Welcome to Living Well with MS Coffee Break #29, where we are pleased to welcome Linda Boueke as our guest!  

Our Coffee Break series is your chance to get to know members of our diverse OMS community. In each episode, you’ll join Geoff Allix for an intimate chat with a different member of our global community. Our guests will share their personal stories and talk about their challenges and victories, large and small. We hope you find common cause and a source of inspiration from the stories of these very special people. 

As always, your comments and suggestions are always welcome by emailing podcast@overcomingms.org. We hope you enjoy this episode’s conversation with Linda, coming to you straight from Hamburg, Germany. 

Linda’s Bio: 

Linda is from Hamburg, Germany, and she was diagnosed with RRMS in 2014. She immediately changed her diet and after attending an OMS seminar in 2016, she started to adopt the OMS Program completely. Since 2017, she has served as an Ambassador for the OMS Circle in Hamburg, and she sometimes holds seminars in Germany to help inform others about OMS. In 2019, she has started a second career as a solo-singer and performer. Following her dreams has become easier because OMS has helped her regain strength and focus, so she is incredibly thankful to have found OMS so early.

Click here for a full transcript of this episode.

Questions: 

  • Linda, welcome to Living Well with MS Coffee Break. We’re so pleased to have you on our program. The purpose of this series is to better get to know some of the diverse members of our community from around the world, and today you’re in the hot seat. Can you tell us a little about your day-to-day life? 

  • When were you diagnosed with MS? Can you provide some context on that? When were you diagnosed and how did you initially deal with it? 

  • At which point did you come across the OMS Program? How was that experience for you? Why did you decide to start following it? 

  • What are some of the challenges you faced at first in adopting the OMS Program, and how did you overcome them? 

  • When did you first start to see any kind of positive results in following the OMS Program, and what were these? 

  • You’re currently very involved in the OMS community, particularly as the ambassador of the OMS Circle in Hamburg. Can you talk to us about the OMS Circles experience, and what that’s meant to you?  

  • I also understand that you conduct seminars about OMS principles in Germany, trying to raise awareness about the positive aspects of lifestyle change for people with MS. How’s that going and what motivated you to start that endeavor? 

  • One of your guiding principles is the concept of flow. Can you tell us a little about that and what it means to you? 

  • That’s a good segue into things in your life in which you find “flow”, such as singing and dancing. Can you share a little more insight into your creative passions? 

  • Linda, thank you so much for being on Living Well with MS Coffee Break and allowing our community to get to know one of its own a little better. One last question before you go, and it’s a bit of a tradition in that we ask it of all our Coffee Break guests. If you tap into your experience with MS generally and OMS specifically for a nugget of wisdom that would help people ease into and better adopt the OMS program, what would that advice be? 

Three Interesting Facts About Linda (in her own words): 

  • I find it so important to spread the word about the importance of lifestyle and the OMS Program to enable others to live a full and healthy life even with the diagnosis. Hope is a crucial thing to fight the mental challenges of such a diagnosis, and OMS provides evidence-based hope. I wish for many others to find the strength in themselves to change their lives for the better by adopting the OMS lifestyle and to live a full and healthy life for many years.  

  • To prevent depression, which is common in people with MS, I find it most important to listen to your inner voice. Find out what you really want to do and with whom and try to get rid of energy-draining things and people in your life. I write a journal every few days, and I rigidly stick to the habits of at least 30 minutes of exercise (about 6 days a week) and daily meditation. I love my new eating habits though it was hard to change my diet at the beginning. Even if got rid of MS today, I would not go back to the way I used to eat.  

  • I was thrilled to learn about the Concept of Flow, which I encountered during my singing studies. Stimulating the ventral vagus nerve helps to counteract the stress response of the body and may enable you to reach peak performance and allow your body to heal. For my life, that means that I try to do what I love as much as possible – sing, dance, meet easygoing people, paint, and write. When you don’t feel time passing, and you are neither bored nor stressed, then you are probably enjoying “flow”.  

Linda’s Links: 

Coming up on our next episode: 

On the next episode of Living Well with MS, premiering April 6, 2022, meet Dr. Mitzi Joi Williams, a Board-Certified Neurologist and Fellowship trained Multiple Sclerosis Specialist who serves as the Founder & CEO of the Joi Life Wellness Group Multiple Sclerosis Center outside of Atlanta, Georgia. She’ll tap into her deep well of medical experience to provide a practical roadmap on introducing lifestyle change to your healthcare professional. 

Don’t miss out: 

Subscribe to this podcast and never miss an episode. You can catch any episode of Living Well with MS here or on your favorite podcast listening app. For your convenience, a full episode transcript is also available on all platforms within 72 hours of each episode’s premiere. If you like our program, don’t be shy and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you tune into the show. And feel free to share your comments and suggestions for future guests and episode topics by emailing podcast@overcomingms.org. 

S4E49b transcript_Linda Boueke.pdf