Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #922 The Health Habit with Dr Amantha Imber

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#922 The Health Habit with Dr Amantha Imber · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
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  Speaker 1: time poor parent who just once answers. Now, the new
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  Speaker 1: year has begun, We're supposed to be getting our health
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  Speaker 1: habits underway, kids back at school, We're supposed to be
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  Speaker 1: back into the routine. And for some reason, I don't
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  Speaker 1: know about you, but I just find it difficult. There's
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  Speaker 1: always something that pops up. There's always something that stops
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  Speaker 1: me from getting enough sleep, or from eating rite, or
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  Speaker 1: from moving my body and doing all the things that
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  Speaker 1: on New Year's Day I swore I was going to do.
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  Speaker 1: This is a conversation for any parent who is struggling
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  Speaker 1: to find the time, the motivation, or just to know
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  Speaker 1: how to get health back on track. And I figured,
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  Speaker 1: since most New Year's resolutions have finished or failed by
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  Speaker 1: around about mid to late January, first or second week
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  Speaker 1: of February is about the right time to have a
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  Speaker 1: conversation with doctor Amantha Imber about her brand new book,
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  Speaker 1: The Health Habit. I think you were going to love this.
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  Speaker 1: It's a five star book from my perspective. Amantha has
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  Speaker 1: been a guest on the pod cast a couple of times,
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  Speaker 1: but I want to tell you a bit about her.
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  Speaker 1: If you're not familiar with doctor Amantha Imber, an organizational
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  Speaker 1: psychologist and founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium. She hosts
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  Speaker 1: the top ranking podcast How I Work, which has had
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  Speaker 1: over five million downloads. Amantha is also the co creator
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  Speaker 1: of the Australian Financial Reviews Most Innovative Companies List and
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  Speaker 1: the AFR boss Best Places to Work List. Amantha has
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  Speaker 1: helped companies like Google, Apple, Disney, Lego, at Lassian, Commonwealth
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  Speaker 1: Bank and many others to reinvent the way that they
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  Speaker 1: approach their work plus. In twenty nineteen, a Math was
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  Speaker 1: named as one of the Australian Financial Reviews one hundred
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  Speaker 1: Women of Influence. In twenty twenty one, she won the
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  Speaker 1: Thinker's fifty Innovation Award, which recognizes the thinker who has
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  Speaker 1: contributed the most to the understanding of innovation globally over
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  Speaker 1: the last two years. A Math was also the first
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  Speaker 1: Australian to win this award. She's written and shown up
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  Speaker 1: in the Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, and
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  Speaker 1: is the author of three internationally best selling books, including
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  Speaker 1: one of My favorites, time Wise Plus, The Innovation Formula,
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  Speaker 1: and The Creativity formula. It's a long intro, but it's
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  Speaker 1: worth it. Amantha. I'm honored that you would join us
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  Speaker 1: on the Happy Families podcast to help parents to be healthier.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you for being here.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, it's so good to be back justin. Thanks for
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  Speaker 2: having me.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk about the book. Like I said, a
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  Speaker 1: five star read from my perspective, I want to talk
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  Speaker 1: all about it because I got so much out of it.
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  Speaker 1: Read every page, read every word. But I think it's
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  Speaker 1: better if you do. My first question though, why is
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  Speaker 1: an organizational psychologist writing a health book?
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  Speaker 2: Oh?
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  Speaker 3: It's a great question. So how I came up with
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  Speaker 3: the idea for the book probably best explains that. So
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  Speaker 3: my work is in behavior change as an organizational psychologist,
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  Speaker 3: and mostly focusing on how we behave at work and
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  Speaker 3: in my sort of spare time. I am really obsessed
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  Speaker 3: with my health, more from a selfish point of view,
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  Speaker 3: because I've had all sorts of you know, health challenges
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  Speaker 3: that I think, you know a lot of people can
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  Speaker 3: relate to. I've had chronic insomnia, you know, throughout my
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  Speaker 3: twenties and thirties, I had a crazy, bad sugar addiction.
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  Speaker 3: I was the kid that got picked last for every
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  Speaker 3: sports team at school years and beyond. And these are
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  Speaker 3: things that I've been able to sort of psychology my
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  Speaker 3: way through through my understanding of behavior change. And so
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  Speaker 3: the idea for the book I'm about thinking, you know,
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  Speaker 3: there are all these books on healthy behavior and the
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  Speaker 3: latest health fad or diet fad, and you know, every
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  Speaker 3: month there's a whole new round released and people go
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  Speaker 3: out and buy them. But presumably if they actually worked,
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  Speaker 3: then there wouldn't be a market for them anymore because
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  Speaker 3: everyone would be fixed, so to speak. And in the meanwhile,
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  Speaker 3: there's this other section of the bookstore that's all around
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  Speaker 3: habit change and improvement and how to change your behavior.
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  Speaker 3: And I thought to myself one morning, why have these
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  Speaker 3: two genres never met and produced a book?
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  Speaker 2: Baby?
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  Speaker 3: And that's what I wanted to do with the Health
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  Speaker 3: Habit to go, what are the most impactful things that
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  Speaker 3: as humans we can do to improve how we sleep,
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  Speaker 3: move and eat and there, and how can I help
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  Speaker 3: readers diagnose what's the biggest psychological barrier getting in the
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  Speaker 3: way to making a change stick? And I help people
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  Speaker 3: diagnose themselves in the book and give them behavior change
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  Speaker 3: strategies that are just for them.
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  Speaker 1: So you've touched on a nerve with the sugar addiction.
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  Speaker 1: That's my cryptonite. I want to talk to you more
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  Speaker 1: about that shortly, because this podcast I get to talk
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  Speaker 1: to great people and it would be crazy for me
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  Speaker 1: to not to ask for a bit of advice around that.
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  Speaker 1: But let's go to the actual book itself. So, like
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  Speaker 1: you said, part one and part two, Part one, you've
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  Speaker 1: unpacked three health sections. You talk about sleep, you talk
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  Speaker 1: about movement, and then the third section is nutrition or diet,
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  Speaker 1: and then the second half of the book is about
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  Speaker 1: the behavior change stuff. What I loved about the opening
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  Speaker 1: section sleep, habits, movement, and nutrition is that the stuff
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  Speaker 1: you talked about is not the sort of thing that
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  Speaker 1: we're used to hearing. Like you really changed the conversation
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  Speaker 1: and made it feel like health is achievable for anybody.
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  Speaker 1: Walk me through your highlights of each of those three sections,
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  Speaker 1: just so that people can get a sense of what
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  Speaker 1: they will hear that's probably different to what they're used
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  Speaker 1: to hearing when it comes to health, nutrition, sleep.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and look, what I wanted to do with the
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  Speaker 3: health habit part of the book is not just tell
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  Speaker 3: people what they've already heard, a million times, Like you know, obviously,
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  Speaker 3: don't use your mobile phone in bed.
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  Speaker 2: I think we all know that, eat more vegetables.
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  Speaker 3: Sure, of course, I wanted to dig into what are
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  Speaker 3: the lesser known but highly impactful and science backed ways
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  Speaker 3: that we can improve our health and so to research
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  Speaker 3: for the book, I spoke to a number of different
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  Speaker 3: professors and leading health expects from all around the world.
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  Speaker 3: So let me give you maybe one tip from each section.
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  Speaker 3: So we'll start with sleep. A lot of people experience
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  Speaker 3: what I think of as Monday morning jet lag.
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  Speaker 1: Oh I love this. I love this because it happened
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  Speaker 1: to me recently. You talked about how if you flood
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  Speaker 1: in New Zealand, you lose two or three hours or
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  Speaker 1: whatever it is. And that two or three hour difference
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  Speaker 1: that jet like it takes like a week to catch
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  Speaker 1: up to that with the flying to New Zealand and
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  Speaker 1: then coming back a few days later or a week later.
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  Speaker 1: And when you said that's what sleeping in does. It
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  Speaker 1: gives you that extra two or three hours, That's what,
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  Speaker 1: like my mind just went like brilliant.
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  Speaker 3: I love that. I think it's so important for people
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  Speaker 3: to think about. Like I used to be notorious for
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  Speaker 3: having a weekend sleep in. I'd get up pretty early
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  Speaker 3: for work and you know, organizing my daughter for school,
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  Speaker 3: like from Monday to Friday. Maybe you know, I used
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  Speaker 3: to get up at I don't know, like maybe six am,
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  Speaker 3: and then on the weekends, I'd think to myself, well,
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  Speaker 3: i can have a bit of a sleep in.
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  Speaker 2: I've got no commitments.
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  Speaker 3: And you know, my daughter's at an age he's nine
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  Speaker 3: now that she knows she can kind of look after
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  Speaker 3: herself in the mornings. And what I didn't realize is
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  Speaker 3: that just by sleeping in, you know, even until say
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  Speaker 3: eight am, compared to a six am start on weekdays,
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  Speaker 3: It's like when it gets to Monday morning and I'm
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  Speaker 3: back at a six am wake up, it's like I've
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  Speaker 3: just returned from a trip to New Zealand. And I
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  Speaker 3: think like, when the time difference is only a couple
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  Speaker 3: of hours, you underestimate how big an impact that is
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  Speaker 3: going to have on your energy and how your whole
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  Speaker 3: day flows. So a really important sleeppack, and it's the
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  Speaker 3: first thing that I do talk about in the book
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  Speaker 3: is wake up at the same time every day. Otherwise
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  Speaker 3: probably every Monday morning, you're going to be jet lagged.
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  Speaker 1: So you mentioned half a dozen different sleep habits that
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  Speaker 1: are really useful, really simple to do. The one that
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  Speaker 1: I struggle with the most is the two SA's rule.
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  Speaker 1: Bed is only for two things. They both start with S.
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  Speaker 1: Struggle with that one so much. I want to do
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  Speaker 1: everything in bed. I don't just want those two things
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  Speaker 1: in bed. I want to read my books. I want
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  Speaker 1: to scroll my phone.
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  Speaker 2: Justin I'll admit something that I actually read in bed.
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  Speaker 3: So I used to be really strict with the two
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  Speaker 3: S's rule until I was able to get my sleep
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  Speaker 3: on track. And now I sleep well almost every night.
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  Speaker 3: And so this is the only health habit in the
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  Speaker 3: book that I break. I read a book at night,
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  Speaker 3: probably for about half an hour. So does my partner.
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  Speaker 3: That's our ritual. And I found just through trial and
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  Speaker 3: error that that is something that doesn't break my association
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  Speaker 3: with what I need to be doing in bed.
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  Speaker 1: It's a scoop. You heard it here first, folks, Amanth.
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  Speaker 1: But now we could talk for ages about everything that
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  Speaker 1: you've got in there. In terms of movement, I love
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  Speaker 1: I love I love the post meal walk. We've started
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  Speaker 1: doing that since I read the book. Just love it.
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  Speaker 1: Number of steps per day, all that sort of thing.
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  Speaker 1: I got so much out of the movement section, and
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  Speaker 1: it was not the usual you've got to exercise for
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  Speaker 1: an hour a day sort of stuff. We won't say
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  Speaker 1: any more about it now because time is going to
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  Speaker 1: get the better of us, but I just want to
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  Speaker 1: highlight how innovative and exciting it was to read that.
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  Speaker 1: And similarly with the nutrition habits, I loved what you
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  Speaker 1: had in the nutrition habits, and I'm pumping up the protein,
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  Speaker 1: I'm staying clear of the highly processed foods, giving my
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  Speaker 1: gut a breather by narrowing the eating window. And like
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  Speaker 1: there's six or seven different nutrition habits there as well,
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  Speaker 1: So so brilliantly put together and so achievable for any
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  Speaker 1: person to work through, Amantha, we need to talk about
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  Speaker 1: actually getting it done. This is what the second half
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  Speaker 1: of the book is, implementation and probably the biggest issue.
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  Speaker 3: Correct, yes, absolutely definitely the biggest issue. So what you
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  Speaker 3: want to do once you've got the health habit, the
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  Speaker 3: new behavior that you want to adopt, is you want
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  Speaker 3: to work out what is the biggest barrier standing in
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  Speaker 3: the way of you changing Because what we know from
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  Speaker 3: research is that information and knowing something doesn't actually change behavior. Sadly,
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  Speaker 3: otherwise we'd all be perfect beings. For those of us
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  Speaker 3: that you know, devour lots of self development, you know,
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  Speaker 3: and health improvement content. But there are four main barriers
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  Speaker 3: that are standing in the way, and chances are one
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  Speaker 3: of them will be a more significant barrier than other ones,
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  Speaker 3: and it's about finding out which one so that you
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  Speaker 3: can use the right behavior change strategies. So the first
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  Speaker 3: barrier that might be standing in the way, or hijacker
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  Speaker 3: as I call it, is motivational hijackers. This is where
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  Speaker 3: you feel like you have to make a change as
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  Speaker 3: opposed to want to make a change. So maybe you've
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  Speaker 3: seen your doctor for a checkup and they said you
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  Speaker 3: really need to exercise more, or you need to change
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  Speaker 3: your diet for this reason to improve heart health or
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  Speaker 3: whatever it might be, and you're like ough, and so
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  Speaker 3: the motivation is lacking even though you know you have
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  Speaker 3: to do that change. That's one barrier. The second one
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  Speaker 3: is relational, So this is about the people in your
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  Speaker 3: life and the social norms that you're around. Like, maybe
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  Speaker 3: you're on you've got a goal around you know, maybe
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  Speaker 3: quitting sugar or you're eating more plant food or something
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  Speaker 3: like that. But the people in your household do anything
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  Speaker 3: but and so the social norms that you're within make
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  Speaker 3: it really hard to change behavior. Now, the third barrier
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  Speaker 3: is all about environmental barriers or hijackers. So this is
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  Speaker 3: the physical environment that we find ourselves in, like where
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  Speaker 3: we live or where we work for example. So you know, again,
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  Speaker 3: let's just say we're trying to improve the way that
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  Speaker 3: we eat, and you know, let's say cut back on chocolate.
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  Speaker 3: But if we've got lots of chocolatey treats maybe for
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  Speaker 3: our kids that are you know, all over the pantry
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  Speaker 3: and within the fridge. Our environment is making it very
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  Speaker 3: hard to change our behavior.
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  Speaker 2: And then finally, there are cognitive barriers.
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  Speaker 3: So if you're just feeling like exhausted and tired or
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  Speaker 3: burnt out, although it's February so hopefully you're not at
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  Speaker 3: that point yet, I feel like that comes later in
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  Speaker 3: the year.
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  Speaker 2: It's really hard to make a change when you feel
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  Speaker 2: that way.
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  Speaker 1: Aman. So the book is out, The Health Habit, Shape Up,
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  Speaker 1: Sleep Better, Feel Amazing, a science backed plan to transform
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  Speaker 1: your health. I wish we could talk about this for
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  Speaker 1: so so much longer. Hopefully that this is provided a
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  Speaker 1: bit of inspiration and some guidance for anybody who's really
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  Speaker 1: wanting to get those health habits back on track. Appreciate
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  Speaker 1: so much the time and effort that you've put into
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  Speaker 1: the book and your generosity in chatting with us on
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  Speaker 1: the Happy Families Podcast. Thank you my pleasure. That is
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  Speaker 1: doctor Amantha Imber, the author of the Health Habit. All
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  Speaker 1: the details in our show notes for where you can
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  Speaker 1: find the book. I highly highly recommend it, really really
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  Speaker 1: love this one well worth spending some time in if
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  Speaker 1: you want to improve your life and your health. The
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  Speaker 1: Happy Families Podcast is produced by Justin Rawland from Bridge Media.
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  Speaker 1: Craig Bruce is our executive producer. If you'd like more
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  Speaker 1: info about not just improving your health, but improving your family,
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  Speaker 1: please join us at Happy families dot com dot you.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: We are launching The Quest at Happy families dot com
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: dot you. The Quest is our new parenting program. It's
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: a three year membership that will help you get your
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: family on track. All the details at happy families dot
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  Speaker 1: com dot you or on our Facebook page Doctor Justin
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  Speaker 1: Colson's Happy Families