The Key to Lifelong Wellness and Foundational Health with Wren V. McCallister, MD, Pt. 1
In this captivating episode, orthopedic hand surgeon Wren V. McCallister, MD, joins hosts Doro and Tricia to delve deep into the foundations of health, sharing his expertise on nutrition, exercise, and stress management. Discover actionable tips and evidence-based insights that will empower you on your journey to better health.
Whether you're a seasoned health enthusiast or just embarking on your wellness adventure, this episode provides invaluable guidance for achieving and maintaining a lifetime of vitality and well-being. Stay tuned for part two, where the conversation continues to explore the essential elements of foundational health.
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Website: http://DrWren.io
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drwren.hand/
Quotes:
If you fix your foundational health, many conditions clear up. If you change what you eat, how you sleep, and manage stress, many issues seem to solve themselves. - Wren V. McCallister, MD
I realized there’s a way I can help people far better than anything I do in the operating room. It’s preventing them from coming back. - Wren V. McCallister, MD
If you can get yourself to consistently execute behaviors over the long term, then you can achieve just about anything you want to do. - Wren V. McCallister, MD
Show Notes:
DR. WREN MCCALLISTER: Well, think is primarily stress management. But it also incorporates mindset which was kind of they're kind of interrelated. But your ability to manage stress. Stress. There's a great blank on his name. Richard Seyles, Stress of Life is a book from the 50s. But they do these fascinating experiments. Apologize if you're not in animal experiments and things, but basically, you could kill an animal with stress only. Like you could, not an animal. It'll live for three four weeks a month, but if you induce stress, you will literally kill them. And so he would do these experiments. And literally just by inducing stress, produce physiologic change. And we're no different. You know, the human animal is no different in that context. So. If you are stressed out, you know, if you're tired, if you're not sleeping, you know you don't manage your emotions well. You end up with more interpersonal interactions, which compounds stress. You make poor food decisions when you're tired. There's a whole physiologic process that goes on with your brain basically craving glucose. And you cannot overcome your will, cannot fight the desire to give your brain glucose if it needs it, like it's just an inborn drive. Stress will drive many of the choices that you make that affect your movement and your food primarily.
DR. WREN MCCALLISTER: So foundationally, if you start with sleep. Sleep sets you up for success on all levels. It sets you up. It also sets you up emotionally and in terms of your mindset. So then your mindset, your ability to manage stress is kind of the second step. And then that if you get adequate sleep and you're managing stress, your mindset is strong. The eating and the movement almost just happen, so to speak, like it's a cascading effect. Or you think of a pyramid. The foundational steps. If you try to manage your stress but you don't sleep well, you won't be successful, you're going to be irritable, and then that's going to compound and add more stress. You're going to make poor food choices. You're not going to work out because you know what? Crap. I feel like crap today. I'm not going to work out because so-and-so did this or whatever. That's the reason mindsets included, because the puzzle is incomplete without that piece. And then stress also physiologically drives many of the elements we have. I'll see people in the office, and if you start to listen to them, we have this concept in hand surgery. It's called an arm ache. It's like a headache but it's pain in your limb.
DR. WREN MCCALLISTER: That's a non physiologic. In other words most of what I do in hand surgery is applied anatomy. Something is wrong mechanically identify and fix it. But there's a subset of people that come in and there's nothing wrong. Like physiologically I can't find anything wrong. There's no tendonitis. You know there's no nerve issue, there's no fracture, there's nothing mechanically wrong. But yet their arm hurts. And if you start to drill into this, it turns out it's this concept of army. And it gets to basically psychological factors. And it comes down to basically coping skills, low coping skills, and your ability to have this concept called self efficacy. And so self efficacy is your belief in your ability to basically overcome. So the flip side of the people I see in clinic are the people I don't see in clinic. And so who I don't see in clinic are people with high coping skills, high self efficacy, people that have, you know, foundational health. Yes, you may trip and fall and we have a joke. You can't legislate stupidity. You're still going to cut yourself with the knife when you're cutting the bag or the avocado. But by and large, there's almost a certain type of individual I don't see in clinic, so if that makes sense.
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