This is integrated family nurse practitioner, Dr. De Maris, Maria Grossman, and today we're just talking about what it exactly means to be optimal, optimal. And well, what is optimal wellness? Now, when I talk about that, and I talk about the different people that come on to this podcast, that have achieved optimal wellness, or gotten close top to wellness, or, or have shown signs in that direction, that actually
encompasses many things. So there's like two kind of perspectives and parts of this. So you're on the either the illness side, or you're on the wellness side. And this actually has been first back in research of optimal wellness can be discussed in the research all the way back into like the
1970s. And, and what's the meaning of it, and what has, what do they defy it and such, I say through, and from what I have learned in the integrative health space, that optimal wellness kind of composes of 12 points. And you don't just have one part, it isn't just the physical body. And it's encompassing of whole health. And with that, it really means these 12 components, and to be that you have to be in a
balance. So the 12 points of wellness, I'll first name them, and then we'll go into further discussion. So, the first is your physical health in bodying, lifestyle management. The second is nutrition. The third is water hydration. The fourth is sleep goals. sleep hygiene. The fifth is stress transformation. I never say stress management, I always say you're transforming stress, because not is always a
negative. The body is has stress response for good things, financial health, quality connections, spiritual health, body love sexual health, environmental health, genetic genetics, how we were born, what's our purpose and life goals? And how do we grow from all of this? So let's get back to whatever one thinks most of our wellness has to do with is our physical health. Are we overweight, underweight?
lifestyle management, and what does this kind of Intel, you know, people think that they know and they may describe it and say this is what if I'm fat, or skinny. So, overall, for exercise, it is recommended, you have about 20 minutes of walking every day, or some sort of activity, even if it's gentle movement, something some people may need more strenuous things like weightlifting, other people will do walking other people, depending upon where they are in walks of life, but some sort of
movement. sedentary lifestyle, can really cause a lot of adiposity adiposity is adipose tissue that is increased within the body, which then causes obesity, and that's increased fat consumption. They call it the visceral adipose tissue that is what is my main issues with obesity and cardiac disease. So the more we have it, the more we suffer, right, the more we pack the fat, the more there's
issues. Now initially, you can look into your body and see a BMI index and BMI index is your body mass index that kind of uses your height and your weight and, and it will give you a I'll put in the show notes a calculator of you know what would be the average, you know, there's normal, there's underweight, there's normal, there's healthy, overweight, and then there's excessively obese. So you really are trying to keep
in the range of below 25%. But in addition to that, there's other components that you want to look for when you're talking about body mass index and how to be healthy. So you're going to calculate a waist and hip circumference and you do that by you know, measuring your hips, measuring your waist first and then dividing out the circumference of your hips. And you know, you're first going to look at your waist by the 10th
rib and wrap that around. It's not necessarily your belly button, and then you're also going to do your hip circumference and that is right around. The, the hip bone, and you would measure around that, when you divide out, it should be below point eight, give or take, it depends upon men and women, they do very same thing with your body mass index, your numbers should be below 25. But I'll put a picture in there from
the Mayo Clinic. And that, you know, the numbers do vary depending upon your age and women will, it's mostly women versus men. Now, why have these partial important? That is one aspect. In addition to these, I would also add in your, your waist, or your your waist number in it should be below 35. And if you're in the Asian Pacific Asian category, it should be below 31. And that means it's like in your belly area. Do you notice when you look down and you're not pregnant? Do you have
a big belly? Or do you have a beer belly, or they call it the doughnut belly, the car belly? Is it is it protruding more and if you measure your waist, and it is over the 35 range, you are starting to have that visceral adipose tissue that is a problem. So you can be a skinny person and still have a little bit of a belly there. And that still means that you may things are a precursor, or you're kind of going into the direction of not having full, optimal health.
So in this aspect with physical health, you do want to maintain a good body mass index, your hip and waist ratio. And in addition, your circular body area where What is it now there's also individuals that myself I'm very hip heavy, even hip heavy and but heavy, there's still adipose tissue and muscle there that is accumulated, that still needs to be exercised out and worked out and, and released from the body. And then that does take time. But that still is they call that almost a PRI
or a pear shape. Individual, but those are still factors that can be part of the diabesity diet, obesity problems and other cardiac and other issues. In addition to being overweight and having a the that visceral fat, you also can have lung health
issues. So lung health in this scenario we talk about it is because you're obstructing your breathing, when you're a little bit more overweight, your body has more kind of looser and and you may have obstructive apnea issues, and even if you're not in that category, you still may have some obstruction that may decrease your oxygen levels when you're sleeping. So that in itself also affects your, your
physical. In addition to that it affects your brain health, because if you're not getting enough oxygen, you're not helping your brain. everything is interconnected. So when you listen to me or hear me on this podcast or watch me on a YouTube channel, I will always be talking about wellness and our body as it's a whole
encompassing thing. One thing will affect another thing will affect another thing, what you know, when you have an overweight or obese individual or one of these factors are off, they're still kind of a precursor to then other things. It could be a precursor to sleep apnea could be precursor to a dementia or brain fog. So there is many things that kind of cascade together because it's not one system and another system. So the second part that we're going to go into today is
talking about nutrition. Now in this podcast, I'm not going into all aspects of nutrition, but we're going to kind of just briefly discuss nutrition and kind of where when I look at an individual and I look at a client, and there's things that are coming up what when I look for So initially, most people are nutrient deficient. And what that means is that they have the basic nutrients that individuals would name his dietary fiber, potassium, coline, magnesium, calcium, vitamin A D, C, zinc
psyllium, Foley and B 12. Now, just because an individual may be low on these, sometimes people think oh, well if I just take one vitamin, I'll be okay. That is not necessarily true. Most individuals are actually very deficient in this area. In addition to that, with micronutrients, you then have to look into the microbiome. The microbiome is our gut. Our gut
is our third immune system. So it's connected, you know, the brain, the body, the gut, we are, you know, all together and in the microbiome and in that you have its prebiotic vegetables, probiotics. Now, when I talk about probiotics for someone I address, you know, there's women's probiotics, there's infant, so there's infant, there's child, there's women and men, and there are an array of probiotics available on the market. But at a minimum, you want to have at least five
strains five to six strains. It has to be at least 10 billion. The more the merrier. And there are some specific research based like lactobacillus. But in addition, there are specific pre and probiotics, well, specifically probiotics that are used for for women specifically. So you would like to I would I recommend women, certain probiotics, I say, Please get the women's health probiotic, make sure it's over 10 billion in strain, and at least five.
Same thing for men. Now probiotics are the fibrous foods like vegetables and cruciferous like collard greens and broccoli. Now, in addition to that, you've got phytonutrients and phytonutrients are these chemical compounds, and plant based vegetables like beans and whole grains and Qianlong and they will help also increase your body's nutrient levels.
Now, ways to have a nutrient dense life and it's not just by supplements and not just by powders, you put, you know what you eat, you know what you eat and consume as part of that. So what you're doing there is you're having Mediterranean diet, that's usually a lot of fish, you know, olive oil, a little bit of olive oil, some salmon, some, some grilled chicken, very light salads, and just clean, very clean, real foods. Minimum gluten, minimum dairy minimum, soy products, you're eating more
whole more full. Now when you start avoiding the process foods and the processed sugar and the excess, you will notice your body will start to feel better. So this is part of the nutritional aspect. But how do you do that, you know, you help with meal prep, you do things so you're not tired. And you he tried to prep low glycemic foods, you try to find heart healthy things. And let me tell you, your body and your wallet will thank you. It's not as hard as you think it just takes a
little bit of prep. So number three, we're talking about water hydration. So what exactly does that mean? So what that means is imagine your body weight and half your body weight in ounces of water. So example your 150 pounds, and divide that by two. So that would be about 75 ounces of water. So when I drink water, I tell everybody, I do a gallon water. And I bring it with me and I try to drink that throughout the day, I have a big bottle. So that reminds myself, I haven't drank enough I need to
drink. And in addition to that, so sometimes it gets boring, right you you have these in drink water, because what happens is your body loses and gains water right. So you want to have about half the body weight because you have about 70% of your body is made up of just water alone. And it really needs it to kind of lubricate and move and circulate and get those nutrients around. And without the water we are duped and you can't have food or water without living. To make it
easier. I recommend some electrolyte filled, powdered kind of drinks or things that you can just add to the water that may help flavor it a little bit better. So it's not as boring and you're kind of like okay, I could drink that. The fourth one for today, I would recommend in this wellness realm is called sleep polls. So what does that consist of? So sleep
goals for some people? It varies right you know, depending upon what your work schedule is pending upon if you have kids and you're up late or You're up early or you know your work schedules night or day. No sleep hygiene overall really means trying to get about seven to nine hours of sleep quality sleep no quality sleep means making your environment the best it can be so that you can have the most optimal amount of rest techniques of that is lowering the lights, less TV, just sleep
and rest. And I will go over each of these points of wellness in more detail in further podcasts. Number five stress transformation. So I call it stress transformation because we are not doomed to have stress, stress helps us the body's natural defenses, the fight or flight, we need to protect ourselves. But what happens is we are sometimes in this constant override overdrive, and the body adrenals become turned on, and they don't shut off.
With me in my life, I've had severe trauma and post traumatic stress disorder from the military, and my adrenals were fired all the time. And I didn't know how to turn it off. And I always felt the constantly anxiety driven and stressed and I thought, What do I do, I had to learn ways to change that pattern. And it was tough at
first. But I had to find mindfulness meditation, yoga, movement, breath work, and I have to tell you, they work their daily practices, work in progress, but you put the work in and the time and things make change. It helps with your depression, you know, you might need exercise of your anxiety, you might need relaxation, if you have a you have need time for focus, you need focus training, if you have hyperactivity, you may need a
combination. If you go out and ground yourself in nature, if you find yourself doing gentle movements, there's no array of things. And I will go over this in another podcast and videos on many aspects of stress management, I do many techniques, and many ways to discuss that. So number six, financial health. What does financial health mean? financial health means living within your means. Understanding that you really don't need as much as we
think we need. What can you do without What does your family really need, you know, when you look at, they call it the masl hierarchy of needs, we have shelter, you've got food you're providing for a family, a lot of things in our life are actually ancillary extra. And when they found out through research, they only need X amount of dollars to be happy. And when you really find most people overspend or compensate for emotional needs with shopping or need or, or providing for their family and
excess. And it's tough, we understand like life brings up things and you need to buy for your family. And that's okay. But make sure that you take some time to see what really makes you happy and what your family and you need to be successful, you know, save, save that extra, you know, $10 for to put in savings, and other ways to invest so that you can live a
more quality life long term. I learned a lot when my husband, he was very good in financial health and, and he taught me a lot of tricks on being better with my overall mindset. And then also I traveled across country. And I lived in a van for a few months. And I really kind of got a perception of what is really necessary and what do I and I do not mean, and I really kind of got like an eye opener for myself of there's not
much that I need. I remember when I was back in the military, I didn't need much I had like a little corner cubby. And you know, that was it and in my little rack and bed, they call it rack back then and and it was like minimal, minimal. And for some reason, you know, with consumption we consume, consume, consume, and we don't think about how we need to save or invest more in our life and things, more experiences and less spending. Number seven
quality connections. So that has again, to do with your family or your friends. And how are you connecting with others? Are you really connecting with social media nowadays? Are we really taking the time to be there for others? Or are we just kind of posting saying Hi, how's it going? people really need to engage and even in this time of zoom, are you giving yourself that moment? Please take that time