Sharmila Hume — Brain Injuries, Suicide Prevention & the Body's Hidden Signals

Adam Walker:A warning that this episode discusses important but potentially difficult topics, including suicide and road traffic accidents .

Adam Walker:I\'m Adam Walker, a biometrics consultant, and this is the Pharma Prescribed podcast, where leaders, innovators, and hidden voices in healthcare open up.

Adam Walker:No soundbites, no spin. Just raw insight, one prescription at a time. In an industry driven by data, protocols, and pressure, we rarely pause to ask the human questions. What drives us? What breaks us? And what truths live behind the titles we wear?

Adam Walker:Today\'s guest is Sharmila Hulme, a practitioner who\'s built her career around helping high performers whose bodies are no longer supporting them, and who are running out of answers.

Adam Walker:She works with entrepreneurs, sports people, and individuals experiencing unexplained fatigue, brain fog, poor circulation, or the lingering effects of an injury or illness. Many of her clients have been told, \"It\'s all in your head.\" But Sharmila understands that these symptoms often have real physical roots that traditional assessments miss.

Adam Walker:Following the loss of her brother, Arnie, to suicide, she made it her mission to raise awareness to the impact of brain injuries, particularly in boys and men, with her Headstrong campaign.

Adam Walker:She created a Bioperformance System that uses innovative technology to assess nervous system and circulatory function, restore regulation, and improve performance. Her work sits at the intersection of male health, brain injury, and prevention, and is reshaping the conversation around what we overlook and what it ~~cost-~~ costs to us.

Adam Walker:Sharmila, it\'s a delight to welcome you to Pharma Prescribed today. For those of our audience who are not familiar with you, who are you and what is the mission you\'re on?

Sharmila Hume:Thank you. It\'s lovely to be here.

Sharmila Hume:I\'m Sharmila, and my mission is to reduce suicide rates in men who have played football, sports, or had a car accident.

Sharmila Hume:That\'s what I tell people, and that\'s a passion that I have. In my professional career, ~~I~~ I say I solve health mysteries. I\'m known as the Biomedic Detective, and that name was given to me by colleagues who figured out that I was identifying things that they\'d been stuck on. ~~And, uh,~~ it was a very humbling, moment to be recognized in that sort of way, especially when a lot of people ask, \"Who are you?

Sharmila Hume:Are you a doctor?\" Because of the knowledge I\'ve got. And then I say, \"I don\'t have the medical background, but I\'ve been taught so much by medics.\" So my mission is to support the medics in helping to support the people who are left on a pile. That\'s what I call it, a pile. But yeah, the pile hopefully will get smaller.

Adam Walker:Thank you for elaborating on that, Shamila. ~~And~~ I made mention to the fact that you lost your brother Arnie to suicide some years ago. What is the connection between Arnie\'s experience and what you\'re doing today?

Sharmila Hume:if I can take it back a little bit I started off actually with, ~~uh,~~ at 15, I was very ill.

Sharmila Hume:I contracted a viral infection. I got glandular fever, and then I ended up getting diagnosed with ME, fibromyalgia, and my life changed. I wasn\'t able to be at school for my GCSEs the way I wanted to and ~~I was\...~~ I loved education. So that was really hard. But I learnt a lot.

Sharmila Hume:When you\'re ill, you learn a lot, because you have to see so many doctors, you have to do your own research, you have to navigate life. And I was a teenager, it\'s prime time to be learning. I went into engineering. I managed to do my GCSEs got better results than I expected, and managed to apply for an apprenticeship in telecoms engineering, which was something I really wanted to do.

Sharmila Hume:~~I,~~ I love technical things. And then I would love watching medical dramas as my pastime. ~~That was a thing that I, it\...~~ I guess I was learning from them, \'cause it\'s actually quite interesting how much you can learn from them. Because actually I\'ve watched them now as a professional, I go, \"Oh my goodness, that\'s got me thinking about a patient, and maybe I need to do X, Y, Z.\"

Sharmila Hume:~~So they\'re actually quite interesting. So~~ what happened was in 2009, Arnie had a car crash. I was in London, and he was in Mexico- And my dad called me and said, \"Sham, I need you to come over.\" And I said, \"No, Dad, I\'m coming in the evening. Why do I need to come now? ~~Uh,~~ everything\'s under control. We\'re having a family get-together.

Sharmila Hume:Everything\'s gonna be fine.\" \"No, I need you to come now.\" And I could tell it, that there was something wrong with the tone of his voice. And so I just said, \"Dad, you\'re gonna have to tell me what\'s happened.\" And he just screamed and said that Arnie had a car crash. And I dropped to the floor because I could tell it was serious.

Sharmila Hume:My dad ~~was he~~ was a very strong businessman, highly respected. Everybody turned to him for help. So when I heard how broken he was, I realized we had a serious situation on our hands, and I said, \"Okay, I will figure it out and get over there.\" And I knew that I probably wasn\'t in a state to drive, so thankfully got someone to drive me to my dad\'s.

Sharmila Hume:And we realized when I was on the phone with someone who was in Mexico, they said, \" Your brother might not be here by the time you get here,\" because they knew we had to get flights. I\'m in London. ~~Crazy.~~ And so we did get to Mexico, 25 hours journey time. We did get there, my dad, my mum, my brother, and I. I had to leave my kids at home.

Sharmila Hume:~~And, um,~~ he was alive when we got there, in ICU against all the odds. And the only bit of him that I could recognize was his chin. I could see his chin under all of the bandages, and it was the scariest moments of my life. That whole thing was the scariest thing of my life. ~~And whilst he was in hospital, it\'s crazy.~~

Sharmila Hume:Because of my experiences in having so much time in hospitals for myself and watching medical dramas, when I had all these surgeons coming in and out talking about the kinds of surgeries they\'d need to be performing for him, \'cause he\'d had a full facial fracture. He\'d been hit by a vehicle. ~~It,~~ he was in a car, and it was a head-on collision by a drunk driver in a truck.

Sharmila Hume:It was messy, and it was a miracle that he was alive. So every day was touch and go. But ~~what was amazing was that~~ the doctors would come and talk to me and- we had concerns over language barrier and all those things, but ~~I don\'t know,~~ something just felt so right about speaking to the medics. And as he progressed really well, really fast because of the types of surgeries that we were asking for.

Sharmila Hume:And the doctor said, \"Look, normally people stay in hospital for longer, but I\'ve seen how you\'re caring for your brother, and he responds really well to you.\" Other people could come in and try and help him, nurses, my mom but I could just see what he needed and just be able to give him the due attention, and he didn\'t have to say a word.

Sharmila Hume:He couldn\'t speak. He had, a tracheostomy and all sorts of things. ~~He just,~~ he was not able to speak for himself for quite a while \'cause he\'d also broken his jaw. So I managed to\... I don\'t know if it\'s \'cause I was a mum of three young kids, you gotta read what your kids\' needs are. But I guess from a young age ~~I d-~~ I was quite attentive to people\'s needs, including my ~~younger,~~ younger brother.

Sharmila Hume:When he was born, I remember enjoying looking after him. So I guess it\'s in my nature to just be a caring kind of person. So the doctor said, \"I\'m prepared to let him go home because you\'re gonna be there, and I\'ll come and do home visits. You just need to be my nurse when I\'m there.\" And I was like, \"Yeah, okay, let\'s do this.\"

Sharmila Hume:Now, he\'d lost an eye, and it was hard work to have to see that injury there and to look after him, but you find the strength and the drive to just do it from somewhere. When I would start thinking about it I was like, \"Are you all right? What are you doing? You\'re no professional. What are you doing?\"

Sharmila Hume:But the doctor\'s confidence in me helped, but also my love and passion to help my brother. It was the most traumatic experience. I couldn\'t quite believe what was happening. And then I stayed in Mexico for two months to help him with rehabilitation. My goal was just to bring him back to the UK. I needed to be with my kids.

Sharmila Hume:They were young, and I needed to be with them, but I couldn\'t leave him. So we got him to a stage where we could get a fit to fly, and ~~we~~ we brought him back to the UK. And so that was 2009. ~~And then-~~ We supported him a lot. Again, lots and lots of medical appointments in the UK. Lots more surgeries in the UK for the next few years.

Sharmila Hume:And then we adapted and got used to life again. Then ~~I-~~ my health started to take a toll again. So I\'d managed to recover ~~from,~~ largely from my own ailments, but they don\'t actually go. You just will have relapses every now and then. You\'ll get to a manageable state. And I was managing but I had another relapse, and a friend said to me, \"Why don\'t you find out what is wrong with you?\"

Sharmila Hume:\'Cause they could see by this point, as much as I wanted to look after my kids, as much as I might wanna look after my brother, I was not well myself. And my body just said, \"Enough, Sam. Not doing this anymore.\" And I had multiple issues going on with me. So I was ~~ref-~~ recommended to go and see a practitioner, who does what I do now, up in Yorkshire, and it was fascinating \' cause what I saw from my technical eyes was telecoms of the body.

Sharmila Hume:~~I could see \...~~ I loved sciences, and I could see her using biophysics and a computer system, I love tech, to be able to help regulate the body and identify what was actually going on right there and then, and I could ~~s-~~ feel the differences quite quickly. That was brilliant because it meant that I started to get my health back.

Sharmila Hume:And I\'d always known after all these experiences of helping and looking after people, that if I was changing my career, I wanted it to be in healthcare, and I just didn\'t know how \'cause I hadn\'t been to medical school. ~~Um,~~ yeah. ~~Uh,~~ she said to me, \"You\'re gonna have to get better first,\" because she was already a tutor, so I knew from her website that she taught, ~~uh,~~ a number of different things.

Sharmila Hume:And it got my curiosity up. So I just said, \"I would love to do this,\" and she said, \"Okay, get better first, and then we\'ll talk about it.\" ~~Uh,~~ and I guess for her, she\'s probably seen that many times. People come in, learn from her because they\'ve had a transformation in their health, and then wanna go and share it with others.

Sharmila Hume:And also, remember it was in Yorkshire. I couldn\'t take my kids to Yorkshire, and I knew that they needed it, and other people. I had relatives that were not well, and I just thought, \"If I can bring this to London, this would be great.\" So ~~that\'s- How I al-~~ that\'s almost up to where I started my training. And I got my first machine, \'cause I\'ve got technical equipment here in 2016.

Sharmila Hume:And then the more I learn about circulation, the brain, ~~I was just \...~~ I was in awe of it.

Sharmila Hume:Then I watched a movie. I\'m not very good with watching movies, but I did watch a movie with Will Smith in it called Concussion, and that just changed me. It just completely changed me because I understood ~~I, obviously~~ it was language I was familiar with after my brother\'s accident, but no one has ever told him he had a long-term brain injury.

Sharmila Hume:No one had ever told him that. But yeah, I figured it out. That was very unexpected one year when he had a breakdown and I was investigating what was going on with his brain health, and I said, \"No, there\'s too much scarring in here.\" But watching that movie helped me understand that there was people who had pioneered and looked into this in more detail, and that it could be catastrophic, lead to marriages breaking up, men derailing their life, and leading to suicide.

Sharmila Hume:And it was at that point I was like, \"No, we can\'t let this happen in football.\" So this film is about American football, and ~~I,~~ I\'ve never really known much about American football except what I watched on TV. I now look after American footballers in my clinical practice. But football was my thing growing up, and I absolutely loved it, but felt like, yeah, more needed to be done to help them.

Sharmila Hume:And so ~~I ha-~~ my mission was already set, but it had intensified when the most unimaginable thing happened to us. \'Cause remember my brother lived in Mexico, and I was here. And I\'d only had him for six weeks when I figured out that there was something seriously wrong with his brain health. That was in 2017.

Sharmila Hume:And I needed more time to work with him, but I didn\'t think at that time what to do. I\'d only been doing this a little while myself. But I didn\'t think, \"Oh, let me get a little device for him to use out in Mexico,\" I just carried on and trusted he \... he was seeing medics over there and getting help over there.

Sharmila Hume:~~doing things.~~ It wasn\'t like he was ignoring his own management of his own health. ~~In,~~ in fact, he impressed me so much \'cause he was doing so much. Clean health he was conscious of what he was putting in his body, the kind of complementary practices he would go for. I was really proud of him for the things that he was doing.

Sharmila Hume:~~Um, m-~~ from my own experiences, ~~uh,~~ in life and in practice, often men need convincing to do that. Arnie didn\'t need convincing to do that. But he did find it a lot. He did find things a bit too much. ~~Yeah.~~ Then my mission changed after we lost him.

Adam Walker:Sharmila, your experience has been ~~so,~~ so broad and ~~so,~~ so deep, and I really appreciate you sharing that experience with Arnie and this almost catastrophic crash that he experienced.

Adam Walker:Following on from that head injury and your understanding and your learning and your own experiences, you translated that into a service that you provide for other people. And you continued to use that learning and applied it to Arnie\'s situation. For our audience, can you ~~just~~ elaborate a little bit more around maybe the technology and what it is that this device and this holistic approach that you take to brain injuries-

Adam Walker:Plays out for your patients?

Sharmila Hume:Yeah. So it\'s German technology and, ~~uh,~~ whenever I say that people say, \"Oh, yeah, the Germans are pioneers in that.\" ~~Uh,~~ and I love German technology. My car is a German brand, and I get it. And so the scientists that had pioneered this had realized that frequencies can affect everything.

Sharmila Hume:~~The biggest form of, uh, the te- the, the therapy that I do,~~ one of the therapies I do here is called bioresonance. So this is a bioresonance device. And the biggest form of bioresonance that we have on the planet is the sun, because I say to people, \"When you go out\...\" Or often a friend will say to you, \"Come on, let\'s go out and get some vitamin D.\"

Sharmila Hume:What does that mean? Are you gonna go and apply it? Like, how? How do you get that vitamin D from the sun? Actually, the sun emits a frequency which we can feel as heat, but when it goes and hits our skin, we don\'t see the biochemical reaction that it\'s having. We just know, either \'cause our mood is better or our vitamin D levels have been checked and are okay, or we see the pigmentation of our skin changing.

Sharmila Hume:We haven\'t had ~~a lot of s-~~ a lot of sun here, so I haven\'t got any watch mark or anything on me yet. But we often see where our watch is because the pigmentation of our skin has changed color. And that\'s bioresonance. That\'s the skin emitting a frequency to create a biochemical reaction. So the system that we have here is a computerized system that allows us to look at all different layers of the body from, the head to the toes, so eyes, ears, nose, mouth, lungs.

Sharmila Hume:We don\'t miss anything out. But the brain controls everything and has a connection to everything. So brain health has become my specialty ~~and,~~ and my passion. And we help stimulate the body so that it can regulate again. There\'s a lot of disruption that comes from things that we get exposed to, viruses, bacterias, parasites.

Sharmila Hume:I could go on and on. Heavy metals, ~~w-~~ we all eat and breathe. The biggest thing now is technology. We all use technology, and we don\'t think about the impact it might have on our health. But, ~~uh,~~ there\'s lots of evidence now to show that is a contributing factor to certain things, and I help people to understand that.

Sharmila Hume:Once I ~~f-~~ figure out what it is that\'s stopping them from progressing with their recovery from their injury or ~~help\...~~ is preventing them from recovering from their infection, I will then help them and sort the issues out along the way that will allow them to regulate again.

Adam Walker:So are you able to influence the frequencies with which the brain then transmits and receives ~~and-~~

Sharmila Hume:It\'s not-

Adam Walker:deals with information?

Sharmila Hume:That sounds like a really smart thing, doesn\'t it? So I\... No, there\'s not a different frequency that\'s gonna be emitted afterwards, so it\'s not like I\'m switching it from 2G to 4G, no.

Sharmila Hume:But what we are using is the body\'s own electromagnetic frequencies to test, is there a balance or an imbalance?

Sharmila Hume:If there\'s an imbalance, what\'s causing that? What is it, Is it causing dysregulation in the body? If it is, what can we do about it? So sometimes it might need medication, supplements, but also we can use the frequency to fine-tune the body, and that\'s key because sometimes there are blood vessels that are blocked or things that just do get missed in those tests, those infections that have lingered but we can\'t tell where.

Sharmila Hume:~~And I remember,~~ I remember when my daughter got- A major infection. She was like three days old, and we didn\'t know what was wrong with her. And it took the hospital a bit of time to figure out where the infection was, what it was, and how she got it. How does a three-day old get a urine infection or a kidney infection?

Sharmila Hume:~~You know,~~ a lot of questions that they even couldn\'t answer. And so I realized that a lot of people get questions that they can\'t get answered, and we needed something. This had helped me to recover from my ailments, and I now wanted to be able to help fine-tune the body so that it could be a better version of itself.

Sharmila Hume:So yeah, we don\'t change the frequency, but we definitely do help the body to get rid of ~~the disrupt-~~ the disrupting factors.

Sharmila Hume:Often people will say, \"What can I take to feel better?\" Yeah, so if you\'ve got a headache, what can I ~~take? Have you got something I can~~ take? But my language is, what can we take out that could be causing a problem here?

Sharmila Hume:Which is why even with the head injuries, I\'m like, what\'s in the way here? \'Cause maybe it isn\'t taking another pill, and I\'m not against taking medication. When Arnie came to me in 2017 after having his breakdown, I showed him on my machine, and my machine is right here next to me. I wish I could show it to you.

Sharmila Hume:~~Um, uh,~~ I showed him on here, \"Look, Arnie, here\'s your brain. This is what happens with the dysregulation with the medication and without the medication.\" And he said, \"Oh, I will take my medication then.\" Because it\'s hard when someone\'s told they have to be on medication. A lot of people don\'t wanna be on medication because it means that they feel like they are not able to function optimally.

Sharmila Hume:They want their body to do its job, but sometimes we need that help and support. So I\'m not against medication. I actually like to do my work to help enhance the use of medication and, ~~uh,~~ I think that\'s been really useful for me over the years actually.

Adam Walker:Yeah, ~~I think,~~ I think just to echo that point, something that you and I spoke about before, Sharmila, was around the use of medications.

Adam Walker:I work in the pharma industry, and I look into all sorts of different non-pharmaceutical interventions that have helped me and my family and the people that matter to me the most. So when we first spoke, it was very interesting to hear a different approach that was challenging the status quo.

Adam Walker:But I love that statement where you come back to, what can we take away? That ~~really does,~~ really does sit very comfortably with me because, as you say- We are so used to and conditioned to receiving medication for problems. The whole body approach is what\'s coming in, what\'s going out, and as you say, what can we take away?

Adam Walker:What can we improve? What can we tweak ~~to,~~ to change those responses?

Sharmila Hume:Yeah.

Sharmila Hume:I\'m just gonna pull out, for example, if you could see what I\'ve got over here, I\'ve got all kinds of different tools and devices and things. But in here I\'ve got like a little capsule. I don\'t know if you can see it.

Sharmila Hume:There\'s a little capsule, regular type of capsule. This is actually just for cold and flu, right?

Adam Walker:Yes.

Sharmila Hume:~~But~~ what I say to my patients and people that I\'m educating is we take that medication to change how we\'re feeling, and ~~but~~ can you see how small it is? It\'s probably about a centimeter and a half. Maybe nearly two centimeters.

Sharmila Hume:It is that small, and we know that when we take it, we expect that the runny nose will dry up, or the pain and the congestion in our head will clear up. And I needed to use these a lot. When I was suffering with one of my ailments sinusitis, I used these a lot. So we take the tiny little thing and we say, \"Yeah, okay, I\'m gonna take that \'cause it\'s gonna have a change in effect on me.\"

Sharmila Hume:But we eat a whole plate of food and expect it not to make a change in our body, and it just blows my mind. Because how can that tiny little thing\... So imagine if we\'re eating ~~a plate full,~~ a plate full of the wrong food, how many times bigger is it to that little thing? Yeah. And we\'re putting it all in our body going, \"Yeah, body, do your thing.\" And it can\'t \'cause there\'s more inflammation in there or we\'re eating something that has an impact. And I\'m not saying this is all about intolerances and all of that, \'cause that\'s a big trending thing doing my head in at the moment.

Sharmila Hume:And many people would not like to hear me say that. But I don\'t think\... I know the body can tolerate so much more if we\'re taking out the things in the first place that shouldn\'t be there, and that doesn\'t mean taking out all the foods so that people are eating very little, and very little options.

Sharmila Hume:That, hurts me actually when I hear that people have minimal variations in their diets and they can only eat five things. And oh my goodness, ~~um,~~ yeah, that kind of hurts me. But th- those are the kind of things I talk about \'cause the things that go in us can really have an impact, so let\'s take things out-

Adam Walker:If I may ask with the experiences that you gained and learned, how were you able to adapt them to Arnie\'s specific situation?

Adam Walker:Because you talked about ~~con-~~ concussions, you talked about brain injuries, and also viruses.

Adam Walker:I\'m wondering how that translated into having your brother as your patient who you could help and how that played out, if you don\'t mind me asking that question.

Sharmila Hume:Yeah.

Sharmila Hume:It was very heartbreaking, actually, because he was in another country, so my help for him was limited.

Sharmila Hume:Every now and then he\'d say, \"What remedy should I take?\" ~~Or because he knew I have that expertise as well to be able to guide him in those things.~~ But if I\'d had more time with him in the UK, I could have done a lot more. ~~By,~~ by the time he left here after that six weeks, he felt better. He felt calmer.

Sharmila Hume:And I don\'t think that was just \'cause he was spending time with his family. ~~It definitely \...~~ He knew there was a marked difference in how he was feeling, \'cause he had other things going on with his body. It wasn\'t just the head, right? So obviously head is the key thing, but I look at the entire body and I definitely

Sharmila Hume:I\'d forgotten about this, didn\'t think about this yesterday. It\'s just come to mind now. But, ~~you know, I,~~ I\'m just having flashbacks now and remembering what other things I had to deal with his health. But I was limited. I actually couldn\'t help Arnie. I didn\'t help Arnie. Because what I\'ve found working with other people now, other guys who\'ve had head injuries and nothing even as significant as what Arnie\'s had their mood improves.

Sharmila Hume:They feel stronger and healthier and they didn\'t even know the impact and that when the circulation is not getting around their brain, they don\'t even know it. They just get used to it, and they just live like this. And ~~I\'m,~~ I\'m squinting my eyes because that\'s kinda what I see and I hear. I can hear just from someone\'s voice that they have a potential head injury, and they don\'t have to have told me.

Sharmila Hume:But I\'ve been doing it for so long that I can hear it on the phone or I can hear it in their voice. And, ~~um,~~ yeah, I\'ll just then wanna look at their head. But, ~~uh,~~ I have to be very careful and, ~~it,~~ it\'s a sensitive topic, isn\'t it? But with Arnie, I didn\'t and couldn\'t do enough.

Sharmila Hume:~~Uh,~~ people need maintenance, and ~~I co-~~ I couldn\'t do the maintenance for him.

Adam Walker:I\'m sorry if that is a difficult question. And I wanted to-

Sharmila Hume:Yes

Adam Walker:through a mutual loss-

Sharmila Hume:Yes \...

Adam Walker:of a sibling through suicide. ~~My,~~ my sister Naomi, as I\'ve said on this podcast and as I\'ve said to you, she died by suicide also. And what we discovered in the time that you and I spoke was that she\'d effectively had viral meningitis, and when I shared that with you before in the lead-up- ~~Mm~~

Adam Walker:to her subsequent diagnosis your perspective- ~~Yeah \...~~ changed entirely when I told you that.

Sharmila Hume:Yeah.

Adam Walker:And it connected to-

Sharmila Hume:Yeah \...

Adam Walker:~~that,~~ that awful and shocking outcome.

Sharmila Hume:Yeah.

Adam Walker:What is that? What is your, \...thesis for why brain injuries can translate this way?

Adam Walker:Because I\'m seeing lots and lots of this in the national news at the moment around- \... footballers, rugby players-

Adam Walker:As you say- Boxers \... American footballers, boxers- \... anyone who\'s having repeated- Yeah \... head injuries. Yeah. But also the viral element-

Sharmila Hume:Yeah \...

Adam Walker:is really fascinating to me.

Adam Walker:Yeah. I\'d love to hear- ~~Yeah \...~~ a little bit more about that if you could elaborate.

Sharmila Hume:Yeah.

Sharmila Hume:So viral infection can also cause damage to blood vessels, so it\'s a similar impact. ~~And the \...~~ That\'s what I go to work on when I\'m seeing my patients. ~~I was one of those people. I-~~ ME is a neurological disease.

Sharmila Hume:It\'s something that affects your nervous system and causes lots of inflammation. And what my experience is, and if we actually think of how many people we know with something like a post-viral ~~fa-~~ fatigue, ~~um,~~ we\'ve got long COVID, all these kind of things, people\'s moods really drop and they become quite low and depressed.

Sharmila Hume:Not only that, they start having mood swings \'cause their functioning is not quite right. They might be absolutely exhausted, or they might not be able to sleep. They might become short-tempered. They might start making bad decisions or they might not be able to make any decisions at all. It\'s almost like their brain can just not operate.

Sharmila Hume:I got to that state. I got to that state where I couldn\'t even pick out the clothes to wear. So not only am I seeing all this stuff in clinic, I\'ve experienced so much myself. I\'ve had an infection. I\'ve had a terrible concussion when I hit my head out in London one day. ~~I, yeah,~~ I can actually say I\'ve got lived experience in these things too.

Sharmila Hume:And I understand the hard work it takes to figure out what\'s going on to do things about it. ~~Uh,~~ and I\'m still on that journey. ~~I, I,~~ I will never stop trying to figure out new ways of improving myself so that I can also continue to help other people. But this compromising of the brain and nervous system through infections and injuries is, ~~it\'s~~ very real.

Sharmila Hume:It\'s ~~very,~~ very real, and it can affect our coping mechanisms. ~~And this is the thing.~~ They can ~~cost us our,~~ cost us our life, so it\'s not a fatality that the body shuts down. The brain shuts down in a way that it can\'t function and cope anymore. But improving the circulation and function of the brain, ~~uh,~~ holistically, so if the brain is okay but there\'s something going on in the liver, or the bladder is compromised, or there\'s something going on in the reproductive organs or in the pelvis, because when people fall or hit their head, there\'s shock waves that go through the body.

Sharmila Hume:We can\'t just deal with the head. So if I see a patient with an infection that\'s hit their nervous system, I\'m not just looking at their nervous system. I\'m looking at multiple systems to help take out the things that have got in the way of optimal function, and then if we need to rebuild with supplements and things like that, we\'ll do that.

Sharmila Hume:But generally, they\'ll improve just by making sure that they\'re eating right alongside me doing my work because the body can then function so much more. I heard ~~a,~~ a GP saying the other day about ~~n-~~ not taking too many supplements, and I agree. I don\'t like overcomplicating it. ~~I do not\...~~ I am not a pill junkie, so I\'m not gonna want all of the supplements.

Sharmila Hume:I can\'t do that, and I don\'t want my patients to say, \"I wanna go down a natural, more holistic approach,\" and then I go and give them 20 bottles and think, \"That doesn\'t work, does it?\" \'Cause then it\'s a ~~similar~~ similar system of, ~~uh,~~ medicating or supplementing. So my goal is to help get the regulation.

Sharmila Hume:The body is able to do a lot for itself, and if we can help the brain to have less to deal with, less pathogens and better circulation, it\'s gonna function better. I\'ve literally watched people sit here- feeling so unwell and depressed and low, by the time they leave here they are feeling better.

Sharmila Hume:And ~~they,~~ they can\'t quite understand. They\'re like, \" I feel lighter. Is that normal? Is that how I\'m supposed to be feeling?\" And ~~you know,~~ I just smile because, yeah, that is. But we don\'t all have access to this. I was really privileged to come across it and have a friend recommend it to me, \'cause it\'s now changing lots of lives.

Adam Walker:there is so

Adam Walker:much that you said there that I just wanted to unpack a little bit because-

Adam Walker:The interesting thing is that many of those symptoms you describe with the brain fog and with the confusion and with the sleeplessness, post-viral fatigue, were all things that my sister experienced.

Adam Walker:She was awake at night, she had racing thoughts. She used to write and draw mind maps and thought showers in the middle of the night and ~~send me them, and she\'d~~ send me them on a WhatsApp message. And this is exactly what happened for her, to the point where she was disconnected. She was subsequently diagnosed with bipolar I just wonder if there\'s any\... obviously neither of us can turn back the clock on our experiences, but I can see and I can hear in your voice the way that this is driving you forward in the same way that it is for me, because if I knew what I know now-

Sharmila Hume:Yeah

Adam Walker:of course we\'d wanna turn back the clock. We can\'t do that.

Sharmila Hume:Yeah.

Adam Walker:But what also really, really hit hard for me was that you don\'t want anyone else to experience what you have any more than I do, and this is why we\'re having this conversation today. Because the other thing remarkably that connects us is that multiple layer of loss.

Adam Walker:~~And,~~ and I wanted to just elaborate on that really in us both, because there is this element that the body does keep the score, doesn\'t it?

Sharmila Hume:Yeah.

Adam Walker:But the body holds grief and it holds trauma, particularly when you\'ve been surrounded by it and you\'ve held it in for so long.

Adam Walker:That comes out. I\'d love to hear your thoughts around that as well, if you wouldn\'t mind,

Sharmila Hume:~~Jamila. Yeah. It\'s, uh,~~ it\'s very interesting. I had a patient come in recently who had a lot of pain in their arm, and they\'d had a bandage on their arm for a very long time. A support, not a bandage. It was a support.

Sharmila Hume:Because it was so sore, and they did a lot of manual stuff. And when I took their history and understood the level of grief that they\'ve experienced, I knew that the only way for me to help them make a recovery was to make sure that I understood that and looked after them as a whole. So I couldn\'t just look at the arm in isolation.

Sharmila Hume:~~One, uh,~~ so I use, ~~uh,~~ also Chinese medicine and look at the acupuncture meridians, and I know that this is connected to the lungs. The lungs are connected to grief, and his arm could not improve until I looked after him as a whole. But actually, in his first session with me, he has not worn his support since he saw me a few months ago.

Sharmila Hume:And he can use his arm again normally. But we have been in his sessions also addressing and re-mapping, but in just such a subtle way, just from the conversations how he frames and how he kind of copes with what he\'s experienced. I\'m pausing a little bit \'cause I\'ve just had so many conversations this past 10 days with people who have suffered losses and seeing the impact on their health.

Sharmila Hume:And for some reason I can say one line to them, and it will start to just unravel. It\'s like the key that\'s locked in them that makes them feel so guilty They\'reeeling that impact on their health. And because I\'m on the outside, I can see it, and I\'ll just be like, \"Oh, yeah, what about\... It\'s because of this,\" and they\'ll just\...

Sharmila Hume:And they\'ll come back to me a few days later and say, \"What you said has made such a difference.\" I\'m not a talking therapist, but ~~I,~~ I am trained in therapies to be able to support people, but that\'s not what this is about. It\'s about understanding why the body is holding onto it and where it\'s holding onto it, and we do a lot of unpacking that because we don\'t realize. One of the cases was this person felt like they couldn\'t walk, and they couldn\'t move forward from it. And when we helped to deal with some of that connection, they\'re walking better and feeling better. When we\'re stuck, it\'s interesting the kind of impact it can have ~~on the,~~ on the physical health.

Sharmila Hume:So I do a lot of work on emotional stuff here, and it\'s amazing How it can unravel these ailments that we just think ~~have,~~ have become a part of us. We walk around with our grief. Nothing can take it away. ~~This, it like,~~ I don\'t know about you, but nothing makes me forget that this is what ~~I, I,~~ I feel like I walk around with a badge that no one can see.

Sharmila Hume:No one can see it. And I don\'t even know what to call it yet because I\'m not a widow of my brother, but ~~I\'m a, I\'ve,~~ I\'ve had such a significant loss, I don\'t know how to describe it. Have you got a way of describing it yet? Because I haven\'t.

Adam Walker:It\'s funny you should say that because I\'m gonna just refer back to this notebook that I make every week, and last week I happened to be walking my dogs and listening to a podcast with a guy called Scott Galloway, and he was talking about loss through his working life and through his ~~per-~~ personal life.

Adam Walker:And he said, and this is the quote that I just cannot get away from and I just have to repeat it back to you. It\'s, \"Receipts for love are grief and anxiety.\" That\'s what he said. And when I heard it, I just had to play it back and play it back and write it down, and I read it this morning at my weekly Monday morning men\'s club ~~learning,~~ learning conversation.

Adam Walker:It was the biggest lesson I took from last week, and you\'ve referred to it. ~~And~~ like you say, we don\'t wear T-shirts that say, \"This is what we\'re going through,\" but as you\'ve described, you can hear it in people\'s voices. I think as someone who\'s experienced these things as well, you can see it in people\'s behaviors, and it\'s- ~~Mm~~

Sharmila Hume:Yeah \...

Adam Walker:where I tend to spend most time is talking to people on a deeper level than I ever have before, because I don\'t find that surface conversations serve me anymore. I just want- ~~Mm \...~~ to understand what\'s going on for people, really going on. Not the how are you, but no, really, how are you?

Sharmila Hume:Yeah.

Adam Walker:Absolutely. And, we\'re recording this ~~in,~~ in Mental Health Awareness Week, ~~of course.~~

Sharmila Hume:I was just gonna say that.

Adam Walker:So it is ~~so,~~ so central in my thoughts this week-

Adam Walker:yeah \... as we start the week and look ahead. ~~Yeah.~~ And I know you\'re talking to lots of different groups this week on those particular topics, and I\'m so grateful- ~~Yeah~~

Adam Walker:for the fact that we are having this conversation, but I have to come back to that place as well, which is you don\'t necessarily need a week of the year to do this. You can do this- ~~Yeah \...~~ anytime. You can pick up the phone, you can speak to a friend, but the best advice and the best thing that I\'ve taken from my experiences over the last couple of years has really been ~~to,~~ to be honest, to be open, and to be vulnerable with someone who you feel can listen and give you advice back.

Adam Walker:For me, that\'s a professional counselor. It might be a friend that\'s dissociated from your family, or it could be anyone Sure But I think, you\'ve talked about holistic approaches, but also ~~talk-~~ talking. ~~Yeah~~ Talking is key. It gets it out- ~~Yeah \...~~ gets it out of your body. ~~Yeah~~ You feel lighter, you feel looser as a result of that Sure And so for all of our audience that listen to these podcasts and follow them, that\'s the, thing that I would take away is just it\'s okay to talk.

Sharmila Hume:in. Yeah

Adam Walker:And those experiences, those physical manifestations from grief and loss have played out very significantly for me as well. So it\'s acknowledging that. It\'s giving it a name, whatever that might be. It could be anxiety.

Adam Walker:It could be, gut distension. It could be, like you said, inflammation in the body. It usually comes out as inflammation- \... somewhere, doesn\'t it?

Sharmila Hume:~~Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.~~ Yeah, 100%. So the,

Sharmila Hume:~~Sorry I was gonna say that~~ I found that whilst I\'m physically helping the body make the adjustments, I notice\...

Sharmila Hume:So sometimes someone will not have told me something traumatic that\'s happened to them or an experience that\'s happened, but as I\'m helping the body to make those adjustments, they then start to tell me. And they\'ll say, \"I\'ve never actually told anybody that.\" And then I will help them understand that this area where I\'ve just been working, could be the bladder, it could be the liver, is where this has been held, this traumatic experience for you.

Sharmila Hume:Now that we\'re helping it to repair physically, you\'re able to help regulate this now. Emotionally, you\'re ready to process it, and mentally, you can now do something about it, and that is absolutely stunning. ~~I, you know,~~ I\'ve been doing this for over 10 years, and I can tell you I still sit here in awe, like I\'m seeing it for the first time when I see these things, \'cause it is fascinating.

Sharmila Hume:And I think if I hadn\'t of\... I was a ~~pretty,~~ pretty broken person even before losing my brother \'cause of things that have happened to me, and my body just didn\'t agree with dealing with those things. But the more I helped regulate things physically, the more emotionally stronger I became, ~~uh,~~ because I saw what my body\'s capable of, and it supports me.

Sharmila Hume:We need the body\... in my unique health model that I use, the last H of it is getting harmony both physically and mentally Back in flow because we can\'t just address the mental health without addressing the physical health. ~~And there\'s no imp- no point in expecting the physical health.~~

Sharmila Hume:~~I don\'t know if I\'ve got it the wrong way around there, but yeah.~~ We have to look after physical health and see the reduction in the mental health strain. And if we want to resolve our mental health, we\'ve got to also look at the physical. ~~There\'s no point\...~~ And if that\'s the missing link for me.

Sharmila Hume:In the world, it\'s the missing link that we expect mental health just to be resolved by talking or by medication. My theory is that we will see a huge improvement in mental health if we look after the physical health. And people say, \"Let\'s go for a run then,\" and, \"I\'m training in the gym all the time,\" and da.

Sharmila Hume:Okay, but what do we need to take out that\'s trapped inside the body to even optimize that physical training? What would your personal best in the gym be if I had a bit of time with you to optimize you first? That\'s what excites me, is to see people go in. I\'ve had guys in here saying yeah, no, I don\'t have any problems with energy.

Sharmila Hume:~~I\'m good.~~ I\'m good.\" Then afterwards they\'ll be like, \"My wife wants to know why I have so much energy.\" And I\'ll be like, \"But you thought you didn\'t have a problem with it. I\'ve just gone and done my work, optimized you, and now you can do better at the gym. You can manage your day better. Your mood is calmer so you can handle it.\"

Sharmila Hume:\'Cause remember, these are high performers. They\'re juggling lots of different plates. And I wanna be able to help people to go on to hit their next goal. I\'ll find out what their health goals are and like one person I spoke to this week, the health goals there are to be able to go out for a meal or to go on holiday because since the concussion that their ~~h-~~ family has experienced, the family member cannot go out, and that is over two years ago.

Sharmila Hume:So ~~the-~~ there\'s really interesting kinda goals that we help people to be able to get, but we have to look at them holistically and as a whole.

Adam Walker:I think that\'s really helpful, Sharmila, and thank you for bringing that all together and, ~~uh,~~ answering my question so succinctly. ~~Um,~~ at this point in the conversation, I like to come to a quick-fire round.

Adam Walker:But before I do that, I just wanna ask you, is there anything that we haven\'t discussed today ~~that perhaps that we should have done~~ that we overlooked?

Sharmila Hume:~~I don\'t think so.~~ I think one message I just wanna get out there is that people shouldn\'t be afraid to ask more questions \... When they see someone not quite behaving like themselves- ~~I,~~ I wanna make these conversations a little bit ~~n-~~ more normal, ~~if you,~~ if you notice someone\'s not quite behaving themselves, you want to be directing them to get checked out, and you\'re not saying that they\'re having a mental health breakdown or anything like that.

Sharmila Hume:Maybe they are, but ~~we mustn\'t, we m-~~ I think we should all do more mental health first aid training. I am a mental health first aid myself, and I definitely think that ~~they should,~~ everybody should be aware of how we support people because they might need more help. And I think that we need to just get rid of the taboos around it.

Sharmila Hume:Because, I say I wanna help footballers, people in sport, and things like that. Do you know, my footballers often come in here and they haven\'t got their head injury from playing sports. They\'ve got it from going swimming on a family holiday and cut their head open and had to have stitches. I want us to be having normal conversations with normal people, understanding that little knock on the head that we think was insignificant could be.

Sharmila Hume:And so There\'s a lot of things like that that I think maybe we can talk about and look out for in the future, \'cause people need to understand what they\'re looking for.

Adam Walker:Sometimes isn\'t it about being a good friend or a good family member that you\'re looking for clues? It can be in language, it can be in behavior, it can be in non-attendance even.

Adam Walker:You know- \... ~~some of the,~~ some of the most awkward situations are when someone goes to an event and they don\'t wanna be there, and you can see that they\'re really uncomfortable being

Sharmila Hume:there.

Adam Walker:But actually approaching that individual and, ~~you know,~~ taking them to one side and perhaps having a one-to-one instead of a one-to-20 that\'s what puts people off ~~when they\'re not, you know,~~ when they\'ve not had a good night\'s sleep or they\'ve not been eating well.

Adam Walker:Yeah. Or perhaps they\'ve, had a bit too much to drink the night before or something like that. Anxiety, depression can be triggered from all sorts of things that we put into our body, can\'t they, as you say?

Sharmila Hume:But not letting them feel like it\'s just in their head.

Adam Walker:Yeah. ~~Yeah.~~

Sharmila Hume:Technically it\'s the brain, right? And I work with the head, and I work with the brain, but it\'s not a figment of their imagination. People know when they don\'t feel right, but they have to normalize their not feeling right because of so many reasons. I wanna stop that. Really wanna stop that. ~~So yeah.~~

Adam Walker:~~Thank you.~~ Thank you for bringing that ~~to the,~~ to the table.

Adam Walker:So moving on to our quick-fire round now, Shamilla.

Adam Walker:What is the one piece of advice that you would give to your younger self?

Sharmila Hume:Oh, to my younger self I would say take each day at time. One day at a time. That girl needed that, and this girl needs that.

Sharmila Hume:I tell myself that now. I wish I\'d known that then.

Adam Walker:What are the top three qualities you value most in people?

Sharmila Hume:Being real. That\'s one thing. Just genuine people. Being open and honest. I really appreciate discretion, because if I\'m telling you something, I don\'t need you to go telling everybody else.

Sharmila Hume:But equally, I want that as well. So I think it\'s really important. Sometimes we gotta respect discretion, especially in the field I\'m in. But I think in life, I think that there\'d be a lot less pain in the world if we just all understood discretion a little bit.

Adam Walker:I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment.

Adam Walker:What is your favorite thing outside of work?

Sharmila Hume:Football.

Adam Walker:~~Any,~~ any team in particular you wanna give a shout-out to?

Sharmila Hume:~~Uh,~~ yeah, The Arsenal.

Adam Walker:Who knows- It\'s an exciting week in

Sharmila Hume:football this week \...

Adam Walker:by the time this episode goes out, you could be celebrating, ~~uh,~~ on two fronts. ~~Ooh.~~ Or no fronts. So-

Sharmila Hume:Yeah. I know

Sharmila Hume:possibly. It\'s a tense couple of weeks for us. Yeah. I tell you, ~~it\'s di- it\'s,~~ it\'s been interesting. Definitely. ~~Tested m-~~ tested our emotions this last few months.

Adam Walker:~~Uh,~~ and finally, what is your number one golden rule in life?

Sharmila Hume:Never stop learning. ~~I s- often say to people that I, the day I stop learning is the day I stop living.~~

Sharmila Hume:So I just believe in learning every day new things.

Adam Walker:That\'s wonderful. We\'ve had a really broad, open, and honest conversation today, Shamilla. We\'ve covered all sorts of aspects of your experiences of loss and how you\'ve translated that loss into a positive future for yourself and for the people around you.

Adam Walker:And I cannot thank you enough for your true honesty and vulnerability with which you\'ve joined this conversation today. It was everything I hoped it would be and more. Thank you for having me. ~~For anyone who wants to \... Of course.~~ For anyone who wants to reach out and make contact with you and has been inspired by this conversation, what\'s the best way to get in contact with you,

Sharmila Hume:~~Shamilla?~~

Sharmila Hume:~~Um,~~ so I have a website, holistichub.uk. I\'m on Instagram with ~~biof-~~ bioperformance_uk, and I\'m on LinkedIn. But yeah, you can Google my name and you\'ll find me.

Adam Walker:Thank you ever so much for your time today. Thank you for being a wonderful guest on Pharma Prescribed, and I look forward to continuing the conversation with you.

Sharmila Hume:Thank you