Latest / The Well Unfiltered with Dr. Suzanne Vester / Season 1, Episode 2: You Are Not a Machine: Why Over-Optimizing Your Health Is Making You Sick

Transcript

Season 1, Episode 2: You Are Not a Machine: Why Over-Optimizing Your Health Is Making You Sick · The Well Unfiltered with Dr. Suzanne Vester

0:18
SPEAKER_00: Well, hi there, and welcome.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: It's Dr.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: Seuss, and welcome to another episode of The Well Unfiltered.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: Today we're talking about something that I feel is necessary, but potential feather ruffling.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: So hang in there, we're gonna get to some good stuff.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: But today we're gonna be talking about over-optimization.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: Now, I know that a lot of people love their wearables, they love their rings, they love their bands, they love, they just love everything.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: They love knowing all the data points.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: But honestly, let's talk about this in in real terms.
0:53
SPEAKER_00: So you, perhaps you yourself or someone that you know, walks into my office and you've got everything, every data points in a spreadsheet ready to hand over to me.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: And everything on those pages look pretty good.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: But the reality is you feel like trash, but everything looks pretty good.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: So today we want to talk about this in a little bit more of a detail because we have come to a place where the wellness world is shifting just a little bit from track everything, optimize everything, biohack everything into really understanding how they feel inside of their own bodies.
1:33
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's really super important.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: And as we're talking about this, we have a couple of different points that I really want to kind of hammer home in that, like, how did we end up here?
1:44
SPEAKER_00: Because this didn't happen overnight.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: I know for myself, I've worn a wearable for about seven years now.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: But a thing I don't let that wearable do is dictate how my day is going to turn out.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: Now, does it shift how I might work out?
1:58
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, of course it does that.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: If I've you know really overdone it the day before and maybe didn't have good sleep that night, then I might shift to a less intense workout.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: But that doesn't mean that it's going to ruin my day and everything is going to be a disaster.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: So, but how do we get here?
2:15
SPEAKER_00: So if you've looked at the trends over the last decade, for example, hack your body, engineer your morning, optimize everything, track everything, more data equals better results.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: Now, I have lived inside of this world through that decade.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: And I can say that there are definite high points to all of the data that you can gather.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: But it's just information.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't, I it doesn't identify you.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: It's just information.
2:46
SPEAKER_00: So the message shifted from originally take better care of yourself.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to give you all the data you need to do that.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: To you have to perform wellness correctly, meaning your HRV needs to be a certain thing, your resting heart rate needs to be a certain thing, you need to be getting your eight hours of sleep, and there needs to be perfect percentages of REM sleep, deep sleep, light sleep.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: It gets exhausting.
3:09
SPEAKER_00: And honestly, too much data can be a can be a bad thing because then you start focusing more on the data than you do on actually taking care of yourself.
3:20
SPEAKER_00: So here's a fun fact orthosomnia.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: Have you heard of that?
3:24
SPEAKER_00: So this is insomnia caused by obsessing over your sleep tracker.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: So people who are trying to optimize their sleep are literally lying awake at night anxious about what their sleep score is going to be the next day.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: The very tool that was supposed to help them sleep better is actually keeping them up.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: So think about that for a second, right?
3:47
SPEAKER_00: So it's not just sleep.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of the top of the iceberg, but it's not just sleep.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: So let's start thinking about food tracking, fitness goals, stress monitoring, all those things.
3:57
SPEAKER_00: People have become so fixated on hitting the right numbers that they stopped being able to just live.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: For example, they don't listen to their body.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: They don't rest when they need to rest.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: They go to bed when their tracker tells them it's time to go to bed.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: They don't enjoy a meal without having to calculate the macros into their total day.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: Now, hear me out on this one.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: Some people really need that accountability.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: So if that's you, then take it for what it is.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: It's information.
4:25
SPEAKER_00: But if you're just an average person and you're just trying to really get in your numbers correctly, then tracking every single little detail might actually be causing some of the stress that you're trying to get away from.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: People can't eat, they don't sleep well, they can't go for a walk just because it feels good.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: They're just trying to get in their number of steps.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: Again, steps are a good thing.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: Moving your body, great thing.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: But if that becomes the goal of every day rather than living, then we might need to reassess.
4:55
SPEAKER_00: So what we've ended up with is honestly a whole generation that is drowning in data, but not actually living.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: They're starving for vitality.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: They're all about the numbers of their body.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: They know all of the metrics of their body, but they don't really know how to live inside of it.
5:13
SPEAKER_00: So that becomes a problem.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: So let me be really clear.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: This is not about throwing science out the window.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: You'll never hear me say that.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: It's not anti-medicine or anti-information.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like, how are we going to course correct this?
5:27
SPEAKER_00: Data is good.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: We live by data, but data shouldn't dictate every single thing that we do every single day.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: So I want you to think about it this way.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: And I've made myself some notes so I don't forget to include any of this.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: So let's think about it this way.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: If you're constantly monitoring yourself, judging yourself, scoring yourself, that is going to create a stress response.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: It just is.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: Your nervous system doesn't know the difference between a threat in the environment and the anxiety of checking your HRV first thing in the morning and seeing something that you didn't expect or didn't want.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: Guys, stress is stress.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: And ironically, the pursuit of health is creating more of it.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: I've said this so many times to so many clients that you're stressing yourself out on purpose.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: You're giving yourself permission to create stress inside of your own world.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: And the world itself creates plenty for you.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: So let's let's see how we can be more gentle with ourselves.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: Now, being gentle with yourself does not mean you're giving yourself permission to just not do the things that you know are good for you.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: It's giving yourself permission to actually be present and not perform.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: That's a big, big deal.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, traffic tracking went from like providing motivation to, oh gosh, you know, maybe I just need to move a little more tomorrow.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: I didn't get it, you know, nearly enough steps in to having helping to be more self-aware to actually turning into something that becomes pressure.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: And for some people, complete obsession.
7:00
SPEAKER_00: I have had clients who won't even track their sleep for any purpose because if they put that wearable on, then it's all about hitting that number for the day.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: They are obsessed with it, they just can't function with it.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: In those situations, that is creating more stress in an unhealthy environment than it could potentially ever create.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: So, what's the shift?
7:23
SPEAKER_00: Like, how do we shift this?
7:25
SPEAKER_00: How do we move it forward?
7:26
SPEAKER_00: If we know that wearables and optimizing, biohacking, all these different things are not creating the world we had hoped, the healthy body that we had hoped, what do we do about it?
7:37
SPEAKER_00: So I think we have to sum it up this way.
7:40
SPEAKER_00: We have to go from performing to being present.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: That's a really big deal.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: Being present in your body, huge deal.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: Being present with your community, huge deal.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: Because you need all these things.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: You need to be listening to your body.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to be looking at a number and a score.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: You need to be asking yourself literally, how do you feel?
8:02
SPEAKER_00: That's one of the first questions I ask people when they come into my office.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: Before we look at labs, before we do intake, before we look at medical any of those things.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: My question to them is, how do you feel in your body today?
8:16
SPEAKER_00: What's it saying to you?
8:18
SPEAKER_00: And that is so unusual.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: They're like, what do you mean?
8:21
SPEAKER_00: Like, how do you feel today?
8:23
SPEAKER_00: Are you feeling tired?
8:25
SPEAKER_00: Are you feeling anxious?
8:26
SPEAKER_00: Are you um are you sleepy?
8:29
SPEAKER_00: Do your joints hurt?
8:30
SPEAKER_00: Like, how do you feel?
8:31
SPEAKER_00: That question isn't asked nearly enough.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: And we're we're just looking at data points, it doesn't allow us to ask those hard questions to ourselves.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: So, one big thing that has come up recently has gotten quite a bit of traction is nervous system regulation.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: So bear with me.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: I know that sounds really clinical, but but hang on, I'm gonna get to something good.
8:53
SPEAKER_00: In plain terms, that just means that your body is in a state that it can't heal.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: If your nervous system is dysregulated, your body isn't in a place where it can actually heal.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: Because here's the truth your body knows how to, and all of your symptoms are simply signals and communication from your body to you saying, Hey, this isn't okay.
9:15
SPEAKER_00: Hey, I need some help here, I need a little support here.
9:21
SPEAKER_00: But when we get away from like how we are in ourselves every single day to charting numbers, we get away from that.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: We put ourselves in a state of dysregulation where our body can't heal because we're not focusing on the immediate, we're not listening to what it's telling us in the moment.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: This really could not line up more with how I feel about how we were created.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: We're not made to be machines.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: Data is great if you're talking about a high performance vehicle and you want to know all the things about it.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: Data points are amazing, but we're not a machine.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: Things things impact us physically, mentally, emotionally, that we have to consider.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: Stressful day at work, you'll probably want to get a little bit more quiet time and rest, less screen time, more community time.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: It's good for you, I promise.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: But we're not made to be machines and function just through data points.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: When our body becomes more about being perfectly monitored, we can't feel safe or sufficient because we're never gonna hit that perfect score.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: We're not going to have a perfect output for the day.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: We're just not because there are so many variables that go into that.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: But culturally, I think we're actually starting to shift into the better space of these are great to have, great information to have.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: But how do you feel?
10:48
SPEAKER_00: In future episodes, we're gonna talk about this a little bit more about how the medical industry now will treat a test lab results versus what the patient is actually saying when they come in the door.
11:02
SPEAKER_00: Rather than listening and trying to decipher what's causing it, it's more about what they see on paper.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: This is not slamming the medical establishment.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: We'll get to that.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: But just understand that your physician visits, sometimes your labs, those are the same thing as if you were looking at your sleep score.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: So just take that for a second and use it how you will.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: So let's be practical.
11:25
SPEAKER_00: Let's wrap this up.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: Let's be practical.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: I don't want you to walk away from listening to this without having some good, solid things to kind of think about at the minimum and put into practice at best.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: So the first thing I want to say is just watch your language.
11:39
SPEAKER_00: Words have weight.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: So watch how you're speaking to yourself.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: If you're saying things like optimize, target, biohack, perform, those words carry a certain nuance and a certain energy.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: They say things like you're a problem to be solved.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: But think about words like vitality, wholeness, nourishment, rest, connection.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: Those carry a completely different invitation.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: They say that you're a person to be cared for.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: So this shift matters more than you could potentially think.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: So if you are a problem to be solved and not a person to be cared for, then what does that speak to yourself?
12:20
SPEAKER_00: So think about that.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: Sit on that one for a minute.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: The second thing I want you to think about is this is how I practice in my own work.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: I just talked about it.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: Before we talk about labs or data or supplements or anything else, I want to know how do you actually feel in your body right now?
12:36
SPEAKER_00: Like right now in this minute.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: This isn't something that your app is going to tell you or that your numbers are going to show.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: You could have beautiful labs.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: You could have amazing scores on your fitness tracker.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: How do you feel right now?
12:51
SPEAKER_00: If the word overwhelmed, tired, you know, any of those things pop in, then we need to explore that regardless of how perfect everything seems to be on paper.
13:02
SPEAKER_00: How do you feel?
13:03
SPEAKER_00: Because that answers a lot of questions that your body is trying to communicate with you, but you're just not really hearing it.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: And that's one of the goals as a natural provider is getting you back in tune with listening to what your body's telling you.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: Symptoms are signals, they're just things that your body's trying to communicate to you.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: How do you hear them appropriately?
13:24
SPEAKER_00: The third thing I want you to understand is we have a toolkit.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: Nature is an amazing toolkit.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: Herbs like Ashwagonda, Rhodiola, Holy Basil.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: These things have been supporting tired, stressed-out nervous systems for centuries.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: They're very undervalued, in my opinion.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: And we really need to think about those when we're talking about all of these things that we're dealing with in our day-to-day.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: We need to talk about quality sleep.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: Everybody needs quality sleep.
13:54
SPEAKER_00: We need to talk about nourishing real food, not fake food, not processed food, not quick food, not fast food, real food.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: The kind that is as close to God prepared it for you as possible.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: Very, very important.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: I can't understate the fact that you cannot out-track, out-hack, outperform a poor set of nutrition.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: If you're eating trash, but you're trying to biohack everything else, you're never going to get to where you need to be.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: The fundamentals.
14:26
SPEAKER_00: We got to get back to the fundamentals.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: Magnesium, for example.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: I know people have heard that it's good.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: I hear it in the office all the time.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: Well, I've heard magnesium is good.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, what's it good for?
14:36
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm not really sure.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: Let's get better educated on the things that we already have available to us that are going to support us, not stress us out.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: Space matters.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: So this is the fourth thing I want to leave you with.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: Space matters.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: You need to be able to have calm, unhurried human connection at some point during your day, every day.
14:59
SPEAKER_00: We are here, there, and everywhere.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: Or we're on our devices.
15:03
SPEAKER_00: We are connecting through social media.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: But those real connections, those that you know you can get a hug from, you have eyeball and eyeball contact with, invaluable.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: Get some.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have some, then come into the office.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: You can sit with me.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: I'll talk to you.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: We'll have some human connection.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: We really need that.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: And the last thing I want to leave you with are things like breath work, intentional movement that feels good, that you enjoy, that you want to do.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: Time outdoors, put your feet in the grass, get morning sunlight, community, prayer, rest.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: All of those things count, however simple they seem.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: And all of those things contribute to healing.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: Again, they're very simple.
15:42
SPEAKER_00: They're free, but they're important.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: And we don't need to overlook those in lieu of the data that we're seeing in our fitness trackers, in our wearables, in our devices, and all of these other things.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: So let me bring you back to where we kind of started from to the one person who's coming into the office with the spreadsheet, um, with the scores, and they're just tired.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: They're exhausted.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: So if this is you or if it's someone that you know right now, this is what I want to say to you.
16:09
SPEAKER_00: You're not failing at your own health.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: You've just been misdirected.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: And that's okay.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: You've been chasing a version of health that was never meant for a living, breathing human being.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: You are not a machine.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: You have a lot of different things coming in as inputs every single day.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: And we have to take those into account.
16:28
SPEAKER_00: You are made for more than just a good sleep score, you are made for rest that is actually restorative.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: And if you're not getting that, let's talk about why.
16:36
SPEAKER_00: Let's go back to those foundational roots and figure that out.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: You are you are also made for food that nourishes you and that you enjoy.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: One of the things I have seen over the past two years in doing cooking classes with middle schoolers is there is a tremendous disconnect between people and food right now.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: Not only is there a disconnect, but it's almost to the point where real food, whole food, is unrecognizable to most people.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: They have no idea what it is.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: And because they don't know what it is, they have no idea what to do with it.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: We need to do better.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: We need to do better.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: We are made for relationships that hold us, not just relationally between a significant other or a spouse, but true community village relationships.
17:28
SPEAKER_00: Like mindset people who have the same values, who have the same similar or same purpose in life.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: Get you a friend group that actually like feeds you.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: You need that.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: You need community.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: We're built for community.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: We need that.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: We need to have a purpose that is bigger than ourselves, something that gets us out of bed every morning.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: If that's your job, if you love it, if that's your purpose, if that's your calling, if that's what you're made for, amazing.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: Most people's jobs are just things that are going to help them to not have the lights turned off.
18:03
SPEAKER_00: So if your job isn't meeting that need for you, then go find purpose bigger than yourself.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: There are plenty of them out there.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: If you need help, let me know.
18:11
SPEAKER_00: And we are made for a life that looks like something that we want to do, not something that we have to do or perform to do or are chasing numbers to do.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: It has to be personal.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: Numbers aren't personal.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: They're simply data points, they're information, they're great, but they have a place, and that place is not the forefront of your health.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: So let's forget the scores, let's forget the data.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: Let's just honestly ask ourselves do I feel alive in my own body?
18:44
SPEAKER_00: Do I feel good in my own skin?
18:46
SPEAKER_00: Do I understand what my body is trying to tell me?
18:50
SPEAKER_00: And if not, where can I go to get some help for that?
18:55
SPEAKER_00: There's an amazing resource of toolkits available.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: Nature is abundant in all of the good things it could do.
19:01
SPEAKER_00: So if I were to leave you with two takeaways, two things that you can do today that will help you feel better tomorrow, they would be these simple two things.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: Put your feet in the grass and let let sunlight get into your eyes.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: Not with sunglasses on.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: This is gonna be fine.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: We're not gonna do it for long, but put your feet in the grass, your bare feet, yes, in the grass, and put your eyes with let the eyes get some sunlight in them.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: It's going to reset you, not immediately, but it will tell you when to wake up, when to go to bed.
19:36
SPEAKER_00: It'll ground you to your creator and it will be amazing.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: So thank you for taking some time to listen with me today.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: If you've got questions, reach out.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: If I can support you, reach out.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: If you got something from this, please share it with someone.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: It would be my pleasure to serve you in that capacity as just your source of information.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: Go out and make it a good day.