BEATING THE DISEASES OF CIVILIZATION II

This week as promised, I will summarise Dr. Attia’s the last two of the five tactical domains that we can address to combat the horsemen, sleep, and emotional health.  Note that the five tactical domains are:

• EXERCISE: aerobic efficiency, maximum aerobic output (VO2 max), strength, and stability.
• DIET OR NUTRITION
• SLEEP
• EMOTIONAL HEALTH
• DRUGS, SUPPLEMENTS, AND HORMONES

We dealt with exercise and nutrition in last week’s article.

 As I also advised last week, I strongly suggest that you refer to Dr. Attia’s book, Outlive, to learn more about the fifth and final domain, which consists of the various drugs, supplements, and hormones that doctors learn about in medical school and beyond and discuss these with your doctor.

Now let’s get into the last two tactical domains.

SLEEP

While we are in deep sleep our brains are essentially “cleaning house,” sweeping away intracellular waste that can build up between our neurons.

Sleep deprivation is a factor in dementia and other diseases, as Dr. Attia notes:

“Many studies have found powerful associations between insufficient sleep (less than seven hours a night, on average) and adverse health outcomes ranging from increased susceptibility to the common cold to dying of a heart attack.  Poor sleep dramatically increases one’s propensity for metabolic dysfunction, up to and including type 2 diabetes, and it can wreak havoc with the body’s hormonal balance. …

As important as sleep is for the body, it may even be more so for the brain. Good sleep, in terms of not only quantity but quality, is critical to our cognitive function, our memory, and even our emotional equilibrium.”

The bottom line is that poor sleep can damage both your long-term health and your ability to function day-to-day.  Like exercise, it’s another powerful drug.  Therefore, please ensure that, on average, you are sleeping about seven and a half to eight and a half hours a night.

Dr. Attia suggests the following rules for better sleep:

• Don’t drink any alcohol, but if you must, limit yourself to one drink before about 6 p.m.
• Don’t eat anything less than three hours before bedtime.
• Abstain from stimulating electronics, beginning two hours before bed.
• For at least one hour before bed … avoid doing anything that is anxiety-producing or stimulating, such as reading work email or checking social media.
• Spend time in a sauna or hot tub prior to bed, if possible.
• The room should be cool, ideally about 18 degrees Celsius.
• The bed should be cool too.
• Darken the room completely.
• Give yourself enough time to sleep.  Go to bed at least eight hours before you need to wake up, preferably nine.
• Fix your wake-up time—and don’t deviate from it, even on weekends.
• Don’t obsess over your sleep, especially if you’re having problems.

EMOTIONAL HEALTH

Feeling connected and having healthy relationships with others, and with oneself, is as imperative as maintaining efficient glucose metabolism or an optimal lipoprotein profile.

Emotional health incorporates mental health but is more about the way we regulate our emotions and manage our interpersonal relationships.  It is about your happiness and acceptance of your life and is as essential to healthspan as the other factors we discussed.

As Dr. Atta notes:

“… feeling connected and having healthy relationships with others, and with oneself, is as imperative as maintaining efficient glucose metabolism or an optimal lipoprotein profile. It is just as important to get your emotional house in order as it is to have a colonoscopy or an Lp(a) test, if not more so.  It’s just a lot more complicated.”

The question you need to ask yourself is why you would want to live if you’re miserable and unhappy.

But as Dr. Attia notes:

“Taking care of our emotional health requires a paradigm shift ….  It’s about long-term prevention, just like our approach to preventing cardiovascular disease.  We must be able to recognize potential problems early and be willing to put in the hard work to address these problems over a long period of time.  And our approach must be tailored to each individual, with their unique history and set of issues.

Our Medicine 3.0 thesis is that if we address our emotional health, and do so early on, we will have a better chance of avoiding clinical mental health issues such as depression and chronic anxiety—and our overall health will benefit as well.”

Some techniques experienced and recommended by Dr. Attia include:

• Reframing: the ability to look at a given situation from someone else’s point of view—literally reframing it.
• Focus on Eulogy Virtues: understand the key distinction between “résumé virtues,” the accomplishments that we list on our CV, our degrees and fellowships and jobs, and what David Brooks calls “eulogy virtues,” the things that our friends and family will say about us when we are gone.
• Mindfulness:  a practice that allows us to detach ourselves from our thoughts and emotions to create enough of a gap between stimulus and response so that we are not simply reacting reflexively to things that happen.  It should also help us to recognise what we can control and what we cannot, the essence of Stoic philosophy.

I have enjoyed sharing excerpts from Outlive with you and urge you to read it.  As you build your financial wealth, also work to build your healthspan to enjoy the fruits of your labour for a long time.  I will leave you with this quote from the end of the book:

“I think people get old when they stop thinking about the future.  If you want to find someone’s true age, listen to them.  If they talk about the past and they talk about all the things that happened that they did, they’ve gotten old.  If they think about their dreams, their aspirations, what they’re still looking forward to—they’re young.  Here’s to staying young, even as we grow older.”

If you find this advice helpful, please share with your friends and colleagues.  As usual, I look forward to your questions and comments.  Be safe.  Take good care, and if you can, help someone in need.

Cheers, Nigel

 Nigel Romano, Senior Director, Moore Trinidad & Tobago, Chartered Accountants