Hello and welcome back to another episode of Change Wired Podcast. My name is Angela Sharina. I'm your host, your partner in transformation, in change, your executive coach 360, Body Mind Work Better, and just someone who is truly passionate and dedicated to learning how to unlock and use more of our human potential, and by doing so, creating a more extraordinary world, living the most extraordinary lives. Today, guys, we are talking about health update. So, one of these specialties of mine as a coach is health coaching. And I help high-performing individuals, so people who just want to do their best. If not all the time, then as often as possible. And with them, we always work on dialing in their health habits, health systems, because I always say that your health is your charging station. That's where you get your energy for everything else. And when your health is suboptimal and uh suffers on a regular basis, then it's gonna be really hard to impossible to unlock the best in your mindset and your psychology, and as a result of it, in what you do and what you end up creating in your life, in your calling, in your business, in your relationships, and your family. So health is the foundation. And today I'm not gonna be talking about maybe foundational stuff that you know you might hear about. It's not because I don't think it's important, but today I'd like to focus on things that I find with my clients that almost in every case are missing and undervalued and underappreciated. So those health practices in lifestyle, in nutrition, and also in movement that people don't look deep enough into, end up doing something which doesn't bring the necessary outcome or not the desired outcome and the desired quality that they want. And with just simple tweaks, you will start getting all these additional benefits that don't require a lot of investment on your time or changing a lot of things about your life. But it's all about doing the smaller underappreciated things, right? So your whole system works so much better without you having to invest a lot of I don't know, energy, effort, discipline. We're talking about health leverage and what I see is missing in nutrition, in lifestyle, in movement of high performers, and also in everything that has to do with energy creation. And also, you'll understand how a lot of times you create problems or suffer unnecessarily because you don't pay attention to those details because you maybe don't think that they are important. Let's start with the foundation of your health, sleep. You know, it's where you recover, it's where your body repairs its DNA, it's where your body builds systems, is where your brain learns, it's where your brain also works on things like emotional regulation and uh incorporating your life lessons and experiences into your psychology so you adapt and move through life easier. Like sleep, the quality of sleep is so fundamental also to your metabolic health, to your inflammation, to your hunger and cravings, to your blood sugar, like everything. Freaking everything starts and depends on good quality sleep. And yes, there are a lot of things that can go wrong with sleep and maybe even out of your control, especially if you are dealing with some health issues. But also there are things that are quite easy to fix, and you're not fixing them again, maybe because you think they're not important, like getting earplugs for the ones that fit your ears that you can get used to, the ones that are good. Your brain cannot get into really deep stages of sleep if there is some always, you know, noise, or maybe the door, the dog barking, or maybe the door opens and closes, or maybe somebody you sleep with, they are not very light sleepers in terms of noise, or and you might have those micro wakeups that make you sleep a lot less efficiently. Like your brain is always trying to keep you safe. So when you don't sleep well enough, what happened? Well, well, you don't sleep when you always hear some background noise, your brain cannot get into deeper stages of sleep because your brain is trying to keep you safe and a little bit awake in case something happens in your environment. And the quieter you can create the design the environment around you, the easier it is gonna be for you to have better quality sleep. And so earplugs in our environments. Like I don't have the well, actually, the noise where I am right now is quite low all the time. But I spent quite a lot of time in places where the windows were not good enough, or maybe I was uh by the road and there was traffic, or maybe the walls were not thick enough and I could hear my neighbors that were not necessarily the quietest ones. Like so many situations, or even when I'm on the plane or I or I travel, it's it's the same. Like I cannot control a lot of that noise, but what I can control is putting earplugs in my ears and creating as much quietness as it's possible. And my sleep improved so much because of this. I just now I don't even understand how people sleep without earplugs, how you can just rely on the noise around you, unless you are in this isolated room and you control your environment 100%. But it's very hard for most people to do it all the time. So, earplugs, underappreciated sleep hug. And there are so many, you know, new ones on the market that actually work, that are comfortable, then to use the noise to the level that it needs to be reduced. So check them out. If you're not sure which one to get to get, ask me. I have a few recommendations that I gave to my clients, which worked really beautifully. The second thing is mask, sleeping mask, like not the one that kind of like you get on the airplane, but the good one, the cushioned one that closes all of the you know small holes and allow you to be in complete darkness even when your room is not that, even when you have different lights. You know, some people get like some tape and close uh certain lights on either air conditioners or their TVs or other things that are blinking in in their environment. I'm like, just get the mask, and then no matter where you move and where you are, you can create this black environment which is needed for good quality sleep that's in research uh on real people have been shown to improve sleep sometimes by a little, sometimes by a lot, depending on where you're coming from. But mask, buy a mask. It's such an again underappreciated sleep hack. Buy a mask, buy earplugs, and things will start getting better, a lot better when it comes to sleep quality. And your sleep quality is your energy for the next day. But not only that, that's again where your body and your brain build muscle, learn things, and integrate that knowledge into your brain, where your brain does emotional regulation, where your brain makes sure that the next day you have good blood sugar control and your appetite and your recovery are optimal. So all of that is done in sleep. So good quality sleep is such a foundational health routine, which you again can improve with a lot of small hacks. Also, sleep foundational lifestyle, timing of your sleep really matters. You want to have great quality of sleep, go to bed on the same time, wake up on the same time, like no matter what the time, the more consistent you are, the better your sleep will get. Obviously, sleeping aligned with your chronotype, like whether you're a morning person, a late-night person, or or a regular, like middle person who sleeps from let's say 10-11 to 6-7. Stick to the time and your quality of sleep will improve dramatically. Again, that is what research and data shows us these days. Then also things like not drinking alcohol before sleep, do coffee, making sure that your caffeine stops at least eight hours before sleep. Even if you can fall asleep, the quality of your sleep is not gonna be the same. Again, that's what's been shown in research on real people. Then late night food, your food should stop 2-3 hours before your bedtime, at least major meals. Yeah, maybe if you have like a little snack, it's not gonna affect your digestion that much. Although, again, all the health professionals and researchers and sleep uh scientists recommend that you stop your food two, three hours before bed to down regulate your temperature and make sure your blood sugar is optimized for your sleep experience, like many different things. But yes, those are essentials. Timing alcohol, not having that, which crushes sleep for most people. Just because you can get unconscious doesn't mean you're gonna have great quality sleep. Coffee timing and then late night food, and also not training late at night, not having stimulating activities that ramp up your brain and make it so much more difficult to sleep, and also light environment, not looking at blue screens or any kind of bright light. So that's about sleep. Then the next one we're gonna move to exercise briefly. I'm not gonna be talking about workouts, but I would like to emphasize that exercise is not just for your cardiovascular capacity and your ability to run faster or move if I don't know, faster, more efficiently, becoming an athlete or even building muscle or you know, bone strengths and density, so you don't fall and break a lot of bones when you are older in life and you get injured a lot less. And bones, your bones are also an organ that create different compounds to make your metabetabolism work in general. Besides all of that, do realize that when you train, when you exercise, when you do hard things physically, you're you train your mitochondria. Those are energy-producing plants in yourself, they create energy. And the the more you train, like obviously, overtraining is not great, but when you train consistently and you exercise, you create more mitochondria, better mitochondria. And why you want to care about that is because they create your energy, and the better they are, the more there are of them that create energy, the more energy you're gonna have then for life and for your health and for recovery and for your creativity and for everything else. So you build though that energy capacity when you exercise that you can then use for a lot of things in your life. So that's why people who exercise tend to be a lot more energetic, not just because they somehow have more energy for exercise. No, you literally create more batteries in yourself when you train, when you exercise, and that allows you to have more energy that then you can invest into different things in your life. So that is not often talked about exercise, and I feel like a lot of people really need to understand that. But besides that, exercise is a natural anti-inflammatory painkiller, mood booster, it helps your cells to take the garbage out of yourself into your bloodstream, and so it's further eliminated out of your body, and then you know, natural detoxification happens, and you get a less a lot less possibility of getting all kinds of negative health consequences. So, exercise, and again, anti-painkiller, anti-inflammatory, it modulates your immune system, meaning it makes your immune system work better, not too much, not too late, still just the right amount. That's what the right amount of exercise does for you. With the right amount of sleep and recovery, you become this more energetic machine who also experiences less pain, less inflammation, better moods, and more energy. More energy. That's what you think when you think about exercise. So if you're struggling with tiredness and fatigue, contrary to popular belief, you don't need to do less, you actually need to get out there and start doing hard things physically on a regular basis. And hard things, by the way, guys, are relative. I'm not saying you go become an athlete. What I'm saying is do challenging things for you, whatever your level is, and and do that consistently. Besides exercise, the next one we're gonna switch to nutrition, specifically three points underappreciated nutritive compounds that a lot of people skip because you think they're not important and you can just go without them. Fine, and then at some point you start accumulating certain uh diseases and health problems, and you think you know, or I'm aging, maybe not, maybe just not doing the basic stuff. Like they did this observational research on people who take multivitamin, and those were adults, I think 60 plus, and one group was taking a multivitamin, just regular multivitamin, nothing special. I think it was two or three years, and the other group wasn't, and so the one that was had better cognitive capacity, memory, their overall health was better, all cause mortality, like all of the things were better, statistically significant, and uh across the whole group. So, for example, taking your multivitamin every day till the rest of your life is quite a good insurance policy of having a less cognitive performance and health problems. So that's what I do for all of my clients. I recommend, suggest taking a multivitamin. Then we have things like magnesium and D3, even if you live in a climate with a lot of sun, as we age, our capacity to absorb, then use that vitamin D diminishes. So taking a supplement, it's very hard to actually overshoot it unless you decide to take like mega doses on a regular basis. So taking a multivitamin, a lot of it is not going to be absorbed, and then taking additional D3 actually works quite well. And alongside with then taking magnesium and milk making sure you get enough calcium, which is uh only in sufficient amount. I'm talking about calcium in dairy products, or things like soft bones of fish if you consistently eat canned fish, like maybe sardines, like I do. So calcium is very important, not just for your bones, also for it's an electrolyte which helps to contract your muscles and your heart is a muscle and your stomach is a muscle and helps to conduct or transmit impulses between your nerve cells, so to think better. It is also important for relaxation of muscles and nerves. So if you want to recover better, those you know, calcium specifically is important, and you need about one gram of it, which is if you take yogurt, then you're probably gonna get about maybe a quarter of that in a really big cup, like two to three hundred milliliters for milk. You know, if it's plant-based milk, it might be fortified, but you need to check. So, calcium is one of those things that I see my clients not getting, and because again, they might not be recovering well, or get muscle con muscle spasm, or uh the down the road they might be more prone to injury, or you know, you you're gonna start getting some dental problems, or like so many things, or even digestion problems. Your calcium is actually needed for your digestion to work properly as well. So, calcium I find in my clients that there is underconsumption because they hear, oh, I shouldn't be eating dairy, and then they don't know where they're getting their calcium. Like, well, if you're not eating it, your body is not getting it. I can tell you that much by looking at your food diary. Then magnesium, uh something also to take for now until the rest of your life. Magnesium is needed every time your cells create energy, and energy is the currency of life. So taking your magnesium, your D3, your calcium on a regular basis is a really, really good idea, along with your multivitamin and along with your omega-3s. And omega 3s insufficient amounts. A lot of people would just buy any cheapest omega-3s and they think that's good. For most people, it's far away from good. The recommended amount these days is 2 to 4 grams. I always say at least 1 grams for uh essential nutrition. And to give you an idea, an average or cheaper omega-3 supplement, not only the quality is not gonna be really great in a lot of cases, but also you would get like 200 to maybe maximum 300 milligrams when you need at least at the freaking very least 1000. So getting the right kind of omega-3s for your health, for your heart health, for your arteries, for your inflammation, for your immune system, for your brain. Brain needs those omega-3s to think better, to perform better, to protect yourself from all its rich activity. So, omega-3s again, one of those things that is underappreciated, and people think also with supplement they get it, but they actually don't. I just recently had to talk to my parents a little bit more about that. So, luckily, where they are, they can get a lot of fatty fish really cheaply. So, I recommend it to eat it daily as a snack. So, omega-3s. And now a couple more things uh electrolytes and fiber. Now, hydration and drinking enough water. You probably heard about it, that it is important, and every single cell in your body needs hydration or water and other liquids where your cells, your body can find water, it's very important for your cognitive performance, for your health, for every single function in your body, in brain, you need water for health, for performance for everything. You are a water-run creature, guys. If you're not getting enough and not getting that 500 milliliters of water or as much as you possibly can do first thing in the morning, you're not doing it right. But what is underappreciated is not getting enough electrolytes with it. A lot of people don't know that in order for your body to use water efficiently, effectively, it's not enough to just drink water, you also need enough electrolytes, those salt, minerals. Salts like sodium, or that which is found in salt, like magnesium, like calcium, like potassium, to absorb that water into your bloodstream from your gut, where it usually gets when you drink it, and then from your bloodstream to get it into your cells. So it doesn't just pass through and you go pink unlimited amount and very frequently, but instead your body actually absorbs it and uses it. So, in order for that to happen, you need your electrolytes. And those are found, yes, in salt. That's why it is recommended to get some salt with your water in the morning. But also, it's good to have some potassium, which takes the water out of your blood into your cells where a lot of it is needed, right? To get the junk out and to make everything work properly, all the processes. So, electrolytes. To my clients, I always recommend start your morning with electrolytes in your water, either unflavored that sodium, potassium, and magnesium, which a lot of electrolyte drinks would have. Either unflavored or with some natural flavor, with some maybe even natural sweetener like stevia, which doesn't seem to have any negative effect whatsoever. Just making it more pleasant to drink your water. Like I hate plain water, so I get all the electrolyte drinks I can without sugar, added sugar. But but you wanna understand that water is not enough if you aren't getting those electrolytes. During the day, you usually will get those from your food, especially if you eat a lot of fruit and vegetables. But in the morning, might be worth it to put some electrolytes so you don't just pee effectively, but you actually use that water effectively, especially if you exercise in the morning. Your body uses to contract the muscles to transmit electricity through your nerves so you can move effectively and efficiently. And then when you start working, for example, cognitively, your body uses those electrolytes and water too for your nerves to communicate so you can actually think effectively, right? So water is not enough. Electrolytes that is another thing that a lot of my clients don't really think about. And when they start thinking about it and using it, they're like, Oh my god, I did not know I could function and feel that well. The right kind of hydration is really powerful. And then fiber. Fiber, fiber, fiber. Some people think that it is just to go to the bathroom effectively, which is also a good thing on its own. But no, fiber that comes with fruit and vegetables does a lot more than that. People who eat a lot of things with fiber, like fruit and vegetables, beans, whole grain, cholesterol, seem to go down and be very manageable. It is also thought that fiber helps you to remove excessive stuff from certain minerals and vitamins, but also junk and uh the excess hormones and stuff that your body doesn't want in your food. So a lot of stuff is absorbed in that fibrous stuff and is taken out of your system, going through this natural detoxification process, which makes your whole health, your elimination process, yes, a lot better. But then again, with the fibrous foods, you also get vitamins and minerals, and that's if you eat, if we're talking about fruit and vegetables, that water that are inside of the cells of the plant that is seems to be very beneficial to your health. So you your cholesterol go down, your hormone seems to stabilize, your hunger is more balanced because stuff moves slower through your digestive system. Also, your blood sugar, one of the key aspects of your metabolic health, gets a lot more regular when you on a regular basis eat stuff with fiber. So your blood sugar doesn't spike, even though you might have, let's say, more carbohydrates. But if it's from fiber-rich foods, that doesn't produce that blood sugar spike because your body has to break through the fibers and then absorb gradually those natural, you know, sometimes sugars, sometimes starches, other types of carbohydrates and fruit and vegetables. So your metabolism gets healthier, your cravings and hunger get more balanced, your hormonal balance, your gut health. Obviously, there is more and more information about how your gut bacteria is so essential for everything health related, from your mental health to of your inflammation responses to just gut bacteria. There are like trillion of cells, and they eat fiber and they produce a whole host of things, even things like serotonin and dopamine, which makes your mood go up and your motivation go up and make things work better in your whole body. So, fiber, and when you eat things with fiber, it's just so much more powerful than people think about it, like, oh, it helps me to get regular. It's a lot more than that. If and and yes, sometimes I recommend fiber supplements to my clients, but most importantly, I recommend eating a lot of fruit and vegetables, also beans considered to be somewhat towards more fruit and vegetables, because you also get all the vitamins and minerals with that, and all the other compounds that we don't even know everything about. What is the recommended amount of food? Things like fruit and vegetables per day to get more than enough fiber and a lot of vitamins and minerals, so the things that you need. So, what is recommended is about 800 grams of fruit and vegetables. And then people say, Well, it's a lot. Well, actually, an average apple is about 150 grams. You eat three apples and it's already 450 grams of fruit and vegetables, and then maybe for dinner you eat 200 to 300 grams of vegetables, which is actually not that much if you skip holding, you know, like fast carbohydrates and stuff that you should be eating less of. What happens when you start eating those 800 grams of fruit and vegetables is that you start having less space for junk, which is or just processed food, which is really good for you. So eat more of that, and you'll by default eat less of everything else. So fill up your fruit plate with fruit and vegetables. So again, three apples already for 150. An average banana is 120 grams or so. 200 grams of vegetables is literally nothing. Like when you look at the plate. One word of caution most of the salads and things like spinach, they are amazing for you, but they don't have a lot of fiber. In order to get an average amount of fiber from spinach, you have to eat like a whole bag of it, you know, one I think about 200 grams of actual spinach to get the fiber because it just has so much water in it, just like most greens. So greens are not that great for fiber. But things like beans are champions in fiber content, obviously. You know, whole grains like the ones, the grains that you can see. Rice, by the way, a lot of people don't know that. Very little fiber. One cup of rice is 100 grams of cooked rice, is about one gram of fiber. Whereas compared to fruit and vegetables, per 100 grams or about 3.5 ounces, you have five to six on average. Now, there are some fruits that are richer, some are a little bit less, but rice compared to that, very poor in fiber. I'm talking about white rice. Beans, a cup is sometimes 15-16 grams of fiber. Compare that to rice when it's one, so it's 15 to 1, right? So lentils and beans are super high in fiber. Again, fruit of about 5-6 grams per 100 grams. You eat an apple and you already like 7 to 8 grams. You need 30 grams at least per day. But if you eat your five-800 grams of fruit vegetables, and maybe some beans there, you're gonna be overshooting 40 easily. And you're gonna be a lot less hungry, a lot more energetic, a lot having a lot less blood sugar spikes and dips, and that means consistent energy throughout the day. But yes, fiber, like for a lot of my clients, we might coach different things, but it's like through the whole year we might be also trying to get to that amount of fiber. But simply it's because not a habit for a lot of people. But once you get used to it, you're like, How could I live without it? And again, it's not that much. You have three apples, and you already are more than half towards your goal. And that's it for today, guys. We talked about underappreciated, undervalued your health routine specifics and hacks and habits that are just undervalued, but have such a profound effect on the quality of your health and energy and performance, right? Sleep, earplugs, and masks, besides all the other stuff. Exercise, it's for energy, not just you know, to get muscles, among other things, like better mood, uh, less pain, less inflammation, better working immune system. Then we have nutrition, electrolytes, hydration is not just about water, vitamin D3, magnesium, calcium, the right kind of omega-3s, multivitamin. Look into those if you're interested in long-term health less diseases and feeling better every single day. And then fiber, 800 grams of fruit and vegetables, to not just be regular but also improve almost every aspect of your health, especially through your gut bacteria, which are more than your cells in your body, and they affect every single thing in your health and your performance. So, guys, which one is the weakest? That is the question. Start there with one habit, with one action. Build systems to make it easy, to make it automatic, reward yourself with feeling that you are investing in yourself every time you do that habit and you are on the way to your most high-performing self you can possibly be. Thank you guys for tuning in. Thank you for listening. If you found value in this episode and you can't wait to share, please do share with at least one other person so we could reach more ears around the world. And thank you guys. Till next time, get your electrolytes, get your mask in earplugs, and keep growing and eat some apples there as well.