Reimagining Wellness Beyond Appearance: Dr. Sean Altman on Wellness Reimagined

0:00Welcome to Wellness Remazin, I am your host, Avikan. This is where we state away from the noise into the real conversations about what it means to live well in a world that is constantly telling us we are not doing enough. Today I am joined by Sean Altman. So welcome to the show. Thank you, thank you so much for having me. Thank you, thank you Sean for being here. And the listeners like before we get into the discussion, I will just tell you, we are diving into the heart of what wellness can become when we are willing to see it differently. I will not take much of a time, let's just start it. So Sean, when people hear the word wellness today, what do you think is the biggest

1:00miss on in that day again? How does that misunderstanding shape the way they approach their own health? I think the biggest misconception with wellness is based on physical appearance. I think that a lot of people confuse the beauty and muscle, muscular figure and looking good or looking well with feeling well or being healthy. There are a myriad of examples in social media where there are people who look physically fit, look healthy, look attractive or handsome and underneath, they have health issues. They have an eating disorder with men, a lot of these male figures especially ones who

2:02are very muscular are taking steroids or high levels of testosterone. So it is much more beneath the surface that really defines what wellness is. It is not necessarily just what someone looks like. There is an example I was talking to someone about yesterday, a popular celebrity actor, a lot of people know of his Joe Mangioan who he is very much known for his physique and been on the cover of GQ and a lot of magazines and not a lot of people are aware of the fact that he has had a lot of health issues. He had this rare autoimmune disease where he was in tremendous pain, struggling, multiple surgeries and they ultimately had to take part of one of his organs out in order for him to survive. So I just think that brings to light the fact that just because someone looks healthy and

3:06looks well doesn't mean that they have wellness inside of them. There is a lot more to it. And if that is the misconception then what would you say wellness actually is like when we distribute all those external expectations? I think wellness is really defined by physical wellness so that is physical health in terms of your cardiovascular health, your physical strength, just how your body works, joy health and then mental wellness, having the appropriate mental fortitude and resilience to deal with the everyday struggles that we encounter on a daily basis, be it family

4:07life, work struggles or just personal turmoil that you might experience over time. And I think if you don't have a healthy mind and body then something has to give. There are always those examples of people who have a healthy body but not a healthy mind where they internalize a lot of their conflict and struggles and that leads to health concerns over time. We're vice versa. There are people who are healthy in terms of their mind and their mindset but they're not necessarily taking care of their bodies and then there are other things that can come from that. Exactly. I'm a bad relationship because I mean shifts the foundation. I mean we spend so much of time measuring ourselves against the standards that were never designed for our actual life.

5:09It makes me wonder like how many people are exhausted not from the work of illness but from trying to fit into someone else's definition of it. So what do you see as the deeper patterns or the root causes that people stuck in those seconds of starting and stopping or feeling like they're never getting it right when it comes to their well-being? I think a lot of times it comes down to their motivation to be healthy and to have wellness. An easy thing to think about would be like say weight loss. Is someone trying to lose weight to look good to say fit a societal norm or are they trying to lose weight and get healthier and more physically fit because they want to go back to playing

6:10tennis or going for walks with their dog or something like that. And when we talk about that that really comes down to what we call internal versus external motivation factors. So external motivation factor would be you're trying to do it to conform to a societal norm, to project wellness, to look good because you care more about what others think of you. We're internal motivation as you're doing it for your own reasons. You're doing it for a purpose of something that you're trying to achieve or something that you're trying to get back to. And we know in terms of behavioral psychology is if there's internally motivated behaviors, they're much more likely to be durable, they're much likely to last. And those are the people you see that are able to lose weight and keep the weight off. They're able to adapt healthier eating nutritional schedule and stay on that diet. They're able to improve their work life balance and maintain that.

7:17It has to come from within you, not from something that you read or someone telling you that is needed. Okay. So what when you notice those patterns in your own work or life, what do you recognize them before they take over? I think I try to draw those connections myself just with my own knowledge of how powerful it can be to create a motivation behind these behaviors. And that's how I try to shape my own behaviors. As well as those of my peers and of my patients, I try to look for those motivational factors, try to draw connections between healthier lifestyle and wellness and ultimate goals and

8:17ultimate benefits that are relational and that are important to the person, which is why often as part of just my first evaluation with patients, I'm not just asking where their pain is located or what they're struggling with physically. I'm also asking, what are you trying to get back to? What are your goals? What are you trying to accomplish? This way we can get a look inside the person and see what they're really trying to achieve and then make Taylor a protopol and a wellness program that's based on what they are looking for. So if you talk about our daily life, how does this show up for most of the people like whatever is smaller or almost invisible ways that our relationship with wellness affects

9:18how we move throughout days? I think it's all the little habits, good or bad that really shape our wellness journey. It's as simple as the types of foods and diet that we eat, the quality of sleep we have, what time we go to sleep, is it consistent or is there inconsistencies or are we getting enough rest? Then how do we choose to spend our leisure time? Are we spending a lot of time in a sedentary lifestyle watching television or are we living a more active lifestyle, exercising, being more active? I think that it all starts with patterning and working on fostering good patterns, good

10:20behaviors and pathways. It only takes a little bit to change things for the better. A lot of people had probably experienced the benefit of exercising and going to the gym more frequently. To get to that point, it started with one visit to the gym. Then it was a few visits to the gym in a week and then it became a pattern. It became something that you do more consistently. That's how a lot of these wellness trends and behaviors can take form is just little changes you see through. It's also very much about longevity in the sense of doing it for a long period of time, not just eating healthy and maintaining a healthy diet to lose weight and then falling off the

11:22wagon and going back to your prior lifestyle. It's about maintaining these behaviors and these things for extended periods of time. It really has to be ingrained. I think to a certain extent, gradual changes rather than more aggressive ones because the more gradual ones, they're likely to be easier for you to maintain and to stay on. Those moments are, I would say, every way. Once we start being attention to, it's not always kind of dramatic. Sometimes it is just the spirit of second. We decide whether to honor what we need or override it. If someone is listening and recognizing themselves in this conversation, then what is the one practical approach, I would say, you would recommend that they start something that doesn't

12:25require them to overhaul their entire life tomorrow. I think in terms of wellness, what I typically tell people is the two most influential things in terms of our wellness are exercise and sleep. If you can start to create a change in either one of those two things, leaning toward a more positive relationship with those areas, that can make a profound effect on your overall health and wellness. I mentioned earlier just the difference between going to the gym one, several times, and then sleep is equally if not more important. If you're getting better quality sleep, more restorative sleep, more hours of sleep, the body is able to rest, to recharge, to fight off illness, infection, injury more effectively. That not only helps you feel better in the moment, it also helps you to slow down the

13:31aging process, because it mitigates things like the oxidative stress and other things that are associated with aging, but having the ability for the body to recycle and recharge each night. What helps, what helps someone stay with that practice when it starts to feel like just another thing on the list? I think two things, number one, and this is really the reason I'm on social media and trying to put out content like this is education. I think that someone who's informed and understands the actual benefits behind the activities and behaviors they're doing is more likely to stay with them because they can appreciate and can comprehend the benefit of what they're doing.

14:34I would say number two is the identification that those behaviors and those changes are leading to benefit in the more immediate sense. You realize that working out and exercising if you are starting to feel stronger, you are starting to be able to do more activities that you love, you're not feeling as fatigued at the end of the day, and you're able to draw that connection that okay, bad helped with this feeling that I'm getting. Then that serves to fuel that internal motivation because now you've connected a behavior with a positive reward. This is, again, behavior psychology, where if you realize that that trend has led to an improvement that's tangible, now that helps you to have more buy-in and more of a reason to continue doing it. It all comes from within.

15:36It's very different from someone having a healthy diet so that their cholesterol numbers go down and their doctor is not as concerned about their cholesterol versus someone who has a healthier diet and realizes, wow, my joints don't hurt as much. Now I can play basketball for the whole game before my knee is hurt and before it was hurting almost immediately, very big difference in terms of consistency and buy-in between those two scenarios. I think it's important for us to track and to realize the benefits that you can get from these things and to mentally connect the two so that this way it'll create that continued internal motivation going forward.

16:40If you talk about the sidebacks part because they are inevitable, how do you help people think about the moments when they fall off rack or when oil patterns beat them and how can they sustain change over time without burning out or giving up? What do you say? So I think that's where having a good team behind you is helpful. There's health coaches, nutritionists, etc. They can really help people to stay on track. But certainly this happens to everyone. We all have setbacks. Physical setback, like an injury can prevent you from exercising for a very good time. It's really your care team that helps you to get over that setback and back on track. I think, aside from the individual behaviors and things that you may be doing to promote

17:44these healthier wellness patterns, it's also really important and really helpful to surround yourself with the right supporting cast. The right people around you to help you stay on track and help you foster or manage any setbacks that come into play. I think often of professional athletes, how they have a team of athletic trainers, nutritionists, massage therapists, physical therapists, they have people that are really working on keeping them healthy and keeping them performing the things that they love. If they get injured or something happens, it's not just that one person, it's their team behind them that's getting them back on track and helping them to navigate that setback and to get back out on the field or the corridor, whatever surface that they are on. If you have to give one advice to the listeners, what that would be?

18:47I think it would be to start taking ownership of your own health, to try to look for ways to pick one thing to change for the better and then to surround yourself with some people who are knowledgeable in those fields that help you guide you along the way and help you. If you do have difficulties or strive for things that may make it challenging for you to stay on track or to get back on track. And if they want to connect with you, how big is it? My website is www.doctorshonaltman.com, drscanltman.com. My Instagram is at www.doctorshonaltman.com. You can find me also on Facebook under www.shonaltman.com and on LinkedIn at www.doctorshonaltman.com.

19:47If you have any questions or just curiosity about health, wellness, chronic pain, any of these things, I'm always happy to chat with people and to spread information. My goal is to be an educator, to be a force of empowerment for people. I think that when people are more aware of how their health works, how the body works, it's a lot easier for them to take control of their own care of their own health. And ultimately, when we feel more empowered, when we feel like we have a say and we have an ability to have an effect positively on our health, we're more likely to stay involved in that area. So, the lessons that I do is I put all the links, because everything in the Dishonors difference. And I'd say like, wellness is not something that we achieve or check off.

20:51It is something that we kind of re-imagined over and over. And as we move, change and learn what we actually need. So that is something, I'd say. So thank you so much for sharing your perspectives. And if for the listeners, thank you so much for listening right now, or maybe you'll be listening later as well. I hope that you work away with the permission to define the wellness on your own terms to let go of what doesn't serve you. And at the same time, because that the path forward doesn't have to look like anyone else's. So, this is wellness remission and this is awake. So take what residents believe what does not. And keep asking the questions that matters to you.