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Micro wisdom delivered to your ears every morning in voice notes ranging from 3 to 15 minutes long. Wisdom on how to live a healthier and more fulfilling life. Every podcast will ground you in the present moment to ensure you know what's important, the here and now.
Good morning, everyone. So it's week two of 2024. Now as always, the podcast, one day at a time, doesn't matter what you did last week. If it was a bad week, a good week, doesn't matter. If your weekend went downhill, doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:Leave it there. One way to frame this is this. Instead of saying, that weekend, I didn't do enough activity. I'm so lazy. Why did I eat so much food?
Speaker 1:Why did I take away such a fat slob? Why am I like this? Right? They're adding on to the fact is what causes some problems. Now remember with stoicism, it's not events that disturb us, but our opinion about them does.
Speaker 1:So in the same vein here, when you say, I didn't do much activity this weekend, full stop. Nothing more needs to be added. I ate too many calories or I consumed too much energy this weekend, full stop. There's no need to add on the kind of what you think about that because the facts are there, we know what to do, and we don't need to kind of trigger some stress response in this by looking at things negatively. And it always stands out to me a quote by, Robert Sapolsky, one of the top neuroscientists in the world.
Speaker 1:He's written a few books, one on stress, one on human behavior. And the one on stress, he said, something along the lines of a paraphrase there, is that human beings can cause inner stress, the same type of, like, force as a Formula one driver going on a a racetrack with the, like, three, four g's by simply standing in front of a piece of wooden a board of wooden pieces and not moving, which means chess. Right? So he's like, these chess players internally have got so much stress going on similar to a Formula one car going hundreds of miles per hour and they're not even doing anything physically, they're just looking at a piece of wood. So the power of the mind to cause internal stress environments is is is one of the most important lessons to learn.
Speaker 1:And we don't know we can't differentiate between a physical stressor and one we've created mentally because the response is the same internally with stress. Okay? So I think one of the themes this week is not to catastrophize, which means, you know, one of the phrase for those don't make a mountain out of a molehill. There's loads of these phrases passed down through time that are there for a purpose. Because if you stress yourself out, cause a stress response, make things worse than they are, not deal with facts as they are, the stress response makes it super, super hard for you to have a focused, calm, tranquil day, which is what we need.
Speaker 1:Because when you stir the emotions and stir the stress response up, your body releases adrenaline. It's pumped through the body. Your muscles are ready to fight or run. Your heart rate is going up. You are ready to move.
Speaker 1:Okay? So when you wanna be chill and you wanna and you wanna think clearly in that type of state, it makes it difficult. And what happens is when you do put this response on, this stress response on, which could be triggered by you thinking you've had a terrible weekend, and you're kicking yourself this morning, go, what am I this? What am I doing here? And you obviously lash out.
Speaker 1:Okay? And you need to realize these things can cause stress response. What happens is when you do have a stress response, it takes a lot of energy. It's kinda like your body going, you know, there's all hands on deck. All hands on deck.
Speaker 1:Everyone go, go, go, go, go. Everyone's going, ah, why are we going there? Let's get things ready. Let's go. Let's go.
Speaker 1:Let's go. Right? And what happens after that stops? Everyone's not good. Everyone's used raw materials.
Speaker 1:Everyone's tired. There's a lot used. Right? So then there's a period of we need to re coop this energy, this loss. We need to re coop these things.
Speaker 1:And that makes the body then go, hey, let's get some energy in. And that's why after stressful periods, a lot of people during them, their appetite goes down. So you have an acute response where your appetite goes down. They'll feel hungry, but then afterwards, you feel, like, ravenous. And, unfortunately, we want or we prefer to eat foods in high high sugar, high fat, high salt.
Speaker 1:And the reason for that is obvious. The body wants high energy, high fat. Fat has got double the energy density of carbs and protein. High fat and high high carb is, know, you obviously brilliant for that, and high salt as well. Electrolysis is tasty, you know, so we get that in.
Speaker 1:So that's kind of what happened. So the theme of this week is no catastrophizing, cool, calm, collected head each day, and we're gonna take things one day at a time. And there was even a recent study, and this is such a basic study, and it's just like, well, we we know this already, but this is a thing. And if I mention it all the time in the podcast, the secret is the things we know already. The small things are the big things.
Speaker 1:You know, this is this is bang on 100% fact. So they looked at, like, why do some people work out more effectively than others? Like, how come some people, like, stick to worker plans and how come people really, really struggle? And this was done in a journal of psychology and health. Right?
Speaker 1:And they were looking at what makes scheduling workouts more likely to succeed. So they followed them for three months, 115 people. It was an online coaching program, different workout plans. And of course, they found the ones who kind of plan the workouts to be more consistent. But the interesting thing is about the consistency is what they meant by that.
Speaker 1:Okay? So people who vary read their plans all the time didn't really stick to them. So even though they scheduled them in, they didn't stick to them. But the people that tend to do the same thing over and over again were far more likely to do it. But it wasn't so much that.
Speaker 1:It was more how specific they were. So the ones that really did get the the scheduling right and the consistency where they put down how, when, where, and with who they were gonna work out. Right? And what they were gonna do. So instead of saying, I might work out tomorrow at seven, I'm gonna do a workout.
Speaker 1:It'd be, I'm gonna work out tomorrow at 7AM. I'm gonna be doing a body weight only workout. So I put my yoga mat or exercise mat out now. So it's gonna be 7AM exercise mat. I know the workout ready.
Speaker 1:It's loaded up on my iPad or computer screen. It's gonna be in my living room and it's gonna be on my own, but I'm gonna be texting my friend. It sounds the same. I'm gonna do it. And you cannot do that.
Speaker 1:Like, that's far more specific. That's far more vivid as well in the brain. So being specific is important working out, but this is the same for nutrition, guys. Why do you think we do one big thing? Why do you think we want to keep you going with these things?
Speaker 1:When are we specific with what you're gonna do today? Yes. You a lot of you and most often is the case, most people listening are trying to lose weight. So your goal is I need to track my calories, like 100% in track of calories. But sometimes it's like, when do you track them?
Speaker 1:Are you tracking them as you go along each day? And I've done a few polls in this in the past, and it kinda split into three groups. Some people will track as they go, like one thirds. Other people will track everything they're gonna eat that day in the morning. And then some people will even schedule in multiple days at once.
Speaker 1:And if they and then if things change, they change it. So maybe have a play about to those. But definitely, if you wanna build a habit, the prompt is you cannot do something unless you're prompted. And so when you're eating, that's a prompt. Or when you finish eating, so when I put the fork down after I finish my meal or once I finish the food I'm eating, I will then open up the app and I will enter it into the app.
Speaker 1:So that's called anchor habits or habit stacking. So you find things you do every day, and then you stack on a second action, which always will follow that first action, and that's how you can create some habits. So these are, like, very practical things to start this week off. Remember, we're not catastrophizing. Keep a cool, calm head.
Speaker 1:It's not the events that disturb you, it's your opinion about them. And, look, this is that's look of look at chess. I look at chess board. I'm not getting stressed out playing something chess. Obviously, these grandmasters playing, they look at doing exactly the same thing as me, but their world view of that board is far different to my world view of that board.
Speaker 1:Even though we're sitting in the exact same position looking at the same things. So it's important to realize it's your opinion about things that can cause the stress, the distress, the emotional, everything. Right? So today's action plan is this. I want you to pick one thing today, and that could be I'm gonna drink two liters of water today.
Speaker 1:It could be that I'm just going to track as as honestly as I can today. So I need to go for a walk. I'm just gonna go for my walk today. I'm actually just gonna do a workout today at some point. I'm gonna say today, I'm gonna do a workout right now.
Speaker 1:Right? Maybe it's like I'm gonna get my workout clothes ready, and I'm gonna schedule in my workout this week. I'm gonna be very vivid with how we do it, how, when, when, with who. And I'm gonna do that today, and that's it. Maybe today, something really is stressing you that's not related to health, but obviously, it's all connected.
Speaker 1:So it's like, I really need to do my financial returns this, you know, with the end of the tax years coming up or whatever. I need to do that today or I need to finish this project. I need to get back to them on an email. I need to finish this. I need to do that.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of things that maybe is in the backyard. Maybe that's your one big thing today. Because it's not just about, like, weight loss stuff. About the entire circle of your life because they're all into plays. You know, if you think about it, if you're not doing your step count and you're not eating well and you're, like, gaining weight over time, you're slowly gonna feel more lethargic.
Speaker 1:You're not gonna feel yourself over time, and you're not gonna feel yourself not gonna perform as well as on your job maybe, and you're gonna be more irritating irritated, and you're gonna maybe then be you're not gonna be as good of a mother or a friend or a partner, and it all connects, all of it. So it's important to look at it that way. So please do take it easy today. One day at a time, pick your one big thing. Remember that study about specific same thing, but be vivid.
Speaker 1:And the theme of the week is do not catastrophize, stoicism one zero one. So I'll see you back tomorrow for another podcast, but have a good day. And I hope you had a lovely weekend.