Latest / Northern Quarter Talks / Snoring: A Sign of a (Not So) Silent Killer? | Thomas A Gionis MD JD MPH

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Snoring: A Sign of a (Not So) Silent Killer? | Thomas A Gionis MD JD MPH · Northern Quarter Talks

0:00
Thomas Gionis: I had an experience with uh with sleep apnoea that was uh dramatic and uh I I lost temporarily the the memory of the name of my wife, the names of my uh three daughters and three granddaughters.
0:15
Thomas Gionis: I was lucky to uh to have an opportunity in California where I could finish three and a half years of college in one year.
0:23
Thomas Gionis: We made them aware of what is called a silent epidemic, but it's really not that silent, is it?
0:30
Thomas Gionis: Snorting's not silent.
0:31
Thomas Gionis: Because if we don't, if we don't, we're at a hundred percent higher risk of developing high blood pressure.
0:42
Andy Coley: But it's startling the effect that sleep apnoea can have, not just on tiredness or your partner or you not getting enough quality of sleep.
0:51
Thomas Gionis: I'd like people to to be aware of the problem and to know that it's a warning sign and that they have to do something about it.
0:58
Thomas Gionis: And most commonly what people think is
1:01
Title: This is the TEDx Northern Quarter Podcast.
1:06
Andy Coley: So, Thomas Gionis, physician surgeon, and future TEDx Northern Quarter speaker.
1:13
Andy Coley: Welcome to the TEDx and Talks podcast.
1:16
Thomas Gionis: Thank you, Andy.
1:16
Thomas Gionis: It's uh an immense honor to be here.
1:20
Andy Coley: It seems like such a long time ago that we got your application in.
1:23
Andy Coley: And yeah, it was that must have been end of December, January, I think, wasn't it?
1:27
Thomas Gionis: It it does seem like a long time ago, but the amount of work and preparation and updates and practices and rehearsal and speech coach, uh it there was a lot in that past several months.
1:42
Thomas Gionis: Very, very uh enlightening and uh wonderful experience.
1:49
Andy Coley: It it's so interesting.
1:50
Andy Coley: We're two days away now from wow and a half at the end of the Wednesday where we're opening up the TEDx on the Friday morning, of course.
1:58
Andy Coley: Um to have gone through that whole process.
2:02
Andy Coley: Uh what were you expecting when you applied?
2:05
Andy Coley: Because uh were we the first TEDx you'd applied to, or you you had you apply to others?
2:10
Thomas Gionis: I had applied to uh some others and uh uh had one acceptance and I decided uh uh not to go ahead with it.
2:18
Thomas Gionis: Some of that, but I had no idea of the uh the amount of coaching I would get.
2:25
Thomas Gionis: And the what was astonishing to me is that after each coach coaching session, there would you you could self-improve.
2:34
Thomas Gionis: You would uh I find areas that you yes, you can improve here and you can improve here.
2:40
Thomas Gionis: And that was continuous.
2:42
Thomas Gionis: Yeah.
2:43
Thomas Gionis: Continuous throughout the past uh nine months, I guess.
2:48
Andy Coley: And it's must be really interesting.
2:50
Andy Coley: I'd imagine doing the work that you do.
2:52
Andy Coley: We'll come on to all of that before.
2:54
Andy Coley: Uh you've probably had some kind of training in speaking in public and um speaking to teams.
2:59
Andy Coley: I certainly I know I've coached quite a lot of um healthcare organizations, or we've had consultants or doctors who want to improve their ability to be able to speak to to a group.
3:10
Andy Coley: I would imagine doing a TEDx, or certainly the way we do it, has been a little bit different.
3:14
Thomas Gionis: It's different.
3:15
Thomas Gionis: It's uh I should say more intense.
3:17
Thomas Gionis: Uh it's more intense, yet very precise.
3:22
Thomas Gionis: And what was amazing to me, particularly as a surgeon, is how precise it can be, time after time after time, where the coach, I had a fantastic coach, you know, Elliot, uh, could hone in instantly on whether you might consider this or consider that.
3:42
Thomas Gionis: And it was uh quite an educational experience.
3:45
Andy Coley: And hopefully when you can take back into other areas of your life as well when it comes to speaking in public.
3:49
Andy Coley: No question about it.
3:51
Andy Coley: No question.
3:52
Andy Coley: So before we we sort of go too much into what you're speaking about and so forth, tell us a little bit about you.
3:58
Andy Coley: I mean, uh the some of the history of you, how you've gotten to where you are, the work, yeah.
4:04
Andy Coley: Because um certainly I know that you're involved in health, but you've also trained as a lawyer, you've been in public health.
4:10
Andy Coley: You have what most people would probably consider several lifetimes of CVs.
4:15
Andy Coley: So go on, give us give us a little precy of who is Thomas, who are you?
4:20
Thomas Gionis: Thank you.
4:21
Thomas Gionis: Well, you know, I um I've always wanted to become a physician.
4:24
Thomas Gionis: My parents uh were of Greek heritage, and that was very important.
4:28
Thomas Gionis: They always instilled education uh into us, and um I always wanted to be a doctor.
4:34
Thomas Gionis: I worked very hard.
4:35
Thomas Gionis: There was no one uh in my family who had been to college or uh graduate school or become a doctor.
4:42
Thomas Gionis: So I was lucky to uh to have an opportunity in California where I could finish three and a half years of college in one year, and I started medical school when I was 17, and I was one of the youngest in the country to ever finish medical school in the United States at 21.
4:58
Thomas Gionis: So it gave me a big jump and it gave me an opportunity to uh really explore the fields I I enjoyed.
5:07
Thomas Gionis: And I enjoyed surgery very quickly.
5:09
Thomas Gionis: I went into cardiovascular surgery and I uh practiced for uh several years.
5:14
Thomas Gionis: It was immensely rewarding.
5:17
Thomas Gionis: But it was the kind of occupation you can imagine that occupies just about 24 hours of each of your day.
5:25
Thomas Gionis: I mean, before you have dinner, you're thinking about everything in every one before you go to sleep, and it's just um a wonderful experience.
5:35
Thomas Gionis: But I I wanted to take a different path, and so I went into emergency medicine, the trauma, and uh had a wonderful experience.
5:44
Thomas Gionis: And then, you know, the healthcare industry changes, it changed a lot, and I felt in order for me to keep up with the changes, at that time there were HMOs were coming on, health maintenance organizations and changes in insurance.
6:00
Thomas Gionis: I got a master's in business so I could understand the language of administration that we were speaking, and and that helped a great deal.
6:10
Thomas Gionis: And then the industry kept changing, and I obtained a master's in healthcare administration so I could become more aware.
6:18
Thomas Gionis: So the master's programs that I did and the education that I did, I always saw them as necessary steps to stay competitive.
6:30
Thomas Gionis: Yeah.
6:31
Andy Coley: It's about evolving from being a manager into a leader, becoming a much more of a visionary, becoming much more of the person who has a little bit of a scope as to where are we heading and how are we going to get there.
6:41
Thomas Gionis: Exactly, because the world was changing.
6:43
Thomas Gionis: Yeah.
6:43
Thomas Gionis: The healthcare industry was changing.
6:45
Thomas Gionis: And I um ultimately uh got a master's in public health from UCLA and and then uh decided to go to law school.
6:53
Thomas Gionis: And uh law school was a tremendous new experience of a new way of thinking, critical thinking.
7:01
Thomas Gionis: And all of these fields I could bring in to the practice of medicine, and to my practice of medicine.
7:08
Thomas Gionis: So they were each uh very informative for me, uh, very critical as far as being competitive, and uh very critical in me being able to make a worthy contribution to my field and to my profession and to um the the society I was trying to help.
7:33
Andy Coley: That's so interesting, isn't it?
7:34
Andy Coley: So I must go back to something you said earlier.
7:37
Andy Coley: Three and a half years worth of degree in one year.
7:40
Thomas Gionis: Yeah.
7:41
Andy Coley: I think you you said that that was a great thing to be.
7:44
Andy Coley: I can't imagine many people thinking that's like an entire school system in one year.
7:48
Andy Coley: It was.
7:49
Thomas Gionis: It was.
7:50
Thomas Gionis: And I knew, you know, I had no connections in medicine.
7:54
Thomas Gionis: I had I wasn't political, my family was in political.
7:58
Thomas Gionis: I had to do something.
7:59
Thomas Gionis: I had to do something to set myself apart.
8:03
Thomas Gionis: And so I worked hard.
8:04
Thomas Gionis: Yeah.
8:05
Thomas Gionis: I worked hard in the summer before the year I went to college, the summer, the college I took double semester loads, the summer after I I took heavy loads, and I I tried to distinguish myself uh on the uh on an application.
8:21
Andy Coley: Um, what are you doing now within the field of healthcare or or law or wherever your your attention is right now?
8:29
Andy Coley: Where where do you spend most of your time at the moment?
8:32
Thomas Gionis: Well, you know, law intersects in America every day of your life.
8:37
Andy Coley: I'm in healthcare.
8:38
Andy Coley: As does healthcare.
8:40
Andy Coley: Yeah.
8:40
Thomas Gionis: Well, I practice primarily uh emergency medicine now.
8:44
Thomas Gionis: And uh so I'm the director of an emergency room and chief of staff of out of a hospital, and that entails a lot of interaction with uh patients and physicians and administration that occupies a good deal of my time.
8:57
Thomas Gionis: I also have a large uh with my wife, a large uh telemedicine practice that we've uh built up over the past three years.
9:05
Thomas Gionis: We've seen uh over 12,000 uh visits telehealth-wise.
9:10
Thomas Gionis: Amazing.
9:10
Andy Coley: Is that for organizations to be able to utilize you to be able to get people appointments or to get people speaking to a doctor much quicker?
9:18
Andy Coley: Yeah.
9:20
Thomas Gionis: Yes, quite quick.
9:21
Thomas Gionis: And uh and I do those practices.
9:23
Thomas Gionis: I'm licensed in the United States and in California, New York, and Florida.
9:27
Thomas Gionis: I live in Florida, but that gives me a great deal of flexibility, and it's a change from the um emergency medicine, acute care, critical thinking, high pressure uh environment.
9:40
Thomas Gionis: Um so it it works well to have a balance.
9:44
Andy Coley: And all of those things, though, are not directly what you're gonna be speaking about on the TEDx stage.
9:50
Andy Coley: You've got another passion or a particular element of medicine that you really want to explore because So you've had some personal history with dealing with sleep apnoea.
9:58
Thomas Gionis: Indeed.
9:58
Andy Coley: Yeah, and that's very much where you're gonna be honing in on your TEDx talk, isn't it?
10:02
Thomas Gionis: Right.
10:03
Thomas Gionis: And and it fits very much in with the public health interest I've had.
10:08
Thomas Gionis: And uh I had an experience with uh with sleep apnoea that was uh dramatic, and uh I I lost temporarily the the memory of the name of my wife, the names of my uh three daughters and three granddaughters, and um you can imagine that feeling, and and then as a physician not knowing what it was, but knowing it must be something terrible that happened, and then going on the journey of trying to find out what it was, and ultimately, ultimately finding out it was sleep apnoea.
10:44
Thomas Gionis: In the interim, my treatment uh, because sleep apnoea involves a lowering of your oxygen, uh, my oxygen was so low that my blood system started to react appropriately and get thicker, make more hemoglobin, and so that subjected me to uh stroke.
11:04
Thomas Gionis: So I had to donate blood over and over and over.
11:08
Thomas Gionis: And I tried various treatments, I they didn't quite fit.
11:13
Thomas Gionis: You have to find the right treatment, like with anything, like with anything in medicine.
11:17
Thomas Gionis: And and finally I came across uh a laser technique, which I I read about and immediately found the best person I could to do it and had it, and it worked immediately.
11:29
Thomas Gionis: I was amazed.
11:31
Thomas Gionis: Um, it changed my biology, it changed my breathing, it changed my life.
11:38
Thomas Gionis: And I then subsequently became trained in the laser surgery, as did my wife.
11:44
Thomas Gionis: And um, we began speaking publicly about sleep apnoea, and came to learn that uh the public awareness of sleep apnoea is is quite low.
11:58
Thomas Gionis: Yeah.
11:58
Thomas Gionis: Um but the danger is quite high, quite high.
12:03
Thomas Gionis: Uh, and I thought, my goodness, this we have to do more to educate the public about what the relationship is, for example, between snoring and sleep apnoea and what they are at risk for.
12:18
Andy Coley: So some people will be listening won't know what sleep apnoea is.
12:22
Andy Coley: So do you want to describe, would you want to tell people what what is sleep apnoea for people who have an awareness, or maybe they won't know somebody's got a machine to help them at night, or surely they sleep with a heavy snorer next to them, or they are a heavy snorer themselves.
12:35
Andy Coley: Like what is sleep apnoea?
12:37
Thomas Gionis: So um sleep apnoea is a condition where when you sleep, you stop breathing.
12:44
Thomas Gionis: Um or your volume of breathing decreases 30% or greater.
12:51
Thomas Gionis: So as a result, your body goes through these drastic changes.
12:55
Thomas Gionis: Now, we identify different severities of this stopping of breathing, but the most common type is that people stop breathing, stop, between 15 and 30 times an hour.
13:12
Thomas Gionis: Now you can imagine having your oxygen go to near zero and you stop breathing, that has profound metabolic changes and puts you at profound risk.
13:24
Thomas Gionis: So what happens is there's a transition.
13:29
Thomas Gionis: The warning sign to sleep apnoea is snoring.
13:33
Thomas Gionis: And everybody thinks, well, snoring, you snore, you know, that's horrible, I guess.
13:38
Thomas Gionis: I mean, what am I gonna do?
13:40
Thomas Gionis: No, I don't really snore, and you know, you everyone denies it, and um, and they kind of passed.
13:46
Andy Coley: And then your partner plays the recording in the middle of the night.
13:49
Thomas Gionis: Your partner records you, and then uh perhaps may ask, you know, this is a little disturbing.
13:56
Thomas Gionis: Do you want to maybe spend the night in the guest room?
13:59
Thomas Gionis: And uh and because I so we can both, so we can both get a good night's sleep.
14:04
Thomas Gionis: That's called a sleep divorce.
14:07
Thomas Gionis: That sleep divorce, legally, I can tell you, uh, leads to a high number of actual divorces.
14:15
Thomas Gionis: The problem is we we don't uh recognize snoring as a warning sign.
14:22
Thomas Gionis: Yeah, it's a big yellow flag.
14:24
Thomas Gionis: It's a warning sign we have to listen to.
14:28
Thomas Gionis: It's loud enough, isn't it?
14:30
Thomas Gionis: It's loud enough, it's telling everyone, but we have to listen to it and do something about it.
14:37
Thomas Gionis: Because if we don't, if we don't, we're at a hundred percent higher risk of developing high blood pressure, we're at a hundred and eighty-six percent higher risk of developing Alzheimer's, a two hundred and eighty-six percent higher risk of having a stroke, and a well-documented increase in death rate of three hundred percent.
15:07
Thomas Gionis: That's the group that's unaware.
15:11
Thomas Gionis: And it's the group that tried some treatments and then stopped.
15:18
Thomas Gionis: They become untreated.
15:20
Thomas Gionis: So the unaware group and the untreated group are at high risk for mob morbidity and mortality.
15:29
Thomas Gionis: And that's the public awareness we need to bring out there.
15:33
Thomas Gionis: That snoring is a warning sign.
15:35
Thomas Gionis: You need to do something about it.
15:37
Andy Coley: Um and snoring isn't the only warning sign for sleep out in the air.
15:41
Thomas Gionis: No, it's not.
15:41
Thomas Gionis: It's the loudest we have.
15:43
Thomas Gionis: The other ones can be a bit um uh generalized.
15:47
Thomas Gionis: Yeah.
15:48
Thomas Gionis: Fatigue in the morning, many causes.
15:51
Thomas Gionis: Um not feeling clear thinking in the morning, um, gasping at night for air, uh, and of course making loud noises at night, uh, interrupting your sleep.
16:05
Thomas Gionis: Many people say, you know, yeah, I snore.
16:07
Thomas Gionis: I I can feel it when I go to sleep.
16:09
Thomas Gionis: I snore a little bit and then I stop.
16:11
Thomas Gionis: Well, they don't stop.
16:12
Thomas Gionis: They keep snoring, and they have this fatigue and poor mental concentration in the morning.
16:19
Andy Coley: And how's the s stopping breathing in effect at night the same or different to holding your breath?
16:26
Andy Coley: We're choosing to not breathe at that moment in time.
16:29
Thomas Gionis: Um Well, you know, a good question.
16:32
Thomas Gionis: You can hold your breath for a short period of time, but the stopping of breathing uh you hold for such a degree of time that your oxygen drops down and stays down.
16:44
Thomas Gionis: Okay, you can hold your breath once.
16:47
Thomas Gionis: But will you be holding your breath 15 to 30 times an hour every hour while you're sleeping?
16:57
Thomas Gionis: So that's a tremendous metabolic um impact.
17:04
Thomas Gionis: Yeah.
17:05
Thomas Gionis: Yeah.
17:07
Andy Coley: Every two to four minutes for four, six, seven hours.
17:11
Andy Coley: It's it's incredible.
17:13
Andy Coley: So you got diagnosed?
17:16
Andy Coley: Was that easy?
17:17
Andy Coley: Finding out that you had it, you did you self-diagnose or did you uh go to sp- I don't think you went specialist for the laser treatment, but how how did you get your diagnosis of sleep out there?
17:26
Andy Coley: I'm uh asking the question of somebody who has had tests recently myself to see whether or not it's something I've had.
17:32
Andy Coley: So this is also another reason why I was so curious about your your talk from a very personal perspective.
17:37
Andy Coley: Of course.
17:38
Andy Coley: We would like to be uh absolutely um, you know, um yeah, how did how did you find out about having it other than the snoring?
17:46
Thomas Gionis: You know, after these thousands of blood tests, I was walking out of the room and uh they said, you know, all your blood tests are normal.
17:52
Thomas Gionis: We really can't tell what's what's going on, which I was not particularly thrilled with as a physician.
17:57
Thomas Gionis: Um and in passing, in leaving the room, somebody said you probably have sleep apnoea.
18:02
Thomas Gionis: So I was speaking to my wife, who's also a doctor, and I said, I don't have sleep apnoea.
18:07
Thomas Gionis: And she says, No, you you probably do.
18:09
Thomas Gionis: I said, I don't have sleep apnoea.
18:10
Thomas Gionis: And she says, You got to get tested.
18:12
Thomas Gionis: Well, there's two kinds of tests that we do.
18:15
Thomas Gionis: One is a very simple test that you can download a program on your phone, and it simply records the snoring, and it records it as a sound wave.
18:26
Thomas Gionis: So you can see the sound waves and you can see how often that happens.
18:31
Thomas Gionis: So, first we have an indication that there is snoring, which is an obstruction.
18:36
Thomas Gionis: Yep.
18:37
Thomas Gionis: Means the the parts of your throat and tongue have fallen back and have caused an obstruction, and that obstruction is making the noise.
18:45
Thomas Gionis: So, first we have indication from uh a test uh from your phone that there's a noise, and then we do a uh sleep apnoea test, which measures how many times you actually stop breathing and for how long.
19:00
Thomas Gionis: In the old days, if I can say, that used to be a very complicated test.
19:04
Thomas Gionis: You'd have to go to the hospital, go in the sleep lab, they'd hook you up with all sorts of electrodes, and then you would try to sleep comfortably.
19:13
Thomas Gionis: Hard to do.
19:14
Thomas Gionis: Nowadays, uh there are hundreds of devices throughout the world that you can uh wrap around your finger.
19:22
Thomas Gionis: Again, uh goes to your phone through a Wi-Fi system and actually measures rather accurately, rather accurately, that we can depend on um how many times you stop breathing and for how long, and and how low does your oxygen get.
19:40
Thomas Gionis: So we can get a very sophisticated marker that you have it and to what degree you have it.
19:47
Thomas Gionis: And that's what I did.
19:48
Thomas Gionis: I did both of those tests.
19:49
Andy Coley: Yeah, I said you had to I tried the one uh they put something on your Adam's apple, and then you get sleep with that one, and then that one was inconclusive, and then another one where more the tubes and and and and a little bit more, you know, like a pack to wear.
20:03
Andy Coley: Right.
20:04
Andy Coley: Again, apparently that came back without as well.
20:06
Andy Coley: Right, right.
20:07
Andy Coley: Um but it's interesting, isn't it?
20:09
Andy Coley: When you're when you're wearing these devices, you're not getting a quite a normal point in time because you're aware of this thing that you're wearing um in and of itself.
20:18
Andy Coley: So it's like the the whole thing of testing is isn't the normal that you would be used to as well.
20:22
Andy Coley: Exactly.
20:23
Andy Coley: But it's startling the effect that sleep apnoea can have, not just on tiredness or your partner or you not getting enough quality of sleep, but actually all the other things that if there was anything else going on, like the increase in Alzheimer's, the increase in you know death, would be getting headlines, and we'd be getting a lot of money spent on helping sort this thing out.
20:49
Andy Coley: Like why why is it so not talked about about the fact that this is is is it's such a problem that could be what sounds like relatively easily solved?
21:00
Thomas Gionis: I I think Andy, because it's come upon us in such a huge way.
21:06
Thomas Gionis: The it it it sounds as if in the past few years, my goodness, sleep apnoea has become this epidemic.
21:14
Thomas Gionis: And and it a lot of that is increased awareness.
21:18
Thomas Gionis: But what's happened is is that as that oxygen level drops and uh it affects so many metabolic changes in your system, that the sleep apnoea can make worse the existing uh heart disease you have, the existing renal disease, the existing neurogenerative diseases.
21:40
Thomas Gionis: And so we've seen an increase in the severity of those metabolic illnesses, which the doctors are incredibly busy taking care of.
21:51
Thomas Gionis: We've also learned that there's a mutuality that those people who do have heart disease.
21:59
Thomas Gionis: And kidney disease and obesity and neurodegenerative changes.
22:04
Thomas Gionis: If they don't have sleep apnoea, those comorbidities can serve as a precipitating independent factor in the development of sleep apnoea.
22:15
Thomas Gionis: So one potentiates the other.
22:17
Thomas Gionis: So we've seen in medicine this huge increased burden of disease globally.
22:26
Thomas Gionis: We've seen it increase in morbidity and mortality.
22:31
Thomas Gionis: And it's as if we are all just trying to keep up managing the disease.
22:36
Thomas Gionis: It's so overburdening.
22:39
Thomas Gionis: And sleep apnoea is one of those things that the patient has to have a conversation with the doctor, and the doctor needs to really kind of seriously think about it.
22:52
Andy Coley: And so with your talk, obviously you're going to be talking about sleep apnoea.
22:56
Andy Coley: What is sleep apnoea, the signs of sleep apnoea, and so forth?
22:59
Andy Coley: What do you want people to take away and take action on when they get to one watch the talk in a couple of days' time, but and two, you know, come across it on YouTube or on the TED channel.
23:12
Andy Coley: What is it you would like people to take action on or get from your talk when you're sharing about?
23:18
Thomas Gionis: I I'd like people to be aware of the problem and to know that it's a warning sign and that they have to do something about it.
23:26
Thomas Gionis: And most commonly what people think is, oh, I have sleep apnea.
23:31
Thomas Gionis: I have to wear one of those masks.
23:32
Thomas Gionis: CPAP.
23:34
Thomas Gionis: Those CPAP masks.
23:35
Thomas Gionis: And I can't do that, and I'm not going to do that.
23:37
Thomas Gionis: In reality, there are many different types of treatment.
23:42
Thomas Gionis: And patients may require certainly require different treatments.
23:47
Thomas Gionis: Different patients require different treatments.
23:49
Thomas Gionis: And they may require different treatments along the course of their history of sleep apnea.
23:56
Thomas Gionis: So I want them to be aware that it's a warning sign.
23:59
Thomas Gionis: They can't ignore it.
24:00
Thomas Gionis: They need to do something.
24:01
Thomas Gionis: And there are many things to do.
24:03
Thomas Gionis: There are many treatments, many treatments.
24:05
Thomas Gionis: And I mentioned several of them and I show some examples.
24:10
Thomas Gionis: And I want them to feel comfortable that although if they don't do anything and ignore it, there's a high risk, I want them to know that there are things they can do.
24:20
Thomas Gionis: They should do it.
24:21
Thomas Gionis: They're simple.
24:22
Thomas Gionis: It's simple to do the testing, simple to get the treatment, and they can improve and improve their health.
24:29
Andy Coley: And ultimately, what will that legacy be then of that education that you're putting out there?
24:35
Andy Coley: Because obviously you've decided to double down and hone in on this particular aspect.
24:40
Andy Coley: It's what you've trained to do and trained support, and you and your wife, and you're running, you know, I'm sure lots of sessions supporting people in this.
24:48
Andy Coley: But ultimately, what do you want that legacy to be?
24:52
Thomas Gionis: I want the legacy to be that we made a significant contribution to the improvement of people's health, and that we made them aware.
25:04
Thomas Gionis: We made them aware of what is called a silent epidemic, but it's really not that silent, is it?
25:11
Thomas Gionis: Snorting's not silent.
25:12
Thomas Gionis: Yeah.
25:13
Thomas Gionis: We made them aware of this uh epidemic type problem.
25:20
Thomas Gionis: And we've we've made them comfortable in being tested and knowing that there's many options of treatment, and there's things that we can do that will certainly, certainly improve their life in longevity as it has with me.
25:39
Andy Coley: And who wouldn't want that for themselves and for the others in their life?
25:42
Thomas Gionis: And for their loved ones, absolutely.
25:44
Andy Coley: Absolutely.
25:46
Andy Coley: And so obviously, you've been working on honing this talk down.
25:51
Andy Coley: I have a sense when we when we first got your application and that we started working with it, you could probably talk for many hours on the subject.
25:59
Andy Coley: What's it like being honing it down to 15 minutes?
26:03
Andy Coley: So getting it down to that kind of level of of specificity for the topic.
26:09
Andy Coley: And what have you learned about yourself through that process?
26:13
Thomas Gionis: Well, I I've I learned immense uh immense uh about myself and immense amount uh through the help of the coach and Elliot, and that you can be very refined in a large subject.
26:28
Thomas Gionis: And you know, we're always asking ourselves as speakers in this TEDx program, do I do I really need this?
26:37
Thomas Gionis: Do I really need to say this?
26:40
Thomas Gionis: Is this really helping the message?
26:43
Thomas Gionis: Yeah.
26:44
Thomas Gionis: And that process of self-reflection and self-deprecation, we do occasionally, we do it a lot in preparation for the TEDx.
26:54
Thomas Gionis: And so I learned that refinement process.
26:58
Thomas Gionis: And um it's very gratifying and knowing that in a 15-minute period, you can significantly impact the opportunity for improvement in the health of many individuals.
27:14
Thomas Gionis: Yeah, it's a wonderful feeling, Andy.
27:20
Andy Coley: Yeah, it's not very long, and it's also quite long.
27:23
Andy Coley: We're up there on stage as well.
27:25
Andy Coley: Has there ever been any um TED Talks or TEDx talks that have inspired you in the past?
27:31
Thomas Gionis: Many.
27:32
Thomas Gionis: Many.
27:33
Thomas Gionis: Um I I don't remember their names, but I I remember even from the beginning of my MBA graduate studies, uh I started listening to uh TED speakers, TEDx speakers, economists from uh uh Norway, I believe it was, and and and other public health specialists, which were phenomenal.
27:57
Thomas Gionis: Yeah.
27:57
Thomas Gionis: I I can't begin to express the degree of excellence, clear thinking, and their ability to bring a complex subject to clarity and to transmit that clarity to me as a student and to others.
28:18
Thomas Gionis: Um I have listened to many, many um TEDx and TED Talks, and always uh was amazed at their ability and their their brilliance.
28:31
Andy Coley: Let's hope somebody one day will add your talk to their list of those very same topic areas and well.
28:36
Thomas Gionis: I'd be honored.
28:37
Thomas Gionis: I can only hope so.
28:39
Andy Coley: Um so we have a little tradition here on the TEDx and Talks podcast about um the Red Journal, and the previous speaker, uh who happens to be your speaker coach, has left you um a question he would like you to answer.
28:51
Andy Coley: Okay.
28:52
Andy Coley: So hello, says Elliot.
28:55
Andy Coley: If you could have a dance off with someone, who would it be and why?
29:00
Andy Coley: If I had a what?
29:01
Andy Coley: A dance off.
29:02
Andy Coley: So where you do a dance, they do a dance, and you try and do the best dance possible.
29:09
Thomas Gionis: A dance.
29:10
Andy Coley: A dance.
29:11
Andy Coley: If you could have a dance off with somebody, who would it be and why?
29:17
Thomas Gionis: Um you know, being Greek, we um we have many dances that we do.
29:24
Thomas Gionis: Some are in groups, some are singular, and they are internally inspiring because in order to do the dance, you have to be passionate about listening to the music.
29:35
Thomas Gionis: I would have it with my wife because she's also Greek, and uh in doing the dance with each other, posing each other with each other, uh, it would be mutually inspiring, enlightening, and exciting.
29:52
Andy Coley: I love that answer.
29:54
Andy Coley: Uh Thomas, thank you so much for joining us on the TEDx and Talks podcast from TEDx Northern Quarter.
29:59
Andy Coley: It's been a delight to meet you in person, finally, after all these months of virtual sessions, um, and to be able to hear you in day and a half time, take to that red dot and inspire us all about how we can improve our health and our sleep.
30:13
Thomas Gionis: Thank you, Andy.
30:14
Thomas Gionis: I'm I'm profoundly honored.
30:16
Thomas Gionis: I'm truly honored to meet you, and I thank you for all your help and your staff and Simran and everyone.
30:23
Thomas Gionis: It's a it's a profound honor to be here, and I hope to make a worthwhile contribution and be worthy of your selection.
30:34
Thomas Gionis: Thank you.
30:36
Thomas Gionis: Thank you.