The MindSpa Podcast
The MindSpa Podcast is your go-to space for meaningful conversations around mental health, healing, and personal growth. Hosted by Michelle Massunken RSW and Tina Wilston RP, co-founders of MindSpa Mental Health Centre, each episode explores key mental health topics through expert interviews and thoughtful roundtable discussions.
From managing stress and building stronger relationships to navigating invisible challenges, the MindSpa Podcast offers grounded, professional insights in a warm and accessible way. Tune in weekly for supportive, real-world conversations to help you feel seen, supported, and empowered on your wellness journey.
The MindSpa Podcast
Ep 18 Your Body Will Thank You For Prioritizing Prevention Over Prescription
What if the most powerful medicine doesn't come in a pill bottle? In this eye-opening conversation, Dr. Kwadwo Kyeremanteng—critical care physician, department head, and author of "Prevention Over Prescription"—reveals why our healthcare system needs a fundamental shift toward prevention.
Drawing from his frontline experience during COVID-19, Dr. Kwadwo Kyeremanteng shares a startling observation: not a single person without risk factors landed in his ICU. This revelation, combined with the staggering $55,000 cost per ICU admission, crystallized his mission to help people avoid critical illness altogether. "If you take the right steps, you're less likely to land in hospital. But if you do, the outcomes are way better," he explains.
The conversation delves deep into practical prevention strategies, with nutrition emerging as perhaps the most powerful lever. Dr. Kwadwo Kyeremanteng's "protein first" approach—consuming protein before carbohydrates at meals—represents just one simple but transformative habit. He breaks down supplement recommendations (vitamin D, creatine, and fish oil top his list), debunks nutrition myths, and explains why continuous glucose monitors might be the ultimate feedback tool for personalized nutrition.
Beyond physical health, he courageously addresses physician burnout, sharing his own experience of nearly burning out during the pandemic. His strategy? Reconnecting with purpose—his "why." This powerful approach helped him maintain compassion and effectiveness during healthcare's most challenging period in generations.
The conversation takes an unexpected turn when Dr. Kwadwo Kyeremanteng opens up about his advocacy during school closures and the impact of fear-based decision-making on children's mental health. As both a physician and father, his perspective bridges clinical expertise with genuine concern for the next generation.
Whether you're looking to optimize your health, understand the future of medicine, or gain insight into resilience during crisis, this conversation offers practical wisdom from someone who's witnessed both the miracles and limitations of modern healthcare. Follow Dr. Kwadwo Kyeremanteng's work at www.drkwadwo.ca and across social media platforms:
Gyata Nutrition: gyatanutrition.com
Prevention Over Prescription: a.co/d/aLcFidA
Subscribe to his newsletter: kwadcast.substack.com
All right well, welcome back to another episode of the Mindswell podcast. We're so excited for our guest today. Dr Kojo Chiamante is a critical care and palliative care physician at the Ottawa Hospital and the department head of critical care. He is widely recognized for his leadership, advocacy and dedication to improving patient care while addressing broader issues in healthcare. And dedication to improving patient care while addressing broader issues in healthcare. Beyond his work in the ICU, dr Chiamante is a passionate educator, communicator and the author of Prevention Over Prescription, with a podcast of the same, where he engages thought leaders on innovation, equity, solutions to improve healthcare systems. He's also sought after speaker on topics ranging from compassion in medicine to health systems reform and wellness. Dr Chimanty's openness about physician burnout, resilience and the importance of human connection has made him an important voice in reimagining health care, not only for patients but for providers themselves. Thank you so much for being here. We are so excited to have you on the podcast today.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me that are so excited to have you on the podcast today.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for having me. That was a long bio that was unnecessary, but thank you for having me. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3:Yeah, to kick us off. What we'd love to kind of start with is, if you can take us a bit back to the beginning of your journey, getting into your profession.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so back in the day, very long time ago, unfortunately, I was. I grew up in Edmonton, was unfortunately had bad childhood asthma and my pediatrician was my hero. So the way when we go into the hospital kid that couldn't breathe, mom that's anxious Dr Conradi would walk in, put his hand on your chest and you just knew everything was going to be okay. You just had that presence. And so I thought to myself I want to be able to do that. I want to be able to be that tool to be able to bring peace and compassion and reduce suffering.
Speaker 2:And so at an early age I knew I wanted to be a doc. I wasn't sure what kind of doc. I remember going through, thinking maybe going to be a plastic surgeon and do something very flashy as a kid I'm going to do something very flashy as a kid. But then ultimately settled in in intensive care medicine and what it was was. I did an elective at the Calgary Foothills Hospital and at that time I was still a bit lost in terms of where I wanted to be in medicine.
Speaker 3:Was it because there were so many what seemed like amazing options and you were trying to narrow it down? Or was it? Nothing was really like speaking to you.
Speaker 2:It's a bit of both. Like I put my hat in surgery and I mean my hands I felt like I didn't have the hands for it. I wasn't gifted that way. And anything I wanted to do personally I wanted to excel at, and so I didn't feel like that was an avenue. Plus, the lifestyle sucks and I actually really wanted to be a pediatrician. But the environment was awful Parents anxious, clinicians were more anxious than I thought like, sometimes worse than the parents, and so I was like no, I'm more chill, like right, like if you're, if you're high strong, everyone else gets high strong, so I'd rather not be in that environment. And then I thought about emergency medicine. But yeah, I walked into this intensive care unit and within minutes there's a patient being resuscitated from a bleeding inside their intestine. They had to do a tracheostomy or a tube in somebody's throat to manage their airway. We were working as a team. We had to think on our toes. We're being educated at a high level. I was like this is it Clearly?
Speaker 2:this is it? It just was almost like a physical phenomenon. I'm like I'm home. And so then I knew that was going to be what I wanted to be and I chose my specialty based on the fact that it was going to. I thought it was going to be the best training for it. So internal medicine Then found a preceptor. His name was Dr John Seeley, who was a palliative care physician, and the way he, similar to Dr Conradi, had that presence in the room to alleviate suffering be an amazing communicator. He's a huge man, he was 6'4", but he would go down on his knee with a patient and just be present. And I was like this ability to communicate and alleviate suffering to me was a no-brainer. So I did another specialty well, kind of trained at the same time to be a palliative care doc at the same time. And yeah, it was a big long win to get to Ottawa Hospital.
Speaker 3:I worked at Belleville, aka Belle Vegas. I've never heard that one before. I like it Really. No, never heard that one.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, I like it. I'm not taking credit for it.
Speaker 2:Sault Ste Marie Montfort Hospital and then eventually the Ottawa Hospital. Oh nice yeah.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. I feel like your content always inspires me to make sure I get my protein intake, so I had a couple of eggs this week and let's do this.
Speaker 2:But mind you not to cut you off. I'm going to put you on the spot. How many grams of protein in an egg do you?
Speaker 3:think Six.
Speaker 2:Yeah, six or seven.
Speaker 3:I just looked it up because's the prize I am trying to increase my protein as well, but yeah, so it's hard
Speaker 2:yes, it is hard. It takes intentionality, uh-huh yeah, so this is why I'm saying like people that have the three eggs in the morning we're not doing it yet you're not doing it. Yeah, and the greek yogurt, having a protein shake with it, or you're someone like me? I'll have six eggs, okay.
Speaker 3:I can totally do six eggs. I love six eggs. I love scraping up the eggs so much.
Speaker 2:No, I mean In one sitting. Yeah, in one sitting, for sure. Well for me, but like, you know, yeah, whatever. But just because, like a lot of people get like, oh, eggs cholesterol, Like to me that's a myth.
Speaker 3:So enjoy your eggs, thank you, appreciate it. And yeah, the yolks, because I was doing a workout thing and they said you had to do whites only and I said, no, I'm going to keep the yolk.
Speaker 2:We need to keep the yolk. Yeah, no, yolk it up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so your content talks a lot. Your book and your podcast talk a lot about prevention. I'm curious to know what motivates that in terms of like pushing and identifying the need for prevention over prescription and why that was an important message for you.
Speaker 2:Yes, thanks for that. There's. It's twofold. I'll get the first part. I'll try to make brief. Early in my career I saw how wasteful we are in health care and so we developed a research program we called a resource optimization network. A bunch of different specialists looking at how to reduce health care savings, and on top of that which I'll get back to in a second then the pandemic hit, where I was seeing only people with risk factors land in icu because of the pandemic. So I did not treat one healthy person. This was me personally. You're going to see everybody look up whatever.
Speaker 3:I saw a healthy person.
Speaker 2:I'm saying me personally. I never took care of one person that didn't have a risk factor, and risk factors being either extreme age and poor immune system or metabolic syndrome being obesity, type 2 diabetes or, predidiabetes, high cholesterol with pcos on there uh, it wouldn't necessarily say yes, but pcos has the risk factors of metabolic syndrome.
Speaker 2:So, uh, it would be linked, but not linked. Okay, um and so. And then I in medical school, they don't teach you that you could reverse, for example, somebody's type two diabetes. And I was like this is crazy, like knowing what we, we know about pandemic, let's focus on getting people healthy so they don't land here. And this is all pre-vaccine and all that stuff. So I was like, yeah, let's, this is a huge aha moment, all pre-vaccine and all that stuff. So I was like, yeah, let's, this is a huge aha moment. And so what ties into my research was that if you could prevent somebody from landing an icu in the first place, the cost savings are immense. So I'll give you once again. Put you guys on the spot real and real, yeah, real answer not like exaggerated answer.
Speaker 2:what? What do you think in canada if you landed in icu with the covid? What do you think in Canada if you landed in ICU with a COVID infection? What do you think your cost was to healthcare system or to the system? Sorry?
Speaker 3:Million.
Speaker 2:One person.
Speaker 1:I'd say like 60, 80K.
Speaker 2:Yeah, about 55K for one person to land in acute care in an ICU. So think about just what you stop one person. That's 50k. Think about what you could do with 50k and we were getting admissions daily, right, so that, to me, was a big pivot. Let's talk about ways that we get people healthier so they don't have to come and see us in the first place.
Speaker 2:They avoid all the ptsd, the depression, the anxiety, the lack of function, the impact it has on their family, the uh, economic impacts, not only like the direct, but the indirect, because I'm now taking time off of work, yeah, to go take care of my loved one or go to see my loved one, and, once again, they're a shell of themselves if they survive, even like it's not a matter of it's not a matter of just survival. It's also how are you, from a quality of life perspective, when you are in hospital for three weeks or an ICU for three weeks? Yeah and uh. And so that was the big pivot is like, if you're serious about, you know, reducing suffering as like at a high level in terms of a mission, and, yeah, giving people the tools to avoid seeing someone like myself is extremely important thought of naturopathic doctors that their training kind of focused more in prevention, whereas our classic medical system is more treatment of whatever the symptoms are.
Speaker 3:I don't know if that's correct or not. It was just sort of the way that I always conceptualized the difference between them and I always, I guess I wondered why our medical system didn't focus more especially. Type two diabetes comes to mind, because that's something that touches me in my family. I remember being told I had gestational diabetes and I was told constantly and I'm curious what you have to say about this that fake sugar, aspartame, all that was fine because it doesn't actually affect your blood sugar when you ingest it. Because it doesn't actually affect your blood sugar when you ingest it, but from what I understand, it does affect the insulin resistance at its core, which is the core actual cause of the gestational diabetes or type 2 diabetes Is that, and so I always wondered about that disconnect. You should be saying no fake sugars, not that fake sugar is okay just because it doesn't impact your blood sugar.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so to your first point. Yeah, our training is mostly on who have a problem, how do we fix it. There's an element of prevention.
Speaker 3:Oh, there is Okay.
Speaker 2:Like I mean just at a basic level but not, you know, like screening for cancers, screening for conditions, but the idea at a like, at a major level of prevention, that is not a point of emphasis. And in your right. So, like my training I'm an expert at if you come in needing life support or really critically ill. That's my, that's my specialty, that's my bread and butter. Yeah, all this stuff I'm talking about was pure of interest in hosting your own show and just realizing like we're not serving our public correctly by ignoring this. Well, in fact, we're doing them a disservice, I find, by not emphasizing it. So it's just been a pivot for me. I, you know, I don't know what my colleagues think of me, but it's not, yeah, well, I'm not.
Speaker 2:It's not mainstream stuff that our, our docs are learning about and in fact even talking about so uh I don't want to call myself self-fringe I don't know what the word is I'm just atypical and so, and then to your second point about the artificial sweeteners. I think it depends, like not all it all. What I always say is medicine needs to go more towards the personalized side of things, like we have tools now that you could tell what you eat, if it's affecting you or not. So I don't know if you've ever worn a continuous glucose monitor.
Speaker 3:I really want to.
Speaker 2:You should Like it's like everyone, if you try that for two weeks, it will be the amount of information that I gained from a two week trial of this thing.
Speaker 1:I need a prescription for the device that you're wearing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, it'll tell you exactly everything you eat and how it affects your blood sugar, exactly so you touch a sensor arm or to your stomach and it will continuously monitor your blood sugar and so it will continue as being like it'll give you a measurement every 15 minutes. So I was working with a company back in the day that would monitor your sugars and see the links, because you would log everything, and the information I gained from that was was wicked. So I like I'll give you some personal examples, and I'm not saying this is for everybody, but this is what surprised me. If I'm on call and I I only did one call with a, with a cgm on, I my I slept probably three hours.
Speaker 2:My blood sugar the whole day was not consistent. Uh, if I had, if I walked after a meal, it would you almost, no matter what I ate, you'd have more leveling off of your blood sugar. If I had a high-carbohydrate meal but had a ton of protein in it, it would dampen the impact of the carbohydrates. If I did a leg day at the gym, I could eat almost anything I wanted. Wow.
Speaker 3:And my sugars were… how incentivizing would that be?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then the last one was once again on the personalized, so it's more to your, your, your, question. I had some white rice compared to.
Speaker 2:If I took white rice compared to an oatmeal cookie or something like that, the white rice, for whatever reason, was just more of a spike, for you spike for me then, then the cookie was uh, so so in terms of because I I'm not 100 sure on what sweeteners affect, what, like I think more people are getting more hype behind the sweeteners I've heard is with the cancer risks and all this stuff like the aspartame. I don't. I I'd have to double check my sources to to be, but we're in an age now that you can really find out for yourself.
Speaker 3:Right, you put a monitor on you know right, quick. Yeah, it sounds like yeah, and you don't need a prescription.
Speaker 2:You could go to any pharmacy and it's about a hundred bucks. The cheapest one's a hundred bucks, yeah, and more expensive ones, $ ish and yeah, but I I would highly recommend everybody do it once I, and I don't think you need to do it all the time. I think you just for two weeks and you find out, hey right man, do you see what happened when I didn't sleep? Do you see what happened when I uh, when? I worked out yeah, when I worked out and got my steps in and yeah.
Speaker 1:Which is good feedback, right. We know with our clients, when we ask them to track certain things like their sleep for a sleep diary or their thoughts, that in and of itself causes change. Right, because you're bringing your awareness more to it and you're noticing it more, and so you're more inclined to make those changes, which is huge, yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean, it's just another biofeedback we do biofeedback with heart rate variability and neurofeedback and that type of stuff. But yeah, the feedback, and it's the immediacy of the feedback. I remember hearing once this concept if we had I think they were talking about anyway if we had sensors within our body that could tell us immediately what every cigarette did, or every crappy thing we ate or whatever did immediately to our body, we would easily change our behaviors. Because that immediate feedback. Unfortunately, when it comes to our like not great health choices, they take a while to show up as an actual symptom of anything. But if we just knew right away, yeah.
Speaker 2:And the other part too I've noticed with some of the people we worked with too is when you start eating well and you start doing all the right things, you have a new baseline of how it makes you feel. And then when you do that pizza, that big pizza, beer night, how do you feel the next day? So there is that, there is that feedback there, uh. So yeah, I think uh even just having a window where you're doing the right thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So you touched on nutrition a bit. I want to kind of talk more about what that prevention looks like over prescription. So, talk to us a little bit about that. What exactly does prevention over prescription look like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so In the book we kind of talk about like five principles, and first one being purpose, like what's your why? So it's always that North Star, for when you're making the right choices, you can think of that why, and that will, that will point you in the right direction. There's nutrition, which is probably the most impactful lever in terms of restoring your health, and, from my perspective, there's exercise or movement in that. In that I also put in like strength training, especially as we age, I think people do not fully appreciate the, the magic of lean muscle mass, because it makes everything better. It's a compounder. So so there's. There's the exercise, there's a stress management, one where the that's the 80, 20 of that is definitely sleep. Get that right, not necessarily sleep quality quantity, but I would say, think of your sleep quality, because that's a, that's something we I feel like we have more control of, especially being busy professionals or having families.
Speaker 2:And then the social connection piece, and so what we often walk people through is these are the five components. What is the 80-20? What is the Pareto's principle? What is the one or two that we should be focusing on today? That is going to move in, because if you look at any other, any other, I don't know. Your social media feed, your tv, whatever you might be consuming your information from it's overwhelming. It's too much. Do I need to cold plunge? Do I need to do it?
Speaker 1:between 10.
Speaker 2:And 11 o'clock at night. Do I need to only have the rawest vegetables ever, carnivore, vegan, like there's so much, yeah and so it's confusing yeah, and so the the what I'm most proud of in the book is that we just keep it as simple as possible, because it actually is, in my opinion, simple.
Speaker 2:It's not easy, but it's simple yeah and if you choose the one or two things and we all have our area that we could tweak, you could be it could dramatically impact your life and you guys were talking about magic or potentially adjusting your protein intake.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you if everyone actually got to their protein goals. I could promise you something will change. You might not look like a Greek god, but your life will change. You will either lose weight, you'll put on some lean muscle, you'll be more energized, you'll sleep sleep better. There's going to be something that changes, and so I know I could, I could speak, say if I know 100 people, I could tell you about four or five people confidently that are getting their protein.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's met how do you do that calculation? I've heard different calculations, and that they're different for women and men, of their protein needs. And can you ever have too much protein?
Speaker 2:Very good question. So, first question being the needs for somebody, that's for men and women, are the same. It's just a matter of your goal. So the standard answer would be 0.7 to 1 pound for ideal body weight, so I'm 205. For me to maintain, I aim for roughly 140 grams to 200 grams, 205 grams of protein per day, and so if I were, that's so much protein.
Speaker 3:I know we just said it's six grams for an egg. Yes, wow.
Speaker 2:So this is what I'm saying'm like we just said, it's six grams for an egg.
Speaker 3:Yes, wow so this is what I'm saying Simple, not easy, yeah.
Speaker 2:So there's little tricks that you could do to make sure you do that is, we call it protein first, the thing you eat first on your meal. You go to the restaurant. What do they do? They bring you out the bread. Wait for the bread. What do they do? They bring you out the bread. Wait for the bread. Like wait to ingest the bread. Have your real food first.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:I love the whatever the bread I'm going to the keg.
Speaker 3:I love it. It's delicious.
Speaker 2:But don't hit it first. Make sure you have your real food first, tofu first, and then take uh and then have your, your carb or your bread, either as you're eating it or afterwards, to make sure that you finish off your chicken, finish off your steak, finish off your fish, your tofu, whatever it might be strategy to it yeah, and if you do that, the protein first, it also will have a better impact on your blood sugar.
Speaker 2:So if you have the, you have the bread first, assuming it's like, yeah, I mean normal bread you're going to do this to your blood sugar and then it will level off as you're eating your meal. And if you're having more of those spikes, theoretically not not hardcore science the more insulin you have, the more you're storing fat, the more you're, the more you're inflammatory. So, and like my opinion, less it affects your energies. So if you have that protein first, you're leveling it off and you're not having the swings and you're meeting your protein goals. And so something I'll do at a restaurant. As an an example, if I'm like I got three boys, we got I don't know how many hockey tournaments this year, but the one couple of weeks we were eating out all the time, if I'm going for a burger, what I'll do is, instead of standard burger and fries, I will double the patty. So it's you just doubled your protein intake. And then, instead of fries, I'll salad.
Speaker 2:Every once in a while I'll have fries, but if I'm eating out for a lot three days yeah, I'll avoid the junk, and so by doing that better regulation by my blood sugar I'm more likely to hit my protein goals, feeling better, better. I feel better, right what I eat. And so that's the magic of focusing on protein. And then to your question can you do too much protein?
Speaker 2:It is so hard to do too much protein, because you're just full all the time Right Like it's really hard to do it and, theoretically, if you have too much protein, that could metabolize the sugar and then to fat, but honestly, and it won't damage your kidneys, as some people might worry about I guess it really is hard to overdo protein and because you just won't.
Speaker 2:you just won't eat right right, and so, yeah, your body will naturally stop you right from eating too much but unlike, because you just won't eat, you'll be too full, and so yeah.
Speaker 3:Your body will naturally stop you from eating too much of it, unlike carbs, where your body does not stop you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, ultra processed food. Like it's engineered so that you have more and more and more of it.
Speaker 3:Wait, I should say refined carbs. Yeah, it's different.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean yeah exactly, but yeah, it's. Yeah, the food that is in a package is designed for you to eat. More of it You're not. It's not satiating, it's calorie dense and it's nutrient poor. All the stuff that is bad. And more evidence now is showing that you live a shorter life the more processed food you eat. Wow, so whole foods, real food.
Speaker 1:Now are the kids on that as well too. So you mentioned your three boys. Are they eating the same way? Because I have picky ones at home, so how do you get all the protein in them?
Speaker 2:So two out of three, no problem. They'll come to Dan and say you see, how much protein I'm busting out on this meal. Am I having another piece of steak? I?
Speaker 1:love it.
Speaker 2:No problem piece of steak, I love it. No problem. The seven-year-old he's a picky eater, so we we have to be more intentional with him. But between between, like the protein emphasis, between having like shakes, like it's actually hasn't been that bad, like uh, you do so. Like instead of this is another hack, like you know, at the end of the night. So three active boys come home after a sporting event and want something snacky. Make them a protein shake. That's high-quality nutrition for them. Or we have a Ninja Creamy, so we do protein ice cream, so it's less calories, but they get their protein needs in. Their moods are better, they're less cranky. Greek yogurt with some protein powder in it, or just Greek yogurt on its own, depending on the flavor. Add some berries in there. They feel like it's dessert and they're not bouncing off the walls after. So there's little hacks, but overall, especially the top two kids, they have no problem like they.
Speaker 3:They definitely meet their protein need, so protein shakes are okay for kids. That's what came into my mind.
Speaker 2:So they're yeah, so I mean, I'm gonna just like buy the book.
Speaker 3:Check with your pediatrician and all that stuff.
Speaker 2:But yeah, like, the protein needs for kids aren't going to be as high as they are for for us. I think I'm going to make sure I quote this right. So some pediatric um, some pediatrics for uh, uh recommend for athletes around that same point, like 0.7-ish grams per ideal body weight. If you were to look with the nutrition guidelines, I think they would be closer to 0.5. But for most kids, most kids aren't getting their, in my opinion, their protein needs because of all the processed foods. Like, look at breakfast, what do kids eat for breakfast? Like most kids Maybe you guys are special no protein in the cereal.
Speaker 2:We're having pizza lunches at school. So you know, like the ability to get to their protein needs is, is, is questionable. So in our household I, we I'll just say for my what we do. So keep me out of trouble. All three kids will have a protein shake and, once again, because it's you know, your body, in my opinion, will. If you're having enough, you'll stop. And and but yeah, and if you're having enough, you'll stop. But yeah, we all have shakes. It's a nice hack for making sure they get their nutrients no more.
Speaker 3:I've just recently started being really proactive about protein and that type of stuff and I can absolutely attest to what you're saying. It makes a world of difference. Just that one change makes a massive difference in everything. Like you said, energy, but even ability at the gym and all that. This is really off script. But I'm curious what your opinions are on creatine Cause when a lot of stuff that I've heard when they talk about protein talk about creatine a lot as well.
Speaker 2:So do you have thoughts on yeah, I mean our company we started to. We brought it on as a, I think, our fifth supplement because almost everybody and their mother should be taking it.
Speaker 1:That's what I've heard 18s kings what they say right yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I was just in a post yesterday. I was saying you need an excuse not to be taking. Wow, as far as I know, because you are going to be stronger, increase your muscle mass. You're going to recover quicker from a mental perspective, your mental clarity. There's evidence at higher doses that it's slowing down the progression of dementia. You're going to get mood, which I feel like a lot of us can benefit from.
Speaker 2:And it's one of the safest, well-studied, safe supplements like ever evaluated. And so, for adults, really, really it's. There's not many of us that wouldn't benefit, Like, whether it's our parents, whether it's us, whether you're an athlete or a gym rat, a lot of people would get some upside. So this is one of the like. You have a list of stuff that you take daily. So I I take creatine daily, I take my fish oil daily, I take uh vitamin d daily, uh, oh, magnesium, but that, no, not everyone needs to take magnesium, but I take that daily. But ultimately, creatine could, arguably, for most folks, should be on that list.
Speaker 1:Okay, what are your thoughts on the multivitamins piece? So I've heard a couple different debates on that in terms of its benefits, and I've also heard that it doesn't do much for folks.
Speaker 3:Expensive P is what I've heard it referred to as.
Speaker 2:From my personal evaluation of the data for people in this room it's probably useless If you're an older patient that is maybe having some nutrient gaps, maybe, maybe. But the data that I've seen and the common thoughts in the medical, the common thoughts amongst the medical community is you are not in any bang for your buck. There isn't downside, except for cost, mind you. But I mean no one in our house takes a multivitamin.
Speaker 1:So if you had to narrow down your vitamin list or your supplement list to the top three, what would you? What would you take out what?
Speaker 2:would you keep what I keep? Vitamin d is a no-brainer. Northern climate, dark skin for your immunity, bone health I think that one that one's a no brainer, I think. I think creatine is a no brainer for me, and if I had to add another one to the list as a, maybe the fish oil. Fish oil is also making makes me think that a lot of us could benefit if we're not eating a fatty fish diet, because I recently came across a study that showed that if you have low omega-3 levels, it's just as dangerous as being a smoker.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:So that to me, especially for anti-inflammatory brain health, that to me is is a gooder, I feel like I'm forgetting one.
Speaker 1:That's why you left that one out yeah, I mean magnesium.
Speaker 3:I don't think you said, not everybody needs that one, right?
Speaker 2:I think, because the benefit is stress reduction and sleep right. Some of y'all are chilling.
Speaker 1:They're sleeping well so I don't know if you need that extra juice.
Speaker 2:But vitamin d to me would be sure, and then, um, me personally I, I think the creatine.
Speaker 3:It's a really level case for that when it comes to the fish, I have a question because I your mic mine.
Speaker 1:Oh, I know I have just so many natural questions yeah what is it?
Speaker 3:I do want to ask about burnout yes, especially like the whole COVID piece. Right like that would have been but I definitely need to ask you. Okay, we can do it, we can do another supplement related question, then move into like burnout Sure.
Speaker 3:Absolutely Cause I'm just curious. So I've started fish oils recently and and so I started them and it's the pill I dislike taking the most. It's giant, it's, it's unpleasant. And then I saw the label. It said I had to take four and I was like I don't think I can I start anyway. I can't physically swallow four of them. So I'm just kind of curious, like what your hacks are and kind of, and do they ever upset your stomach? Because I just find also when I take all the stuff, I'm like, oh, my stomach does not feel good.
Speaker 2:So specific fish oil hacks, you should take ours. Because, then you just you take one and that's one and done you take one and that's one and done. Yeah, Okay. So our brand, Guyada Nutrition, which is actually based on I anglicized it too Jetta, Okay yeah, and similar to a conversation we were having for the last five years. People asked me what supplements should I take, which ones are reliable, Because you can't always they're not all trustworthy.
Speaker 2:So I partnered with a company that approached me to Tara and said we can make you a line, and I was like you know what, let's do this like. I'm talking about the protein, I talk about creatine, I talk about we haven't mentioned collagen, we talked about magnesium, all the stuff that I take and we have a nice, reliable source that you know doesn't have extra shit in it Excuse my French and that you could trust. So I was like, yeah, this makes sense. So we started it a year ago and it's been an absolute version.
Speaker 3:And there are protein shakes in it too. Right, there's protein shakes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, protein is like that was my number one lover. To be honest with you, because I'm always talking about protein intake. Here's a nice easy digestible, most delicious.
Speaker 3:I forgot to bring you guys yeah, yeah, it's okay, I missed out.
Speaker 2:I missed out at the but uh responders yeah the vanilla is the best vanilla I've ever had and and so I was like you know what. This is good. We get a good message out there and we're doing things like supporting. It's an avenue also to support the community, a bit Like we sponsor a few hockey teams first tackle football team for Bel Air Lions. It's just a nice vehicle to create some good, create a healthy option for people, and it's been fun.
Speaker 3:It's been absolutely fun and that trust piece of being able to trust the product, because you walk into any supplement store and you're going to first of all just not know where to start on which companies you can trust, so that's amazing, absolutely, thank you, and so your fish oil, the other hack you could do is so that's amazing.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Thank you, and so your fish oil. The other hack you could do is there's liquid version.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:There's one at Shoppers that I like too, that we used to use before, so you could legit put it in your smoothie too.
Speaker 3:Okay, dumb question Do they always taste like fish?
Speaker 2:No, okay, the one like, for example, example, the one at shoppers. They have one that's lemon flavored, okay, and it masks the, mask the fish, yeah, the, because we use that for our kids too, and so that's that'd be a hack that you could do so if you don't want to swallow the pills. But what you're describing is common a little bit of of GERD feeling too like reflux.
Speaker 3:It feels like it's being stuck.
Speaker 1:It's very common. That sounds pleasant to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you had another question in there that I forgot. You said fish oil.
Speaker 1:The upset stomach piece, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that. Do we hit them all? Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 3:But you wanted to talk about collagen. I know that we're going to, we're a hundred percent going to switch to Last question on supplements, but you wanted to say something about collagen.
Speaker 2:Oh, just just that. We, we it's a lot of people ask about it the benefits are, as we age is for from the best evidence perspective is for your early osteoarthritis like preventing or slowing down the progression. So I take it for that reason Like I got one left knee that's been beat up a bit, and otherwise the data for hair, nails and skin. I mean, I leave that alone, but that's the other added value that people like to try and focus on for their collagen. But yeah, when I recommend it it's for the joints, okay.
Speaker 1:Nice, yeah, when I recommend it, it's for the joints, okay. So one of the things that we see a lot as mental health clinicians is the concept of burnout and resilience, and I know you talked about the COVID period and how that was as a healthcare professional. I'm curious to know. Maybe we can talk a little bit more about that and how that shows up in your profession and how you balance that with life and still showing up for the patients. But let's talk a little bit about burnout and mental health in the healthcare industry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's an issue for sure, and it was highlighted during the pandemic. We even at one of our sites, we lost about 20% of our nurses during the pandemic, because it was awful Like you saw people die on there by themselves, you saw them suffer and you're wearing all this PPE and you're not even like it's dehumanizing and if you imagine your loved one dying that way, it's, it's awful like it really was, and so I think a lot of people just hit a wall with that and and so, like many of us in leadership positions, you want to try and do something about it. So we I mean at the time, we tried to create a platform to try and mitigate some of this. We had a virtual platform we called it Solving Wellness where people had access to tools. We had psychologists talking about cognitive behavioral therapy, ways to enhance your sleep, all these things, but ultimately, at a high level, there's just so many components to it and you know there's the stuff you could do on your own. There's stuff that organizations can do to try and offset that. But yeah, it's a major problem and I think the key thing message that we often talk about is control what you can control, message that we often talk about is control. What you can control.
Speaker 2:Um, I know for myself the hardest, most challenging part for me, the or the closest I've been to like burnout. Burnout was late, no, early january was january 2022 was six months into my tenure as department head and we're dealing with this omicron wave, and so there's my real work stress. So we have all these people swabbing positive, even though at the time they weren't sick, but we didn't know what to do or how to handle it. So all these people not being able to show up at work, all these units on on what's it called on outbreak. And then, at a personal level and advocacy, we're trying to get our kids back to school and into an environment where they were minimizing their suffering or addressing their mental health needs. We saw this evidence of, like, increased abuse rates and all these bad things. So we were doing our advocacy there, but I was getting annihilated online, like I was getting. I was. That was stressful, like, uh, there was a tax on our family. It was just all the things. And then what got me out of it? I did an interview with her name was jody wilding. She's like, uh, it should be good for your show. Actually.
Speaker 2:Executive coaching, leadership coaching, and the topic we talked about well was self-leadership and what. What it was is reconnecting with your why as as a tool to address burnout. So at the time I said why do I get into this? I reduce, and one of the ways I do that is communicating with families and taking more time with the families. And so during that tough time, that was my tool to help offset some of those stresses was let's reconnect with your purpose, why, and chat with families, get to learn more about the patient and their family and address their concerns, no matter how busy you were during the day. Take that time to make that connection and it was powerful. Then you start to do all the right things. Again, I was saying well, in the prevention space, knowing your purpose is important, because when you're not aligned, you're not going to want to go to the gym, you're not going to eat well, and I wasn't doing any of those things. And so that subtle step of really thinking about your why and bringing it to the table on a daily basis, to make it front and center, was a very powerful tool for me and something that I highly recommend to our staff, to our leaders, when times get rough.
Speaker 2:And they do get rough and you know, depending on the scenario, like a lot of us get into this, like my line of work.
Speaker 2:I think I'm tuned for it because I can compartmentalize well and the need for it in the ICU is it could be life-saving. So if I'm come to you and I'm saying your loved one is dying and I'm so sorry and it's tragic, and then two minutes later there's someone bleeding outside in room four, I don't want no offense, but I don't want to be thinking about what I just was, just thinking about how, yeah, and if it's your family member in bed four, you don't want like, you want me focused. So a lot of us are wired that way. I don't know if you, if it's born with, or you, you could train that in people. I'm not 100 sure, but you do compartmentalize. And then you you kind of address the sadness later. You kind of let it, you kind of let it resurface, and for me it's often it's on the drive home. Sometimes you have that, uh, depending on how chaotic the things are at home, you could have that five minutes with wifey and just say, like man, this was a crappy day what we saw.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I see that a lot with, like our first responders right when it's like the emotions can really get in the way of performance, and so it almost becomes survival to be able to compartmentalize in order to do your job effectively 100%, yeah, yeah, it'd be interesting to know, if I haven't thought of this ever, whether it's a skill that could be coached up or not.
Speaker 3:Or whether it's something that people gravitate out of that environment if they can't do it over time or if they just learn to do it.
Speaker 2:It's funny too. We often get in our specialty people that don't manage stress well. I've always found that crazy. I think it's. Maybe they in some ways excuse me, you do have a lot of control Like you. You know you're adjusting these meds and all these things. Excuse me, but but yeah, I always find it odd when you get a bit of a stress case in the ICU. I'm like what are you doing here?
Speaker 3:Well, one of the things that we know is that people much prefer actually when their inner world matches the outer world. If they are super stressed but their environment is very calm, that's actually more destabilizing than being stressed in a stressful environment. It creates that equilibrium. So I think for me it makes a little bit of sense on why some people would do that.
Speaker 2:I could definitely think of a couple that did that profile Internally and externally Like drama, always drama. I'm like there's nothing here.
Speaker 1:Why are we dramatizing?
Speaker 2:this yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:I think when it comes to burnout I was kind your what, what the biggest myths you think that people have about burnout, or even how to, how to avoid it, how to manage it, and from what you see, yeah, and maybe.
Speaker 2:Maybe it's a bit of a old school mentality and maybe people are past this, but a lot of people just work through it, always like, just put your head down, work through it and I would see that being big in the hospital medical world, 100 yeah and like a badge of honor yeah, yeah, and I mean that was once again.
Speaker 2:I'm aging myself, but that definitely was in culturally for years, like if you'd have a, you'd be on service or responsible doing call for as a trainee longest you'd do 36 hours, and sometimes you sleep one or two hours in there and you still tell yourself I'm here, I'm going to show up, like you shouldn't be doing anything on the hour 34 or hour 28.
Speaker 3:What the research says about sleep deprivation in the brain. That should be a no brainer, yeah.
Speaker 2:And yeah, so a lot of us, I think the older generation, mid to older generation still have that mindset of power through. The kids I find are much less likely to have that mentality. They're a little bit more attuned to being well-rounded and longevity in the game, not necessarily like, for example, when they they're newly hired they're not necessarily looking for full-time, they're already looking for part-time. So they're they're gifted that way in terms of having that mindset of creating balance. But yeah, the the myth and danger I see is still people's power through. I mean mean, I won't lie Like that's me still, if I'm third week of clinical work, got two more days left. I'm sleep deprived, I'm not, I'm just cranky. Tell me two more days, that's cool, we got this.
Speaker 3:You know what that makes me think of, though, and something that I say to people a lot is. The thing about burnout is that we'll have this feeling like I can, and I would say, just because you can doesn't mean you should, because I think that's what, sometimes, the assessment we go through is I have this thing that I need to do, but I'm feeling really burnt out, but I feel like I could do this, I could just push a little bit more and do this thing, but we won't know, actually, the repercussions till after that's done, and now it might be too late.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's totally me. If I'm being honest, that I got is that? It's a good way of articulating it. I can do this.
Speaker 3:There's a point sometimes where I'm like I can't right, and that's usually when we let ourselves off the hook. That's like the only time.
Speaker 2:I take a lot of I don't want to say it's part of my identity maybe, but like productivity and doing stuff that people can't do at that level. I take a lot of pride in that. Right, you do five papers, I'll do 15. Right, you see 10 patients, I'll see 20. Like that's how I'm wired.
Speaker 3:Like, as long as you can remember, that's just keep pushing through.
Speaker 2:I mean not to get too like armchair, but it's a bit of. I've been in a field where you've had to prove your value. A lot Like I'm not supposed to be here, you've had to prove your value a lot Like I'm not supposed to be here.
Speaker 2:I'm not supposed to be, you know, in early 40s department head you're like took a lot of convincing to get a job at the place. I currently have a job Like. In fact, if it wasn't for key people, I probably wouldn't have landed that job. I've always had to go the extra mile to prove my worth, go to Bell Vegas, like it's it's. I don't know if I'm totally wired for it, but I've, in my opinion, I've had to go an extra mile to get to where I am, and then it served you, which then reinforced it, that behavior, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's hard to turn it off Because, I mean, I'll just put it straight up, Like as a black man, especially in a leadership position, there's a lot of threats, Like when you're the only one that looks like you in a room, constantly there's eyes on you and there's critical. There's a lot of critics and being public facing being trying to do some advocacy, you are under a lens, and so there's always that threat, rightfully or wrongfully, that you've got to make sure you show your worth, You've got to make sure that your position is cemented, Otherwise you'll be threatened.
Speaker 1:It's a lot of pressure. It almost fuels the resilience in a lot of ways and pushes through in some ways. So do you find that that can become a barrier and a hindrance in some ways as well, that added pressure?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a good question. I've used it. I've always like. I wrote a first book on leadership and I always say, like, use that adversity as a weapon, like I've always like, if I'm true to myself, to be honest with you, that's. You want to see me shine? Tell me I can't do some shit.
Speaker 2:Like that is like my that's like okay, like it's on and so, and if I'm, yeah, not to get too arm-cherry once again, but my whole life. You want to get into medicine really? You want to play hockey? Look at the way you do my research program was laughed at initially Idea of being a young department head.
Speaker 2:You really, you know like all of this has been a lot of opposition to, and I've definitely used that as fuel. Right, you don't want to pay for my research? Okay, we'll self-fund it and then we'll see if we're making a dent in some. And now we've got over 100 academic papers Like we just like. We have this black mentorship program we call it Black Med Collective for kids that want to try and get into black, kids that want to try and get into school, and I we have a couple founders in there and I'm the they're gonna put you down.
Speaker 3:Use that as fuel.
Speaker 2:Like that's, that's, I come in with that energy man. I'm like, let them say what they're gonna say. Let them say, like, is this an adversity? Or um, uh, we got diversity. Uh, higher, is this? Like, let them use that language and just let's sink in for a bit and then show them right.
Speaker 3:I love also how you've used that and then, like you said, you're sort of taking an approach in medicine. That is, you said a little you didn't want to use the word fringe, but sort of not not what alignment with what everyone else is saying, what you should be doing. So I actually really love how you've taken that. Then you took it an extra mile and said I'm actually going to think outside the box of this situation on top of it, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just I don't know At the one point you spend so much of your life, especially in my field, of not being authentic, authentic, being your authentic self. I'm a creative guy. I can think of creative solutions, I love thinking outside the box. I solution focused and I and my bigger mission is you want to reduce suffering, and so do you do what's comfortable, or do you do what aligns well with you and what you could look at yourself in the mirror at the end of the day, Like just as an example, like when we were advocating for kids, like schools, to stay open?
Speaker 2:I don't, if I never have to do a media interview again, I'm fine with that, but you'd go out and do that and and I, we got a little bit more sorry. But like I'm looking at my boys and I'm saying am I going to? Just, I got a platform, I'm going to sit on the sidelines a bit and just do what's easy. Or do you represent and it was some of the most difficult decisions we've made as a family, my wife and I I'll never forget it Like, do you vocalize some of these concerns?
Speaker 3:in this cancel culture.
Speaker 2:And we said you know, our values are this. Our values are we do the right thing, we try and reduce the suffering that we're seeing and it's not right what's happening. So if you have a voice and people are willing to listen, do it. And I can't tell you to this day like people will still stop me and say like thank you for what you were saying about the schools and you know, and did it make a difference? I don't know, but it was validating for people and and I got I wouldn't have changed a thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah I love that, especially when you like the idea of being your authentic self, because, whether or not it moves the needle or makes a difference like your boys are seeing that, you know, when you talk about the authenticity with your mentorship group, your mentees are seeing that, and so that authenticity transcends beyond whatever happens in the present day. But it almost leaves that ripple effect and sometimes we don't see the results right away. But I love that you're even showing up that way for others to see that. That's awesome.
Speaker 2:Thank you. I mean when I think of my littles, like my oldest is going to be 13 this year. And I see the signs of it where he. I see him like I don't care what these guys think. I see that kind of chip that he's kind of developed and yeah you just, I mean this is what we do. We try and leave the world a better place, and especially for our kids, and so I'm hoping that some of that digests.
Speaker 3:Something I think that you really are pointing out too, and I think retrospect has completely proven you right about the school situation, and I think, again, retrospect had us understand the mental health crisis that you now put the world in because of how you wanted, how we ended up handling the COVID situation. It's just not what was top of mind. It wasn't. I don't even know I personally don't know if any mental health professional has even asked their opinion of what do you think the outcome of us doing this could look like. Come of us doing this could look like and we're seeing it now in absolute, massive numbers the detriment to the socializing skills, the impact on youth mental health that COVID had, including, and so much of it was how the school situation was handled. Because one of the things that I personally noticed and this it annoyed me at the time, or it really frustrated me at the time because what I noticed is that the first time the schools closed and everybody had to go work from home, everyone was on the same page. This is a crisis. You know what? Just do what you can Do what you can at home for school, do what you can at home for work, all of that, and so that had its own massive, massive impact on everybody's mental health. Then you fast forward to the second time that the school closed and everybody's like, well, you've been working at home all this time, so I don't want to see any interruption of your workflow. But, yeah, you have your kids back home again.
Speaker 3:And then the pressure from schools and teachers, which I understand their perspective on why it was important that we can't have another second year of missed content. But the pressure. I remember one of my kids was quite young and they're like we're going to do this baking thing during the day and it's just like who's supposed to help my child with the oven? They're grade three. This isn't something they can do on their own. Or just the pressure that was put on parents and people to still work full time, no interruption, have your kids at home, help them with their education and be worried very much about their emotional needs. They're missing their friends, their time on electronics, all that kind of stuff. And and there was just no, there was no. I didn't find there was the same level of compassion the second time around and the impact was bad.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'll just say this, the first one we didn't know what we were dealing with. I give it a pass. The reason why we were doing such strong advocacy is because what people didn't realize was Ontario was a unicorn. We had the longest school closures out of all, like the whole country.
Speaker 3:I did not know that.
Speaker 2:Or even one of the longest ones in North America, and so, while we were closed, quebec was, like all the almost all the other provinces were open, and the reason why I actually didn't realize that, the reason why it was. I thought it was crazy. It was because we knew kids really weren't affected by COVID.
Speaker 2:Like you're going to. Once again, people are going to try and find them the exception to the rule, but I was living it. I am intubating COVID people, I am seeing them. On a day I was there for our first one that came to one of our sites and one of the gifts I thought was that this is not affecting healthy people and it's not affecting uh, affecting children, so adapt.
Speaker 3:Yeah, kids go to school like they were in British Columbia you know, like just we we know this.
Speaker 2:And then, as an you might a lot of people's like why is an intensive care doc talking about this stuff? So as an intensive care physician, you you're paid to look at things holistically. So if you come in with a heart problem, I still got to know how's the medication I'm going to give, how's it gonna affect your kidneys, how's it gonna affect your gut, how's it gonna affect your brain. You might have a heart specialist come in and say do xyz. I'm saying I'll just do x because you're not considering what it's going to do to the gut, because I'm looking at you holistically.
Speaker 2:I didn't know okay, so like the same thing at society, I'm saying and maybe because I got a economic degree too is like you close down society. For a prolonged period of time people got to realize economics is health. If they don't have money to, if they don't have homes, they don't have food security, there's no way you can make healthy decisions.
Speaker 2:It's all tied so you can't just ignore one thing and expect the other. Mental health, the amount of patients we see tied to mental health, pre-pandemic overdoses, suicide attempts, the inability to rehabilitate, like all this stuff ties to mental health. So if we're not being proactive like this is where I thought everyone's crazy. I'm like okay, first wave passed, we understand, we were learning.
Speaker 2:We're figuring it out, yeah, now you're thinking about keeping kids at home longer. Keep mental health. Keep mental health services. Be proactive about this. If you're going to do this, Stop being so responsive.
Speaker 3:Be proactive.
Speaker 2:I thought there was so much going on that was insane. I can feel your passion.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm sorry, I love it, I love it.
Speaker 2:That was the first book on leadership. I was thinking about you guys. I was thinking about my boys then too. It's like what you're learning about leadership now is BS. Everyone's making decisions out of fear Everybody.
Speaker 3:And no one picks big picture in the moment.
Speaker 2:And so you see all these guys growing up and this is how they're seeing our leaders lead, like it's. You know, if you're depending on your generation, you saw these leaders like you know our grandparents are older sounding like the Winston Churchills of the world, the JFKs of the world, standing up to something that was strong. And now we're just seeing all this soft policy and soft mindset. I was like boys do not digest this. Your dad's going to try and represent what we got to be doing. This is BS. This is not leadership and I mean I don't know it draws emotion because one. I mean it's changed all of us. It really changed me and it just it opened my eyes to such a dark side of humanity like I just yeah, I mean not to be debbie downer on this bad boy, but it was just like how can we be so, I think, so small? How can we not see this?
Speaker 2:how can we put this much fear in people Like I could still come to people they had no risk factors and they're triple masking their kids and I'm like it's okay, guys, and I don't blame them because the messaging was consistent with it, Like if you're watching X, whatever network.
Speaker 2:That was the message you were getting. You should be scared out of your mind, and I mean not to digress, but this was one of the gifts of being an ic doctor in covid I. I mean, you respected it because of how it affected people, but I was no longer scared after about two or three weeks. I was like, okay, as a healthy guy like I'm good.
Speaker 1:But you yeah, you had the evidence, whereas everyone else was getting the news feeds.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like there was papers out this early, there was papers out of China saying 90% of our patients had obesity.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know what I mean. So it was like ah, in that case. Yeah, let's get healthy. Our family's healthy. We're okay. We're going to try and support society as best we can, but we don't need to be coming from a place of fear with this.
Speaker 3:But fear controls.
Speaker 2:That's one of the things that we're seeing kind of be a more common thing in society today is how do I use fear to control people?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, it is a powerful tool, there's no doubt about it. But then we are seeing the impact on the mental health Cause. How do you not develop anxiety when that's when, when fear is being mongered in every way possible? Do you know what I mean Constantly? Which is why I love your podcast, your mission, what you're doing, because when you state, when you start from that prevention point of view, that's hope, that's like my own self-control, my own ability to take charge of a situation that kind of scares me, which is illness, illness scares us, and because the medical model is very often how do we treat the symptoms, that doesn't feel very empowering. You start talking prevention and you feel and that in our line of work we treat the symptoms. That doesn't feel very empowering.
Speaker 1:You start talking prevention and you feel and in our line of work we know the difference.
Speaker 3:That's one of the things we're always trying to do is encourage empowerment. What can you control? You've got to control what you can control, because when you're in fear, you start letting everybody else control everything, and it moves into the helpless state, and when you're helpless, you're not even identifying the parts that you can actually control.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, agency, and it's because you know all of us will need most of us will need to be in hospital at some point, but one. If you take these right steps, you're less likely to land. But if you do I'm telling you what I've seen the outcomes are way better. I remember a short version of the story. An elderly guy that died for a period of time got resuscitated, and when you're old and you get resuscitated, usually you end up either die, you end up in a long-term care facility or you never leave hospitals. This guy went to the gym five days a week. He managed to walk on a ventilator so, having a breathing machine attached to him, he was able to walk. While he was on it and because he had that resilient mindset from going to the gym on a regular basis and working out, he was strong enough. He he's home and.
Speaker 3:And so if he was your typical 77 year old guy, yeah, I've been the end, that's not what rest in peace well, you know, it's funny just earlier today we were moving a couch and when I was moving it I actually fell. I tripped on a carpet and fell, but I've been going to the gym solidly for four months now, lifting weights, doing all, doing all that kind of stuff. No injury, I did not hurt anything.
Speaker 3:I don't even think I'm going to bruise from that and I just fully fell on my keister and I feel like that that's the main difference. I think if I'd done that for four and a half months ago I would be like I don't know not in a good place right now.
Speaker 2:I love it, that's exactly it.
Speaker 3:But it's also you bounce back. That's the thing when you take good care of yourself, even when things do happen, you're able to kind of manage it.
Speaker 2:Recovery looks different, I'm sure in those moments, a hundred percent, and a lot of that too is psychological, Like you don't feel like going to the gym a lot of the time, but you show up.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 2:Right and just like you, don't feel agreeable when you take the decision out of it.
Speaker 3:It helps when you're just like. It's just what I'm doing. It's lifestyle.
Speaker 2:It's not like do.
Speaker 3:I feel like going.
Speaker 2:It's like.
Speaker 3:No, I'm just we call it behavior activation, where it's just kind of like you do it because it's on your schedule to do, whether you feel like it or not.
Speaker 2:I forget which one of the Atomic Habits guys I think he. I don't know if that's pleasant. I love that book so much You're an athlete, you're a runner, you're a gym rat. That's who you are now.
Speaker 1:And you just do it. It makes it easier that way. Yeah, I love that. So where can our listeners find you and the work that you do? How can we?
Speaker 2:get in contact, yeah. So first of all, thanks for having me. This was fun.
Speaker 1:And emotional highs and lows, I don't know if I was signing up for it, but the easiest or the ways.
Speaker 2:Drcordioca, our website, has everything attached to it our two books so Unapologetic Leadership and Prevention Over Prescription. Podcast Guide to Nutrition, our supplement line, all our socials, our Aquacast. So that's on Instagram, x, youtube, tiktok that's probably our biggest following, and you can find me on LinkedIn too. We're pretty active there. There I feel like I'm forgetting something, but uh, yeah, no, you're on all platforms. We try and uh, spread our wings.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, really well done, and I'm glad that you're doing that. I'm glad that we're able to have this conversation with you and thank you be able to push the message of prevention or prescription. I think it's very powerful and empowering one, so I'm glad that we're able to delve into it deeper and give our listeners some more info on that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I brought you guys I think I only got one copy, but I brought you all a book to yeah, because I want to spread, I want to get the word out, I want to get in as many hands as possible because I think it could help help.
Speaker 3:Well, we'll make sure there's definitely the links to everything on the episode so that people can find you very easily and all your content real easy because it needs to be spread.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Thank you for tuning in. We'll see you next time.
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