03 - Our chat with Jane and Liv from The School Run Podcast

In this special episode of The BrainCollective Podcast, we were thrilled to be invited onto The School Run Podcast with the amazing Mum and daughter duo, Jane and Liv! Known for their engaging and popular show, Jane and Liv chat with fascinating people from all walks of life, and we were honored to be their guests.

During our interview, we discussed the transformative power of neurofeedback, brain health, and how our work at The Brain Collective is making a difference in the lives of our clients. From exploring the benefits of brain training for ADHD and autism to sharing inspiring success stories, this episode is packed with valuable insights and heartfelt moments.

Join us as we delve into the world of brain health with Jane and Liv, and discover how neurofeedback can help you or your loved ones achieve a more balanced, fulfilling life.

Find out more information at our website

Edited with finesse by Mike at Making Digital Real

Transcript

Maria Walters: 0:04

Maria, welcome to the brain collectives Podcast.

Melanie Adeley: 0:07

I'm Maria and I'm Melanie. We're the founders of the brain collective in Harrogate. We've dedicated over 15 years to helping people re regulate their own brains through neurofeedback. Driven by our passion to help our families when traditional medical approaches fell short.

Maria Walters: 0:25

We've trained with world renowned experts and remain committed to staying at the forefront of this field. Hi. This is Maria from the brain collective. I'd like to introduce you to our third podcast. We've been joined by Jane and Liv on the school run, and had the great privilege of recording a podcast for them. A few weeks ago, they very kindly have allowed us to use that podcast as our third episode. So enjoy. You. Music.

Jane James: 1:04

Hi, welcome to the school run. I'm Jane and I'm Liv, and we are going to share with you the best conversations we have on our school run.

Jane & Liv: 1:13

We will invite guests and debate topics that affect and resonate with every generation.

Jane James: 1:18

We all remember our own school run, so maybe have a think about yours. What do

Unknown: 1:23

you remember?

Jane James: 1:30

Hello and welcome to another episode of the school run podcast. It is a privilege to bring you an episode every single week. Liv and I have done over 80 episodes an hour since February 2023, and we couldn't be more grateful for this journey. I'm joined by my 17 year old co host and daughter, Liv. Liv and I had a very long journey to school, an hour and a half there, an hour and a half back, and we just decided to put our great chats onto a podcast platform. We expected my mum to listen. Lives grown more, but actually 11,000 listeners later, and we're obviously doing something right, because people keep coming back to hear more stories. So whilst we share our journeys and our journey through life, we also have amazing guests that come on and help young people and old alike to navigate life. Really help them with things that might be going on for them. We share people's journeys and stories from school to where they are now, and how it's okay not to have it all figured out at school, because very few of us do, and life actually takes us on a really interesting journey. Liv we're here today about to do an episode. I'm going to introduce where we are, because we're doing a live episode filming it on location. Shall we say? We're doing a live episode today with our guests in person, which you always love. How are you feeling about this chat?

Jane & Liv: 2:54

I do love an in person episode more than online. I feel like I get to connect with the people a lot better. I'm super excited for this, because I think it's going to be really interesting that I think it's going to help a lot of people,

Jane James: 3:08

and that's what you're all about, isn't it? Liv always says, every single week, I just want to help people. Whatever I go into in life, I want to help people. And we're still navigating your journey and what you might go on to to follow us your career,

Jane & Liv: 3:22

not sure yet, but you know what will happen? Will Happen.

Jane James: 3:26

Life will unfold. Well, we're joined today by Maria Walters and Melanie Adderley. I hope I've pronounced her surname correctly, Adley. And today we're at the brain collective in Harrogate in North Yorkshire, the brain collective. And this is the brainchild, or the founders are Maria and Mel and they are going to talk to us about the brain collective and what found them here in their journey. Thank you so much for joining us.

Maria Walters: 3:57

Lovely to be here, Jane and Liz. Very excited to are you excited? I'm excited because I know what we do is pretty unusual for the UK Absolutely.

Jane James: 4:07

And I was fascinated when I first talked to you. I think it's only right to tell our listeners how we came into contact, and that was through our editor of the podcast, Mike, who we interviewed a few episodes ago. He's a digital marketer, and he said to me, I've met two ladies, Jane, that you and Liv will absolutely love, and I think they will really be fabulous on the podcast, because they're helping people every single day. Mel, I know that you're a consultant, anesthetist in your background, and now a co founder of the brain collective. What do we need to know about you and your story that got you to starting the brain collective here?

Melanie Adeley: 4:48

Well, obviously, I'm a traditional medical doctor on the verge of retiring, having done my time with the NHS, but I came to Neurofeedback in desperation. About 15 years ago now, when I was struggling with my son's difficulties with some primarily with epilepsy that was poorly controlled, but also a range of consulate constellation of developmental difficulties as well. But the driving force was the poorly controlled epilepsy and the traditional medical model essentially just offer was offering me more and more medications to try to control that, and it just didn't feel right. So I came across Neurofeedback as part of my quest to help my own son. And you know, we traveled to the States and Canada, and we got dramatic improvement. Still, you were still with the medication, but actually his stabilization was much improved by adding Neurofeedback on as a layer. But also we have got a lot of other benefits with a lot of his other issues as well over time and because of the gains that, you know, we saw as a family, you know, it sort of, you want to bring it home to other people. So, you know, we've spent a lot of time training and learning and developing and, you know, I think, you know, we do our best to do what we can for people for whom, and not, this isn't everybody, but for whom the traditional approaches don't give the solutions that they're looking for good medicine is what works. So you know, if traditional medical approaches work, that's great, but they don't work for everybody, and sometimes you need to look outside the box, absolutely

Jane James: 6:33

and just for our listeners, who, let's think a 12 year old, 15 year old listening to this, what is the approach? What is neurofeedback?

Melanie Adeley: 6:42

So all our brains are neuroplastic from the day we're born to the day we die. That means that we have the capacity to learn, so learning a new skill, or learning how to behave, or learning emotional reactions to things. What's actually happening in our brain is that our brains are wiring in certain ways, and that's great because it gives us the capacity to learn. But unfortunately, life's not always easy, and you know, either genetically or as a result of life experiences, we don't react in the you know, we our brains get wired in less less well functioning ways that cause us problems in our life. And so neurofeedback is based on the premise that our brains are neuroplastic, so if we can learn new skills, if sometimes our learning goes awry and our brain goes into a wrong place, we can through a feedback technique, help the brain in a non invasive way, to better stabilize, to better regulate, and therefore, hopefully, to give a longer term improvement in function and happiness in life. And that's essentially what it's about. It's incredible,

Jane James: 7:58

isn't it? Lo,

Jane & Liv: 7:59

very interesting. I've wondered, why did this start in America is at weight. So why it's not in the UK, like as more? That's

Maria Walters: 8:09

a really good question. Liv the foundations of what we describe as EEG, which is electrocephalogram, which is essentially recording a brainwave go way back to 1856 a long, long time, and since then, they have various scientists have been working on, how do you record a brain in 1929 quite a famous guy called hansberger was the first person To be able to properly record brainwaves and the technology really picked up. And when we got into the 50s and 60s, NASA massively took this up as a cause. They strapped people into very fast cars and had EEG caps on the heads of the astronauts to see what happened when you put an astronaut through G force, essentially what was happening to a brain. They had the first ever brain database that filled a whole room in their technology park, and they were trying to work out what, what? What happened to a brain when you put them in space, what happened to a brain when you catapulted someone? But also, they were having tremendous problems with the engineers and the astronauts. They were developing epilepsy. They couldn't understand why, so they they sent out to the NASA research village for anybody who had any animals, because they had a theory that it was the high octane fuel that was causing people to start with epilepsy, essentially. So there's a chap in the village called Barry sternman, and he'd been experimenting on cats. And he put a wire into a cat's brain, right into the center, and he had been rewarding cats with a. Milk flavored with chicken stock, if they made a brain rhythm called SMR and these cats were very clever cats. They learned how to make this SMR rhythm. So Barrett said to NASA village, have my cats. You can experiment them. So they they were putting lots of animals into tanks and exposing them to rocket fuel. And Barry's cats didn't die. All the other cats were found dead on the bottom of the crate. And so they went back to bar and said, Well, we just don't understand why your cats didn't die. And he said, That's because I have made them seizure resist, resistant by strengthening a brainwave called SMR. And that was really where it all kicked off, and they spent a lot of money investigating the whole era of EEG and biofeedback. Unfortunately, the space race really slowed down with the new administration, and all those amazing scientists that were in that village were scattered all over the states, but they knew they had something really quite special. And so those people like Susan Barry, Sterman, Joe Lubar and people associated with like Susan and Sigrid offma were then scattered around the states, but they continue to keep going, because they knew there was something magical in the fact that we can actually change our own brains. It's

Jane James: 11:25

incredible. I just find the whole thing fascinating, and as I sit here today, I know we'll go into it a little bit more, but you've invited Liv and I, and you've actually looked at my brain and took a mind map. Is that how you would quantitative? EEG, but a brain map? Yeah, a brain map and and I've seen my brain waves and how that looks on a screen in front of me, and I know that this is an audio podcast, not a visual one, so our listeners won't be able to see things like that, but it's absolutely fascinating what you're now doing in Harrogate in North Yorkshire, Maria, what's your story that brought you to working with your partner, Mel now at the brain collective, just so that people get a sense of of you and your experience so

Maria Walters: 12:11

similar, but different. Melanie, I had a my younger son really, really struggled, and I think he was probably the youngest person in Yorkshire to be put on Ritalin. He was four years old with and didn't respond that well. Stayed on it for years, really, as parents, thinking we're doing the right thing. But no, no, really wasn't so really boosted by Melanie's fantastic response with person. We then followed Melanie out to Canada and had a fantastic result. Found out my son, we didn't have ADHD at all. We had something quite different. And and there's my journey began, really and so I had to do it, you know, I had a very sad, sick child at the end. And as a parent, you have to do whatever you can, because you're only as good as your children. But it sort of goes a little bit further back for me, because my mum had a significant injury in 1957 and back then, they the service for trying to deal with that was something called electric shock treatment and some pretty strong drugs that were very addictive. So my mum had a lifetime of really being a prisoner in her own head. And you know, big course of mine is I don't want to see that happen to another person, if I can help it. So, and I know I could have helped my mum. Now, my mum died as a young lady, really. So yeah, all the techniques we use would have been great for her. So I'm doing it for my mom. Oh,

Jane James: 14:01

wow, Isn't it incredible? Have you got any questions as we get to this point? Because obviously I had my brain looked at today, and you sort of went downstairs into the cafe. What are your questions about? Because you saw the brainwaves on the

Jane & Liv: 14:13

very interesting. My question was actually what we were talking about as we were going down to the cafe about how men actually find it really interesting about what you do if they struggle to is it show feelings and

Maria Walters: 14:32

absolutely live. I think one of the the warmest feeling we get, really, is people who really struggle to express themselves. And one of the reasons, you know, men's mental health is is so difficult, is they they will not ask for help. A lot of them will not ask for help. And sometimes people get what we call poured into our chair because they've got, you know, dreadful depression, or really, a. Functioning. They have terrible burnout. The great thing for a man, it's a technical thing, we can show based in numbers and based on brainwaves, how people are feeling and that, I think a lot of men think they're making it up. A lot of people who come through here think, you know, they just think, Oh, it must be all in the head. I'm making it up. And it's not. We have signatures in our brains. Things happen to us in life, and they imprint well, that blotting paper. You know, our job here is to unstick that plotting paper. Really, it's to change that pattern. And some people absolutely need help to change that. We see a lot of people who've been in some pretty awful road traffic accidents or have had strokes or have had different injuries to their brain, and they really struggle to access just talk therapy. They they're not regulated enough to be able to do that.

Melanie Adeley: 16:00

So I think the very important, the frightening statistic, is that the highest, the biggest cause of death of men under the age of 35 is suicide. Because they, you know, they won't either acknowledge it in themselves or seek the help that they need. They'll often hide it from their families. And the beauty of this is they don't, you know they don't need to talk, and actually, we can just help them re regulate providers. They've got all the other support that they will. You know, we're not, we're not the whole picture, and you know it's important they have a pro, the right support from their medical doctors, but we can be a very helpful approach to shift the brain that is being reluctant, or if the person's reluctant, a lot of men we get here are brought by their wives, and they're often quite reluctant to come. But once they've seen, once we've had a long discussion and a chat and had a discussion about how their brain is running, the majority of them will come round to actually engaging with us. So that's quite pleasing when that happens, because, you know, they're, they're often very suspicious of us and not prepared to engage, but because of their wives, they get brought, you know, sort of encouraged to come, and then come of their own volition, which is great.

Jane James: 17:19

So I suppose that leads me on to my question, and we've touched that, you know, young men may come because they're struggling with their own mental health, emotional regulation, whatever that is, through a traumatic or something they struggle with the way through their lives. Who are the different types of people that that come to you? We can, you know, what's the range? Why would someone listening to our podcast today think, I think I might need to go or recommend to some to one of my friends or family?

Melanie Adeley: 17:48

Well, pretty much you know anybody from the to death. I mean, the youngest person we probably work with probably about three or four years old. That's the youngest we've probably worked with, but all the way through so age is not really a barrier. There are people who work with babies. We don't have that experience. But there are people, men, women alike, and really we, although on on our website, we have to put things into categories to help people find us. We're actually not interested diagnosis is not what is this is about? This is looking at the individual and what are their issues. So we will, you know, look at a person as a whole. So even if somebody comes to us with anxiety, we still want to know about their sleep, their physical issues, their, you know, behavioral issues, or we want to see them as a whole. Look at them, you know, their background, their history and and what we're looking at is identifying, where are we seeing the dysregulation in the QEG and the EEG? Does it? Does it, from what we understand about brain through neuroscience at the moment, does it a correlate with with somebody's individual symptoms, because we are all individuals. We are all a constellation of our genetics and the experiences of life that we have. And then what the QEG helps us to do is to get helps, to give us a guide as to what interventions we think are most likely to help, and if we think it's important to signpost they're not appropriate for those and to signpost to the traditional medical model or other fields, then we will do, you know, we will do that. We will not work with people who we don't think we are appropriate to work with. But it, you know, it is a way of Okay, let's look at this differently. How might we be able to help you? What are the best things out of the art, out of the options we have accrued over the years and believe strongly? And what are the best options that will help to change your brain, to help it function better and help you live a happier.

Jane James: 20:00

Yeah, and I know that when you did when I looked at the my brain waves, because that's all I can see just in front of me right now, but you are then looking at my brain waves and against a database of 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of others to look at, I suppose, similarities and where it might be that you fit in a similar category. Am I right to say that so someone that maybe has been diagnosed with ADHD or autism or depression or schizophrenia or whatever, and then you'd be able to see different patterns, and then talk around the physical and mental around that, yeah, I mean

Melanie Adeley: 20:36

there, there are different presentations for different symptom profiles. You know that it's not one, not one size fits all. So if you talk about ADHD, there are quite a few different presentations on on the EEG, and we would not make a diagnosis. Actually, the diagnosis is not important. Just giving somebody a label is not important. It's about, okay, how can we help you? How can we make things change? How can we make life easier? And so it's not, you know, there are profiles that we do see. There are what are called phenotypes, that are associated with different characteristics and different difficulties that people might experience. But you know, it, it, it's very much individual. We, you know, we, we need to make sure that we're looking at that person in that moment with their specific symptoms, and look where the dysregulation is in brain, and make, make sure that it correlates. So, yeah, it's not, you know, we, we're not here to give people a label. I think that's really important we get that across. People do come to us having had a diagnosis, that's fine, that's not a problem. But we're not here to give a label to somebody. What we're here to do is work out how to help.

Maria Walters: 21:54

I think most people signpost us really in four key areas. One of them is developmental issues, as Melanie said, things like autistic spectrum, ADHD, Global Developmental Delay, ticks, Tourettes, things like that, then we've got all the head injury work we do. We do a lot of work with people have been in an accident, had a stroke, and fallen off a roof. It can be various things, and that's very much a hidden injury. We work with footballers and rugby players who had some pretty awful injuries as well to try and rehabilitate them as fast as we can. And then the whole area of mental health. And then the other area we're very much working is just how we how do we get the best out of someone? So people do come to say, I'd really like to work on my attention. Can you help me do that? I'd really like to work on my sleep. Insomnia is massive. Pretty much everybody we work with in our mental health arena has problems with sleep, either oversleep or or dysregulated sleep cycle. And a lot of people, the drugs don't work for them. So that's where we really, I think, we come into play. There was a beer rabbit, wasn't there? That, which is the parts that other beers don't reach,

Jane James: 23:21

absolutely and I suppose with a huge, I mean, Liv and I have on our own mental health journeys, and I think it's very topical, and it's, there's a huge pandemic on on mental health from the very young to very old, and we're all talking about it more, which is fabulous. But how do we help.

Maria Walters: 23:41

We are different. And in the States and in parts of Europe, there are 1000s of us out there, but here it's a handful.

Jane & Liv: 23:52

Hi everyone. We hope you're enjoying this episode so far. We're just cutting in to say if you're enjoying our podcast, please click the Follow button on whichever platform you're listening on, and please leave us a review. We'd be so grateful for your support and feedback. Podcasts are free to listen to, but if you are loving our school run, chats and debates, please consider buying us a virtual coffee. The link will be in the description of every podcast episode, and it will also be in the bio of our Instagram, which is at the school run. Underscore official, and why not give it a follow while you're there so you can see all the updates and get sneak peeks at upcoming episodes. Thank you so much and happy listening.

Jane James: 24:32

So how many in the UK, and are you really in the small minority of clinics that are working in this neuroscience for you, I

Maria Walters: 24:40

think it was very few clinics set up like us. We we've been set up because we had a necessity to do it for our own families. We do a lot more technology than most clinics do as well. It's very, very costly and labor intensive and academically intensive as well. And. You get little pockets of people operating in different ways, but to do a proper wrap around service, and what we do is actually very expensive, so we so I think that's one of the reasons. And we're not supported by, for instance, medical insurance. In the UK, there's no, there's no what the course, CPD, CSD codes here for for doing EEGs, for instance. But in the states, if you go you can get it on your insurance.

Melanie Adeley: 25:31

Wow. And the quantitative e the EEG within the medical within medical world is used purely for seizure detection, or looking at sleep studies, or if people are in comas, looking for what brain activity there is. We're using the EEG in a different way. We're not using the EEG to diagnose those things. We're looking at the EEG as a way of it demonstrating mental state arousal level? Yeah. So, yeah, we it's, it's

Jane James: 26:06

different, and how do we, if you could wave a magic wand, what would happen within mental health services and within that's a huge question, but, you know, it's a huge topic, isn't it, and it's so important. But I think

Melanie Adeley: 26:21

everybody needs to understand there's a huge amount we can do to help ourselves. And you know, we live in a very toxic world, and we're not going to change that. We can't just, you know, we live in the lots of toxins around we live in a world that is driven by technology, and our brains are changing as a result of that, you know, I think we need to understand that, you know, you have to, sometimes you have to have to look at your lifestyle so important things like doing the best that you can to get good sleep. So, you know, getting technology out of your room, your bedroom should be a safe haven. You know, you should have a regular sort of routine for your sleep. Simple things make a difference. People need to look at the food that they're eating. You know, people with diets have heavily processed food that's not good for our bodies and it's not good for our brains. You know, we need to look at eating proper, healthy, nutritious food that's not been put through a lot of the processing that our food is. We need to acknowledge that in order to stay fit and healthy, we need to do regular physical exercise. That's important. And we also need to use our brains. We need to use them cognitively. You know, sort of sitting in front of the TV for hours on end is not good for our brains. So there's a lot that we can do for ourselves to give ourselves the best chance of living a happy, healthy life that you know that said things happen in life that mean that that's not the case, but there are lots of technologies out there now that can help, and we use all of these technologies. So we use sound therapy, light therapy, Neurofeedback therapy, different forms of neuromodulation therapy, where, if a brain is really, really stuck, we can help to just give it a little bit of an extra shove and see if we can help to get it back on that path. So a lot of what you know, what we're doing is to is to try to re regulate the brain. And this is all very based in neuroscience. This is not, it's not sort of weird and wonderful stuff. So there's lot of evidence around near infrared and working on that healthy, you know, health for the for the mitochondrial function of the brain cells. You know, using sound, we use the a lot of equipment using sound to help to stabilize the autonomic nervous system, which is that part of our nervous system that can go out of kilter, and, course, flight and flight, and, you know, panic attacks, and then neurofeedback. You know, we do our Neurofeedback in clinic because we personally that we prefer to do that. We prefer to work with people on an individual basis. But there's so much that is out there that isn't that isn't a pill that can help you to regulate your brain, calm you down, stabilize the brain and move it to a point of optimal function. It's about trying to get your brain to be the best that it can be. You know, we're not all going to be perfect. That's not reality, but anything we do is essentially peak performance training, whether or not somebody's got a problem and wants to get it better or actually they just want to stay happy and healthy. Um, you know, we all train ourselves regularly in this clinic. You know, I want to do the best to stay as healthy as I can for as long as I can. And. Um, you know, and that's the most important. It's not just about living a long time. It's living well for as long as you can,

Jane & Liv: 30:08

right? I just have a question about, like he said, it's a very technology heavy world that we're living in now, and especially my generation. I mean, some of my friends, we did a poll at my high school about your screen time, and my friends were 12 hours. And I thought, how is that even possible? Like you're supposed to be sleeping and being at school? How are you on your phone? So are there any effects that, like you can see from technology and and what are they? And there's a bad are they? Yeah, there

Melanie Adeley: 30:40

is a superb book called Iron mines from a lady called Marie Swingle about looking at the dam, at the, you know, the the impact of technology, but where, you know, we are now pro we are now in a situation where we basically just take bites of information. People don't sit down and read a book from start to finish anymore. They don't spend time just being they're constantly scrolling, and that is making it very much more difficult our brains. Brains are unlearning how to pay attention. So you are almost creating, you know, and what you would class as an ADHD profile, because you are just literally using little snippets rather than actually sitting down and focusing and concentrating. The other profoundly damaging thing for technology is the damaging effect it's having on new babies and children, because you see mums on phones, looking at their phones and not interacting with their babies. So that is having a profound impact upon the their neural neurological development. And I think we're seeing a lot more issues in school with children who, on haven't gone through the normal developmental sort of trajectory that they should. And again, more issues with the tension and often, you know, in order to feel safe, a child needs that face to face, those all those non verbal skills, how they learn to speak, so critical. So I think that it's very damaging for us as individuals, but I think it's also very damaging for mums and fathers of new babies. Those new babies need you. They don't need you paying attention to your phone. It's

Jane James: 32:24

interesting, isn't it, because you can just almost go down the high street and you see mums pushing prams on the phone, not whereas a generation ago, we'd have been looking over the pram, interacting, singing, jiggling things,

Melanie Adeley: 32:38

talking to them, singing, playing games. What's

Maria Walters: 32:42

one of the saddest experiences I think I've had in a long time? Was going to a restaurant and I saw a mum and dad and two children, and the mum and dad were sitting scrolling on the phones, and their children asked the waitress for paper and crayons. So there was no interaction with that family, but the children actually, they didn't have a phone. They just wanted to draw, but Mum and Dad went, there was no conversation at that table. We're social animals, you know, we know in terms of cognitive decline, for instance, they did a massive study in civil service study, and they looked at people who'd retired, and it didn't matter whether you are the janitor sweeping the floor or the chief executive, within six months, people have lost massive amounts of cognitive capacity, and that's because they had lost the social connection. Social connection is everything. An amazing book if you've only, if you only ever read one book in your life, is a book called The Good Life, and it's an 80 year study on what makes us happy, based at based out in Boston, and it's still going on. They've had four study directors, but it's an incredible book, and it really is quite interesting, because they took two populations of people, they took quite privileged people that were undergrads at Harvard, and then they took in inner city kids, in inner city kids in Boston, and they they physically monitored them, they emotionally monitored them, and they stayed with them that entire life. And then then started monitoring their families. And it is the it's the data that came out of that. I'm not going to tell you anymore, because I think you should read the

Jane James: 34:24

book the good life. We all need to read the good life. We really do. Maria, what was your What was your background? I know, obviously your personal story with your son, but from school to the brain collective, what was, what was your background here?

Maria Walters: 34:41

Yeah, I absolutely loved school. Found it really hard because when I went to school in the 70s, they didn't understand why I couldn't read, and it's now called dyslexia. They thought I was quite verbally, you know, quite fluent. Just couldn't they couldn't pin it all together. Other, and I really struggled. I couldn't read when I went to high school, which was a bit of a problem, really, and I certainly couldn't spell. So I made it through high school because I was desperate to go to university, absolutely desperate. And everybody laughed at me when I said I was going to university. They said, I wonder if you're going to go to university, because you struggle to read and write, but I did it. In the end. I just picked the sciences and by God, I used to work very, very hard. I ended up at university. I did a science degree, became a chemist, ended up in industry, which was a phenomenal job. I absolutely loved it, and always did sort of technical jobs, really, and lots of jobs with people and trying to get the best out of people. I then ran a consulting firm, which was a nationwide consulting firm, and had two amazing kids married to a surgeon. So that was, you know, lots of juggling and then, and then running there during about four when my my youngest son was four, started to think that there was some problems I needed to attend to. And I have to say that's probably the hardest job I've ever done in my life, being mum. Try and do the best. And no doubt, haven't done it very well on some points, but you do try,

Jane James: 36:23

we can only ever do our best at the time with the knowledge and what we've got available to us, haven't we, but you obviously went all out and really did help

Maria Walters: 36:32

and do your best. And you know what, Jane, my mum, inspired me, because my mum was sort of a prisoner and in her own home, and she couldn't get on a train, she couldn't buy a train ticket, she couldn't do the job I did. I felt it was an absolute privilege, even if it was five o'clock in the morning going to London, I'd sit there and go. How lucky am I? I can do this. I can go out, and I can stand in front of lots of people and run big companies, and I had so an amazing life. And you know what we do here is our chance to give back, which is why we exist. We're a foundation, really, not a company.

Jane James: 37:10

You're making such a huge impact and difference on people's lives. And it's quite it is quite phenomenal. And Mel, what was your obviously consultant, anesthetist, what was the journey like for you, I guess, typically, in terms of a levels, university and into medicine, but was it, was it as straightforward as line as that? Yeah, pretty

Melanie Adeley: 37:30

much. So, you know, just, you know, I knew very early on I wanted to do anesthesia. It's been a phenomenal career. I've absolutely loved it. It's been quite hard juggling here, and, yeah, I've been part time there and part time here. You know, it's completely, I mean, it's interesting, because anesthesia is about and testico is about maintaining normal physiology and homeostasis. And so there is a feedback loop in it, which sort of parallels very much. It's just a completely different way. But I think it's interesting, because life had relatively been all straightforward until I had my son's, you know, and his difficulties, I think it's made me a better person, because I've had to, you know, you become much more, a much more rounded person. And you know, things aren't always easy. Things aren't always straightforward. You know, feel like there's a bit of a curveball, but you know, he, you know, he's done well, he's, you know, we still have some, you know, there are still he's, you know, he's,

Unknown: 38:41

he's not, you know, he

Melanie Adeley: 38:42

still has some academic challenges, but he's a happy, healthy adult. And you know, it's been very rewarding. And I think, you know, it's been a privilege to do this as well. And I can't wait to just do this just all the time, rather than,

Jane James: 39:00

yeah, the other job as well, because that's only because I've seen live go under anesthetic twice, once at the end of January and once, just about what, how many weeks ago, three weeks ago. And it's a it's a huge responsibility. You go in as I went in as a mom, obviously, with her, and they're putting her to sleep, and you can win putting all my trust in you to look after my girl. It's a huge responsibility, isn't it?

Melanie Adeley: 39:25

And you know it, you know it's similarly this is they're both challenging jobs, but in very different ways. You know, here we're often dealing with people, quite often, who are in a desperate place. And so, you know, that's very challenging, and sometimes you have to help them navigate that we very much talk about. We walk on a journey with people. It's, this is not a magic wand. It's not, you know, it's, it takes time to get the brain to function better. So we have to walk that journey with people. And there are bumps in the road, you know, doesn't it's not always. It's

Jane James: 40:03

not linear. It's

Melanie Adeley: 40:04

not linear, absolutely. So, you know, I think both are very both have been very rewarding jobs in different ways.

Jane James: 40:13

But yeah, and like you say, it's not going to be for everyone that comes through the doors here. It's there's going to be so many factors, and you help navigate all of those collectively together.

Unknown: 40:24

And for some people, we're not the solution. You know, it has to be the right thing for the right person. And it is really important for us that whoever we work with, they want to be here. Because if they don't want to be here, then, you know, we need to have a very positive therapeutic relationship with with either the person or the child and the parent. Yeah, and you know, that adds an extra layer when you're having to, you know, you're working with a family

Melanie Adeley: 40:55

and all the challenges that going on in life, alongside doing the work with us. You know, everybody's got school and work and

Jane James: 41:03

precious to family and elderly parents and all the other things that come with that.

Maria Walters: 41:08

I think the other thing is, you know, going back to the whole school thing, every day is a school day in here, because every day we see a different individual with a different brain, and you have to work so hard to make sure you're doing the best you possibly can by that brain and that individual. And we're well, very well connected around the world with all of our technology and with all the advice we get. And you know if, if we're confused by something, we reach out. And we will talk to a machine manufacturer. We will talk to a psychologist based in California. It's our responsibility to do that. So every day is a school day,

Jane James: 41:47

and you care so much, both of you care so much. I can see that inside and I think, you know, it's not, there's absolutely not a cookie cutter approach to this that that. I mean, there's a brain in front of me that I'm looking at here. But every brain is completely unique. Every person is unique. And looking at that individual person to improve whatever it is they come through the door needing help with it's a very personal thing, and

Maria Walters: 42:13

I think a lot of places have become quite good at measuring stuff or just treating stuff, but I think we're very special. We do, we do the measure, but we do. We, you know, we're trying to resolve as well,

Jane James: 42:31

and going the extra mile to get that to get that resolution. Have there been some standard, I know you can't talk about individual people or but Have there been some standout successes that you really stand out for you as huge ones that you think, wow, yes,

Maria Walters: 42:48

some of the head injury clients we deal with are really struggling. They might have had many, many sessions with charities like headway and they they are really struggling, physically, emotionally, cognitively. It's pretty incredible to work with someone and a few sessions in for them to say, or for their families to say, that they've become easy to live with. They've become like themselves, like they were before. The big problem with head injury is they do not feel like themselves. It's almost like they're looking at someone different. And that's extremely rewarding. Getting someone who is almost in like a post amnesia sort of way in the chair and waking them up is pretty incredible as well. Getting a child who can't access education, we saw a lot of problems through covid, children going to school and just not being able to attend school anymore. And being able to turn that around is it's it's a bit of a gift. It's a lovely thing to be able to do. It

Jane James: 44:04

absolutely is, I'm wondering what's going through your mind as we're chatting away. I think

Jane & Liv: 44:08

it's, I feel like it's so different. I mean, I do A Level Biology. We've done absolutely nothing on the brain, like absolutely nothing. So sitting here, it's like I'm in a biology lesson, but better because it's really interesting and how it's not just like, obviously, like you said, there's this might not be the thing for some people, but I think it's not just like, I guess when in mental health, if you go to maybe therapy something, and they're diagnosing you with something for me, I guess I like, you know, to see the facts and to see, you know, maybe the data to, like, back it up as evidence. And I feel like this is, is that it's not just saying to someone, I'm going to diagnose you with depression after just speaking to them. And that makes sense in my head, because it's actually show. You like, what is going on in your actual brain, which I find very fascinating.

Melanie Adeley: 45:04

I mean, talking to people is really important, getting a bit, you know, getting a profile for what are their difficulties in their background? What, what the EG and the QEG do is just give us an extra layer of information. And I think that's actually very helpful for people to understand themselves. If you can show them their EG and show them their brain maps, as Maria said earlier, it makes them realize they're not just imagining what they're experiencing. It's real. You know, you see a broken leg. You don't necessarily see

Jane James: 45:38

broken brain, brain, no, and we

Melanie Adeley: 45:40

are, you know, there is so much, I think, for me, going back to the, you know, to the really rewarding ones, people who have significant traumas in their life. And there are lots of people who have had traumas from young childhood. And you know, you know, we know about adverse childhood experiences. And the younger you are, the more regular there's those negative experiences are, the more likely you are to get both physical and mental health problems in later years. And there is so much that we can do to help to regulate that and to help to get some resolution for those traumas using a range of different therapies. You know, psychologists and psychotherapists may be very useful, as you know, if people are saying them, that's great, we're, you know, really keen that they continue to go on that journey. But this adds another layer, and can often help to unlock it, to enable them to access more with their psychotherapists or psychologists or psychiatrists. Yeah, I think, I think it just opens up the brain to so much more. But I think Peter, you know, trauma is a really big one that I think we can make a big difference with, you know. So there's physical trauma, there's the emotional trauma, and it's lovely working with the children who have, you know, neurodevelopmental difficulties, and trying to make that, you know, I think we've got so much wrong with our early years. And you know, we need to, you know, trying to get four year olds to sit down at a table and read and write, they're too little. They need to be playing and singing and communicating and socializing and drawing and painting and all of that. You know, their brains aren't ready to learn till they're about seven. We're forcing them through this sausage machine. That's way too soon, and we're missing out, which, you know, if we when we're working with a brain or working with a person who has a brain, we will always address the emotional side of things before we address so if somebody's got attentional issues, we will always address the emotional side of stuff before moving on to the the attentional stuff. Because actually, by addressing that, you'll often release a lot of that attentional issue. So I just wish the government and the powers that be would rethink our early years, and you know, they need to be nurtured. And lots of play, lots lots of

Jane James: 48:10

creativity and music and drama. And you know, then you come to the things that you know, our brain is that powerhouse of the whole body, the connection to the physical, the mind, seeing the brain like you would. I don't know, an x ray of your leg if you know. So it's, it's the powerhouse, isn't it? And what we're putting in there. So if we're taking away cooking from the curriculum, for example, and children are ordering off Deliveroo and Uber Eats and other range of companies out there, but they don't understand how to boil an egg or make some wonderful food from the land that's seasonal. We've, we've really got to rethink, yeah, absolutely,

Melanie Adeley: 48:49

yeah, absolutely, and yeah. You know, I think so many teachers are under so much pressure. I think, you know, they they need to be given the space to do their job properly, rather than constantly, you know, battling. A lot of our

Maria Walters: 49:04

staff members are ex teachers who just felt they couldn't do the job anymore because they weren't doing the job anymore. And they make amazing therapists here. Have a sports scientists weren't here. We see a lot of rugby players, football players, cricketers, who perhaps struggle after a head injury, or just want to do a bit better, or want to keep an eye on things. So a huge range of people just sometimes baselining their brains, but often really, really helping them absolutely,

Jane James: 49:37

you're doing phenomenal work. And I've I feel like we've got two or three other episodes inside here at some point to talk deeper about some of some of the areas of the brain. But I wondered who's been a because we always ask typical questions on the school and podcast, who's been a point of inspiration, a teacher or mentor for you throughout throughout your life? Wife,

Maria Walters: 50:01

my absolute hero was my dad. So my dad was an orphan. He was born in 1929 his mum died of TB. He looked after his mother as she was dying, and went to went to see it 14, essentially to make a living phenomenal self starter. And when my mum got ill, went way back in 1957 my dad was mum dad, housekeeping was everything. So motivated, really, really inspirational guy. He he ended up being very, very senior in in industry. And I watched this. I sat and watched this from being a very small child. And one thing you can never say to my dad is I can't do that, because he just wouldn't put up

Jane James: 50:58

with that. Find a way. He was quite tough

Maria Walters: 51:02

and but he never gave me excuse to say I couldn't do something. I was absolutely brought up to believe I could do anything.

Jane James: 51:10

How phenomenal. What about yourself? Mel, who would be a teacher mentor who's inspired you through your career? Well, I

Melanie Adeley: 51:18

suppose there's two separate careers. So yeah, there are people who have inspired me through my medical career, but in terms of this field, I think what I find amazing is that so we do a lot of work with the Office Sue and Siegfried. Sue sadly died last year, but we're still in connection with Siegfried, and we still engage a lot, you know, with with the ultimate we use the Othman technique, you know, quite consistently. And Nick Douglas, who's the founder of neurofield, and a lot of the other you know, people in this field have come to this field because of personal reasons. And they have pushed and invested, and they have been, you know, they have fought against traditional ways, and they, you know, the authors, you know they've, they've been going, what, 3040, years. They've been bankrupt on several occasions, but they kept going because they knew that this was the right, the right thing. And you know, you know people who are prepared to invest their time and their own money in developing new technologies. You know, we haven't developed of any of this. We have. We have the fortune of knowing these people personally and having worked alongside them and understanding their journey. And I think, you know, never give up. There's, you know, if there's a problem, there's always a solution. You know, may not be per you know, you won't necessarily get, you know, perfect, but there's, there's always a way. You've got to be determined. You have to be determined. Yeah, if you're going to make a difference, you have to be determined, you know. And you know, we've, over the years here, we've had lots of people who have poopoo does and doubter does. And, you know, said we don't know what we're talking about, or it's a load of rubbish, you know. And that's fine, but we know it's not, you know, we wouldn't still be here when we set this company up. We did not know. We didn't anticipate still being here a year later. Here we are, 12 years later, at least, probably a bit more, with four staff. And you know, I don't think either of us would have anticipated that. And it's not been an easy journey, and lots of challenges along the way, lots of learning, but the only way we will get better is if we keep trying

Jane James: 53:48

and keep spreading so word, getting that message out there, that there is an another way. And actually, it's not just a last resort, because I'm assuming, or making an assumption, for most people, it is last resort and desperation, absolutely,

Melanie Adeley: 54:02

yeah, and yeah, that's that's sad, you know. But you know, as we keep saying, you know, not you know, if medication is right for somebody, that's fine. If psychological cancer gives you the solution, that's fine. And they all have their place, so, but I do think at the moment, we are very much, very much last chance saloon for a lot of people, not everybody. I think more people are coming to us because they've heard of us and but you know it, it's just a different way of doing that, doing things

Jane James: 54:36

absolutely so if somebody's listening to this episode, they think this might help me. This might help my husband, my child, my parent, whatever. How do they get in touch with you? Maria,

Maria Walters: 54:51

the easiest way is just to go on the internet and Google the brain collective, and we'll pop up our website. That will pop up. And our homepage is pretty simple. It's got a Contact Me page button. Just send us a message. We spend hours and hours talking on the phone to people we're really interested to see if, if that's a case, that we can help and and that's absolutely free and for nothing, we're we're just more than happy to give that gift to people that to have that chat. And you know, if it's not right for them or they're not right for us, we will just say so. But it's not to be scared of doing it. It's not scary this. Just reach out to us, talk to us,

Jane James: 55:36

absolutely. So look for the brain collective. I know that they also have a podcast, which is out there, called the brain collective, so you can listen to that on Apple and Spotify. And we always finish our school and podcasts with a school memory, yeah. And so I think we'll start with you. Mel, have you got a school run memory? Maybe it's your own child or your own school run. I have a very clear one. Oh, go on. Share away. I

Melanie Adeley: 56:04

remember being a teenager and not doing, not doing a piece of homework that I should have done, and on the journey to school with my father, who was a bank manager and quite, you know, old fashioned, strict, I mean, bursting into tears because I was, I was a good I was a bit of a goody two shoes at school, yeah, but I don't know why I'd not done this homework. There's just anyway. But I couldn't the thought as I got close to school, the thought of getting to school and not having my homework to hand in was overwhelming. So I burst into tears, and I felt like, what on earth? And yes, I told him, and he said, you know, you you silly girl, you know, how could you be so stupid? Anyway, he took me to the station in because we I went to school a bit away away, and he put me on the train. I was probably about 14 or 15, so put me on the train and said, Go home and do your homework. I said. I said, What about school? He said, I'll phone them up. Don't you ever do this again? And I never did. He bailed me out, but I learned my lesson, and I never, ever didn't meet a deadline after that. Whoa,

Jane James: 57:17

that's a fantastic memory, and I've not heard one like it before. My

Melanie Adeley: 57:22

father had a stare. He only needed to look at me, and I knew I had stepped out of line.

Jane James: 57:29

What about you, Maria?

Maria Walters: 57:31

I didn't have a school run. I walked to school as a lot of people did in the 70s, because I'm very old. I walked school from the age of five on my own, a couple of miles over some major roads, and I used to come home at a lunch time to check on my mum. So I was a, I was a very young carer, really, but, you know, never thought anything about it. Jen, just did. It. Was quite happy to I think school knew, and used to be a lollipop lady in the middle. And one day the lollipop lady wasn't there. I think she might have been sick, and I got run over, crossing the road, and fortunately, I could walk. So I ran away, and I ran to school. I was absolutely black and blue school asked me what had happened, and I said I'd fallen over, and I went home, and I never told my parents, because I knew it was going to be too stressful for them, because they they had no choice. I had to walk to school because nobody could take me to school. So that was a pretty

Jane James: 58:35

hair raising school.

Maria Walters: 58:37

I was about six, I think when that happened so young. I

Jane James: 58:40

mean, we just wouldn't have our children walking to school at five and six, I think you were 11 when I let you go.

Maria Walters: 58:46

Oh, Jay, what, what it does for me is I was really independent. I could make a meal, clean the house, and I used to walk school, and I used to dream about what would happen in two years and five years and 10 years, and what I was going to look like as an adult. Wow, and, and that did me the world of good, really. I had that thinking time, and that was, yeah, pretty early planning. It

Jane James: 59:16

really, it really was, well, we've never had two school memories shared like that, so they'll go down in the history books of schoolroom memories. And I want to just take this time to thank you both so kindly. We've been here since one o'clock today. It's now half past four. I've had the most incredible experience personally seeing my brain, my white fluffy brain, and the different parts of it. Thank you so much. This is an incredible experience. I know that it's not a, you know, it's an investment quite seriously. And obviously insurance companies don't, don't back that in the UK, etc, so, you know, but I do think it's hugely valuable for individuals, and I would highly recommend anyone to get in touch if they if they've hit. Today and think, oh, this could be for me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of the school run podcast. We absolutely love doing the podcast. Podcasts are free to listen to, but if you'd like to buy us a virtual coffee, we'd be really, really grateful. You just need to go to www.buymeacoffee.com forward slash the school run. That's buymeacoffee.com. Forward slash the school run. You can also follow us on Instagram at the school run, underscore official, or Tiktok with the same name at the school run, underscore official. And we always really appreciate your reviews and feedback on the platform that you're listening to. You can review our podcast and give us a star rating. We'd love to have your comments and receive your feedback. Thank you so much for being a massive support of our journey. You