolutely in pain I 100% believe you I just don't think it's anatomical right and and sort of recognizing that like you can't just be like well there's nothing wrong with you okay but like well they're clearly is what are you talking about yeah yeah so you obviously you know five years on you are coming out of it a little bit and you've been doing a lot more well that's probably a year or so in terms of getting back into doing a little bit of work and kind of talk to us a little bit about how you know as a psychologist right you talk about this stuff you work with other people with this stuff like how have you applied what you'd know about psychology to your own recovery and kind of you know re-emergence the psychological side of things with these sort of chronic illnesses I what I've seen experience well don't very rarely be the cure but it'll help them cope with the experience and that is actually foundational in helping do all the other things and of course they're very so intricately linked with one another beyond like mind and body it's like a mind and the nervous system and an immune system and then your colloquial system and all these systems that are all interconnected so super connected and yeah I it was fortuitous and I had all this experience and I think one of the ones that I found super useful because I went through counseling hours with therapy myself and anti-depressants as well so I've been all gamut of psych support which I needed and actually was like super valued across the board. Chronic illnesses seem to lend itself well to some like act because it's perpetual it never assuages it never disappears so okay how can we then lead into it rather than daily trying to fight and control my inner state so if I get symptoms I think oh no I'm getting worse my symptoms are coming back rather than trying to control that lean in accept be mindful what are my values yeah so act as acceptance commitment therapy yeah yeah it's just this idea that rather than trying to get rid of thoughts and emotions and sensations that we think of as unhelpful we're instead trying to accept that they are there and live in a kind of valued direction do the things that we really value anyway even in the presence of those things that we find uncomfortable you mentioned acceptance earlier as well didn't you yeah yeah acceptance is quite a broad term I think it can be sometimes different things but in this terms the acceptance of I don't have to like it but I can accept that this is how I'm feeling and there's no judgment on those experiences and it also really helps to understand what your values are in terms of how how is anyone to live your life and if you were to ask me what my values were before and after becoming ill you are probably two of them the same but actually my ability to live the values and actually believe the values are very different now compared to before so I used to talk a good game yeah but now I'm probably actually living a good game in terms of what my values are and how I'm sticking to those as much as possible can you can you give us an example of what you mean but I'm really interested in that so you know people always I don't know if it's controversial but people say that our family and friends are really important and they're the number one things to me but they'll spend 95% of their life working when they're not being around their kids and there's that dissidence between behavior and you spend time on what is important to you and I know there's other reasons why we spend time on those things but perhaps I was a little bit more like that in terms of saying these are things I think I should be saying to people and things what I think should be important but actually this is what I really want to do at the moment is I just want to try and be career focused I want to just kind of do those fun things or whatever whereas now it's become much more crystallized in terms of what is really important and how do I stick by those things and why it's so important to have those at difficult moments because at the moment like there's no finish line is such so you don't know if you might get worse again if you get better whatever it might be and not knowing whether you're going to get better again is all right because I've got that sort of guide in terms of this is on how I want to live a meaningful life still even without an idea of where it might end up. Yeah that's really interesting isn't it this idea that like we all have values but sometimes actually I think the phrase used when he was like the things that we feel like was supposed to tell people our values are rather than what they actually are yeah and then you've got this sort of like real you know illness that's brought those values into stark reality rather than just being this kind of theoretical thing. I was reading it makes me think of I was reading Lance Armstrong's biography a while ago and he talked about when he got first got his cancer diagnosis and someone said to him that he was like we're the lucky ones and he was like what are you talking about I have cancer and they were like well we're the one and he but the point was like it's such a clarifying experience that to Woody's point of like really understanding what's important to you becomes very acute and when you're faced with you know something as significant as a chronic illness or you know a cancer diagnosis or something like things become your priorities become super duper clear and and so his so it for him it really shifted his perspective of like I thought this thing was important to me and I spent to your point like a billion hours on the bicycle and then I realized like that that's at right now not important at all actually and you know it really sort of drove home that idea of like whether or not he would have called it lucky and retrospect to getting his chronic illness but just the idea of like things become like you really have to think about like what what is actually important to me in this moment and what do I really want to do and what does it mean to having meaningful life hmm yeah yeah so it's so good isn't it interesting and I always I always struggle with this like so and from a practitioner's perspective because we're trying to help people maybe realize these situations but we can't we don't want to put everyone in chronic illness positions or go through a significant illness or life event to then have that realization so I always try to help thinking well how can we get to that point without having to go through that point because you don't want to go through that point and is it possible and how come is it just about nudging people into that direction how can you have those realizations and I don't think I've got the answer unfortunately quite yet but and sometimes when you burn everything to the ground and start again you know classic like metaphor around the soul becomes richer after scorching the earth types thing that you can go again and that is a valuable thing and perhaps it's useful for athletes or performers when challenging things happen their life actually sometimes it is a fruitful opportunity to just completely wipe the slate clean and start again and think about what your next what your next chapter of your life might look like and yeah I always think about like because I do a values exercise with my students you know and a lot of them are going into like coaching or you know whatever and if they say like hear my top values we kind of go through like how do we determine our values and I always challenge them of like how would I know that if I just went and watched you coach at practice how would I know that these are your values what would in your behavior and in your interactions with your athletes and in your everyday life would I be able to figure that out just by watching you and I think for some of them that's a really hard question to answer would you know based on my like words and my actions like could you be able to figure it out without asking me yeah that's a great question yeah like classic challenge between what we want to be or what we think we should be versus what we actually do and what we actually are and like I guess we're always for over trying to I don't know bring those things closer together or trying to find the balance between those two things just like with the beliefs like people say you know I'm and when it kind of comes to our rebate he's sort of linking it back to that you know talks about oh no no no it's not the end of the world when things happen I know that doesn't make me a complete failure but when they lose you see them have a complete meltdown and again is that distance between what you believe and what you're telling yourself versus what the reality is and it's similar to how it's in terms of your values and that's probably quite similar across the board so what do let's kind of flip around a little bit you know what we're talking about how you might use psychology during your illness and kind of during coming out of your illness but what what what have you learned about psychology from the experience of being ill so one one part of psychology which I think I'm not sure whether this is talked about enough and I can understand why it's not talked about enough and I think that experience taught me and chamber relationship with life and death because you spend so much time thinking about it and actually appreciate and turn there are fates worse than death that's what chronic illness chronic pain those experiences really suffering actually death death sounds like and I say they were the complete sensitivity and respect but in those moments death same like a peaceful place a calm peaceful place to just get out of the body that I was stuck inside and I think over time I started using reason clarity and again drawing on like stoicism you know one of the central areas around stoicism is death not to celebrate it or not to romanticize it but to almost place it front and center and and senica's got a great quote which is something like if to learn about death is to unlearn slavery that idea that the more you can you don't have to like it we're not searching for it but actually accept it for what it is and therefore that breaks the shackles off for what you then trying to do in life so it allows you to better live your life and I guess that that could be applied to support like where can accept failure and losing or rejection and you can accept that and therefore that breaks the shackles on you've been paradoxly better able to go and be the best version of yourself and I've definitely feel like I've had that change and I'm not I'm not religious in from my perspective I'm not particularly religious person so I'm always trying to reconciliate what that death process looked like and you know you always think well actually if you'd ask someone what was it like the last seven billion years before you were alive or whatever you know I don't know nothing happened no perception but nothing happened like I predict by person probably right probably right well it can't be good or bad can it was a cool yeah just floating around watching the dime sort of do their thing but we can't be good or bad I guess can it because if you don't have a perception and that's the way I'm looking at it at the moment I may change down the line and but it's this sort of lack of conscious lack of yeah there's no perception or anything so and that's been very liberated in terms of life and living and and being comfortable talking about death and understanding what it is and really looking at examining it and then that's allowed me to better live my life and I think I don't yeah it's not particularly spoken about much really I don't think because if you if you can't if you're not particularly paralyzed by the thoughts of death then what else in life is going to really really throw you off that's going to be too that troubling apart from maybe the fear of dying itself I think there's something there's something to be said for making sort of value neutral statements and this kind of I think goes back to the the RABT of it all of like not to not to have a value of like is this a good or bad thought but is this a helpful or unhelpful thought right and like is this you know we often try to ascribe I think the value of like is my life good or bad right but taking the value away from it and say like okay this is my life what does it mean what does it mean for me is this a helpful way to live is this a fulfilling way to live I don't know I think I'm just also like you kind of like thinking out loud about this like I think sort of maybe removing some of that like arbitrary goodness or badness can be useful of like if you lose it's bad if you are rejected it's bad well no you are rejected what does that mean for us what do we believe about that how can we process it I don't know is that making any sense at all yeah no it does yeah I don't know what are your thoughts Pete yeah I mean I just I think I'd need a more time to think about it yeah sorry to throw that no no it's fine because it's like because it's really interesting and I'll probably take this out but like as I've gotten like older you know and I'm not ancient or anything but like you do start to you know and you perhaps start to maybe like lose people as well like family members and kind of friends go through health issues you do start to kind of think a little bit more about your own mortality and yeah I don't know I don't I think yeah how do you kind of reconcile that was this stuff you know about psychology and like again you know living a valued life and like ultimately what does that what does that really mean and yeah it's because I you know you listen to people who have friends and family who are religious and they have sort of beliefs that help them reconciliation what the the death process is going to be like and because I personally don't believe in that then it's like well what how am I thinking about it what's guiding what frame I've got a framework for guiding my life but well how do I think about those things and that sort of the reason the reason clarity really helps and really trying to find out is actually it's just you know the complete absence of perception means it actually and and in yeah in some yeah this again this might sound controversial you may want to take this out but there's some people talk about mortality being a gift we'll want no dying being a gift because why would you want to stick around for the whole time I think that that is a really very good point you know you know talk about last last year my my father was particularly ill he was on dialysis and actually the dialysis process was a gift for him because he could it was a lot of pain ill and get a conversation and actually coming off dialysis was the choice to say I want peace now I don't I don't want the to carry on with this and that was actually a a gift so it's yeah and consciousness doesn't come across like we love death for those type of things but it's almost like because we comfortable with it and around it allows us to do all the other things without all of this baggage about worrying fear I guess yeah I think like that that idea of an absence of perception was like an interesting one I think like for me just like a genuine genuine thought that I've had and this definitely isn't going in that I finally just get some fucking sleep like finally um but yeah yeah really interesting conversation um none of which will make it to and this is the 80% mental podcast and I'm here with co-host Dr Leah Washington and I'll guest today Dr Andrew Wood and we've been talking about Andrew's experience of working in disability sports experience of becoming disabled himself and that experience of long COVID and we've just been very cheerily talking about death we're gonna switch things up in the the craicest of ways now hard left turn hard left turn right because we we want to I mean I feel like we've definitely got to know you a little bit more through some of your experiences but we want it we want to get to know you the person rather than you the psychologist um so are you up for playing our little game that we didn't have last time we were on the podcast yes any game yeah that's good as long as it doesn't have all wrapping about random topics with which you've done with previous guests so no I do to be honest I forgot we did that I remember it vividly I saw the highlights oh poor Josephine Perry if you wasn't happy about that joe joe davies came through though um okay so our our getting to know you game is I've got a series of quick fire questions right on different topics we've got four virtual envelopes with some different topics topics like this and that also this or that favorites and first hypotheticals and perspectives and I'm going to get you to choose a number between one and four and we'll see what set of questions we've got today three please three okay and our set of questions today is this or that so quick fire questions um no time to think let's get straight on with it okay uh make a call or send a text text text um it was that text as well for you Leah yeah for sure yeah I mean he likes phone calls but what do what do we do before texts right not only are you kidding that's a hobby that's not me with the train back a such like classic sort of American I don't so cool I bet somewhere there's a guy running to get on the train with his dog to sit in a sit in the carriage but it's raw hanging out his mouth in the side door open traveling across country um but yeah do you remember what we used to do before text messaging right not only did you have to ring people up right but you had to ring somebody's house and then ask if they were there yeah right so you'd like ring the house and then somebody's parents would answer you and after wow his son's out there can I speak to them yeah and I know my mom used to make me practice speaking to the parents on the phone they politely can you imagine remember we used to pick up the phone not knowing who was calling us I know imagine like that's wild yeah yeah it could be anybody I mean I I'm pretty sure most people do this I don't answer my phone if I don't know who's calling yeah yeah no less you're feeling mischievous and you're thinking right I'm going to wind up some cold callers here every now and then every now and then okay rainy day or sunny day would you sunny sunny yeah sunny day yeah see I like I'm a bit for misery I like you know a rainy day can be nice and cozy those are things aren't you yeah yeah yeah yeah so that's you know synonymous with the sort of yeah that explains it yeah iced coffee or hot coffee hot I don't do coffee so don't care um sunglasses or hats sunglasses yeah sunglasses yeah I I have an unfeasible collection of both it's a bit of a burn of contention in our house how many pairs of sunglasses and how many hats I've got oh really are you going to be on that stacey Solomon's program I've cleared your house out so you've got so many you've got I've got 140 pairs of sunglasses you've got to get rid of it no I need them I need them yeah I need all of it it's not it's not that it's not at that stage yet but yeah probably too many that how many have you got so much more than more than anyone needs I don't I like the yet as a qualifier obviously don't really know um well what I like doing is you know when you like go to um like Gran Canary or something there's someone selling like Roy bombs yeah yeah I can't just buy them for like a few um all right uh silence or background music background music background music yeah would you just just kind of question which just kind of occurred to me you know when you were um like having those sort of dark times when you were like you know kind of in bed for quite a long time like did you you know you said you were kind of sensitive to sound as well like did you have any kind of sensory input did you like watch tv or like did that listen to music or was it literally just kind of no we got to the point where I couldn't of anything so we're just yeah so yeah and build his headphones on and sometimes we have to wear an eye mask or dark in room just because it takes energy to tolerate these senses so yeah it was done only thing you could really control by that point would just be thought so it's pretty um yeah pretty rough yeah pretty rough um it relates to a thing that it's a bit popular at the moment with the young folks we said raw dog in sexy dog in yeah right about raw dog on a plane without power so we'll try try it for a year in bed you know that's the proper raw dog in um but yeah it makes me laugh um all right uh city or country country city yeah I'm city as well I'm afraid I don't do the country I'm not welcoming the country um that's that's unfair so I don't mean it who's a joke um smart suit and tie or jeans and a hoodie jean city yeah same Leah dress dressy dress I'm kind of a fancy bitch so I kind of like wearing a like a smart suit yeah I'm not going to do cuts or dogs because if you don't say dogs you're dead to me um okay let's finish with this one uh no zombies or pirates pirates do I want to fight a zombie or pirate or do I want to be a zombie or pirate the question is yours to do with what you like I think pirate so I don't really like the ocean so I don't for a land based that's a time based pirate yeah I'll be a land based pirate um all right last one then good book or a good podcast book I want to say book but um I do listen to a lot of i guess because I can usually do that while I'm doing other things like if I'm washing the dishes or like driving yeah uh what do you said you said good book what was the last good book that you read um it was um something about explorers but let let me just get it up so I can't remember the name of it it was actually really simply quite good it was called so good that you can't remember the name of it the explorer gene by Alex Hutchinson so he's a chap who just does journalism about sports and society things and basically that says niche now and he's knuckle down on why people explore and go and do things and develop and do these crazy events but also why do humans grow and stretch themselves and what's going on there so yeah that was a good one I'd say so it's interesting um all right well uh what do you thank you so much for playing our uh little game I feel like we've gotten to know you a little bit better loved every second of it so this is the 80% mental podcast and um we've just had a really fascinating conversation over this episode uh if you've enjoyed what you've heard don't forget to subscribe at 80%mental.com or wherever you listen and you can follow us on twitter at epm podcast or on instagram at 80% mental uh like share all that good social media stuff um and leave us a review if you're listening on Apple podcasts take you a couple of minutes and it would be really would really help us out um so what do you got just a couple of questions left uh if you've got up if you've got a little bit of time for us yeah sure fantastic so um well you and I have spoken offline about this before um but what are some of the things that uh queue about psychology what are some of the things that just get right on your nerves um oh god psychology is everyone's to some degree because of course it is and therefore what perhaps frustrates me is maybe for I frustrate myself because we spend 95% of our time thinking about learning developing the content knowledge theory evidence research and then we try and help people but we spend like I spend 5% of my time trying to share with people it impact the masses whereas in society you get sort of people spend 5% maybe less on the content of what they're talking about but they'll spend 95% of their time on how to market it how to get it out there but that then becomes an influential thing so I guess I'm irritated at myself and the psychologist because we should be doing better to share the things that are impactful and helpful for people and it's going to reach the masses rather than this sort of niche paper that we publish which you know 20 people have read over time and I know you do a good job of that piano I messed you quite a lot sort of juggling you know have a weekly sneaker when your videos come up or show the chapter into myself about something house over the bottom of water or how to walk sit down in a room or whatever but yeah I think that's where I want to try and take myself in terms of trying to reach the masses a bit more but not not straining away from science but making it simpler and clearer and I think yeah that's a bit of a skill yeah do you know what I really like that you said then was that you framed that as you being kind of like annoyed at yourself and not doing more of that stuff rather than just being angry at the influencers and just being angry at it because it's really easy to fall into that trap isn't it like like look at these people just like peddling nonsense some really angry about it but actually you're you're kind of what you take from that as well I want to do more to correct that yeah because we're psychologists so we might not be specialist in marketing but we know humans to some degree so we should be have a very good base to be able to do that side of things so cry to you why aren't we doing it and you start to see it more of it aren't you and it's actually becoming easier to do that so yeah but yeah I do have my good moment about these influencers from times as well so what do you still love about it um I think what's my equivalent to scoring a goal for athletes is probably those moments when you connect with people you might have a session where the light bulb goes or you're in a group and you just feel so connected and you feel like they're hanging on to every word in terms of they're really listening and it's resonating and as I've got back into psychology I've had a couple of those moments it doesn't happen all the time because otherwise that's just unrealistic we just have those moments to go oh that's exactly what you're doing it because it's those moments and I think there's never always a clear answer in psychology compared to other areas it's a bit more challenging it's a bit more multifaceted and I like that soon as something becomes feels like it's easy I sort of go off it very quickly and psychology doesn't always feel straightforward so yeah that's probably my favourite bit um I want to just before we finish up first of all thank you for being a little bit vulnerable with us on the podcast today and sharing your experience with us um I'd love to know in the last in the last five years um what you've what you've really truly learned about yourself um that you think would be useful to pass on what I've learned about myself um I've probably learned that um it's it's probably except acceptance it was come up a lot as in it today and I think there's a reason why it's come up a lot and and it's just to acceptance that while I was sort of in bed you know you sort of feel like you you're not doing anything but you're growing a lot and you're learning a lot and understanding a lot and so almost like I always wanted to know where I was going or how things are going to be but there's that acceptance that's why and the way they am the other people the way they are life is the way they are and there's something quite liberating to to to that sort of position and and it's taking me away from that classic cliche I'm sorry to bring it up but the journey sort of further the outcome type thing and I know it's it's borderline try it at the moment that sort of saying that actually it's it's it's certainly pertinent and it's sort of yeah taking the pressure off a little bit I guess and I guess the question p that was second that was a big question yeah I mean there's nothing compared to this one um you talked about this a little bit earlier on you know you were saying that your illness really brought your values into stark um there's not what the word I'm looking for is really brought your values like to the forefront um and you know you talked about this idea of a meaningful life um so my last question would he is what is a meaningful life to you meaningful life to me meaningful life to me is one and I was having a chat in the park yesterday last night actually and talking about bits and bobs and he said oh you're going to write a book or anything I'm like no I'm not going to write a book because I'm not sure anyone really wants to read it because it probably I can't imagine actually help you or help people but I can't quite make that link just like it doesn't have to help it can just be interesting and I thought I was interested in because my for me helping is a meaningful life making a difference making doing something bringing around change and I'm sort of questioning whether that actually is needs to be like that with me but for me I I love being a dad because you help you develop in pro blood and supporting children and a partner and you know working with athletes or leaders whoever helping them develop be the best possible version of them and it's just making an impact I think and leaving something behind and having that impact seems to be um perhaps what's what's meaning for me um yeah well thank you for that answer and thank you for like I say you sort of honesty and vulnerability and willingness to share your experiences on today's episode of I've thoroughly enjoyed the conversation um Leah obviously thank you as well uh any any thoughts it makes me think of um as you're talking what he which I I'm really struck by um this idea of like well it doesn't have like people don't have to read it for you to write it like that's not the answer it is the writing yeah that's the important part right and and I think that's sort of like such a nice little encapsulation of who cares if anybody reads it if that's not what it's about yeah right yeah and sort of like to your point of like letting go of like that expectation right because to you the the why would I write a book if no one's going to read it the expectation is that while people have to read it but do they have to I was I was chatting literally yesterday with um uh coach uh about kind of living in line with values and you were saying that you know he was really kind of trying to think a little bit more about connection with family um so you know they've got this family WhatsApp group and he sent like a message because he was away from home for the week so sent a message on his family WhatsApp group because you know there's something that was important to him and he's explaining that you know out of his entire family you got one response from one of his kids he was asking him to transfer some money and we kind of had it we had like a bit of a laugh about it and you know but the point was it's like well it's it's not about them and it's not about their response right it's about you sending that message it's about you saying like this is what I value yeah this is how I'm going to live that value and you've done it so like that that's the success bit right that's the that's that you're you're living in line with your that it doesn't matter that you know they haven't responded this time like you've done the thing oh and if we really think that it's the journey that's the important part yeah yeah it definitely taught me off guard that little conversation it's not like a subtle reframe uh and I guess but it's so useful yeah yeah anything just goes show we never we never really have anything probably figured out still do we and I'm probably never changed the rest of my life so still working things out as we go through well would you thanks once again for taking the time to come on the podcast I really appreciate it it's great to catch up with you as well yeah thanks for all your thanks for all your interest and yeah good to meet you as well Leah I love this conversation I'm so happy I was here right if you have enjoyed today's conversation um please do like share um tell people about the podcast and direct them to 80%mental.com or wherever you normally listen you can subscribe there you can listen to all of our other episodes uh of which woody has been on one way back in season one series one if you're not American um find us on uh the internet that they have now on twitter at epm.bug or on instagram at 80%mental um thank you so much for listening if you've made it this far um and we will be back with more episodes soon and I'll see you next time love you on exit yeah we want to see you because it's not it's not a podcast work is it