Graduate Nicola Sainty talks about studying Nutritional Therapy
“For anyone thinking of enrolling my advice would be don’t have any fear and just go ahead. It doesn’t matter what you use the course for at the end – it’s the start of an exciting lifelong journey”
Before I enrolled with the School of Health, I spent 18 years in a fast-paced Corporate Retail company, working long hours, travelling and eating unhealthy food on the go. My stress levels were high and my sleep patterns were disrupted from working different shifts. It eventually led to burn out and I realised I needed to come away from that environment. Slowly I started to make changes. It was only small things like cutting out coffee, eating less bread and drinking more water – but I noticed the more bad habits I negated and replaced with good habits the better I felt, so I started reading more on health and nutrition. The tipping point for me came when my dad was diagnosed with a brain tumour. At that point there was little that could be done but it made me realise I wanted to help people to make diet and lifestyle changes before they became ill.
I looked at various colleges but kept getting drawn back to The School of Health because they truly embodied all of the natural principles. I’d also recently had a baby and other courses just didn’t have the flexibility that I needed. I took full advantage of that flexibility! When my daughter was sleeping well I would make great progress, but at other times I would fall behind. My tutor was really understanding and supported me to study at my own pace.
The course is unique in the way it delivers the full 360 degree view of health from the foundations of Eastern medicine and the history of naturopathy through to the science of nutrition. Working with a client is like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle, starting with the edges then filling all the middle pieces in! One of the great things about the course is that it shows you all the different options that are available to you as a therapist, like understanding a person’s constitution, circadian rhythms and other key signals that you might never have considered with a purely scientific approach. It ‘connects the dots’ by joining the fundamental elements of health together.
The key thing the course taught me was to keep an open mind and going through the programme helped me grow as a person and look at things differently. It opened my mind and I now have a different perspective on life. I still attend lectures and webinars at the School, even covering material that I’ve done before. I find it really helps to cement the learning and each time I come away with a deeper understanding or new ideas.
For anyone thinking of enrolling my advice would be don’t have any fear and just go ahead. Getting started is the hardest part because it requires the most effort but once you start, you’ll be so engrossed you won’t want to stop! And if life gets busy just look at it as a pause in your journey – not the end of it.
When I qualified I initially worked with clients on a one-to-one basis and had just begun some group work when Covid struck. I’d always planned in the long term to take my business online, so during lockdown I studied how to deliver a course online and have since written two ‘health reset’ programmes which anyone can download and follow in their own time. I’m currently working on a third online programme on the ABO blood types, which has become my speciality, and also work part-time as a Business Support Consultant for a major supplement company. It doesn’t matter what you use the course for at the end – it’s the start of an exciting lifelong journey.
Tags: Retraining
This entry was posted on 09 June 2021 at 12:24 and is filed under Inspiration | Nutrition.