Welcome to season four. Season four of Body Holic with D. I um I'm excited. And uh this time I have Ben with me, Ben Gonzalez, who is producing Body Holic with D, which is just so exciting because I'm finally um not alone and we're expanding. So thank you. Um not only is it a big deal that it's season four, but it's also very, and you'll see, you'll see what the deal is. It's very fitting for this stage in my life because I have entered 40. I have switch over to the 40 plus group. So the entire season is gonna be pretty much devoted to that. Today we're gonna talk about what we have waiting for us in the next season. And we're gonna discuss the latest, latest research. So, what I've been doing over the last few weeks is actually going over the latest science, the most cutting-edge science, as you all know, that uh it's very important for me to bring the latest over to you in a way that we can all understand it. So I was looking over uh 2024, 2025 studies on well-being and what the latest is. And then I realized a pattern, and what I did is divided it up into five and five. So I'm gonna bring the top five well-being tips from the studies that I was looking over, the latest studies, uh, for the general population. And the next thing I'm gonna talk about is the top five wellness, well-being tips from the latest studies. Um, I'm gonna bring that over for the 40 plus group. So there's a little bit of a difference, and we're gonna break it down. And I have a very strong feeling that that's gonna be the main theme of the entire season. I've got all kinds of things waiting for us uh with a big emphasis on longevity and what happens after the age of 40. So here we go. Welcome to Bodyholic with D. We don't do fads here. We give you the facts that move your body and health forward. Wait up, hold up. I'm not a doctor. The information in this podcast is for informational purposes only and not medical advice. So kick back and enjoy the show. I want to focus on the general population. So, the main concern that I have as a uh public health specialist, a public health promoter, is the speed and stress that the general population is under these days, right? Over the last few years, since COVID, everything just started accelerating. You are expected to be on a Zoom call no matter where you are in the world, in a meeting, you're expected to answer emails at all hours of the day, and you're expected to be in shape. Let's not get into the fact that women are expected to also cook, clean, take care of the kids, and be a CEO all at the same time. So the question is, how do we get in the thing that is, in my opinion, most important, and that's working out? I'm looking into it, I'm reading the science, and the thing that just pops out is actually, and we've talked about really short exercise workouts, but we can we're seeing that there's a next level, and it is to do with the way we're living, it is to do with our lifestyle, and that is the Vilpa. So the number one tip that I am seeing come out from the latest studies is the short bursts of exercise that really boost our cardio and keep us in shape. And the way to do this, it's called Vilpa, which is basically vigorous, intermittent lifestyle physical activity. So it means we don't have to necessarily go to the gym if we can't. Of course, if we can and actually spend time mindfully working out, that's amazing. That's the best. But if we cannot, so just going up the stairs instead of the elevator, going the stairs relatively fast instead of just walking up the stairs or going for a little sprint on your walk from here to there, that is turns out a complete game changer. So, Vilpa, the vigorous, intermittent pushes through the day that really, really are showing how it boosts um cardiovascular health. And in general, it can actually replace the workout if you do it enough throughout the day. Again, I really have to say, I of course prefer that you go to the gym, that you get your workout in, or just do your workout at home, but you know, in a framework, in like the 15 minutes, the 30 minutes, the 45 minutes that you have. But if not, then you go for the those intermittent bursts. That's number one for the gen pop. Number two is the social connection. And this is really interesting because a lot of the research was actually talking about the social connection and its importance as one ages. But now the research is showing how important the social connection is at all ages for the general population. And from my opinion and from what I'm reading, this is because social connection is becoming less and less prominent in our life because of the phones, because of the online meetings. And so I could be spending an entire day in a little corner, in a little dark cave. Nobody will know if I keep showing up to the Zoom meetings, right? So there's so much online activity, so much Instagram, so much Facebook, so much TikTok that actually we're removing the social connection from our regular life, from our daily life. And the impact is not only mental, but it's also physical, right? We're releasing less oxytocin, which is our amazing, wonderful love hormone. And we are continuously rising in cortisol and all the adrenaline and all the stress hormones that are great for when we're actually under stress and we need to, you know, run away from the lion that's chasing us. But it's not so great when we're just sitting there and working and working in front of the computer and not moving anywhere. And uh let's, we can also get into the stress that it's caused by actually just scrolling through social media and um the comparison effect, you know, how come I don't look like her? How come I don't have as much money as him and all that stuff, uh, which just leads us to feeling more and more uh lonely and also less and less competent, which of course has nothing to do with reality. Um the social connection is a huge factor for the general population now. And the main thing that the way it affects us physically, I'm just gonna reiterate, is how it increases oxytocin and decreases the cortisol and the adrenaline, the stress hormones. What that means for you and for me and for all of us is that we need to grab coffee with our friend. That's what it means. You need to call up your friend and see how he or she is doing and go out. You know, I can definitely lose myself in work. And all of a sudden, the next thing I know, I've got to pick up the kids, and the next thing I know, I'm passed out. I'm done. But if I actually take a moment to just connect, to just look at someone else's eyes and ask them how they're feeling, and then they ask me, and that whole thing sparks a beautiful connection that just happens a few minutes even throughout the day here and there, right? It doesn't have, you don't have to spend your entire day um, you know, playing hooky from work for the social connection. It's just a few minutes of actually connecting with another human being, not through a screen. Okay, that's all it takes. So there you go. Number two is the social connection. Number three, we're gonna get into what everybody is constantly talking about. It's the hot, hot, hot topic. And that is sleep. Yes, we are not gonna let go of sleep. This is super, super important. Consistent sleep schedules. Now, I am the number one advocate of sleep, but I am also the number one advocate of explaining why some of us just aren't really sleeping. Okay. There's the world we live in is completely insane. All right. We have to take that into consideration. We're human beings. It's gonna disrupt our sleep. The uh more responsibilities we have on our mind, on our shoulders, the more it's gonna disrupt our sleep. But one thing that we can control is our sleep schedule, all right, scheduling it. So I'm not gonna say to you, you're gonna die if you're not gonna sleep seven to nine hours. I'm not gonna say that because I hear that enough in different variations and it freaks me out. So I'm here to say to you, you're human and you're not gonna die, all right, because you're missing an hour here and there. But one thing that really will help you as just a normal human being who's living in this completely insane world is to create consistency around when you start winding down and when you start waking up. So if that means that you start dimming the lights every day at 8:30 p.m., right? And then at 10 p.m., maybe you go in for a shower, a warm shower, and then you can cool off the um the house, your room with a little bit of the AC so that it's a nice temperature for going to sleep. Things like that every day repeatedly at the same time. In the end, at one point, your sleep will actually benefit from it. So there's that. I'm I'm really that number one person who's gonna say, I get it. I really understand if you're not getting eight hours of sleep every single night. But I am gifting you with this. Just work on a consistent habit schedule around your sleep, around bedtime. Okay. All right. Number four, nutrient-dense foods. Of course, we're not gonna leave that out. This means fruits, this means vegetables, this means legumes, we've got the nuts, we've got the olive oil, we've got the fish, we've got um the lean meats, lean protein, eggs. And of course, if you're vegan, then you just load up on the legumes as opposed to um the meats. This is so important. I don't care if you're 15 or you're 20 and you feel like my metabolism is just so fantastic. I can eat whatever I want. And it doesn't, it doesn't matter. You are what you eat. You want to give yourself the best, right? Just like you wanna buy the best clothing for yourself. That's how you want to eat the best food for yourself. That's how you're gonna stay sharper, by the way. That's also how you're gonna sleep better. That's how you're gonna have more energy for your vigorous, intermittent physical exercise throughout the day. That's how you're gonna have the energy to focus throughout uh your day's work, right? We're talking about all the stress that we have during the day and how much we always have to get done now. There you go. Nutrient-dense foods is gonna help boost all of that, right? That's the foundation. Foundation. And number five is stress management. Which, of course, I couldn't not say that because of this world we're living in, and it goes back to everything so interconnected. For the gen pop, I would say try to take a few minutes every once in a while throughout the day to just focus on the thing that it that you're doing. So there was a beautiful study, and this is actually a study way, way back where they were looking at surgeons who are under a lot of pressure, right? You're going into surgery, someone's life is sitting right there in your hands, and if you make a wrong move, it's the end, right? Those kinds of surgeons. And they were looking to see that if they are washing their hands mindfully before they go into surgery, how does it affect their performance? And they found that it has a beautiful effect and they go in much calmer, which means that they're also more focused. And so that's how little that habit can be. Mindfully washing your hands before you go into surgery if you're a surgeon. When you get out of the bathroom and you're washing your hands, maybe that's an opportunity to really just feel one hand move over the other, look at the suds, listen to the water, take a moment, and then move on. And that could be like your mindful trigger, just washing your hands. And then you have a very short mindfulness practice that repeats itself throughout the day, and the benefits just add up. All right. I'm gonna give you another example, and this is something that actually I do, and I uh started this when I was very young. Uh this I feel like I feel like you might laugh at me, but which is totally fine. Turning the key. So I have a thing with turning the key. Whether I'm unlocking a door or locking the door, I really have a moment there because it's such an opportunity. You're not with your phone, right? You actually have to look at the thing that you are doing. Otherwise, you're just gonna start poking the door with the key. So you have to look and you have to match, you know, one piece of the puzzle into the other. And then and just taking a moment there and breathing while you're doing it. So it's really like I give it a deep inhale as I start putting the key in. I exhale as I turn it, and it sounds so ridiculous, but throughout the day, I'm unlocking and locking doors several times a day, every single day. So why not use that as an opportunity that will end up accumulating into a beautiful mindfulness practice? There you go. So stress management is number five. So for the gen pop, I'm just gonna reiterate and go over it. The top five tips that I have basically summed up for you from the latest research from the past two years. We're talking 2024, 2025, is one short bursts of exercise, uh, otherwise known as Vilpa, just throughout your day, putting it in, getting your heart rate way up, and then moving on. Again, putting it in, heart rate way up, move on. Number two is the social connection, which it's just amazing to me that we actually have to bring it up and we have to put it on the table because more and more young people, more and more kids are lacking, are even lacking in the skill of sparking a social connection because so much of it is online now. And number three, we have the consistent sleep schedule. Again, I understand we live in a crazy stressful world. A lot of us have very, very high stress jobs. And so if we just create a consistent, repeatedly consistent, calming schedule around sleep, that is a great first step. Number four, nutrient dense. And I'm repeating that again. That's just the basis for everything. All right. So you want to focus on what will you benefit from the most before you put it in your mouth. Just think about it. Is this gonna give me the vitamins and the minerals that I need? Is this gonna build my muscle? Is this gonna build my bone? Is this gonna keep me focused and aligned with my goals throughout the day? And then finally, stress management, which for the gen pop, I just say, you know, put it into your day. Spread out the mindfulness practice throughout the day. It does not have to be a full-on ohm session, you know, with candles, stopping everything for the next hour and a half. I can't do it. I don't expect you to do it. Let's move on to over 40, because we are now celebrating. I'm celebrating with you. You're celebrating with me. The over 40. I'm so excited. I was so excited all year. I, you know, my my 39th year, I was like, this is actually, I think it's the 40th year, right? So my 40th year from 39 to 40, I was noticing that I was actually getting more and more excited about aging, which never happened before. I was always freaking out over it. And then as I started approaching 40, I was like, this feels pretty badass. I'm like, what's up? I'm 40. I'm gonna let me just sit here and teach you a little bit uh about life. Or, you know, like, like, oh my God, I feel, I feel like I'm a grown-up, I guess. That's what I have just turned into a grown-up. So let's talk about the um break that I was really seeing consistent throughout the um studies, where it slightly changes. And there is a slight change. There is um the gen pop top five tips, but then there's something that's a little bit more specific that happens that changes with the 40 plus group. So, number one, as opposed to the Velpa, as opposed to the vigorous uh bouts throughout the day, I would say strength training becomes the number one thing that you need to make sure you get into your schedule throughout the week. So even if it's two but really, really high quality workouts a week, that's great. If you really put in the effort twice a week to strength training, I think that's fantastic. You want to build bone, you want to build muscle, and you want to keep that going. As we age, it naturally deteriorates. But you can actually, the medicine for that is working against strength, against weights, right? So pushing through, uh squatting. If you don't have a lot of time, you want to do compound exercises like squatting, like lunging, like step ups, or a shoulder press or push-ups or anything that involves more than one joint, that's a compound um exercise, will then shorten your workout. It allows you to shorten the workout and really get deep core work in as well. All right. And I'm I just want to give you an example for uh uh understanding the compound versus not compound. When it is not compound, when you're working on one uh joint specifically, it just takes longer because you're working less in one exercise. So if I'm gonna do a bicep curl, right, which is not compound, I'm just focusing on the elbow and I'm just pumping the bicep. That's gonna take a lot longer than me doing a shoulder press or a pull-up where I engage the bicep, right? But I'm not doing only the bicep, right? In the shoulder press, I've got a little bit of bicep, I've got a lot of tricep, I've got a lot of shoulder, and I've got a little bit of pecs as well, the upper pecs. So I get a lot more in. And I also get to really work the core a lot more. Or if I go for pull-ups, I'm gonna work the biceps also like crazy, but I don't have to isolate it. So those kind of exercises take less time. And if we do it right and we really put in the effort, two workouts like that a week can really do it for you. So, number two would be mobility. Mobility and balance. Um, as we age, we all see it from a very young age, right? Babies are so flexible. It's unbelievable. But as you age, you can uh kind of find that you're maybe cracking a little bit here, cracking a little bit there. Maybe there's a little bit of an extra stretch that, oh, I just pulled a little something. I tried to reach the upper uh plate over there in the cabinet, and oh, I just, you know, that kind of thing. But what if we actually incorporated it into our workouts, into our workout routine, and we actually focused on the mobility, on deep squats, on standing on one leg, right? Because in the end, we have to put on a pair of pants, right? So we kind of do have to stand on one leg. So maybe we can uh delay the moment where we have to sit down while we put a pair of pants on, because that is what delays getting old, right? It's it's those little things that contribute to our longevity and staying young for as long as we possibly can. We want to reach without feeling a back pain. We want to, uh, something that I see with a lot of people I work with, once they come to me at a 60 plus age, very often uh I've seen people who are not able to straighten their elbows anymore. You better believe that I straighten my elbows every single day. I take a moment, I get my shoulder blades back. And if you're um only listening and not watching, so I've got my shoulder blades squeezed back together. And then from there, it's a little bit harder to straighten your elbows above your head, but I'm gonna really take a moment there to straighten all the way up. And I do it with weights and I do it without weights, and I do it with my kids, and I make sure that I can constantly get full range of motion on all the joints of my body, from my ankles all the way to my wrists, to my elbows, to my shoulders. Keep moving, okay? Keep um oiling up those joints. So, number three, sleep. Of course, I'm gonna repeat that, but here's the thing over 40, the over 40 sleep subject is interesting because when you are over 40, you actually decrease in manufacturing your melatonin, right? So the melatonin is the hormone that helps us wind down and go to sleep. But once you hit 40, you're making less of it. So it's harder to go to sleep. And um, it's kind of a catch 22 because when you're over 40, you also need more recovery time. You don't recover as fast. You can tell because when you were 20 and you went out drinking and you were up all night and you didn't even go to sleep, but you just went to work from the party, you were okay. And uh, or I'm saying you, but maybe I'm talking about myself. I don't know. But when once you hit 28, 30, 35, 38, it starts changing, right? You everybody here knows exactly what I'm talking about. So I definitely can't, I can't even go to that zone anymore. I doesn't even exist for me. But we need more time to recover, whether it is between workouts um or again, one day to the next day, we need sleep to recover, but we're creating less melatonin. So, what I would say is do what I said for the gen pop. Try to create a consistent um sleep schedule. Okay, that's going back. But also, I don't want you to stress out over the fact that you're sleeping less or not so well. I used to freak out before I gave birth to my first child. I was like, oh my God, because I was as obsessed as I am now with health. And I was like, oh my God, I'm not gonna have my eight hours of sleep because before she was born, you better believe it. Anything that went into my or anything that tried to disturb my eight-hour sleep was just, it was a no-go. It was a no-go. And now I've got two kids, and you know what? Even if they'll sleep through the night, which it never happens, but even if they would, I'm constantly thinking about are they okay? What do I have to do tomorrow? Who do I have to pick up when? Take over everything changes, right? And there's a reason why um this happens over 40, right? You have more responsibility as well. So there's the psychological, even if it's not stress, there's this um psychological feeling of responsibility that does go into the nighttime, especially when melatonin is decreased. So one of the things that I find is really counterproductive is the freaking out over how much sleep am I getting. Oh my God, I'm not gonna fall asleep. I'm never gonna fall asleep like this. You know, those kinds of thoughts. Oh my God, I'm I'm I'm doing everything that the doctors told me not to do because I'm not sleeping enough. I would say, welcome to the club. All of us are not sleeping enough. Please don't freak out. You know, Dr. Matthew Walker, uh, bless his soul. He's a brilliant man. Um the more I listen to him, the more I'm like, oh no, I'm gonna die like tomorrow because I'm not sleeping well enough. Uh but it's it's very human and it's very human nature, and it's very motherly also. If we're gonna zoom into um women losing sleep over 40, that's what happens. And the more you stress about it, the less you're gonna sleep. So it's okay. Just try to be consistent with your schedule. It's all good. You're good and you're doing great. Next, let's go into protein. So for the gen pop, I was talking about nutrient-dense uh uh foods, but here I'm actually gonna say the importance of strength training goes hand in hand with the importance of eating adequate protein, which means you know, lean meats. Um you can have a protein shake. I I uh use a very specific brand. I don't really use anything else because I trust it. Um yogurts that are higher in protein, legumes with the right composition. So you would want to not eat lentils alone, but lentils with brown rice, um, tofu, eggs, fantastic, fish, uh, shrimps, etc., etc. You want to level up your protein so that you support the strong strength training that you are doing throughout the week. This is what's gonna help you build the muscle. It's gonna help you build the bone. And you it, I really would want you to approach it as not only pushing through the strength training, but really doing it as a holistic approach, you know, giving your muscle what it needs to grow. And then you've got, you know, a winning recipe right there. One more thing, and that is the mindset. Mindfulness for 40 plus. So we're talking about stress all the time for the gen pop for 40 plus. So I would actually come to it from a different angle now and look at it more as a practice for emotional resilience. The more we try to really de-stress and that we do take little actions throughout the day to de-stress, the healthier we are, the more likely we are to uh promote our longevity and a healthy long life, not just a long life. Right. And so the the focus is now really on now. I would say taking your time, even if it's a 10-minute mindfulness session, which is more than what I said for the gen pop, right? But really taking about 10 minutes to yourself to clear all the thoughts and view it as hygiene. View it as cognitive hygiene. So I would actually put a little bit more of an emphasis there because there are stress stressors that are related to aging that are now creeping into our life. And I would want you to actually take the time and create and cultivate the emotional resilience that comes with the mindfulness practice that is repeated. So on a daily basis, 10 minutes. I'm sure you have 10 minutes. I'm positive. Even if it's 10 minutes between you and a cup of tea, where you're just sipping and not looking at your phone, I love that for you. I love it for me. And I think that's something you can absolutely cultivate for the benefits of your longevity for the people around you who need you, as well as the emotional resilience. So to reiterate, we've got the five top tips for your well-being over the last uh two years that are showing up in science for over 40. Number one is strength training, two is mobility and balance. We've got sleep in a compassionate way, right? We want to approach it compassionately. We want to up or maybe emphasize the protein a little bit more, and we've got cultivating emotional resilience through mindfulness and decreasing the stress. On every single one of those topics, we are going to dive deep and really get into it and really understand the deep science behind it on every single one throughout this entire season. And so I'm ridiculously excited and so happy you're joining me. And I'm gonna see you next time because I love going on this journey with you and I'm so happy to be back. So I'll see you next time. Bye bye.