Kevin Durjun | Ep #27 | Non-Verbal Therapy VS Talking Therapy for Men

medicine association and who is also an acupuncturist in the five-element acupuncture with a background in psychology and he is someone who specializes in mental health in his practice as an acupuncturist and he’s based in london in the uk so welcome to dr the podcast kevin well thank you thank you so much for having me i’m so excited about this conversation today we’ve got a lot to talk about yes definitely kevin uh and welcome so as we are in the month of november and also the movement of movember we would like to speak about mental health with you and um to start off the topic because we’ve been we’ve been speaking to the men around us and they all the first thing that comes up is mental health when it’s like if you were to to you know have somebody speak about a topic about mental health men’s health what would it be everyone said mental health so we came across the striking uh kind of stat around that based on the mental health organization in the uk it says that in the uk men are three times more likely to take their own lives than women um and on average 12 men in britain uh take their lives every day so suicide is the single biggest killer of men under 45 yet it’s not just young men that are at risk um as the highest suicide rate is for men is between the age of 45 and 49 in the uk so i’m sure there are many factors that kind of um involve suicidal rates but we want to potentially gear it towards mental health and as someone with a background in experimental psychology what is your take on this um i think that it is it is huge absolutely huge i think that it starts off when um we are little boys we’re told big boys don’t cry aren’t we we’re told that we’re told man up pull yourself together and so from a very very young age our parents are reminding us that we’re supposed to be the strong ones we’re supposed to be the ones who look after our families look after our younger siblings we’re supposed to be the grown-ups even from a very very young age and that’s a huge amount of pressure that we put upon our young men as they grow up so it’s no surprise really to me that as we grow up um we begin to lose connection with our emotions and we lose our ability to express our emotions if we’ve suppressed things for a long time um sadly they come out in very warped and unhappy ways as as as shown perhaps by all of these terrible statistics that you’re talking about and as an acupuncturist what what would you say is your observation about this um about mental health okay i think that um mental health is many many many of my patients come to see me because they feel low they feel depressed they feel anxious particularly after the c word the covid pandemic you know where so many people have been left alone they’ve been isolated um many of my patients are young men they live in flats by themselves they weren’t able to see anybody and as the lockdown began to be released and people began to be allowed to see people again a lot of those anxieties have have remained um as an acupuncture practitioner i am very aware that there is a lot of research a lot of research that demonstrates how effective acupuncture is at helping people with anxiety helping with depression helping even with post-traumatic stress disorder and the really interesting thing for me as an acupuncture practitioner and also having trained initially in experimental psychology is that we approach things in very very different ways so when i was doing my training um at the university of sussex all those years ago um it was fascinating absolutely fascinating i loved hearing about all of the research all of the studies into mental health into mental disorders and i learned about you know schizophrenia paranoid schizophrenia i learned about depression anxiety disorders post-traumatic stress disorders and also i learned that there is very very little actually little that can that can really help people long-term or cure these these conditions long-term one of the other um issues that came to me and and even when i was an undergraduate studying this this brilliant brilliant science was that um there is there is an awful lot of labeling that goes on you know we’re labeled as being paranoid schizophrenic and something really interesting happens when you tell somebody i’ve diagnosed you i mean my white coat you know clever clever you know western medical person i can tell you that you’ve got this particular condition you’ve got depression something really interesting happens and this is a again a scientifically proven fact that people begin to exhibit more of these symptoms if you tell somebody that they have paranoid schizophrenia well i mean nowadays we’ve got this wonderful friend or fake friend called the internet who can google that we can find out all about the symptoms and all of a sudden these symptoms can become worse and in many patients it does become worse and what i really love about acupuncture and one of the reasons why i jumped ship from the science world to the complementary medicine world and integrated medicine world is that we don’t do that sort of labeling we look at our patients in a very different way and we’re able to help our patients by using different modalities to to to help and to support them interesting that you’re saying that because um when you were talking about post-traumatic stress and and disorders and and having acupuncture being a solution for it you might not even you know think how is that even linked i am so so happy to talk about this so i can talk about um two wonderful things that have happened recently so um in the uk a wonderful acupuncturist um called naji malik he um has run a brilliant brilliant project with um with his local community and he worked with veterans to people who have seen warfare and you can imagine you see something terrible in a in a war zone you know we used to call it shell shock where people came back they were withdrawn they had night sweats they had terrors they weren’t able to verbalize what they’d seen um t.s eliot wrote um sorry to get a bit arty here but t.s eliot wrote a beautiful a beautiful comment um in one of his books which was for mankind cannot bear so much reality for mankind cannot bear so much reality and this well this is when you see war when you see people killed when you experience those awful conditions we’re not meant to as human beings supposed to be seeing these terrible things is there any wonder that um our ability to cope absolutely diminishes um and um this wonderful acupuncture practitioner called naji malik he did a brilliant study with some veterans where he gave a very very simple and very well-known acupuncture protocol to these former veterans men and women and um the results were absolutely outstanding absolutely outstanding this is a very ancient sort of treatment where you use i’m just counting them now one two three four five six seven points on the body and these points these acupuncture points used together it’s essentially has the effect of unlocking something within the body let’s call it energy it has this effect of unlocking the energy within the body the amazing statistics were i think it was like 80 after a course of acupuncture 80 percent of these um ex-service people they no longer reported having post-traumatic disorder wow that’s how this absolutely powerful absolutely powerful powerful work um and um in the us um where they have a huge provision of health care for their for their veterans recently in the u.s they um they’ve been spending millions of pounds investigating the efficacy of acupuncture treatment to help their ex-service people and acupuncture is now available it is classified as a valid treatment choice for post-traumatic stress disorder which incorporates depression anxiety night sweats insomnia see many of the conditions that so many so many people experience every single day oh i think the question is when we think about mental health usually we think about talking therapy and you know going to speak to your psychologist so what happens usually in a you know in a room with a psychologist what it is and and what it is about that that men don’t like okay well i can i can give you a couple of four examples um from my clinic so i’m thinking of two two um two men at the moment so one of them a gentleman in his 30s and he’d experienced some very stressful period at work and he was signed off sick and he was prescribed by his doctor um before they went down the chemical route of antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication he was prescribed a course of um of um talking therapy which was um six hour long sessions i think they were 50 minutes to an hour long sessions with a counsellor and um he found that these were quite difficult for him he found that these were quite difficult for him because he wasn’t entirely sure what he was feeling so anxious about he didn’t really understand the genesis of where of where his problems came from and he was prompted to sort of go down various routes and he was thinking actually i don’t think that these issues started in my childhood i didn’t think that they started somewhere else but there was something about the interaction that didn’t work for him now i’m not saying i’m certainly not saying that there isn’t a role for talking cures because there is there absolutely is and opening up and talking with people can be one of the most profoundly life-changing experiences that they have so i can absolutely see that this that this works for many many millions of people and it’s entirely helpful however for this particular patient it didn’t work and he was left at the end of the six week period still feeling as anxious and as low as he had felt at the at the beginning of the of the sessions i read in the mental health org that’s in the uk and they were saying that you know about 36 percent of men um like actually use the talking therapist at talking therapies that are recommended by the nhs compared to women so it kind of shows that you know maybe it’s not exactly the best model or mode for uh getting therapy or assistance right in for mental health for men particularly right well i i know that there are there are some um acupuncture practitioners who also do a lot of group work with with their male patients and they receive a huge amount of benefit from this um however nothing works for everybody nothing works for everybody and um i suppose where i’m coming from at the moment is for some men who who aren’t able to be helped through talking conversations or talking therapies or unburdening sometimes perhaps we need to look at things in different ways if we’re talking about blokes who don’t really open up you know who don’t open up to their wives girlfriends partners whoever um why are we trying to push them to talk yeah perhaps there is a different way and for me um this is where a treatment like acupuncture comes in or can come in um one of my wonderful colleagues um rachel peckham she um heads up an organization called the national acupuncture detox association or nada to its friends and this is an ear acupuncture association where they work with hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people all around the world helping people who have anxiety who have mental health issues who have um who have um issues with drug and alcohol abuse and the way that nada another protocol works is people will come together in a room and they will sit down together quietly and they’ll be in a circle or if there aren’t many of them they’ll just be there in a line and they will sit and they will receive the treatment and they’ll receive a benefit by being with other people and sharing and and being part of a shared perhaps meditative space although we won’t use the word meditative if we if we’re talking about people who don’t get this sort of stuff yeah right so we we don’t need to use words like this and i wanted to to mention a little bit about some of their work that they did recently and there was a terrible fire in in west london and a few years ago the grenfell tower tragedy where so many people died it was a huge tower block that that went up and you know many people died and lost their lives and um the people of that community in west london were absolutely traumatized this is men and women and children they were absolutely traumatized and my colleagues um set up a terrific a terrific um project where they did some air acupuncture work they set up in a local mosque so they were working directly with people one room was for men one room was for women and um i went along and i did an interview with some of the people who’d actually been been there and they were talking about their anxiety levels decreasing they were talking about their stress levels decreasing i mean they were even too low and my lower back pain went as well you know these things are great they’re great outcomes which i suppose demonstrates that there is a place for talking therapies of course there is but also there is a place for non-verbal therapies treatments like acupuncture treatments where we’re in connection with people but also we are connecting within ourselves for sure and like i think it’s a good thing that you really highlighted it because i don’t think many people especially men i don’t think uh as you said like they may not like to talk that’s one but many times they may not even know or have the awareness that they have a mental health issue that’s happening and it might actually be manifesting or maybe it’s like they come with a different problem and like as you said like some of the people who suffered in the in the or were part of the building that experienced the fire they said like their lower back pain disappeared would they have ever known the connection right so do you see this in your practice when when men come to see you and they they come with the presenting issues which is you know a back pain but deep down the other you know ailment that that is going on every day yeah every day every day so for example i had um recently i had one um one wonderful wonderful man he came he was a train driver and he came to see me he had exceptional lower back pain and it was we got to the to the to the end of the i’m going like this for a reason i’m not just doing it for fun he came to see me because he he was a train driver and one of the one of the key key problems for for train drivers is that they’re in a train for hours and hours and hours every day and the vibrations from the train leads to severe lower back pain and sciatic pain that radiates down the leg and we were able to talk about this and discuss you know the vibrations are never going to go away but you can take control of the situation by perhaps reducing the number of hours that you work and making that decision to take control of your life and this is something i mean it was great his back pain got sorted out in a couple of treatments but equally it’s not going to return because he’s taking control of his life by making changes to the to the point that was aggravating the issue so by reducing the number of hours that he’s working he’s no longer having this this strain how does acupuncture help enable um the client to open up to you because i’m sure that as they arrived to you they were not going to tell you like i have panic attacks because of xyz it takes time and it takes building up trust and creating a rapport with your patients it’s really important that when when somebody comes to see for something that you help them for that something so um if for example somebody says right um can you come and help me for my for my panic or all for my knee pain for example that we actually bother to take a look at the knee we look and and and we see what’s going on and we take an interest in that way we start to open up the channels of communication somebody’s coming to me with a problem i can help them with that particular problem um the acupuncture points themselves are really helpful so just as i mentioned earlier on with that sequence of acupuncture points used for post-traumatic stress disorder that process alone opens people up it makes people feel brighter it makes people feel much more positive when people feel more positive again that trust is built up so there is something in it because there’s an awful lot still there’s an awful lot of doubt about whether acupuncture works whether or not it is just you know placebo it isn’t by the way but yeah no because like i mean we’re having those conversations because of that right where people uh go for acupuncture because they believe that um you know they don’t see acupuncture as a healing system or a modality that can help them recover and it’s usually seen as mostly um like a spa or like a groupon type of thing oh so oh god now i have nothing against my very very highly qualified acupuncture practitioner colleagues who who introduce people to acupuncture um through whatever offers um it’s worth pointing out from my perspective that in order to really give enough benefits to your patients that you need to know what you’re doing that takes at least three years of studying at least three years of studying to a degree level which means that then you can truly grasp the huge complexity of of what acupuncture can do for patients so that’s that’s the first point if we’re looking at men and and groupons so often so often the and i’ve done these in the past i’ve done these um but always the images that are used well 99 they’ll be an image of a woman looking at made with a lovely flower in her hair looking so relaxed let me tell you that that’s not true because i’ve done a treatment and it’s not that relaxing yeah and i mean i suddenly don’t tuck flowers and you know behind the ears of my patients but it is you don’t know why well i know many people do many people do i don’t because the way that i treat patients is is it’s it’s a medical process this is a medical system we’re using different techniques to find out what’s going on within the person um but we certainly it isn’t just a relaxing treat it isn’t just a relaxing treat it can be profoundly relaxing but also it does have huge benefits to mental physical emotional um health and lasting benefits and we need to always remember that it isn’t just a it isn’t just a lovely add-on to have oops it makes you feel really relaxed and pretty i also think that a lot of these these images can prevent men from coming forward to accessing these sorts of services because there is a very big perception that acupuncture is just a spa treatment which it certainly isn’t there is it is a wonderful treatment that’s been around for over 2 000 years it’s got a vast number of people who use it there’s a vast and growing um body of research evidence to demonstrate how effective it is at supporting so many people with a wide range of very serious conditions yeah and i’m just curious like so as you were saying and earlier was mentioning as well like for for acupuncture um and for mental health right for men who come in and they they not really sure what’s happening but like what what is the impact when they when you press these needles into their body right what is triggered and what what is kind of the process that they start experiencing that shifts this uh their experience or their their symptoms of mental health okay there are a vast number of theories about how acupuncture works but one beautiful beautiful theory is that the acupuncture point it stimulate um the needle stimulates the acupuncture point this then releases a series of um of chemicals which go up to the brain every time um one of these signals reaches the brain it’s amplified and this has a wonderful pain relieving effect throughout the body it’s like a cascade effect one acupuncture point leads to a cascade of beneficial effects um and this has been shown with people a lot clever than i am who’ve done research into this they’ve looked and they’ve seen areas of the brain actually are activated when you when you stimulate an acupuncture point yeah and um with my little knowledge of chinese medicine and and just kind of like the links with you know the different emotions with different parts of the body is there a trend that you see with your male patients when they come in um of course they come in with like maybe and you be labeled them as anxiety or uh you know ptsd or uh depression right but is it often linked to a certain type of organ and related to a certain type of emotion okay okay so i can give you a very very quick class in in acupuncture and the organs around the body so yeah there are 12 organs in the body 12 organs and we can access them as an acupuncture practitioner through many many many years of study we can access them by feeling the pulses on the wrists there are six pulses on each side now when i started to do acupuncture bearing in mind i’d come from a science background when i was talked right you can feel energy flowing through the wrists of somebody’s body the scientific part of my brain said rubbish absolute rubbish because who can do that well now i’m so delighted and so blessed to say that i can i can feel i can feel what’s going on inside my patient’s body by reading and diagnosing what’s going on through the wrists just like a nurse can feel the wrist and she can feel or he can feel what’s going on with the with the heart rate we can feel these things so but this is just a subtle way of doing it right so it’s going to say for those skepticals out there who’s going to hear this like i can hear you they might be saying again this is rubbish so what is it exactly that you can feel with regards to that specific organ or the blood flow what is it that you can sense through the pulse okay i can sense if there is something going really badly wrong so i can sense if energy isn’t flowing from one set of acupuncture meridians which is a set of acupuncture points a little bit like a train line i can sense if there’s a blockage at the end of one line and the beginning of the next line and very often this will be accompanied the patient may well say kevin i’ve got a um i’ve got a really bad stomach ache or i’m i’m having i’m having loads of diarrhea for example i will feel on the pulse actually there’s something corresponding to your large intestine and there’s something corresponding to your stomach meridian these are go hand in hand by unblocking those my patient is able to come back to me the next week and say well i feel so much better and i don’t have these symptoms anymore so there are 12 different organs which are associated with five different elements so you can see a lack of fire in a patient and they may well come to you their face is completely gray they might feel miserable they can’t see any joy in anything you know if we imagine on a beautiful summer’s day we’re out celebrating with our friends we’re in the park you know love is in the air we’re all having summer romances um that’s the energy of of summertime if you don’t have any of that joy within you because you party too hard you’ve burnt the candle out at both ends there’s no joy left in you it’s up to me as an acupuncturist to lift up those levels of fire so how would how would the lack of fire be translated in the pulse okay so i can see that you can see them being physically down etc but see you were you couldn’t notice them would you be able to pick it up on the pulse you won’t feel it it’ll feel like it isn’t there it’ll feel like it isn’t there and by using um using acupuncture points to stimulate points relating to the fire meridians um we’re able to lift up that pulse and we’re able to make somebody begin to feel a tiny bit of joy and with treatment they begin to feel happier and more joyous many people suffer with anxiety you know thoughts that go round and around and around and around and around that can often be associated with the next element along which is earth element that’s things being processed not being able to get rid of this anxiety the next element along is the element of metal which is associated with the season of autumn where the leaves are falling down and we’re feeling sadness that time is passing loss grief and often people can come and they feel absolute grief um the next season along is um can often relate to fear and panic that’s the season of winter you know we’re all terrified we’re all terrified in wintertime we don’t know what’s going on is this winter ever going to end often we feel a bit nervous we put aside all of our reserves of food for during the whole summertime so that we can just get through the winter time if there’s an imbalance within the organs of the body associated with um with with water element which are the kidney and the bladder we can feel terrible terrible panic real real fear and and and upset and the final point along this along this um and all this this wonderful circle which just corresponds to the natural cycle of life spring summer autumn winter it just goes around and around doesn’t it the last one is springtime which is optimism imagine if you’ve got no hope at all imagine if you’re completely hopeless if you’ve got none of that sense of springtime and the optimism that comes this can make us feel terrible so there are so many different ways that our mental health can be affected because any one or combination of all of these parts could be going wrong and by reading somebody’s pulse by feeling how they are in the treatment room we’re able to really create a very we’re able to make a very big difference and profound difference to their lives one that is long-lasting yeah that’s that’s a good point to highlight and also gives context people helps them see that they’re not just it’s not just like this is them like their their mental health issue is everything about them right so it kind of gives them a nice uh breakdown of how they can address one part of it versus the other um yeah and and to be honest like we are currently in november so it’s autumn and and i actually i experienced exactly what are some of the things you were saying where you know it’s it’s it’s fall everything’s going down and there’s a feeling of sadness and so um knowing that these elements these external elements can impact your your mental health and it’s not necessarily it’s an environmental factor right and and then you also have your own things that you’re dealing with um sometimes it’s hard to like be able to own it completely and feel completely you know i i’ve got this and you know nothing’s affecting me so being aware that it happens and it’s okay and we all should you know we’re all experiencing this sometimes in the same in the same time and so um being open about it and being able to talk about it or having someone help you enable those that awareness of saying okay i feel this and and i want to be able to open up is is quite powerful well there is a very very well known phenomenon see seasonal affective disorder everybody knows about this it’s the light levels are low we do feel a lot a lot more depressed at this time of year um but with with acupuncture treatment i will often recommend to patients if they’re coming to see me because they feel because their fire is really flat i might encourage them right let’s actually now have a look at your friendship groups you know do you have enough people who you can confide in who you can talk to are you members of enough societies for example are you doing things that cultivate that sense of joy within you right so let’s let’s let’s talk about incorporating more fun being silly because all of those things are important and this again is is for me very a very important um important point to make that health and well-being it doesn’t just mean sitting and lying on a couch and somebody telling you what to do it also takes you need to do something and you are empowered to take control of your life you know no amount of um of needles just like no amount of tablets is going to make you feel great if the rest of your life you’re sitting on the sofa eating bags of crisps not talking to anyone yeah we need to incorporate and to live lives and to really really enjoy our lives as well yeah but that will be different for different people that would be different for different people you’re right and i think you’re basically you’re highlighting like because we always reference back to like who’s definition of what health is right and it’s incorporating mental health physical health spiritual health and social health so social health is an important factor so like you know in this sort of season where you’re going into winter um you naturally will go out lesser and plus we are like still somewhat in a pandemic right so navigating that as well is tricky so then living in this in this environment you have to be kind of aware improve your awareness you know like okay these factors might affect my health and my mental health so what can i do to like uh negate the experience that might happen if i don’t address these these factors right um which actually ties really well into like what i was gonna ask you next is like what can men particularly because it’s movember and you know it’s harder for them to open up um what can they do uh today and right now to kind of help bridge that gap to help them open up a little bit and and bring some opportunity for them to to express themselves okay um i am a great advocate of expressing yourself and just trying any old thing i think that is really really important and for a while i um i myself during um before the pandemic i felt a little bit unfulfilled and i didn’t feel that i was getting um enough attention i didn’t feel as if i was visible enough and that was after a bit of reflection and as a result of that i decided that i needed to be heard a bit more because being heard is important to me and i was wondering how on earth do i do this and i you know tried various things and eventually i decided that i would connect with uk health radio and i started to to to present my weekly show that gave me the outlet the creative outlet that i needed in order to feel i was being heard i was connecting with people and that’s got nothing to do with medicine but i tell you something it made me feel so much better about myself really really interesting it doesn’t have to be okay now we need we need you to go to the gym not at all health isn’t just about this it’s like an indicator right it’s uh so you feel low about yourself and i think that’s what the difference uh um we’re suppressing it versus listening to what is this signal telling you and you chose to say okay why do i feel this way oh i feel like i need attention i need i need to be heard and then from there you took a solution you you decided for yourself that i’m gonna do something about it but i think that the interesting point is that it came it arised in a negative way it was a bit painful but from that you took it to a positive space yeah exactly exactly i think that this is i think the first answer um is for men to feel where this where this where they’re feeling unhappy where the just just take some some time to feel what’s going on inside your body just to be a little bit quiet to be a little bit within yourself and if that’s a bit painful don’t do it for too long just you know just make a little bit of time you know one one lovely description of acupuncture is that it’s life can be very very tough and sometimes with an acupuncture treatment it provides just a tiny beam of light into the body so that even if you’re feeling better for the the duration of the acupuncture treatment this is an indication to yourself that you don’t always need to be feeling bad that it is possible for you to reach a different a different state so so just to feel where where you’re not feeling right just to feel that and just to know that that’s fine yeah that’s just getting in touch with yourself just getting in touch with it with yourself i think is one of the most important things to do um the second area that i think is really really important is to take time to breathe so i have a wonderful wonderful patient who has come to me for for bipolar disorder and um he um came to see me right at the at the very beginning of what he thought was going to become an episode he’d been having episodes for for many many years and one of the one of the techniques that we discussed was it wasn’t all that you know all that miraculous it was just when you’re feeling a bit anxious and you’re feeling everything’s beating away so quickly let’s use that understanding of we’ve felt how things are within the body first step i feel the anxiety i feel that i feel that adrenaline beating up here and let’s bring it all down let’s use our stomachs let’s use our abdomens this is one time where it’s great to not have a six-pack let’s breathe good good message yeah and actually in chinese medicine this area needs to be lovely and soft so you know according to chinese medicine i’m healthy healthy so let’s let’s let’s feel our issues up here or wherever they are and let’s bring them down to our wonderful core let’s bring them down to our diaphragm and to spend time just just breathing in and out and slowing things down slowing things down so that’s the that’s the second um key i think to to helping yourself just being aware and breathing just connecting yourself to your breath and the final um suggestion i i think is really valid is to take action um if to look at what’s feeling unhappy in your life or to or to be aware of what’s feeling a bit crunchy you know when you’re driving along the motorway and you go because you’re a little bit close to the edge okay that’s a sign that something isn’t isn’t quite right listen to that that’s a good thing if you’re feeling a little bit anxious you’re feeling a bit unhappy about the situation great listen to that when does that come up for you when does it really come up for you and then let’s try to try to move away from from those areas if we can if you’re getting anxiety because of work well let’s have a look and let’s examine work let’s think about what you can do to put yourself back in charge take a bit of time off think about working in a different way maybe you need to change career you know all of these things are within our grasp but let’s take action um it’s a starting point and that’s exactly what people need to know and how like the how right where do i start i think those are really great tips um kevin thank you for that and i think that would be useful for men women both um everyone really i think i think also coming coming back to what we were saying earlier um about talking of course talking is there you know and and and you know people listening to this i you know there are many many services that are brilliant give them a try give all of these things a try because they are available the point is try something and if that doesn’t work try something else that’s that’s that’s really key and and it’s within the patients that i have who really thrive it’s the people who who who just keep going even if it’s something tiny right and i think that in the process of trying even if it doesn’t work i think because sometimes you might feel um frustrated by the fact that it’s not working but what you could like in in terms of your thought process say okay well at least you know i’ve been taking ownership and trying to find a solution and this is my path to solving this and um and trying it out is um is a good way so um so thanks for thanks for that uh kevin so so all of those things taking action in your body um all of those things great also i would say take acupuncture treatment um one patient of mine a very young man he’d been suspended from school he’d had all sorts of you know anger issues he had acupuncture treatment very very young young guy late teens anger issues anger issues anger issues he had a couple of treatments of acupuncture and all of her anger just melted away and his his family just noticed such a huge difference so you can do it without you can actually take a shortcut by having a bit of acupuncture treatment i especially and i think it concludes well our conversation where sometimes um it’s like the verbal therapy versus the non-verbal therapy and sometimes the verbal therapy looks too too difficult and if you want to have that shortcut to to that is the non-verbal therapy and acupuncture can can be one of them and then they’ll bring you to open up and and potentially speak um and talk and open up on on what’s happening with you so i think it’s it’s a great way to to end our conversation um but before we we end and on that note um let’s do a rapid fire questions which we are dying to know your answers to too so for the first one uh what is the worst health advice you’ve ever received okay worst health advice i’ve ever received was i went along to my gp who was an extremely overweight man and i went along to him being about 11 stone and he told me that i needed to lose weight so that was the worst medical advice i’ve ever had in my life right yeah quite rich coming from and the second point is if there was one habit we should all adopt what would it be um to explore and to do something that you love whether that is reading writing kicking a ball doesn’t matter do something that you love and try to do it every day or at least a couple of times a week and the last one is if you were to put a song or a soundtrack to your life what would it be okay i love stevie wonder and um i would um put his song a time to love because it’s all about making time for the important things in our lives and making time to to spread love and to do things from a place of love that’s really sweet i like that a lot well with on this note uh thank you so much kevin for joining us today and uh sharing your wisdom and insight i’ve definitely been learning through this conversation and have been reminded a lot of about a lot of mental health tips that i should be practicing myself so thank you well thank you for having me it’s been an absolute pleasure thank you thank you kevin and hopefully we with our conversation we gave an option for men to deal with them for help so thank you so much