Hello and Welcome to Season 4, Episode 4

The theme in the Lifestyle First Method we’re exploring today is: E: Exercise.

Exercise we know, by definition is planned, structured, repetitive purposeful movement - so how about planning repetitive, purposeful standing through the day.

Today, the one question I want to explore is:

“What if Standing became the new Sitting?”

-x- 

The two pieces of information I’ve looked at to review this are two documents by The Department of Health. The first is a review of sedentary behaviour and obesity from 2010 and the second is the most updated UK Chief Medical Officers Physical Activity Guidelines from September 2019

-x-

Now the thing with sitting down is that once you sit down, how many times do you actually think about standing up? Sure, you’ll stand up if you need to get something or go somewhere but otherwise one thing about sitting is that we then forget about standing. Which is why we can go for hours at a stretch, sat in front of our computers or the TV. Or sitting to read, talk, listen to music.

But what if you stood instead. And forgot about sitting. How would this feel? How would this benefit you and benefit your health? How many of you are sitting down comfortably listening to this podcast right now. Well, let me invite you to stand up and listen instead – all rise, unless you’re driving of course. And tell me in the comments at the end of the episode what your experience was.

Research has suggested that we are spending an average of 9 and a half hours a day sitting down and in lockdown, there is no doubt that this number has increased considerably.

Interestingly as well, sitting behaviour tracks from childhood to adolescence to adulthood – how much your children are sitting will pave the way for the habits they develop into adulthood.

Now today, we’re talking about standing being the new sitting, and you might have even heard the phrase sitting is the new smoking. It’s a strong phase, perhaps not fully accurate though because smoking is certainly far more high risk, but the phrase does at least command attention and highlight the significant risks of sitting.

So here are the top 5 risks of sitting:

5. Cancer.

4. Heart Disease and Diabetes

3: Back and Neck Pain

2: Loss of productivity

1: Death

-x-

3 activating actions

1. Take the sitting to rising test

2. Stand for 60 seconds every 60 minutes

3. When you're sitting ask yourself could I be standing instead

-x-

References

1. Department of Health: Sedentary Behaviour ad Obesity: Review of the Current Scientific Evidence. March 2010

2. UK Chief Medical Officers Physical Activity Guidelines September 2019

-x-

Find Out More/Contact/Follow me: 

Newsletter: https://dralkapatel.com/mailinglist

Website: www.dralkapatel.com

Social:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dralkapateluk/

https://www.facebook.com/dralkapateluk

https://www.instagram.com/dralkapateluk

https://twitter.com/dralkapateluk

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaQrM4ryE0a38zqsednEppQ

Podcast: https://anchor.fm/dr-alka-patel

DISCLAIMER: This content  does not constitute or substitute personal one-to-one professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or health care professional with questions about your health.

Welcome to Series 4, Episode 3.

The theme in the Lifestyle First Method we’re discussing today is F: Food

So with each forkful of food you eat, do you ever stop to think about which part of you you’re feeding. Of course every part of us needs feeding, but the brain is arguably more important than the body. Because what you demand from your brain every day is everything that makes you human-  thinking, reasoning, concentration, emotion, memory. All your experiences. Work, Relationships. Happiness. And so of course, we want to be able to eat in a way which provides our brain the building blocks of everything in our life.

And so the one question I’m asking today is

“ Clever eating – Is there really such as thing as brain food?

And I’ve considered 2 pieces of information to support our thinking today. The Book Brain Food by Dr Lisa Mosconi and the research paper The Mind Diet

Now I think that if we’re going to think about the food that is important for our brain, we should really start off by thinking about what the brain is made of.

Like the rest of our body, it’s basic structure is cells. And it’s a mosaic of cells – over a hundred billion nerve cells and just as many non nerve cells.

Every cell is surrounded by an envelope called the cell membrane and a key component of the cell membrane is fats.

So clearly fat is important for brain health – we need that envelope around our brain cells to be robust enough to protect its contents.

Water too –your brain is full of water and for the purposes of today’s conversation I’m classifying water as food though of course we could open up a whole conversation on that topic alone!

So our brain is made up of fat and water.

So what else does our brain need.

Well, the brain is a powerhouse! Although it weighs only 2% of your body mass, it uses 25% of your daily energy. The reason it uses so much energy is not only to keep your mind and body processes going but also to ensure the health of it’s own cells. Even when you’re resting, or you seem to be doing nothing such as sleeping, there is a huge amount of cell regeneration going on and a huge amount of processing going on. All your daytime emotions and experiences are processed during rest to set the tone for your next day, create that map you can turn to in your daily decision making So we need to feed our powerhouse so that it can continue to power up. And the basic energy source that can be utilised by the brain is glucose, so carbohydrates which are then broken down into glucose are an important food source for our clever brain. Of course, the source of the carbohydrates matters for a range of other health reasons and we’ll talk about this in future episodes, but as far as the brain is concerned, it’s only letting glucose through its protective blood-brain barrier.

So fat, water glucose.

And finally, what the brain needs is protection from damage – and that protection comes from polyphenols - those micronutrients, anti oxidants in colourful foods that mop up those over excited molecules that are bouncing around the brain causing dna damage

So fat, water, glucose and polyphenols – our 4 core brain foods.

So here’s my top 5 foods that matter for your grey and white matter:

- Omegas 3’s to build cell membranes and reduce inflammation - from flaxseeds, algae, fish or supplements

- Carbohydrates to provide glucose from colourful vegetables

- Anti-oxidants to stop damage and keep the memory sharp from berries

- And I’m just going to throw in dark chocolate -because it contains that lovely  antioxidant theobromine that also supports memory and cognitive skills

And 3 actions for today:

1. think Omega 3

2. Make eating berries a daily habit

3. Swap out milk chocolate for dark chocolate

Have a happy, healthy day!

Hello and Welcome to Series 4, episode 2:

The theme in the Lifestyle First Method we're exploring today is

I: identity

EGO. That 3-letter word that really gets a bad name. We immediately connect ego  with being arrogant, self-centred, loud, the centre of attention, pushy, uncaring. But how ca your ego help you?

One question I’m asking today is “How can you make a loud impact with a quiet ego?”

Two articles I’ll be talking about this week are based on the work of Heidi Wayment:

One article titled The Quiet Ego: Motives for Self-Other Balance and Growth in Relation to Well-Being, and the other titled The Quiet Ego Scale: Measuring the Compassionate Self-Identity; and both these articles have been published in the Journal of Happiness

-x-

* Your ego is your I. It’s the identity you create to help you navigate through life with a sense of self that is an important part of your identity. And your ego is very defensive about your identity. It's prime action is to protect you It’s your self-defence for survival.

*  You need ego to exist, to create that unique experience of being you, to actually enable you to participate in life. It’s your ego that plunges you forward into doing things you might have held back from. It builds bravado and confidence. But the flip side is that it can also push you into fear. Because when you’re in a challenged state and your ego is at its most defensive, it overcompensates. Anything outside of your beliefs, your ideas, your thoughts will be strongly rejected by your ego.

*Your ego can be a great asset, but it can also be a great drain. 

* It turns out that the paradox of the QUIET EGO has much more positive benefit on your wellbeing, on your growth, on your health.

* Quiet is not silent.

* Quiet is not squashing your ego so that you lose your identity.

* Your identity is part of your survival mechanism.

* You're keeping it.

* But the quiet ego survives by turning it’s volume down. The prime action of the quiet ego is to protect you by a less defensive mechanism by cultivating an authentic identity to notice and listen to others, without losing the self, in order to be able to approach life more compassionately. 

* There are 4 components to the quiet ego :

 - detached awareness

- inclusive identity

- perspective taking

- growth mindedness

-x-

 Three activation actions:

Action 1: Take the Quiet Ego Scale Questionnaire. This is a way to measure your compassionate self-identity. It’s a short questionnaire that you can find at www.quiet-ego.bleeker.co It will give you a starting point from which to identify areas you might want to work on

Action 2: Get to know your ego. It’s all connected to the word I. What do you say after the word I. So set an intention this week to observe your ego with one conversation you have today, Notice everything you say after the word I

Action 3: notice when your ego is fragile – over defensive, overcompensating, you’re feeling stuck, you’re finding it hard to connect with people And when you notice this, try and change the perspective. – think about those 4 areas of a quiet ego – detached awareness, inclusive identity, perspective taking and growth mindedness – what can you change?

-x-

References

Wayment. H.A. The Quiet Ego: Motives for Self-Other Balance and Growth in Relation to Wellbeing. Journal of Happiness Studies. 2018. 19(3): 881-896

Wayment. H. A. The Quiet Ego Scale: Measuring the Compassionate Self-Identity. Journal of Happiness Studies. 2015. 16(4):999-1033

"How can you live with purposeful intention every day?"

"How do you look back to propel yourself forward?

"How can you create a success mindset"

"What if we could be 1% happier, healthier and perform better every day?"

"How do family connections have positive impact?"

"Can gratitude help you thrive?"