The WISE Approach Podcast - What is lifestyle medicine?.

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hello and welcome to the wise approach an NHS Wellness coaching podcast here

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we'll share real stories in day-to-day steps to help you improve your long-term Health

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struggles I'm Dr m a clinical psychologist with the wellness Improvement service or wise for short

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and I'm Dr Lisa a GP and specialist in lifestyle medicine and I'm the medical

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lead for wise thank you so much for joining us today we're really happy to have you here it wise we believe that

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you that everyone has the power to improve their own health and well-being

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just by listening to this podcast or watching on YouTube you've already taken a step towards maximizing your quality

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of life because we'll be sharing lots of tips throughout this podcast series on

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things like improving sleep reducing chronic pain coping with anxiety

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boosting your mood and getting the most from your food generally how to live a

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healthier happier life and the small steps that you can take to get there absolutely M this podcast is born from

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our firsthand experiences at the Y service where our Wellness coaches utilize a lifestyle medicine approach to

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assist patients so lifestyle medicine for those unfamiliar is a scientifically backed field focusing on enhancing

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health and well-being through the six pillars which are sleep mental well-being exercise nutrition social

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connection and minimizing harmful substances tune in to discover what strategies have proven effective for

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others and explore how these steps could benefit you too connect with us and stay updated via social media so we are on X

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and our handle there isctm and if you do have any questions or feedback then please direct message

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us on there but let's get on with today's [Music]

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[Applause] show

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[Music] today we're talking about lifestyle

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medicine so Lisa the Y service is based around the principles of Lifestyle

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medicine right but can you start by telling us what is lifestyle medicine and why are you so passionate about

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it uh yeah so um our wi service is led by health coaches um that practice um

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lifestyle medicine or help coach people in the principles of LIF medicine so lifestyle medicine is an evidence-based

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field of medicine where we use Lifestyle Changes in order to improve or reverse

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many long-term health conditions so we know that giving out pills has its place

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in Medicine of course so it's not anti- medicine but it should just be one part of the puzzle so medication doesn't

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always get to the root of why people became unwell in the first place but with using lifestyle medicine it helps

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us to work out why someone someone became unwell in the first place and how we can get them back on track because

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the way that people live their lives almost always has an impact on their condition so whether not that's a

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physical condition or a mental health condition so it might not be always the the definite cause so obviously we know

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there are a lot of genetic things that aren't related to Lifestyle but often just using lifestyle can actually

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improve the experience of living with that condition so it can still have a positive impact so no matter what the

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condition is making some simple lifestyle changes can have a dramatically positive effect and

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certainly make you feel like you're more in control of your own health and well-being and that you're not just

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handing all the control over to your health care providers so lifesty medicine is based on six pillars and all

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six pillars are equally important so not one is more important than the other and they're all interconnected and they all

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have an effect on each other so the six pillars are sleep social connection so

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your relationship and who you are in your community your mental well-being minimizing harmful substances so that

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could be reducing your alcohol or smoking or drug use or it could be trying to improve the quality of air

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that you're exposed to um and then the others are physical movement so any type of exercise um and of course healthy

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eating so eating the right foods to support our health and well-being wow it sounds like exciting

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stuff there were a couple of things you said there that got me really excited and one is that it could mean that these

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long-term health conditions are even reversible so that they might not just get better but they might be totally

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reversible with these lifestyle changes and I think that's a really exciting prospect

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potentially yeah so actually the as a GP 80% of what I see can be related to

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Lifestyle and lifestyle medicine can help reverse that so if you think of all

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the conditions and and you know lots of us complain we can't get into our GP well actually 80% of what the GP does is

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related to how we live our modern lives so imagine if we all transformed Our Lives as communities then that would

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certainly have a KnockOn effect on the healthc care service and our ability to access it when we really need it for

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things that aren't necessarily related to to Lifestyle but yeah it certainly has an impact on the way you feel and

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your long-term health and your ability to live a longer happier healthier life yeah so even for things that aren't

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reversible the other word you said that got me really excited was control because I feel like there is a lot of

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waiting in healthc care and that perhaps people I have definitely felt like I'm

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at the whim of Health Care Professionals I'm waiting for them to refer me to a specialist or I'm waiting for test

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results back or I'm waiting for the phone lines to open at the GP you know I'm waiting for an appointment there's

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so much waiting in healthcare and it sounds like the approach that you're talking about is the opposite of waiting

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it's about the actions that you can take things that you can control that you can do right

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now yeah there's nothing worse than just waiting is there and just feeling like you're in limbo and you and often people

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when they're waiting they're actually thinking they're getting worse so it's not just waiting you're not just stood

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you stood still a lot of people feel like they're going backwards because if they saw their specialist sooner perhaps

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they would get better to soon and and that's the worry really with with waiting lists are getting longer is that

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people are getting worse and that they're developing other health problems while the original problem got worse so

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certainly with lifestyle medicine it does give you that feeling like you you can do something and you can do

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something small every day that stops you from going backwards and and and and

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either keeps things under control or in fact improves things and we have um we

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have heard a lot of stories of patients who worked with us in our service who actually get so much better that they

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don't actually need to to see a specialist anymore they don't need to have more medications they've they've

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managed to reverse things and improve things um through their own actions which is you know even more exciting

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really and and and these are some of the positive Stories We want to to share um

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so that other people can get the same results I'm really excited to hear some of the patient stories from people

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who've really taken the the lifestyle medicine and they've run with it and

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really changed their lives and we'll be hearing through that from them all the way through this

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podcast yeah exactly because we've been really fortunate that lots of our patients do want to share and I think

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that's one thing that you often get with lifestyle medicine actually is that when it works people can't help but share you

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know we're all creatures of of that aren't we we we're all creatures of a positive story so if I'm going to do

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something that improves my energy levels or or makes me sleep better or makes me feel better I'm going to share that with

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my friends or my family you know you you you want everyone else to feel good around you as well don't you and you want your kids to feel better for

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example so anything that works for you in a positive way you're going to be

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wanting to share that so it's definitely the opposite of medications um in that way so if I

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prescribe a cholesterol tablet for someone because their cholesterol is high for example that only works for

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them it doesn't work for their children it doesn't work for their friend it doesn't work for their neighbor it just

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works for them but if I work with them through a lifestyle medicine approach

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and change their diet and then they can see a dramatic change in their cholesterol numbers um then they're

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going to share that information with other people um and they might want to um uh Implement those changes themselves

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and see a knock on effect so it's kind of like snowball medicine in a way yeah yeah it sounds like this new

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thing that you want to be messaging everybody about on social media and oh my goodness have you heard of this thing

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like sharing a a great new TV program you've seen or a book or a recipe and it

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was so good you just want to tell everyone about it and that's the sense as you talk about it that's the sense I

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get about lifestyle medicine that it's something that impacts on people and you know such a powerful way that people

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they can't help but share it yeah it's like that common meme isn't it like how do you know your friend is a vegan oh

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because they've told you before you even asked and and often it's because they want to tell you because they feel so

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much better when they've changed their diet um and that's similar to to this you know it's it's like any health

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intervention people love to share when they feel better about something you know like all the people who do cold

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water therapy or cold water dipping now they love talking about um about that and how how it gives them such a um such

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a high when they come out with the cold water so you know this stuff is works in

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the similar way where people get that buzz when they go I can't believe I've managed to change this all by myself

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from the work I've put in the commitment I've put in um to to myself and I've got

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this result and I really want to share it with other people um so yeah hopefully through this podcast we can

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share some of the stories that um that patients who've already gone through this process um some of the results that

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they've got yeah exciting stuff and I wonder as you talk about lifestyle

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medicine I get this kind of image of an iceberg and that right at the top of the

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iceberg we've got the kind of chronic pain specialist or the specialists in

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that particular long-term Health struggle or we've got this very particular medication or this Advanced

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Surgery and that's the the kind of tip of the iceberg but it sounds like there's this whole

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other hidden stuff that that we're not really talking about I wonder if people have forgotten about the foundations of

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Health those ingredients that you talked about that make up good health like good sneep connecting with people moving your

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body diet that's not kind of what we hear about when we when we hear about

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health we hear about those more kind of specialist interventions and medical interventions do you think we've

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forgotten about the foundations of Health yeah yeah definitely it's you know this is the old art of medicine

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this is what um people always used to do and you know you used to be advised by

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your grandparents and great-grandparents to you know eat better to improve your

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health Etc but we've kind of lost that art where we've become more dependent on

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um medicines or uh surgical interventions which basically then means

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that it's very difficult for people people who really need that specialist medicine or specialist surgery to get it

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um when everyone is booked in for the same you know so we're it's sort of the

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problem is instead of it being you know specialist for some it's specialist for everyone and then that results in

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specialist for no one well no one for at least a year or two while you're while you're waiting and then while you're

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waiting the risk is that you're getting worse um but actually that that whole iceberg is all the lifestyle tools that

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we can put in and even if your even if your condition absolutely needs that

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specialist intervention having that Foundation underneath is going to make

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that specialist intervention much more likely to work so you you're likely to get better outcomes so for example

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people who need to have surgery so say if someone needs to have a knee replacement because their knee is so

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painful and it's so arthritic um if we can get them to implement the lifestyle

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pillars so if they can sleep better if they can improve their well-being if they can improve their relationships

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with their their family and their friends um and and stay socially connected if they can exercise more if

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they can eat better if they can reduce the amount of their smoking drinking or taking um various uh various drugs then

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that actually means that when they have the surgery they'll have a better outcome they'll be able to leave Hospital much quicker with a better

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result and less likely to get some of the complications that you know everyone has to sign sign the risk waver for the

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consent form so even if you need to have that special intervention this stuff can

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still help and still help you in the meantime to make sure that by the time you're seen you're not in a much worse

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state with worse mental well-being because imagine living with a really painful knee for years on end waiting to

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have it replaced know it's going to have a KnockOn effect isn't it on how you feel and what you can actually do um

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which is a terrible State then because you are feeling then that you're just waiting or or going backwards in life or

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your life is on hold and we don't want people to feel like that you know none of us in the NHS want people to suffer

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that's not why you go into the NHS to work you want to help people feel better and sometimes that can be really tough

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for our own personal morale and our own well-being when you know there is so

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much suffering because of the way the system is um but actually by helping

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people to implement this it can be a real real boost for the patient and all their friends when they share it but

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also for us as as staff because we feel like we're really getting to know people

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and really making a difference to their to their day-to-day life yeah it sounds

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like in some ways we've got two clever and two specialist I think it was

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Einstein that said the simplest solution is usually the correct one so if you

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come up with a solution it looks really complicated it's probably wrong and

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that's kind of how we got to E equals mc² which is like so much shorter than

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the the chalkboards full of formulas that he was writing out and he was like this is so complicated it's almost

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definitely wrong and I love that principle of you know coming back to

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things that are really simple but I guess one of the things that we'll be talking about in this podcast is that

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life is complex and people are complex and people have really busy lives and it

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can be really overwhelming especially if you feel like you're struggling with

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potentially several like long-term physical and mental health struggles you

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know where do you start what's the first step to take how do you take these simple principles and apply them to real

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life you know how does it apply to you so it sounds like that combination of a

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kind of simple formula but helping people to apply that to complex lives

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yeah and that's and that's where the magic is so you know a lot of people will think oh well lifestyle medicine or

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how you live obviously everyone knows that everyone knows you should eat better everyone knows you should exercise better everyone knows you

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should don't have McDonald's breakfast that's bad for you everybody knows that

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yeah but but actually one not everyone knows that so certainly from working

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where we work not everyone knows that so not everyone knows what's healthy and what isn't yeah and two even if you do

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know it can still feel exceptionally overwhelming so particularly when it

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comes to diet for example you know there's so much information out there so

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much conflicting stuff and if you're really sick and you want to use diet and nutrition to help you get better it can

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feel really overwhelming then when you think what am I supposed to eat and what is going to be harmful for me to eat you

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know I've been in that situation personally so when my daughter was diagnosed with her condition and I

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started learning all about lifestyle medicine coming up to 10 years ago now when I looked at all of these principles

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I felt it was really overwhelming and I remember starting to get really overwhelmed and anxious and panicky in

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the supermarket thinking oh my gosh what is going to be safe here what is going to be harmful you know everything I'm

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reading is you know that's going to be harmful that's going to be harmful should I go organic you know is is this

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pesticide going to be a problem uh how am I going to have all of this nutrition in in 24 hours whilst exercising whilst

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sleeping whilst reducing my stress levels of not kind of of trying to juggle all of these steps so it's it's

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although people think oh it's it's you know it is really simple it's not easy

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in practice and it's not easy when you have a lot of barriers um to living a

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healthy lifestyle you know most of our towns and communities aren't built to support people's well-being you know we

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we have really modern town planning which can make convenient Foods really

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convenient and you actually have to bypass the your junk food stores in order to get your healthy foods well

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that's not easy if your life is really really busy or you have transport

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difficulties Etc so our service really tries to look at what those hurdles are

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and help people get over those hurdles so that it's actually more simple to put

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it into into into practice into into day-to-day life because it is all about

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you and how you live your life and what's going to make a difference to the way you live your life yeah great and

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that's exactly the phrase that I was looking for sums it up perfectly just because it's simple doesn't mean it's

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easy and that's why the wellness coaches within why support people every step of

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the way to figure out how to apply lifestyle medicine to their life right and hopefully in this podcast how we be

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supporting people every step of the way to think about that as well I wonder are

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there some people that are too unwell for lifestyle medicine their their

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condition or their struggle is too complex for this to be of benefit so yeah that's that's another

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common question so not really lify medicine suits everyone of all ages you

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know that's that's the the benefit of it really it doesn't have side effects other than making you feel better

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certainly there are some Advanced conditions or certain conditions that aren't caused by lifestyle factors in

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the first place that lifestyle medicine is not going to be able to reverse and then you do need to have more specialist

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um intervention however it can still improve a lot of your experience of that

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condition and it can minimize the the symptoms or how you experience the

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condition and it can also help you control it a lot better and make you feel a lot better about it so it can

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stop you from developing the knock on effects of living with a complex um

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condition that is really difficult to manage you know if you think of of some autoimmune conditions or genetic

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conditions or or rarer conditions often Fe feeling the isolation of living with

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such a condition can then have a KnockOn effect on your mental well well-being it can have an effect on your relationships

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or your ability to work or your ability to socialize so we can use lifestyle medicine to adjust the other factors in

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people's lives which will then mean right okay if I live with this condition but now we've used lifestyle medicine to

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change my social relationship so now actually I'm not defined by this condition anymore I have a whole me that

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lives my life and this is in the background so this is not overshadowing everything so we can use lifestyle

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medicine in an adjusted way that way I'd say yeah it sounds great and what what

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you were saying there really struck me as well that it depends on the person so it's putting you at the center

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and figuring out okay so you've got this cocktail of long-term Health struggles

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you live in this social setting you have these specific dietary requirements and

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it doesn't sound like a one siiz fit all it's really thinking about how can I improve my sleep how can I improve my

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health my pain my physical activity so applying these principles in a way

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that's just focused on my life because everyone's different right yeah

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everyone's different and everyone has different priorities so you know if I will use lifestyle medicine with someone

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um and say right we to sort out your sleep for example because you regenerate

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and you heal in your sleep so sleep is the most important thing well if to the person they're not that bothered about

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their sleep because actually what's more pressing for them is the fact that they

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can't look after their grandkids or they're struggling with work or they're they're really worried about their

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finances well I'm never going to be able to improve their sleep if I don't understand the fact that all of those

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factors are keeping them away wake at night and they don't think sleep is the problem they think other things are the

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problem so we always have to get to the root of right what's the most important thing at the moment and where do you

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want to get to and um how can we actually make an improvement or reduce

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you know what's what's bothering you the most um and then we work from there so lifestyle medicine is always a

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partnership with with patients you don't just kind of I don't just prescribe

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whatever I want I work with the patient to develop more of that kind of partnership approach rather

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than me leading them um as their as their doctor yeah and you need to

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understand what an improved quality of life means for that person what does it look like otherwise you're not kind of

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aiming for the same thing I guess so yeah I think the difficulty is a lot of

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my patients don't know what good quality of life would look like they don't know what well would look like so that's the

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difficulty where we work is that long-term health conditions is almost the norm so we work in we both work in

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quite a deprived area of South Wales um and there's lots of health conditions

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there lots of long-term health conditions and the sad thing is that a lot of people expect to get unwell so

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they expect and some of my patients even expect to get unwell in their 30s so that's kind of how far off we are of

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where we should be getting patients to think Wellness is and what what well is like because a lot of my patients think

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well I'm in my 30s now I don't expect to be able to jump out of bed so I spend a lot of time going well actually in your

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30s you should be jumping out of bed you should be jumping into bed and out of bed you should you should feel great all

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the time you know you're not you know you shouldn't be thinking well I I expect to start getting unwell now

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because that's my normal that's what I see all around me so we certainly have a

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lot of challenging what people's beliefs are around what well is and how well

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someone could be so we need to kind of inspire that that change and and get

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people to really imagine what life could be like and what well could be like and

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and take inspiration from parts of the world where people live well um until

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they're at least 100 they're still you know part of their society they still do

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all the things they want to do they still work a lot of them they're still feel valued and they're you know living

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their lives um at at a 100 they're not sick and old at a 100 and that's where

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I'd like to take whales really that we all kind of think yeah let's let's live

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well into our hundred not just use medications to extend our life but be

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ill the whole time yeah and you know we're not on our own with that because

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we have got these evangelists now people that are so passionate about the wise

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program passionate about improving their quality of life people who've really

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experienced that change and have been surprised by that and you know that

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they've got a better quality of life than they ever have and now they're spreading the word about that so I think

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that's perfect timing Lisa to hear from one of the wise participants now and

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just see what his experience was so here is Stuart

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[Music] [Applause]

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why did you join the wellness Improvement service wise I put my specialist Ro more pay medication cuz

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the pig medication I was on it just wasn't seeming to help um the longer I was going it seemed to less the pay

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medication was helping so I asked to be put in touch with the pain clinic in L

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Morgan um they the people who prescribed the pain medication I was on in the

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first place and under their advice they asked if I could do this program um to

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see if that would help before my pain meds were actually increased um

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so I was a bit skeptical about doing it I thought I could doing a program Less

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in the pain then I thought only the the drug meds could help with the pain um

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but signed up went along with it and like really glad I

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did how has wise helped you on a personal level so me being able to cope with the pain

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and my perceived level of pain I think has gone down so now looking really to

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have more more pain meds to help me um and coping it more um and there's other

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benefits as well that came along with the program um better mental well-being being able

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to interact my family more um they give you a toolbox of being able

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to cope and that that really helped that

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did um helped with sleep helped with spiling weight um

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depression all seem to get better following this program what have you learned with ways

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that you can take forward to self-manage your health that my life really isn't about my condition that my pain isn't to

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be on an end all of everything um so it's giv me like the techniques and The

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Willpower to be able to put pain in this place so I can have

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more more of a meaningful relationship with my wife with my children with the rest of family and friends which to be

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honest I was getting more isolated from so this has helped um bit of an eye

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opener sometimes but then good that they that they give the the

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techniques and and the way to sort that stuff

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out would you recommend wise to your friends or family yeah totally recommend

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it um it's it's real game changer for me

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really see the benefits of My Life um and if if it can help somebody else yeah

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go for it try it at the end of the day you got nothing to lose um if you only

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gain one little bit from it it's totally worth doing it's um yeah really changed

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my outlook and that helped a lot with the pain so much so I'm not looking to

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have more pain medication at the moment um it might come my life where I do need

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to but I probably return to this program before I go down that pathway

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again okay so we've heard Stuart story there um so Stuart as he said was very

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skeptical coming into our service he lived with chronic pain and he just wanted to um get more pain medications

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or increase his doses um and Stuart wasn't isn't alone there that's a lot of

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patients who live with long-term pain conditions even if they're on multiple medications and they don't feel they're

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really working um or they're getting a lot of side effects from those medications they still feel the only

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option for improving pain is more higher doses or multiple

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medications um so we've had a lot of patients been referred to us to see if

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actually taking a different approach can improve things and as Stuart said there it's it it has improved his pain he's

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not looking for any more uh more pain relief for the time being and he's using the tools that the coaches have have um

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supported him to implement in his day-to-day life and and like he said you know he he thinks everyone should give

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it a go because what have you got to lose yeah what have you got to lose

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absolutely I thought that was just so inspiring and really inspiring as well

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that you know Stuart pain hasn't completely gone away he still experiences some pain but he said I've

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put pain in its place I don't feel like it's taken over my life anymore there's

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so much more that he can do and I think that's really exciting so what have you

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got to lose yeah because lots of people do feel that they just get defined by their health conditions and that must be

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awful when you think all I am is this Health Challenge now and and you know

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like Stuart said there about the fact that hasn't just improved his pain but actually improved his relationships with

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his family with his with his wife you know he feels like he's living again and

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that is you know that's the magic really you know you don't really get that when you're prescribing medicines so it's

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such a rewarding way to to help people um because they really do get huge life

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Transformations so um with wise we're really for fortunate that a lot of

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patients have been willing to share their stories um and we want to use this podcast as a as another sort of platform

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to be able to share that because if if that helps Inspire someone who's been suffering in the same way um then that's

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that's brilliant isn't it that's all that's all we want we want people to think there is another way there is some

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hope out there you don't have to just suffer by yourself that actually there's lots of people out there who who want to

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support you to feel better yeah absolutely brilliant and thank you

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to Stuart for sharing and you were talking about prescriptions there Lisa and we've reached that part of our

32:37

podcast where the doctors have their wise prescription pads out and we're going to prescribe a wise strategy every

32:44

episode something that helps you to take one step towards your health towards

32:49

better health or improving your quality of life and do get in touch with us and let us know how you get on with this

32:56

yeah so in l medicine um it we try and we try and make it very similar to um

33:04

what people would know of Western medicine so obviously if someone comes to see me as a GP often they expect to

33:10

walk out of my room with a little green prescription so in lifestyle medicine

33:16

we've kind of adopted the same but we create a prescription with the with the

33:22

patient so it's not just me saying right here's what you need to go and do for the for the next week we come up with a

33:28

with a shared plan that the patient is happy to to to give a go give a go to

33:34

and we try and make it very similar to say if I was going to prescribe um an

33:40

antibiotic to someone so on that prescription I would say what I'm prescribing how to take it and when to

33:46

take it and the same with lifestyle medicine so um what it is how you're going to do it and when you're going to

33:53

do it so that's how we kind of break it down but with each of the these podcast

33:58

episodes we want to try and share a strategy that one of our health coaches has uh has um successfully um

34:06

implemented with their with their patients so we can share that with with you guys if you're not part of our

34:13

service already so Emma why don't you start off by sharing what we recommend

34:20

starting with this week um and yeah we as em said before we'd love to hear how

34:26

this is actually impacted what you thought or how you felt this week yeah so you can find how

34:33

to get in touch with us in the show notes and please get in touch we'd love to hear from you and we were we were

34:39

reflecting on the main change that people see when they've been through the wise program and people tell us that

34:46

they feel like they've got more energy and we thought well that's great but

34:52

what would you want to spend that energy on like why does that matter and we

34:57

think this is something that is really overlooked so that's our challenge to you this week is to get a pen and paper

35:04

out or have a conversation with a friend or a loved one and really think about if your quality of life was the best it can

35:11

be your health was the best it can be you're sleeping really well you're eating really well your pain is gone

35:20

your quality of life is better than ever and you've got all of this energy what

35:25

would you spend it on we want people to imagine what life could be like for them

35:32

what do you want to do if you had this infinite po of energy and get in touch

35:37

with us and let us know what that would mean for you yeah and who would you spend your energy with so would you

35:44

spend time with someone um and why why that why that person so yeah ask

35:49

yourself those those questions um so you can work out what really matters to you

35:55

and what your long-term um Health goal is um and yeah what you would do if you

36:02

had all this energy so if you were better and if you were better than ever and you had really high energy how would

36:08

that actually change the way you live your life so yeah get a diary or get a notebook and write all of that out and

36:15

see see what comes up for you see see what your brain and your body is is um

36:21

guiding you towards it be it'd be really interesting and then yeah let us know because Emma and I are always really

36:27

interested in in people's stories yeah absolutely and get in touch

36:32

with us by cm. wise wales.

36:37

nhs.uk or on Twitter which is wise cm

36:42

it's not called Twitter now is it what's it called now called X now it's called x x now X formerly known as Twitter yeah

36:49

we are y cm and however you get in touch with us we would love to hear from you

36:55

yeah and now it's time for our question of the week um so we're starting with a frequently Asked question this week

37:02

because nobody's got in touch with us yet um but the one of the most common things that people ask us is if I start

37:10

using a lifestyle medine approach does that mean that I'll lose my space on a

37:16

waiting list if I engage in something like a lifestyle medicine coaching program does that mean that's instead of

37:23

the kind of the usual pathway of medicine that I'm used to and it's a concern for people isn't it Lisa yeah

37:29

this comes up all the time so people do worry or well if I'm going to give this a go does that mean now you're kind of

37:35

taking my option of medications or surgery or therapy away from me um so we

37:41

we often have to reassure to say no no if you if you feel like you need to have

37:47

that specialist input of course that's that's always there um this is something that we can try in the meantime um and a

37:55

lot of patients do find oh actually things have got better so while I'm on the waiting list and implementing these

38:00

things are better but the patient then has to choose to come off that waiting list and and decide that they no longer

38:06

need to be seen or they can go back to their GP to have that discussion to see if it's appropriate not to see The

38:12

Specialist but certainly with our service um wise at um the kav morgano

38:18

Health Board um no you don't get taken off the waiting list to come to our

38:23

service instead it'll just stop things from the the aim of the service is to stop people getting worse while they're

38:30

waiting for that and and put in tools that if your specialist needs to do specialist intervention that actually

38:36

you'll get a better outcome by using both approaches um and as we said before

38:42

it'll help you feel a bit more in control it'll feel like you're being proactive and you're not just in that

38:47

waiting Zone um that you're you feel like you're working with your health

38:52

care um Health Care Providers as well so it can work alongside medication

38:58

um or any any surgery or or therapy that that you're having um so yeah you can

39:04

attend both at the same time yeah that's great that's great so

39:10

talking of the service we're just going to tell you a little bit about it now if you're over 18 and you are lucky enough

39:18

to live in the beautiful area of kav mog that's merther the Rondon and or the

39:23

Bridgend area of South Wales and if you feel like you want to take control of

39:29

your health and well-being again if you've been living with a long-term physical or mental health struggle and

39:34

you want to learn some tips about how to improve your quality of life with that

39:39

then get in touch with us you can self-refer so you don't need to wait for a health professional to send a referral

39:46

in you can go to our website wise CM or you can get in touch with us on Twitter

39:53

at ycm if you're under 18 and don't live in ctm then don't worry because we'll be

40:00

sharing why strategies with you every week in this podcast to help you live

40:05

the best life that you can you can also find lots on our website you can search for ctm wise and we've got a Blog we've

40:14

got lots of videos from patients who've been through this experience themselves we've got lots of signposting

40:20

information there's all sorts on there so have a dig around and maybe you could

40:25

get started today yeah so that's what we were hoping with this podcast is that not only does it help our patients

40:32

locally but actually we can share you know the the real um Solutions or the

40:39

real steps that people have taken who are in very similar situations to you um

40:44

what's worked for them and we can share and let you know um in order for you to give it a go yourself so yeah we

40:51

definitely love to hear from you so yeah be in touch send us your questions and send us your feedback from the um from

40:59

this week's exercise of imagining yourself better with all that energy and

41:05

what you're going to be spending it on but y we'd love to hear from you and we'll be um coming back to you with our

41:11

second episode very shortly so we look forward to catching up with you then

41:17

yeah and if you think it's quite overwhelming to think about why changing your health is important to you and what

41:24

matters to you and what you want to spend your energy on then tune for the next episode of this podcast because

41:30

we'll be going through all of that in lots of detail there until then bye for now

41:37

bye