Ep. 41: How to Live Well (in One Single Episode)
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What actions create a healthy lifestyle? What preventative health measures should we all take to ensure a long, happy and active life? It’s all in here. With the help of such Medcan experts as chief medical officer Dr. Peter Nord, nutritionist Leslie Beck, fitness trainer Stephen Salzmann and psychologist Dr. Jonathan Danson, host Shaun Francis and producer Chris Shulgan distill the recommendations in a tidy half hour.
LINKS AND HIGHLIGHTS:
For more guidance, “How To Prepare For A Pandemic Winter” is a webinar the Eat Move Think panel did to provide people with tips on how to get through the year’s darkest, coldest season while COVID-19 is complicating matters. Check it out.
For more guidance on eating well from Leslie Beck, check out her Globe and Mail columns or her Twitter feed. You can also consult with her directly through Medcan’s Nutrition Counselling services.
For more guidance on moving well, book a virtual session with a Medcan trainer. Also see Medcan’s director of fitness, Stephen Salzmann, in this webinar explaining how to build strength at home.
For more guidance on mental health and thinking well, see Dr. Jonathan Danson’s previous podcast episode, Pandemic Analysis Paralysis. To arrange an appointment with Dr. Jonathan Danson or any other Medcan clinical psychologist, click here.
How to Live Well (in One Single Episode) final web transcript
Christopher Shulgan
Eat Move Think.
Shaun Francis
Eat.
Christopher Shulgan
Eat Move Think.
Shaun Francis
Move.
Christopher Shulgan
Eat Move Think.
Shaun Francis
Think.
Christopher Shulgan
Think Eat Move Think. Eat. Okay, so what is eat? Eat is ...
Shaun Francis
You are what you eat.
Christopher Shulgan
Move. Move is basically ...
Shaun Francis
If you don't use it, you lose it.
Christopher Shulgan
And think?
Shaun Francis
It's the foundation for everything.
Christopher Shulgan
It all ties in together, basically, right? Like, it's like ...
Shaun Francis
Yeah, it's collectively a path to a healthier, happier life.
Christopher Shulgan
Hi, my name is Christopher Shulgan. I'm the executive producer of Eat Move Think.
Shaun Francis
Hi, I'm Sean Francis, CEO of Medcan and the host of Eat Move Think, and the author of the Eat Move Think book.
Christopher Shulgan
And we're doing something a little different today. We're here, we're in conversation.
Shaun Francis
And we're 41 episodes into the Eat Move Think podcast, and we really want to see if we can summarize some of the great learnings that we have on this journey in one episode.
Christopher Shulgan
So Eat Move Think being this idea that there are things that you can do in your life, in your behaviour, that will change, that will make it more likely for you to live a long, healthy and active life, right? So the idea that your behaviour can help your outcome, essentially.
Shaun Francis
There's no—there's no drug. So I guess that's the bad news so far. Maybe one day there will be. The good news is there is actionable advice you can receive that really will help you live a longer, happier life.
Christopher Shulgan
If you put it conversely, you'd almost say that actually there is a drug, but it comes in the form of, like, eating right, or moving well, or these preventive steps that you can take around thinking, around thought, around mental health, to keep yourself well, essentially.
Shaun Francis
That's exactly right.
Christopher Shulgan
So with this episode, in one single episode, what we're looking to do is say, this is what we think, this is what the best evidence suggests that you should do on an ongoing basis. This is our advice. This is what we think. That's what we wanted to do with this episode.
Shaun Francis
And I'm just really excited to try to bring home these messages in one single podcast, if it can be done. I believe it can. So I'm super excited to get at it.
Christopher Shulgan
We're going to be talking to Dr. Peter Nord, who's the chief medical officer of Medcan. He's going to provide kind of the medical side of Eat Move Think and why it makes sense over the long term. And then we're going to talk to the topic experts. So eat is Leslie Beck, who's a frequent guest on the podcast and a frequent guest host, and she's the director of food and nutrition for Medcan. Then Stephen Salzmann, the director of fitness here at Medcan is going to talk about the move side. And then Dr. Jonathan Danson, one of the clinical psychologists at Medcan is going to talk about the think portion, preventive health in terms of mental health.
Shaun Francis
It's going to be an amazing episode. Can't wait to get to it.
Christopher Shulgan
Dr. Peter Nord is our first expert. What do you want to say about Dr. Peter Nord?
Shaun Francis
Dr. Nord is Medcan's chief medical officer, and he has decades of experience in medicine, both in sports medicine and general practice, both in the US and in Canada. So he has really a global perspective.
Christopher Shulgan
What I love about Dr. Nord is that he practices what he preaches. Even in the winter, in February, he'll, like, ride into Medcan on his bike. Like, he—you know, he looks fit. Eat Move Think, he lives that every day.
Shaun Francis
You know, look, we can't be preaching what we are if we don't act it.
Christopher Shulgan
Okay, so here's Dr. Peter Nord talking about the medical side of the Eat Move Think framework.
Peter Nord
Hi there, it's Peter Nord, the chief medical officer at Medcan. We've hit so many topics in the previous podcasts, we wanted to try and put it all together today. And so just from the physician's perspective, having access to medical care is one of those things that is just core to living a healthy lifestyle. Like, you just need to have that going on.
Peter Nord
So what does that really mean? To unpack that, it starts with really screening and preventative health care. Things like eye checks, colonoscopies, mammograms, pap smears, PSA testing, all of that screening that we really focus on is there to create a healthy lifestyle. Okay, how does that happen? What we're looking for is early signs of disease. So is that an early cancer, is it an early medical condition that maybe had no symptoms attached to it at all? And as a result, we want to be able to very rapidly get into the therapy side of that. So does that mean surgery for a very early-stage cancer? Obviously, sooner is better. If it's a medical condition, maybe you have high blood pressure, we want to get you on a medicine that has no side effects, and want to get that under control just as soon as possible. You want to get your cholesterol under control. What does that look like, and how quickly can we get that under control?
Peter Nord
And of course, all of that's not going to work if you don't listen to your doctor's advice. So working with your doctor as a partner, critically important in this regard. So between doctor visits, what can people do to lead healthy lifestyles? That's where the ownership piece comes in. That's where you take the desire for a healthy lifestyle, you insert some education, some awareness and some commitment, and out the other end comes a healthy, active, long life. And with that, I'll be turning it over to our expert speakers.
Shaun Francis
So next, we have Leslie Beck, who has been with Medcan for many, many years, and we're so grateful to have her with our organization. She is Canada's number one nutritionist. She's the top columnist of the Globe & Mail on nutrition, she's a prolific researcher and writer, and really just a delight to have with us, and who's a collaborator with both our clinical staff and our food staff in our food business. So Leslie's a dynamo, and she's our go-to person on all these topics that relate to food.
Christopher Shulgan
All right, so here's Leslie Beck talking about the eat portion of the Eat Move Think framework.
Leslie Beck
Eating well is extremely important. It affects everything. There's an enormous amount of research to show that eating a healthy diet, following a healthy dietary pattern is associated with protection from heart disease, stroke, type two diabetes, a number of cancers, obesity. But there's also evolving research now we're learning that what you eat and what you don't eat affects your brain as well. That the right diet, a healthy diet, can also reduce the risk of depression, anxiety, other mental health disorders as well. Eating the right diet affects your gut health, your microbiome, which plays so many different aspects in keeping us healthy.
Leslie Beck
So there's been a lot of research, and there continues to be a lot of research showing you all the many different ways food, nutrients and that pattern of eating is so important to our overall health and well-being. And we believe that means an eating pattern that consists of whole, minimally-processed foods, a lot of plant foods, mainly plant foods, eaten in balanced portions. We certainly don't believe in fad diets, which are often nutritionally incomplete and fall short in supporting both our physical health and our mental health as well.
Leslie Beck
When we talk about eating more whole foods, we're talking about fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, beans, lentils, nuts and seeds. These foods provide all the fibre, the protein, the vitamins, the minerals, the phytochemicals that are in the food. Eating foods in their natural intact form is important since the nutrients and phytochemicals in whole foods act in a very synergistic way to deliver their health benefits. While we do believe that whole foods should be the mainstay of your diet, certainly minimally-processed foods offer nutrition too, and I'm talking about things like pre-washed salad greens, canned tomatoes, frozen vegetables and frozen berries, especially when things are out of season. They're convenient, and they're nutritious as well.
Leslie Beck
But when you look at heavily processed foods, on the other hand, when you heavily process a food, that dramatically alters a food's composition and its nutritional content. So extreme processing reduces the nutrient content, and it adds calories from unnecessary fats and added sugars. And manufacturers also do things to hide the loss of taste, texture and colour that comes from highly processing foods. They add salt, they add colourings, flavourings and other chemicals. So when I say highly-processed or ultra-processed foods, I mean things like frozen chicken nuggets, frozen pizza, refined breakfast cereals. Basically, if you're buying a packaged food that has ingredients that you don't have in your own kitchen cupboard at home, it's highly processed.
Leslie Beck
So when we say plant-based, we're not talking about a 100 percent plant-based vegan diet. Not to say that that's not a healthy eating pattern, it is. But when we say plant-based, we're really talking about more plant foods. So there's a daily emphasis on plant foods like fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds, beans, and lentils, whole grains. And think about—I mean, one of the healthiest dietary patterns around is the Mediterranean diet, which is, I would say, a plant-forward or plant-friendly diet. It certainly includes a little bit of red meat, some poultry, some eggs, some cheese, but it does have a daily emphasis on those plant foods. At Medcan, our food philosophy is based on many of the principles of the Mediterranean diet, because it really is considered a gold-standard diet based on the numerous health benefits that have been attributed to it through scientific studies.
Leslie Beck
Also we need to think about portion size. Big food is the norm, I tell people. And we're so used to being exposed to it that we've kind of lost touch with what the right size portion or serving size should be that we eat. And certainly, portion size is a key driver of calorie intake, of weight gain. I would say in general, if we're talking about protein-rich foods, like you're having chicken or a piece of salmon or lean meat, anywhere from three to six ounces might be appropriate for somebody, depending on who they are, at a meal. When it comes to whole grains, be it brown rice, quinoa, other types of grains, oats, oatmeal, you know, anywhere from maybe one to one and a half cups. If you're doing a lot of working out, you very well could need more. Vegetables should fill half your plate. Certainly at your evening meal or at lunch, but fruits and vegetables should be a part of each meal in some fashion as well.
Leslie Beck
And I always tell our clients who are looking to lose excess weight, whatever it is you're going to do, you need to do those same things today, tomorrow, six months later, and at six years later if you're going to maintain your weight loss. So it's about can you sustain it for the long term? Is it enjoyable? Is it something that the rest of your family can follow along with as well? Is it good for you? Is it nutritious, or are you shortchanging your body very important nutrients?
Leslie Beck
The problem with fad diets is that many of them eliminate an entire food group, and eliminate many, many healthy foods, whether it's fruit, whether it's beans and lentils, whether it's whole grains, because carbohydrates are wiped out of them. So, you know, you're missing out on important nutrients, you're missing out on the fibre that fuels the growth of your good gut bacteria, keeps your microbiome healthy. So that's definitely a problem. But the other problem is is that many of them, they're short term. They're seen as short-term quick fixes, and they're not sustainable for the long term.
Christopher Shulgan
Shaun, can you talk about move, and what move means to you?
Shaun Francis
Well Chris, as you know in our research, you know, it's always come back to physical activity, right? I don't think there's anyone that says that, you know, physical activity is not good for you. And it's now really well understood that if you don't use it, you lose it. And it comes down to two things, as you know, in our journey. The cardio is super important, and that's our length of life, which is great heart health, and it's a, it's a metric that might be as important as your blood pressure really, to indicate, you know, longevity in terms of your VO2Max and our understanding of your oxygen capacity and how well your heart works.
Shaun Francis
And then similarly, your resistance training, right? Your muscles and your bone mass. Like, if you don't use them, they will deteriorate over time. So you don't want to be that person who lives a long life, but then doesn't have the use of their body. And so really, if you can put those two things together, and hopefully you have your mind, you can have a high quality of life for as really, as long as possible.
Christopher Shulgan
Well, one thing I've heard you say is that cardio and aerobic is quantity of life, and resistance training is quality of life.
Shaun Francis
That's exactly right. You know, one of the best things for your cardio is cycling, because it's low impact. But I should underscore that it's low impact if you don't crash, which I did this past summer. And I fractured my femur quite catastrophically, though I didn't displace it, which meant the bone held in place, though it was fully fractured. So probably the most painful physical injury I've ever had personally, and I understand it is one of the worst fractures you can have.
Shaun Francis
But I think because I was in relatively good shape, I was able to—couple things. One, is I didn't get surgery, which was really what most people get, because the bone hadn't displaced. But two, I was able to really rebound pretty quickly. So my bone didn't heal necessarily more quickly than it's supposed to. So I really stayed on track with the timelines. But I'm now sort of four months after the fact, and I'm fully back. It feels as if I never had the fracture. But the moral of my story is, I really believe because I went into the accident, pretty fit, that I was able to bounce back from it fairly quickly and without surgery, to the point that I really don't feel, you know, knock on wood physically impacted whatsoever.
Christopher Shulgan
You know, you're fit, you have this catastrophic injury, maybe the worst break that you possibly can have, and you come out of it four months later, you're back. You're like 100 percent now, because of move, because of exercise. So now we're going to have Stephen Salzmann. He's going to talk about what you should be doing in clear, fast, easy-to-understand language, here's what you should be doing day to day on move, on physical fitness.
Shaun Francis
Yeah, Stephen's our head of fitness. We have one of the largest fitness teams in Canada. He's a terrific leader for us, and really is evolving our colleagues so that they're more than just personal trainers, they're really your coach.
Stephen Salzmann
Hi, I'm Stephen Salzmann, director of fitness at Medcan, and I want to talk about the move pillar of Medcan's Eat Move Think philosophy. The move pillar is an integral part to the overall Eat Move Think philosophy for a number of reasons. We know that it can help you with your physical fitness, your cardio-respiratory fitness, your emotional fitness. And the move pillar entails getting in the appropriate amount of incidental physical activity with the choices that we make in our day-to-day lives, and then supplementing that with more focused cardiovascular training, as well as strength and balance training.
Stephen Salzmann
The latest guidelines suggest at least 150 minutes per week of focused, moderate or vigorous intensity cardiovascular training, and at least two to three days per week of resistance training. If you're over the age of 60 to 65, you should make a conscious effort to include balance training as well. Balance training is very similar to what you may think goes on on a gym floor in general, but you're challenging stability in two main ways. One is you're modifying the surface on which you are training. So instead of stepping up onto a hard block, for example, you could be stepping up onto something like a BOSU or a balance pad that your little intrinsic muscles in your feet have to work to counteract. The other way that you can do it is by training asymmetrically. So you think of a squat where you have your feet more or less in line with each other, now all of a sudden, you would have one foot in front, one foot behind. And that asymmetry forces your core and little tiny stabilizer muscles throughout your body to fire up and improve.
Stephen Salzmann
So the intended function of balance training, or I guess more generally, stability, is to be able to maintain control in the presence of change. You can very often train balance while you're doing your resistance training. The most effective way to structure your resistance training workout for the majority of the population is to pair pushing exercises and pulling exercises, both upper and lower body. Upper body push would be something like a push up. Upper body pull would be something like a row. A lower body push would be a knee-dominant or squat exercise. And a lower body pull would be a hip-dominant or dead-lift, hip hinge type of exercise. And for our listeners, a hip hinge is an exercise where the hip or the glutes are the main drivers of the movement.
Stephen Salzmann
When we talk about the core, we would benefit much more from doing exercises like planks, instead of exercises like crunches. When we talk about aerobic physical activity and the accumulation of the 150 minutes per week, it doesn't really matter what we're doing, whether it's running, walking briskly, playing basketball, rowing, soccer. What's more important is that we actually accumulate that much physical activity in a seven-day period. And that is at a moderate to vigorous intensity level. So what that means is you're out of breath, you can't keep up a conversation while you're doing it, and you're sweating. And you want to be working at at least an exertion level of about six out of 10. That usually breaks down nicely into 30 minutes, five days a week.
Stephen Salzmann
I do it to maintain a arguably good-looking physique, a healthy body composition, and to prevent all types of diseases. Ideally, I want to live as long as possible, and I want to live those years being as functional and as able as possible. So for me, it's about longevity as much as it is quality of life.
Christopher Shulgan
So now "think." What does think mean to you?
Shaun Francis
If you don't have the right frame of mind, you can't do the eat and the move. And obviously, your mind is really a foundation for your happiness. You know, we discussed in the book and on various podcasts, it comes in many forms. So one is, how do I change behaviours? And that's part of that think discipline, so that I can be at my optimal weight, I can be at my optimal physical fitness.
Shaun Francis
How do I sleep better? How can I manage stressful situations? How do I manage relationships? These are all critical elements of the think journey which, in combination, help you again, live your happiest, healthiest life.
Christopher Shulgan
And everything ties together, which Eat Move Think is part of this, is that, you know, your diet affects the way you move, which affects the way you think. That's a pretty good segue for Dr. Jonathan Danson.
Shaun Francis
So next up, we have Jonathan Danson. Dr. Jonathan Danson, one of Medcan's clinical psychologists. A great, great clinician and a great guy overall.
Christopher Shulgan
Dr. Jonathan Danson will talk about the think portion of the Eat Move Think framework.
Jonathan Danson
I think good preventative mental health measures are things we can do to help promote mental health. Nothing guarantees mental health. We always do need some kind of reactive interventions, but I do think there's a baseline set of behaviours that we can do that help promote mental health, or at least put us in the best position to have good mental health.
Jonathan Danson
So in terms of paying attention to your mind specifically, we can talk about thoughts. Because I do think one of the baseline important things to do is to identify and sometimes challenge our thoughts when it's appropriate. I think the most helpful way to think about thoughts is that thoughts are hypotheses, not facts. And what do we do with hypotheses in science? We test them, and we test them using data.
Jonathan Danson
So obviously in science, you know, if it's chemistry, you're doing something very concrete, something, you know, very literal. With our mental health, it's checking in with that thought and looking if there is data that supports it, or data that refutes it. If, in the end, we find that the data does not support our thought, then we have to assume there's some kind of bias happening or something that can help us explain the gap between what the data says and what our mind’s saying. And that's, I think, really important to figure out what those biases are, why do we think differently than the data would suggest? One really easy technique, it's kind of cheesy, but it's called the best friend technique, which is just simply saying, "Would I say these things to my best friend?" So if a best friend said, "I'm a loser," what's the data we would show them that would suggest they're not—if we don't think they are, of course—and to apply that same kind of logic to ourselves. If I'm saying I'm a loser, or I'm not smart enough or I'm not good enough, or even things more specific, like I'm not performing well in this job, to make sure we look at the data and treat it fairly, like we would for a friend of ours.
Jonathan Danson
We often have negative biases towards ourselves, not always, but especially with things like depression and anxiety, and we want to try to clear away those biases by looking at the data and seeing as factual as possible. I think a good baseline preventative mental health behaviour is making sure that we have a good social life, I think the most important thing to know about social life is perceived social support is the important thing, not any objective measure of social support. So the general question you want to ask is, are you satisfied with your social life? You know, do you feel supported? Do you feel comfortable? Do you feel you have people who you can turn to if you need them? Do you have people you can have fun with? So if I have one acquaintance, but I feel good about that acquaintance, I feel like I can turn to them if I want to, or I feel like I don't need someone to turn to, if I'm satisfied with that, then that's good perceived social support. And that's predictive of good mental health.
Jonathan Danson
Another important behaviour, and everyone's heard it a million times by now is mindfulness. So I'm going to spare you the kind of details of mindfulness because I think anyone's heard it a million times, I'll just say, of course, the basic idea is paying attention to the present moment, non-judgmentally. I love mindfulness, the research is pretty clear on the benefits that it can have. The pointers that I personally like to give about mindfulness is to treat it, especially at the beginning, like brushing your teeth. What I mean by that is you don't have to enjoy it, you don't have to look forward to it, you don't even have to feel better after. Just try to recognize that over time, it is good for your health, and keep doing it. I think one of the amazing things about mindfulness getting popular is that everyone's doing it, there's a million good apps for it like Headspace or Calm. The problem is you also have a lot of people who are really excited about it, who I think send the wrong message. The message being do it and you'll love it, do it and it'll change your life, and all those kind of really positive messages that sound good.
Jonathan Danson
The problem is, then we pick up a mindfulness book, or we start with an app, and we find that a) we're not good at it. You know, in a 10-minute meditation, you spend nine and a half minutes forgetting you're meditating. Or b) we don't enjoy it. So the whole time we're thinking, "When is this gonna end?" Or c) we do it and we just don't feel any better after it. And this expectation that we're gonna love it, we're gonna feel more centred, we're gonna feel, you know, so wonderful after it, when that doesn't happen, people tend to quit. So my message again is, especially the first bunch of times, the goal is just to do it. If you don't like it, that's fine. If you don't find that you can actually pay the attention that you want to, that's fine. If you don't feel better after, that's fine. Those things will likely come over time.
Jonathan Danson
So another kind of important baseline behaviour that promotes mental health is sleep. Again, sleep is talked about by a million different people in a million different ways. Most of them know more about it than I do. So I'll just maybe add my kind of two cents. So first of all, the obvious ones are, you know, the seven and a half hours, plus or minus half an hour, to try to aim for that. Sleep scheduling is really important. So have a fairly regular sleep time and wake time. And that to some degree includes the weekends. There's this is really interesting concept called social jetlag. And it's just based on this idea that if we go, for example, to bed at nine o'clock every night on weekdays, and then go to bed at 12 o'clock midnight, on weekends, we're creating what's called a social jetlag, which is a three-hour time difference. Which means that, by the time Monday morning rolls around, we are effectively just returning from a flight to, let's say, Vancouver. So I'm not saying we have to be super strict, especially on weekends, everyone wants to mess with their schedule a bit. But try to keep some schedule, or at least recognize what that shift in schedule might do to you on Monday morning and try to account for that in other ways.
Jonathan Danson
So next on the list of preventative mental health activities or behaviours, I'd say would be a mix of pleasure and mastery behaviours or activities. So pleasure activities are activities that are just for fun. Things like watching a movie, having coffee with a friend, whatever they might be. The only goal being enjoying it. Mastery activities are any activities that take some kind of skill to perform, or that can involve learning a skill. Playing an instrument, writing, reading could be considered part of that if you're reading to learn something versus pleasure reading would just be something like a novel. So it's important to have a bit of a mix, and my kind of easy baseline is one of each a day. One thing that's just for fun, just for you or you and your family or however you might have fun, with no other goal other than have fun. And then at least one mastery activity. So something that involves moving yourself forward, learning a skill or that takes skill to apply.
Jonathan Danson
So one thing to really keep in mind when you're trying to work on your mental health, especially in a preventative way, is how much time you're spending on social media. This is a really tough one, because what I'd love to say is just limit it. I think that's unrealistic for a lot of people. So I will say baseline, if you can set an amount of time you're gonna use social media a day or something like that and follow that, that's great. But I know for a lot of people, that's unrealistic, at least to start. So I think the biggest pitfall with social media to try to avoid are the comparisons which is, I think, the obvious thing for a lot of people. I think what a lot of people don't recognize is how hard it is not to do these comparisons, and how little insight actually impacts that.
Jonathan Danson
So as an example of how powerful social media can be, and how little insight can help in the moment, I was once at a friend's cottage, he brought a bunch of their friends. There was two people ended up being there who were real life social media influencers. And I don't mean the people who just, you know, on weekends like have a bunch of—you know, build up their followers and post nice pictures. I mean, people who make it their career. So these were lovely, really great, really kind, and of course, beautiful people, as most people are required to be if you're going to be a media influencer. And we ended up playing this game outside called spikeball. It was okay. It was a rainy day, we were cold, we kept falling in the mud. It was fun, but it wasn't that fun. I'm going to just throw a number and say it was a five out of 10. But, of course, these media influencers, they have to take pictures of the things they're doing, and they were doing that throughout. So game ends, we're all inside, we're drying off. Again, it was fun, but it was not that fun. Few hours later, I'm on social media. And, of course, I'm looking at the profiles of these two great new people I've met earlier that day. And what I find is a video that they posted of them playing this spikeball game. I caught myself watching this video and saying things to myself, like, "Wow, what a nice life! Like, that looks so fun. That looks so exciting. They're so lucky." And of course, when I caught myself, I realized I was there. It wasn't that fun. I saw them taking those pictures. They were cold and wet and muddy. So my point in this story is I was there, I had every bit of insight you can possibly have into the fact that these videos were small snippets of a broader picture, but even with all that insight, I found myself sitting there wishing I had their lives. So it's just an example of how insight's not enough. In the back of your mind, knowing that social media can be fake, we have to sit there and really explicitly acknowledge that there's a lot of behind the scenes that we're not seeing there.
Jonathan Danson
So one thing I want people to remember with all of these behaviours is these are good behaviours that can help promote mental health, they can also be good reactive behaviours if you do feel like your mental health is suffering a little bit. But I want to make it clear, this might not be enough for everybody. So you put these behaviours in place, if you still find you're struggling or if you still find you're—whether it's depression or anxiety, that's not necessarily because you failed to put these behaviours into place effectively. And what I'm getting at there is it's likely not your fault. Even with the best behaviours, we might have a biological predisposition, or we might experience a trauma or something like that that's going to affect our mental health. And I don't want anyone to receive a message that if you just do these tips, you'll never struggle again. Because that's that kind of talk or that kind of idea can lead people to blame themselves. Well, I failed. I'm just not good enough to do these steps. Or I'm so messed up that these things don't even work for me. And that's just not the case. It's okay to have all these things in place and still feel like you're struggling. That's one of those signs that it might be a good time to talk to somebody and find other ways to work on mental health issues, without ever sending the message that it's because you failed to put things into place that could help with your mental health.
Christopher Shulgan
That's it for this episode of Eat Move Think. Check out the podcast website for highlights and full episode transcripts at eatmovethinkpocast.com.
Shaun Francis
Eat Move Think is produced by Ghost Bureau. Senior producer is Russell Gragg. Social media support from Emily Mannella. Editorial direction from Chantel Guertin.
Christopher Shulgan
Remember to rate and subscribe to Eat Move Think on your favourite podcast platform. Follow Shaun on Twitter and Instagram @shauncfrancis—that's Shaun with a 'U'—and Medcan @Medcanlivewell.
Shaun Francis
We'll be back soon with a new episode examining the latest in health and wellness.
Eat Move Think is produced by Ghost Bureau. Senior producer is Russell Gragg. Social media support from Emily Mannella. Editorial direction from Chantel Guertin. Remember to rate and subscribe to Eat Move Think on your favourite podcast platform. Follow Shaun on Twitter and Instagram @shauncfrancis—that's Shaun with a U—and Medcan @medcanlivewell. We'll be back soon with a new episode examining the latest in health and wellness.