#441 How to Balance Your Nervous System for Optimal Health - Dr Mark Atkinson

Mark Atkinson (0:00)

The best way to start improving the function of the mind is actually to dial in our physical health first, starting with metabolic health, coming off sugars and ultra-processed foods, because of course, the quickest way to sometimes change the mind is to change the body. The thing that most adults need to do, once they've dialed in their physical health, and, you know, they're working out, they're sleeping well consistently most of the time, their energy is pretty good, etc. The most important thing adults can do to advance and go to the next level 3 is to ask themselves...

Siim Land (0:41)

Mark, welcome to the show.

Mark Atkinson (0:43)

It's a pleasure to be here with you, Siim, and looking forward to our discussions.

Siim Land (0:48)

Yeah, I'm also excited to have you, and yeah, we're going to have a very nice discussion about how your physical health and mental health are so intertwined, and you can't really have one without the other. And for optimal health, you really need to have your mental health and physical health both in check. So yeah, you're one of the best experts to discuss this with, and yeah, we'll have a good discussion. Maybe we can start with you giving a short backstory about who you are and yeah, how did you get into health?

Mark Atkinson (1:25)

Yeah, for sure. Well, I think I'm one of the luckiest people alive because I get to teach about health all the time. And it is such a profound and important subject that I took a deep interest in just when I took the decision to become a medical doctor. I saw the health challenges of the people around me and really figured out I do not want to go down that route. And became deeply interested in health when I was a teenager. Particularly, I got into meditation. So very early on, started to really understand how important it was that my mind was trained. Really took an interest in nutrition. Went to med school, of course, learned nothing about those things in med school.

And about halfway through my med school, I went to St. Mary's in Pankton, London. Once I was loving it, I came to the conclusion that if I really want to learn about health, I need to look outside of allopathic medicine to see what other systems are teaching about health. And so I actually studied about Ayurvedic medicine, Tibetan medicine, traditional Chinese medicine, to better understand a more holistic understanding of what health is about. So when I was at med school, it was pretty inevitable at some stage I would move beyond allopathic medicine. And so after a couple of years of graduating, I started working as an integrative medicine doctor here in the UK, and I've been doing that for about 20 years. I was one of the original co-founders of Europe's first professional training program in integrated medicine for health care professionals. And particularly early back in the day, I was doing a lot of media focused work. So I was on TV talking about the holistic approach to health. And my first book was The Mind-Body Bible, and it really deep dived into, listen, we have a mind. Most people's mind works against this and not for us. Same for our body. What is the connection between the two? And how can we take care of both in balance so that they are aligned and that they allow us to live a deeply fulfilling life? So that's my kind of background. And then thereafter, I really went down the personal development route. I had my own mental health struggles that had a profound shaping influence on my understanding of what mental health is. And really to understand it, you have to go into emotional health and relational health. And then I had a whole bunch of time alongside Dave Asprey, working with him at Bulletproof. So really got to understand the biohacking world. So I've really emerged from that with a big picture, integral understanding of optimal health. I've got a framework and my thing now is just to tell the world about it to anyone who's interested in hearing about it.

Siim Land (4:31)

So you have like a doctor strange story that you were a doctor and then you traveled to the Eastern philosophy and Eastern medicine side and emerged as a kind of a practitioner of both. Oh yes.

Mark Atkinson (4:49)

My first deep dive was actually into energy medicine and sensing and working with the subtle energies of the body. And when you train your nervous system to kind of perceive them, then they become apparent. And then you realize that the core aspect of health is the continuous flow of life force energy through your system. And that needs to happen in multiple levels, in metabolic, biological level, but also your psychological level and also the life force level. So yeah, you know, a lot of what I teach is kind of grounded in my personal experience and just my deep exploration of really what health is all about.