Hi friends, welcome back to Health Bite, the podcast where we explore the intersection of science, nutrition, health, and well-being. As you know, I define nutrition broadly to include not only the food that you eat, but all the ways in which we can nourish ourselves physically, mentally, and emotionally. I'm your host, Dr. Adrienne Youdim. I'm a triple board certified internist, obesity medicine and physician nutrition specialist. And I just love sharing the science of living well. So thank you for being here on this journey with me. So last week, I was at an assembly at my daughter's school, just a few days after I had returned from Rancho La Puerta, a place that I call heaven on earth, where I gave a series of wellness talks. And you would think the zen vibes of the place would have lingered, but no. Here I was racing out of school in order to make a dentist appointment for the tooth I had broken from excessive grinding. Yes, I have a night guard and no, I don't wear it. Although now I will. I had scheduled another appointment right after to get new faucets for my kitchen that have been broken for a year but have now gone so bad that literally it is dangling at a 45 degree angle and about to fall completely off. followed thereafter by a Zoom call for a speaking event I'm doing in a few months. Basically, I had scheduled my day back to back to back. So here I am racing off to my next appointment when my foot hits the slightest little elevation in the pavement and I go lying. No, I didn't just trip and fall. I literally flew down the street onto my face. Imagine those makeshift water slides we used to hook up to a water hose in our backyards, except there was no slide. Face planted, I looked up to make sure I'm still alive, and I see parents from the school running towards me to help and see if I'm okay. I was okay. I was shockingly very okay with only a slight abrasion and bruise on my knee and a cracked phone case. How I could have withstood that massive fall with only a scrape, I have no clue. Other than to say that the universe was saying, slow the flip down or next time you'll need a rhinoplasty. Now, I know what you're thinking. How could this woman, who is always preaching presence and mindfulness, fly down a street because her feet couldn't catch up with her pace? And BTW, how is she so stressed that she's breaking her teeth while she's grinding at night? And oh, by the way, why isn't she using her night guard? I know. All I can say is that I am not immune. I rush, I overcommit, I overextend, and I battle my own ingrained tendencies every single day. I am a human and I too need to be reminded. And perhaps in this season of graduations and end of school activities, summer planning, amongst all the usual madness, you need to be reminded too. Have you ever heard the expression, slow down in order to speed up? There is so much truth to that saying. Sometimes we are trying so hard to do all the things at once. multitasking, and as I like to say, operating with so many tabs open that we are in fact getting in our own way, tripping over our own feet, making ourselves ineffective, unproductive, and even unsafe. Not to mention all the flowers we miss along the way because we lack the presence to notice. I know that we fear slowing down. There is so much to do, but all the evidence shows that we benefit in a multitude of ways when we do. First, to the professionals out there, there is ample evidence that slowing down improves productivity. One reason is that when we try and do too much at the same time, we just distract ourselves. We are plagued by distraction. Research shows that we lose an average of two plus hours per day as a result of distractions. The average time that's spent on a task these days before we get distracted is, can you guess? It's 11 minutes. And then it takes an average of 23 minutes to regain focus after a distraction. When we switch between tasks, we activate different parts of our brain. And this requires us to rev up in certain places and rev down in others. So even simple tasks like answering a question or answering a message or an email takes you off track. Not to mention that when your phone is involved, it opens a whole other can of worms because now you're in your phone. And need I say more other than time sink? And so what about mistakes? There is endless data demonstrating the harm of living too fast. Take doctors, for example. A Mayo Clinic survey of almost 6,700 doctors in the U.S. found that 10.5% reported making a major medical error in the past three months. These errors included things like writing incorrect prescriptions, anesthesia errors, poor or ineffective patient communication, and even more egregious errors like operating on the wrong limb, and even ones that sadly are life-threatening. Many, if not most, of these errors could be averted if we slowed down. gaining greater focus and attention to detail and to our work. What do we lose when we make a mistake? What do you lose? And what about all that we miss when we are moving too fast? I know it's cliche to say stop and smell the roses, but seriously, stop and smell the roses. Seemingly trivial things like roses, like savoring your morning coffee, like a meaningful chat with a colleague in the break room or a friend, a fully present hug with your child or partner. It takes 20 seconds, by the way, to get the full effect of a hug. The beauty of the spring season, the weather, the bird songs, the blooming flowers, What about all the things you've worked so hard to have, like your home, or your little potted garden, or your big screen TV, or your other possessions? Presumably, you bought them to enjoy them. But do you really enjoy them? Or what about the money that you have worked hard to make that could afford you some time away if you took that time? More on that later. But really, why the hell are you working so hard? Why and what are you working so hard for if you're not taking the time to enjoy the things that you're working for? And for those of you who are looking for the really momentous things to give you joy and make you happy, like when you're going to get the promotion or launch the business or get X, Y, and Z, Studies show that we actually achieve more joy from the little things than we do from achieving those big things that we think will bring us joy and happiness. So what if I was not just talking about slowing down, but of actually taking a pause? Like perhaps taking a vacation, for example. As summer is coming, many of you are thinking about their summer vacations, but many of you are not. A Washington Post article earlier this year cited that we were three times more likely to be on a vacation in July of 1980 than in July of 2023. Vacations have gone down by nearly two-thirds. According to a safety and health survey published in April 2023, 39% of U.S. workers didn't take a vacation. And a Pew Research Center survey in August of 2023 found that 46% of US workers who received paid time off don't take it. And finally, a bank rate survey this year, that's in 2024, showed that 53% of Americans planned to skip out on their vacation. And I get it. People have good reason to. Things like a heavy workload, or fear, or being conditioned to think that not working makes you lazy, or being taught that working more leads to more benefits in the long run. All those things. But that is the wrong mindset. And it's just wrong period. As what was written in an article by Inc. titled, quote, when highly successful entrepreneurs go on vacation, they said, we all need vacations to manage our energy. When you keep trucking on, you become less efficient and less effective. You have a harder time focusing. It takes longer to get things done. And the quality of your work isn't as good as it could be. So you're just not as good, period. It is known to be true that taking time away from your work is associated with greater productivity, creativity, focus, cognition, function, and serves as an antidote to burnout. Basically, time away from work is good for your work. But there's more than that. For a minute, though, I want to also talk about those who don't work. Those who don't work out of the house, that is, because everyone is working all the time. Whether you're caretaking or have young children, whether you're caretaking or have young children or running errands for family members or are known to be the quote, family member that doesn't work, and therefore you get stuck doing all the things that nobody else can and will do, you are working. And you, too, need to take time off to rest, to recoup, and to rejuvenate, because burnout is not reserved for the boardroom. We all can burn out from anything, from any type of work and from our lives if we don't take the time to give back. So yes, taking time away is good for your work, whatever it is, but it's also associated with so many other benefits. Time off is associated with reduced stress, improvements in psychological health, improvements in physical health, including cardiovascular risk reduction, better sleep, better mood, stronger and more connected relationships. In short, time off is good for your entire life, mind, body, and soul. So two years ago, in June of 2022, I decided to take a sabbatical. It was a radical idea for someone who did summer school practically every summer of my life, who went back to work weeks after having my first child, and who basically equated vacation with laziness and weakness, as well as having all the fears that I cited above. But I realized something. We are both terribly important and also insignificant at the same time. Don't get me wrong. You are all important. But in the big picture, we are just one life in the sea of many. And while who we are and what we do is important, life will continue without us. But for us, we are important. For ourselves, there is only one us, and this is our only one and only life. Our time here is precious, valuable, and limited. And so I'm doing it again. I'm taking some time off and taking some time away. I'm taking time away from my practice and I'm also going to take some time away from this podcast. This is not because I don't absolutely love what I do, because I genuinely love what I do. But it is to say, I wish to do it with the energy and the creativity to continue to do the things that I genuinely love. and to do them with love, passion, and vitality. So my friends, this will be the last podcast before I take a four-week hiatus. I've planned a vacation with my family. I think I shared that I planned a two-week trip by plugging in the location of my Peloton Scenic Rides into ChatGPT and voila! In seconds, I had an itinerary. It's wild, right? Seriously, you should try it because you will be amazed. So I'm going on that vacation. And then I'll be going on a unity mission to Israel with 10 females in healthcare from across the country for what I'm sure will be spiritual, emotional, and deeply meaningful. In the meantime, I'll be replaying some of Health Bite's greatest hits, the most listened to, and the most impactful episodes. I will also continue sending out my weekly newsletter. So if you're not getting them yet, you can head over to www.doctoradrianudim.com backslash newsletter. We'll also link it in the show notes so that you can access it there. I hope to update you in this newsletter with what I will be experiencing and learning in the next month, with the hope that it will inspire you to do the same. Before we close, I want to remind you that we always make time for what we value. And when we value ourselves, we will make time to do the things that serve us, mind, body, and soul. If you're already vacationing this summer, I wish you safe travels. And if you were not planning on it, I hope this podcast gave you a change of heart. Take time to slow down, to rest, and to rejuvenate. You are worthy of that time, of the rest, and of the self-care. And I look forward to sitting here with you again next month. Until then, take good care.
