Join Anthony Hartcher the host of me&my health up who shares his top tips on how he elevates his health. Anthony shares his key takeaways about being aware and educated in holistic health and living a life aligned to his values that brings balance and order to his life. In this episode you will learn how to determine your values and live by them! You will discover that when you start living a life aligned to your values it will elevate your thinking, your health and initiate healing.
me&my Health Up seeks to enhance and enlighten the wellbeing of others. Host Anthony Hartcher is the CEO of me&my wellness which provides holistic health solutions using food is medicine, combined with a holistic, balanced, lifestyle approach. Anthony holds three bachelor's degrees in Complementary Medicine; Nutrition and Dietetic Medicine; and Chemical Engineering.
Podcast Disclaimer Any information, advice, opinions or statements within it do not constitute medical, health care or other professional advice, and are provided for general information purposes only. All care is taken in the preparation of the information in this Podcast. [Connected Wellness Pty Ltd] operating under the brand of “me&my health up”..click here for more
Join Anthony Hartcher the host of me&my health up who shares his top tips on how he elevates his health. Anthony shares his key takeaways about being aware and educated in holistic health and living a life aligned to his values that brings balance and order to his life. In this episode you will learn how to determine your values and live by them! You will discover that when you start living a life aligned to your values it will elevate your thinking, your health and initiate healing.
me&my Health Up seeks to enhance and enlighten the wellbeing of others. Host Anthony Hartcher is the CEO of me&my wellness which provides holistic health solutions using food is medicine, combined with a holistic, balanced, lifestyle approach. Anthony holds three bachelor's degrees in Complementary Medicine; Nutrition and Dietetic Medicine; and Chemical Engineering.
Podcast Disclaimer Any information, advice, opinions or statements within it do not constitute medical, health care or other professional advice, and are provided for general information purposes only. All care is taken in the preparation of the information in this Podcast. [Connected Wellness Pty Ltd] operating under the brand of “me&my health up”..click here for more
Welcome back to another episode of me and my health up. I'm your host, Anthony Hartcher. I'm a clinical nutritionist and lifestyle medicine specialist. The purpose of this podcast is to enhance and enlighten your well being. And today, you have me doing just that for you, we're going to be talking about how to elevate your health. And going to be discussing this topic through what I've learned essentially, I'm through running this podcast show. So I've done over 130 episodes approaching now, close to 150 episodes on this podcast show interviewed a variety of guests across all different fields, whether it be in the mindset space, whether it be in the physical health space with acupuncture, chiropractic, physiotherapy, whether it be in the emotional space, so emotional healing, kinesiology, and also, we've also done episodes with fitness coaches, Exercise Physiologist. So there's been a raft of people and experts that I've interviewed. And I'd like to share what I've taken from those episodes in terms of learnings. And what I'd like you to take away in terms of the approach to health. And this is essentially going to elevate your health. So let me start with the key one is awareness. So I've become aware of a whole lot more therapies that I didn't know existed, for example, art therapy for mental health. So that's one of the episodes art therapy for mental health. I've never heard of it. And so that episode is all about finding about how art and the application of art can really help improve your mental health. And it's not just sitting down and drawing it, it's actually sitting down with someone that has a degree in psychology, around art therapy, and essentially, they use the art therapy to get the expression from you from within you. So that I learned about that it was fantastic. Check that episode out art therapy for mental health. Another one was sound therapy. Again, sound therapy can really heal the body. In many ways. Essentially, what it does, is basically listening to a lot of high frequency sounds. See, in today's society were exposed to a lot of low frequency sounds such as cars, engines, so the engines are classic, anything with a motor, there are low frequency sounds, whereas our body resonates with high frequency sounds, which are things like what nature gives us like birds chirping, waves breaking, or the sounds that you hear for a moment, but then dissipate. Whereas you can hear that motor driving past you and for ages, right, because those low frequency waves, they travel for longer, whereas the high frequency waves are shorter, shorter bursts. And like when you hear a bird chirp, you'll just hear it but yeah, so like a waterfall flowing. So these are all high frequency sounds. And I learned how high frequency sounds can really calm the nervous system. So low frequency sounds, you know, overexposure to low frequency sounds really doesn't resonate well with her body. And some exposure to high frequency sounds can really calm the body and allow that healing to take place. Because as you know, from previous episodes, our healing our restoration or rejuvenation, or occurs when we're in that rest and digest state, that parasympathetic state, I also got exposed to vagus nerve stimulation through this podcast. So that's using a tense machine to stimulate the ear. And that's essentially stimulates the vagus nerve, which then activates that parasympathetic nervous system, which I just mentioned. So that parasympathetic nervous system, rest and digest allows us to bolster our immune system allows us to digest food, well assimilate food, well, allows us to reproduce, essentially. So our reproductive system is reliant on that parasympathetic system being activated. And with today's world, our lifestyles, we live in that very sympathetic dominant, which is that fight flight or freeze, it's always on the go have always very busy. And yeah, so that I guess overstimulation and not the balance with the parasympathetic nervous system creates disorder, essentially disease as a result of that. So vagus nerve stimulation can really help those people that aren't getting much parasympathetic activity because they're so busy. And so things when your sympathetic nervous system is in overdrive, it can result in anxiety, depression, mental health can be Emotions and so stimulating the vagus nerve and particularly digestive conditions as well. So they go hand in hand with anxiety and depression. So digestive discomfort, IBS, those related bloating, irritable bowel syndrome, those sorts of things are supported by stimulating the vagus nerve in terms of allowing the stomach lining to heal itself allowing the immune system to find governance as opposed to being out of control and be able to fight the right things not fight your body like an autoimmune diseases that actually fights the disease. So it enables better recognition of the immune system. So yeah, that vagus nerve stimulation can really help that. So I, I did that episode with Samuel Minkin. And we then we did a subsequent episode, which was on another new field that I got exposed to was light therapy, and light therapy is it can be also, it's also known and associated with laser therapy. And it's essentially using a wavelength in the spectrum that's visible to us. So it's that near infrared, so it's just entering the infrared frequencies. And it's that red, it's the red, it's the red. So it's what you see in the laser hits the red. And that red light really helps with getting the cells to function. Well, it stimulates cellular function. So it really helps with rejuvenating the cells, rejuvenating the tissues, the organs. Yeah, so there's lots of good health benefits associated with laser therapy. It's, there's been research published around helping rain disorders, helping physiology helping the skin. So it's another great episode I did on laser therapy. And yeah, there's so many episodes that I've done, like I learned a whole lot about eating disorders, which I didn't know about, and made me more aware of them, and how to support people that may be struggling with an eating disorder, what creates eating disorders. So the societal influences on eating disorders, such as dieting, and those models that we always exposed to all these stimulations that aren't necessarily real or right for us, and we take them on board, and we follow these diets or whatnot, and it can really create this disordered eating. So I did a great episode with Nina Kingsford Smith on disordered eating, and how to identify what to do about it. Yeah, so I've learned a lot through these episodes. And I'm really going to share in this episode, a summary of what I've taken away from these episodes. I mentioned before, the thing about laser therapy, and, you know, sound therapy, or whether it be vagus nerve stimulation, what I learned from those episodes is it's not necessarily more is better. There's an optimal range. And this comes to the Goldilocks principle. So that's really an important takeaway for me. And it's the same with I've been doing some ice baths and some saunas. And it's not more is better. It's not at all it's really finding out what's optimal for your body and your goals, essentially, because everyone has different health goals. And so these treatments requires like, you know, in the case of Vagus Nerve Stimulation requires a different hertz wavelength. Same with laser, in terms of for specific ailments. And same with sound therapy in terms of different sounds are listened to. So it really is individualized. So that's the key thing I talked about was well understood from these podcasts is that it's really comes down to the individual and your goals. And from that, it's then the Goldilocks principle, so individualization. So realizing that it's not a one size fits all. So if you see this celebrity out there doing this, and you think, Oh, wow, I want that result, it might not work for you. And this is why some people get results from the Paleo diet and some people don't some people get better results from intermittent fasting or time restricted feeding others don't. And bouncing around from diet to diet is not good. It really gets into that disordered eating that I discussed earlier that I had an episode with Nina Kingsford Smith on so constant dieting is not great. It is really finding out what works for you, for you. So certain foods will resonate or digest better for you. And again, that depends on our gut flora. And that also isn't dependent on our ancestry or nature. So where did our ancestors reside? What sort of foods were they eating? So I often have a lot of good results in clinic by just getting the client to get back to the grass roots eating of like, just say they'll from South America from Brazil, get back to that Brazilian way of eating those sorts of foods because They have the gut flora that can break down those foods that enables them to digest them well and have maximum assimilation of the nutrients. Whereas if they're eating Western foods that they don't have the gut flora for, that's when you're going to have digestive issues, then that's going to affect your fatigue your overall health. So it's really important that people recognize that they're completely unique and different, they have a different genome to that influencer, they have a different background. And they have different goals. Ultimately, you might not want the goal that that celebrities obtained from it, they may just look good. But again, this gets back to another key point of what I wanted to cover today is holistic health, it's probably just one aspect that they're doing in a range of other areas of health, that they've got happening in their life, they don't just get that result from just doing keto, or, you know, they're doing other things such as exercise, sleeping well, doing recovery properly. So again, that's another key point. So I've mentioned this go back, awareness. So just getting aware, and educating yourself on what's available. And working out whether that's aligned to your health goals as an individual, and then adopting holistic health practices. So that's three key things, awareness and education, then realizing that you're completely unique and different. And aligning, make sure the things that you do align to what you want to achieve, make sure there's evidence backing behind what you want to embark on that it works, and then work out what works for you, again, get back to that Goldilocks principle that I just mentioned, which was, it's not more, it's better, it's essentially, it's not too much, not too little. Just right. And that's ideal for you. That's what works for you. And from a personal experience, I was doing cold bath. And I thought, you know, mentally there's a mental challenge with it, how long can I stay in the cold bath. And I was, you know, I was doing quite well. And what I found was, it was as much as it was helping my digestive health, I had problems with tight muscles as a result of doing excessive time in cold water. So I had my muscles were tightening up, which you know, resulted in neck stiffness, back soreness, and tightness, and I lost my flexibility, my mobility as a result of doing excessive time in the coal bars. And then it's the same with the sauna that I was doing, like, Yeah, let's go the hottest sauna, let's do it for a long as possible, it doesn't necessarily give you the outcome you want, you may end up just dehydrated and feeling tired and rundown as a result of pushing the extremes. And I'm going to get to because this ties well into the Goldilocks principles, but also gets into another key learning that I've done in the podcast in which I'm gonna get to shortly. So that's around longevity. So a lot of these goals are short term. So when we you know want to lose weight, it's a it's a short term goal. But what is our ultimate goal with our health, we need to set longer goals around our health, because that will help dictate what we should be doing in the now in order to achieve those longer term health goals. For example, a lot of people that want to lose weight and increase muscle mass will have really high protein diets. That's all right short term, but it's not good long term, it actually won't help with longevity. So because essentially putting a big load on the kidneys to process and it results in poor kidney health, and it could result in kidney stones. And our kidney is associated with longevity, we need our kidneys, it takes out the toxins, it filters the blood. And so without good kidney function, we don't have good health by putting excessive load by eating excessive amounts of protein is again out of balance. And I'm going to get to this out of balance point shortly. Because it was probably the most profound thing that I've come across in my two years of podcasting was this whole work of Dr. John Demartini, which I'll touch on shortly. So you got to realize that what you might be doing short term could have long term consequences like excessive weight lifting, for example, it puts a massive load on our skeletal system on our joints. And that's not going to help you long term it might help you with a short term goal. But if you're thinking about long term health, you need to weigh up the whole you need to look at the bigger vision because that short is that short term goal worth having to get knee reconstruction or replacement or hip replacements here so it can really cause and again, it puts a lot of load on our back and And as you probably aware through my episodes with chiropractors, our good aligned back is really essential for good nervous functions. And the nervous function is the communication between the brain and our body. We don't have good communication, that's when we start to see disorder and disease. So you know, lifting excessive weight and going overboard on that is not going to support you long term. Yes, it might help with a short term goal, but you got to weigh it up in the bigger scheme of things, and have long term health goals, as well as your short term ones and realize that another thing I realized was I did a lot of endurance racing, so a lot of marathon running and, you know, Ironman, and whatnot, so a lot of distance. And I realized this, when I went and saw the heart specialist was that that was having a big effect on my body that endurance racing. So over exercising, doing anything too extreme, sends the body out of balance, and causes disease. So you might think it's healthy being an Ironman, that in actual fact, you've gone to the extreme, and you will have consequences as a result of pushing your body to an extreme and not maintaining that well balanced, state of well being. So I'm gonna now get on to where I was going with this was interviewed Dr. John Demartini. And we had a great interview, and we talked about how to create a healthy mindset. But what was most profound was when I started studying his work in the lead up to the interview, was I started to realize why I was so into my health. And it stems from my earlier childhood, which I was unhealthy and really had health troubles and challenges. And that void in my life created a massive desire for me to fill that void. And hence, it became a high value for me was around health. So my illness has actually served me to now serving you to be healthier, and how to elevate your health, is I probably wouldn't be doing this today, if it wasn't for my childhood illness. So Dr. John Demartini, says, our values will come out of our biggest voids, essentially. So if you're not happy with your relationships, then you'll have a strong desire to improve your relationships. If you aren't, you know, if you're not satisfied with your health or have ill health, then you'll have a desire to improve your health. Same with money, if you have no money, and it's something that desire, you know, desirable for you, then that will become a very important value for you. And so our values will ultimately determine our what we do, and who we spend our time with, and where we spend our money. So it really dictates your life, if you live it aligned to your values. And what I learned was when we're aligned with our values as to what's important to us, and actually living a life aligned to our values, then that's when we have complete order, we have complete alignment, we have complete balance, it's when we're living outside of our values and living by someone else's values by our parents values. And again, this gets back to the individualization point I raised before was that every individual has a complete, unique set of values. So we probably share a health value you listening to this podcast, wanting to be healthier, we have that in common we have a Shared Health value. But the degree of I guess what we want to achieve around our healthiness is probably going to vary. So the I guess that really defined goal will be a bit different, but we have an overall goal to be healthier. But how healthier Do you want to be? How much do you want to invest in it will really depend on how much you value health. So we have other people are, you know, wanting relationships, and really strong relationships, or it's important that they have a significance in the community, or they want to create wealth to do great things in society. So everyone will have a unique set of values. And if you're living by those values, and set your goals based on those values, then you're living a fulfilled life. And that's when your nervous system will be balanced. That's when your diseases will dissipate, essentially, because your body will come into balance and be able to heal itself. And I've found that over the last course of six or so years since I've followed what I'm really inspired to do and that's to enhance and enlighten the well being of others. So since I embarked on that mission, I've been so much more fulfilled and my health has been so much better, more energy, more vitality, better emotional regulation. So It's really worked. And I essentially have aligned it to my top three highest values, which is my family, my health and your health and my top three highest values. And so doing this today is inspiring me. I just got out of surgery yesterday. And I was feeling a bit pain and discomfort and whatnot, that I've started this podcast. And it's gone away, because I'm doing something that's inspiring me. And it's actually helping me recover from surgery. And yes, I had hernia surgery, which is another whole story in itself. But I won't, I won't go into that. But I, I just wanted to share that really profound point around your voids will create your values, and your values will create an inspired life, free of disease and full of wellness. And that was really profound. So I suggest you do the value determinants. So you go to Dr. Demartini website, drdemartini.com, he's got this value determinants, which essentially, you go through, answer a whole lot of questions, and it'll spit out a rating of what's important to you, and the degree at which is important. So really worthwhile exercises for free. And you'll see, then by doing that, whether you're actually doing more of that and living aligned to those values, or you're living by someone else's values, and that's futile, living by someone else's values, that's going to create disease and illness, because it's not who you are, when you're living by your highest values your authentic has so and being authentic, really enables us to have good health and great wellness. So that was really what I really wanted to summarize today around the, I guess, that awareness piece. So becoming more aware of Holistic Health, and looking for alternatives that might better suit you as an individual, which was my other key point, which is that you are completely unique, you have a complete, unique gut flora, you have completely unique values, you have completely unique goals, and said, not necessarily following the tabloids or the influencers, but finding out what resonates with you. And that could be starting with the value determinants questionnaire that I just mentioned, which I'll include in the show notes of this episode. And then really aligning your goals to those values. And then what you'll find, as you go through this awareness, education of Holistic Health, living a life align with values, you will realize that's bringing balance and order to your life enables you to think, and have a longer term vision and plan around that vision. And that's when you feel inspired because you're moving towards something that you ultimately want, as opposed to living by someone else's desires and what they want. So that is a real key takeaway. And remember, this whole longevity principle, if you look at the Blue Zones, one of the key elements so in my interview with Dr. Christoph, who's studied the Blue Zones, he's actually visited the blue zone, people in Greece, he found that the top three things that are most important, the reason why they have good longevity, is they live with purpose, okay? So they're living by their values. They're living authentically. So that was the number one thing they live with purpose, they move. So they're moving their body, they're not sanitary, they're working. They're moving, moving around very active in their day. And thirdly, was that relationships, relationships. So as you can see, and those top three things that really drive longevity nutritions, not even in the top three that I can guarantee, through my own experience, is when you're living a life aligned to your values and living authentically, you will automatically make better eating decisions. Because when we are living an inspired life, we're in our prefrontal cortex, we're out of our amygdala, which is our fight or flight. Remember, I mentioned that fight or flight center or you know how we typically live our lives in that fight or flight center. So that's the limbic system, which is where the emotions come from. And again, in that amygdala is polarization essentially, it's pain. So you seek to avoid pain, or you seek to gain pleasure. And that will dictate your if you're living in your amygdala, it dictates what you eat. Because if you're not living inspired, you're in your amygdala. So you're living by someone else's values. Then what will happen is you'll seek pleasure through food and you'll go to foods that are pleasurable such as foods that are high in fat foods that are high end Sugar, and high and salt. They're the three things that really drive us in terms of our primitive wiring. So we, we want calories, because calories means survival. So when we're seeking pleasure that's like seeking prey. And if we're not living in a lion life, we're constantly seeking more property, more pleasure, this way, addictions will form. And we're ultimately trying to avoid pain. So we're trying to run away from people we resent in our amygdala, we're trying to run away from threats, which is what our survival system set up. But typically, we're not running away from threats to our lives, our biggest threat we perceive is other people, and the fear of essentially gaining something we don't want in our lives. So yeah, I learned this work through Dr. John Demartini. And yeah, thoroughly recommend you read his book on values, the values factor, really good book. And that will really help making sure that you understand your values, and then live your life accordingly. That means you're living on purpose, you're living an inspired life, you'll make better eating decisions as a result of that, because you're not trying to avoid pain and seek pleasure. And that allow that to run your life, you're essentially living an inspired life. And you're driven by your higher vision, your higher self, and you're being authentic, so you develop more stronger, more meaningful relationships through being authentic because people see the true you, and you're not wearing a persona or mask. So that's pretty much it for this episode. I've really enjoyed this journey with you, I've learned a lot, I'm sure you're learning a lot. If you've got any other areas of health you'd like me to dig into, please let me know because this is a holistic health podcast. And coming soon, which I should have up and running by the time this episode is available. So I'll include the link is my me and my health up club. And so the Health Up club is essentially a community that we're all inspired by health and improving our health. And what we're going to do is look at different aspects of health and well being. So obviously, this is going to be led by me, I'm going to be doing it, you're going to be doing it we're going to support one another as a community, and take on improvements. And this is why this episode is called elevate your health. So I'm elevating my health through doing these interviews, we're doing this podcast, I'm sharing it with you. And I want you to join me on this journey of elevating our health together so that we become a healthier society. And we can live a more fulfilled life. So look out for the link in the show notes to the me and my health up club. And it's just a small monthly fee of $5. And that's just obviously to keep me inspiring others otherwise, if I don't have an income, then that's problematic for me to then support my family, which is one of my highest values. So just for one coffee a month sacrifice, you'll get a access to a whole club community and support. And we're going to be holding one another accountable supporting one another and be doing tweaks when so we're not going to be doing massive polarized changes such as, you know, 10 minutes in an ice bath and doing extremes, we're actually going to be doing more moderate improvements that are sustainable. So it's more that sustainable, lasting health, that's going to give you more energy to do what you are inspired to do, and ultimately live a longer, healthier and happier life. So that's it for me today. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of me and my health up. Please share it with others you could think could benefit from the episode like I tell you all the time. It's really important. I'd love to get the word out there to as many people as possible and get them as part of this community that I'm building the me and my health up club. It's all about elevating our health and doing it together as a community and creating a healthier society. As I said, my mission is to enhance and enlighten the well being of others. And you're part of that journey. I'd love you to continue to be part of that journey. And let's create a greater community by sharing this episode getting more people on board getting more people inspired or those that are inspired by their health. So if people don't value health, they won't be doing it. But those of value health then this is a really good way to lift your health, elevate your health and go to another level. So thanks for tuning in to another insightful episode of me and my health up.
