My Viva Inc.

We are pleased to be part of the Alberta consortium with Alberta Innovates at The MedTech Conference, and look forward to connecting with like-minded exhibitors and attendees on the future of healthcare. #MedTechCon #MTC24

We make hundreds of health-related decisions every week, and when we can make them well-informed decisions, we are far better off. However, good health decisions require health literacy skills, which is not necessarily something we all learn. Here are just a few examples: ·  Knowing how to access healthcare and knowing when to take kids or family members to the doctor vs. the hospital. ·   Knowing how to administer prescribed medicine to a loved one (the correct dose and timing) ·   Knowing about age-related, virus-preventing vaccines ·   Even educating yourself on self-care, including how to carry it out in order to improve health, is a form of health literacy. We are seeing increased lifestyle-related disease across North America, which calls for the growing importance of health literacy. We are also seeing a decrease in Canadian doctors, which calls for a greater need for self-management. Today on #InternationalLiteracyDay, let’s think about how we can be proactive. It is part of our mission at My Viva – to improve access to trustworthy health information and empower people to play an active role in their own health. #lifestylemedicine #digitalhealth #healthequity #healthyliteracy

Congratulations to our CEO, Loreen Wales! 🏆 We are thrilled to announce that Loreen Wales, has been honoured with the prestigious Alumni Innovation Award from the University of Alberta! This award recognizes exceptional alumni who have created, implemented or discovered innovative programs, processes, or products that have made a significant impact on their profession, community, society at large, or the University of Alberta. Join us in congratulating Loreen on this well-deserved achievement! #AlumniAwards #Innovation #Leadership #ProudAlumni #UAlberta 

I love how chance encounters can turn into something so impactful. After the National Association of Worksite Health Centers (NAWHC) conference, I found myself in the airport, casually striking up a conversation with Cole T. Williams, VP of Employer Health Strategy at Marathon Health. What started as a discussion on point-of-care solutions for chronic disease management and employee onsite clinics quickly evolved into something much more. I shared how My Viva Inc. is paving the way as a digital front door—a one-stop shop for all the pillars of lifestyle medicine and serving as both a diagnostic tool and prescription guide for healthcare providers. Cole is a dynamic public speaker and a seasoned healthcare leader who offered incredible insights on how to differentiate in a saturated market. Her strategic mind was evident, I could see the wheels turning! What filled my cup however, was how our conversation naturally progressed, almost as if we were old friends catching up. Her willingness to embrace authenticity and connect vulnerably with me was nothing short of inspiring. We found ourselves sharing personal stories—our falls that led to us finding purpose and humility. She opened up about her cancer journey, and how she’s rocking the post chemo curls! We seamlessly moved from discussing Birkenstocks' newfound fashion status to the mind-body connection that #GaborMate so profoundly speaks about. And we laughed the entire time. 😂 It's these genuine connections that remind me why I’m in this space—to not only advance healthcare but to connect, inspire, and grow alongside some truly remarkable people. 🌟 #HealthcareInnovation #LifestyleMedicine #AuthenticConnections #MarathonHealth #TheMyVivaApproach #MindBodyConnection #ConferenceNetworking

My daughter Sarah Wales loved setting up lemonade stands in our neighbourhood growing up to raise money for various charities. So much so that she convinced her dad Rod Wales to help her build a more professional version. Let’s just say the combination of the dad being a civil engineer and the mom reliving a similar childhood dream took on a life of its own!! Together, we built a pretty amazing lemonade stand! Our daughter led the way with her vision and my husband and I accentuated her vision with comments like “oh we need to tile the floor,😂 put wheels on it so we can roll it around the neighbourhood to different locations🤭…” the end product was something Sarah was very proud of. 💕 Our daughter has since outgrown her lemonade stand years 🥲 and so her lemonade stand sits in our garage and doesn’t get used… Last year Lana Solberg shared with me that her son had set up a lemonade stand for the Simply Suppers annual lemonade stand day in #YEG. I told her about the lemonade stand and offered for her son to use it this year if he was interested. So earlier this week, we rolled the lemonade stand down to Lana’s place for Jake to get it ready for the annual lemonade stand day tomorrow August 25th! So please see Lana’s post for all the details and come support Jake to raise money for Stollery Children's Hospital Foundation

To conclude Social Wellness Month, let’s take a look at the science behind relationships and the importance of maintaining connections: 👉It’s within our biology to connect. This starts at the beginning of life where a mother naturally produces the hormone, oxytocin. Oxytocin is released in the late stages of pregnancy and peaks during childbirth. It not only helps a labouring mother’s uterus to contract; it reduces anxiety, stress and pain while turning on the brain’s pleasure and reward centres. This ultimately relaxes and brings joy to the new mother as she meets her baby for the first time. 🤱 👉Connection reduces stress. When we connect physically with someone, oxytocin gets released which is instrumental in reducing stress. Here are a few ways to increase oxytocin: 💘💘 Holding hands with someone, hugging, cuddling, or making love. 🎯🎯 Getting a massage 😸🐶 Petting an animal (oxytocin levels increase in the animal as well so there is a mutual benefit) 👉The opposite of connection (isolation) leads to decreased wellness and earlier death. It’s insightful to consider what happens in the absents of connection to appreciate just how important it is. Social isolation has been used as a form of torture for centuries and has been found to breakdown otherwise healthy humans both psychologically and physically, sometimes leading to their death. ☠ 👉Current research tells us that adults who are more socially connected are healthier and live longer than their more isolated peers. But we already knew this back in the 70’s when researchers determined in a 9-year study that the risk of mortality was correlated with lack of connections. The less connections a person had over this 9 year period, the more at risk they were of death (independent of all self-reported physical health status). 🔬🥼(Social networks, host resistance, and mortality: a nine-year follow-up study of Alameda County residents - PubMed (nih.gov)) The Point? Our connections truly enhance our overall wellness. Take a moment to connect with someone today to maintain and build your relationship over time. #socialconnection #socialwellness #relationshipwellness #socialnetwork #lifestylemedicine #socialprescribing #wholehealth My Viva Inc. Revive Wellness Inc.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending the 5th Annual Chicago Obesity Summit with some incredible members of our USA team—Prerana Rudrapatna, MD, DipABLM, BHSc., Sandeep Pulim M.D., and Vineet Jain. A huge thank you to Zaid Jabbar, MD MS ABIM ABOM Chair of Weight Management at Duly Health and Care, for inviting us and showcasing a forward-thinking approach to obesity management. Here are my key takeaways from the summit: 1. Obesity Medication: It's a valuable tool, but it alone won’t solve the obesity epidemic. It must be part of a comprehensive strategy. 2. Lifestyle Medicine: Essential to any obesity management program, but it’s more than just "eat less, move more." It requires a nuanced, supportive approach. 3. Behavior Change: The old approach of merely telling patients what to do isn’t effective for sustainable lifestyle change. It’s about crafting strategies that truly resonate and support long-term habits. 4. Obesity is a chronic, complex disease that demands a thoughtful and intentional approach. As a healthcare provider with years of experience in this field—long before it was classified as a chronic condition—I know the importance of a holistic and empathetic approach. Thank you to the dedicated healthcare professionals who visited our booth and expressed interest in partnering with My Viva Inc. We ran out of time to connect with everyone, but rest assured, we received your emails and we’ll be following up shortly! #ObesityManagement #LifestyleMedicine #ChronicDisease #HealthcareInnovation #MyVivaInc #SummitInsights Obesity Canada – Obésité Canada Obesity Medicine Association

We couldn't agree more with the clinical leaders Northwestern Medicine regarding the future of obesity management: the focus of conversations with patients now needs to shift towards the quality of nutrients, nutrient density, social connections, physical activity levels, and all of the other pillars of Lifestyle Medicine. We need to help reduce the cognitive load for them. #lifestylemedicine #obesitymedicine #obesitymanagement

Do you know where we are today?

Research tells us that engaging in self-care has the beneficial effects of improved well-being, lower morbidity, lower mortality, and lower healthcare costs. But what is self-care and why does it have such an impact on our health?   Self-care is a loaded topic. It means different things to different people. The broadest way to accurately define it is to assume that self-care includes anything that an individual does to make themselves feel nourished and well. Taking medications, advocating for oneself, getting 7+ hours of sleep, engaging in physical activity, socializing with friends, and taking time for solitude or devotion are all examples of self-care. First, we need to recognize what our needs are. Self-care is about knowing what we need in our lives to be well. It’s a process involving being aware of the self, acquiring knowledge, and taking responsibility for meeting our individual needs. When we are in tune with our needs and we prioritize them, we can then be an asset to our community and those around us. Not only does consistent self-care make us self-sufficient and a value to others, but it also contributes to our resilience when life gets difficult. Self-care can be seen as something similar to a savings account. Engaging in a little each day adds up over time and helps build our reserves for when life gets challenging. It’s a superpower for managing stress! But the key lies in being proactive. Just like we wouldn’t expect to run a marathon without training, we cannot expect to have ample resilience without taking proactive self-care measures. Want to learn more? Stay tuned for the latest podcast Revive Wellness Inc. where a military mental health expert discusses the topic with a dietitian and mindfulness coach. #InternationalSelfCareDay