Behavior Change - Rocket Powered Healing

We live in a fast-paced demanding world. It’s not unusual for us to create habits and even routines that help with the decision fatigue and a constant barrage of responsibilities. Some of these habits are by design and others just a default pattern. In some ways we are in “self preservation” mode.

Let me ask you – How many minutes per year do you spend on “habit change,” or “decision making.” It’s not really something we ponder, but maybe we should. Why? I’d argue that if we don’t we are more likely to go on cruise control and allow subconscious programming to guide our current behaviors. That inner pilot light that’s helping us close the gap on our goals, assess our progress, and change our behaviors grows silent.

So what do we have to do to enhance that inner voice and position ourselves to choose better behaviors? Dan Ariely, is a psychologist that uses a rocket analogy. It’s simple yet profound. Dan’s point is that we must change our environment in a way that reduces friction to make a desired behavior more attainable. Just as a rocket is designed with aerodynamics in mind people can minimize different types of resistance. Once friction has been reduced the rocket needs as much fuel as possible. Fuel in behavioral change is the motivation/energy or incentivizing factors.

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How do we apply this analogy to actually making better choices. Providing information alone or education is not a good recipe to change a behavioral or a pattern. Changing a person’s mind with information is tough whereas changing someone’s behavior with information is a true test.

Instead we need to take it a step further and reduce friction by changing our internal environment and external environment. If that's true we already have a leg up on the rocket because we have more control over our external environment. Last I checked gravity does not fluctuate therefore it's a constant variable for the rocket scientists to overcome.

However, we have control over the people we choose to be with, the food that we eat, the relationships we foster, our attitudes, the dreams we pursue, and how we respond to our circumstances. And because our behaviors are often irrational it’s imperative we attempt to harness health related irrationality.

Similar to the mind our physical body responds to friction and fuel (here fuel is food, sleep, stress, social determinants, and mental attitudes).

Let’s look at 3 conditions people struggle with and then engineer ways to reduce the friction and fuel a sustained change.

LEAKY GUT

What creates friction?

• Processed foods

• Industrial seed oils

• Multiple courses of antibiotics

• Extended use of Antacids, histamine blockers and PPI’s

• Unknown food intolerances

• Bacterial overgrowth

• Overtraining

• Lack of sleep

How to reduce friction?

• Create weekly meal plans

• Allocate time to create a recipe list

• Limit eating out

• Test your gut

• Look to natural remedies

• Try an elimination diet

• Intermittent fasting

• Utilize a prebiotics and probiotic

Fatty Liver

What creates friction?

• Overeating Leaky gut

• Food intolerance

• Poor bile production

• Poor food choice

• Endotoxins from GI tract

• Alcohol in excess

• Nutrient deficiencies

• High blood sugar Medications

• Bad Oils (seeds oils)

How to reduce friction?

• Portion control

• Eat for gut health

• Liver support

• Eat protein fats and some carbs

• Liver blood work

• Use time-restricted eating Intermittent fasting

• Check thyroid health

Blood sugar and cholesterol problems

What creates friction?

• Processed food consumption

• Calorie surplus and high carb diet

• Excess body weight

• Insulin resistance

• Elevated inflammatory markers

• Genetic predisposition

• Lack of activity

• Emotional eating

• Nutrient deficiencies

How to reduce friction?

• Increase insulin sensitivity

• Liver support

• Eat protein fats and some carbs (Nutritional balance)

• Use time-restricted eating

• Check blood glucose with a glucometer after food (1hr & 2hr)

• Check thyroid health

• Get adequate sleep

What fuels these examples of friction?

• Eating out (especially fast food)

• Lack basic cooking skills

• Poor time management

• Not enough social connection

• Poor sleep hygiene

• Inability to cope with stress

• Inadequate amount of downtime

Fuel to minimize friction?

• An unhealthy gut creates problems elsewhere in the body

• Gut problems may weaken your immune tolerance (autoimmune)

• Gut problems may shift hormonal balance (i.e. PCOS, Cancer)

• A dysfunctional gut suppresses our detox pathways

• Leaky gut may interfere with your metabolism

What fuels these example of friction?

• Disconnection from food choice and disease

• Hyper-palatable foods (i.e. potato chips, pizza)

• Ignoring constipation

• Alcohol addiction

• Not enough social connection

• Lack of plants and animal products

• Pill for every ill mentality

• Oblivious to your lipid levels

Fuel to minimize friction?

• We tend underestimate our dietary calories

• Comprised liver leads to inflammation in the joints as well as the brain

• Inflammation is linked to poor liver function

• Liver health is directly connected to disease risk

• A dysfunctional liver impairs our detox pathways

• Liver can be compromised by 90% without a warning signs

What fuels these examples of friction?

• Hyper-palatable foods (i.e. potato chips, pizza)

• Giving in to cravings

• Disregarding weight gain

• Sugary drinks

• Excessive snacking

• Limited information from your doctor

• Relying on basic lipid panels and subpar labs from a annual physical
  
  Fuel to minimize friction?

• Diseases associated with insulin resistance includes obesity, cardiovascular disease, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, metabolic syndrome, and polycystic ovary syndrome(PCOS)

• Gradual increase of physical activity and energy expenditure

• Liver can be compromised by 90% without a warning signs

• A dysfunctional liver impairs our detox pathways.

• Sleep is necessary appropriate metabolic function

You may have noticed some of the overlap and redundancies, but that’s because there is an interplay going on in all these conditions. What’s going on in the gut directly affects the liver and both organs affect the cardiovascular system all the way down to each individual cell.

Leaky gut, fatty liver and blood sugar/cholesterol problems put a tremendous burden on the healthcare system and can subtract years of good health from just about anyone. Don’t fret because lifestyle modification should be the primary focus for treating any of these conditions.

The body is interconnected, complex, but also self healing. For example the The Diabetes Prevention Program and its Outcomes Study (DPP & DPPOS) demonstrated A 7% weight loss reduced the onset of type 2 diabetes (T2DM) by 58%. The best treatment for non-alcoholic fatty liver is weight reduction and correcting leaky gut and restoring immune tolerance can be done through shifts in diet, diagnostic testing, and targeted supplement protocols.

Given the importance of patient participation in healthcare decisions you deserve sufficient time and treatment solutions that require some self-management other than guzzling down a pill. It’s time to move away from the old “ diagnose and adiós” mentality. Never underestimate the changes you can make by learning about your health and assessing your habits. This exciting shift puts you in the driver’s seat of your life.

I’ll leave you with this, we don’t always do what’s in our own best long-term interest. With that in mind what will you do differently? Can you identify areas of friction and find your source of fuel?

Emptying the Dishwasher. Exposing a Lost Art.

When, how often and how we move has a profound impact on our health. The frequency and duration of movement affects our metabolism and how much fat we burn. It’s literally silencing hundreds of genes and activating others. Motion through the spine in tandem with a healthy cardiovascular system ensures that cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) moves through the ventricles in your brain and supplies the spinal cord with nutrients while removing waste.

Motion promotes joint and muscle health, which in return may keep pain at bay. Moving activates stabilizer muscles and helps balance overall muscle tone. Paying attention to our body mechanics promotes brain plasticity and strengthens new movement/motor circuits.

Movement can be used to help us regulate emotional states. It can help us regulate the autonomic nervous system (flight or flight vs rest and digest). The large majority of Americans are bombarded with stress and experience a hyperactive sympathetic response - exercise and motion is a great way to put the adrenaline and cortisol to good use.

So where does emptying the dishwasher come in? I have caught myself thinking about this a handful of times while emptying my own dishwasher. I’ve experienced that my own conditioned movements inadvertently put me in a less than ideal posture. We create “default neural networks” which means that the brain gets good at using certain pathways. This is especially true with our movement patterns.

A task as mundane as emptying the dishwasher seems like it would serve very little value. However, like most of our daily movements they have become automatic or predetermined if you will. Whenever we move we are either “ gaining ground or loosing it.” In other words, we are training healthy engaged movement patterns or causing harm.

I’ll be the first to admit that unloading the dishwasher is not Thai Chi or yoga for matter. These forms of exercise require precise “conscious movement.” However, I would encourage you to take a more mindful approach next time you fill or empty the dishwasher. Go through the whole process with awareness. This way you will witness how the whole body works together while gaining a better sense of structure and posture. From start to finish you will bend, flex, reach, push, pull, lift, rotate, look up, look down and hopefully get a few breaths in.

Think about a few things:

1. Are you bending your knees and hinging at the hips or straining your low back?

2. Is your weight evenly distributed or do you dump weight into one leg and or even a specific spot on the sole of your foot?

3. Are your upper trap muscles and neck tight with your head jutting out over your chest?

4. Is your upper body squared off or are you cockeyed?

5. When you reach to put away dishes is your core limp or activated. Does your arm elevate or does your whole shoulder move with it?

6. Are you tuned in to what muscles are activated? Do you know what your posture looks like as you transition between sorting the cutlery and sliding the racks back into place?

7. Are you moving in a conscious matter or allowing for poor body mechanics due to muscle imbalances, prolonged static postural stress, lack of movement variety and overall sedentary lifestyle.

Are you familiar with the statement “where the mind goes the body follows?” This simple concept of body awareness and our power to create and change is an active process. Today it’s not part of our normal routine to set aside some energy to restore healthy movement patterns. At any moment we are presented with an opportunity to cultivate more engagement and check-in with how we move.

A little bit of extra effort and examination on how we move may be the very thing that negates the need to pop some ibuprofen, saves you a trip to your ortho, keeps you in the gym, or even allows you to hold your grandchild without aches and pains. I’d gently implore you to pay a little more attention.