It’s a tale as old as time. You finally get to go on that fantastic vacation, and then you end up coming down with a terrible cold or gaining a few unwanted pounds. Whether you’re traveling for business or taking your family on a holiday vacation, the last thing you want is an injury or illness to derail your time away, especially if you’re traveling on foreign soil. YOLO can be excellent but living healthier is the best way to enjoy life longer.
Dr. Deborah Smith, CEO of BodyPrime SPC, joins Allen Koski in reminding travelers that living a healthy lifestyle is not just limited to their usual everyday routine, it also applies whenever they travel. They talked about how pleasant travel will be if we all choose better food and practice an active lifestyle while on a business trip or a vacation. Living a rich life does not mean it should be at the expense of your health. Tune in this week to The New Nomad podcast and learn that there is a healthier way to YOLO.
[2:59] Lifestyle is a major factor in our health
[6:51] We are what we eat
[13:29] How to safeguard yourself when traveling abroad
[18:18] A cup of coffee a day, makes the nasties go away
[25:00] Connect with the locals
[33:00] Taking care of yourself holistically
GUEST BIO:
Chief Executive Officer and Medical Director for BodyPrime SPC, a new venture currently under construction to redefine health by offering a new service delivery model for significantly improving human health and performance. Prior experience includes Senior Manager, Global Occupational and Enterprise Health Services for The Boeing Company, faculty appointments at the University of Kansas School of Medicine, and healthcare delivery experiences encompassing private and public healthcare delivery systems. Dr. Smith completed a Master's of Business Administration in Healthcare from George Washington University in 2010, with an interest in healthcare administration, the business of healthcare delivery, and health and productivity initiatives.
LINKS:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborahsmithmd/
Follow Insured Nomads at:
Instagram: @insurednomads
It’s a tale as old as time. You finally get to go on that fantastic vacation, and then you end up coming down with a terrible cold or gaining a few unwanted pounds. Whether you’re traveling for business or taking your family on a holiday vacation, the last thing you want is an injury or illness to derail your time away, especially if you’re traveling on foreign soil. YOLO can be excellent but living healthier is the best way to enjoy life longer.
Dr. Deborah Smith, CEO of BodyPrime SPC, joins Allen Koski in reminding travelers that living a healthy lifestyle is not just limited to their usual everyday routine, it also applies whenever they travel. They talked about how pleasant travel will be if we all choose better food and practice an active lifestyle while on a business trip or a vacation. Living a rich life does not mean it should be at the expense of your health. Tune in this week to The New Nomad podcast and learn that there is a healthier way to YOLO.
[2:59] Lifestyle is a major factor in our health
[6:51] We are what we eat
[13:29] How to safeguard yourself when traveling abroad
[18:18] A cup of coffee a day, makes the nasties go away
[25:00] Connect with the locals
[33:00] Taking care of yourself holistically
GUEST BIO:
Chief Executive Officer and Medical Director for BodyPrime SPC, a new venture currently under construction to redefine health by offering a new service delivery model for significantly improving human health and performance. Prior experience includes Senior Manager, Global Occupational and Enterprise Health Services for The Boeing Company, faculty appointments at the University of Kansas School of Medicine, and healthcare delivery experiences encompassing private and public healthcare delivery systems. Dr. Smith completed a Master's of Business Administration in Healthcare from George Washington University in 2010, with an interest in healthcare administration, the business of healthcare delivery, and health and productivity initiatives.
LINKS:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborahsmithmd/
Follow Insured Nomads at:
Instagram: @insurednomads
Allen
Welcome to another episode of The New Nomad Podcast, the podcast that protects you, the traveler, the person who wants to visit new places, the remote worker, the location-independent individual. And today we have Dr. Deborah Smith with us, long experience helping and supporting people, not only, you know, crossing borders and travel, but also engaging in something that I think is really interesting, which we're gonna get into kind of having, you know, information that goes out, and I'm not sure if we're gonna call them micro bursts, but we'll get into it or micro recordings, whatever that that helps people have a greater understanding of health. And in my conversations with Dr. Smith, I've learned a lot so I was hoping today she would join us and, and share with with our audience also. So Dr. Smith, welcome to The New Nomad. You've had a very long and industrious career. And you've supported many people. And to many of our listeners out there, it's they're moving overseas for the first time and some folks and then we have the other spectrum, they've been to 7080 90 countries. But still, at the end of the day, staying healthy is job one behind before everything else. So maybe a little bit of your background, and then we'll get into some of the conversations and tips that we can share with our audience.
Dr. Deborah Smith
Oh, well. Thank you, Allen. I really appreciate that introduction. And yes, I've had a very long and storied history in healthcare. I actually started as an internal medicine specialist trying to do primary and consultative care, had a Medicare practice, it wasn't really financially viable, went into teaching internal medicine, and eventually got into the occupational aerospace industry, managing healthcare as a senior manager of health services for 22 years. And so as part of that we had business travelers. And we also had something known as expats, and international local hires. And so we had these populations that would have unique needs. And so I wasn't the direct travel physician, but I managed the department covered for them interacted with our global medical assistance company. And so there's some basic concepts and tenants I learned as part of that, I actually left the corporation after a long and storied career, as you mentioned, and chose to become board certified in lifestyle, medicine, lifestyle, medicine, something fairly new, most people have not heard of it. And so in addition to the occupational aerospace medicine, medical experience than internal medical, internal medicine experience, added the lifestyle medicine, which is basically coaching and guiding individuals to actually take ownership and control their health and reverse even long standing disease. And over 85% of all chronic disease is lifestyle related. And we have much more ownership over our health than we ever knew. We get into things like epigenetics, microbiome, things that can be impacted by travel, but we also can impacted by lifestyle, no matter where we are, no matter what sort of situations we're facing. And so that's the challenge today is how to bring that knowledge to individuals who want to either relocate within a country they currently live in maybe a more rural area, where they're outside of their typical healthcare system, or even going across borders into more advantageous locations that are set up for the digital nomad. And so I appreciate the introduction. And I look forward to our discussion today.
Allen
Well, I'll throw one out there right about lifestyle right off the bat. So many years back that I traveled to an Eastern Bloc country and met an American who had been deployed there. And I asked just a simple question, what's the biggest difference between being here and then when you're in the United States? And the answer came back to me something that was health related, that is back to your your lifestyle comment, said, You know what the biggest difference is, when I was in the United States, I had Crohn's disease, and I was always having issues. And now since I've moved to this country, where if you buy a loaf of bread, it gets mouldy in four days, and there's, you know, that there's more natural foods, I have not had any issues at all. And maybe I'll throw it back at you as lifestyle. It really came back to me loud and clear. That what you eat, how you sleep, I mean many different things really affect that so I would love some of your, your tips and ideas on some of the maybe the simpler lifestyle changes that folks may make But is anything really simple? But I love your comment on that.
Dr. Deborah Smith
It can be we tend to over complicate wellness. And there's many, many reasons for that I've spent several years studying why people don't do what we know we need to do. And there's really nine points of friction. I'm not going to get into that right now. But getting into specifically Crohn's is a piece of inflammatory bowel disease. Crohn's you can resolve just by getting off of animal products and meat in a third of the individuals, you can completely reverse Crohn's by pursuing more of a vegan vegetarian lifestyle. Inflammatory Bowel Disease, ulcerative colitis is another type that's seems to be more predicated by the use of cow's milk and dairy and soy by and also, this is a little bit of a commentary on the US. Food and dairy industry, is that the quality and components of many foods, if you compare the European Union verb version versus the American version, you're going to see a lot more high fructose corn syrup, a lot more preservatives, something we call food like substances, but they impair our microbiome, or microbiome, or the 100 trillion bacteria, viruses, fungi, protozoa, but mostly bacteria that we need to actually live. We didn't used to think that we needed bacteria in our gut, but our bacteria in our gut synthesise a lot of the vitamins that we need. They synthesise 10s of 1000s of beneficial compounds, short chain fatty acids, like butyric acid, they form nitric oxide, which is short lived, and we need for good vascular health. And so we need to have a relationship with our world, the world within us, the world outside of us.
Dr. Deborah Smith
And so when we eat foods that are highly processed, typical American eats two thirds of their diet, highly processed food. Typically that food is full of sugars, fats, not healthy fats, usually corn oil, oils that are high in Omega sixes. And you've got to have a normal balance between your essential fatty acids, omega three, omega sixes. And so we get into this inflamed state, particularly with the Western diet, particularly with the American diet. And so one of the things I joke about is, well, if you just move overseas, first of all, that's gonna give you a different dietary intake. So that's going to help make your microbiome better, many countries actually have better diets. There are some countries where like in India, you do want to avoid a lot of intake of ghee, which is clarified butter, but they use spices they use turmeric, one of the best antioxidants, anti cancer properties. Now green tea, they tend to have more teas and coffee, coffee and tea, just drink that you're going to live 10 years longer on average. In fact, guys are are telling me drink up to four cups a day, I'm not sure I can do that without being wired off the wall. But I'm up to two to three cups a day. And and the thing is, is that with a you know, good grade of coffee, there's so much phytonutrients and antioxidants, you know, they call coffee, the complex blend of phytonutrients and antioxidants, you just got to be drinking this stuff, or green tea, passionfruit, saffron doesn't matter the type of plant compound generally it just matters that you brew it and drink it cold, hot doesn't matter. Just don't put sugar and dairy in your in your drinks. And so much of our sugar load comes from from from drinks, I want to get back to the ulcerative Colitis and Crohn's. Just if you have a devastating disease like that, you're moving to a new country. Why not radically change your diet. That's one of the things that you can do, to radically change your health, taking ownership over your health, bringing in meditation, mindfulness, making sure that you stay connected, that's harder to do when you're a traveler. It's not so hard to find a fellow American expat on a corner in Paris. But it's very, very difficult for people coming to the US to find a fellow Frenchman on the corner of Topeka, Kansas. And so being being connected with a community a tribe having your tribe your tribe can be digital nomads, it can be travelers and just making sure that you're you're connected and then you know sleeps off from gets interrupted. Travel can have a huge impact on that there's some things that you can do to to help keep that on track. But if you're in a new location, why not experience the full sensory flavors of the of the local foods. Get variety. One of the things best things we do for our health is this eating a variety of minimally processed whole foods. And getting away from the milk and dairy particularly here in the states, but almost anywhere, you want to minimize butter, dairy milk, and there's so many good substitutes now with the oat milks and the nut milks, and so again, you want to make sure you're not getting something that's overly full of sugar, that's overly processed. But we can have a whole one hour discussion on just what's wrong with cow's milk. And why it's probably not good for your health. And if you want to go down that bloody hall. Allen, I'm happy to go with you.
Allen
Well, I think I think the important thing is no, I agree with you, I've actually moved to oat milk recently, and I feel much better. And my whole family's moved to a different type of milk. But ultimately, what you bring up is something I think we want to explore is, so you've talked about, like widening your horizons on different foods and spices. And I agree with you on turmeric, turmeric, and and other things, but also widening your thoughts, perhaps on your healthcare options. Like for instance, I remember in global people used to laugh and oh, well, they're getting a doula or they would laugh that, well, they're in Germany, you can go to the spa. And of course, you know, somebody has cancer in the United States, where we rush right back to work, is that really the best way for you to get healthy were in some other countries, you get cancer, you have a longer period to recuperate, even when you're done with treatment. So I would love your commentary on that, too, as we go down this path of difference between the United States and others, because a lot of people on this podcast are like, Yeah, I want to go experience something different. But you've not only touched upon the aspects of food, and wellness, but I'd also like you to touch a bit on well on health.
Dr. Deborah Smith
Oh, open mind. And absolutely. And as we've looked at American health care system, we're seeing more and more movement to what's typically called holistic, integrative, alternative. If you look at my board certification and lifestyle, mess, and that's an accepted approved medical specialty, where physicians with a traditional background or other health care providers are given the tools to basically move people more towards whole foods. Now, more water, daily movement, not necessarily sweaty exercise, better quality of sleep, and blue lights, and digital screens are a huge problem with our our pineal gland that makes the melatonin. Becoming more mindful, just having little micro breaks throughout the day, and having more micro moments of awareness where you make better food choices. Being more connected to a community, a tribe, your peer group, just being socially and with a pandemic going on. We've all experienced this disconnection and it's one of the things that we so need. And then just avoiding any unnecessary, unnecessary health risks. And so, you know, giving up smoking, cutting back on alcohol, a lot of a lot of travelers get into trouble if they drink and they're tired. Gee, everyone drives on the wrong side of the road, they're coming from the wrong directions. So you want to be really careful if you're traveling and getting into a lot of alcohol. And some cultures actually kind of push you into that and say well want to, we just want to be cognizant of that.
Dr. Deborah Smith
And one of the best things that you can do before you travel for any length of time or go out of the country, is to get some sort of a global medical assistance product. And there's multiple providers are all good at what they do. And you just want to have someone that can review your medications before you go. Some medications are not illegal in other countries, they will get you arrested, or in trouble. Be careful with your CBD or, God forbid medical marijuana. We've seen what happens with countries with that. We you also need to understand the healthcare system where you're going, Is it public? Is the public system safe? Some countries have free health care, but your desired hospital is going to be the expat or private pay hospital. Many countries require you to have guarantees of payment before they will treat you. The US will treat you but then bankrupt you. But other countries require you to pay up front. Do you have a credit card? Is it good? Can you pay in a local currency? And so that these are all sorts of things that your global medical assistance company can help with. Give you a travel advisory before you go into country. Is the water safe? Or what foods should you be careful about? Street vendors can be a salsa can be a source of problem you know. Roff or foods that are you know, washed by using dirty water and then kind of they sit and stew for a while. So there are certain things that you want to know before you go into country. There are certain things you need to know once you're in country if you get into trouble. Can I trust the EMS? Is EMS going to take me to a specific hospital? Is the EMS run by the hospital system? In certain locations. Bangalore comes to mind you don't want to wait on the ambulance, you self transport, if you can, it's right. And so knowing the the emergency numbers having someone that can tell you you're in a good care place or no, you need to be transferred to a secondary hospital, a standard of care reference hospital. There's a name I'm not thinking of, but you know, a higher level of care where you can get the care that you need.
Dr. Deborah Smith
And oftentimes, there's lots of countries there may not be rabies vaccine in that country, you may have to be evacuated. So don't play with dogs or cats or animals. I know we love Yeah, be careful with risky activities, you know, riding the motor scooter, and row was fun. I did it with with my, my driver said, would you want me to bring the scooter tomorrow? And I said, Absolutely. Not what my company wanted me doing. It was the best time of my life closest to death I've ever come and live. So you know, there's things that we do but, but there's ways to safeguard yourself. And actually, if you've got a chance to eat the local cuisine, it's safe. It's whole, it's clean food, it's made holistically. It's grown locally, I would be more likely. I mean, I was drinking the water in Rome out of the Roman taps because it was good quality water and I was hot and thirsty. And why? You know, I don't want to be buying, you know, bottled drinks, for sure. And so there's things that you can do that are going to make your experience safer, better, healthier. There's a capability that you need to have in your back pocket, you get into trouble and have to be evac to another location. You don't always control what happens to you be careful with taxis, pick higher grade of taxis make sure they have a seatbelt. Alot of injuries occur in countries where there's really very high injury rates, um, Middle East comes to mind where the traffic safety is, are in there certain countries where EMS is just not going to show up necessarily. So you know, be be wearing a seatbelt. Pick the backseat don't pick a hobby of driving a Trabant and getting in tax Yes, where the Trabant or you go, there's clubs that do that they love their TBonz but they're not terribly Hardy vehicles. And so if you're going to take risks, make sure you've got the global medical assistance, I don't know give me an unintentional plug. Yes, such and it makes a lot of sense. Having a capability and then you know, how do you radically change your health? Well, you make small changes over time and so maybe you get rid of the dairy because dairy doesn't build strong bones and teeth it actually breaks down because it's acidic and the countries that do a lot of high dairy have the worst bone health and so you know, bring in small changes. You don't have to use white refined pasta bring in pasta made from chickpea, which is great. What's in hummus or you get lentil red lentil based pasta tastes just like spaghetti or get veggie based spaghetti or get zucchini based spaghetti and still have your spaghetti but do it in all more healthy, healthy way. And so there's little little changes that you can make.
Dr. Deborah Smith
Get to be a tea drinker, I drink a lot of tea. I drink my two cups of coffee. I look forward to my two cups of coffee every morning. And maybe a cup early afternoon. Just because hey, you know everything I hear year after year after year, we used to think coffee was bad for us coffee cigarettes, eggs bacon. Well, the eggs and bacon I can make a good case for and we know the cigarettes are but the coffee isn't. It's actually if you are at least a normal metabolizer of caffeine and you buy a better green coffee. It's actually very beneficial 10 years longer life on average. And don't get me started on teas, particularly green tea or plant based teas, saffron, probably better than amantadine for dementia. It's important to be up on our B vitamins. One of the things that travelers maybe don't realize is how important vitamin D is having a sunshine vitamin, it is a pro hormone. It's really not even a vitamin. It's a pro hormone. It regulates a lot of responses and activities in the body. And so we've highly under appreciated the indoor environment and how much vitamin D that we need. And I can tell you of the lifestyle docs and all of the New York Doc's the first thing they started taking with COVID came around vitamin D twice as likely COVID more likely to get severe COVID if you're low on vitamin D, they all doubled up tripled up on our vitamin D levels. I worked at COVID hotline for a year and a half. And one of the things I'd ask people you know you don't sound very sick. Oh no, I feel great. What do you do I what do you do? How active are you? I'm outdoors all the time. Well, some people will tell me all my wife's got me on 20,000 units of vitamin D. I'm going Oh, well. You know that's a high dose you may want to cut that back over time. I'm not your medical doctor, but you know, yeah, hey, whatever is working for you. And yeah, a lot of doc's will just double up on their vitamin D right now that dose is usually 4000 to 5000 international units a day of a supplement and having a little bit of vitamin K to onboard, some, some magnesium is important. And that's where food synergy comes in, where you're not just taking everything in the form of a pill, taking a multivitamin every day, you don't live as long. But if you eat a whole food diet, and then supplement the nutrients that you may be deficient in vitamin D comes to mind a lot of the B vitamins B 12. Specifically, if you're vegan, you've got to supplement it because we're not drinking, you know, natural water that has bacteria in it that's making the the B12 that we need. And we're not outdoors enough to have our skin make enough vitamin D plus, if you're north of a 37th latitude, which is about top of Oklahoma, top of Texas kind of that area, you're not going to get enough year round sun and he still got to go out mid day skin exposed, and people are always worried about skin cancer. Well, that's because we got way too much sun when we're young, and we got sunburns versus just a small daily dose every day where we had to go out and find food forage, you know, get water. I mean, we were programmed to be in nature, at least on a daily basis.
Dr. Deborah Smith
And, and so if you're traveling, your ability to get outdoors to enjoy the sun and to connect with nature. I mean, you could do meditation in an airport. It's an interesting experience. You can meditate anywhere, just by having a small micro moment of awareness where you're gonna say, Okay, I'm feeling a little stressed. Take a deep breath. Long expiration phase that first tells the body it's okay. I'm not gonna die. There's not a sabre toothed Tiger coming at me, maybe at an airport and maybe my flights delayed. Yeah, deep breath. And then just start looking at the environment without judgement. That's how you meditate with your eyes open, I go for walks, I look at nature, I listen to the sounds. That's my daily meditation. And if you're traveling, you can observe things that you would never notice. I won't get into the skin cells floating through the air in most US airports, but just the interactions of people how they treat each other. Kindness, when there is kindness going on. Families traveling together. You just a Stormer. Yeah, yes, sorbent, and if you're kind to other people in a setting where no one's being kind, that's where you get the free upgrades. That's where they bring you the second Bolla Hooge. That's really up to you, because nobody's kind in an aeroplane anymore. I mean, we're all just wigged out by the experience, even though look at the magic, the magic of flight, you're, you're doing something that people could have dreamed about 100-200 years ago. And so yeah, it's hard.
Allen
Carlin had. George Carlin had a great comedic routine that he said that if you would, if somebody 20 years ago had said you were sitting in a chair flying in a metal tube, through the air, they would have called you a god. Yet, yet, you know, we have, you know, we complain that it is your it comes to mind about kindness, too. And let's talk a little bit about karma. You know, it, I've been very lucky to be able to travel to Cambodia and some other places, and you just feel differently, maybe about the karma. And actually, we have a mutual friend, or friend Dave, you know, when we've worked out with the Tabitha Foundation, and have gone to Cambodia, and you just people take a deep breath there, and they they assume positive intent, I feel a difference in there. And I'd love your commentary on not only the mental differences when you travel, but also the physical. I mean, when I travel, and I wear my Fitbit, I find myself walking 20,000 steps a day, and I don't feel like I worked really hard because there's so much to observe. And I know walking is good for you. Other now, but I would love your kind of mental health and physical health checklists when you're traveling. Are you a believer in the 10,000 steps because I think the medical seems to show that 7500 whatever you do, yeah, no, I do.
Dr. Deborah Smith
So I think walking is highly underrated. Most of the benefit happens around 75. But you do get incremental benefit. 1012 15,000 Promise finding the time to do it. A lot of locations are going to require you to do stairs. New York City requires a lot of stairs, Paris, Rome. I mean, there's lots of stairs everywhere. And so being able to, you know, do the activity you need to do To travel, one of the things about travel is experiencing the other cultures experiencing meeting new people. That means you've got to be open to connecting with others, which means that you're willing to engage with others and be kind smile. Make eye contact, ask them questions. One of the most powerful tools for connecting with somebody is asking questions, you know, what you do? And, you know, what's your past been like? What's your future where you're going? You know, what's working for you? What's not working for you? I mean, there's a simple questions you asked, you get them talking, you connect with them on an emotional level. That's really what what social connection is all about. And being socially connected is the strongest determinant for a long lifespan. They did a study looking at Harvard graduates, I think starting 70 years ago or more, they followed all of them. And the strongest determinant for a long lifespan was how socially connected you were. And so the chance to travel oftentimes, were intimidated by the language, the customs were, you know, not sure what to say, or were going to offend people, little acts of kindness. And just, you know, for the English, American, English speaking traveler, we have the benefit of there's a lot of areas and people who can speak at least some rudimentary English, even if you don't know the local language, or know some of the basic words. And so just, you know, engaging with people, Uber, a taxi, a great way to engage with people, hotels, when you're waiting for somebody waiting in line, going to the store,
Allen
I have one. When I go overseas, I know I don't have a lot of hair, but I let my hair grow out and I get a haircut locally. I've had hair cuts in Jordan and Ukraine and you know, many other places in there first surprised to see an American getting Erica, you try to interact I know some of its pantomime. But it ties back to some of the lessons of it kind of brings up a question I wanted to talk to you about. You're building a program of micro lessons. And here we are in this podcast. I'm getting multiple micro lessons as you and I talk. Because I love many of your thoughts. Please share with our audience. And of course, we'll have this in the show notes. And we'll we'll have more information where you can stay in touch with with Dr. Smith, near the end of the podcast, but talk a little about your thought and micro lessons because you've learned a lot and you're trying to share this and help others remain safer, happier, more productive, and your your epiphany of sharing some of this in your plans in the next couple of years, which I think would be marvelous as those of us listen to this podcast and continue to learn.
Dr. Deborah Smith
Well, I think we all need to have more of what I call a micro moments mindset where we are more reflective of the past, less likely to be angry with ourselves, choices, we've all done bad things, we've all done stupid things. The world has always not been kind to anyone. And so reflecting on what I've learned how I've grown, savoring the current moment, having the right backup and information to really savor that new and new environment. You might go there to work, but look at the opportunity, you have to make new connections, taking new diets, taking a healthier lifestyle, walk more, and then and then visualizing a healthier future because you do have more ownership and control over your health and you've ever known because, you know the universal laws work both ways. If if if you can make yourself unhealthier, there's just an equal mechanism notice litter Genesis that can take you back to health and and we've just never focused on that. And so the whole micro learning thing is moving into the everyone's pressured for time, we're turning more and more to electronic devices to look up something quickly how to, you know connect better, how to navigate the trains in Rome which are a unique thing because they are a little bit unique. And so and so people are turning to these what I call, I didn't make this term up. I've just taken it from others, in the flow learning, where you quickly look up a reference you look at it, you learn from it, and you move on and so I've tried to take this whole lifestyle medicine thing about, you know, chickens bad for you why? Glyco toxins are bad. What's the glyco toxin what's an oxidised cholesterol? Why do you not want to put animal products in a microwave or eat Ghee or tuna fish out of a can there's our scientific reasons for that. There's so many studies coming out every day. 100 200 studies a day just on Alzheimer's. I mean it's just overwhelming. So what you want to do is learn the fundamentals. And so I'm trying to build a program that uses, you know, maybe you just wake up and you just watch a short little 32nd, musical intro to the day that gives you a daily health lesson. And so I'm trying to do more of in the flow learning that are called micro lessons. Because nobody takes time to read a thick book, uh, textbooks are out. Yeah. And traditional learning is kind of moving more towards what do I need to know now to be a better human, better person, better at my job? And that's where using guides and coaches and mentors and really looking at life differently, it's not intensive study, then go do it's really, what can I learn today? What can I learn from you, Allen? What can you learn from me? What can we learn from each other, and do it in a 30 minute podcast that you can do while you're working out while you're driving to work. I mean, this is really what technology enables. It also enables us to spend all of our time on social media news, which just stimulates our amygdala makes us angry gets us alert and name on edge. And it makes us depressed. And so just don't do it. Instead of spending your time on TikTok in the morning, or, or Facebook, go out and connect with somebody at the local coffee shop, get somebody to walk with.
Allen
Take the dogs for a walk, sit and see the beautiful outdoors. Yes. So quick question for you. Because you've let us down so many pads, we asked our guests, I tried to do that every day. Join us. It's excellent that makes that makes for a great discussion. You know, for our folks with the question that we've gotten some great response from people on is please share a maybe an overlooked person, place or experience that you've discovered that you would like our audience to discover. Now you've given us some discoveries in the health area. But any other unique place person, whatever book that you think would be of great value, who are listening on?
Dr. Deborah Smith
I've touched on a lot of the things that I normally would say for a spot, I think one of the things I would focus on is that you see a lot more manual therapies being offered to people massage based or manual therapies for musculoskeletal pain. And so what I've learned in my time and US healthcare in my time, running an industrial rehab program for a major global manufacturer is there's so many things that if we could just have somebody move the fascia around to remodel it. I've studied sports chiropractic, I've studied fascial distortion model, lots of other models. And basically, if you're in pain, that's the body telling you hey, take notice. But it doesn't mean it's always going to be there and be willing not necessarily to try stuff that where they inject anything or you take supplements or pills, but be more open to more holistic, the power of touch, the power of massage, physiotherapy, people don't get PT enough in this country. So if you're having an issue like that, investigate what may be possible. And there are some technology yoga, yoga, tai chi is one of the best things tai chi Yeah, Allen's and muscle strengthening is your key to longevity. Healthspan, not just living longer, but living healthier for longer. That's something that is healthspan. And so get into a group where you do a little Tai Chi with somebody once a day, during your lunch break or go for a walk that forces you to balance it forces you to navigate uneven terrain. Yeah, we highly under appreciate the value of friendships and time spent in nature and time spent with safe animals don't go pick up wild animals in China or places where there's no but you know, connecting with nature in a way that's safe and rational. It can be very therapeutic for your health. And keep in mind that you do have even 20 years of type two diabetes can be reversed. We didn't used to believe that you can reverse macular degeneration, glaucoma. Gee, that's eyes, eyes don't regenerate, but you can prevent them because they're microvascular diseases or diabetes type three type killer Alzheimer's becoming a big concern at least here in the Western countries. And so just little things, small actions consistently done over time have huge impacts on your health. I call it the magnification of of time the lens effect the butterfly effect, little things add up and not only compound but they exponentially grow into better health and you may not notice it at first, be patient be consistent. Do the stuff that intuitively feels right for you. You know being a vegan isn't necessarily right for everybody, but nurses but don't be all your protein via Animal products. Don't be a big dairy person is carcinogenic, it's saturated fat bomb, it's got all kinds of contaminants, at least here in the States. Would I be open to eating some yoghurt or something in in Europe? Absolutely. I still do you do yoghurt as part of a diet. Goat's milk in other countries might be perfectly fine on occasion but, you know, big cup of America and I were getting in trouble for saying it. But you know there's milk is not not the healthy food that we thought it was growing up near as butter. Yeah. So,
Allen
yeah, well, we keep learning new things. And I know our let's listen, audience want to continue to learn more from you. And one of the things also we want to share with the audience, as more of the micro learnings come out from Dr. Smith, we will do our best to make sure that our audience has access and gets to know what you're working on. But where can people find you people get really engaged with this conversation? I know you're on LinkedIn, would you share where they can find you on LinkedIn? Create a bit of community of your own? I think it's the typical
Dr. Deborah Smith
www.linkedin.com, which is standard for everybody, then the forward slash is that gets you into LinkedIn. And then it's just Deborah- Smith-MD, it will get you there. I'll have the link, I'll send you the link. Stay connected with me there, you can certainly send me questions. If you have questions related to this podcast, I'll try to respond personally to all of them, I will not give you medical advice. Because I'm not licenced in every jurisdiction that you're probably in. But I can give you health and well being advice based on the Six Pillars of lifestyle medicine, the key to life is balance, savor the moment and reflect on the past and visualise have something that's compelling that pulling you forward, you're going to have a full and meaningful life.
Allen
That's great. Well, I mentioned this to our audience. One of the reasons why I'm really excited to have Dr. Smith on this is we had a conversation ourselves a couple of weeks back and I left there that he was this is just really important things and also about, you know, culture, but also community and one of the things I'm a very strong tennis community. And I saw a write up recently that people who play tennis have the longest life expectancy of every sport. And they were trying to figure it out. And a lot of it had to do with a couple of things, which is typically you play with partners as you get older. So it's doubles, or there's a social aspect to it. I know there's a socio economic aspect of it too. But I felt it was more of the the camaraderie and maybe the mini sprint's that I watched people who are 90 years old play tennis, you write the mini sprints, you know, the interval training, correct.
Dr. Deborah Smith
It's high intensity interval training, it's the whole concept of stressing hard and then relaxing. You're not sprinting the entire time you're playing tennis, there's bound periods. And it's a short you know, it's not a game that lasts for hours and hours and hours. And so there's there's high intensity intervals, it's a social game, you're there's times that you're you're gonna run and run in handball would do the same, certain other sports can do the same. And so having that little bit of high intensity interval training, no matter how you do, it is hugely beneficial for building and then you got to build and then restore, it starts as Bill Bill Bill, because that stress, sure you're just adding stress to the body. So it's, it's charged, build up, get stronger, but have that relaxation and rest period built in and doing as the ying yang of life. And that's really how the best form of fitness works is you build up, you don't do weight training for you know, everyday a week, you do two or three times a week and you let the muscle recover. And that that charge breakdown. Recovery is kind of the magic. And so I can and tennis is a game that requires facilities, it's a little bit higher or fluids, you start getting into the social determinants of health. But yeah, just find something that you do with others because it's going to make you do it and keep doing it.
Allen
That's fantastic. So if to our audience, thank you for joining us today, we had a really engaging conversation. Once again, the way people find about great content is by word of mouth. Please pass this along to others. We'd love to have a wider audience. For The New Nomad. We appreciate all of you who are intellectually curious and traveling abroad. And we'll make sure in the show notes we have interesting information on Dr. Smith in the future. So with that, please travel well, and we wish you all the best. Thank you.