Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / 282. Turning the Page: Dr. Robin Berzin Answers Your Health Questions & Shares the Transformational Exercise She Does to Start the Year

Transcript

282. Turning the Page: Dr. Robin Berzin Answers Your Health Questions & Shares the Transformational Exercise She Does to Start the Year · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

0:00
Speaker 1: I think sometimes we forget that our bodies have all
0:02
Speaker 1: the tools, we just have to unlock them.
0:19
Speaker 2: What is going on Hurdlers Emily Abadi Here, You are
0:23
Speaker 2: listening to episode two hundred and eighty two of Hurdle,
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Speaker 2: a wellness focused podcast where I talk to inspirational people
0:30
Speaker 2: about everything from their highest highs and toughest moments to
0:33
Speaker 2: essential tips on how to live a healthier, happier, more
0:37
Speaker 2: motivated life. We all go through our fair share of hurdles.
0:42
Speaker 2: My goal through these discussions is to empower you to
0:45
Speaker 2: better navigate yours and move with intention so that you
0:48
Speaker 2: can stride towards your own big potential and.
0:51
Speaker 3: Of course have some fun along the way.
0:55
Speaker 2: We're back with the Day four of the Turning the
1:00
Speaker 2: Age series, our kickoff to the new year, with hopes
1:05
Speaker 2: to inspire you to be your best self, whatever that
1:08
Speaker 2: looks like for you moving in to the next fifty
1:12
Speaker 2: two weeks. I am elated to bring in doctor Robin
1:16
Speaker 2: Erson for today's conversation. She's the founder of Parsley Health,
1:21
Speaker 2: and she's here not only to talk to you about
1:24
Speaker 2: her year interview, but also to answer a few of
1:28
Speaker 2: your medical questions.
1:30
Speaker 3: So many of you in my DMS.
1:32
Speaker 2: Talking to me about doing things like whole thirty and
1:36
Speaker 2: dry January, and also thinking about how to improve your
1:40
Speaker 2: health in the new year, whether that be in your
1:42
Speaker 2: supplement routine, perhaps how you move your body, the way
1:46
Speaker 2: that you approach mindfulness. There are so many different aspects
1:50
Speaker 2: to our overall health and wellbeing, and that is exactly
1:53
Speaker 2: what me and doctor Verson are talking about today. We
1:57
Speaker 2: kick off our conversation in a way I I didn't expect, honestly,
2:01
Speaker 2: with Robin talking to me about her in depth process
2:05
Speaker 2: when it comes to outlining her resolutions, her goals, and
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Speaker 2: how she actually makes it an event with.
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Speaker 3: Some of her family and friends.
2:12
Speaker 2: I was so interested in this, and if you listen in,
2:15
Speaker 2: she has a tool that you two can use.
2:18
Speaker 3: You've just got to follow.
2:20
Speaker 2: Through how we tell you to follow through in today's episode.
2:23
Speaker 2: So that's a little nugget a gem I'm going to
2:26
Speaker 2: leave in this intro for you. We then segue into
2:29
Speaker 2: a really interesting conversation about anxiety medication, answering a listener
2:34
Speaker 2: question on whether or not it can impact your fitness routine,
2:38
Speaker 2: and also getting into a broader discussion about when it
2:42
Speaker 2: may be time to go off of that medication or
2:45
Speaker 2: any medication in general.
2:47
Speaker 3: Robin elaborates on questions that may.
2:50
Speaker 2: Be perfectly timed at the top of the year to
2:53
Speaker 2: ask your physician, and also addresses whether or not there
2:57
Speaker 2: are preventative things that we should be doing as we
3:00
Speaker 2: get older, specifically pertaining to women to be taking care
3:05
Speaker 2: of ourselves and our longevity and overall health. Plus, of course,
3:09
Speaker 2: we cap it off year in review highs lows, what
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Speaker 2: she's looking forward to in the next three sixty five
3:15
Speaker 2: and more. Make sure you're following along with Hurdle over
3:18
Speaker 2: on socialis at Hurdle Podcast. I'm over at Emily Abadi
3:22
Speaker 2: and with that, let's get to it.
3:24
Speaker 3: Let's get it to hurdling Today.
3:34
Speaker 2: I am sitting down with doctor Robin Berson. How are
3:36
Speaker 2: you doing today?
3:38
Speaker 1: I am so good. It's so nice to see you.
3:41
Speaker 3: I know, it is so nice to see you. How
3:43
Speaker 3: is your New Year?
3:44
Speaker 1: You know what? It was actually awesome. It was super relaxing.
3:47
Speaker 1: It was a lot of family time. We went home
3:50
Speaker 1: for Baltimore for Christmas and upstate for a little bit
3:53
Speaker 1: to see friends, and then we were just here in
3:55
Speaker 1: the city for New Years and so kept a local
3:57
Speaker 1: like only places we could like throw the kids in
3:59
Speaker 1: the and I just really was really nice. What about you?
4:04
Speaker 3: It was good, no complaints. I've also kept at local.
4:07
Speaker 2: My family came into Brooklyn for Christmas and left by
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Speaker 2: like dark, like around four four thirty. So to walk
4:15
Speaker 2: around the neighborhood at four thirty and have like the
4:18
Speaker 2: most quiet, beautiful stroll, I felt like I was in
4:23
Speaker 2: some sort of a lifetime movie.
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Speaker 1: That's awesome. Yeah, New York is really kind of special
4:29
Speaker 1: over the holidays, it gets like weirdly quiet.
4:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, and yeah, it.
4:34
Speaker 1: Was really nice. Every year we get together on New
4:37
Speaker 1: Year's Eve during the day and New Year's Day during
4:40
Speaker 1: the day with a group of really close friends or
4:42
Speaker 1: five of us, and we do this really in depth.
4:45
Speaker 1: It's like a PDF. It's I got all these questions
4:48
Speaker 1: that we fill out in advance. We do homework, doing
4:51
Speaker 1: a very detailed review of the prior year, and then
4:56
Speaker 1: we do a really in depth intention setting on all
5:01
Speaker 1: aspects of life, health and relationships and finances and career
5:05
Speaker 1: and family and all the things hobbies and travel. We
5:09
Speaker 1: do that intention setting and we get really detailed, and
5:11
Speaker 1: we share a lout and we like push back on
5:13
Speaker 1: each other it's this whole thing, and we did it
5:16
Speaker 1: this year those two days, nine hours total, and I
5:20
Speaker 1: left it feeling like I just left it feeling so good.
5:24
Speaker 1: It felt so healthy to devote that time to looking
5:29
Speaker 1: back and looking forward. So I don't know, it just
5:32
Speaker 1: came out of it. Like all positive vibes.
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Speaker 3: This is next level. I am a.
5:38
Speaker 2: Huge goal setting fan. I love a hard reset on
5:43
Speaker 2: January one. This is nothing new to anyone who listens
5:46
Speaker 2: to the show. But to find a group of like
5:49
Speaker 2: minded people who want to pow wow together for a
5:52
Speaker 2: total of nine hours between two days, that really says
5:56
Speaker 2: something positive I would say about the people that you
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Speaker 2: surround yourself with.
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Speaker 1: I mean, it was a blast. We've done it for
6:04
Speaker 1: a couple of years. And by the way, I can
6:06
Speaker 1: send you this exercise and this PDF, and anyone can
6:08
Speaker 1: do it, and you can totally do it by yourself,
6:10
Speaker 1: right or you could totally do it with your partner
6:12
Speaker 1: or your best friend. But doing it in a group
6:14
Speaker 1: where we're bouncing off ideas and like even pushing back,
6:18
Speaker 1: like saying, hey, you have too many things on your list.
6:21
Speaker 1: What are your top three that you want to do
6:24
Speaker 1: this year? Because I feel like you're overloading yourself and
6:27
Speaker 1: you're setting yourself up for failure, like those kinds of conversations,
6:31
Speaker 1: and also just the power of saying it out loud.
6:34
Speaker 1: You know. I wrote my newsletter of this couple weeks
6:38
Speaker 1: ago for ROBINBURSONMD dot com like RBMD, and I wrote
6:41
Speaker 1: it about New Year's resolutions, and I wrote about this
6:44
Speaker 1: exercise that we do and this whole notion that like
6:48
Speaker 1: where your eyes go, your cargoes, and so many as
6:51
Speaker 1: much of the time we don't spend the time to
6:54
Speaker 1: really know what we really want, right. We don't get specific,
6:57
Speaker 1: Like we know we want things to be better or
6:59
Speaker 1: feel different, but like what does that mean? And this
7:02
Speaker 1: process just forced me, forced our whole group to get
7:05
Speaker 1: really specific about what it is we want. Uh. And
7:09
Speaker 1: I just think that that's such a healthy thing to do.
7:11
Speaker 3: Who initiated this process for your group?
7:15
Speaker 1: So I was doing my own version of it, and
7:18
Speaker 1: then this couple that are godparents to one of my
7:20
Speaker 1: three kids and really close friends of ours, and another
7:23
Speaker 1: good guy friend of ours had the three of them
7:26
Speaker 1: had done it a similar exercise in COVID And so
7:30
Speaker 1: last year we like combined forces as this group of
7:33
Speaker 1: five and then this year or the five did it again.
7:36
Speaker 2: So wow, Okay, so it now is like an annual
7:39
Speaker 2: tradition for all of you.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, like I don't I mean, if I could like
7:42
Speaker 1: transport us to a beach for this exercise, for sure.
7:46
Speaker 2: But like the other thing I'll say, which was like
7:48
Speaker 2: a little bit of a oh this is interesting to
7:51
Speaker 2: me moment, was when you were talking about the opportunity
7:55
Speaker 2: to challenge one another. I feel as though that also
7:59
Speaker 2: takes guts, gusto and willing to be vulnerable knowing that
8:04
Speaker 2: there are other people who understand that this is a
8:06
Speaker 2: safe space and they might have something to say about
8:09
Speaker 2: how you're constructing what you want to accomplish in the
8:12
Speaker 2: next three sixty five and beyond.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, one hundred percent. And by the way, that's actually
8:17
Speaker 1: one of my personal goals as a leader this coming
8:19
Speaker 1: year is to give and solicit feedback much more regularly
8:24
Speaker 1: from a place of curiosity. I think that in our work,
8:28
Speaker 1: in our partnerships, right, marriages, or friendships or family, we
8:33
Speaker 1: often just sort of like muscle through or keep going,
8:37
Speaker 1: and we don't always have some of the hard conversations
8:39
Speaker 1: about like how am I doing? Are the things that
8:41
Speaker 1: I'm doing working for you, like opening up the conversation
8:46
Speaker 1: to that feedback. So to do that as a group
8:49
Speaker 1: where we were all, you know, questioning some of each
8:52
Speaker 1: other's self limiting beliefs around how things have to go,
8:57
Speaker 1: I thought was just like such a positive, been powerful exercise.
9:01
Speaker 1: So everyone out there, I'll send Emily this is exercise.
9:05
Speaker 1: I don't think the exercise itself is like magic. There's
9:07
Speaker 1: lots of versions of this, and ask you a ton
9:09
Speaker 1: of questions about the year prior that you have to answer,
9:11
Speaker 1: and then ask you a ton of questions about the
9:13
Speaker 1: year ahead and you answer them. Like lots of versions
9:16
Speaker 1: of that can work. But just taking the time and
9:19
Speaker 1: really devoting time to it and doing it in a group,
9:21
Speaker 1: I think that was the powerful part.
9:23
Speaker 3: All right, So we're going to do an experiment.
9:25
Speaker 2: Robin's going to send me this after we're done recording
9:27
Speaker 2: when this episode goes live. If you're listening to it
9:29
Speaker 2: and you want the exercise, DM the Hurdle Podcast account
9:33
Speaker 2: on Instagram and say goals and I will send it
9:37
Speaker 2: to you.
9:38
Speaker 3: If you share your email, D I'll bam, bam.
9:41
Speaker 2: This concept of we don't actually take steak often enough
9:44
Speaker 2: in our relationships, I would totally agree, And reflecting on that,
9:48
Speaker 2: I would say one of my strongest friendships is with
9:52
Speaker 2: a girlfriend that we do our quarterly goal setting together.
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Speaker 2: So it is a really special relationship because I trust
10:00
Speaker 2: her in knowing what excites me, knowing what I'm going after,
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Speaker 2: being the person that I can speak things into existence with,
10:07
Speaker 2: and it really does strengthen our relationship.
10:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think that's amazing. And I also
10:13
Speaker 1: think that's amazing that you do quarterly goal setting. One
10:16
Speaker 1: of the things we did not this group tried to
10:18
Speaker 1: do this past year and then did not do, like
10:21
Speaker 1: totally failed, is to like meet up again like quarterly
10:24
Speaker 1: and kind of have a check in write a little
10:27
Speaker 1: bit of that accountability partnership, which is something that I
10:31
Speaker 1: also wrote about my newsletter, how that accountability to goal
10:35
Speaker 1: setting and resolution setting is so critical. It is a
10:38
Speaker 1: critical ingredient in the mix. And you're doing that with
10:42
Speaker 1: your friend and so many people are skipping it. Right,
10:44
Speaker 1: I set these goals, I maybe take the first step.
10:47
Speaker 1: I'm super well intentioned. It's January or it's my birthday,
10:51
Speaker 1: or it's the fourth of July, like whatever your date
10:54
Speaker 1: is that you're deciding to set goals and then we
10:58
Speaker 1: don't have the follow through because we don't set ourselves
11:00
Speaker 1: up for the follow through. So what I wrote about was,
11:03
Speaker 1: you know, part of the reason we have health coaching
11:04
Speaker 1: as part of our program at Parsley, part of the
11:07
Speaker 1: reason we go really deep on your labs and we
11:10
Speaker 1: repeat labs multiple times a year. Your accountability partner could
11:14
Speaker 1: be your relationship with your doctor at Parsley, or your
11:17
Speaker 1: health coach at Parsley, or your relationship to your labs
11:20
Speaker 1: and your own data, or it could be a friend
11:23
Speaker 1: or a mentor or a group of friends, or your partner.
11:27
Speaker 1: But having that regularity of that check in and scheduling
11:30
Speaker 1: it so that you go back to what you said
11:33
Speaker 1: you were going to do and see if you actually
11:34
Speaker 1: are doing it, I think is really critical. So our
11:37
Speaker 1: group committed this year to at least twice over the year,
11:42
Speaker 1: getting the group of five together, reviewing what we said
11:45
Speaker 1: we were going to do and seeing how it's going
11:48
Speaker 1: right and then if it's not going well, like troubleshooting
11:50
Speaker 1: that not like beating ourselves up.
11:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay.
11:54
Speaker 2: The statistics nine percent of Americans that make resolutions actually
12:00
Speaker 2: complete them. Research goes on to show that twenty three
12:03
Speaker 2: percent of people quit their resolutions by the end of
12:06
Speaker 2: the first week of the year, and that forty three
12:10
Speaker 2: percent quit by the end of January. For those that
12:14
Speaker 2: are making new health resolutions in the new year, do
12:17
Speaker 2: you have one big piece of advice to help them
12:19
Speaker 2: stay on track?
12:21
Speaker 1: Connect to your why. So we've set a lot of resolutions,
12:25
Speaker 1: I think many of us because we feel like we
12:28
Speaker 1: should we should get fit, we should lose weight, we
12:31
Speaker 1: should be healthy, we should sleep more. Right, But like,
12:34
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, what is actually motivating you?
12:37
Speaker 1: And what I wrote about my newsletter was doing this
12:40
Speaker 1: exercise of how do I want to feel when this
12:43
Speaker 1: thing happens, when I get the job, when I work
12:46
Speaker 1: out every day, when I do the thing I resolve
12:48
Speaker 1: to do, how am I going to feel then? And
12:51
Speaker 1: connecting to that feeling and letting that feeling be r
12:55
Speaker 1: Why I want to wake up and feel more energized
12:57
Speaker 1: every day? You know, mine to one of my resul
13:00
Speaker 1: my sort of more typical resolutions, which I would put
13:03
Speaker 1: in a different bucket than like life goal setting, right,
13:05
Speaker 1: Like I have a goal I told you when we started.
13:08
Speaker 1: My family needs to move. We need a new home.
13:10
Speaker 1: We need a bigger space. We got three kids, we
13:11
Speaker 1: got two dogs, We're crammed into a two bedroom. Don't
13:14
Speaker 1: even ask how we're doing that.
13:16
Speaker 3: It's nuts.
13:17
Speaker 1: It's absolutely nuts. So like that's like a goal for
13:19
Speaker 1: the first half of this year is we're gonna move
13:21
Speaker 1: as a family. But like when I think about a resolution,
13:24
Speaker 1: I resolve to get up fifteen minutes earlier every day
13:27
Speaker 1: and do a ten minute meditation just to breathing exercise,
13:30
Speaker 1: and to set three gratitudes like grateful for three things
13:34
Speaker 1: to start my day in a vacuum. If I tell
13:37
Speaker 1: myself I should do this because it makes me a
13:40
Speaker 1: better person, or blah blah blah, what's going to happen.
13:43
Speaker 1: I'm gonna hit snooze and I'm just going to sleep
13:45
Speaker 1: those extra fifteen minutes starting a week from now. But
13:49
Speaker 1: when I connect to why am I doing that, I'm
13:52
Speaker 1: doing that because I want to show up for my team,
13:55
Speaker 1: for my children, for my family in a more positive
13:59
Speaker 1: and present way. And this exercise every morning is going
14:02
Speaker 1: to allow me to do that so I have a better, happier,
14:06
Speaker 1: more connected year. And then it's like, oh, I'm not
14:10
Speaker 1: doing this because I'm like, you know, sort of forcing
14:14
Speaker 1: myself to I'm doing it for a really good reason
14:16
Speaker 1: that I feel connected to.
14:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, a reason that you have personalized to you. So
14:22
Speaker 2: often it's less like a general thing. Well it's good
14:25
Speaker 2: for me, Okay, Well that's not enough, right, How can
14:28
Speaker 2: you expand upon that so you have a greater understanding
14:32
Speaker 2: of why this thing that's on your radar is important
14:35
Speaker 2: to you.
14:37
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly. And I think that's it, because at the
14:40
Speaker 1: end of the day, if you know why you're motivated
14:42
Speaker 1: to do something, you come back to that why not
14:45
Speaker 1: the thing itself?
14:46
Speaker 2: Right, and that why is going to be the thing
14:48
Speaker 2: that helps you get out of bed in the morning.
14:50
Speaker 2: If you want to be a workout person and you
14:52
Speaker 2: want to be pressing snooze, you think to yourself.
14:54
Speaker 3: Now it's really warm in here, but I know that
14:56
Speaker 3: this is important to me.
14:58
Speaker 1: Yes. And also it's it's your reward, right, Your why
15:02
Speaker 1: is your reward. I think too often we set ourselves
15:04
Speaker 1: up for failure because we make ourselves do these things
15:07
Speaker 1: that sort of feel like punishments or time sucks or
15:11
Speaker 1: they're hard, right, And when we get bound to our why,
15:15
Speaker 1: our why is like our our dessert. It's our reward
15:19
Speaker 1: for doing the thing.
15:21
Speaker 3: Definitely, definitely. Okay.
15:23
Speaker 2: So we have a few questions that came in from
15:27
Speaker 2: the hurdle listeners when it comes to overall health, and
15:29
Speaker 2: then you and I are going to continue on this
15:31
Speaker 2: reflection note. But first and foremost big health questions coming
15:35
Speaker 2: in at the top of the year. The first one
15:37
Speaker 2: I want to throw out, I just started anxiety medication.
15:41
Speaker 2: Is there anything I should know about how it could
15:43
Speaker 2: impact my workouts?
15:46
Speaker 1: Ooh, so great question I'm going to answer. It depends
15:50
Speaker 1: on what kind of anxiety medication. So there's short acting
15:54
Speaker 1: anxiety medications like we've all heard of, like xanax, right,
15:57
Speaker 1: which hopefully you're not taking every single time, because those
16:00
Speaker 1: types of medications are addictive. And I would say if
16:03
Speaker 1: xanax or zero anxiety medication, that would be dangerous to
16:07
Speaker 1: take and work out. So try to work out when
16:09
Speaker 1: you're not on medication like that because it can make
16:12
Speaker 1: you sleepy, you can fall, you could drop something if
16:15
Speaker 1: you want it. By anxiety medications, you mean some of
16:18
Speaker 1: our SSRIs, like our zolofts of the world, like some
16:21
Speaker 1: of the drugs that we take on a regular basis.
16:24
Speaker 1: The short answer is these medications should not have any
16:27
Speaker 1: negative impact to your workouts, and if anything, they should
16:31
Speaker 1: help because by quelling your anxiety, I always call it
16:34
Speaker 1: getting to base camp. What do we need when it
16:37
Speaker 1: comes to our mental health to get to base camp
16:39
Speaker 1: so that we can tackle whatever it is in our
16:42
Speaker 1: lives which is the proverbial climbing of everest. Do we
16:45
Speaker 1: need a medication like an anti anxiety or antidepressant medication?
16:49
Speaker 1: Do we need to fix our sleep? Do we need
16:51
Speaker 1: to start exercising? What are the things that kind of
16:53
Speaker 1: get us to that more stable place so that we
16:57
Speaker 1: can actually feel confident and supported and ready to address
17:02
Speaker 1: the big things in our lives that can otherwise feel overwhelming.
17:05
Speaker 1: So if your anxiety medication is like one of those medications,
17:10
Speaker 1: hopefully it actually makes you feel more focused. You're sleeping well,
17:14
Speaker 1: you're feeling strong, and it shouldn't impact your ability to
17:18
Speaker 1: It shouldn't impact your blood sugar, it shouldn't impact your
17:20
Speaker 1: ability to build lean muscle mass if that's one of
17:23
Speaker 1: your goals, and if anything, hopefully it'll help you sustain
17:27
Speaker 1: some of your good habits and motivation.
17:29
Speaker 2: In your explanation, just now of different tools that someone
17:32
Speaker 2: could use to combat anxiety. You listed not only the
17:35
Speaker 2: medication but also sleep and movement. Someone may be listening
17:39
Speaker 2: to this thinking about the fact that they want to
17:42
Speaker 2: do something about their anxiety in twenty twenty four and say,
17:45
Speaker 2: I'm going to do all of these things at once.
17:47
Speaker 3: Is that something that you would recommend?
17:49
Speaker 2: Would you recommend doing an elimination style where you start
17:53
Speaker 2: with sleep and.
17:54
Speaker 3: Then maybe you move to diet, and then you move
17:56
Speaker 3: to medication.
17:56
Speaker 2: Where should someone begin if they want to combat their
18:00
Speaker 2: anxiety in the new year.
18:02
Speaker 1: If you are dealing with regular anxiety, which a lot
18:06
Speaker 1: of us are, and it is incredibly common. So first
18:08
Speaker 1: of all, I recommend you pick up my book State Change,
18:11
Speaker 1: because State Change specifically has a self assessment at the
18:15
Speaker 1: very beginning. I think it's chapter two, chapter two or three,
18:19
Speaker 1: where it walks you through how to self assess. What
18:22
Speaker 1: are some of the things that could be contributing to
18:24
Speaker 1: my anxiety? Is that I have terrible sleep. By the way,
18:27
Speaker 1: chronic poor sleep or sleep deprivation can mask as anxiety
18:31
Speaker 1: and depression. I say to my patients all the time,
18:34
Speaker 1: if you're not sleeping, let's forget everything else. Let's forget
18:38
Speaker 1: eating healthy and working out, and all this stuff, because
18:41
Speaker 1: you're gonna be too freak and tired to do those things.
18:43
Speaker 1: Let's start with getting our sleep on track right. For
18:47
Speaker 1: somebody else, their sleep might be great, but they might
18:50
Speaker 1: be drinking alcohol regularly and eating a lot of sugar
18:53
Speaker 1: and having too much caffeine, and that combo the rinse,
18:58
Speaker 1: repeat cycle of coffee in the morning to wake up,
19:01
Speaker 1: sugar to keep going, alcohol to come down. Guess what,
19:04
Speaker 1: that is a setup for anxiety. And so that might
19:08
Speaker 1: be the place to start. So I don't recommend boiling
19:11
Speaker 1: the ocean. I recommend starting with one thing, doing a
19:14
Speaker 1: little self work or self reflection for half an hour
19:17
Speaker 1: and asking yourself deeply. Because my patients know they know
19:21
Speaker 1: what the top thing is. They don't even need me
19:23
Speaker 1: to tell them, but sometimes they need the conversation with
19:26
Speaker 1: me to kind of eke it out right. So it's
19:29
Speaker 1: is it sleep? Is it the way I'm eating? Is
19:31
Speaker 1: it the fact that I'm not exercising. Exercise is Nature's
19:34
Speaker 1: wonder drug. Exercise beats anti depressants for most common varieties
19:41
Speaker 1: of anxiety and depression. Now, obviously there's kinds of anxiety
19:44
Speaker 1: and depression where exercise is not enough sometimes we need
19:47
Speaker 1: exercise in combination with our medication. All good, but for
19:52
Speaker 1: a lot of people just exercising every day can be
19:54
Speaker 1: their ultimate anxiety hacks. So don't boil the ocean, though.
19:58
Speaker 1: Put into place one thing. So, if you're on a
20:00
Speaker 1: new medication, give that medication a couple months to work,
20:03
Speaker 1: then add something new. If you're not on medication, or
20:06
Speaker 1: you're not ready for medication, or you don't think that's
20:08
Speaker 1: right for you, start with moving your body every day.
20:11
Speaker 1: It could be a thirty minute walk. It could be
20:13
Speaker 1: a yoga, it could be a run, It could be
20:15
Speaker 1: a hit class. It could be doing jump rope for
20:17
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes. Do something every day for a couple of weeks,
20:22
Speaker 1: great or small, and then check in see how you
20:24
Speaker 1: feel is my anxiety Was it a nine out of ten?
20:27
Speaker 1: And now is it a five out of ten? Well, wow,
20:29
Speaker 1: that's pretty big progress, right, So that made me keep
20:32
Speaker 1: doing that and make that really core to what you're doing,
20:34
Speaker 1: and then add something from there.
20:36
Speaker 2: What I'm hearing you say is also the benefit of reflection,
20:42
Speaker 2: taking the time to actually do that inventory into how
20:46
Speaker 2: you're feeling, knowing that it might not be one huge
20:49
Speaker 2: drastic change, but there could be little tweaks that are happening,
20:53
Speaker 2: and those little tweaks are worth celebrating.
20:56
Speaker 3: I really loved.
20:56
Speaker 2: Your terminology of there's no need to oil the ocean.
21:01
Speaker 3: I don't know if I've ever heard that before.
21:03
Speaker 2: Now I want to ask one more question on this track,
21:08
Speaker 2: and it could be broader as well. Someone wrote in
21:11
Speaker 2: asking a question, I've been on my anxiety medication for
21:15
Speaker 2: a while. How do I know whether or not I
21:18
Speaker 2: could come off of it? I think this is a
21:20
Speaker 2: relevant question to a bunch of different medications that people
21:24
Speaker 2: might be taking at the turn of a new year.
21:25
Speaker 2: Is this a good time to kind of examine and
21:27
Speaker 2: reevaluate what you're putting into your body?
21:31
Speaker 1: This is the perfect time of year to reevaluate your
21:34
Speaker 1: medications and your supplements. With the medications, you want to
21:38
Speaker 1: meet with a doctor, like a doctor at Parsley Health,
21:41
Speaker 1: and you want to get testing if it's medications like
21:43
Speaker 1: cholesterol blood pressure. Is our blood pressure under control? Is
21:47
Speaker 1: our cholesterol under control? And by the way, have we
21:50
Speaker 1: done things while on this medication such as exercising and
21:54
Speaker 1: changing our diet, sleeping better, building lean muscle mass. This
21:57
Speaker 1: is in the cholesterol blooder camp, right, not the anxiety camp.
22:00
Speaker 1: I'll get to that in a moment. But for those
22:02
Speaker 1: types of medications, have you changed some of your underlying
22:04
Speaker 1: behaviors that might be shifting your cholesterol and your blood pressure,
22:08
Speaker 1: And then can you work through labs and with a
22:11
Speaker 1: doctor to do what's called tight training it down. We
22:14
Speaker 1: usually don't like to just stop those medications overnight. You
22:17
Speaker 1: really want to work with somebody to lower them a bit,
22:20
Speaker 1: retest or redo your blood pressure, see where you're at,
22:23
Speaker 1: and then maybe lower them a bit more. When it
22:26
Speaker 1: comes to anxiety medications, we have a similar conversation, but
22:29
Speaker 1: it goes a little bit like this, when did you
22:32
Speaker 1: start it? And what was going on in your life
22:34
Speaker 1: when you did? Has that thing changed? A lot of
22:38
Speaker 1: times people really benefit from these medications when they're going
22:41
Speaker 1: through a really hard life transition or loss or period
22:45
Speaker 1: of time. Some of those things might now be in
22:48
Speaker 1: the past. In addition, somebody who's on anxiety medications might say,
22:52
Speaker 1: you know, I feel really good and I've made these
22:55
Speaker 1: changes in my life or my relationships in a stable place,
22:58
Speaker 1: or I'm exercising regularly really good, and then working with
23:02
Speaker 1: a doctor to again, I'll use that word tight trait
23:05
Speaker 1: or slowly lower. We never want to stop these medications
23:09
Speaker 1: on our own, and we never want to stop them overnight,
23:12
Speaker 1: and so at Parsley we work with people all the
23:14
Speaker 1: time to help them, when appropriate, get off these medications.
23:18
Speaker 1: In fact, our data shows that we help twenty five
23:20
Speaker 1: percent of patients who are on anxiety and depression medications
23:24
Speaker 1: get off. And it might not be a goal of yours,
23:27
Speaker 1: by the way, to get off the medication. You might say,
23:29
Speaker 1: this medication is working great, and I'm feeling really good,
23:32
Speaker 1: and I want to keep that up. Awesome, But I
23:34
Speaker 1: do hear a lot people say, you know, things have shifted.
23:38
Speaker 1: I don't want to be on this medication forever. And
23:41
Speaker 1: too often our medical community is resistant to stopping medications,
23:46
Speaker 1: and that's something that's really different about Parsley. We're here
23:49
Speaker 1: to put you on the right meds that you need,
23:50
Speaker 1: but we're also here to take you off of meds
23:53
Speaker 1: that you don't need, and so we will supervise and
23:55
Speaker 1: support some of these titrations off of medications pretty routinely. Because,
24:00
Speaker 1: as we all know, we're dynamic humans. You're not the
24:02
Speaker 1: same as you were three years ago, or five years
24:04
Speaker 1: ago or ten years ago, and you might need new
24:07
Speaker 1: medications now, you might not need the medications now you
24:09
Speaker 1: might be ready to ditch the supplement graveyard start with
24:13
Speaker 1: some new stuff. Right. So doing that reevaluation in partnership,
24:17
Speaker 1: I think is so important.
24:18
Speaker 2: As I'm setting here drinking my ag one speaking of
24:21
Speaker 2: being in different phases at different times. A question that
24:25
Speaker 2: came in now that I'm getting older, are there preventative
24:28
Speaker 2: things that I should be doing that are good for
24:31
Speaker 2: my health? A broad question, I know, but I feel
24:33
Speaker 2: like you've got a couple of thoughts starters.
24:35
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, preventive things. Number one, build lean muscle mass.
24:40
Speaker 1: If you have not been doing any sort of resistance
24:42
Speaker 1: training weight training. When we look at long term blood
24:46
Speaker 1: sugar weight, cognitive function, bone health, Alzheimer's risk, you name it.
24:53
Speaker 1: Doing not just exercise, but weight training, resistance training which
24:56
Speaker 1: so more than your own body weight. So using resistance fans, machines,
25:00
Speaker 1: what have you has been shown to be incredibly powerful
25:04
Speaker 1: for your longevity and for your cognitive function and for
25:07
Speaker 1: preventing all of these diseases. So huge, And the best
25:11
Speaker 1: thing about WA training is that you can do it
25:13
Speaker 1: for fifteen minutes A few times a week, Like, cardio
25:16
Speaker 1: drives me nuts personally because I'm like on there forever
25:19
Speaker 1: and I'm so bored and like, no matter how good
25:22
Speaker 1: my playlist is, I'm just like, Okay, it's been half
25:25
Speaker 1: an hour. Can I just stop this thing? You know?
25:27
Speaker 1: So it's just like not my jam. But wa training
25:30
Speaker 1: is quick, and I like things that are quick.
25:33
Speaker 2: Well, we know that to be true about exercise in
25:35
Speaker 2: general as well. Finding things that excite you or really
25:39
Speaker 2: pique your interest or stay of off boredom, you're more
25:42
Speaker 2: likely to stay with that type of movement.
25:44
Speaker 3: Right. So, maybe you don't love cardio.
25:47
Speaker 2: You're not someone that's going to go for a five
25:49
Speaker 2: k run outside, but you do love going to a
25:53
Speaker 2: dance cardio class with your girlfriends on a Thursday night.
25:56
Speaker 2: So finding whatever feels right for you in your body,
25:59
Speaker 2: no matter what anybody else is doing, that is a
26:02
Speaker 2: trick of the.
26:03
Speaker 3: Trade to sticking with something long term.
26:04
Speaker 2: Yes, other preventative things that someone can do as they age,
26:08
Speaker 2: aside from resistance training.
26:10
Speaker 1: Yes, So there's really interesting data on both saunas and
26:15
Speaker 1: cold plunges and getting cold. Right, So we've thought of
26:20
Speaker 1: some of these things that have a real place in
26:22
Speaker 1: other cultures. Right in other cultures, sauna in the Nordic
26:27
Speaker 1: cult cultures and jumping in a cold plunge are pretty
26:31
Speaker 1: like normal for things for people to do. They're less
26:33
Speaker 1: typical in America, but that's changing. And what's great about
26:37
Speaker 1: both of these is that they in summary, activate a
26:42
Speaker 1: bunch of proteins in the body that go into cleanup mode.
26:45
Speaker 1: So it allows your body to go into the cleanup
26:48
Speaker 1: mode of dead and damaged cells. The heat turns on
26:52
Speaker 1: something called heat shock proteins. The cold, because of the
26:55
Speaker 1: impact on blood flow throughout the body, also activates to
27:00
Speaker 1: different proteins and mechanisms in our bodies that clean up deata,
27:05
Speaker 1: damaged cells, and that is overall anti aging and healthy.
27:09
Speaker 1: So sauna three times a week long enough that you're
27:12
Speaker 1: really sweating, and then you're rinsing that sweat off, because
27:15
Speaker 1: that's also how we detoxify our heavy metals that get
27:18
Speaker 1: into our bodies and other chemicals that get into our bodies,
27:21
Speaker 1: A lot of them we can get rid of through sweat,
27:23
Speaker 1: so that deep sweating a few times a week. Obviously,
27:25
Speaker 1: there may be some people, if you're pregnant, view a
27:28
Speaker 1: very high blood pressure, if you have certain conditions, you know,
27:31
Speaker 1: talk to your doctor about if sauna is okay for you.
27:34
Speaker 1: But for most people, sauna can be really powerful and
27:37
Speaker 1: really healthy. And then same a couple times a week.
27:40
Speaker 1: If you don't have a cold plunge and you're not
27:42
Speaker 1: like willing to fill your bathtub with ice water or whatever,
27:46
Speaker 1: which I am, I am not. You know, a couple
27:49
Speaker 1: of minutes in a very cold shower, right can like
27:51
Speaker 1: activate some of the same mechanisms. But what I love
27:54
Speaker 1: about these is that they're they're accessible to most people,
27:59
Speaker 1: affordable to us people, and they're leveraging our bodies natural
28:05
Speaker 1: and inherent healing mechanisms to create longevity and health and
28:11
Speaker 1: well being. And so I think sometimes we forget that
28:14
Speaker 1: our bodies have all the tools, we just have to
28:16
Speaker 1: unlock them.
28:22
Speaker 2: Taking a break from today's episode to give some love
28:24
Speaker 2: to the two sponsors that make this week's Turning the
28:28
Speaker 2: Page series possible. First up, got to give some love
28:32
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Speaker 4: percent off, but only five percent off sale items again.
30:05
Speaker 4: Head to hyperice dot com use code Hurdle one five
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Speaker 4: at checkout to get a discount today. On the sauna note,
30:22
Speaker 4: infrared versus a classic sauna.
30:25
Speaker 3: Is there anything that someone should know between the two?
30:28
Speaker 1: You know, people debate this and talk about the power
30:31
Speaker 1: of infra red light. I think they're equally good. The
30:34
Speaker 1: research on sauna has mainly been done in the traditional saunas,
30:39
Speaker 1: not the infrared. That doesn't mean that the infrared aren't
30:42
Speaker 1: as good. It just means that they're not the ones
30:44
Speaker 1: that have been studied because they're newer. Right, So I
30:48
Speaker 1: look forward to the data eventually being equivalent between the two.
30:52
Speaker 1: Right now, at the end of the day, you're getting
30:55
Speaker 1: hot and you're sweating, and that happens in both places.
30:59
Speaker 1: So let's not overthink this one either. I think would
31:04
Speaker 1: be really powerful.
31:05
Speaker 2: All right, last two audience questions and then I'm going
31:08
Speaker 2: to go back into a little review with you. The
31:11
Speaker 2: first question here, I can't believe I'm saying this. I'm premenopausal.
31:15
Speaker 2: What should I know?
31:16
Speaker 1: Totally okay, don't you're okayone's okay, everyone's okay. So, first
31:23
Speaker 1: of all, menopause is an era, not a condition. It's
31:26
Speaker 1: not a disease. It's an era of your life. There's
31:29
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with you, and you can have an incredibly healthy, positive,
31:34
Speaker 1: low symptom to no symptom menopause. Now, number one, I'm
31:39
Speaker 1: in perimenopause. That means my periods haven't been gone for
31:42
Speaker 1: a full twelve month. But I'm kind of in this
31:43
Speaker 1: place where my periods are irregular. I'm having some spotting.
31:48
Speaker 1: I don't know really know what I'm going to get
31:49
Speaker 1: it anymore. I'm maybe starting to have some symptoms like
31:53
Speaker 1: sleep changing, metabolism's changing, maybe a hot flash here and there,
31:59
Speaker 1: maybe some vaginal dryness or pain with sex. Right, maybe
32:03
Speaker 1: just my periods just feel wonky and different than they
32:06
Speaker 1: used to. Right, These are all normal symptoms. Typically, you
32:10
Speaker 1: don't start hormone replacement therapy until your period is actually
32:14
Speaker 1: gone for that full twelve month. So we are in menopause.
32:18
Speaker 1: So in our perimenopausal time, what can we do well?
32:20
Speaker 1: First of all, we can start progesterone, and we often
32:24
Speaker 1: recommend starting oral progesterone one hundreds to two hundred milligrams
32:28
Speaker 1: at bedtime. It helps with sleep and it helps balance
32:31
Speaker 1: out some of the symptoms of menopause. In addition, there's
32:35
Speaker 1: some really beautiful, helpful natural supplements that are plant derived.
32:40
Speaker 1: I really like feminessnce harmony. It just helps the body
32:44
Speaker 1: balance the hormones as you're going through this time. There's
32:48
Speaker 1: also lots of things you can do. You might not
32:50
Speaker 1: be ready for full hormone replacement therapy, and you may
32:52
Speaker 1: never be ready for that. Not everybody wants that or
32:54
Speaker 1: needs that, but we can do things like there's lots
32:59
Speaker 1: of different hormonally based either DHA or estrial vaginal suppositories
33:05
Speaker 1: that can help with the dryness. And then, believe it
33:08
Speaker 1: or not, how we move and how we eat dramatically
33:13
Speaker 1: impacts our menopause. And so you might have been the
33:15
Speaker 1: type of person you know your teens, your twenties or
33:18
Speaker 1: thirties or forties are like, I kind of do what
33:21
Speaker 1: I want. I'm kind of good. I don't really think
33:22
Speaker 1: about this stuff cool, not if you're listening to Emily's podcast,
33:26
Speaker 1: but maybe someone who's someone else right, and now you
33:29
Speaker 1: might be finding that the things that used to work
33:31
Speaker 1: for you aren't working for you. That's totally normal, and
33:35
Speaker 1: what happens is our bodies actually though, respond exercise is
33:40
Speaker 1: a really great way to help balance our hormones. Whenever
33:43
Speaker 1: anyone's having really about PMS issues with pcos or regular periods,
33:48
Speaker 1: which is often a blood sugar issue, we're really diving
33:51
Speaker 1: into how do we use regular movement resistance training. You'll
33:55
Speaker 1: hear me talk a lot about it's really good for bones,
33:58
Speaker 1: and as our bone health becomes more of an issue
34:00
Speaker 1: as we get into that menopausal time, getting our resistance
34:03
Speaker 1: training going that can also help balance our hormones and
34:06
Speaker 1: improve our sleep. And then a diet super rich in
34:11
Speaker 1: lots of brightly colored plants and fiber. It's going to
34:14
Speaker 1: help move our estrogens through our bodies better. It's going
34:16
Speaker 1: to help us with antioxidants and other phytochemicals that our
34:21
Speaker 1: bodies use to process our hormones more effectively. So all
34:25
Speaker 1: of those things, and then there's a group of supplements
34:27
Speaker 1: I can get into if we had more time. But
34:30
Speaker 1: there's a lot you can do and what you need. Again,
34:33
Speaker 1: I'm shameless plug for Parsley, but all of our providers
34:36
Speaker 1: at Parsley are menopause literate. Not only are we doing
34:39
Speaker 1: the right testing of your hormones, we can guide you
34:42
Speaker 1: through the foods, the supplements, the behaviors, the tests that
34:47
Speaker 1: you need. Okay, now we're almost fifty. Have we gotten
34:50
Speaker 1: our colonoscopy yet? People? Please, please, please, you're forty five,
34:54
Speaker 1: get your colonoscopy. This is a life saving screening. My
34:57
Speaker 1: grandmother died far too young because she didn't get a lenoscopy.
35:00
Speaker 1: It's part of the one of the reasons I went
35:02
Speaker 1: into medicine. So this is a time to really invest
35:06
Speaker 1: in your health, to invest in yourself, and to get
35:09
Speaker 1: some partnership from a menopause literate provider who's not just
35:12
Speaker 1: an HRT machine. Right, there's a lot of services nowadays
35:15
Speaker 1: that are prescribed you HRT on the internet. That's okay,
35:19
Speaker 1: that's maybe a step forward, right, at least we have
35:22
Speaker 1: some of these resources. But menopause isn't an HRT deficiency.
35:27
Speaker 1: Not everybody needs HRT, And there's all these other things
35:29
Speaker 1: going on with your health that we want to address
35:32
Speaker 1: in concert with figuring out is hormone replacement right for you,
35:36
Speaker 1: wrong for you? Maybe it's not now, but it's later
35:38
Speaker 1: and so forth.
35:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks for sharing that. You know.
35:42
Speaker 2: I feel as though the older that I get, the
35:45
Speaker 2: more that I am in that camp where things are
35:49
Speaker 2: just different than they used to be, which is fine,
35:52
Speaker 2: and it requires a certain amount of grace with yourself
35:55
Speaker 2: knowing that it's different and I'm still capable of doing things.
36:00
Speaker 2: It might just look a little again differently than it
36:03
Speaker 2: did that far.
36:04
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm forty two, I have three kids, and
36:07
Speaker 1: this year I noticed that around my period, I was
36:09
Speaker 1: getting a lot of breast tenderness and cysts in my
36:12
Speaker 1: breasts that were totally new. I had just had not
36:14
Speaker 1: had that issue since I was like in my twenties.
36:17
Speaker 1: It was like, sometimes things also revisit you. I feel
36:20
Speaker 1: like when I talked to a lot of patients in
36:22
Speaker 1: their forties and fifties, they're finding things that they had
36:25
Speaker 1: like at a spell early in life, or like the
36:27
Speaker 1: ghost of Christmas past. It's like coming back. And I
36:30
Speaker 1: noticed that. And one of the things I did was
36:33
Speaker 1: I actually have my coffee consumption. So I was actually
36:36
Speaker 1: two double espressos a day. I went down to one.
36:38
Speaker 1: And you might say, well, what does coffee have to
36:40
Speaker 1: do with breast tenderness. When you're drinking too much coffee,
36:44
Speaker 1: it actually slows down an enzyme, a liver enzyme that's
36:47
Speaker 1: helping you break down your estrogens and breast tenderness and
36:51
Speaker 1: cistic breast is a sign of maybe you're not processing
36:54
Speaker 1: your estrogens very well, or you have a little bit
36:56
Speaker 1: of what's called estrogen dominance. And so I'm now having
36:59
Speaker 1: my double espresso every morning. Do not take it away
37:01
Speaker 1: from me. It is my life's blood. I'm not having two.
37:07
Speaker 1: And since I went cut down from two to one,
37:10
Speaker 1: the breast tenderness around my cycle has gone away.
37:13
Speaker 2: I love hearing that you're reminding me that it's time
37:16
Speaker 2: for my second cup of regular coffee.
37:19
Speaker 3: That's what you're reminding me.
37:20
Speaker 2: Okay, last audience question before we go in to this reflection.
37:25
Speaker 2: I feel swamped all the time and overwhelmed, but I
37:28
Speaker 2: know that I want to prioritize my health. What is
37:32
Speaker 2: one thing that I can do to shake things up
37:34
Speaker 2: that will be good for me in.
37:36
Speaker 3: The new year.
37:37
Speaker 2: Now, you cannot answer resistance training, although I know that
37:41
Speaker 2: you would listen.
37:42
Speaker 1: I think that how you end your day defines how
37:46
Speaker 1: you start the next day. And so for people who
37:48
Speaker 1: are feeling really overwhelmed and like, gosh, I have too
37:51
Speaker 1: much going on, let's reset how we end our day.
37:56
Speaker 1: Let's get to bed by ten, ten, fifteen, ten thirty max.
38:00
Speaker 1: So that we avoid that late night cortisol spike. Let's
38:03
Speaker 1: put our phone in a lock box after eight pm
38:08
Speaker 1: or after nine pm, because we all know that we've
38:11
Speaker 1: been doom scrolling the gram or TikTok or whatever your
38:14
Speaker 1: poison is before bed and how that disrupts sleep. And
38:19
Speaker 1: take like twenty minutes before bed, take an epsom salt bath,
38:23
Speaker 1: do a meditation, do a little yoga stretch, do your
38:26
Speaker 1: just like your regular stretching. If yoga is not your thing, whatever,
38:29
Speaker 1: I'm a yoga nerd, but I recognize deeply that most
38:32
Speaker 1: people are not. It's okay, Rea meditate, listen to a
38:35
Speaker 1: guided meditation. You know, my friend Dave Gandleman has a
38:39
Speaker 1: number of great sleep podcasts and meditations on inside Timer.
38:42
Speaker 1: There's lots of versions of that on inside Timer and
38:44
Speaker 1: other platforms. But just end your day really well. I
38:47
Speaker 1: promise it's going to set you up for a new
38:50
Speaker 1: and different and better next day.
38:52
Speaker 3: We love it.
38:53
Speaker 2: A new and different and better next day starts with
38:55
Speaker 2: a good routine the night before. Let's talk about a
38:59
Speaker 2: new and better and perhaps upgraded new year. Talk to
39:04
Speaker 2: me a little bit about your twenty twenty three. What
39:07
Speaker 2: would you say your proudest moment from twenty twenty three
39:11
Speaker 2: was Robin.
39:13
Speaker 1: Hands down, going in network for ten million people, more
39:17
Speaker 1: than ten million people actually in New York and California.
39:20
Speaker 1: So one of my dreams and starting Parsley Health, which
39:23
Speaker 1: was to make root cause medicine right, functional medicine, this
39:26
Speaker 1: idea that you spend time with your doctor who's really
39:28
Speaker 1: literate and nutrition and supplements and fitness and mental health
39:32
Speaker 1: in addition to all the good conventional medicine stuff. Make
39:36
Speaker 1: that accessible. It hadn't been accessible to folks. And we
39:39
Speaker 1: went in network this year, meaning people can use their
39:42
Speaker 1: health plan and use their benefits, making Parsley so so affordable,
39:47
Speaker 1: and that happened in Q one of twenty three. We've
39:51
Speaker 1: seen the number of people using their health benefits for
39:55
Speaker 1: Parsley grow two hundred and fifty percent in twenty twenty three,
39:58
Speaker 1: and it's just really gratifying because that's why I started
40:01
Speaker 1: the whole company.
40:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, wow, what a big statement.
40:05
Speaker 2: I remember that we recorded right before that happened at
40:08
Speaker 2: the beginning of twenty three, and what an exciting moment
40:11
Speaker 2: for all of you. I can't even imagine as an entrepreneur,
40:14
Speaker 2: how that feels for you?
40:17
Speaker 1: It feels so good. And also, it took a lot
40:19
Speaker 1: of freaking work working with health insurance companies to recognize
40:24
Speaker 1: this medicine and to go in network the right way. Right,
40:27
Speaker 1: there's no button that you click to negotiate with them.
40:30
Speaker 1: You've got to get to the right people and then
40:32
Speaker 1: make sure they understand the value of what you're doing,
40:34
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. So it was a real process.
40:38
Speaker 1: And by the way, we've got many more on the way.
40:40
Speaker 1: We're in process with lots more health plans, and so
40:43
Speaker 1: we hope by mid to late twenty four we've got
40:47
Speaker 1: more announcements on the way.
40:49
Speaker 2: Personally or professionally. What would you say was your most
40:52
Speaker 2: difficult moment of the year.
40:54
Speaker 1: I look back on twenty twenty three, and to be
40:56
Speaker 1: honest with you, it was challenging, and I think it
40:58
Speaker 1: was challenging for everyone. Interest rates were crazy high, the
41:03
Speaker 1: market was really weird. Our bank failed as a company
41:10
Speaker 1: in March of twenty twenty three. That's a weekend. I
41:14
Speaker 1: will never forget thinking that all of Parsley's capital was
41:18
Speaker 1: locked up and gone perhaps forever. And yeah, I definitely
41:24
Speaker 1: like lost a year of my life from the stress
41:26
Speaker 1: of that weekend. You know, there was there was a
41:30
Speaker 1: lot of stressors. There was two worse, many worse around
41:34
Speaker 1: the world. There was political strife, right, and so I
41:37
Speaker 1: think for everyone twenty twenty three. I don't know about you,
41:40
Speaker 1: but everyone I talked to, it just felt like a
41:43
Speaker 1: hard year. And the thing that I realized though in
41:50
Speaker 1: all of that as I start twenty twenty four this
41:53
Speaker 1: week is it was a reminder in resilience. And I
41:58
Speaker 1: just think the amount of resilience I showed in my
42:02
Speaker 1: own life, that my team showed that, you know, our
42:07
Speaker 1: culture has shown getting through some of these really challenging
42:10
Speaker 1: and hard things gives me hope And I'm just I
42:14
Speaker 1: don't know, I feel really good vibes for twenty twenty four.
42:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, twenty first share that I share that with you.
42:21
Speaker 2: Ietting all of those things you listed certainly not on
42:23
Speaker 2: our Bengo carts or twenty twenty three. I cannot even
42:26
Speaker 2: imagine the anxiety that goes hand in hand with wondering
42:30
Speaker 2: what happens to all of your money.
42:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a fun weekend. I was I went
42:35
Speaker 1: to dinner, like the first day, it was like a
42:37
Speaker 1: Thursday night and I was with some of my favorite
42:41
Speaker 1: friends in like the health and mamas world, and they
42:44
Speaker 1: were just and I kept getting up from dinner and
42:46
Speaker 1: I was getting on phone calls and I was just
42:49
Speaker 1: like frantically texting, and everyone was figuring out what was
42:52
Speaker 1: going on. And my friends at this dinner none of
42:55
Speaker 1: them are run like startups, right, so they're just in
42:58
Speaker 1: a different world. They all were just like what is
43:02
Speaker 1: going on? And I was trying to explain it to them,
43:05
Speaker 1: and I was just like, you know, I give up,
43:07
Speaker 1: Like I just I don't even know how to explain
43:09
Speaker 1: this situation. This is so crazy. Who is is?
43:12
Speaker 3: How it is?
43:12
Speaker 1: Though, So there was just a lot of moments like that,
43:16
Speaker 1: and I think for all of us, there was moments
43:18
Speaker 1: like that this year where you just felt like the
43:20
Speaker 1: universe is throwing you curveball after curveball, and yet some
43:26
Speaker 1: of them we dodged and like that one wow. And
43:31
Speaker 1: you know, but like many companies, we were borrowing money
43:35
Speaker 1: from our investors in real time that weekend to make
43:38
Speaker 1: sure we could make payroll on Tuesday. I mean, it
43:40
Speaker 1: was really scary. And so like that curveballs came through
43:46
Speaker 1: some of them. We got hit, some of them we dodged,
43:49
Speaker 1: but were still standing. And it was a deep year
43:51
Speaker 1: of learning and growth and foundation setting. And so I
43:55
Speaker 1: think that's what makes me so optimistic.
43:57
Speaker 2: So am I hearing you say that resilience is your
44:02
Speaker 2: theme from twenty twenty three?
44:05
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean I think resilience is a theme. Accessibility
44:09
Speaker 1: is a theme. So a big, big focus for us
44:11
Speaker 1: at Parsley is continuing accessibility. So we just launched the
44:16
Speaker 1: past couple of days with a couple of major employers
44:18
Speaker 1: around the country. We have a few more coming. We've
44:21
Speaker 1: got hotel groups and airlines and laboratory companies and telecoms
44:28
Speaker 1: and school systems and food service delivery companies. It's honestly amazing,
44:34
Speaker 1: all paying for Parsley services on behalf of their employees,
44:38
Speaker 1: which is just insane. We're working on some big partnerships
44:42
Speaker 1: with health insurance companies, which, again, you know, I'm an
44:45
Speaker 1: impatient person, so this whole thing of trying to get
44:48
Speaker 1: stuff done and this world is really hard for me,
44:50
Speaker 1: but it just moves slowly. But the opportunity to work
44:55
Speaker 1: with these huge health plans and for people to be
44:58
Speaker 1: able to use their benefit through their employer or through
45:01
Speaker 1: their plan for Parsley is literally the dream to come true.
45:04
Speaker 1: So that's kind of our theme for this year is
45:07
Speaker 1: just increasing accessibility everywhere we possibly can.
45:10
Speaker 3: We love that.
45:11
Speaker 2: If you had to choose a person of the year,
45:15
Speaker 2: who is your person of the year?
45:17
Speaker 3: Robin?
45:19
Speaker 1: You know you kind of touched on the topic earlier,
45:21
Speaker 1: which is so funny. So my person is Oprah Ah
45:25
Speaker 1: and you know, no Shane on Taylor Swift. She's amazing.
45:29
Speaker 1: I just watched the Eras movie with my six and
45:32
Speaker 1: a half year old, which is super fun. But you know,
45:36
Speaker 1: she really this year made health topics a big part
45:40
Speaker 1: of her agenda. She really spoke out this year around menopause.
45:43
Speaker 1: She spoke about weight as a health issue through her
45:46
Speaker 1: work with weight Watchers. And not a lot of people
45:49
Speaker 1: know this, but back in my twenties, before I went
45:51
Speaker 1: to med school, I worked for Oprah for a year,
45:53
Speaker 1: and I wrote worked for Harpo Productions, and I was
45:55
Speaker 1: the producer for Doctor Oz's first ever year of his
45:58
Speaker 1: first ever radio show on Oprah and Friends satellite radio
46:02
Speaker 1: with Gail King and all these people. And at that era,
46:06
Speaker 1: Oprah had her show still and she was doing a
46:08
Speaker 1: lot with like doctor Az and doctor Film and health
46:12
Speaker 1: and wellness was like a big focus for her, and
46:14
Speaker 1: then intervening years like she's continued that somewhat, but she's
46:18
Speaker 1: also focused elsewhere. And I really love that, you know.
46:21
Speaker 1: I think we need these big figures, cultural figures like
46:25
Speaker 1: her speaking about these topics like menopause, like women's health,
46:30
Speaker 1: like weight as a medical issue in a way that's
46:33
Speaker 1: just so empowering to so many people and brings it
46:36
Speaker 1: out of the confines of the medical world and into
46:39
Speaker 1: our day to day. So for that, I choose her.
46:42
Speaker 2: This year, I choose Oprah Person of the Year. Controversial question,
46:46
Speaker 2: what do you think about people giving Oprah flack for
46:48
Speaker 2: speaking out about being on ozembic.
46:53
Speaker 1: I don't really understand the flak. Right. Ozembic and GLP
46:56
Speaker 1: ones I wrote an article about this recently, both for
46:59
Speaker 1: Parsley and for or My newsletter are another tool in
47:03
Speaker 1: our toolkit. They're not right for everyone. They're not a long,
47:07
Speaker 1: long term solution. They can be game changing for some
47:11
Speaker 1: people and some I have patients who do all the
47:16
Speaker 1: right things and have morbid obesity and are have despite
47:21
Speaker 1: that and have mental and emotional and behavioral health issues.
47:25
Speaker 1: That lead to binge eating disorder, that lead to them
47:28
Speaker 1: being obese, that lead them to be unable to breathe
47:30
Speaker 1: at night, and on a CEPAT machine. Listen, for some people,
47:34
Speaker 1: we really just need more tools in our toolkit than
47:37
Speaker 1: the ones that we've had. That said, there's some challenges
47:41
Speaker 1: and side effects and risks with these medications. I don't
47:44
Speaker 1: believe that people should just be buying them for themselves,
47:47
Speaker 1: willing nilly off the internet and not really working with
47:50
Speaker 1: a doctor who understands all aspects of their health. And
47:53
Speaker 1: so we prescribe goolpie ones at Parsley, we deprescribe and
47:57
Speaker 1: get people off of gvlp ones at Parsley, do the
48:00
Speaker 1: right test to figure out, Hey, you have hypothyroidism. You
48:04
Speaker 1: don't need a GLP one, you need your thyroid issue addressed. Right,
48:07
Speaker 1: So we do that right testing, and not all always
48:09
Speaker 1: assuming that just because we have a hammer, everything is
48:13
Speaker 1: a nail, right, And so I think that it's a
48:16
Speaker 1: nuanced and complex issue. But I believe in using the
48:20
Speaker 1: right tool at the right time for the right person.
48:22
Speaker 1: And I just think golp ones are another thing in
48:24
Speaker 1: our basket.
48:25
Speaker 3: Man.
48:26
Speaker 2: Just because I have a hammer, not everything is a
48:29
Speaker 2: nail robin with all of these great sayings today.
48:34
Speaker 3: I love them. I absolutely love them.
48:35
Speaker 2: Okay, last question here, what is something you want to
48:39
Speaker 2: do more of in twenty twenty four.
48:43
Speaker 1: Saying no? Twenty twenty three was a big year for
48:47
Speaker 1: me of saying yes and having fun and traveling. And
48:50
Speaker 1: I had this like really rich and texture year alongside
48:54
Speaker 1: or in part of having also a very challenging year.
48:57
Speaker 1: So it was both and I loved that. By the
49:00
Speaker 1: end of the year, I realized, though, that one thing
49:02
Speaker 1: that's so important, I was saying yes across the board
49:06
Speaker 1: to too many things, and I was saying yes to
49:07
Speaker 1: things that were depleting me, not serving me, and actually
49:11
Speaker 1: preventing me in some ways from operating at my highest
49:14
Speaker 1: And so I said earlier, I really, you know, I'm
49:16
Speaker 1: doing my morning ten minute just breathing and gratitude because
49:20
Speaker 1: I really want to show up in full this year
49:22
Speaker 1: for my kids and my family and my company and
49:26
Speaker 1: my personal word of the year. The theme at Parsley
49:29
Speaker 1: is accessibility. The theme for me or my word of
49:33
Speaker 1: the year is greatness. And I think to have I
49:36
Speaker 1: think greatness is as greatness does, and to do greatness
49:40
Speaker 1: or to live or act in a way that is
49:42
Speaker 1: Greatness will require me to say no to some things
49:47
Speaker 1: so that I'm not just like stretched tooth in and
49:49
Speaker 1: deplete and to the point that like I, like we
49:51
Speaker 1: all do freak out, feel overwhelmed and can't show up.
49:55
Speaker 1: So just a lot of saying yes again like twenty three,
49:59
Speaker 1: but more strategic and intentional.
50:02
Speaker 2: Say now, you and I have the same word of
50:05
Speaker 2: the year, which is so funny because there's so many
50:09
Speaker 2: words in the English language. You know my theme of
50:11
Speaker 2: last year, and I decided consciously to bring it into
50:13
Speaker 2: this year because I feel like I'm finally ready to
50:16
Speaker 2: embody it is good to great right, and this idea
50:20
Speaker 2: that for so long I have been okay with good,
50:23
Speaker 2: I have been happy with what good gets me. But now,
50:29
Speaker 2: for a multitude of reasons, I feel truly prepared and
50:33
Speaker 2: truly capable of stepping into great of leveling up not
50:38
Speaker 2: only personally but professionally, going after opportunities that maybe before
50:43
Speaker 2: really intimidated me. Now I am ready for greatness because
50:47
Speaker 2: I am doing things like you so well articulated, owning
50:50
Speaker 2: my no, because I am putting myself first. In the morning,
50:53
Speaker 2: I too am on the breathwork and meditation train. I
50:56
Speaker 2: am at a point now where I am ready for
51:00
Speaker 2: and saying that out loud, even just in this moment
51:04
Speaker 2: feels exciting, exhilarating, and it really geeks me out over
51:08
Speaker 2: what's to come in twenty.
51:08
Speaker 1: Four My gosh, So calling that in for you and
51:12
Speaker 1: so exciting for you, that's awesome.
51:14
Speaker 2: Only if I'm getting in on this, like next, check
51:16
Speaker 2: in with your five friends about the goal. Well, like
51:21
Speaker 2: I said, make sure you dm over at Hurdle Podcast
51:25
Speaker 2: the word goals and your email and I will send
51:27
Speaker 2: you this pdf and these questions from Robin. Robin, anything
51:31
Speaker 2: else you want to leave us with going into the
51:33
Speaker 2: new year before I let you go, I.
51:36
Speaker 1: Don't know we've covered it all. Thank you so much
51:38
Speaker 1: for having me today. It's so wonderful to start the
51:41
Speaker 1: new year off with you. I love that we have
51:43
Speaker 1: the shared goal of greatness. Yes you know. Sign up
51:46
Speaker 1: for our newsletter at Parsley Health. We share so much
51:49
Speaker 1: of the tips and health and wellness and medical advice
51:52
Speaker 1: that I shared her today. We share every single week
51:55
Speaker 1: at our Parsley newsletter. It's free. You can also get
51:59
Speaker 1: my newsletter which is dot com so you get double
52:03
Speaker 1: the goodness essentially, and yeah, keep stay on our journey.
52:07
Speaker 1: And if you're out there and you're you know, I've
52:10
Speaker 1: been saying that the best resolution we can make is
52:14
Speaker 1: just to get some help and work with it. Work
52:16
Speaker 1: with us at Parsley, work with another provider who can
52:20
Speaker 1: help you get further than you can get alone, because
52:23
Speaker 1: we can't do it just by ourselves.
52:25
Speaker 3: We can't do it by ourselves, Robin.
52:26
Speaker 2: For those that don't follow you yet, how do they
52:28
Speaker 2: keep up with you on social.
52:30
Speaker 1: It's just Robin Urson MD on all the things and
52:34
Speaker 1: Parsley help on all the things, and Parsley is like
52:37
Speaker 1: way more prolific.
52:41
Speaker 3: So fell yourself short, Robin.
52:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do what I can overhear people, but you know,
52:48
Speaker 1: follow Parsley do amazing.
52:50
Speaker 2: I'm over at Emily a Body and at Hurdle Podcast.
52:52
Speaker 2: Another Hurdle Conquered. Catch you guys next time,