Summary
- Our mind and body are part of the same system – looking after our body, includes looking after our brain and mind; and our mind impacts our body.
- The UK Eatwell guidelines are good – but not complete – consider monounsaturated oil vs polyunsaturated; adding omega-3; 7 or 8 fruit and veg portions.
- The UK exercise guidelines are good – also consider NEAT and HIIT approaches
- Sleep is fundamental to healthy body and mind, don’t discount sleeping time for the sake of other things
- Physical activity, what we eat and our sleep (SEA) are the foundation of wellbeing and resilience
Mind and Body
The Glucoasmine placebo experiement was from the BBC’s Trust me, I’m a Doctor: Series 5, Episode 3.
Physical Activity
This is the example of the sit-stand computer workstation I used. Inspired by NEAT (Non-exercise Activity Thermogenesis) from Dr James Levine.
Here’s an example of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) from BBC’s Horizon: The Truth About Exercise, Episode 8.
A more recent episode of The Truth About… getting fit, included a suggested routing for HIIT at home, here’s the two minute video on how:
Eat
One example of the complexity of nutrition and health. We’ve all heard that consuming saturated fat leads to cholesterol, which leads to cardiovascular disease – this is sometimes called the Cholesterol hypothesis. There is however another hypothesis that suggests sugar leads to oxidative damage of the cardiovascular system, and to repair it your body deploys cholesterol (so cholesterol is a doing its job, but isn’t the cause).
Based on the Cholesterol Hypothesis, the UK government suggests “Choose unsaturated oils and spreads and eat in small amounts.” The problem with this is that, unsaturated oils contain omega-6, and so our diets are now too high in omega-6 and too low in omega-3. The advice should say, unsaturated fat, low in omega-6 (like olive oil).
Here’s the video of Dr Uffe Ravnskov talking about this problem:
The Chocolate Machine 🙂
Sleep
Here’s The Truth About… Sleep (opens in a new tab/screen), from which the hungry when tired experiment was shown.
And, here’s an interview with Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella that includes his ‘confession’ that he gets 8-hours of sleep a night 😉