Is it fish in general, or just tuna fish? I definitely don't like tuna, I mean, especially that canned tuna in terms of like sandwiches. Sardines. Basically, I can have fish if it's really fresh, but if I taste any fish, like if I taste the fishiness. I love fish, but if it tastes like fish. No, if I could taste the fishiness, that fishy flavor, I will want to vomit. So sushi, do you like certain sushi's?  I've been able to have sushi sometimes. If it's like really good quality, it's like it's fresh. Very fresh, and only certain, I don't know. I would assume California roll is, okay, that's the stuff that has the seaweed and the rice and the avocado and cucumber. I don't know the names of them. Salmon, just raw salmon? Yeah, usually I can, but I've ordered it at the California Fish Grill before, and usually it's good and I can eat it and there's no fish, but sometimes there's certain, I'll eat a full one and then I get into the half of the second one and I can taste the fish and I have to stop because I want to vomit. Oysters on the half shell, oh, and that's a texture thing. Oh, that's glorious. It's like boogers. Juice! Hey, welcome back to our Steve Bitter Eggs of Corbin. I love oysters. You can follow us on Instagram, Twitter, for more juicy content, thanks for watching, we'll be back with a new video. They taste like the sea.  I can eat 40 of them. And so a shock to a bunch of people, Lust Stories 2 is coming out. Say what? Yeah, Lust Stories 2. So obviously we know about the first Lust Stories, haven't seen it yet, maybe now we're gonna have to fast track Lust Stories. We know it's part of the anthology series that Zoya Onyrog and Kieran Johar did, but that's Bombay, Talkies was first and then Lust Stories and then Ghost Stories, I believe, right? Right. But none of the same directors, none of the same actors, none of the same stories. They're just doing another anthology. Got it. Lust Stories. But it has a bunch of people we know in it. Dosts, I believe, and just actors that we love a lot. Yup. So this is exciting. If this is coming out soon, we might need to get to Lust Stories soon. Not that it's a continuation of the story, but there's two reasons. And one of them, I don't know if... What? There's a truth about Netflix that's really bad and it has to do with watch stuff that's on there until it's gone, because once it's gone, it's gone forever and even the creators can't get it back. Oh, yeah. Heard about that? All right, here we go. And it's the teaser, by the way, it's not the official trailer. That's Kajal. That sure was. Hey, Sillatama. First, test drive, right? So before marriage, no test drive. Hey! Now I have to see it. Hey, is that Bowman? No, I don't think so. You're talking nonsense. The nonsense you're talking about. Okay, the number of people in there that we know or know of is high level. Kajal? Yeah. How exciting. Kajal in Lust Stories. Is it an anthology? Okay, let's see. Easy for the ride. Lust Stories, too, is coming soon on Netflix, directed by Konkanisen Sharma. She looks like it, yeah. So it is an anthology. And Sujoy Ghosh. Which is great. Telotama, Vijay Varma, Kajal. And I hope it shows the people I did recognize as well, but I'm not as on a first name basis with them. You don't have to show me anything else? No, exactly. And what I was referring to, if you don't know, you can just look it up real quick, 30 seconds. Netflix is stopping the creation of any DVDs and example. If you look for the movie Hush on Netflix, it's gone. Because once it doesn't get a certain numbers of viewers, Netflix takes it down. But then there's no preservation of it anywhere, because they had exclusive rights to it. And even Mike Flanagan, the writer and director and creator of Hush, couldn't get them to get a copy. Flanagan's series Midnight Mass is a Netflix release. He couldn't get a hard copy from them and had to have someone else create a Blu-ray that was done via other means. Because there was no way for him to have it. And anything that's on Netflix right now, once it's gone, it is gone forever. The movie Hush is a really good horror film. No one can watch it anywhere on earth, including the man who made it. And the actors who are in it, because Netflix just will not. They've actually become the very thing they were trying to not be, which is they started off preserving and helping film. And now content example, season one of Lost Stories, once it's gone. I don't know why they would get rid of it. It's theirs though, like in terms of like- Because they created it. It's about viewers and subscribers. That's their money base. So if people aren't watching something, they take it off the platform. Gotcha. It will never be seen again unless they put it back up. But I'm very interested in this because one's just the cast and the creators involved. Some are, well, Sujo Josh is a Bondu, correct? Correct. He is a Bengali. Is he Bengali? So he is a Bondu of ours. Same as Tilla. Isn't Tilla Tama? No, I don't believe Tilla. I don't believe she's Bengali. I think she's just a ghost. Correct me if we're wrong. Obviously- Sorry if I'm forgetting that. And another ghost, Vijay Varma. A future ghost in Kajol, of course. Yes, of course. Please, that would be amazing. I think Steph would freak out. You've heard good things about the first- Yes. Lost Stories. Yes. I have. Yes. I think they're all pretty well, especially, a lot of people really like the Lost Stories and a lot of people really like Bombay Takis. Ghost Stories wasn't as well received. But I'd still like to see it. I would too. I'd see all these anthologies. They've been on the list for a long time. A long time. Just because one that the creators themselves. I think in the original Lost Stories, I think Vicky is in the original Lost Stories, actually. Yeah, was the original Lost Stories, was that the anthology that obviously had Anya Ragh? Zoya. And Zoya Akhtar? And Kiran Johar. And Kiran Johar. And then this, say his name. And Dibbakar Banerjee. We've seen a lot of stuff. Which that last name tells me Bengali. But they did all those anthologies that are listed. Ghost Stories, Lost Stories, and Bombay Takis. Riders Radhika. Well, she wrote segments on your red cow shape. Okay. But Radhika Apte, come on. That there is price of admission. Bumi. Jideep. Vicky Kaushal. Yep. Rasika. Hey, it was Rasika. I thought I saw Rasika's face in this one as well. I saw Tilottama, and then I thought I saw Rasika peek around the corner. I don't know, cause it's not giving me a lot of information. Lost Stories, two, cause I thought I saw Bowman too, but I could be wrong. Nope, that's, Lost Stories one. Right, we want Lost Stories two cast. Basically go anywhere else, other than. IMDb. IMDb. Starring cast Nina Gupta. It's not giving me a lot, not giving me a lot. Casting crew, oh, here we go. Lost Stories two cast and crew, Kajol. Sujoy is Vijay Varma. The directors. Shh, okay, again. I'm not getting a lot of information. Not a lot of information. So you guys can let us know.  Yeah. I'm gonna look up real quick Rasika for some reason, cause sometimes that'll happen. It doesn't show it on the actual show, but it'll show up as a project on the actor's IMDb. So let's see, filmography for Rasika. Films in production, I need TV. Okay, yeah, it doesn't show anything. And that would show Tilottama. Let's see if it even shows it up, cause we definitely saw her. Yeah, Lost Stories two, she's listed as cast. Who? Tilottama. Oh no, I knew Tilottama was in it. I know. You were saying Rasika. So does Kajol's shown up there, but obviously not everybody's on there yet. It only shows seven cast members. So, yeah, we might need to get to Lost Stories sooner rather than later, just so, I mean, like I said, it's not a continuation, but you should, I mean, if it's Lost Stories two, you should see Lost Stories one. Yeah. It has no real relation. No relation necessarily, but maybe it does. It's all themes. So like Bombay Takis is four different stories about Bombay and the industry. And I think it revolves similar around the stories of actually Jubilee. Oh yeah, yeah, exactly, around that time. And Modern Love was that way as well, in terms of. And Lost Stories is all just kind of risque stories. My suspicion, and then Ghost Stories, is that there might be a couple of Easter eggs or maybe one or two characters who come in and through, maybe. It's gotta be a good thing to see Lost Stories one first. I don't know, it's a prerequisite. Yeah, but I've wanted to see all of them regardless. It's like Black Mirror. You don't have to see the first season to just jump in anywhere. You should, even though I've only seen like three episodes of Black Mirror. Oh, it is, yeah. Anyways, let us know what you thought about it. Down below.


2 of the best girls hockey teams in Class 1A happened to be in the same section. Warroad and Thief River Falls sit 1-2 in the polls, the potential match-up looming next month in the section final. The Warriors took round 1-3, nothing round 2 tonight. At the Little Ralph, let's go to the first. Warroad strikes first. Juliana Teske controls the puck and beats the keeper here for the goal. 1-0 visitors, but they weren't done yet. Hannah Cornelius in just moments later. Look at the snipe top shelf. That puts the Warriors up by 2. One of the best prowler chances later in the period. Tessa Geordia breakaway, but Quinn Cuntz says, not on, makes the big pad save there. Then the second, Warroad gets to the dagger. Cornelius in again. Sneaks the backhand stuff attempt from behind the net. Her second of the night. And how about Warroad on the road? They dominate start to finish. 5-1 the final score. Max deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.


Emergency Alert. XK Scenario. An ongoing XK scenario has moved outside of Foundation Control. The situation is out of control. Global Civilization has collapsed. To give the last humans a chance of survival, the SCP Foundation will terminate all contained SCPs. All on-site nuclear warheads will be detonated to achieve this. All survivors should avoid the radioactive ruins on these sites. Good luck to all those who are alive to hear this message. With this final message, the Foundation will continue to secure, contain, and protect.


Of topical questions. On a statement on the Chief Constable's Leave of Absence, would the members please press their request to speak buttons now? Thank you. On 8 September, the Scottish Police Authority agreed to a request from the chief constable to take a leave of absence while allegations against him are independently investigated by the police investigations and review commissioner. He issued a statement at that point to deny the allegations and signal his intention to return once the matter had been resolved. The perk is currently carrying out three investigations into allegations, which, after a preliminary assessment, she considered if proven would amount to gross misconduct. I will give Parliament as much information as I can this afternoon. However, this is still a live investigation and there are legal issues that I must respect. That will constrain information that can be provided. However, I welcome the opportunity to clarify the engagement that the Government had with the SPA on this matter. The SPA and other public bodies are often described as operating at arm's length from government. That means that they have a significant degree of independence within their statutory functions but operate within a policy framework set by ministers. The SPA, as a public body, is accountable to ministers for the exercise of its functions. Even though ministers do not normally become involved in individual decisions, the way the body carries out its functions must retain the confidence of ministers. Throughout the process, the Government has maintained the position that decisions are for the SPA as a body that has the statutory duty to consider complaints of misconduct against senior officers. At the same time, as a public body that is accountable to ministers, it is legitimate to seek assurances that the SPA is carrying out its functions in a way that is proportionate, accountable, transparent and consistent with the principles of good governance, as required by legislation. All the Government's actions have been focused on ensuring due process and fairness to all parties. The SPA is reviewing the chief constable's leave position on a four-weekly basis, with the first review on 5 October, resulting in a continuation of the leave arrangements. The position was due for review again in early November, and there was no indication from the SPA that there was likely to be any change at that point. I am clear that the onus was very much on the SPA to inform the Scottish Government if a change in circumstances was considered lightly. On 9 November, the then chair of the Scottish Police Authority, Andrew Flanagan, asked to meet me. At the meeting, he informed me that the SPA board had decided to invite the chief constable to resume his duties the following day. I understand that this decision was taken in a private session of the board on 7 November. There had been no indication that a return to duties was being considered at that point. When I met the former chair and learned of the board's decision, I sought assurances that they had followed due process. Unfortunately, he was unable to give me those assurances. Key parties had not been consulted. In particular, the PIRC had not been asked for her view on whether the chief constable's return at that point could impact on her investigations. As the commissioner highlighted in her letter to the public audit committee last week, the chief constable's leave of absence had allowed the PIRC to interview staff in a safe space, helping to minimise any concerns that might have had about being involved in the investigation. I am sure that Parliament will agree that it is difficult to understand how a decision could be made for the chief constable to return without first confirming that doing so would not undermine the independent PIRC investigation or the confidence of staff engaged in that process. Another area of particular concern was that there did not appear to be a robust plan in place to protect the wellbeing of officers and staff who had raised complaints or who may have been asked to play a role in the investigation. A number of officers and staff were based at the Tilly-Allan headquarters in close proximity to the chief constable and were in positions where they could expect to be dealing with the chief constable in the course of their work. That also raised questions about whether, and to what extent, those matters had formed part of the SPA's consideration of the issue. I would also highlight that Police Scotland's own senior command team had not been told about the decision even at the late stage. I took the view that the clear deficiencies in the process were completely unacceptable. I made clear to the former chair that I could not have confidence in a decision that had been reached without such significant issues having been properly addressed. The former chair agreed that, before proceeding further, the SPA would carry out more engagement with the relevant persons whom I welcomed. I also advised that they should consider seeking advice from HMICS on how they should proceed in terms of process. It is important to stress that throughout this period the Government was not informed that the former chief executive had already written to Mr Gormley to invite him to return. To those who wish to criticise my actions, I asked them to consider this. I had the chief constable returned to work on 10 November, and I then transpired that no consultation had taken place with any of the relevant interests, and further, that I had failed to ask any questions about that. I suspect that criticism would be harsher, and that no circumstances would have been justified. The SPA subsequently reconsidered the issue on 10 November and decided to continue the chief constable's leave and has continued to do so at subsequent reviews. The new chair has expressed concern about the decision making process around the board's previous decision, and has already taken steps to improve the board's decision making process, including the setting up of a complaints and conduct committee. The SPA is now engaging with the PICC and committed to ensuring issues relating to the welfare of officers and staff involved in investigations are fully consulted and considered. On 21 December, the chair said that he is committed to working tirelessly and at speed to address the shortcomings that have been identified and to ensure that in future the SPA's decision making processes and wider governance arrangements meet the standards that should be expected of a major public body. The police investigations and review commissioner has confirmed that the investigations are progressing, though we do not have a firm timescale for them being completed. It is in the interests of all parties that there is a thorough and effective investigation. I understand the Parliament's interests in this matter. The public audit and post-legislative scrutiny committee raised it with the relevant director general in the Scottish Government in an evidence session on unrelated matters on 21 December. The further information in the statement builds on the evidence provided in that session and the Government will write to the committee later in the week. However, members must remember that there is an on-going formal statutory complaints process, and I would caution against expecting the SPA or indeed Government to give a blow-by-blow account while the investigation continues. Public bodies need to be able to inspire not only confidence as parliamentarians, but also that of the wider public. The SPA is next due to review the chief constables leave on 25 January. Wherever decision it makes at that point, it is vital that it is based on a robust process that commands trust. I welcome the assurance that the SPA is given that it recognises the importance of that and looks forward to supporting it in whatever way we can. I thank the cabinet secretary for advance sight of his statement. At the outset, I make no comment about the substance of complaints against the chief constable or whether he should or should not be permitted to return to work. The issue here is the cabinet secretary's interference, and it is difficult not to suggest hypocrisy. He has repeatedly stood in this chamber and, in response to problems that I have raised with the police service, responded that it is an operational matter. It seems that the test for whether Michael Matheson gets involved is not whether it is an operational matter but whether it is in the political interest of Michael Matheson. By way of reassurance, will he tell the chamber whether he took any legal advice prior to intervening in this matter? If so, when will he publish it, along with any correspondence between himself and the SPA? Given the fact that the investigation has been dragging on for months now, will he say anything to the hard work in police officers and staff about when their force will have certainty about the chief constable position again? I am disappointed by the tone of the member's question and what is a particularly important issue. As I said in my statement, the focus of my involvement in this matter was to ensure that there was a robust, defendable process in place for the decision-making that was made by the SPA in relation to the decision of the chief constable returning to his duties. It was very clear to me that, although a live investigation has been undertaken by the PICC and that it had not been consulted in this matter, we could not have confidence in that process. Additionally, the very fact that less than 24 hours before the chief constable was due to return to his duties, the command team in Police Scotland knew nothing about the decision that had been made by the SPA. Additionally, the fact that the SPA board had given no consideration to the welfare of those officers and staff who were involved in the complaints process, in my view, is simply unacceptable. To have stood by and allowed the SPA to implement that decision without asking them to revisit the decision and to consider those matters before they come to a decision on this matter, I believe, would not have been acceptable. That is why I asked them to reconsider it and they did so. It is about the process being robust and defendable, not the outcome of that process. In my view and in my assessment, it was very clear that the SPA had taken forward a process that was simply unacceptable and could not be defended. Daniel Johnson, to be followed by John Finnie. I thank the minister for advance sight of his statement. Policing in Scotland is in crisis. That is a crisis of governance, a crisis of leadership and a crisis involving investigations into senior officers. The actions of the cabinet secretary have turned that crisis into nothing short of a shambles. His intervention has effectively overturned the operational decision about the employment status of the chief constable. By doing that, he has not only embroiled himself in the shambles, he has authored its latest chapter. That decision in law is the independent SPAs to make, one that they made unanimously and then you turned following Michael Matheson's direct intervention. The intervention that the cabinet secretary should have made was to fix the governance, to sort the strategy, to get things moving back in the right direction, and he should have done that months ago at the start of last year when those issues became clear. Is it not now an unavoidable conclusion that the cabinet secretary has prejudiced any future decision regarding Phil Gormley's employment status and his ability to return to work? What is his response to the claim by the chief constable's lawyer that his intervention was unlawful? Finally, what confidence can the Scottish public have in the independence of the SPA if ministers can so simply and easily intervene in the decisions that they make? Let me deal with, first of all, in relation to this being an operational matter. This is not an operational decision making matter. This was about the process of the SPA in making a decision, a matter that clearly there is government interest in how that is being taken forward. The member contradicted himself by then going on and saying that we should be addressing issues of governance. That is exactly what this decision was about, was about the governance process that the SPA had put in place in arriving at the decision. If the member is serious and insane to me that I should have ignored the welfare of those officers and staff who are part of that complex process in this decision making process, I think that that is irresponsible on his part. I can assure the member that this was about making sure that we had a robust defendable position on how they had assessed the matter and the decision that they had come to. It was very clear in my assessment that that simply had not happened. That is unacceptable, not to consider the implications that it has to a live investigation, not to consider the implications that it has for the welfare of staff and officers and not to even engage with the senior command team within Police Scotland. Less than 24 hours before they were meant to implement the decision is simply, in my view, unacceptable. What would have been unacceptable from a ministerial point of view was to simply sit back and not ask them to address those matters. That is exactly what I did and the former chair agreed that they would go and consider. Once they complete a robust and defendable process in considering those issues, it is for them to make the decision on how they will move forward. However, it was clear to me that that was not the case when they presented the matter to me on 9 November. John Finnie is filled by Liam McArthur. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I thank the cabinet secretary for early sight of the statement. Cabinet secretary, I have zero confidence in the Scottish Police Authority's decision on 7 November and consider your comprehensive inquiries entirely appropriate. The commissioner used the phrase, a safe space, and you go on to talk about the absence of a robust plan to protect the wellbeing of officers and staff who have raised complaints or may be asked to play a role in the investigation. I think that it is very important that colleagues near understand the wider message that comes out from all these recent events and the conflicting messages that have been sent. Cabinet secretary, I want to ask you, and it is you that I want to ask. I do not want to ask Perk, I do not want to ask the Scottish Police Authority. It is appropriate that you, as cabinet secretary, say what steps you will take to provide on-going protection for the officers and staff who have courageously come forward with these complaints. I think that Mr Finnie, given his previous experience in policing, goes to the very heart of what is a key issue here and how that decision was arrived at. That is about the welfare of staff within the organisation who may be working in close proximity to the chief constable should he return. I saw through discussions with the new chair to ensure that the process that they have in place in making decisions relating to the matter includes one that is defendable and is robust. A key part of that is the welfare of officers and staff. The new chair has already given that commitment and has already set out their concerns about the process that was taken forward in arriving at the decision on 7 November. I can give the member an assurance, having discussed the matter specifically with the new chair. The public statements that have been made by the new chair of the Scottish Police Authority are that the issues relating to welfare will be a central consideration in making decisions about the on-going leave arrangements for the chief constable. I am sure that the cabinet secretary will do so in his own remarks, but I would ask members just to be careful when phrasing questions not to prejudge the outcomes of any investigations. Liam McArthur, to be followed by Alex Neil. I thank the cabinet secretary for early sight of his statement. Of course, the SNP Government created the centralised policing structure that we now have in Scotland, which puts a heavy onus on the relationships between the justice secretary, chief constable and SPA chair. Given that the sorry saga has dragged on now for months and we now have lawyers exchanging bloats, does the cabinet secretary believe that it would be possible for him to have a functioning working relationship where the chief constable will return in due course? In light of his earlier criticisms of the SPA board, which unanimously supported the return to work of Mr Gormley back in November, does he still have confidence in those members of the board who remain in place? In relation to the future decision of the SPA on the resatiation for the chief constable, it is very clear that it is not the outcome of that decision. It is the process that they go through in making that decision, which needs to be one that is robust and is also defendable. If they make a decision for the chief constable to be reinstated and they have a clear, robust and defendable process for making that decision, then I will accept that. In the discussions that I have had with the new chair of the Scottish Police Authority, it is to make sure that the governance process that they have in place for making decisions in relation to those matters is one that we can have confidence in. She has given me a commitment that they will ensure that that is the case. I made reference to the comments that she has made. The member will also be aware that I commissioned work by Malcolm Burr and Nicola Merchant to look at some aspects of governance and support to the board. That report is presently being considered by the chair of the Scottish Police Authority to consider how it can be further supported and aided in that work. I have made it very clear in my statement that I do not believe that the process that the Scottish Police Authority had in place in the 7 November and arriving at this decision was one that was acceptable. The new chair has given me a commitment that it will ensure that it has better governance in place in making those decisions and going forward. Alex Neil is followed by Margaret Mitchell. I first of all say that the cabinet secretary not only had a right but a duty to make sure that the process was robust, not only in terms of looking after the welfare of the complainants but in ensuring that the chief constable gets a fair hearing as well. He should not be tried in public by the media. Secondly, following on from Liam McArthur's point, can I say to the cabinet secretary that this issue calls into question the competence of some of the non-executive directors of the Scottish Police Authority, not only in relation to this issue but in relation to other issues as well? You only need to look at the evidence given to the Public Audit Committee to see the failings that have taken place in the SBA governance procedures in recent times. Will he now review the individual performance of non-executive directors to ensure that we do not have a repeat of the kind of incidents that we have had in recent times? Thirdly, there are reports of some people allegedly delaying giving their evidence to the put review in relation to the complaints against the chief constable. As I said, it is absolutely vital that chief constable is treated fairly and the complainants are treated fairly and the process is robust. However, it does require to bring this to a timuous conclusion. It does require all those involved in the investigation to co-operate fully on a timuous basis with the investigation. Will Mr Neil please bring his question to a timuous conclusion? The member raises a number of important points there. First of all, he raised the issue about reviewing the individuals of the SBA who were involved in the decision back on 7 November. I can say to remember that the chair of the SBA is giving consideration as to how they will continue to support members in the process of decision making relating to those matters. Part of the process that she has now put in place in order to address some of those issues is the Complaints and Conduct Committee, with a specific group of members of the SBA board upon it in order to consider those matters in much greater detail. It was clear from the discussions that I had with the SBA chair that she believes that that will give much greater focus to those matters in considering those issues. I hope that the member would recognise that as being an important step in trying to strengthen the processes relating to the issue and working with SBA board members on how they arrive at those decisions. The member then went on to raise issues around the PERC investigation and the suggestion that there may be a delay in taking evidence from individuals. The member will recognise that the PERC is conducting the investigation independently. The timeframe is within its gift, and that must be respected. I, like many members, would wish the investigation to be completed as early as possible, because I believe that that is in everyone's interest. However, the reality is that the investigation will take as long as is required, and I would fully expect those who have a part to plan that to fully co-operate with that. However, I am sure that the member will want to respect that process and recognise that the PERC is taking it forward in a manner that allows it to investigate the issue thoroughly and also fairly. The timeframe for that cannot be specified as it could compromise aspects of the investigation. SPA is the statutory body that has the power alone to determine the chief constable's operational deployment status, not the Scottish Government. That is essential to protect the independence of the chief constable. Unless the cabinet secretary has chosen to use his formal powers under the 2012 act, any intervention in his part resulting in a unanimous decision of the SPA board being overturned could be ultra-virus. The cabinet secretary confirmed to me during topical questions on 14 November—five days after 9 November—that he had never used those formal powers. Can the cabinet secretary therefore confirm if he misled the chamber in his response to me or if he has acted out with his powers? The answer to both those questions is no, because to use those formal powers of direction a nodder would be also placed in Parliament, so it would be publicly noted. Secondly, it was a request that I made to the chair and a request that he agreed to, given the range of concerns that I raise with him. I should refer to Margaret Mitchell's comments on the matter, because I heard on the radio earlier this morning that I should take an absolute interest in the governance and leadership of Police Scotland. I should take an absolute interest in the governance and leadership of Police Scotland. That was an issue of governance in having a robust clear process in place. That is why those concerns and questions were raised with the chair of the SPA, and he agreed to revisit the matter in order to consider the issues that I raised with him. That was taken forward at the board on 10 November. That basis is very clear. That was not a direction under the statutory powers that ministers have. That was a request to the chair of the SPA, and he agreed to take those concerns forward, and that was considered at the SPA's consideration of the issue on 10 November. Rona Mackayde, to be followed by Jackie Baillie. Can the cabinet secretary give an update on the current position regarding the chief constable's leave of absence? As it stands at the present moment, the chief constable's leave of absence is being considered on a folk weekly basis by the Scottish Police Authority. It was last considered on 19 December by the Scottish Police Authority where they agreed to continue his period of extended leave. It will be considered again on 25 January, and the SPA will give consideration to a range of factors in determining what further measures should be put in place or whether he should continue on a period of leave. Jackie Baillie, to be followed by Fulton MacGregor. Presiding Officer, legislation is clear. Operational policing decisions are a matter for the Scottish Police Authority, not the cabinet secretary. I cannot help but wonder whether the cabinet secretary should have taken the time over the past year to sort out the SPA rather than sorting out individual decisions. The letter from the commissioner tells us that had she been consulted, she would have been content with the chief constable's return. Can the cabinet secretary therefore tell me? Did he or his officials speak to the commissioner about this, and when? Did he or his officials speak to the deputy chief constable, Ian Livingstone, or the senior management team at Police Scotland, and when? Has he or his officials spoken to the chief constable, Phil Gomley, since 7 November 2017? I will deal with the issue again about this being an operational matter. This is an issue of governance within the SPA. It is not an operational matter, and the legislation is very clear in the divisions relating to those matters. She asked whether I had consulted the SPA if I had consulted the PIRC, whether I had consulted Police Scotland, or whether I had consulted any other parties, including the chief constable, on 9 November. The issue here was for the SPA to undertake that consultation as part of the process in considering those issues. The reality is that, when I met the chair of the SPA on 9 November, he had not carried out that consultation. No consultation with the PIRC, no engagement with Police Scotland on planning for this with the senior command team, and no consideration to the welfare of officers and staff. That would be a matter for the SPA to take forward. Given that this is on the afternoon of 9 November, when the chief constable was due to restart his duties on 10 November at 8 am, it was important that the SPA had the opportunity to go and look at that matter. That is exactly what they did when they considered the issue at their board meeting on 10 November. I am conscious that I have five more members wishing to ask questions. However, we are already running out of time. This could have a slight knock-on effect on the subsequent debate or possible indecision time. However, given the level of interest indicated simply by the number of members in the chamber, I am going to let it run on. Fulton MacGregor, followed by Maurice Corry. Can the cabinet secretary expand on why there is a need for consultation with the PIRC regarding the chief constable returning to work? As I mentioned in my statement, it is important that, while the PIRC is leading an investigation into a complaint, which, if proven, has been assessed as could amount to gross misconduct, it is important that, in any decisions that the SPA is making in relation to individuals involved in that, it gives due consideration to the investigation. I think that that is why it is reasonable to expect that any discussions about the chief constable returning to work should be informed by close liaison with the PIRC about the stage that the investigation has reached and any possible ramifications of a reinstatement for those investigations. That is about the SPA board having the fullest possible picture and understanding before they make such an important decision. Can the cabinet secretary confirm that the chief constable's leave of absence was at the chief constable's own request in order to allow him time and space to focus on his preparations and addressing the allegations against him? The leave of absence was requested by the chief constable, and it was agreed by the Scottish Police Authority. Can the cabinet secretary give Parliament an assurance that the SPA will consult with all those necessary prior to future decisions regarding the chief constable's return to work? As I mentioned earlier in my response, the new chair of the Scottish Police Authority, Susan Deacon, has given such a commitment that she will ensure that there is a more robust process around the assessment of those matters, which will involve looking at aspects relating to welfare of officers and staff, engagement with the command team within Police Scotland, and liaison with the PIRC. As the letter from the Police Investigation and Review Commissioner sets out, that engagement has already started with the Scottish Police Authority, and she has given a commitment that that will continue to be the case going forward. If the cabinet secretary was so concerned on 9 November about the protection of police employees who had made complaints against the chief constable, why didn't he exercise his power of direction under section 5 of the Police and Fire Reform Act? Because the former chair of the SPA agreed to reconsider those issues and that he reconsidered at the board meeting on 10 November. We have heard during the cabinet secretary's statement that this is a very difficult and complex situation for all those involved. With that in mind, does the cabinet secretary agree with me that this is not an issue that anyone should be playing politics with, and that the focus needs and must remain on ensuring that the correct procedures are followed to ensure that both those who are making the complaints and the chief constable are treated properly and fairly? As I said in my statement, it is important that the process is one that is robust and is defendable. That is in the interests of all parties—the chief constable and those who are complainants within Police Scotland, both officers and staff—and also for the integrity of the process. Everyone is interested in ensuring that the process is allowed to run its course and that it is given the opportunity to carry out the investigation in a thorough and detailed fashion. I thank the cabinet secretary and all members, particularly the last five for the brevity of their questions. That concludes our statement. We will now move on to the next item of business, which is the Glasgow 2018 European Championships. We will take a few moments for the ministers and members to change seats.


Hi everyone and welcome to today's presentation. We're going to be talking about understanding the impact of adrenal fatigue in the mental health and addiction recovery process. Now, adrenal fatigue has become something of sort of the new buzzword or the new ADHD or the new whatever you want to say. And it seems like there are a lot of people coming up with different suggestions for how to deal with it, how to treat it. And it's one of those that, depending on what website you go to, what resource you use, anything and everything can be caused, it seems, from adrenal fatigue. So I really want to hone it down and look at what we care about, why that might be happening, and then how it might apply to our clients as they're in early recovery and even later recovery. So we'll identify some of the common symptoms of adrenal fatigue. And once you understand what adrenal fatigue is, the symptoms will make a whole lot of sense. We're going to learn about the function of the HPA axis and cortisol. The HPA axis is basically our fight or flight axis.  Then we'll explore how excessive stress may cause adrenal fatigue. And this can be physical or psychological or both and identify interventions for adrenal fatigue. Adrenal fatigue can cause many symptoms that are commonly classified as depression and or anxiety. For example, panic episodes, fatigue, appetite changes. A lot of the things that we think of as depression, apathy, lack of enjoyment actually can be caused from adrenal fatigue. We've talked before about how the brain will actually adjust over a period of time. If it's exposed to consistent high levels of stress, it will actually turn down its responsiveness. And this is one of the things we can look at in terms of adrenal fatigue or as far as conceptualizing adrenal fatigue. So people may start feeling somewhat apathetic and things that used to make them stressed, make them happy, make them something excitatory doesn't do it anymore. They're just blah. Standard antidepressant treatment will likely be unsuccessful or less than optimally successful in addressing these symptoms in this situation. So if you have somebody who truly has a serotonin imbalance and they start taking SSRIs and they start feeling better in four to six weeks, then we know we're dealing with serotonin and we can maybe give them some information so they can prevent themselves from causing some symptoms. But we figured out that that's probably what was going on. But if somebody's taking antidepressants, especially if they've been on a couple of different antidepressants and they seem to be, quote, treatment resistant, which I hate that or phrase, we want to look at some other causes. What else may be going on with this person physically and psychologically that might be contributing or causing these symptoms? It's also important to remember that many people suffering from adrenal fatigue self-medicate with stimulants and may eventually seek relief through the escape that's provided from addiction. So what happens under prolonged stress? In the normal person, there's a stressor, something happens. The fight or flight response stimulates or excites the person. So let's take a very benign stressor, weightlifting. Maybe you decided you were going to compete in some bodybuilding competition. So you start working out six hours a day, seven days a week and not giving your body a break. That's a stressor. You know, we're not even talking about an emotional stressor here. We're talking about a physical one. But the body is having to put out energy. It's having to put out those excitatory neurochemicals to get the muscles to fire in order to lift the weights. In a normal situation, the person eliminates the stressor or the threat. They have a rest day or week and they have a recovery period. Another example would be, you know, tornado comes through the city. Heaven forbid, tornado comes through the city. Half the city's wiped out. That's a huge stressor. The fight or flight response kicks in and people are stressed out. They've got to find somewhere to live. They've got to help their neighbors. They've got to deal with what's happened. Once that has been dealt with, whether it's a week or a month, then people are exhausted and there's a recovery period. It takes people a while to kind of get back on their game and that's normal for, after a big stressor, it's normal for people to take a while to get back to where they feel like they're, you know, operating at 100%. They get tired easier. So they rest. Imagine that. I get in trouble all the time because I'm one of those people who has difficulty sitting still and my kids were laughing at me because my dog hurt his paw and he has not moved from the sofa for three days. And I mean, it's just a sprain. It's not like it's broken or anything, but he is resting and letting it get better through his recovery period and he's actually getting better. He was bearing weight this morning and my daughter's like, see, imagine what would happen if you actually took some recovery time.   My body would just kind of shut down. My immune system was gone and I would get sick. And I knew a lot of people like this because the body was under so much stress during that period, but then we had a recovery period. If you have a big project at work, you know, maybe you have a grant coming up and you are just burning it at both ends to try to get this out. For the next few weeks afterwards, you kind of coast.  Let's take on this next grant or let's do something else that's huge and time consuming and energy draining. Most people pace themselves and that's the way to prevent one of the ways that we're going to talk about for preventing adrenal fatigue. When there's a big stress or emotional or physical, you know, if you have a heart attack, you have surgery, that's a big stress on your body, you need to give yourself time to rest and recoup. In an abnormal situation, there's a stressor or a threat. The fight-or-flight response happens and it stimulates or excites the person. The person can't totally eliminate the stressor or another stressor comes right along. So there's continued stimulation. Adjustment to the high stress, the body turns down the response and says, okay, you know, we can't get upset about all the little things anymore. We're only going to get upset when there's something really, really stinking big that comes along. So the person starts feeling apathy and depression, things that we would think of in terms of a mood disorder, when it actually may be more physiological. Law enforcement officers are very prone to this because especially if they work in a zone where there is a lot of activity and it's constant, they can have a call, they can get off the call, they can have five minutes maybe to go get something to drink and then they may be on another call. Those days are exhausting. Now for most cops, that is not every day, so they don't get completely run down. But in some situations, in some cities, that is pretty much every day. So they need on their time off, they need to be able to actually relax and not be working a second job and trying to juggle six other balls in the air. People who are type A will typically take on stressors, you know, they want to do everything, they're high strung, they want to do it right, they want to do it perfectly and they're going to say yes to a lot of things and as soon as they finish one project, they're taking something else on, they're not taking a breath, kind of like I'm doing right now and it's really exhausting just to listen to, let alone do. So other situations which we may encounter with our clients are clients who have negative self-talk. If they are regularly telling themselves how worthless they are and how everybody's going to leave them, that is a constant stressor. So they may eventually wear themselves down and excessive stimulant intake. If you have someone who has been abusing methamphetamine, cocaine, or even to an extent caffeine, and I shouldn't admit this, but I will, when I was in college, I would drink so much caffeine, especially during these final exam periods, that when I would drink caffeine, I would actually get tired. It just didn't even work anymore. It's not like it, I got desensitized to it and I could drink three Starbucks or something. I would drink it and I'd actually get sleepy. That's what we call a clue. So if your body is not responding the way you expect it to, in response to a stressor or a stimulant, kind of stand up and take a look at what's going on. I mentioned the HPA axis and we're not going to go into huge detail here because we've only got an hour, but HPA stands for hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis, which controls the stress response. Your hypothalamus, thinking back to Psychobiology 101, it's the brain center that determines if there's a threat. It takes in the stimulus, compares it to what you already know and it goes, this is really bad mojo or this is something we can let go. Whatever it determines, it tells the pituitary gland. It says, don't worry about it, send out the relaxation sign or this is a problem, send out the all hands on deck. The pituitary gland flips the switch, if you will, if you're thinking of it sort of as a relay system. And the pituitary gland tells the adrenal glands there's a problem. We need to start sending out everything and send out the message that all hands on deck and we need to prepare to fight or flee. Disfunction anywhere in the system can cause the person to be too stimulated, stressed or anxious or not stimulated enough or what we typically call depressed. So again, I'm pointing out the fact and I'll use the word depressed a lot more in this than I probably use in my presentations on depression because we use that term so loosely that I want people to really look at what their symptoms are. What are your symptoms of depression and what's causing them? When people are under significant stress, adrenaline and cortisol levels remain high. So people with PTSD, people who are under a lot of stress for whatever reason they've got that big project at work coming up or whatever it is, they're not able to completely turn it off. So their adrenaline and cortisol levels remain high. This interrupts the natural 24-hour cycle of cortisone levels. So the person is basically permanently alert. I don't think any of us want to be permanently alert. I like sleep a lot. What happens is they may fall asleep but they also may wake up in a very anxious state or panic attack. In the middle, there's early stages of adrenal fatigue, mid stages and late stages. In the middle stages of adrenal fatigue when the adrenal glands are starting to really struggle is hypothesized that they may sort of sputter, if you will, and they're supposed to be sending out cortisol and they're not sending out as much. It's a trickle now but every once in a while there's a gush and that gush can be a panic attack and it can come at any time for no apparent reason, at least in the person's mind. They're just like, I woke up and I was in the middle of a panic attack. So restless sleep is a sign. Restless sleep can also contribute to adrenal fatigue because your body's not able to rest and repair. Difficulty maintaining blood sugar. In the late stage of adrenal fatigue, cortisol levels are too low. The thermostat is just completely turned down. The body has said I am not responding to anything except for a herd of elephants parading in here. It's trying to protect itself from burning out. It's like I can't take it anymore. I've had as much stress as I can possibly handle. The person at this point is probably just barely getting through the day and any stressor, anything that would normally be like a one on a scale of one to 10 will just send them into complete crisis. So the thermostat is turned down. Cortisol is responsible in part for maintaining blood sugar though. So people with adrenal fatigue may find that their blood sugar is all over the place. Now what do we know happens when blood sugar gets low for some people? They start to get shaky. They start to feel dizzy. Very similar to panic attack symptoms. So if someone's had a panic attack, they can worry that a panic attack is getting ready to happen and actually work themselves up with negative self-talk into a full-blown panic attack. So blood sugar all over the place. What have we talked about before with maintaining blood sugar, for panic, for depression, whatever? It's important. People need to eat throughout the day. And you'll find when we get down to interventions, most of these interventions are not surprising. And most of these interventions we've talked about before. So whether you want to label something as adrenal fatigue or label it as let's look at taking better care of yourself so your body can support your recovery, you know, that's going to be up to you in your style. Excessive fatigue, apathy, and depression. In the later stages of adrenal fatigue, your adrenals become unable to produce enough of the hormones that you need. And things that would normally get you excited and that can be happy excited, happy excited, scared, angry, or even affecting a libido. None of that's there.  You're just there trying to get along, trying not to just completely lose it. Eeyore never lost it. He was always pretty level. But you can see what I mean when we're talking about the later stages with fatigue. People with later stages of adrenal fatigue may do simple things like clean the house. And I'm not talking spring cleaning. I'm talking vacuuming.  Whereas normally they could go and shop all day long. So it's a departure from what they would normally get exhausted doing. This could mean that your levels of cortisol, along with other neurotransmitters like adrenaline, are lower than they should be. That could be due to a variety of things. Again, it could be the adrenal gland is not functioning well because it's exhausted. It could be that nutrition was poor. So your body couldn't make the neurotransmitters. We don't really know what's going on. But we do know that people who are subjected to extensive stress or excessive stress, you know, so it's moderate stress over a long, long period of time, or a whole lot of stinking stress, just one or two times even, can just completely overwhelm the body. Emotionally, like I said, the person's barely holding it together. Any stressor becomes a crisis. And the person has apathy about or inability to handle even minor stressors due to low hormone levels associated with late stage adrenal fatigue. The adrenals can't keep up. And the demand for cortisol, adrenaline, and norepinephrine production needed to address the stress, it's not there. The hormones that regulate the stress response and allow us to increase our strength, focus, and awareness when we need it are deficient or absent. So people are feeling weak. That can be partly low blood sugar. That can be partly not getting enough sleep. And that can be partly not having the hormones and neurotransmitters necessary to make those muscles contract and feel strong and energetic. Focus is the same way. If you don't sleep enough, even if you're not suffering from adrenal fatigue, if you're not sleeping enough, you're going to have our time focusing. So we need to encourage people to focus on their health and wellness. And I'm not, there are a lot of books out there, there are a lot of websites out there, like I said, that attribute anything and everything under the sun to adrenal fatigue. And they want you to cut out everything processed and drink only spring water that's bottled a certain way and add all these herbs and that may work for some people. And that's obviously a personal choice between them and their healthcare physician. But there are a lot of things that we can do to eliminate our lifestyle stressors that contribute to this. And we'll get into those later. The adrenal function is constantly hovering around the exhaustion threshold level. And the smallest stressor will often trigger an adrenal crash, including coffee. Like I said before, sometimes when I was in college, I would drink coffee and I would drink so much in a 24 hour period over a week or so, that my adrenals would just be like, honey, I got no more to give you. So you need to go to sleep. This is important for people to be aware of. This is important for us to be aware of when we're talking with our clients about what supplements they may be taking. If they're taking pre-workout supplements, if they are taking certain herbs that are known to be stimulatory, it's important. I wonder if that's even a word. Anyway, I get distracted easily. It's important to understand that if the body is not responding how you would expect it to, especially for your person, then they need to take a look at what's going on. Immune system issues. Cortisol also has an anti-inflammatory effect that helps regulate the immune system. A lot of people when they have adrenal fatigue will have joint pain and flare ups of gastrointestinal stuff. Lots of belly aches, lots of joint pain. Cortisol is kind of neat because when you get a scratch on yourself, cortisol comes to the rescue and prevents that scratch from becoming this huge black and blue mass, which brings me to people with adrenal fatigue often, bruise easier. Just being aware of what cortisol does and what their symptoms are and how to help people minimize their stress, because it all comes down to minimizing the frequency and intensity of that fight or flight response. Food cravings. Fatigue, quadrenals produce less and excrete large amounts of important minerals in the urine. There's an imbalance in minerals like sodium, potassium, and magnesium in people's blood if they have adrenal fatigue. They'll have cravings for food that will replace the minerals that we've lost. Chocolate is really high in magnesium. Who knew? Just another reason why chocolate is so awesome. Peanut butter can also be high in magnesium and salty foods because as the adrenals are producing less cortisol and the body is starting to excrete more, we're getting dehydrated, salt levels are getting out of whack. Sodium, potassium imbalances can cause heart problems. People with adrenal fatigue may have heart palpitations. One of the things we worry about in clients who are bulimic, especially anorexic to an extent, but definitely bulimic, is the sodium, potassium imbalance because we can see a lot of really negative side effects of that, especially in terms of heart attacks with those patients. So we keep talking about these stressors, but what is a stressor? It is anything that causes your body to speed up, deal with a threat, or do work. Hey, doing work is a stress. You can tell your boss that. Mental stress, anxiety, fear, or anger are stressors. Physical stressors include exercise, recovery after injury, or illness. Even digestion is a little bit of a stressor. I mean, obviously it's not a huge stressor and it's probably not going to cause any major problems for anybody ever, but it is something that causes your body to do work. So it is technically a stressor. Other stressors are things that prevent your body from recovering.  The same sort of thing that we're talking about here. If your body has responded to a stress and it needs to recovery, if you keep adding more stress on top of it, it's like picking that scab off. It's never going to heal. Lack of sleep, poor nutrition, and continued stress are all things that can prevent the body from recovering. Some of the things we can look for in our clients would be, again, the type A personality, this client of yours that's driven, they're going to be successful, they are high strong, typically probably not the best with time management. The person who says yes all the time because they don't want to disappoint anybody because they need that validation from other people can add a lot of stress. People who have poor time management, they may not be type A, they may just, you know, not have a calendar. And people with low self-esteem who rely on others for external validation will often take on the extra responsibilities and extra stressors even when they don't have the energy to do it because they don't want people to be angry with them. We need to address these with our clients in terms of, I hear that you want to help Sam move this weekend. How is that going to impact you the following week? You're already exhausted, you've had all this stuff going on. If you help him this weekend, what are the potential consequences for the following week? And is there something else that you could do that might be less stressful that could still help him move but you're not going to be spending 12 hours moving boxes from one end of the county to the other? Hypothalamic stressors, basically things in your brain, what is causing your brain to go, there's a, there's a threat when one may or may not exist. When you interpret something as a threat, it triggers a stress reaction. So rejection and isolation fears, fears of failure, fears of the unknown loss of control and anything that makes people fear death or bodily harm. And again, we're talking about people who have PTSD, people who are in car accidents. There can be a lot of different cognitive stressors out there, but a lot of these are exacerbated or even caused by cognitive distortions and irrational thoughts that that's what we're poised to handle. So score, we can help people with this part. We can help people readdress things that they learned when they were young before they could think abstractly and say, okay, back then, you could only see one possible explanation for whatever happened. Now, as you know, an adult, what are some other possible explanations? Because as a child, you're not able to think of alternative explanations. You can only focus on one thing and interpret what you see. But as an adult, maybe we can reinterpret that so it doesn't continue to cause you to have negative self talk.  Mom is supposed to love me in terms of a young child's perspective. So if mom left and mom's supposed to be supposed to love me, then I must be unlovable. Now, as a grown up, who can interpret multiple look at multiple perspectives, we're going, well, that's kind of a reach. But from a four year old's point of view, it actually makes a fair amount of sense. Children are egocentric. So mom must have left because of me. All or nothing thinking she must hate me, which means I am unlovable. As an adult, we can say, okay, I can see how you thought that when you were four. Let's look at it now and see if we can look at it from different perspectives. Maybe there's another explanation for that. Anyhow, physical stressors, low blood sugar.  I'm not saying to not eat M&M's or pizza or drink soda. Those are vices I hold near and dear, but I don't have them for every meal. Excessive stimulant intake, including caffeine, can produce artificial stress. And caffeine is found not only in coffee, but also in soda, teas, including green tea, unless it's decaffeinated, and chocolate. Lack of sleep or circadian rhythm disruption. This can be due to anxiety, it can be due to stress, it can be due to pain, or it can be due to shift work. People who are on shift work typically have a circadian rhythm issue, difficulty falling and getting good sleep, falling asleep and getting good sleep, in addition to other stressors that are going on. So it's important to consider what may be impacting or what may be causing some of the stress. And like I said before, excessive exercise in intensity or duration. If you have somebody who's training for a marathon, if you have somebody who's training for a bodybuilding competition, they may, if they don't give themselves enough rest time, start to experience some adrenal fatigue. So what do we do? This is kind of the reason you're here. What do we do about it? Frequent, small, high quality meals, and you've heard these, most of these foods before, chicken, tuna, salmon, eggs, yogurt, black beans, raw spinach, broccoli, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, cashews, walnuts, quinoa, oatmeal, brown rice, whole wheat, most people can find things on that list that they will eat. Does that mean that that's all you should eat? No. Most people would be miserable if that's all they ate. But we want to encourage people to eat a colorful meal, have three colors on their plate at every meal, eat frequently every three to four hours. Now I'm not talking about a huge meal every three to four hours. A small meal. Remember your undistended stomach is about the size of your bald up fist. So if you're eating a plate of pasta that's the size of a basketball, that's probably more than you really need. When we're talking about portion control, I don't want to add more stress onto my client's lives. I don't want to say, okay, now you need to start counting calories and you need to start logging everything. If they want to, that's great. But if they don't want to, let's look at some easy things, you know, have small portions, colorful, frequent, drink plenty of water in order to get all the toxins out. Minimize sugary soda and juices because that just wreaks havoc on blood sugar. If people are going to drink tea or coffee, it should be decaffeinated, preferably naturally decaffeinated. There are some really ugly chemicals that go into chemical decaffeination. And at this point, the body doesn't need it. Most people don't have an aversion to the naturally decaffeinated, whatever it is. One thing I do tell my clients and probably common sense, if you're used to drinking a lot of coffee or a lot of caffeinated stuff, don't go cold turkey because you will get headaches and you will be miserable. I encourage people that if they're going to do it and I really want them to make, I really want them to make it a lifestyle choice, wean down, you know, go two thirds caffeinated, one third decaf, then half and half, and then one third caffeinated and two thirds decaf until they are it completely decaffeinated. Sugar-free sodas, in terms of adrenal fatigue, are not horrible. In terms of a lot of other things, there's a lot of negative research about what artificial sweeteners do to the blood sugar and the body's response to blood sugar. So I would really encourage people to try to actually drink water. I know it sounds crazy, but a lot of people are not going to like that right away. Encourage them to bring a bottle with them and carry it around with them at work. You'd be amazed at how much more you drink if you've just got a water bottle with you handy all the time and the water's cold. But if they want to have their coffee, if they want to have their tea, just talk about moderation. Ideally, eliminate or greatly reduce white flour and replace it with whole wheat or rye flour. So instead of getting white bread, get whole wheat bread. Try to replace sugar and corn syrup with honey, partially hydrogenated fats with organic cold pressed coconut oil or some other oil in that genre. I encourage my client, if they want to do these things, and this is obviously something that they're going to want to talk over with their nutritionist and or their physician, and I put that disclaimer out there. I don't think any of them do, but we have to put that out there. If they're going to try to make a change, do one a week. So if they're going to try to reduce how much white flour they're eating, great, good for them. Let's focus on white flour this week and not worry about the sugar and the corn syrup and everything else. Too many people wake up on a Monday morning and they go, I'm going to start living healthfully today. And they clean out their cabinets and they just completely turn their life topsy-turvy to start living this completely pure, healthy lifestyle. And their body goes into shock, but they're also not going to enjoy it as much. They will, when we talk about motivational interviewing, they're going to miss the things that they don't have anymore a lot of times. So I encourage them make one change a week or even one change every two weeks. Rome wasn't built in a day. It's not going to hurt if we, you know, do this gently. Encourage them to keep a food diary. So they're target nutrition. They want to look for magnesium at about 400 milligrams a day, calcium at about 1,000, vitamin C, according to the books and the resources section. They're looking for about two to four grams and vitamin E about 800. Whenever clients start looking at nutrition, if they're not getting it just from what they're eating, if they're looking at starting to take supplements, I urge them. And I do urge at this point, I urge them to talk it over with their doctor because some of these things like vitamin E in large amounts and magnesium can be toxic. So it's important that the client understand what they're taking and how much they need for them. But a lot of times, if they start eating healthfully, they're going to get this in their diet anyway, which is why some of the apps that are out there for tracking your nutrition are awesome because they will tell you the breakdown of the nitty gritty. And your B vitamins, there are some other levels that you want. Pantythenic acid is really hard to get up to 250 milligrams. It is what they would call an excitatory B vitamin. It's one that gives people energy. You'll notice that if you look at propel or any of the electrolyte drink waters, it has pantythenic acid in it. My response to them is leave this for later. B vitamins are water soluble. So most of the time, if you take a megadose of it, you're just going to pee it out anyway, and it's not going to do you any good. But let's see what we can get through good eating and good health practices first before we start adding a whole bunch of other pills and stuff that you're taking. Sleeping, creating a routine. I sound like a broken record. People need to have a wind down routine. There are apps you can get for your iPhone, for your iPad now that will actually turn down the brightness and switch it over from a blue hue to a red hue at a certain time of night. You can set whatever time you want it to dim down. The blue tint in the lights, and I'm missing the word that I'm looking for right now. But like in lights that you have at the office, in the fluorescent lights that tend to be kind of harsh, the daylight bulbs, they encourage you to stay awake. They discourage the release of melatonin. So we really want to switch over to those soft colors, the more orangey tints and reduce the light level as much as possible within an hour or two of going to bed. So not like right before bed. You want to give your body a chance to start secreting the melatonin.  So they walk into the bathroom and they turn on like a million watts of lights. No, no, no, no, no, no. If you save your getting ready for bed routine until after you've wound down, try to use a nightlight or a smaller light that's plugged in in the bathroom. Likewise, if you get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, try not to turn on all the lights in the bathroom because it tells your body, hey, it's time to wake up. The sun is amazingly up. So create a sleep routine, keep the lights low from two hours before you go to bed, and then as dark as possible when you're sleeping. And then when you wake up, obviously you want it to be bright. Naps under 45 minutes prevent you from or at least significantly improve the chances that you're not going to mess up your circadian rhythms. So you know, you don't want to get into that deep sleep. Mild to moderate exercise 30 to 45 minutes three times a week. And why did I say specifically that? Because you can tell somebody mild to moderate exercise and that can mean, you know, for me, a moderate exercise would be going and running five miles six days a week. That's probably not going to give my body enough exercise downtime from exercise if I am suffering from adrenal fatigue or getting over an injury or something like that. So being more specific about let's kind of cut down the exercise, we still want you to have the serotonin release, relax the body, increase blood oxygen. If you feel good after you've done 30 to 45 minutes three times in a week, then you can consider upping it a little bit. But let's not go back to, you know, training for that marathon again right away. As clinicians, we can help people address their negative cognitions, manage their time better, encourage them to keep an energy log, or you can call it an energy suck log. Keep a log of everything they do for a week, and then identify which things drain their energy and which things bolster their energy. And you can't necessarily eliminate all of the things that drain your energy. You know, I really detest putting away laundry, but I can't avoid putting away laundry forever. I don't mind doing it. I just hate putting it away. I have a mental block with that. There are little things and these little things that we dread, drain our energy. So how can you make it less aversive? How can you make it a little bit more pleasant to do so it doesn't drain your energy if you have to do it? If it's something you don't have to do, then stop doing it. Imagine that. Now some people are going to say, oh, well, exercise isn't energy drain, so I can't do that. And in excess, exercise can drain energy. And as your body gets used to it, it can drain energy. If you haven't exercised for 10 years and you go to the gym and work out for an hour and a half, yeah, you're going to be stinking exhausted. If you go and work out for 20 minutes, you're priming your body and getting some more oxygen in there. So it's all about figuring out limits, moderation, things that many times our clients are lacking. They'll either not do something at all or they'll do it full bore. The things that bolster your energy, let's do more of those. If it gives you energy to go out hiking in the woods, then maybe plan on doing that once a week. Encourage our clients to do a mind-body scan. First thing in the morning, when they wake up, what are they thinking? What's their mood like? Are they a negative nally or are they feeling pretty happy? Are they able to focus or do they feel foggy? How does their body feel? Is it, is there pain? Is it lethargic? Does it feel heavy? Do they feel energetic? What's going on? Repeat that again before lunch, before dinner, and before bed. Why did I choose those times? Because those are anchor points within the day. Everybody gets up, hopefully.  So those are times of day that they can, that are anchored for everyone that they can remember to do this mind-body scan. It doesn't take 45 seconds to do, but it helps them identify, am I getting too stressed out? Am I getting worn down? Am I feeling agitated? What's causing it? And is there anything I can do about it? Once people start becoming aware of how they feel, oh my gosh, what a concept, they'll find that they tend to be kinder to themselves. Instead of pushing through, they may go, you know, I'm feeling really foggy right now, and I'm tired. I'm going to be much more productive if I pick this up in the morning. Encourage that mindfulness, that mind-body scan. You may even encourage people to write it down. Now, I would be a horrible person to do that, because I would forget to write it down. Or I would only do it haphazardly. But if you can find an easy way for them to write it down or chart it, they might be able to find patterns in their energy levels and patterns in their fogginess, such as before lunch and before bed, or whatever it is for that person. Other alternative interventions. And I use, I add this because it's out there, it's on the internet, it's in the books that I read on adrenal fatigue, so I didn't want to leave it out. But I don't know enough about any of these to speak intelligently about them. So I would strongly suggest that if your client is interested in herbal supplementation or looking at alternative medicine to consult an alternative medicine physician. Licorice root. The supplement, not the candy. So I'll say that first. Too many people see that and they're like, ooh, I can eat licorice all day long every day. No, no licorice root is far different. Ashwagandha is supposed to be a normalizing herb that helps. If you've got too much cortisol, it brings it down. If you've got too little cortisol, it tells your body to bring it up. It stabilizes and normalizes things. Astrologous root has also been found to be helpful. Siberian ginseng for women especially has been found to be helpful. Pan-X ginseng tends to be stimulating. Siberian ginseng has not been found to be as stimulating. And then there is some theories that support like supports like so they talk about using adrenal cell extracts in order to support the adrenal gland. Again, I am not educated on these enough to speak intelligently about who should use them, what dosage they should be used, what is contraindicated. It is out there and your clients may read about it and ask you about it. So we need to know where to refer them preferably to a holistic medicine physician or practitioner who can speak authoritatively on these in terms of that particular patient's care. So some of this information, thinking about clients that you've worked with over the past week, are there one or two things that you're thinking, hmm, you know, maybe this isn't just simple depression as we were thinking about. Maybe there is a adrenal component or a biological component to it. Were there things that you heard in here that you said, you know, none of this would hurt or this particular intervention wouldn't hurt any of my patients if they started trying to drink more water or eat smaller meals more frequently or whatever it is. And thinking about how effective it might be for them in the short term and how you can help them implement it in the long term. Adrenal fatigue mimics many of the symptoms of depression. The biggest thing is that low energy and lack of enjoyment apathy for just about anything. The body has turned down your excitatory neurotransmitters that said, we're going to burn up if we keep running at this high level. So we've got to dial it back. At a certain point, this may be because there is not, the body just can't produce enough cortisol. But before that, you know, in the early stages, the body's turning down the system. Adrenal fatigue is a physical element that can be compounded or caused by mental stress and anxiety. Interventions should start with improving lifestyle factors. And like I said, one per week is more than enough. If somebody starts sleeping better, they're going to have a lot of positive effects. Now, if one of the complaints they have is they can't sleep because they're waking up with panic attacks, then we probably need to A, get them in to see their physician to see if there is a biochemical cause for it that's easily treated. Most physicians, and I'm not saying all, there's, you know, about 20% of physicians out there have heard of adrenal fatigue and are somewhat supportive of it. There aren't easy tests for adrenal fatigue. So it's not like they can go in and say, okay, I want the adrenal fatigue test in order to see if I've got it or not. And there's a definitive thing. If they've tested for hypothyroid, they've tested thyroid hormones, and those all seem to be in balance. Adrenals might be something else to consider talking with their doctor about antidepressants, stimulants, and steroids because a lot of times when someone is in either a lot of pain and having inflammation or feeling tired, they will be given steroids. These typically have little effect on adrenal fatigue because there's just no more cortisol to give. You cannot squeeze blood from a turnip. And these may actually even make it worse. So if the patient starts taking any of these or, like I said, says that, you know, coffee's not even doing it for me anymore, this is something you might want to consider talking to your patient about and saying, okay, well, that might indicate there's a biochemical thing going on here that you're just exhausted. And sometimes instead of saying adrenal fatigue, which sounds very, very overwhelming, or worse yet, HPA axis dysfunction, which sounds completely scary, we may just talk about total bodily exhaustion. And how the body's response, the brain wants to protect the body. So let's look at how this makes sense.  It's trying to protect itself. I'm out of gas. You can't make me do anymore. Helping them understand the functional nature of it. And how their body can recover. If they give it time, you know, they need to give their body time to recover, whether it's from emotional stress, job stress, relationship stress, whatever they want to label it, it had an impact, and they do need time to recover. So there is a host of resources and these are also in your classroom. So you can click on the links really easily and go and look and see what's available and what's there. It does give you some information. Like I said, some of these will attribute every symptom under the sun to adrenal fatigue and talk about some very alternative and extreme interventions. Most of our patients, if we can even help them just start living healthfully and taking care of themselves, it's going to be important. Now a question comes in about how hypothyroidism fits into adrenal fatigue. Symptoms of hypothyroidism are very similar to symptoms of depression. So if the thyroid is dysfunctioning, then you're going to have someone who has dry skin, constipation, exhaustion, fatigue, you know, wanting to sleep all the time. Adrenal fatigue has some very similar symptoms. So we're talking about effective differential diagnosis.  Just go home, chill out for a while, and you'll be fine. And they feel like just regular chilling out isn't doing it. And that's true. That's probably true. There's more to it to whatever's going on that is causing their stress and draining their adrenal system. So I want to know why are they on constant overdrive physically or emotionally? Once you can start eliminating that, people will often start feeling better. Ideally, you'll be working in a multidisciplinary team. But even just the things that we can do, helping them with their cognitions and pointing them in the direction of resources to educate themselves about proper nutrition, and just general health and wellness behaviors will do a lot of good for a lot of our patients. Well, thank everybody for attending today. I really enjoyed this presentation, and I enjoyed you being here with me. And if you have any questions, feel free to send me an email at support at allceus.com.


Why it ain't Scorda Baddie, Scorda Baddie, Scorda Baddie Day. Why it ain't Scorda Baddie, Scorda Baddie, Scorda Baddie Day. Flops. What reaction did you get? It's on Corbin. I'm Ashley. I'm Rick. And you can follow us on Instagram. So Juicy. And thank you first of all to some Patreon. Yes. Excuse Quentin there. Everyone up there just once again. Thank you. Always uploaded before here. Even days before. In fact, the content over there is so Juicy, it drips onto this channel. It's true. That's why we're slimy. But today we are reacting to a video. It's called Dear CSK. And I'll read the little description here. Description. It's based on many true stories. Dear CSK, it's a simple story of how a cricket team can change the way we look at ourselves and the world around us. Created using 3,000 hand-drawn frames over the course of 50 days. Wow. So this is obviously a hand-drawn thing about your game. Yeah. Cool. And it's just like, this is just a video that was made for artistic purposes. I believe so. Alright. We'll see. Can't wear headphones? Sorry. Headphone users. I'm sure it gasses around. Well, I have a sound bar doesn't it? Didn't have to read that. Yeah. Oh. Dear CSK. Wow. That's awesome. That's awesome. Thank you. That's awesome. That's awesome. Thank you. Thanks so much. Thanks. Bye. Bye. I started to concentrate. I asked my parents to send me out of college. They asked me how I could come to Chennai. In the beginning, I had a lot of chances. I was scared of the crowd, the wild animals, the wild animals. After so many years of studying in girls' school, I had to go to a certain education college. I didn't know how to talk to the kids. I didn't know anything. I didn't know anything. At least, when I was at home, I didn't know if I was going to stay in a hostel or an independent place. But when I came here, I didn't want to go to western clubs. If I wanted to go out, I wanted to sign a signature of my parents. I didn't want to talk to them over the phone at 10 o'clock. I came to the hostel at 6 o'clock. After a few days, I came to know that boys' hostel doesn't have any rules like this. My mother told me the same thing. There are boys and girls. There were two girls who asked me this. But I didn't have the courage. I didn't know why I left them with the problem of the girls. I had two friends. I was in a hostel class. I was in a hostel class. I was watching a movie together. One semester ended like that. Second semester, April month. We didn't know anything about cricket. We only knew about IP in the entire college. We planned to watch at least one match if we had to stay in the same place. On the 23rd of April, 2008, we went to a hostel warden. We got permission from the hostel. We went to the first class person. We got on the 27th bus. We got off at the Chepak stadium. There was so much noise. There was so much crowd. There was so much fear. But the moment we stepped on the stadium, we were shocked. We were shocked. We were shocked. We were shocked. We were shocked. But some people I met and some people I saw were like this. I can't forget this at the very last moment. In the stormy summer, a thousand characters are played around in the snow and the rain. I couldn't take the idea of who they are. I can't take the idea of who they are.  At the same time, three cheerleaders wear my college collection, wearing a pretty dress.  When she was six, a father took her daughter and took her away. In the outside world, there are many other things. But where? There is no religion, no caste, no rich, no family, no children, no women. In the present world, there is no pink, no blue. There is only yellow. Our CSK team is like the world we live in. From Dhoni Ranch, from the West Indies, from South Africa, from other countries, from other players. But the people who are with them are trying to find a way to find a way to win. In our country, there are many famous songs.  You shouldn't go home.  You shouldn't dream of this. But in this country, there are many women like Mithaliraj, Merekumar, and many others. Girls like me don't come here to play, to play, to play. But when I was a child, I didn't play in sports. But if I didn't play, my parents wouldn't let me play. But if I told my children to play, to play, to play, to study, to stay in this country, then to study is in our hand. I learned CSK in a non-facetime match, which took at least 100 hours to learn the entire way. That day, I played CSK with my child. It was a real joy. I had a job at college last year, so I bought that job and filed a case with my parents. I had a job and I was a good student. 3 years ago, she was born and raised by us. But before trying to teach her how to live her life to this world, she was born and raised by us. It's very, very clear the amount of work that was done and beautiful sound editing. I'm sure with headphones on, it's all over the place. It's obviously such a great story that you get to hear. Even though we've seen in India cinema, women have been empowered for much longer than they have here in America. But obviously, there's still societal pressures and prejudices they put on each gender.  You can't play this sport, you can't play that sport. Which is issues all over the world. But what's also, we're learning more about India, which I don't know how much of this you would be aware of, you may be, but learning that as much as we've seen in films, the stories depicting women and their power and individuality, but it seems in the same way it is here in the United States, it's regional, it depends on where you go. In the larger major cities, they tend to be a bit more liberal, progressive, accepting, empowering like the coasts here. And then when you get to the rural places, it is completely the other way around. To the point of just flat out abusive of women. But it takes time to make those changes. Yeah, sadly. And then also this shows the power that cricket has in terms of India, and obviously many places in the world, because whenever we do a cricket thing, we always get this comment, cricket isn't a sport, it's a religion, or it's life. Yeah, which we're beginning to understand that now. We didn't know what you meant by that other than you hear football for Americans is that way. But when I say that, I'm just letting you know people will say that here, that they're big football fans. But it's not, you would never see a football thing like this. Well, it's different because obviously the United States doesn't support one team in football. Right. There's a lot of rivalries. A lot of rivalries. And I'm beginning to understand, I can appreciate what they mean. When we first started learning cricket, they're like you don't, it's more than just a sport with rules you need to learn. Basically the pride the United States has during the Olympics, for no other time during the four years. Yeah, where everybody is just united and we're rooting for one thing. But then it goes away immediately after they have kind of just all the time for their team. For their team, it's not just World Cup, it's IPL, which is every year. And it is, it is a way of life. So I hope you all have seen this. If it's the first time you've seen it, I would imagine you think it's beautiful. Yeah, that was fantastic. Really beautiful. Love it. Thank you fully for making it. Yeah, beautiful. How many views does this have? Two million. Two million. That's not enough. But it came out. There's a billion people in India, guys. Get this thing viral over there. Yeah, I mean it came out last year as well. Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah, awesome. Thank you so much for the recommendation.