Michaela Sparrow is the founder of The Longevity Remedy. Michaela has had a passion & fascination for the science behind disease, health & ageing for the last 18 years.
After watching family members die from heart disease, stroke and dementia and suffering from chronic illness (depression, anxiety & insulin resistance) herself and not finding the answers in mainstream medicine, she was inspired to learn everything she could about ageing & age related disease, this passion & obsession lead her to study naturopathic medicine and anti-ageing medicine concurrently.
Michaela’s goal is to target the underlying cause illness & ageing, healing the body holistically and understanding how intricacy intertwined our whole body is.
She created The Longevity Remedy to empower people to take a proactive approach to their health and show how everybody can help protect their body and live younger for longer. Anti-ageing & preventative medicine should be available to everyone.
Michaela Sparrow is the founder of The Longevity Remedy. Michaela has had a passion & fascination for the science behind disease, health & ageing for the last 18 years.
After watching family members die from heart disease, stroke and dementia and suffering from chronic illness (depression, anxiety & insulin resistance) herself and not finding the answers in mainstream medicine, she was inspired to learn everything she could about ageing & age related disease, this passion & obsession lead her to study naturopathic medicine and anti-ageing medicine concurrently.
Michaela’s goal is to target the underlying cause illness & ageing, healing the body holistically and understanding how intricacy intertwined our whole body is.
She created The Longevity Remedy to empower people to take a proactive approach to their health and show how everybody can help protect their body and live younger for longer. Anti-ageing & preventative medicine should be available to everyone.
Find inspiration as we talk to Rachel Simpson in our #StrongHealthyWomen interview.
Hi Michaela! Thank you for being part of the Health and Fitness Travel, Strong, Healthy Women Interview Series, where we are shining a light on the importance of self-care, not as an indulgence but a necessity to reduce stress and general health issues.
Is there such a thing as a typical day for you and what does that look like?
I think for most people routine is especially important when trying to stick to being healthy, so regardless of what I am doing each day I have a couple of things that happen no matter what, in the morning, this helps me maintain that sense of routine and therefore control over my health.
1. Sunlight exposure & earthing: The first thing I do when I wake up is go outside, barefoot, stand on the grass, close my eyes and let the sunlight hit my eyelids. This does a couple of things, first it helps regulate my circadian rhythm (internal body clock that controls EVERYTHING), letting my body know another day is starting and also helps aid my mood and production of melatonin at night for a deeper sleep. Also because I have been in bed for more than 8 hours (usually) it is time to reconnect with the earth and help balance out the positive & negative ions. Doing both of these together energises & motivates me, boosts my mood and helps prevent anxiety.
2. I take my liquid herbs and supplements. I get these out of the way, so they have been digested and absorbed by the time I am ready to take on the day.
3. Warm water & lemon juice: This helps stimulate my digestion and liver function so I breakdown and utilise food quickly and prevent bloating, indigestion etc.
4. Take my dogs for a walk: They are bulldogs so it isn’t a high intensity workout at all, but we go for about 20 minutes, it gets my blood pumping around my body and also gets my creative juices flowing, helping to clear out brain fog and make me my most productive.
5. Sauna: I own an amazing infrared sauna, I try and use this most days, sometimes in the morning and sometimes before bed, depending on what my day looks like.
6. Workout: I work out 3-4 days a week, with strength training, walking, spin class and a little bit of yoga, it isn’t every day, but most days, this is not only important for my physical health but also my mental health.
Can you share a time when you felt your well-being was challenged in the past and what did you do to overcome it?
I have a history of depression & anxiety (stemming from my traumatic teenage years), and there have been times in my adult life that these have flared up again when I have forgotten (or been too lazy) to focus on my health.
In my second year of my degree I had a very very bad flare up of depression, things were not looking good, and I was starting to go down that hole that can be really hard to get out of. I realised one day that enough was enough, I didn’t want to spend my adult life like this anymore, I knew that what I was experiencing was a disease and not actually me, so I knuckled down and made a plan to get my mental health back on track. This included counselling, but also forcing myself to go for walks and to the gym (when you are depressed this is the last thing you will feel like doing, but is also one of the most beneficial things you could do for your mental health), really focusing on nourishing my body with good food and I also supplemented with some products I knew would help target the underlying cause of my depression.
Gut health was a major focus for me because this plays such a huge role in mental health. I did this focused treatment for about 12 months and now I know the signs of when my moods may be starting to get imbalanced and I find by maintaining the physical activity with healthy nourishing food I live a very happy life now.
What does ‘being healthy’ mean to you and how do you keep this at the forefront when life gets unavoidably busy?
Being healthy means being conscious of how I am feeling physically and mentally and going back to basics when I feel out of balance. Moving daily, drinking enough water and eating plenty of fresh vegetables and regular protein is the basis for how I determine how healthy I am.
Being busy doesn’t need to be an excuse to be unhealthy; regardless of how busy I am I always take my supplements.
What is especially important to me is making sure I maintain my gut health. Gut health is the cornerstone of good health, so if you only have time for one thing, make sure it is something that supports your gut health.
I like taking a high strain, naturally fermented probiotic shot called Tummify, this helps support not only my immune system but also my mood, inflammation and hormone balance. The thing I like about this product is it is a kefir shot (tastes like almost like a Greek yoghurt) so I don’t have to worry about taking capsule on an empty stomach and feeling sick. I can grab the shot on my way out the door and have it in my car. It gives me peace of mind and acts as an insurance policy for my health.
Have you ever taken a holiday specifically for your well-being? Can you share what the experience was like?
Yes I have, but not in the traditional sense, I have never had the pleasure of going to a health retreat but I have been on holidays that I used to heal my body and my mind.
The most recent one was a camping trip held at the base of an ancient volcano up near Nimbin, I was attending a traditional herbal medicine seminar and used the opportunity to really get back in tune with nature, outside in the sunshine and fresh air and have a break from social media and the internet. And how liberating it feels to not rely on your phone or look to the internet to entertain me or avoid the monkey mind. I hiked, ate local, freshly prepared food, slept in a tent, woke up at the crack of dawn every morning and had the most refreshing & rejuvenating sleep ever.
Every woman’s idea of self-care is different, please tell us what does self-care mean to you?
Self – care is so important and something I tell every one of my clients they need to do more of. Self-care for me is so many different things, its laying in the grass reading a book, having a massage, going to the gym, stretching, binge watching trashy TV, sleeping in, spending all day in bed.
It’s about taking some time out to think about nothing, do nothing, to RELAX.
I am pretty lucky in that I have never had trouble switching off or relaxing.
So many women in my clinic have so much trouble taking time out for themselves, they feel guilty or like they don’t deserve it. But what they don’t realise is self-care for them, is also self-care for their families. If you aren’t having a break from work, family, life you will burn out and won’t be any help to anyone.
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