Kellie

I really enjoyed Dan's Lifestyle First Sessions, they made me stop and think about the little things I could be doing in my life to make a big difference. He helped me to incorporate healthy habits into my daily routine such as leaving my phone downstairs and avoiding screens before bed. This has really helped to improve my sleep. But it wasn't just a list of things to change, Dan explains everything so clearly really helping you to understand why these changes really do work.

Sam - Director of Education Xavier CET

Dan's Lifestyle First programme has had a profound effect on our students and staff at St Peter's. In 1:1 referrals, Dan builds brilliant relationships with students and families, walking with them on a journey that looks at the causes of their challenges, rather than starting with symptoms alone.

He has been relentless in his positivity and hard work, which has lead to huge gains for students with attendance, demeanour, attitude to school, and their health. But Dan has also had a significant impact on our staff, both in a 1:1 capacity, but also with educating us in larger groups so that we can embed some of the principles of Lifestyle Medicine into our day-to-day work with young people.

We cannot recommend Dan's work highly enough

Ted

It is fair to say that 18 months ago Ted was not functioning at his optimum! His sleep was erratic, he spent many hours gaming, would vape nearly every minute when he was not teaching and surviving mainly off of beige food.

Ted found it hard to get up in the morning and his time management was something he recognised as a problem. We discussed the role stress might be playing in Ted's life and how it could be affecting his sleep but also his need to use vaping and gaming as a way to cope.

Ted decided to use some breathing techniques to lower his sympathetic tone and do some journalling before he went to sleep. We also discussed the role of the microbiome in regulating the nervous system and so he made a plan to add a few different plants into his meals. He decided to set a bedtime of 10pm and to try and stay off screens from 9pm which prompted him to start playing his guitar again and to do some stretching.

Over the next few months he found he was gaming and vaping less and starting to understand the cause of his stress more clearly. He also started going to the gym regularly and found his quality of sleep improved. The breathing was really helping him to feel more chilled and he started to listen to a few podcasts around mindset. He made more and more changes to his food, making home cooked meals, bringing in his own lunches and generally increasing his plant intake and reducing his UPF.

He developed more compassion for himself, managing his time more effectively and noticed that he had more energy and felt more productive. A year on Ted has maintained these habits!

Dennis

I was referred to Dan and the lifestyle first Medicine after I was struggling with my mental health. I was finding that I was so anxious, that I couldn't actually manage myself, or see the bark from the trees - a really challenging time. Sadly, I was bringing it home, and Meg was struggling with managing me too. So I was referred to Dan by our leadership team.

I would have a weekly meeting with Dan, and we spoke about the 5 pillars of health… I cant remember what they were, but we established from a questionnaire and some experience from him that I probably needed to look after my health better in terms of fitness and activity, eating, and then managing my own expectations of myself.

The first thing that we looked at was managing anxiety. He encouraged me to keep a daily journal or when I was feeling overwhelmed, and what was triggering it etc so I could recognise it happening in the moment… and then he taught me a bunch of breathing techniques to activate my parasympathetic nervous system when I was feeling very anxious. Just someone who would suggest a technique, and then follow up with me about whether it worked was really impactful - kind of the coaching approach but to make me not feel like the sky was going to fall on my head the whole time!

Afterwards, we started with diet an exercise. I was up for changing some of my priorities and got out and did a bit more exercise and tracked it, as well as eating a healthy diet - all 'normal' things, but it was nice to have someone to reflect on whether it had been a good or a bad week with. Dan was really keen to get me into fermented foods, but I still haven't really managed to do this! but he was never disappointed in me, or made me feel bad - he just explained the science and encouraged me to try it!

Eventually, when we had an established trust etc and Dan knew me really well, we began to explore some meditation and he encouraged me to take a deeper look at what some of the main causes of the anxiety were - and I won't go into the details, as I will start crying here and now, but we did a meditation thing on a Thursday morning last summer, and afterwards, I felt 30kg lighter, and it might sound like a clique, but i really did feel like I was seeing the world in HD afterwards!

All this time, Dan was suggesting and signposting me to podcasts, books, articles and the like to make sure that I was able to keep up, and one for the best recommendations that he has suggested is a book called 'No Bad Parts'.

So, I cant tell you how much I have learned and gained from this intervention, and I am thankful to Dan for everything he did for me, as well as our SLT for recognising that I needed it.