 Hello, welcome to Healing the World Together. Today I'm here with Angela Foster. She is a nutritionist health and performance coach and host of the top rated podcast, High Performance Health. And she used to be a former partner of a large law firm. And she healed herself after a serious illness in 2014 using integrative health practices, biohacking to rebuild her physical and mental health. And now she's a speaker, a coach, and the founder of her company, and also founder of the Female Biohacker Collective. And her mission is to educate and inspire women to become the CEO of their health and optimize their mind, body, and spirit by embracing their femininity. So welcome, Angela. Thank you, David, it's lovely to be here. Yeah. So you have an amazing story of healing and transformation. So I wanna hear about that. Yeah, sure. As you were saying there when you were reading my bio, I used to be a corporate lawyer for many years and I was just working hard, moving up the ladder, moving towards partnership. And then when I was eight months pregnant, I was my partner and everything was going pretty well. And then when I had my children, I unexpectedly suffered with postnatal depression. And it got worse with each child, with each sort of pregnancy. Until finally after my third child, I was really struggling with bipolar episodes. And I was having these sort of suicidal thoughts a lot of the time and I'd created this prison in my own mind because I was so deeply connected and loved my children and my husband, but I just couldn't control my mind. And I basically just wanted to turn the thoughts off in my head. So I just felt imprisoned in my mind but I was thinking, how can I thought life would be better for them without me, which was where I was in terms of my thinking. As crazy as that seems now, but then I also couldn't imagine leaving them without a mother. And so I just had this thing where I was like, just someone please turn it off. And that's when I then developed pneumonia and I became very sick and my lymph glands were really swollen. They were treating me for the pneumonia but it wasn't getting any better and I kept having antibiotics. And then they did an x-ray and they found some things on the x-ray and called me to the hospital. And then they did a CT scan, suspecting lung cancer. But actually it was just that I had this kind of round glass opacity where the pneumonia had spread to both lungs and it was viral and bacterial pneumonia. I was neutropenic. And I was just admitted straight into hospital. I couldn't go and pick my kids up from school. I couldn't say goodbye. And that was when I, it's a moment I looked back on and I'm grateful for because I was in hospital with myself with nowhere to run. I was out running these days to try and run away from myself. And finally I couldn't go anywhere. And I felt this really profound moment of peace. I think that there was a sort of lucidity with the fevers that I was experiencing and just being there, I really deeply connected with my kids, my family and my love for them, but also just the fact that I was okay. Somehow I felt at peace and okay being me. And that sparked in me a mission to really get well. It was a bumpy road at first. I'm not gonna lie. It took a lot of work to get myself physically and mentally optimized, but also to really dive deep into the spiritual form and connect with myself on that level because it's something I had ignored for many years. I was always into physical fitness, but I hadn't really got my mindset and my spirituality on track. And I believe it's a fully holistic approach. And so now today I've retrained and my mission now is really to inspire and empower women. Tell me more about what was going on in your mind that made that shift, basically that point in your life when everything changed. It was a crossroads because I had wanted a way out and when you have bacterial and viral pneumonia, you know, the antibiotics are gonna take you so far, that the virus can't be treated in that way. And I was aware of that and I was neutropenic and I realized that my immune system was gonna have to do some work if I was gonna get out of the hospital. And I think that I felt, I guess it was just a moment of peace. I hadn't felt okay with myself at all. I had so much self-loathing as part of the depression, but somehow I felt overcome with just feeling okay. And just this idea that I would take it one step at a time and almost giving up the, giving it up to the universe. You know, if I could get well, then I wanted to get well and equally it could have been taken from me. And I was very fortunate because that did spark in me journey back to health. And I think the doctors were surprised when they retested my bloods just within 48 hours how much they were changing. And it all began with that decision. So explain what happened because it sounds like that something happened miraculously to change your whole makeup of what's going on in your body. Can you explain more about how you got to that point? I think I've been functioning and just carrying on but not really feeling for so long. And when I was at the hospital and I couldn't leave, I couldn't go home because they were really worried about how quickly I was gonna deteriorate and how I was breathing. And so I couldn't go and pick my kids up. I couldn't say goodbye to them. I couldn't even say to them, mommy's gotta go into hospital, she'll be home soon. And that really, really broke my heart because I realized that I felt like I was letting them down and that there was a real chance that they wouldn't have me in their lives. And so I realized that it was bigger than me, right? I was, if they were gonna grow up without a mother and my husband was gonna not have his wife there. We'd been close and we'd met at uni with best friends then that was gonna profoundly change their lives forever. And I think it was from a true place of love for them. I was looking at photos on my phone. They came in to see me that I just wanted to get better for them. And it was just that sense of bigger purpose, bigger than myself. And is this common? Like after you, did you talk to the doctors afterwards or how you recovered? Have they ever seen something like that happen before that quickly? They were surprised when they rescanned my lungs because they were expecting more permanent damage. And I did have, they were expecting to intubate me. They didn't need to, so that I was lucky but they were expecting more damage on the lungs. And so I did have to have a repeat CT scan to see what had gone on. And initially that was delayed because it's almost like, I suppose that heroes journey isn't that you fall down again before you get up and I got another chest infection. But I managed to get better and get back on track. And I had some damage to the kind of alveoli at the base of the lungs. So it's, there was some inflammation leftover and I had infection-induced asthma. But to be honest, by all accounts, I got off very lightly. So this experience, how do you think it has changed the way you see the world or changed your behavior or changed your purpose in your life? So initially when I began on that journey to get well it was inspired by my children. My love for my children. So I was like, how can I get well? And I wanted to understand it and I wanted to understand what happened there like that spiritual connection. And so that's when I began reading because I'd been brought up in a kind of very strict Catholic background which had a confession and guilt and things like this associated with it. So I'd kind of departed from that. And as part of that, I've lost touch with my sense of spirituality. So I decided to approach it and knew I'd had this experience. So I was open to finding out more things. So I was really busy reading books by the Dalai Lama, reading Dr. Joe Dispenza's work, that his book, Breaking the Habit of Your Being Yourself really inspired me to change. And I literally had to rebuild my mental and physical health on every level. And so I slowly embarked on that journey. And it was about putting the pieces together, restoring my immune system, my gut microbiome. I'd lost a ton of weight. I'd lost a lot of bacteria from the heavy kind of dose antibiotics that were being put through my system. And then it was about building that immune system up but building myself up mentally. And one of the things that I discovered was just the lack of compassion that I'd had for myself throughout that whole process and relearning self-compassion. I don't wanna say fall in love with yourself, right? But how to respect and honor myself and put myself first to be in a position to help others. And that was, and then eventually as the years went by and I was becoming more and more optimized, got my energy back on track, I'd restored a lot of the adrenal dysfunction that I think was the background behind everything. I actually think that's where it began through those years in my 20s of just pushing with no sleep or miters or weekends. It was then about really getting my mindset really clear and doing a lot of like cognitive behavioral therapy on top to finally come off medication. I was advised not to stop taking medication because I'd had these bipolar episodes where the lows would be preceded by these incredible hearts. And I think that felt like that was probably one of the coolest things because the deepest lows were preceded by these days where I would just feel so well, I would feel on top of everything almost like super low. But then I learned over time that these were leading to a crash. And so it's like, how could I stabilize that? And then eventually make that transition off medication which I wouldn't advise anyone to do without a doctor and it may be that people listening, you need to stay on medication. But it was part of my journey that I wanted to come off because I'd got myself to a point where they weren't just resetting me now as becoming numb and I couldn't feel and I wanted to feel again. And so that was really, that was the last piece to pull together. So through your experience and through your journey, what's the one thing that you think is like the guiding light for you? If you had one rule or one guiding principle, what would it be? I think it was to connect in the present moment. It was to bring two presence because when you suffer with depression, you experience anxiety and they're like the flip sides of the same coin. And so often with anxiety, you're looking forward but you're not necessarily seeing a compelling future. And when you, and it was a fear-based and the anxiety didn't really, I didn't struggle with because I've never been that anxious. That was just on the edges, but the depression really got me. And so it was like learning not to ruminate on thoughts, understanding the sort of observer effect and that I was not my thoughts and I could separate from them. And the only real way to do that was to bring myself fully into the present moment. And so I would practice and practice. Every time thoughts came up, I would question the authenticity of those thoughts and whether they were really me and try to replace them with a different thought, a more empowering thought. And sometimes that wasn't even possible. Sometimes it was literally about being mindful. I really respect John Kabat-Zinn's work and I've read a lot of that to help me but just bringing myself into the moment of whatever I was doing. If I was driving, just really focusing on the car and everything I was doing. If I was doing something domestic, like washing up, I would be focusing on the sounds of the soap bubbles or the movement of water through my fingers and just bringing true presence. I would say it was the number one thing that was able to guide me out. That's great. Staying in presence is very important. People are living in the past or living in the future, not really in the present, right? What's one effective technique that you use that anybody can learn on how to stay present? I would say the first thing is to connect with your breath because it's the one way that we know how to really rebalance your nervous system and to engage that parasympathetic system and address any of that anxiety. It took me a while to get the hang of that but breathing in through your nose and helping with that release of nitric oxide and then slowly exhaling can bring you into balance quite quickly. Even if you wanna get in touch with resonance and your resonance frequency, then it's somewhere around. It's different for everyone but somewhere around that four breaths in, six breaths out. And so I would practice doing that to really just become centered and then I would focus on something I was grateful for. And luckily for me, I think some mums when they suffer with postnatal depression which it started off, they can feel disconnected to their children or disconnected from. And I think I felt very fortunate that was never the case. Like I truly adored my kids. And so just spending time with them and that release of oxytocin and being with them would help me tremendously and support from my husband. So what made you make the decision to leave the corporate world and start something different? It was very difficult to combine it and to look after my health, combine it with young children and actually see them. And I realized quite quickly that I wasn't gonna be able to see my kids and spend time with them because I was gonna be home when they were asleep and I was leaving the house when they were just getting up. And it was really important to me to be a part of their lives. So initially it began as a corroborate and interesting that the time was exploring becoming a judge because I've practiced enough years. That was an option. But then as I really got into my health optimization and my journey, I realized just how many women struggle with that balance and struggle with their mental health and their physical health. And so I wanted to try to and help to empower them. And that's when I started to retrain and make it my focus. So it wasn't then just about myself and my family. It was about how can I widen this? And it just has evolved over time. I guess it's positively addictive, right? It's the more you can dive in deeper and help people and inspire them, the more you want to because it's that ripple effects that's created in the world. Can you give us some examples of some success stories that have arisen from the people that you helped? Yeah, so I work, I think the biggest thing I think is giving people the self-belief that they can achieve their goals and get watching them go on, not just to reverse things like autoimmune issues, but actually completely rebalance their energy and launch businesses and themselves. So many women I've worked with have ended up having the courage to leave the corporate world and to create something in their own work that actually combines with their family life while still being able to focus on their health and their energy levels. And that's just so inspiring and just brings me so much joy. So you talk about balance and what do you think is the always trying to summarize everything? What do you think would be the one thing that would help somebody balance their life, especially if they're a woman in the corporate world or women in the, even specifically the legal world? I think getting enough recovery is key. So I think for women, particularly for very driven women, type A personalities like myself, there's a temptation to always push and feel like you should do more or you can do more. And just because you can doesn't mean, I think sometimes we need to slow down to smooth things out and actually go faster. And I think that it doesn't have to be extreme, right? You don't have to go, if yoga is not your thing, you don't have to spend an hour or more a week doing yoga. It could be going for a walk in nature. It could be just stepping outside in the sunshine for five minutes or like skipping the subway or the tube and actually walking across the bridge in London to get to work so that you experience some time outside with nothing on or no mobile phones. Just to bring yourself into the present moment at various points in the day, I think is so key. If you're starting to feel really stressed or you're feeling really frazzled, just to take a few deep breaths to send to yourself back again. I think working out has its place and it's something that I love, but I think it's just being, having an awareness that the more that you push, you're gonna have to bring in some recovery alongside if you don't want to eventually lower your energy. Right, a lot of people are concerned about burnout because of the pushing, right? Everybody in the corporate world is focused on meeting targets, pushing, going as hard as you can, working out as hard as you can, working, negotiating, basically pushing as hard as humanly possible in order to get ahead because it's so competitive. If you go into the ancient principles of yin and yang, it's all about balance, like you said. How do you balance the aggressive, yang masculine energy with the, I wouldn't say passive, but more on how to explain, more like the gentle rejuvenating, like the more subtle energy, feminine energy. So I think it's not about how hard you push, it's about also how hard you relax too. I agree. I think it's, I think, yeah, I think you make a really good point. I think it's different for different people because I think for some people who find it hard to set stuff right, they don't, they're really in that doing mode, then what can be helpful is to make that, that doing part of the relaxation. So that could be a walk in nature. That could be some cold exposure, right? That can calm you down and activate that nervous, that vagus nerve. It could be that it's yoga because yoga really is mindfulness, but you're physically challenging the body still. And I think it's about understanding, sometimes you need to use the body to condition the mind and sometimes you need to use the mind to condition the body. And just becoming like in tune with yourself and understanding what is the best tool at this point in time, but also acknowledging that these practices are going to help to make you more efficient. Now, I do is because I work with high performers is to increase performance. And even McKinsey have done a huge amount of research in relation to accessing a flow state and how senior executives feel five more time, five times more productive when they're in flow, but flow in and of itself where time falls away and you're just so engrossed in that moment and what you're doing is actually also very depleting on the brain. And it's Stephen Kotler's done a lot of research on this. It is preceded by a period of struggle often of actually being able to get down to it. And so I think sometimes just acknowledging what these cycles are and how they work and not beating yourself up and leaning in, you can actually make yourself a lot more efficient. I think good quality nutrition makes a huge difference, good quality sleep. I'm not necessarily sleeping longer but looking at your sleep metrics and understanding them and actually really dialing in the quality of that sleep. I think looking at your heart rate variability and understanding when it's dropping that actually you might be, if we look at the model with athletes, we can see that there's a concept of overreaching and over-training. If we're overreaching a bit, then we are making ourselves more resilient. So we're introducing a stress that's actually making us stronger. But if overreaching goes too far and we move into what's called over-training, it's much harder to come back from. And so it's about just understanding. It's like that, as you say, the yin and the yang and it's walking the tightrope and understanding that friction point where you are performing, but you're not sacrificing health. You're not sacrificing longevity or metabolism as a result of that performance. And that is really what gives it the endurance and it's the endurance that you need to succeed long-term. Sometimes you have to slow down to speed up. Exactly. So tell us more about what you offer with your female biohacker collective and what that's about. The female biohacker collective is a community that I started as a membership really for women who want to optimize every aspect of their physical, mental, and spiritual health. And what we do is it's a wonderful community of women so that they're not going alone. You have the support of other members and we basically each month will pick an area of health optimization or an area of performance. Sometimes it will be centered around like goal setting or stepping into your most empowered future self. Other times we'll be looking at metabolism or blood glucose control or different biohacking technologies or recovery and stress and resiliency. And each month there is a theme and then we have weekly calls, live calls with a master class. And then we have this, one of the favorite thing I think around members is we have a live challenge for one week where everything you've learned you put into practice so that you can start creating your transformation and working on that. And then we have a Q and A call and a book club. And so it's really for people who just wanna dive a bit deeper and we've done the research for you. So you're not looking here there in everywhere to try and find the information but it's assimilated and put in one place and then myself and my team support women to become the best self. And what would you say your vision is for this group and for yourself? My vision is to impact women across the world. So we have members from all different countries. My podcast is now in 120 different countries and if I can make a difference to women's lives to men and to women but specifically I tend to focus in my programs more for women really so that it can create that ripple effect. They can then not just better their own lives but those of their families and their friends as well. Thank you, Angela. I think your story is very inspiring to many people and they can definitely learn a lot from you especially it's about balancing and about peak performance. So thanks for your time. It's been amazing and look forward to doing more with you. Thank you so much, David, me too. Have a good day.