Shownotes
Aging well isn’t just about avoiding the doctor; it’s about embracing the full spectrum of health.
In this enlightening episode, Dr. Alan Rozanski shares his transformative journey in understanding health beyond the physical. We delve into the concept that our mental and emotional states are just as crucial—if not more so—than our lab results.
Dr. Rozanski introduces the six domains of health and how they intertwine to create a holistic picture of well-being. From the power of optimism to the dangers of loneliness, we discuss how your mental state can influence your physical health. Feeling lonely? It’s time to reach out and build those connections because they’re not just nice to have; they’re essential for a long, healthy life. We also tackle the importance of finding purpose, especially in our senior years. After all, waking up with a reason to get out of bed can make a world of difference.
This episode is packed with wisdom, humor, and practical advice that will leave you feeling empowered to take charge of your health as you age. Don’t miss out on these insights that could change the way you think about aging.
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Transcripts
Hello, and welcome to Boomer Banter. I am your host, Wendy Green. And every week we talk about the challenges, the changes, and the opportunities that come with this season of life.
And before I tell you about today's show, I just want to thank those of you who support the work that I am doing here on Boomer Banter by supporting me through the website buymeacoffee.com it's really simple. It's $5 per cup of coffee, basically, and it doesn't really buy me coffee. It just contributes to the show. So.
a coffee dot com. Hey, boomer:So now let me give you an idea of what the conversation today is going to be about. And it may change the way you think about your health.
Not your cholesterol numbers, not your blood pressure, not your lab results, but your purpose, your stress level, your loneliness, and your mind. Because what if your heart is listening to your thoughts? My guest today is Dr. Alan Rozanski.
He's a cardiologist at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, and he has spent nearly 50 years in medicine. And what he discovered early in his career completely changed the direction of his work.
He was studying how the heart functions under stress, and what he found was stunning. So, Dr. Rozanski, welcome to Boomer Banter.
Dr. Alan Rozanski:Thank you for having me. And thanks for that lovely introduction.
Wendy Green:You are so welcome. I'm excited to have you. So I want to start at the beginning and early in your career.
Like I said, you were studying how the heart functions under stress, but something unexpected happened during one of those studies. Can you tell us what you discovered?
Dr. Alan Rozanski:Sure. Well, the ironic thing was I was not so much interested in stress.
I was interested in studying what affects the heart and just using stress as a tool, if you will.
is time, this was back in the:To our surprise, among people with known heart disease, some of them were developing these abnormalities while driving the car, doing daily life activities at low heart rates compared to what we needed to induce lack of blood supply, what we call ischemia. During stress testing in the laboratory, we decided we would model this in the laboratory.
We came up with these different Mental tasks that patients would do. Mental arithmetic, for example. There were some other complicated cognitive tests.
But one of the things we had the patients do was simply talk about the stress in their lives. So as we began to do this, to our surprise, some of these patients began to show the same abnormalities in heart function with mental stress.
Just talking about the stress as you would precipitate on an exercise stress test. So this was quite, at that time, quite stunning, quite surprising.
Wendy Green:So let me just make sure I'm understanding.
So you're saying just by talking about the stress, you were seeing the same abnormalities or functions of their heart that you would see if they were doing a treadmill stress test?
Dr. Alan Rozanski:That is correct.
But in the study of people with pretty advanced heart disease, in fact, generally much more advanced than we see today because we detect heart disease earlier and so forth, I wouldn't want the average person thinking that if they were talking about stress, something bad would happen to them.
Wendy Green:Okay, okay, okay, Good.
Dr. Alan Rozanski:Important, because it. It allowed us to understand the physiology of what stresses the heart more. But for me, it was that profound aha moment.
It was like, wait a second, I got to think about this.
There is this mind body relationship, and that is studied, as you mentioned, decades of work looking at exactly that, how the mind, body and heart are all connected together.
Wendy Green:So did your colleagues take away the same kind of thing, the mind body connection?
Dr. Alan Rozanski:I think many, many people did.
This was the: Wendy Green:Okay, so that's interesting that that far back, I didn't realize it was that long that we've been studying this. So at some point you began to answer the bigger question, what is health? And so most of us think of health as the absence of disease.
So nothing's wrong. We're healthy. But you've challenged that definition a little bit. How do you define health now?
Dr. Alan Rozanski:Okay, well.
Wendy Green:Okay, he's ready to go.
Dr. Alan Rozanski:I will define it, but I'll tell you the thinking. It'll take me just a minute or two.
Wendy Green:Yeah, please.
Dr. Alan Rozanski:Basically, as I Progressed.
In this work, I began to look at the chronic factors that affect heart disease, such as depression, loneliness, negative thought patterns, hostility, things like that. I. Many people were studying all of that, but I became fascinated with asking a profound question. What is health?
In other words, you know, how do we define it? Somewhere early on, I began to realize, just like not being depressed doesn't mean you're happy, just not having disease doesn't mean you're healthy.
But how do we define it? So basically, I realized from the work it wasn't like an overnight realization.
It occurred over the course of quite a number of years, actually, that basically our body testifies as to what's healthy. Anything that promotes longevity, that decreases the risk of disease, that protects your physiology, that's healthy.
That's on a scientific basis, anything that causes disease, shortens lifespan, is unhealthy. So, for example, smoking, we know is unhealthy. Being very sedentary is unhealthy. Getting chronic lack of sleep is unhealthy.
The opposite is true, true, you know, if you exercise, if you do resistance training, all of that is healthy. No one really challenges that, right? When you looked at these other domains, first of all, the nature of your thoughts.
The most profound example being optimists live longer and have less heart disease and pests.
Wendy Green:That's been proven in scientific studies.
Dr. Alan Rozanski:It's been proven in studies. We actually go to meta analysis of about 11 or 12 of these studies about seven years ago, that was quite well received.
But since then, even more studies have come out and studies looking at how you decrease the risk of dementia, for example, and protect cognitive function in old age if you're more optimistic.
There's a lot of data and a lot of physiological data to show people who optimists have less inflammation, have a lower tendency to insulin resistance and so forth, and they have better health habits. I mean, this is the beauty of optimism. But we also have data with gratitude. People with gratitude also live longer.
So you have this cognitive peace that's very important. Then you get into the emotional piece, happiness, let's say, versus depression, for example. So the body goes haywire.
When people are chronically depressed and it's not well treated, just about every physiological system becomes abnormal. You have increase in stress hormones in cortisol, in norepinephrine.
You have the development of insulin resistance, visceral fat inflammation, increased risk of heart disease. On the other hand, people who are happy have better health. So that's your third domain. The fourth domain is the social domain.
ow that back Even in the late:And this was true in men and in women and since then has been reproduced in hundreds of studies. But then shortly afterwards, other data showing that the quality of your social relationships also was very important for health. So that's.
And we know that loneliness, on the other hand of the spectrum is health damaging profoundly so.
So that's your fourth domain of health, the fifth only data in the last 20 years do we have strong data, but it has been strong, showing that how purposeful you live your life, your sense of life purpose also has a very important effect on your health, your well being and in your physical health. And the sixth domain is the one where people get confused about stress.
So we hear a lot in the press, you know, about the potential toxic effects of stress on health, but that's only if the stress is truly toxic, if it's causing a lot of chronic emotional negativity and you don't feel you can control it or it's overwhelming over a period of time.
On the other hand, when you're in that sweet spot of handling stress and growing from it, you have more optimism, more self confidence and you actually have better health.
So there's a kind of a U shaped relationship with stress that when you have boredom or you have very toxic stress, then you're not doing as well as when you're actually handling the stress in your life.
Wendy Green:So you're talking my language. You know, the, the whole thing about optimism and purpose and managing your emotions as best you can. But I do need to dig down a little bit.
So you said, let's say for instance, somebody suffers a serious loss, you know, a partner, a best friend, there's a huge sense of loss, sadness. I don't know if you would call it depression, but I think for some people that's what it feels like.
So would that stress your health or is that just a temporary feeling? And so maybe it's not stressing your health.
Dr. Alan Rozanski:What you're describing is grief and there's a characteristic grief response that people have and there's a period of time when they're just withdrawn and empty and they feel the pain. There's a time when they may feel anger and denial and eventually there is a growth that occurs from it that many people experience.
It is one of the big challenges of life that is not generally something that's over a phased, short period of time. It's not what we're talking about.
We're talking about the effects of chronicity, of chronic stress in terms of how it affects the heart, not in terms of a grief response.
Wendy Green:Okay, so it's long term. And the same with a social network.
I mean, I just did a class where some people had moved, they left lifelong friends because they wanted to be closer to family. But now trying to build a social network again is a challenge.
And so how much of a social network do you need for it to be a positive influence on your health?
Dr. Alan Rozanski:Well, it's very variable. We have extroverts who love to be around people.
People can have be very introverted and be very happy and feel their social network is good when it's one special person that you have that to share with. So it's, it is, it is about you. Here's the thing, and, and I didn't completely answer your question because we're talking about what is health.
So if those. Take those six domains, okay, even though they're very different, they have one thing in common.
Each of them promotes a sense of what we can call vitality. By vitality, I mean this inner pleasurable feeling of feeling alive and energetic. That's vitality.
Each one of those things, when you're promoting it, when you have a better social relationships, when you have a stronger sense of purpose, when you're more optimistic in your outlook, you have more of that sense of being alive and energetic. And all of those six domains, when it's going in the opposite direction, you feel lonely, you don't have a strong sense of purpose.
Maybe you feel like you're, you know, just burning your wheels at the work. When you are down or depressed or when you are ignoring your physical health for a while, you will have a loss of that sense of vitality.
So vitality is that vital sign of how my health is actually. And health is a dynamic factor. It's varying all during the course of our lives.
The very positive thing about that message is that you have all these different entrees to increasing your vitality. So if you can look at yourself and say, hey, wait a second, for some reason my vitality is down, what's causing that? Is it a physical thing?
Is it because I'm emotionally down? Is it because I'm lonely? Is it because I'm, you know, spinning my wheels at my work?
Maybe I'm feeling overwhelmed by stress at this particular moment in time and I need to deal with, you know, better stress management. So those are all aspects of health.
Wendy Green:So you're a cardiologist. Right.
And I'm curious how you address patients then with this, because typically we think of a cardiologist, he's looking at our heart and what's clogged and do the whole repair and then you're out of the office. So how do your pay, how do you address your patients and how do they respond when you're like, yeah, it's all in your brain?
Dr. Alan Rozanski:Yeah. Well, I've had a long medical career and during it I did many different things.
But early on in my career, I actually had the fortune to start a preventive and rehabilitative cardiology program at Cedars Sinai Medical Center. I was living in Los Angeles at the time.
And that was as much as that research I described to you, so profound in my thinking, because I saw early on the effects that exercise could have on people at any age. Basically, cardiac rehab is for people who had a heart attack or acquired bypass surgery, for example.
I was doing this work in the:And we were getting older patients who were semi frail, who had not exercised maybe ever and had no confidence they could exercise, we would slowly put them on the treadmill and take them through this 12 week course and then they could sign on for continuation and what we call in those days of phase three program. And the transformation in many of these patients was remarkable.
I saw it with my eyes and learned from that, that, you know, the effects of exercise isn't just physical, it's mental, it's spiritual. And that was one of my entrees.
And I, I promulgated that and all the patients I had contact with and I added these other components as I went along with patients that I would, would take care of.
Wendy Green:Okay, so as you're getting them to exercise, cardiac rehab, they're starting to recognize their own vitality.
And then you are able to then reinforce that with, oh, well, do you recognize now that you're feeling better so you're not as depressed because you can get up and walk more easily. And. But what about purpose? I mean, that's a big one that people struggle with. Like, how do I find my purpose?
Dr. Alan Rozanski:That's a very good question. I have a number of tools for that, but one of them is what I call tuning fork moments.
Wendy Green:Tuning fork moments.
Dr. Alan Rozanski:So tuning fork is, you know, you, you put it, you get the right tune and it starts resonating even with another tuning fork. Right. So these are moments that resonate with you. So I say that people can look at their own lives and they can say, call back, think back.
What were times when time just seemed to stop for you? You were doing something and you were so engrossed in it and you felt it was like you, or you felt you could do it all day long.
You know, that's a clue.
So if you look at these together over a period of time, it gives you an idea of what is that inner sense that resonates with you and becomes, you know, a thing, a North Star.
In terms of what you can pursue in life, Another tool may be just asking yourself, if I had all the money in the world, what would I want to be doing?
Now, the thing about this is that no matter what you're doing, no matter what job you have, I apply what I call the power of the first step to anything.
And so if you don't feel you have enough purpose in your life, you're, you know, say, I'm stuck in a job that is a bit of a dead end, or I just don't have the time. I would say, do you have 10 minutes a week, 15 minutes a week? Look at that tuning fork exercise as a map. What would you want to be doing?
Would you want to maybe write poems? Would you want to be painting?
Would you want to, you know, anything you want to do and put that into your schedule as something important and schedule that with yourself and give yourself that 15 minutes a week. That change is profound.
Wendy Green:Yeah.
Dr. Alan Rozanski:And I'll give you proof in another way. So over the years, I've dealt basically with sedentary patients. Right.
Because I'm a physician, I'm not at the other end of dealing with patients already going to the gym.
Wendy Green:Right.
Dr. Alan Rozanski:It's hard to get sedentary patients to get going.
Now, if you look at the American Heart association and all the other cardiac societies, they generally recommend that people get about 30 minutes of moderate physical activity five times a week, about 150 minutes of exercise. But that's kind of too hard to tell someone who's really sedentary to just start there.
And so it's important to start with the psychological success, not the aerobic success. So you can take patients and you can say to them, and this is what I've done for years and years is, can you give me five minutes a day?
And the reaction I get usually is incredible. It's like, what? You know, what's that going to do?
Wendy Green:Yeah.
Dr. Alan Rozanski:And Some people do it, some don't.
You know, the batting rate isn't so high because that initial commitment, but it's a tremendous tool because when people don't do it, they see it isn't about the time. It's about, you know, I wasn't really committed.
But if you do get on the playing field and you are doing that five minutes a day, then what's going to happen is the next week or a few weeks later, you'll do 10 minutes. One day you're getting your idea that, gee, I could do 10 minutes, and then one day you'll run into a friend and you'll do 20 minutes.
So that's how it goes. It's all about getting on the playing field. It's the same with purpose.
You know, can you identify what you'd like to be doing and take it down to a micro step? So time isn't the factor.
Wendy Green:Yeah.
Dr. Alan Rozanski:And then see if you can put it on your plate consistently.
Wendy Green:Yeah. I talk about purpose all the time. And a lot of what you said I agree with.
You know, I think if you look back over your lifetime and you say, what filled me up? What do people thank you for? Also is a good question.
You know, because we do things that are easy for us, that we don't recognize as a purpose, but people do. And so they thank you for it. And like, oh, maybe that's something I can do. You know, I bake a great cake or I do a beautiful garden or whatever.
It doesn't have to be a big thing, but it has to be something that makes you feel good.
Dr. Alan Rozanski:Right. I love that. That's a very nice tool. Very nice.
Wendy Green:Yeah. And, you know, I think it becomes more difficult.
I see a lot of people these days that are in their 90s, and it becomes more difficult because they say, well, physically I can't do as. But purpose doesn't require a lot of physicality either. It can require being a friend, sending a letter, you know, making a phone call.
That social connection can be part of your purpose.
Dr. Alan Rozanski:Yeah, well, you know, it's. You know, getting older is a challenge. Right.
I mean, we physically are, you know, losing muscle mass, power, strength, you know, with each decade of life, and there's a lot of aging effects, but in reality, you can be every bit as vital. You can have every bit. You'd be every bit as energetic when you're 90 as when you are 19.
It's a false notion to think that my sense of being energetic will decline with age. Maybe my sense of having physical Energy. But all those other domains I mentioned to you is actually generally improve with age.
We get sharper in terms of being able to put things in context. It's easier to have gratitude with age because you have experienced loss, you have perspective.
You know, we pay more attention to social relationships as we get older. In middle age, it's so easy to ignore them.
It's one of the drums that beats as you get older, which is why it's important to maintain friendships earlier on. So you have those friendships as you get older.
Wendy Green:Yeah.
And it's interesting the studies that they've shown with that U shaped curve of happiness, you know, that as we get older, a lot of times our happiness increases because of exactly what you said. You know, we're, we're more grateful and we're more aware of the people and the importance of the people in our
Dr. Alan Rozanski:lives, which is so true.
And, but that's why it's so important to take care of your physical health, because physical health is, it's a gift when you're young and then you go into this glide stage in middle age, but then it slides an older age, unless you are really intent to keep it up. And of course, the earlier you started taking care of your health, the easier it is to keep it up when you're older.
But you can start at any age and still improve your physical health.
Wendy Green:So you talked about exercise. What about the way we eat and sleep as well to taking care of ourselves?
Dr. Alan Rozanski:Yeah, so everyone has a sweet spot, but in terms of sleep, let's take it. Generally the Recommendation is about 7 hours sleep per night. Some people will find they do really well with six hours of sleep a night.
But you don't want to cut it just short. I mean, I always have the exceptions to the rule. I have both my former chief of cardiology and someone who's another chief.
They famously get four hours of sleep a night, very vigorous. I think part of that's genetic. And I've always wondered whether having a very strong sense of purpose, which they have, starts to make.
Maybe that compensates a bit in terms of sleep. But, you know, the important thing is be your own guide. How do you wake up in the morning? Do you feel a sense of energetic?
You know, even if in the first few minutes you're sluggish, generally you should be feeling good when you get up, not tired, you know, and look at that. If you're, if you're tired, are you getting enough sleep? So that's, that's one of the factors. And of course there's all these sleep hygiene.
Sleep hygiene techniques in terms of being more in a cool room, a dark room and so forth. Regular sleeping times, diet. I think we have done a masterful job in confusing the public.
Wendy Green:We have done. We have. You can find a million books.
Dr. Alan Rozanski:Yeah. You know, is that all the arguments about low carb, low fat, you know, in terms of keto diet and so forth.
But the data has emerged pretty clearly on things that everybody agrees that are important. You know, vegetables, nuts, having some healthy grains and all of that.
And what's really to be avoided, which is the highly processed foods, the Danish, the cupcakes, the soft soda drinks, things like that. I mean, the data shows that nearly 3/5 of the American diet consists of highly processed foods.
A lot of that is out of the convenience that we have and, you know, and any lack of time and to prepare things and so forth.
But I think that if we, you know, separate the forest from the trees, one doesn't have to get into too big a discussion in terms of like, for example, how much meat should you eat? And red meat and so forth. I mean, as a lot of varieties, in terms of what people can pursue.
And again, with food, you can pay attention again to your energy. How do you feel after you eat? You know, does it give you a sense of fulfillment or do you feel sluggish? An hour later, I remember, I don't know.
I don't know why I did this, because I was knowledgeable about diet for the longest time. But I used to go to work in the morning and I would have this. There's cereal.
I would have the cereal with milk in the morning, eating at work before I start the day. And then I sometimes have a second bowl.
Wendy Green:Okay.
Dr. Alan Rozanski:An hour too later, I was feeling sluggish.
Wendy Green:Yeah.
Dr. Alan Rozanski:Until I said, wait a second. I think this is related, you know, so, you know, it's we people.
Wendy Green:I think that's really good advice. We have to listen to our bodies and we. We don't trust our own bodies enough. You know, we just kind of take another pill. I have a headache.
Take another pill, you know, well, maybe it's all that sugar you just ate.
Dr. Alan Rozanski:But you see, that's what health is all about. Health is paying attention to your sense of being energetic. And I had the alive part too.
You know, being energetic and alive and then looking at what are those things that fulfill me, you know, and what are those things that. I'll tell you something.
I started doing these podcasts about a year ago, too busy writing medical papers and whatever I feel incredibly good after any one of these podcasts. I just enjoy sharing decades of work and meeting all these new people, like meeting you. And I just feel alive.
Wendy Green:That's great.
Dr. Alan Rozanski:And by the way, that's a tuning fork moment, right?
Wendy Green:Yeah. You found a purpose, right?
Dr. Alan Rozanski:Yeah, you know, I. And it's drawing me more toward it.
Wendy Green:So, yeah, awesome. So you mentioned something about stress and finding the, you know, there's what, toxic stress and the normal stress.
And I do want to go back to energetic too. But let's talk about stress for a minute because you, you use those terms and I want to understand what do you mean by toxic stress and good stress?
Dr. Alan Rozanski:Yeah. So toxic stress has the following components to it in some order that it feels overwhelming.
You know, that's not generally good, although sometimes you can't help but respond to it when it's chronic in nature, meaning that you can't seem to turn it off when it has this emotional negativity that it induces in you. And then the fourth is when it doesn't feel meaningful, when it's meaningless stress.
Take one of the worst stresses is a child who will suffer from abuse or trauma because they can't make sense of the world around them.
And data shows that there's a statistical higher probability that these children, unfortunately, will have more mental problems and poor physical health as adults. Now, again, that's not necessarily necessarily destiny.
And people have written books about how they overcame things and so forth, but generally these are the fourth aspects that deal that promote chronicity of stress. And the more those four things are together, the greater the effects of bad stress.
Wendy Green:So we all have moments of that kind of bad stress. But you're saying when it's chronic and lasts a long time, that's when it's damaging.
Dr. Alan Rozanski:Right.
Wendy Green:But then there's the other stress that could be motivating at times. Right. Like, oh my gosh, I've got to get the report out by five o' clock today. And I have. Yeah, that kind of stress is not bad, is that right?
Dr. Alan Rozanski:That is correct. And the reason is all of these areas fit together in terms of these six domains of health. We are built as human beings to pursue purpose.
You know, I say you can retire, but you can never retire. You need for purpose. That's till the last day you're alive.
Wendy Green:Thank you.
Dr. Alan Rozanski:And the data is clear. They did a study from the MacArthur Foundation. They had a network looking at successful aging.
And in one study, they looked at people 70 to 80 and asked them a series of questions. And one of them was to what degree do you feel useful in life?
And those who reported not feeling useful had an inordinate higher rate of mortality over the 10 year follow up period. So that's important. Now, how do we pursue purpose? We have goals. Goals come with challenge.
Okay, we don't call challenges or we don't take, you know, negative. Right. We look at that as, hey, I want to do this.
We want, you know, one of the big predictors of low vitality is waking up in the morning and not feeling like you have things to do in your life.
Wendy Green:Yeah.
Dr. Alan Rozanski:You know, on a given day that's okay. But over a period of time, that's very difficult for people.
Wendy Green:Very difficult. For sure. So I need some clarification because you've been using this word energetic.
And again, I'm thinking about the people at the continuing care community where my mother stays and they say, I'm tired, I don't have any energy. You know, I can't sit for an hour and a half in a class. And if they heard you using this word energetic, they would rebut you.
They would say that's, I don't have that kind of energy. What do I do? Am I dying then? I mean, we're all dying, but yeah.
Dr. Alan Rozanski:No. What you're describing is one of the challenges we have with age.
And you can't manufacture this sense of being, you know, energetic just by saying, I want to have it. The steps you have to take to feel more energetic. The analogy for a younger person who can't relate to it. Right.
This is something that is common in old age, except when anyone gets the flu and your energy is down and you want your energy back. When is it going to come back? And the minute it comes back. Ah, that feels great.
Wendy Green:Right, right.
Dr. Alan Rozanski:But we just don't hold on to it.
Wendy Green:Yeah.
Dr. Alan Rozanski:For granted. And then what happens with age? There's the cumulative effects of whatever has weighed down on people. My former chief of medicine, he's 101 years old.
Wendy Green:Wow.
Dr. Alan Rozanski:Writing medical papers.
Wendy Green:He's still writing papers.
Dr. Alan Rozanski:He's still energetic. Okay. Now, but you can't say somebody who's feeling tired in a nursing home. Oh.
You know, I heard this data and someone said you can be as energetic when you're older, as you're younger. You can't say that.
Wendy Green:Okay.
Dr. Alan Rozanski:Do is you say, how do we start to make get people 1% more, 1% more. You know, if they're sitting in a chair every day, you know, to see if you can get them to walk a little Bit. Okay.
You know, have, you know, a conversation, Have a conversation. I mean, the data, the data is bi directional.
When you look at older people, one of the things we found over time is one of the most powerful interventions is to get them to volunteer. People who volunteer for altruistic purposes actually live longer. It is a. Because it's a sense of purpose and it's a sense of giving.
And, and boy, are you giving. Because if you are helping people who are lonely in older age to feel less lonely, what happens? Your energy's gone up a little bit.
Wendy Green:Yeah.
Dr. Alan Rozanski:If you're eating better at older age, that still affects your energy. If you're moving a little bit more, that affects your energy. You know, if you take on something to do, then that affects your energy.
You know, showing interventions in nursing home populations where when they gave people tasks to do, they did better, they did better in terms of their health, you
Wendy Green:know, and yeah, so it's so important. It's so important. And, you know, I think some of the ageism in society reinforces the idea that you're not useful anymore.
You know, you, you've done your thing. You just go sit over there and, and sit in that chair and Right, right, there's.
Dr. Alan Rozanski:We, we, we have a notion that my energy should be declining with age and it's just normal instead of saying, why is it going down? What can I do about it? And the earlier you realize that insight, the better off you're going to be.
Wendy Green:So, you know, I think, you know, we've talked about the aging process and it wears on all of us, but we all listening to this podcast want to age well.
And so my question would be, of of these six domains, is there one that's going to give us the biggest bang for the buck that we should start to focus on before we start thinking about all the others?
Dr. Alan Rozanski:Great question, great question. If I only had to choose one, I would say, move more, move more, move more. Because when you start moving, other things happen.
So that's, that's a baseline. You gotta move, you gotta move. Okay, now if you add muscle care to that, that's even better. Another profound one is that sense of purpose.
You know, five minutes a day, do something you really love, you know, so those are things I would say, you know, and, and then of course, the social one is a big one too. Make sure you're reaching out to friends and maintaining those friendships.
Wendy Green:Alan, I wish I could have you on every day because this is the kind of stuff I talk about all the time.
You've got to move, you've got to have a reason to get up in the morning and at least one person that you know would be there for you if you need them that you can call when you feel scared or isolated. So, yeah, love this. Thank you.
Dr. Alan Rozanski:Thank you.
Wendy Green:Before we start, before we wrap up, want to circle back to your original discovery, the idea that simply talking about stress changed heart function. So what do you hope people in their 60s, 70s, or 80s understand about the mind body connection?
Dr. Alan Rozanski:You know, it's been an artificial divide that has existed not for decades, but for centuries, going back hundreds of years actually. And science made it more so so that we have psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers on the one hand.
But really it's an artificial divide because if you look at all those domains, just look at the physical part. Let's say you want to be a doctor to get people to exercise and eat better.
Well, it turns out that if you're feeling lonely or if you're feeling depressed or you're feeling a lack of sense of purpose, you don't exercise as much, you don't eat as well, you don't sleep as well. The data is empiric but very strong. And the opposite is also true.
So the thing that I just want to emphasize is these six domains are all entryways to better health.
And just choose the one that's relevant for you now and take that power, that first step and just do it consistently and you will start to see a virtuous cycle of better health.
Wendy Green:So Dr. Rozanski has a website with a lot of information. He puts out a newsletter and you can get his newsletter from his website. It's Alan A L A N Rozanski.
R o z a N-S-K-I.com I will put that in the show notes.
But go ahead, subscribe to his newsletter because you know, he's now saying the same things I say or I'm saying the same things he says, you know, so I love that. And you know, I guess I'm gonna put in a little plug too.
So if you feel like you want to know where your purpose is speaking to you or you want some encouragement to feel better and more optimistic, you know that I also do coaching and you can always drop me a note at Wendy@HeyBoomer.Biz and we can just set up a little chat just to see where you're at, see if it's something you want a little help with. Mind, body, connection, it's all, it's all important, you know, I mean, right. We get nervous. Our stomach hurts. It's all connected. So.
All right, so to all of you listening, I hope this conversation reminds you that your emotional life, your relationships, your purpose, and even the way you handle stress have an impact on your health. They are your health. And if you found this episode helpful, which I know you did, share it with someone who needs to hear it.
And until next time, my name is Wendy Green. And thank you so much, Dr. Rozanski.
Dr. Alan Rozanski:Thank you. Thank you very much.
Wendy Green:And I will see you all in a week or so.
