In this session, we focus on moving ourselves from autopilot to awareness. That’s the moment when everything can change for you!
Video Transcript:
Dr. A: All right, everybody. Congratulations on making it to the next year. You know, this is our next rotation around the planet. I like to think that way because it really kind of puts the magnitude that, you know, it takes 365 days for us to circle the sun. And so, we’re now on our next rotation. We’re on the sixth day of our next rotation around the sun. So what I want to do today in this conscious forum is really focus on moving ourselves from autopilot to awareness. That’s the moment that everything changes for you. And it’s really important. It’s something, sometimes we hear, we kind of understand it, but we don’t actually act on it. And it’s a new year. It’s an opportunity to change the dynamics and really lead from the future that you want for your own health, your own life.
And so in the conscious forum, just to kind of get everybody up to speed that’s coming for the first time — and welcome! This forum is really designed around increasing our consciousness, our awareness, our presence, our ability to really negotiate through the world, minimize suffering, and optimize thriving in our lives. And a lot of us have been in patterns and routines that have not served us. And so this is kind of an opportunity for me to give you kind of an overview of some of the things you can start thinking about, and then as you think about it, start to act on it. And so in a forum like this I’ll do a little talking in the beginning here to kind of set up the flow and then if you want to dive in, let Rach know that you want to ask a question or make a comment. And so that’s how this really works.
It’s about humans being more together and starting to explore we’re more common, we’re more the same than we are different and how we can maybe use some of the wisdom and experience that I’ve had working with people over the last, you know, last 30 plus years and helping it apply to you and also everybody learns when we when we work together. So let’s go ahead and get started. The question is: feeling overwhelmed. You know, I mean, do you think about it? A new year. The Christmas presents or the Hanukkah presents are now the bills are there. You’re having to pay for them. It’s the start of a new year. How is it going to be different? You know, do you feel kind of overwhelmed with thinking AI is coming on more and more — ChatGPT?
People just absolutely have so much going on and so many distractions that it’s hard to really focus on our own life. So, you know, are you having those feelings of feeling a little lost or even powerless? You know those are all things that people, when I talk to them, mention that that’s how they feel. So autopilot, which we mentioned is kind of what the title is, moving from autopilot to awareness. Autopilot is not a failure. It’s an unconscious efficiency. It’s basically what we do in order to not have to think about everything in our day. You know when you first learned how to drive a car, you had to know where the blinkers were. You had to know how to go from the accelerator to the brake, the windshield wipers, the headlights, all this stuff going on. Rear view mirrors, side mirrors, and you used to have to work and focus on it to make all that work. And in the beginning, you weren’t really good at it, and you had to be more cautious. Now, you drive your car, you don’t even think about it. You are on autopilot. And unfortunately, sometimes when we’re on our phone, our heads hopefully are on a hands-free inside your car, but we’ll go all the way from the place we started to the place we were finishing, like going home, and all of a sudden we realize in the conversation, how did we even get here?
Because autopilot is really unconscious efficiency, and it works. It’s about biology and how we work. And so it’s nothing that I want you to blame yourself about. We want you to normalize that it’s part of life. But what ends up happening, the cost of autopilot can actually be things as important as your health, your relationships, and your purpose. Because basically, when you’re on autopilot, you’re just kind of going through the routine, the pattern, and you’re not sensing the urgency of any situation. So, it can make a great cost. And so, we’re going to talk about that. So, awareness is the interruption. It creates the space. And what I mean by that, it’s not it’s not a force. It’s actually a space. It’s one moment can change the direction of everything. You know, it could be something as simple as one of the things I learned, you know, as I was building this mission to help get the world healthy. When my girls, I’ve been doing it for 25 years now, when my girls were really young, I would be on a phone call or a Zoom or something and they would come home from school and they would come down and want to see me.
And what I did was actually become aware of them and if I was on a call or something, unless it was critical, I would say, “Hey, can I call you back?” And I would greet them, listen to them, and they only wanted about five minutes of dad’s time, right? And then they’re bored with me and then they’re off to doing their own thing. But that awareness, that creating that space where I was there for them, interacting from their whole day and then allowing to interface was critical. And you know, even I just came back from being out in Vail and skiing with with my daughters. Well, my older daughter’s pregnant, but she was there, and we had an amazing time together. And that time is because all the way growing up, I was always there. They know how much they matter to me and how important it is what their world’s full of — and their world obviously has gotten more complex, but my older one is now living in Manchester, England, and is getting ready to have her first baby. And it’s an exciting time. Very, very different than when she was five. And then my younger one is in vet school. And so lots of lots to talk about, since I’m a physician, she likes to talk about physiology and anatomy. And so we have a lot of space by being aware, basically hanging out.
It’s so important in your relationships, in your occupation, if you’re a coach, listening to others. All these things are so critical because it allows us to change the direction, momentum, of our relationships, our health, pretty much everything. So, step one. It’s about interrupting the pattern. You know, autopilot breaks when momentum pauses. So, when we’re on autopilot and everything’s just kind of going along throughout the day and you’re like that hamster on the wheel, which is why you may feel overwhelmed. You don’t really have much of a say. You’re just going through the routines. By pausing that momentum, by breaking that pattern, by not letting stimulus create direct response, you can start to change that. So name what is happening. You know, give a language to the experience by naming creates separation from reaction. I’m reacting, not choosing. And then when you basically realize that, then you can use something that I developed, you know, now 20 plus years ago. Stop. Challenge. Choose. You’re creating a gap. You’re putting things into perspective. And I like this. I picked this photo because it shows and it’s out, you know, if you look at this out in a sand flat, in the middle of the islands, and I know places that I would go with my girls, and you know, you can see the moon up above. And all of a sudden that little thing that you are in this expansive space, looking up at the moon, it changes everything for you.
All of a sudden all those things that were so important, all those micro things are so important, aren’t that important. And what you see — the expansiveness. And so having that puts everything into perspective that we’re this little dot, you know, there’s now we know there’s over, you know, there’s millions and millions of galaxies. Our Milky Way is just our galaxy, but there’s, you know, with the new telescopes, they can look out and see like a trillion different galaxies. And it’s just crazy how the magnitude of our universe and then we’re just this little dot in the middle of almost nowhere. This blue, green beautiful planet where life, so many different types of life, and you know, the other day, a magpie, when I was in Vail, just came up and sat on my rail and just sat there and we kind of, I was working on my computer and I just kind of saw distracted by the the focus and I kind of looked at him and he looked back — or she — and looked back at me and just kind of sat there and then made this little like squawking sound. It was like talking to me and I don’t know what I was being told but basically that moment, that connection, there is a bird sitting there talking to me. I mean are you kidding me? Where else in the universe can you do that? So it’s important to put things into perspective like that.
So step two is to regulate your body. You want to slow the nervous system shift to your body. Awareness starts physiologically, not up here. So you don’t build awareness by [Dr. A gestures with his hands], you become aware of your presence, of your body, how you’re sitting, and you want to slow your nervous system because when you’re on autopilot, you’re just running at full speed. One of the things that we’re going to talk about in a second here, but what I found is your breath is critical for that. And so we’ll talk about that. One breath changes your chemistry. Physiology drives psychology basically. So invite taking one slow effect. Do it right now. Take a nice deep breath, pause, and kind of let the room feel that pause. And it changes everything for you. It really does.
And so, normally, you know, the autonomic nervous system, putting on my doctor’s hat for a second, controls our heart rate, our breathing rate, all those things are part of the autonomic nervous system, which means they are being controlled without you being conscious of it. But the cool thing is you can become conscious of your breath. In fact, you can use it as a diagnostic and then a therapeutic agent. And what I mean by that is diagnostically if you suddenly become aware of your breath and ask yourself where am I breathing from? Am I breathing from up here shallow, fast, or am I breathing slow from my belly? And a good way to tell is put your one hand on your chest and one on your belly and take a deep breath. And where you should be feeling the expansion is actually in your belly because your diaphragm comes down and it pushes your organs out. So your belly goes out a little bit and that’s that’s deep breathing. And by first being aware if you’re shallow breathing then you’re probably anxious, you’re stressed out about stuff. And that breath, by taking a slow deep breath, which we just did, and we can do another one now, you’re taking control of your physiology.
And when you do that, it drives your psychology. It allows you to calm, become slower, pause and repeat. And now you can change. And by doing that, it’s a great thing you can do like once an hour or something. Just catch yourself. It can really help you start changing your physiologic state, which is critical for your long-term health. So step three is: ask a better question. You know, better questions shape better identities, not what should I do? Could I? Should I? Need to? Those are not words. You want: what I desire, what I want, what I love. That language says something that is important to you. And so you want to ask, what do I love? What would I love to do? What is important? What gives me foundationally this feeling of involvement and fulfillment? So there’s always a different road you can take. And a lot of the roads that we take every day, the well-beaten path as you can see are not the ones that take us really where we want to go. Asking the question where do we want to go?
And so that is the next question. Who do I want to be right now? What do I want to represent? This is basically the heart of everything I’m talking about today. It’s like that awareness and how do we make modifications. You know, what do I want to be right now? Well, I wanted to come on this call today. I met with Rachel and Chris before and I love doing this call because if this helps you move the dial it does help your relationships. It helps your health, helps all the key areas in your life. And we want to know that you are the pilot and it’s not autopilot — only autopilot for the things that are mundane, driving your car, but the things that really matter. Our relationships, how we interact, how we focus on what we’re eating, how we’re relieving stress, how we are sleeping, all those things are things you have control over. And we know intuitively, we’ve heard it till we’re blue in the face that this is what I should do to be healthy. But awareness is important. You know, I just finished writing my new book, My Prescription for Life, which sold out. It was picked by Amazon as number one in the new releases in the health sector.
While I wrote that book, I wore a glucose monitor the whole time. And that gave me instant presence and feedback to everything I ate. I knew what it was doing to my body. I could see whether my blood sugar stayed normal or whether it went up. If it went up and spiked, that was something that was stimulating insulin. We know now that the chief metabolic dysfunction that we have comes from insulin resistance and building metabolic dysfunction. So, that awareness of wearing that monitor changed everything. I’ve lost 15 pounds. My I’m healthier than I’ve ever been. My metabolic age is 20 years less than my chronological age. You don’t have any control over when you were born, but you do have control over how you live. So, you should be asking that question in all the key areas of your life. Hopefully, that’s helpful.
And then four is choose the next small act. Basically, it’s small act. It’s not big overhauls. It’s just directional change. Direction beats intensity. So you can see this guy’s looking at which, you know, which choice should they make, which ladder should they go up? And that’s all in your control. And it’s not like you’re going to have these breakthroughs where all of a sudden everything’s going to change overnight. That’s not how it works. It works by making small new choices that move you towards where you want to be. So these are tiny conscious actions, but they rewrite your identity over time. It’s kind of like your standards. I know that every morning I — no matter what, and I got in late last night traveling from the mountains, but every morning when I get up I make my bed. It’s a habit I have. It kind of starts the day in the right way and it changes your identity of who you are. And it sounds so impatismal but it makes all the difference. And I have to tell you in the evening I also have a mattress cover that’s um that’s refrigerated. It’s actually a hydro mattress that cools off and keeps my core temperature cool. I can tell you when I go to bed and my bed’s made and I pull down the sheet, the covers, and basically I get in that bed, that bed is comfortable. It’s ready. It’s different than if I went into a messy bed that didn’t have the pillows and everything in order. So all these things may seem like they’re small, and they are, but they make such a big difference.
So, your awareness, getting off autopilot, thinking about what you’re going to be doing today, this morning, thinking about now as you finish this, maybe taking notes, maybe asking a question when I finish in a couple minutes here. But awareness basically reinforces a very simple pathway. This is the model to remember. Awareness allows you to make different choices. Choices change the direction. Direction changes your identity. And as you raise your standards, you become — you know one of the things, obviously, that I’m always helping people with is becoming a healthy person — when you’re a healthy person and now your identity has changed your direction and your standards have now increased like making your bed. You no longer feel like you’re sacrificing when, “Oh, I can’t have that piece of pizza.” No. You could have that piece of pizza, but you’ve chosen to be a healthy person and a healthy person doesn’t want that pizza because they know how they’re going to feel afterwards. And occasionally, you know, when I was in Vail, we went out to dinner and we shared — and I don’t eat desserts anymore, just don’t really care for them, but you know, we go to our favorite restaurant, where I used to have the sand pie, and rather than order one for myself, basically, order one for the table and I’ll go ahead and have a couple bites of it, have some hot tea with it, and it’s a pleasurable experience, the taste, but it’s no longer this thing I do. I don’t desire it. I want just a taste of it. And 95% of our taste satisfaction comes in the first three bites. So, this is about taking control. It’s about becoming aware, by slowing the momentum.
This is your life. Basically, bring ownership to yourself. This is about authorship of your own life. This is your future. Make it yours, not someone else’s. Not someone on TV that says you need to have that — again, the pizza — from whatever that’s sitting there with the cheese dripping off. They’re doing everything to get the addictive dopamine centers in your brain. And that’s serving them because they’re selling you something that they want to sell you, but it’s not serving you. It’s not the future you want. So, you have to make those decisions for yourself. So, practice this. Every day, a micro practice is simply this. Pause. Breathe. And then choose. So, it’s in essence Stop. Challenge. Choose. Right? You basically, when you start to feel that icky sauce, you know, I shouldn’t be eating that or I should get off the couch. I’ve been watching the fourth episode in a row. These things I know aren’t good for me. So, pause, breathe, and then choose. Turn off the TV, go for a walk, play a game with your family. Do something with that means something that really matters.
So in conclusion in essence presence is about slowing down. Silence is a big part of this message. You know one of the things about pausing and taking the breath and just creating the space the silence they have retreats where people go for a 10 day silent retreat where you don’t say you’re a group of people but you don’t say anything for 10 days, now I haven’t got to the point where I’m ready to do that yet. I don’t know if I could go that long without talking, but I do know that those quiet moments, I’m fortunate now, I live on the ocean, and in the morning when I wake up, I’ll go sit outside and look out at the pelicans. Usually they’re out working. They’re having breakfast, you know. We see dolphins here a lot. And there’s the tranquility of looking out in the expansiveness of the ocean, just like the one I showed you, the lady looking out on the sand flats. Those moments, those silent moments, allow you to kind of put in perspective that you’re not just on a hamster wheel. You’re not on autopilot just getting through every day, and at the end of the day being exhausted and feeling this frustration, this powerlessness to change that. You have full fundamental control over that. And it’s about taking the locus of control, becoming fully responsible self, and then moving forward and building relationships with others. So all right. Well, basically, let’s go to the questions. Rachel, who we got?
Rachel: All right. First up, we have Rhaena. Hi, Rhaena. If you come off mute. There you go.
Rhaena: Hi. Hey, Dr. A. So, I’ve made some big decisions in the last two weeks. One is resigning as a nurse at the hospital I’ve worked at for 29 and a half years to commit fully to helping others with Opativa. And so what would, if my — going forward I need to believe more in myself. I right now, I feel like I’m at 100% believing in myself but just adding 10% more I think would — because it’s scary, you know, I’m depending on myself. So any advice on that?
Dr. A: Yeah. That’s — first of all, congratulations, that’s great. Second of all, Rhaena, bottom line, is I’m going to say something that’s going to sound a little controversial about belief, but belief isn’t the critical part. The belief in the things you do, in other words, why you’re doing them, that’s critical, but belief in yourself is something that comes by self-efficacy. It comes by growth. It comes by, you know, we talk about the gain in the gap. You know, the gain is what’s happened as you’re now moving into this full-time occupation as you’re changing. And as you build more, as you build your team, then that will build you the self-efficacy or the confidence. Right now, know this, that the benefits that you have by basically focusing and organizing your life around what matters most is what fuels your growth, because now your response — it’s a little scary, because basically, now you’re responsible. Before you were in the system. You were in a system where you were a nurse. You provided a medical, but you weren’t working for yourself. You were working within a system as an employee.
And here’s the big difference. Once you’re over the fear, and the fear really is that you just never been fully, it’s kind of like, you know, when I lived in Annapolis, we had an osprey pole out off our dock. And every spring, we watch the osprey come. They’d mate. They’d build a nest. They’d have their eggs. The eggs would turn into little hatchlings. The hatchlings would start to grow. At first, the mom and the dad would basically bring the fish, eat the fish, and regurgitate it and give it to the babies or open their mouth. Then they would tear off little strips and feed it to the babies. Then they would just throw the whole fish in. And then eventually they would sit up in the trees and the babies would have to get off the nest and go feed themselves. Right?
So you’re moving to that point now where you’re fully responsible for your life. But here’s the coolest thing. Everything you do now benefits the things that you love. You organize your life around what matters most. You pick the times of the day. You can add your exercise. You can add other things you like to do, travel, and yet you can do something which is what you really set up when you became a nurse, which was to help people create health, not react to disease. So you’ve got yourself now in a coordinated position where just, do the work, and bury yourself in the work and then we’ll tell you when to look up. But if you just stay focused on the work and the work is to help people and to find the people that want to join you because, you know, now that we move into this age of metabolic health — I mean everything, I sat on a plane last night on the way home next to a gentleman who was considerably overweight. I was watching, you know, we had our meals served to us and I watched him eat every morsel, including, you know, there was a cookie that came in the plastic. I looked down, it was like 320 calories, right? It was just this thick sugary chocolate thing. And I watched him eat all that. And then I watched him fall asleep and he was snoring. He obviously has sleep apnea — he would love me to tell you all this. I didn’t know I didn’t really even know his name. I said hi to him, but he was in his own little, he was on autopilot, right? And he was doing, and he was watching a movie on TV, which I don’t need to get into. But the point is he was making several choices in that time period that was worsening his metabolic health. He had to go up and go to the bathroom like 10 times. So he is on autopilot and has no idea. He’s probably, you would have seen him in the hospital, you know, getting another operation or sick or diabetes out of control or whatever. And now in the world I live in and what I teach now is that what we’re doing is actually combating the world we live in, but doing it in a way where it becomes doable, where it’s part of a group working together. There’s an underlying structure of health, taking The Habits of Health, now with My Prescription for Life, if people want to use it.
I talked to a few people when I was in Vail that are on the drugs, and they’re scared because they don’t they know if they come off they’re going to gain their weight back, and so basically I had a great talk with them and they — fortunately the book is back, it was out of stock — it’s back, and they bought it and one of them already text me they got it like last week and they said this book has changed my life and actually there’s a book club of 1.2 two million people that say this is everybody that’s going to be using it. They need to have My Prescription for Life, because they need to understand why — it’s not just an injection. There’s nothing that’s going to change your life completely by itself outside of you. It’s an inside job. Now, that’s a very valuable tool and for people that are addicted to processed food, unhealthy processed food, it’s a great opportunity.
The point I’m making is that you’re now in the sweet spot of why you became a nurse, which is to help people. You have the ability, and I can tell you the physicians that use our program and our mission, their happiest time of the week is when their patients come in that are now creating health for themselves because they’re getting off medicines. And you know, that’s what I always ask doctors, when was the last time you lowered or eliminated a medicine? This doesn’t happen. What this is about is helping people take command and control. And I can just see the smile on your face. You’re now resonating. And if you do the work and you realize that beyond this work is to build partners, people that want to join you and become a coach with you, that’s how we leverage and that’s how we get this country healthy. So, I have no question in my mind. You’re going to do great. You just need to do the work and don’t worry about the individual feedback of each individual thing you do, that it has no reflection on you. You are the creator. The creation is you creating a huge successful team of people actually health coaches versus nurses or doctors that want to help other people get healthy and then in that case they help themselves because they’re doing it, teaching it, living it, and becoming it. So you’re in the sweet spot. This is what you’ve always wanted. It’s a little scary because you’re out on your own, but the benefits are you’re your own boss. That’s the key part now is to become your own boss. Does that make sense?
Rhaena: Absolutely. Yes.
Dr. A: Awesome.
Rhaena: And I have this great community, too.
Dr. A: Great. Awesome. So, let’s go get the world healthy.
Rhaena: You got it.
Dr. A: All right. Sounds good. Okay. Who else do we have, Rach?
Rachel: All right. Next up, we have Rick. Hi, Rick.
Dr. A: Hey, Rick. How are you?
Rachel: Where’d you go?
Dr. A: I saw him for a second.
Rachel: There he is.
Dr. A: There he is. You’re just going for a walk on this crisp day.
Rick: Yeah, it’s kind of mild here in Salt Lake this winter. So, it’s nice.
Dr. A: Good. Well, good, but you need the snow.
Rick: Yeah, we do need the snow. Need to go skiing, too.
Dr. A: Yeah.
Rick: You mentioned about wearing the glucose monitor. I was curious about that. How long did you wear it? And is that beneficial for somebody to try as a do-it-yourself or just for self-awareness?
Dr. A: The answer is, you know, I obviously, I have no financial reason. So, I want to make sure I’m saying this totally as a physician, talking to you for potential benefit. The answer is absolutely yes. Now, it’s not cheap. They cost about, you can do it for a month for about a little under $100. I think the cost is coming down, and you get two, they last 14 days and then you switch out. So you would get enough for a month. The answer is, I think it’s highly valuable because it gives you, you know, feedback is the breakfast of champions. You know people that really want to improve themselves, whatever it is, feedback is critical. The beauty of the glucose monitor, I wore mine all the way through — in fact, I still wear one. Because I really — like when I went to Vail, I had one on because I want to make sure that, I mean, obviously, I’m very active even though the snow’s not great, out skiing pretty much every day. I want to make sure that, you know, things that I am eating that I’m maintaining a normal metabolic rate and glucose and all those things. So I use it and it’s kind of, I treat myself to it. But the answer is, yes.
Especially in the beginning, for anybody. It’s very simple. It comes with, you download an app., it actually follows and tracks your blood sugar throughout the day. There’s even a journal where you can write down things you’re eating so you can look and see if something spikes. You can look back and see what you ate and start eliminating that stuff. It gives you real time feedback. So rather than the theoretically — so I wrote The Habits of Health, the first one in 2008, and at that time I used a gentleman out of Canada, an MD that did a lot of work on glycemic index, and so I used the charts that were produced from their laboratory, where they studied people eating stuff and seeing how much it raised their blood sugar. This time I wanted to make sure, in the new book, My Prescription for Life, I wanted to make sure that I was totally aware of what does and what doesn’t affect your blood sugar.
So, I wore it and I lost almost 20 pounds and metabolically, I’m healthier than I’ve ever been. Actually skiing this time, you know, my daughter’s 25 and keeping up with her, like she’s amazed that I can still do that and I can actually feel my cardiovascular fitness is greater because I’m metabolically very very optimized. So the answer is yes. It’s really easy to use. It will show you stuff and you can do it for a month or longer if you want. You can find out in one month, you can find out — if cost isn’t an issue — you can find out in one month the things that are currently in your pattern. So what I just talked about this talk, about your life and your patterns and your autopilot, It takes you off autopilot because you see immediately what’s going on with what you’re eating. So yes, I think it’s, I think it can be, you know, Rick, it can be really really valuable and I’d love to see you try it and let me know how it works for you.
Rick: Yeah, I’m going to try it. Thank you.
Dr. A: Yeah, good. You’re welcome. Cool. Awesome. And by the way, in My Prescription for Life, not that I’m trying to pander the book, but I have a whole section on it because I talk about how valuable I found it and about the little insights it can give you and it’s really cool because we’re all a little different and we metabolize things differently and so you can individualize for yourself.
Rick: Yeah.
Dr. A: And I mean I’ve been teaching health and Optimal Health and Wellbeing for 25 years and I thought I was pretty healthy, but by wearing that during that time period, it dramatically improved my health. So I do recommend it.
Rick: Very cool.
Dr. A: Awesome. Okay. Who else we got, Rach?
Rachel: All right. Next up we have Teva.
Dr. A: Wow! Teva looks like she’s cold.
Teva: I’m a dog walker [crosstalk 00:33:10]. I used to be a sales rep and Covid happened and I started walking dogs. And I was like, I like this a lot more than sales, and I love dogs more than people and I made a very late life change and I never thought I’d be one of those people who could say, “I do what I love and I love what I do.” That’s me now! So very grateful for that. I wanted to initially, just come on and make a comment, but I’ll follow my comment with a question. First of all, I want to thank you personally. As a dog walker, I had a tree branch fall across my head at the end of October and at the urging of a friend who kept saying, “Natasha Richardson. Natasha Richardson.” I went and got a scan. I wasn’t going to. I was going to go home. I felt fine. And they found — I knew I had a meningioma like 20 years before, but I stopped following it. Like 2013 to 2015 was my last comparison scan and it was teeny tiny. And the doctor’s like, “Oh, they hardly ever grow. They’re always benign.” So, I forgot about it.
Well, when they did the scan after the tree branch hit me, she said, “We found something in your brain and it’s squishing your brain. We want to transport you to, you know, another hospital where there’s a neurosurgeon on staff.” And I was like, “What the hell are you talking about?” Anyway, long story short, sometimes a tree branch falls and kills you, and sometimes it saves your life. And in my case, it saved my life. I met the neurosurgeon at Columbia Presbyterian in Manhattan on a Friday. I said, “I’m your mom. When are you taking this thing out of my head?” He said, “I’d like to see you next week.” So, it was a big deal. I had a lot of swelling from the growth, and it was very vascular, and I was probably this close from a major seizure and possibly stroke. So, my thank you is because of this program and my phenomenal coach, Coach Dibs, I was able to make it through that surgery without any complications. I went in at 227 pounds with no metabolic, I’m type 2 diabetic, fully controlled and as opposed to 215 pounds, morbidly obese, with fluctuating, controlled diabetes. And I absolutely, for anyone who’s new to this program, I absolutely, you know, what’s the word? I’m still losing words, but I really give credit to this program and thank you. Thank you for helping me to save my life.
So, I wanted to say that to you. I’m doing great. The only issue that I’m having right now is they have me on these anti-seizure medications which are really kicking my tuchus, right? They’re — I am going, like emotional, and have all this neuropathy, and I have a lot of — my poor husband and son, and I know that’ll pass when I get off the meds and I’m thankfully have like the tools of the program, I’m doing box breathing, I’m trying to like use a lot of the Habits of Health to try to remember that you know this will pass, you know, not to get into the fear, really to try to take it like a day at a time and what I just wanted to know, as a medical doctor, do you have any suggestions? I got off Keppra, because I had Keppra rage, and now I’m on something else, but it’s still got a lot of the same symptoms. Any suggestions on just getting through this until I get to the other side? Because I don’t want to derail. If it wasn’t for the dogs, I would have checked out over the last two years. I thought I had like mental issues and you know, it was bad. It was really bad, but it’s getting so much better every day. So, just wanted to put that out to you, if you have any feedback for me.
Dr. A: Yeah. No, no. I think that’s great. First of all, the most important thing is your attitude, which I love. You know, you looked at things and you looked in the right perspective. You got hit by a branch. Saved your life. Bottom line is, and there’s a place, you know, I’m a critical care physician by trade, cardiac anesthesiologist. I trained at Cleveland. There’s a time and a place. Like for instance, I slipped a few months ago. I slipped and torn my median collateral ligament and, you know, but and I was going skiing, right? In seven weeks, and so I’m going [Dr. A gestures with his hands]. So basically, physical therapy working with the ski team, the physical therapist that does the ski team for Michaela Schiffer and all the Olympic skiers. So I went and used that as therapy and actually even got an MRI and saw there was a meniscal damage too. But the point is, by putting it in the right function and skiing and actually just going slow and then going up to full speed, my knee is better now than it was before. So why I’m saying that your body has an inherent capacity to heal itself and over time it will.
Now obviously you had a space occupying lesion that needed modern medicine to get rid of. The medicines that they’re giving you now are just as the healing occurs and as you get better and they all have side effects. That’s that’s the problem with medicines and that’s why over time the things you’re doing, getting out, being active, exercising, taking the dogs for a walk, doing something like you said you love, and keeping this in control, drinking lots of water, making sure your body is functioning through all that, making sure you’re eating healthy, nothing that’s high glycemic so that you’re maintaining, because high blood sugar can create the potential for seizures as well. So there’s all these things that you’re already doing. I would just continue doing those. And you know, drinking a lot of water, eating a lot of healthy foods will help your body heal itself and over time you’ll be able to come off them. And and the most important thing is here, during the period, if you start sensing that, remove yourselves from that stimulus. Kind of what this talk was today, right?
Teva: Right. Right.
Dr. A: Where you’re not getting triggered. You’re getting off autopilot and you’re taking control. If you start to feel a little off, then make sure you’re hydrated, getting yourself extra hydrated, you know, making sure you’re eating, you’re not going too long so that your blood sugar drops, especially with, you know, type two diabetes. You know, eventually you should be able to get off your medicines completely, you know, over time, you know, if you continue to work on yourself, and it’ll happen. And that’s the great thing about it. But I think as a whole, I think the most important thing you have going for you is you have the right attitude and you’re grateful, appreciative. And just be really, again, going back to awareness, be so aware and control your breathing, making sure you’re not getting anxious about stuff. The reason why you love animals, because animals don’t give you any negative feedback, right?
Teva: Right.
Dr. A: I mean, think about it, a dog, you could be gone all day long, right? And you come home, you open the door and they’re sitting there and their tails wagging and they’re, you know, just so happy to see you.
Teva: They’re all love. Absolutely.
Dr. A: Yeah. And so I think, you know, fall into the things you love doing and control the things when you sense that with your breathing and just use that and eventually you’ll be able to come off these medicines because the medicines by themselves have side effects and you know, they don’t belong in your body. They’re there to treat a symptom you have related to your, basically, your lesion that they’ve now removed and they want to make sure they keep you safe in the meantime. But as that heals, you’ll be able to come off those things working with your doctor.
Teva: Thank you.
Dr. A: Yeah.
Teva: And thank you again. I don’t know if I’d be here if it wasn’t for this wonderful program, and for you, ultimately, because you put it together. So, I just personally wanted to say thank you.
Dr. A: Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. All right. Have a great one. Happy New Year. Okay.
Rachel: We have Rosalie.
Dr. A: Hi, Rosalie.
Rachel: Did I say that right? Oh, we can’t hear you. You’ll just need to come off mute.
Rosalie: There we go.
Rachel: Okay.
Rosalie: All right. Thanks so much for everything. I wasn’t planning on asking a question live, so excuse my appearance. But I really wanted to ask you this question. I actually, ironically, did a post this morning about a morning routine, and that’s something I’ve been rocking for a few years now, thanks to you. Love it. But I struggle so much with an evening routine and I know how beneficial it is. This morning somehow I magically woke up like at 4:30 and I couldn’t sleep anymore, and I woke up and it was awesome, because I had so much time. That’s my goal is to wake up at 5 or you know 5:30 every morning. But I juggle two things. I’ve come out of a tricky relationship and kind of navigating a few different things and so I teach violin, which I love, that goes kind of late into the evening and then I’ve got client calls and things like that. Then I have a lot more things to do. So, I love what I’ve read from you about the evening routine, but it’s so hard for me mentally to give myself permission to stop working because I’ve got this big list of things that, I hate to go to sleep, because I know that means they’re not done yet. So, a lot of times, it’s a little vulnerable, but I end up just falling asleep in midwork and it’s not a great way to do it, but I struggle to give myself that permission to stop.
Dr. A: Yeah. Well, no. And that’s, you know, you’re obviously, you enjoy what you’re doing. You like to get things done. You’re a semi-perfectionist and you want to make sure everything gets done. That’s not the purpose of life. The purpose of life is to basically, first of all maintain your physical health at the optimum. The more optimal your physical health, the more effective you are at every moment in your day, right? You’re more aware, you’re more present, you’re able to think arithmetically at higher numbers as long as you’re getting your eight hours of sleep. So, it’s fine if you get up at four, but that means you got to be in bed by nine. Okay? So, you got to pay attention to that and you’re waking up ready to go. And if you’re fully rested, that’s awesome, but make sure you’re still getting your seven to eight hours of sleep. Eight hours is ideal. And then, the thing in the routine in the evening, you’ve got to give yourself that hour, that twilight hour, right, where your body is now going to its repairative mode. Because with that, if you’re cognitively fully alert, your RAZ or your reticular activating system is hyped up and you’re just going and you basically stay up later than you should, that stuff will all be there tomorrow. The whole thing is about what’s the one thing. I always like to go down to what’s the one thing. What are the key things that are important in your life? And you know, Jim Dethmer, a dear friend of mine, that wrote the 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, talks about a full body yes.
It’s really important that you’re saying yes to the things that you feel in your mind, in your heart, and in your gut. If it’s not a full body yes, you have to stop because you’re basically obligated to things that aren’t critical. And if they’re not critical and you’re trying to get them all done and they’re not critical, so you need to look and kind of prioritize what one of the things that I like is that to keep a journal and like the 12 main things that you do — like this is one of the things today I’m doing. I’m doing the Conscious Forum. This is one of the things today to me, this is one of the high item things that I look forward to. I actually put this presentation together on the plane coming back from Vail yesterday. I wanted to make sure that it was fresh, that I just created it, and that it was visually in a fashion that could help. And so that was the priority for me. So on the plane, rather than what everybody else was doing was watching some ridiculous movie, drinking and not doing anything because they worked so hard while they were out skiing in Vail, I guess. I don’t know. But the bottom line is, I worked on being productive. So I use that time period because there’s no phones, nothing. I can just work on it and that was a priority.
So depending, you’ve got the morning figured out and you get up you have this list of things make sure there are the three main areas that are critical to move you forward to what you want for your your goals and I’m talking about your health goals, your optimal mental health goals, and then obviously your your business goals. You want to make sure that you have the priorities of what is actually creating value there. Right? So that’s a really important thing for you. And then make sure you’re shutting it down. You got to shut it down because if you don’t — your mind cannot go from fully on to fully off. And so and if you’re passing out, just falling asleep, then that’s not good either because you’ve got to have that buffer because if you pass out because you’re exhausted, and you’re not in the right mindset and your mind’s there, you’re going to have dreams. You’re going to have all these things and your ability for your brain to refrag and organize those things and make order to them doesn’t happen and so it just builds up that anxiety level and that stress and then pretty soon you think, “God. I just can’t get everything done and I want to get more done.” So, you’ve got to be responsible and you’re the one that’s critical when you lay your head down.
And that hour before should be the gift you’re giving yourself. That gift of relaxing, taking, you know, I love for people to take like a hot bath because, you know, cool, you know, the routine I have. I have a cooling mattress, as well I turn my temperature down about an hour. I cool off the room. I pull the sheets down so the sheets get cooler even though there’s a thermal mattress as well. I basically take a hot bath or a hot shower, and then I go into the room and the room is totally black. It’s basically sound. You can’t, you know, I hear the ocean and that’s it, which is beautiful. I don’t need a sound machine. And then I lay down and I’m asleep in, I don’t know 10, 15 minutes. I sleep throughout the night and I wake up totally refreshed, right? And naturally. And actually my mattress has a vibratory component to it where it’ll pulse in the morning, which is kind of neat. It’s a nice way of waking up versus an alarm. I’m off a little bit right now because of the two hour time difference between Mountain Time and Eastern Time. So this morning it actually woke me up. But I can tell you that making sure you’re in control of that evening time period is critical. It’s like, you know, making sure your brain is getting the opportunity — and one of the things I talk about in My Prescription for Life, my new book, is it’s kind of like you have a street washer. We didn’t realize this until recently, but in the middle of the night, your brain actually shrinks a little bit more. And it allows the CSF, the cerebral spinal fluid, to bathe over your brain because there’s more, because the brain’s a little smaller. It allows us to — it’s like a street washer, right? It allows us to clean the street. It gets rid of amyloid and these different protein byproducts that are made by the brain, which are great cognitive decline over time.
So it allows — and things like ambient don’t allow that process to happen. That’s why people think, “Well, I’m getting to sleep better,” but actually, medication, sleep medications, hypnotics, over time are not anywhere near as healthy as making sure you’re getting a good night’s sleep naturally. So yeah, that part is really important for you and you’ll find it’ll be more effective — and if you go through and do — Oh, so one last thing about the journal. So write down the things you’ve done during the day and then basically ask yourself, each one of these things, did it lead — Oh, first of all, the most important thing is to organize your life around what matters most. What’s most important? Obviously your health, your mental health, your financial health, whatever is important to you. Those are your goals, right? And then that informs you of what you do during the day. So then if you have 12 things you’ve written down that you did, then take a, I like to take a green, an orange, and a red marker, and ask each one. Look at each thing you spent time doing and look to see, is this something that is leading me to what I want in my life? And then put a green by that. Is it something that’s neutral, not having an effect one way or the other? And use a yellow or an orange. And then this is something that’s leading me away from what I want. Put a red. And then, so if you do that every day and look at it, you want to see as you go kind of like how I designed um the LifeBook, you’re adding more colors, more things, you’re adding more substance that are the Habits of Health to your life. Same thing here. You’re looking to see and progress through the days of your journal. They should be going more green. Does that make sense?
Rosalie: Yeah, it’s a great idea.
Dr. A: Yeah. And the first thing you can do is, the most important thing you do is, try to, every day, add a green and remove a red. If you do that, that quantum shift is like in football when someone intercepts on the one yard line and there’s a 14 point change in the game, right? In other words, those — maybe… it didn’t seem like that resonated with you, but being a guy football [Dr. A and Rosalie laugh], but the point is, the point is, when you add a green and remove a red, that’s a dramatic shift. Those are the small little incremental improvements you make that change everything.
Rosalie: Okay, I thought you’d be good to ask. Those are great ideas. I’ve tried to furiously type some notes on my computer and I’ll rewatch this.
Dr. A: Well yeah, you can rewatch this is, you know ,you can go to my site: drwayneandersen.com, and you can watch this as many times as you want.
Rosalie: Okay.
Dr. A: Yeah. And then share with people too. This forum is designed for anybody that wants to improve their health and their life. I mean I enjoy this. This is my way of giving back. I really love to help people and everybody is capable of improving their health in their life.
Rosalie: Yeah. I feel like for me, that nighttime is the one thing that’ll change everything and I’ve just really struggled and I thought you’d be great because you’re clearly busy and but I would imagine, you know, you might have a day or two or some days where you’ve got a pile of things to do but I guess because you know the benefit firsthand of having that nighttime routine even if you’re tempted, you don’t stay up past your — is that how you operate? You just don’t?
Dr. A: Yeah. Yeah. No, I don’t. I don’t, and actually for me, in the evenings, I mean, I don’t watch TV during the day. I don’t watch the news — it’s not that I ignore the news. I go online and get a little overview of what’s going on in the world, but I don’t, it’s like the serenity prayer. Most of the stuff there’s very little you can do and if you bring that input in and you start ruminating over it, there’s no positive value. It’s all cost and no benefit. That’s why this talk today, about practice daily, becoming aware, getting off of autopilot and really being aware in the present moment, especially just like this like, I mean, I think you can tell I’m not looking anywhere, looking at the time, I’m focused totally on you, right? And that’s the level of presence and awareness that you want in everything you do. That’s what creates excellence. That’s what — there’s less talking in your actions are really supporting that. And you know, people spend so much time talking about stuff, it’s actually what you do that matters. And so for yourself, one of the things you need to do for yourself is make sure you’re treating this precious thing called your brain in a way that you’re getting high quality sleep and turning it off. Turn it off. Turn it on in the morning, turn it off at night, and then allow your body to have that recovery period. That’s — I would say this the secret to me, being biologically 20 years younger than my chronological age is sleep. It’s more important than anything. Sleep is not a luxury. It is the critical ingredient that most people ignore and there’s nothing more important.
Rosalie: Well, that was the other question I was going to ask because I’m 59 and I thought I felt so young. I thought, “Oh, my new scale is going to tell me that I’m 40 or 45.” It says I’m 62. So…
Dr. A: Okay, there’s a message there. And you know what? And that’s not to beat yourself up. That’s to give you the reality. Rick asked me about using a glucose monitor.
Rosalie: Yeah.
Dr. A: Reality is an acquired taste. But Robert Fritz, a dear friend of mine, who does a lot of work on the creative process said that. And that’s desired outcome and current reality, knowing where you are — and I can tell you that I didn’t get the new monitor that does this until like the last couple weeks, but I can tell you that two years ago before I started writing the book, wearing the monitor, losing that weight, getting my waist circumference down to what it was in high school, my biological age would have not been close to that. And so that’s the biggest gift you can give yourself. And I tell you, your sleep is critical. It’s critical for everything because here’s the other thing. What happens mentally, what’s happening, is you’re defragging, organizing your brain. It’s putting order to things. It’s resolving any internal conflict. But physiologically, that’s the time where you go into a fasted state. And in a fasted state, that’s why you don’t want to have a, certainly don’t want to have a sugar starch meal before dinner, before sleep, but also you want to hopefully not have that at any time. And what ends up happening is when you go to sleep, your body goes into what we call a fasting state. Your blood sugar is low, which lowers your insulin, and you go into a fat burning. And that’s the normal metabolic flexibility is when you have the opportunity, while you’re sleeping is to burn preferentially fat. And that’s great because your brain loves it. It goes into a little bit of mild fat burning or ketones. That uses that as a great energy source. It allows you to sleep better. And then when you wake up, you’re refreshed and ready to go.
Rosalie: Thank you so much.
Dr. A: You’re so welcome.
Rosalie: That was so helpful.
Dr. A: All right. Good. I love to hear that. All right. Well, we have time, I think, Rach, for — we got about six, four or five minutes. One more.
Rachel: Yes, we have one more from Jan. Hey, Jan.
Dr. A: Okay, there’s one of my favorite people. Hi, Jan.
Jan: Hi, Dr. A. Hey. I just had to follow Rosalie, because I have the privilege of working with her and I brought it up as you were finishing with her about how that helps to keep us young when we sleep and I know that that’s important to her. So that’s all I was going to bring up was that it helps to keep you young Ricky. Oh, her nickname is Ricky. So that’s why that’s the biggest reason why you want to sleep. And then also, I know for me, I want to keep that brain healthy. And when that cerebral spinal fluid is like washing over and everything, I’m like trying to use my brain so that it stays sharp for all of my life. And I think if you could tell us, if not giving it that chance, is it kind of predisposing us to problems down the road, right?
Dr. A: Yeah. No, absolutely. In fact, this Saturday, we’re releasing the new documentary on Galacia, Spain. And I went over there a couple months ago, and really looked at Spain’s, that area is going to be Spain’s first blue zone. And 12% of the population lives to be over 100. And I interviewed a 102 year old lady, and she’s just as sharp and active. Her body, you know, she needs to use a cane, but she refuses to use a walker, so she uses a couple canes. But she’s moving along. She goes to a community area every day, meets association, all the key things that we teach in the Habits of Health about community and basically learning to eat healthy and move more. All those things are critical. And so, you know, one of the things that excites me is that people that naturally have done those things and have kind of protected themselves against ultra-processed, unhealthy food, sedentary lifestyle, being isolated from each other, having that community. All those things are so critical and that’s, you know, that’s kind of a little bit what we’re doing here is a microcosm for people to come on and realize that, you know, people can help each other create health and it’s a critical part of longevity. So Jan, again, thanks for everything you do and looks like you’re well on the way to having a great partner there.
Jan: Oh, yeah. She’s amazing and I just appreciate these forums so much and you are definitely one of my faves as well. So, thank you.
Dr. A: Thank you. All right. Great. Everybody, have a great week, and we’ll see you next month. Bye.
