234.The Nutrient of Agency: Why Choice Is Your Most Powerful Health Tool

Do you ever feel like life is just happening to you? Like you're stuck in patterns, relationships, and habits that drain you, yet you keep showing up for them anyway?

You're not alone—many high-achieving professionals feel trapped by their own choices, acting as if they have no power to change course.

Join Dr. Adrienne Youdim as she explores the profound concept of agency and reveals how reclaiming your power to choose can transform your health, sanity, and success from the inside out.

Don't forget to share this episode with friends and colleagues who might benefit from understanding the importance of conscious choice-making!

What You'll Learn From This Episode:

• The quiet ways we give up our power (and how to take it back)
• Why we stay stuck in patterns that drain us
• A simple meditation technique to observe thoughts without engaging
• How to recognize when thoughts don't serve you - before you spiral

"The thought is involuntary. The thinking is a choice. You don't have to hop in bed with every single thought you have." — Dr. Adrienne Youdim

3 Ways that Dr. Adrienne Youdim Can Support You

• Join Resilient Minds: If this sounds familiar, you're exactly who Resilient Minds is designed for. Next cohort starts September 30th - Limited to 12 high-achieving professionals ready to move from success to significance.
  Ready to stop asking "Is this it?" and start living like you know it isn't?
  Application details here: https://www.dradrienneyoudim.com/resilient-minds
• Subscribe to Dr. Adrienne's weekly newsletter https://www.dradrienneyoudim.com/newsletter.
• Connect on Instagram : Follow @dradrienneyoudim for tips and inspiration on well-being and peak performance.

Transcript

So do you ever feel like life is just happening to you? Like you're stuck in patterns, relationships, and habits that drain you and yet you keep showing up for them anyway? This week on Health Byte, we are unpacking the nutrient of agency and why the most radical thing you can do for your health, your sanity, and your success is to reclaim your power, to choose from doom scrolling to obligations you never wanted to accept anyway.

We are talking about all the quiet ways we give up our power and how to take it back. Welcome to Health Bite, where we explore the true nutrients that feed you mind, body and soul. I'm Dr. Adrienne Youdim your host, physician, author, and guide for high  achieving professionals. Ready to stop chasing success from a place of depletion and to start living with vitality purpose and intention.

After 20 years in medical practice and nearly 50 years as a mere mortal myself, I've learned something powerful. That hunger isn't just physical. It's emotional, it's spiritual, and it's a sign that we are not nourishing the parts of ourselves that need it most. Each week here on Health Fight, I'll share with you stories, science and strategies to help you understand what you're truly hungry for, so you can make the nourishing choices that lead to sustainable success.

Because when you meet your hunger with clarity, you can fuel your full potential. So I wanna take you back to a few mornings ago, my alarm goes off, I reach for my  phone, you know what it's like, and within seconds I am scrolling headlines and. I'm angry, I'm agitated, I'm frustrated, right? And it's only 6:00 AM and I wish I could say that it's the first time, but it's something I do again and again day after day.

In fact, if I'm gonna be honest, it happens multiple times a day as if I have a gun to my head and I have to ask myself. Do you even realize that you have a choice? Now, I don't know how many of you can relate, but I think a lot of you, because when I talk about this with my family and my friends, my patients and clients, pretty much everybody says the same thing.

They have like married themselves to something that is making them miserable,  and yet they feel like they lack the agency. The choice to do it differently now. You know, I can tell myself over and over again that I need to stay informed, and it's true. We all need to stay informed right now. So much is happening so quickly, but.

Do we really like? Do we really need to know every little thing that happens in every single moment, and then hop over to social media and hear about what everybody else thinks about that thing that just happened? And let's be honest, it's not just social media or the news or our phones. There are so many things that we do that don't make us feel good, and yet we act like we have no choice in the matter.

This could be anything like the people we choose to spend time with. How many of you feel compelled to say yes to every social obligation? Even when you have no desire to go, it's how we fill our schedules to the brim, leaving no time for ourselves. It the belief that we have to take care of everybody and everything else before we take care of ourselves who can relate and you know, the biggest one of all is the choice of the thoughts.

That we wish to engage with. I wanna ask you, how many of you think crazy thoughts like I know I do. Thoughts are involuntary. They pop up without our asking, without our permission. You've probably heard the statistic that says, we think 60,000 or 80,000 thoughts per day. I don't even know if that's true.

It could be like modern folklore. That's what people say. That's one of the numbers that are out there. But whatever it is is a whole heck of a lot of thoughts. And again, they pop up without our knowing. They are involuntary. But you know what? Thinking the choice to choose to engage with those thoughts that is on us.

You don't have to hop in bed. With every single thought that you have, you and I don't have to wrestle with every single thought. The thought is involuntary. The thinking is a choice. And whenever I talk about this, I think about this time, uh, the last time actually that I was  teaching at Rancho, I was in a meditation with one of the instructors and he kind of said it like this.

He said, every time you think of a thought, you can say to yourself, ah. There's a thought and just let it come and let it go, and so simple, right? So simple, so powerful. But let's be honest, not all of us can be so zen about it, but we can start with taking back our agency by recognizing that we really do have a choice.

Um, in everything we do, we have a choice in how we engage with those thoughts and the decision on how much time we wanna spend with it, how much we want to ruminate in it. And so I personally have started thispractice that when a thought comes to mind, if I have the awareness in that moment, I ask myself.

Is this aligned with how I want to feel or even just. How do I feel right now? Sometimes I'm so dialed in that even before I get there, I notice it in my body. I notice that my jaw quenches or um, I get a tightness in my chest, or I get like butterflies or topsy-turvy in my stomach. I recognize in that moment before even having to ask myself that this thought doesn't feel good, that this thought.

Doesn't serve me. And then I have a choice I can engage with what doesn't feel good or I cannot. So I want you to think about this. I want you to think about this concept of taking back our agency, this concept, this recognition that we have choice in everything we do because it is so very simple. And yet it is so very powerful.

We have a choice. A choice to say yes, or a choice to say no. A choice to keep scrolling, or a choice to step outside, a choice to ruminate, or a choice to release and let go. A choice to please others, or a choice to honor yourself. So this week I invite you to choose, you choose stillness, choose sanity, choose the thoughts, the relationships, the routines  that serve you.

Because this whole thing about agency, it's not just a concept. It is a practice. It is a nutrient one that fuels your physical, emotional, relational, and professional health and wellbeing.

So thank you for choice. So thank you for joining me this week on Health Bite. If this episode nourished you, share it with a friend or leave a review and help others find the science and soul of true wellbeing. If you want more support, I encourage you to head over to my website, Dr. Adrian you de.com to explore keynotes programs and my signature Resilient Minds Course.

We are enrolling for September, right? 

Now as we  speak and remember, your hunger is not a flaw. It is an invitation because when you meet your needs with intention, you unlock your true attention.