TWV Podcast Episode 490: Setting Priorities and Creating Habits During Stressful Times

On this episode of The Whole View, we answer an awesome question from our listener Carrie who asks about how we can pick and choose the most impactful health habits during these busy and stressful times in which we can’t simply do it all! Stacy and I discuss many different ways in which one change will trickle over into other benefits, good habits, and health behaviors, thus getting the most out of your effort. Some good examples that we have used in our own journeys to better health include cooking at home, celebrating the little wins, and improving sleep behaviors.

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Listener Question from Carrie
Key Takeaways
Recommended Reading and Listening

However some of the changes that might make the biggest difference may be something that isn’t expected, or you wouldn’t give yourself enough credit for. For example, prioritizing working with a functional medicine specialist could be the first and most important step for your health this year. Focusing on the addition of things into your routine instead of subtraction, specifically your food choices–i.e., adding a half serving of vegetables to dinner every night, or simply drinking an extra glass of water a day. Finally, it might be that most helpful thing you can do for your health right now in this stressful world is to simply give yourself permission to stay exactly right where you are! Celebrate the small wins of your day and be kind to yourself to know that you will not be here forever. Celebrate that 20 minute walk that was better than not going on a walk at all! Grace, and self-compassion will help to cut out all of the judgement we place on ourselves and drastically reduce the potential for negative health outcomes that are associated with negative self-talk.

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Listener Question from Carrie

Hi Dr. Sarah and Stacy, I am sure you get this question all the time, and you may have already covered this, but I thought I would ask anyway. How do we make time for health these days? For those of us who are in the mist of figuring out this whole journey to health, these past two years feel like they have just been a huge derailment to any of the goals I wanted to achieve. When you are looking down a long list (food choices, sleep, exercise, supplements, and selfcare) knowing that you need all these things to come together, where or how do you even start? And stick with them! Just thinking about it causes me stress and I know that stress has an impact on our health as well. How do you set priorities and keep habits? What gives us the most bang for our efforts? I would be so grateful for any tips or advice you have. Thanks to you both I know the ‘whys’ I just really need a simple ‘how’ to start with. Thank you! – Carrie

Key Takeaways

Dr. Sarah and Stacy love this question because it’s a great follow-up to last week’s episode, where we discussed how we focus on health independent of weight! When life gets crazy and a broad approach to health seems overwhelming, it’s okay to focus on just one thing!
Diet culture has trained us to expect fast results when we make changes to diet and lifestyle. Dr. Sarah and Stacy encourage you to instead think about healthy habits that support lifelong health.
When choosing one thing to work on, you can think of it as a lynchpin (a diet or lifestyle choice that holds everything together, like how getting enough sleep regulates appetite and reduces cravings so it’s easier to maintain healthy eating habits), a domino effect (a diet or lifestyle choice that spills into other things we do in a good way, like how eating breakfast helps us make better choices at our other meals along with improving insulin resistance and regulating the stress response), or can be a single next step in a healing journey (like working on eating more veggies).
Dr. Sarah and Stacy recommend selecting one of five different priorities if you’re fairly new to healthy diet and lifestyle changes: cooking meals at home, eating more veggies (it’s okay to start small and work up!), thinking about meals you already like that fit the bill and making more of your meals look like that, eliminations (important if you’re starting with chronic health problems that could be linked to food compounds such as gluten), and sleep!
Sleep is the single best first step if you’ve ever struggled to make healthy changes in the past. Not only is sleep super important for health, but healthy eating and other lifestyle priorities are all easier when we consistently get enough sleep.
Dr Sarah and Stacy briefly discuss priorities that qualify as levelling up. They encourage you to think about adding rather than subtracting, when it comes to diet. And, Dr. Sarah and Stacy encourage you to work with your doctor to help set priorities for diet and lifestyle.