me&my COVID Reflections

As with any obstacle or challenge there is an opportunity to grow! COVID has certainly brought society its fair share of challenges. In this episode of me&my health up I share my podcast story. This podcast was born from the first lockdown in March 2020. I had no work however possessed a wealth of knowledge and health connections that I could share to help others through the pandemic. The only thing holding me back was the lack of self-confidence and self-belief! I thought... who would want to listen to me! A man who failed English at school. A man who gets very nervous about public speaking. A man who was told by a high school teacher he had an IQ of a dead plant and would never get the entrance score to study Engineering! I had to overcome all these limiting beliefs and more to  rise above my inner critic and have a go!

I started me&my health up with a computer and a paid subscription to BuzzSprout (podcast hosting platform) and Zoom. At the time I had no editing ability nor interest in editing podcasts. I now have a paid subscription to a platform that specialises in podcast recording Riverside.fm, a big donk microphone, and an amazing editor and social media extraordinaire Ivan Saldana. Today Ivan and I have published over 80 episodes and had over 50 expert guests.

In this episode I share all my lack of experience and learnings, many of which you can apply in your lives. Most important being ‘progress over perfection’ and ‘just do it’!

This is me&my COVID story about me&my health up! Enjoy!!!

About me&my Health Up & Host

me&my Health Up seeks to enhance and enlighten the wellbeing of others. Host Anthony Hartcher is the CEO of me&my wellness which provides holistic health solutions using food is medicine, combined with a holistic, balanced, lifestyle approach. Anthony holds three bachelor degrees in Complementary Medicine; Nutrition and Dietetic Medicine; and Chemical Engineering.

Credits
Podcast editing: Ivan Saldana

Podcast Disclaimer
Any information, advice, opinions or statements within it do not constitute medical, health care or other professional advice, and are provided for general information purposes only. All care is taken in the preparation of the information in this Podcast. [Connected Wellness Pty Ltd] operating under the brand of “me&my health up”..click here for more

Transcript

Anthony Hartcher 0:01
Welcome, me&my health up listeners, I'm very excited to be doing this episode, this episode's going to be on me and my COVID reflections. Yes, it's about me and my health up as a story, and what I've learned in this journey of becoming a podcaster, and keeping you entertained, hopefully, and also my learnings throughout this experience, and it all started in COVID, hence why I've filled the episode with me and my COVID reflections. So, as you are probably aware, or might not be aware, I'm the host, Anthony Hartcher. I'm a clinical nutritionist and lifestyle medicine specialist.

The purpose of this podcast is to enhance and enlighten your well being and I really hope that's been the case over the close to now 80 episodes that I've recorded and yes, it's been a journey and that's what I'm going to share with you today. So today's episodes, going to cover the story behind me and my health up.

It's also going to touch on points of courage, self-belief, I guess, uncertainty, and lack of self-confidence as well. It's also going to touch on community support.

It's also going to talk about self-awareness, we're also going to be touching on the learnings that I've got through this podcast, and I'm hoping in this episode that you can relate to some of the learnings that I go, well, I'm going to share throughout my journey with this podcast, and there's some maybe some learnings for you or some inspiration for you to take on a challenge in your life, or to step yourself out of your comfort zone.

So this is really the intent behind this episode is by sharing my story, I hope to really empower you and enhance your health and well being by this story and my learnings.

I'm also going to discuss the future trends emerging from COVID in relation to health and then I'm going to conclude the episode with acknowledgments and gratitude. As you know, you always want to conclude and wrap up anything that you've been doing, to acknowledge those that have supported you, because everything we do is interrelated, interconnected with others and it's important to recognize those others that really contribute to whatever you achieve and so I'll certainly be doing that.

So let's get started on the first topic, and it's very much the story.

So, you know, how did me and my health up ever come to fruition? And it all started when COVID hit in March 2020? Yeah, must be 2020. I'm losing track of time here and it was, you know, I just recently graduated as a nutritionist, and, you know, really finding my feet in the industry as a nutritionist before that I was a health coach, and prior to that, I was working incorporate.

So yeah, I'd started out this journey as a nutritionist, and COVID hits and it's sort of thinking, well, okay, the appointments I had lined up were are all sort of canceling, because we, you know, there's that fear in the community, about the uncertainty of, you know, about, I guess, the danger of this virus that was circulating around the world, the repercussions and how it would impact people's livelihoods.

And so, so much uncertainty, people just basically froze or are running as you do in that stress response and so I noticed a lot of my clients canceled their appointments because they obviously concerned about not wanting to catch COVID so that they didn't want to see me.

Video conferencing at the time wasn't common in healthcare, it was really uncommon and unheard of, essentially. So yeah, the appointments dried up, and I had essentially no income at the time. There was also uncertainty in my household in terms of my wife's work, Adriana.

There was uncertainty about her career and her work and employment and talks of, you know, 50% pay reduction and so this huge amounts of uncertainty and at that point, I was thinking, well, what can I do? What do I have that I can help people in this time, I knew I was empowered with education through my studies and I thought, well, that's a great way in which I can help people through this, is imparting that knowledge around health and wellness and helping them navigate through the pandemic.

However, I didn't really know of many mediums to do that and I was at the time prior to the COVID, lockdown, and whatnot. I was doing face-to-face webinars, so that was my go to I'd go to libraries, I would go to rotary clubs.

I do public speaking events or go to corporates, do talks, workshops and that was imparting my knowledge around health and empowering others and I was, I guess, thinking, Well, what else can I do if I can't do the face to face workshops, face to face talks, I can't do consults and so I was looking essentially and then I connected with a group of graduates, that we all graduated from our degree in nutrition, we caught up and we're discussing all the hardships that we were facing and the uncertainty and what we're going to do about it and on that Zoom call, it was probably one of my first zoom calls.

We think it was Kirsty Taylor who mentioned that she was going to start up a podcast and then that sort of sowed the seed in my mind was, well, maybe that's something I could do as well and so Kirsty invited me on her show when I did a podcast with her and I thought, I'm just gonna start, I had no idea what to do and what was involved with podcasting, I had no idea whatsoever.

I didn't even at the time, know about how to set it up in terms of the you know, how do you get your podcasts distributed to Spotify and Apple and all that? And how does all that work? And how to actually conduct a podcast?

How to find people to interview? And, you know, do I do it all scripted? Or do I just, you know, prepare, and then sort of go with the flow? And, yes, I was just really finding my feet and I did the interview with Kirsty on her podcast show, I actually enjoyed it and I thought, yeah, you know, I could certainly learn a bit from that, and, and I started doing some investigative work, but at the same time, as much as I was doing the investigative work, I decided just to start interviewing, just to do it, really, because I was always growing up as a kid, someone who was a real doer, and not someone that I guess thought too much, I guess I was probably one of those ones that more responded and just gave it a go.

As opposed to thinking about the consequences, the risks, which is got its pros and cons. So I am just that type of person, so I jumped in the deep end, I started interviewing, my first interview was with Nina Kingsford-Smith, which is assessable, episode number one, and we spoke about disordered eating.

So at that time, I think I had a free Zoom account and so we're doing it over zoom and on the free account and had no microphone, I was just relying on my current computer and yeah, just sort of that was asking questions and getting involved in the conversation and Nina had that specialty around disordered eating and guess throughout that episode, I learned so much about disordered eating.

I didn't have the awareness of how problematic it was and never had personal experience and didn't really know of anyone that experienced it. However, in reflecting back, have you know throughout my career, I think I do now, I think it's just something that's not commonly spoken about and through that conversation with Nina have become so much more aware of eating disorders and disordered eating and I'm starting to see a lot more of it and I'm seeing a lot more people looking for help around it. So it certainly opened up my eyes and what were the causation factors of disordered eating the triggers and how it just sort of continues to remain with the person throughout our lifetime.

So I, you know, I can see people, clients, now that are well into their 40s, 50s that are carrying with them, these views of food and I guess, body image that they carry with them for the next 20, 30 years of their life and it's not a easy thing to get over and certainly, there's not a lot of open discussion around it, which is another problem in itself and so when it's not, there's not a lot of open discussions, there's generally not a lot of support, because it's unknown.

It's an unknown now in demand, so to speak and so it's until it really becomes to the surface that people realize that there's no there's a need in the market to support those people and therefore more resources get established to serve that community of need.

So that was my first interview, and I didn't know what to do with it. After I recorded it on Zoom. I just had the audio file and video file and I was thinking okay, I could share the video on social media and the audio, what do I do with it? And I then was at the same time building my website. So I decided to reach out to the person that was helping me at Cornerstone digital, Michael Lam.

He then said, I also got another client who has a podcaster, I'll ask him, and he reached out to him and, and that's where Buzzsprout came into it and Buzzsprout has been my hosting platform ever since the beginning and I've learned a lot through being a customer of Buzzsprout because they also empower their clients through education.

So I've, you know, all my learning or pretty much podcast learning has come from their education, which has been very helpful. So I'd like to acknowledge them, like to acknowledge Michael Lam, for putting me on to Buzzsprout, and yeah, I had the hosting platform, had no idea how to edit and I had no interest in editing audio files. So when I first started, and you probably, you know, for those that have listened to the first episode, it's very raw, it's actually 100% raw, and this and that, there's no editing and it's probably on my journey, I've probably completed a good 30 episodes before engaging an editor, who I'll shortly talk about. So yeah, I just uploaded raw content onto the hosting platform, and just thought, well, it is what it is, and at least have made a start.

And I think that's the first key learning for anyone if you're, you know, continuing to listen to my story is, I really want you to think about the things in life that you've been putting off and it could be in any area of life, it could be a career change, it could be a relationship change, it could be asking your partner to marry you, or it could be having children or it could be taking on a challenge, a sporting challenge, or a getting fit or getting healthy challenge or it could be anything in that anything that takes you out of your comfort zone, essentially.

I really want you to be inspired by this story in terms of just take the first step, and just do it, just like the Nike slogan is just do it and it's very much been my philosophy in life is doing it and I as when I start, I learned so-called on the tools or on the job and I find it's rapid learning, it's exciting because your another analogy or metaphor is you know, you're punching above your weight. So essentially, you're out of your comfort zone or your, you know, you're just trying to get your head above water, so to speak and it's exhilarating, a bit frightening, a bit anxious, however, you learn so much from it and I really recommend you give it a go.

You don't have to take huge steps, you can take small steps. So I interviewed Nina, I'm friends with Nina, it was a nice warm, easy introduction into podcasting, interviewing. You know, it wasn't someone I didn't know and so it was, we had that warm connection and we just got on with chatting about her area of passion, which was very easy and I just took an inquisitive mind and so for me with you, it's just taking an easy first step, don't take a massive jump.

So it's not as if I then was reaching out to some massive influencer and some well-known person, some famous person, and I want to get them on my show and, and you know, that would be quite a nerve wracking, because you wouldn't want to stuff it off and, you know, I said to Nina, when we started recording the episode.

I said it's my first time since my first ever interview, and we'll just see how it goes and at the end of the day, we don't have to publish it. So it's just like with anything you do, it doesn't need to be publicized and I just thought, well, I've done it, this will help someone so I will publicize it because the other thing I've learned through this journey is I've recognized the areas that I'm uncomfortable or my self limitation, self-beliefs in this process.

So one of those was certainly around my ability to be coherent around my speech, so I struggled as a kid with stringing words together and it certainly hasn't been a strength of mine and so I was thinking, who in the world would ever want to listen to me so to speak, and because I I struggled with the English language and you know, I struggled so much in high school.

You know, the later years of high school HSC that you know, in Australia, we call it the highest school certificate. I actually failed English and so I have never really taken much interest in English, I've seen certainly had that maths and science brain, which has really helped with my studies around nutrition and understanding biochemistry and the human body and anatomy and physiology and pathophysiology. I love that it's all science.

However, good practitioners are great communicators and so I recognize that as an area I needed to improve and I thought, well, this can only help me in that area of communication, improving my communication and I'm a lot more comfortable now, as you've could probably see, and here in front of the microphone, I don't get as nervous or anxious.

I will just be myself, I relax into it, I relax into it so much, that my aura ring tells me that I'm resting. So it's sort of saying you're and in some cases, it's actually says I've been napping during a podcast. So can you imagine if I told my the interviewee that aura has told me I've been napping through that podcast how they would feel like they've sent me the sleep or, or how I've tuned out, which is not the case, it's actually tuning in so I've realized, I tune in so much to what they're saying, I'm listening so deeply, that that's all I'm doing. I haven't got any other distraction, no other focus other than looking at the camera, talking into the microphone, and more, using my ears, and obviously my mouth because it's all about them to about them sharing, showcasing their expertise and I'm just helping bring that area of expertise out.

So I'm looking for those questions that will bring out the expertise within them and so my interviews are very well thought out in terms of okay, what angle do I want to take in this episode.

However, in terms of the script, that doesn't exist and I figured, well, if I was to read from a script, it would be worse than me just talking, because I can tell you, I'm not a great reader and reading out loud wasn't my strength at school and so I used to always be that shy person in the classroom, not wanting to be picked by the teacher to read out paragraphs in front of everyone and so I've always struggled with that reading and talking.

So hence why I don't script my episodes and they're very raw, in a sense that, yes, there'll be um's and uh's because it's unscripted.

I completely am human, and I will make mistakes but I feel that I have grown through this and I hope you have realized that through listening to the episodes, that yeah, there's, Anthony's getting better at this hoping you know, for if you're listening to this episode, you have stuck by me, which I'm so grateful for and it's actually the acknowledgment needs to go to you at this point is, it's the listeners that have inspired me to keep this going.

I put at least a day a week into this podcast and so that's a day away from my family, that's a day away from income earning. It's a day of my life every week. So 52 days of the year, I invest in the podcasting and I do it because you inspire me.

The fact that you download the episode, you listen to me, is really inspirational for me, and I feel that I just want to keep you empowered, I want to keep you up to date with the latest science, the latest health education, and I'm always looking for that expertise in that area that you might not have ever heard about.

They can enlighten your day, your life with their knowledge and really empower you to be a better human, to be a better partner to be a better parent, to be a better worker, to be a better civilian in society, it's so tight so here we go, he's amazing struggling with the word again so tired.

Anyway, I'm going to continue with that word but yeah, so in terms of yes, I was just talking on that point of courage and, you know, self-limitation, self-belief. So I've touched on those areas of you know, I'm quite a reserved person. I'm not out spoken I'm not seeking the limelight so this really puts me in the limelight.

So it is it's uncomfortable but I'm growing into the space, which I'm fine with. What else, it's in terms of Yeah, I had that belief that who would want to listen to me, am I worth, am I worthy? You know, these, again, that's self worth coming into question. You know, who would want to listen to this? And that, I think, pops up in life all the time.

You know, am I worthy of this relationship? Am I worthy of this promotion? Am I worthy of this achievement? And, you know, I've encountered that self-worth or lack of self-worth, throughout my life and, you know, in this episode, I'm thinking, who would want to listen to me? What have I got to say that people don't know? Or, you know, do they want to hear it from me and so that's been a journey in itself and I'm grateful that you are downloading and you are listening because it inspires me to continue and get over that limitation of lack of self-worth or belief in myself.

So yeah thank you for helping me through that self-limitation. Yeah, so I think that probably wraps up that thing of courage and like a self-belief and understanding of my limitations.

There's plenty of others and I think the other one is that perfectionism. So I have an element of perfectionism, I'd love to record the perfect episode, however, I realize that there's no such thing of perfectionism. It's only something you can strive towards and I've taken that mantra in my life and I live by that thinking, well, what is perfect, there's nothing perfect, you can find faults in everything. There's nothing in nature, that's perfect. The weather's never absolutely perfect. Well, again, perfection is in the eye of the beholder and it's always seen through their lens and their filtering lens is different from one another and it's the same as people like so some people might see this model as the best looking model in the world.

Others think not so, I think this person is going to meet like, so everyone's going to see the world differently through a different lens and their views of perfection are going to be all very different and hence, why strive for perfectionism, is because you might think you've delivered the perfect episode, but then someone will find a fault in it, or from their lens, it's not perfect.

So why should I care about perfectionism other than I strive to do my best at all times and that's what I've done throughout this. My health up is I'm constantly striving to do my best at all times and to deliver the best content at all times and it's certainly the intent of the people I interview is that they want to put their best foot forward.

I haven't had a single person that hasn't cared about the recording, they've all asked me what was that? Okay, was that alright? Was that what you're looking for? And absolutely, everyone wants to do the best and you'll see that in life is everyone strives to do their best and that's all we should ever aim to do and so I want you to chase progress over perfectionism.

Yes, strive, to better yourself, strive to do things better, don't worry about perfect. Make sure it's just progress is key progress, but it's incrementally improving each time so it's not doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

For example, I've invested in this microphone that you can see or hear. I didn't have that microphone before. So that's been an investment in terms of like incremental, the wanting to improve the sound quality to make it easier to listen to so that you really love the episodes in terms of the audio quality.

So I strive to make that better each time. I strive to make the environment around me as quiet as possible, even though I'm you know, recording from my home, where there's homeschooling homework, you know, my wife works from home as well. There's three building sites under construction. So there's constant noise around me and so I'm always challenged by the environment, the internet connection, for example, the computer, I've had computer problems where the recording hasn't been uploading or to the web or to the cloud because there's not enough storage or you know, the hard storage on my computer isn't enough.

So I actually bought a new computer because I was using up so much of the memory on my old computer it couldn't run anymore. So I've invested in new computer, a new microphone. I've invested in a software for example, such as the one I'm recording on now is Riverside So a special software for podcast recording, yes, I started on Zoom but then I realized the audio quality out of zoom is compressed. It's not as it is, right, so. So what you hear is compressed audio, which doesn't sound as good as I think I think the other term is, it's condensed or compressed and then the other term is more, I guess that dynamic is the actual reality.

I don't know, I'm not a sound engineer and this is the other thing. I've never had any experience in sound engineering or, you know, understanding sound and how to improve and so this is where community support comes into it.

So I've acknowledged you as the listeners that inspire me to keep producing these episodes, but I've got support around me, that also helps me make these episodes better, such as my podcast editor, Ivan selects lander as I cover Solenn. Anyway, I'm so sorry, Ivan, I must say, I was practicing your name before recording this and I think the pressure of the pressure I put on myself, that has made a mess of it. So I should have just relaxed before saying it, but Ivan, yes, I've been helps me with the podcast editing, he does all the editing.

He does it so well, and he's very meticulous, he actually enjoys this side of editing. And so whenever you have something that you're not good at, find someone else that loves it, and that way, you complement one another and there's synergy and you can get an enhanced outcome through working through that complementation that synergistic nature of working together.

So this is where like, I like doing the recording the talking the interviewing Ivan loves doing the editing, and he does such a great job of it so thank you, Ivan, and I apologize for messing up your last name but you know that you know exactly what I struggle with the English language and pronouncing names and I actually apologize to all the guests whose names I've mispronounced over the recordings and it's not the first time I know many recordings, I've struggled with some of the surnames and even though I've practiced it before the recording, I think it's the pressure of the recording that it puts me under a bit of pressure and hence, it doesn't come across as I'd like it to so I apologize not only to Ivan the editor but also some of the guests who I've mispronounced your name.

And I think that's again, being comfortable with who you are acknowledging your whether it be faults or weaknesses or areas that are underdeveloped. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter, whatever I want to label it, or what anyone else wants to label it. It's areas I can grow in, certainly, but some of these areas are areas that don't have an interest to growing.

So I've got a massive passion and interest to grow in health and wellness and you know, just accumulate more knowledge in this space and I'm constantly listening to experts reading, understanding new concepts around health, new papers, new scientific research, I'm constantly absorbing that information. I love it, I can't get enough of it and whereas I've haven't got an interest in learning how to edit a podcast episode.

So I think that's another takeaway from this episode is really acknowledging what you're good at, and the things you're not interested in or you're underdeveloped at.

Delegate to someone else.

Find someone that is really passionate and loves that area and your work together. Great. So that's another key learning is that community support, and also acknowledging, you know, my family for putting up with me, we're doing these recordings, because I'm asking for a quiet household to do these recordings and it's not easy for them, it's an inconvenience for them.

They can't act as they would like to in terms of just being themselves and so you know, I acknowledge my family, my children, my wife, so they've been instrumental. They've also given me lots of inspiration to keep this up and give lots of feedback and yeah, it's really nice to have that support that family support, and my extended family, my mum and dad, my parents in law, father in law, mother in law, extended family, everyone.

It's it's been really great to get the feedback and the constant support, whether it be taking the kids out and getting them out of their household so I can record the Episode? Or is it just giving me words of encouragement that someone else is listening to it that they know. So, I always love hearing about you people listening to the episode because it inspires me.

You know, I know that there's more people listening now than there was when I first started and so I am grateful for that. I think, also, I would like to cast my reflections over the episodes in terms of what I've learned, I think that's important. I have spoken about that first podcast recording, which was on the disordered eating, I learned so much about that and made more self-aware and I'm seeing a lot more of it and I'm able to help a lot more in that area through the education Nina isn't impacted on me through doing the episode.

So I think with Nina Kingsford Smith, I've done four recordings with her on disordered eating and that's around four hours of education, and it's really enlightened me. So I hope it's really enlightened you and given you some helpful tips of how you can help yourself and help others.

In terms of other learnings for me, it's certainly been around listening, my listening skills, when you're interviewing something, or something sorry, when you're interviewing someone, you really need to tune in and understand and get absorbed in what they're saying because, in order to ask a follow up question, you look very silly. If you haven't listened to and understood the content, I must say, in the early episodes, it was time to get caught out and you know, I admit that but I learned from it and so I'm a lot more attuned and hence, or is telling me that I'm napping at times, and I'm resting, so to speak, which means I'm in a deep, deep state of focus, which is great, I'm very happy about that.

So that's only improving my listening abilities only getting better and I've also had that feedback from my, the people I interview is that they tell me, I'm a great listener, which I'm pleased to hear, because that's something I wanted to improve. So I'll continue to improve that area, there's no doubt I can continue to improve and so that's been huge for me is that ability to listen, and it helps in every aspect of my life to be a better listener.

So, as Stephen Covey said, principle number one was to seek first to understand before being understood. So that's what I seek to do is to understand first, in every interaction I do with people before I seek to get my point of view across all my thoughts, whatever it might be, is, I really need to understand that person that helps me being a consultant as well in health is a really need to understand my clients, I need to put myself in their shoes to really feel the pain and to feel their frustration and to be that really empathetic person so that they build belief and trust within me that can only come through that deep connection of understanding.

So that's really helped me in many ways. So not only in my career but in my personal life, that ability to listen better and I mentioned the other one before was progress, Trump's perfectionism. So I just want to touch on that again, it's very important to just remember that, so make sure you take that as a key learning away from this episode.

The other one is, I've learned so much from every guest. So I've never went into any interview with preconceived ideas that I know this information, or I know what this guest is going to say, I'm not going to learn and I always went into every interview with a totally open mind and that's another key learning for you is to go into every interaction with anyone with an open mind.

Don't prejudge anyone with pre judge, you're putting blocks up in front of that interaction, which inhibits the connection with that other person, and in these times, we need deeper connections and to get those deeper connections. We must not prejudge, we must see that person with an open mind as much as you can and yes, there is filters that you have from your upbringing, that will give you signals that you're thinking I don't feel comfortable for whatever reason that something they may say or some trigger or the way they may dress may trigger something from you from a past memory.

So it's important to say yes, I acknowledge that fear, however, I'm still going to take an open mind. So it's acknowledging the thinking process that's going into your head being aware of that but not clinging on to that thinking, Yes, therefore, I've had that past experience, I must, because this person's wearing the same or has the same haircut or the same glasses are the same voice tone or whatever, that therefore they're the same as that previous person that I'd had this terrible falling out with.

He can't take that view, you got to acknowledge it that yes, your fear center is wanting you to be safe and say, Yes, thank you fear center but I'm going to further explore and give this person a chance before making any judgment. I think that's really important in terms of developing the relationships, particularly as we emerge from COVID, which I'm going to be touching on shortly because there's going to be a lot of Okay, guess fear around is the person I'm interacting with vaccinated or not vaccinated? Should I expose myself I've got a family to think about and so there's a lot of that fear at the moment, I'm sensing a lot of that a lot of that division disunity and so yes, I can understand where it's coming from.

We need to look after ourselves and our loved ones and really make, you know, you need to make the best decision on behalf of your personal circumstances. However, you do need to, I guess, be open to at some point, we need to live with what's going on. So it's, it's your readiness. So I think go with where you're at however, just be aware that you can't live, I guess, in isolation forever and we do need to open up eventually.

So open up at your own pace, do it at the pace you're comfortable at. In terms of the future trends, I wanted to touch on. So what I'm seeing is a lot of mental health concerns, which is really troubling, troubling me and yet, it's everywhere. So counselors, psychologists that in in data with people struggling, and it's no surprise to anyone really given what we've been through and then that the amount of isolation social disconnection is a causation for anxiety, depression and there's been a lot of that.

So you know, I can understand why that's prevalent. So really being aware of people are still struggling, even though we're opening up don't think they need to just get over what they're going through, it's going to take people a different, everyone's going to go through the healing of this pandemic at a different pace. So just be aware of people are going to be at different spectrums, so that we people that are still in denial, or you know, not accepting the situation we're in and, and still denying it and then there'll be people that are fully accepted it and just embracing this openness.

So there's going to be two ends of the spectrum, there'll be people in between, I think it's just recognizing where people are at, and helping them in terms of where they're at, and not prejudging them as to why you're taking so long to get back out and socialize because there's going to be a lot of social anxiety given that we haven't done a lot of socialization. So there's going to be a lot of people thinking of pre judgment. For example, if someone has struggled throughout this period, they may have gained some weight, they may be slightly depressed, those people are going to really struggle to come out and socialize because they're going to be fearful of the judgment that will be passed because they put on a bit of weight or they look a bit different and so we need to be mindful of that.

We need to be certainly self, you know, self-aware that people are going to go through at different paces to you and, and to acknowledge that and to help them as to where they're at. So just reach out and check in with people. The other one is outdoor exercise is certainly going to continue and it's been discovered just like video conferencing has been discovered. So you know, video, there's telehealth, there's lots of meetings going on via video and less travel and all that which is great for the environment.

Also, outdoor exercise has been discovered because of the closure of gyms. So, certainly, outdoor exercises will continue, which is great because people are getting more exposure to outdoor light which is essential for good night's sleep. We need to attune our cells to the circadian rhythm which is a nine day cycle. To get that achievement we need to have our light receptors exposed to the various light That's given throughout the day.

So we need early morning sun exposure, we need middle of day sun exposure, we need afternoon sun exposure because this really helps the body stay in rhythm with the circadian rhythm to help sleep. So that's really important, so yeah, continue with the outdoor exercise in terms of nutrition, you know, future trends around nutrition, it's, there's going to be the continuation of influences. So you're going to see a lot more tick tock people doing various challenges and influencing you to take on various things.

So certainly don't just embrace it, you know, treat it, as has this person got credibility, don't just do it, because everyone else is doing it. Some of the challenges I'm seeing such as the 75 hard challenge, which is going viral at the moment, it's not evidence based by any means. There's not a lot of credibility as to why it's good for you and who it's come from is, you know, is that person a health and well-being expert, you know, extremely questionable as an influencer and, you know, so I don't it I don't endorse that. Certainly not. It's extremism. I don't endorse any extremism, just like a lot of fad diets. Again, it's extremism.

Eating disorders come from this extremism, our body wants to maintain homeostasis, we need to help it. So this is a steady state, our bodies always seeking to balance themselves to keep you in optimal function. So when we take on anything extremism, such as fad diets, or these 75, hard challenges, exercises, whatever they are, then that extremism sends the body in one direction and it's struggling to find any balance or trying to balance that massive hardness or that massive demand you're putting on the body and because of that, it will result in poor health outcomes, there's no doubt about it.

For optimal function, we need to help the body maintain homeostasis, to help the body maintain homeostasis. We don't want to do extremism, okay, we want to do things by small steps, or incremental steps and that's vital for steady-state, we want to do change in small steps. So help the body don't do anything extreme. Don't starve yourself, don't you know, like, don't embrace intermittent fasting to the nth degree or these long fasting periods and extremism and it's a big shock to the body and I often see people that have poor health outcomes as a result of doing something extreme.

It's very common. So I am in really encourage you to take a more steady, slower approach to health and well-being and incrementally improve over time. Nothing extreme. That's a big tip for me in terms of this podcast and this is the same around sleep.

Sleep is all about you doing good things during the day, such as I mentioned, getting outside in the sun, and seeing the sun throughout the day. Also, obviously not caffeinated, caffeinated in your body too much. Also, you know, doing some exercise some movements, it's also important that you have consistency around the nighttime routine, and consistency must include the same time to bed the same weight time, that really helps the body maintain homeostasis or steady state equilibrium.

So it's not extremism, it's not pulling an all nighter, and then sleeping 12 hours or 14 hours. Again, that's extremism, really just small, incremental improvements over time and you'll find your health gradually just improves, improves, improves, improves, and you never go backwards. Extremism just encourages behavior in the other opposite direction.

So if, for example, with this opening up, because we haven't been able to socialize, can you imagine, you know, next week when it's freedom week for New South Wales, that everyone is just going to do massive amounts of socialization, while again, this is swinging the pendulum in the completely opposite end and, you know, it's, it's gonna be a shock for the body, I can assure you because people will be staying up later, there'll be drinking more alcohol.

They'll be not resting enough because I just wanted to catch up with this person, this person, that person, this person, it's all going to happen now. So I say, take a steady, slower approach to the opening up incremental steps is vital because it's going to help your body adjust to the change and you will feel better and have more optimal health in terms of energy, have better moods, you'll be less erratic. So just take away the extremism, everything in incremental steps and your health will gradually improve incrementally and you'll be so much happier and it's so much more sustainable.

So I really hope you enjoyed this recording. I've enjoyed delivering it and thank you again for listening to me and my health upand I really am excited about the future of me and my health up, in delivering you high quality, credible health information from credible sources and really empower and enlighten your well being so thanks for listening and stay tuned for more insightful episodes of me&my health up.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai