#23: Longevity Highlights: Key Takeaways from the 6 Pillars

Come join me on this very important journey and I hope that you feel empowered along the way . I'm a physician , ironman , triathlete and have published several hundred scientific studies . I'm honored to be your guide . Welcome to Live Long and Well with Dr Bobby . This is episode 23, . Longevity Highlights Key takeaways from the six pillars to live long and well .

Well , today we have something new , in fact two something news . First , we have now a YouTube version of this episode , so if you want to watch me and watch graphics and video clips , you might go to YouTube and watch the video version of this podcast , or you can continue , of course , to listen as you do now Also . The second is this is a new segment .

It's going to be called Longevity Highlights and in these highlight segments , I'm going to review recent episodes and provide reminders and high-level take-home messages , and I hope these will be very practical reminders you can incorporate in your life .

And today we're going to focus on the takeaways from the very first six pillars episodes and , just as a reminder , all of the things we're going to talk about are based on good evidence . Well , why now ?

Well , I had done 22 episodes and that's a lot of information , or at least I think it's a lot of information and I felt that it was important to pause periodically and reinforce that information .

Now , some of these numbers I'm going to quote are not based on rigorous evidence , but it's often said that we only remember 20% of what we read or hear or see if we just see it just one time . So it's often talked about the fact that you need to hear the same information twice , three times , perhaps seven times , before it really sticks .

Now , you know I love studies , so of course , I had to go and find a study that supports this , and they did a brain activation study .

So they were looking at parts of the brain and specifically the hippocampus , which is where more memories are stored , and they looked at it a day after learning information , a week later , a month later , and they compared it when you only heard it once or saw it once up to a total of seven times and what they found was the more times it was repeated , the

more activation there was of the hippocampus , meaning we really really do need to reinforce our learnings for it to stay Well .

Another piece of the puzzle is that when you hear something that's good or see something , but your retention is much stronger if you share that information with someone else and if you teach someone else , you may remember 90 or 95% of that information .

Now I practice that with Gail , because I often share with her some of the studies that I'm sharing with you , my audience , and the more repetition that I am able to do , the better off I am in remembering . So please listen , please watch on YouTube if you wish , and share this with others .

Well , as you know , I like to begin with a personal story and , as you know , I do a podcast , so I'm very focused on health and fitness and obviously I'm a physician , so that adds a piece of the puzzle , and from my quiz , I turned out to be a holistic health hacker , meaning that I tend to try to dial in all aspects of health .

If you haven't taken the quiz , just go to my website , drbobblivelongandwellcom , and you can take it , and most people have found that it's very helpful and we have about 600 people who have already taken it . So I realize this is Thanksgiving , we just had Thanksgiving and I need to keep relearning the lessons I'm sharing with you .

So , as you know , we've talked about when you're eating . Your brain takes a while to realize . Oh , I guess I'm full about 20 minutes or so , and so over Thanksgiving I did not remember the 20-minute guidance and I overate meal after meal after meal . Had I paused , I might not have overeaten quite as much .

I've also gotten out of the habit recently of meditating and I find I get a bit more irritable when things come up and meditation reminds me that that feeling of uneasiness is just a feeling and I can feel a little more comfortable with that . I also got out of the habit of my sauna and my cold plunge .

Well , gail and I tried to get back on the wagon and we took our saunas last night . We had had 24 people stay at our ranch and be with us for four days for Thanksgiving and we were worn out . But having the sauna , we felt great afterwards and we slept really well .

So , again , someone like me who thinks about this all the time , I need to be reminded , so I thought perhaps others do as well . Now , if you can remember , back to the first episode we talked about , what does it mean ? To live long and well ? Okay , live long , that's pretty straightforward . You want to live to be 90 or beyond .

But live well is a little more subtle , and I had shared with you a quote by the author Hunter S Thompson , and I'm going to repeat it because it's a really good mantra for me to remember and for you perhaps as well . Broadside in a cloud of smoke , thoroughly used up , totally worn out and loudly proclaiming wow , what a ride .

So again , it isn't just living long , but we want to be as energetic during our whole life , and especially in those final years . So this highlights episode is going to reiterate the six pillars Very briefly . I'm going to walk through each one , why that pillar is so important and then , practically , what can we do ? All right , pillar number one exercise .

This was episode number two , probably the single most powerful lever we've got , and , frankly , when people think about health and wellness , they often think of exercise . So people tend to focus this .

But , just as a reminder , exercise reduces our risk of mortality by 20% or even more , and the more exercise , the more that risk is in your favor , and this has been based on studies with 600,000 people . Exercise reduces our cancer risk 20 to 30 percent again based on a large study of folks and exercise reduces our risk of Alzheimer's disease .

Data here isn't quite so perfect . It's not clear how many years of exercise to get the benefit Vigorous exercise versus not so vigorous exercise but it appears it does reduce that risk . But also remember that exercise isn't just to live longer or not get dementia .

It also helps our bodies to be functional and to do those activities we want , like pickerball or hiking or playing with our grandkids as we get older . All right , what were the key takeaways ? Try to get two to five hours of aerobic exercise every week . Try to do a strength training regimen once or twice a week . If you can do some balance training , great .

And if you can do high intensity work once a week , that's great , okay . Number two sleep , the unsung hero . This was episode three .

Also want to mention that on my website , every one of my episodes , I have an article about what we talked about , and so it's very quick and easy for you to find the information , the lists of things you might want to focus on . Just go to the website , which is drbobblivelongandwellcom .

You'll also find the quiz there , and if you want to work more closely and directly with me , you can reach out in that way . Okay , if you are a single-minded achiever that's one of our quiz types or a contentment creator , you tend to focus on a small number of aspects of health .

You may not be remembering to focus on all the things you can do to improve your sleep and , as we've talked about too many of us get less than seven hours per night , and that seven hours is a pretty good benchmark of what we need Less sleep , especially less regular sleep . Regular sleep meaning roughly the same amount of sleep every night .

Roughly , you go to bed at the same time and get up at the same time . When you don't get that amount of sleep , it impacts your mortality , it impacts your memory . But the good news is there are 12 practical steps you can do that will help almost everybody improve their sleep . Now I'm not going to walk through all 12 .

If you go to the prior episode , number three , or go to the blog on my website , you'll get them listed all there , but here are some that is good to remind ourselves . Alcohol really affects our sleep . Eating close before bedtime may affect your sleep a lot . Have a cool temperature in your bedroom . That makes a huge difference for a lot of people .

Try a sauna or a hot shower before bed , just like I talked about that , gail and I just did . That can help you sleep well . If you can get early sunlight , walk around outdoors beginning of the day , that's great .

And , as I mentioned , a regular bedtime and just as a bonus element here , remember we've talked about end of one studies Try something in yourself , measure a baseline measure after you're trying this new thing and see if it helps . Sleep is a perfect thing .

Stop alcohol for a little while , see if it makes a difference , restart alcohol perhaps , see if it gets worse again and then you really know how your body functions . Okay , next pillar , nutrition . That's episode four . So much has been written and talked about , but I netted down to four principles and I wanted to remind you of these .

Principle one , if you can , from a nutrition standpoint and your whole body standpoint maintaining a proper weight . Whole host of reasons this is helpful . Feel free to listen to my episode also on weight and weight loss . Principle two all diets work . They all work until they don't .

Whether it's high fat , low fat , intermittent fasting , there is no magic diet that will work . Try it and whatever works for you is what you should do . Principle three what we eat carbs versus meats versus other things and when we eat , it is less crucial . Obviously , protein is important , but the rest of the diet ?

There is , again , no magic , no-transcript , okay . Fourth of our pillars mind-body harmony .

Episode five if you want to listen more directly , it is probably the most overlooked area , meaning people might be running , they might focus on their nutrition , but they often don't incorporate very simple things like walking in nature , very simple things like walking in nature , breath work , a few minutes a day , yoga or meditation . Mind-body work is so important .

Stress has been related to your blood pressure , cardiovascular death , and these activities like the walk in nature and the breath work and yoga and meditation have been shown to affect your cortisol stress hormones and reduce your blood pressure . All right . Number five exposure to heat and cold , especially cold , cold plunges , cold showers .

This is where I get most of my pushback . People are like Dr Bobby , I'll do all these other things , please .

I don't , I don't and I can't do the cold plunge , okay , if that's not your thing , it's not your thing , but these activities have been going on for thousands of years and , as we talked about , there's a whole series of important studies in Finland which showed that sauna's regular sauna use reduces heart disease , reduce cognitive decline .

Okay , so what's the prescription ? Sauna 20 minutes , ideally three times a week . The more you do , the better , it seems , in terms of our health .

Cold plunge , fewer studies , no real long-term studies , but what it has been shown is that our dopamine levels , our happiness hormones , as it were , increase when you do just a couple of minutes of that cold exposure . All right , the final one , the importance of social relationships .

This is pillar six , and it was in episode seven , and we talked about the Harvard study of adult Development . It's also been popularized in Blue Zones and it is the strongest predictor of living into our 70s and being functional .

So very important to work on , and the definition of a strong social relationship for me is is there somebody you can call in the middle of the night ? And , as we talked about , as we age , our friends die off , they move off . It's important to incorporate younger people in our lives as friends so they will continue with us , hopefully for decades to come .

Well , that's it . We have summarized the six pillars , why they're important and what you can do . That's very , very practical . Let me know if you liked the highlights episode . I need the feedback . I really appreciate it . If you can leave me a review , please do so .

Please recommend the podcast to others and , again , if you haven't taken the quiz , you might find it very , very helpful . Well , until next time , our journey continues to live long and well . Thanks so much for listening to Live Long and Well with Dr Bobby . If you liked this episode , please provide a review on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen .

If you want to continue this journey or want to receive my newsletter on practical and scientific ways to improve your health and longevity , please visit me at drbobbilivelongandwellcom . That's , doctor , as in D-R Bobby . Live long and wellcom .