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127. Finding My Root Purposes in Life- with Dr.Joseph D. Pianka
84 Plays3 years ago
Joseph D. Pianka, MD, has been a board-certified practicing gastroenterologist in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, for over twenty years. In the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, he faced physician burnout and depression, so he sat at his computer and typed until the sun came out (literally and metaphorically). His book, It's All in Your Head, compiles insight gained from his experiences as well as prior acquired knowledge for everyone who simply isn't motivated by traditional fitness ads.
https://prbythebook.com/experts/joseoh-d-pianka-m-d/
https://www.instagram.com/author_josephpianka
TT: @joe_piankamd_author
Contact Kendra Rinaldi to be a guest or for coaching:
https://www.griefgratitudeandthegrayinbetween.com
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Transcript
Reflecting on Challenges and Finding Purpose
00:00:00
Speaker
Wait a minute. I've had these down moments before, not to this degree. How did I manage them then? Because here I am now. And it was all about finding my root purposes in life and what I enjoy the most and why I chose the directions I did and how those allowed me to progress and build.
Introduction to 'Grief, Gratitude, and the Gray in Between'
00:00:31
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Grief, Gratitude, and the Gray in Between podcast. This podcast is about exploring the grief that occurs at different times in our lives in which we have had major changes and transitions that literally shake us to the core and make us experience grief.
00:00:55
Speaker
I created this podcast for people to feel a little less hopeless and alone in their own grief process as they hear the stories of others who have had similar journeys. I'm Kendra Rinaldi, your host. Now let's dive right in to today's episode.
Introducing Dr. Joseph D. Pianka
00:01:16
Speaker
Today on the podcast we have Dr. Joseph D. Pianka.
00:01:21
Speaker
He is a board certified practicing gastroenterologist, GI, in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. And he's been doing that for over 20 years. And now he can add to that an author to the list of things that he does. So welcome, Dr. Pianka.
00:01:42
Speaker
Thanks, Kendra. Thank you for being here and for sharing now your knowledge in your own journey, which has been a very vast journey in your search of health.
Dr. Pianka's Medical Journey and Family Life
00:01:57
Speaker
And the book that we will be talking about, it's called, It's All in Your Health, a Guide to Health Fitness
00:02:03
Speaker
and rediscovering the new and rediscovery in the new normal and you wrote this during the pandemic so curious now as to what led you to do this so we'll be talking about that but first let's start with your life so you live right now in Rhode Island tell us about your family structure please
00:02:24
Speaker
Yeah, so I actually grew up in New York, trained in, my main training was in Atlanta, Georgia, which was the place we were before we came to Rhode Island, thought we were going to actually live in Georgia, but my wife and myself decided we wanted to be a little closer to home.
00:02:47
Speaker
So we searched for opportunities in the Northeast and Rhode Island just kind of fit everything on the punch list perfectly in terms of geography. We are winter people, so we ski. We are summer people, so we surf. And I ended up in an outstanding practice in a really great state.
00:03:09
Speaker
New England is just such an incredible place for medicine. I couldn't have been luckier in terms of that choice in my career. So that's kind of my background a little bit. I've been married for 27 years to my dream girl, fortunately, as well.
00:03:30
Speaker
She took pity on me, I think, and has stayed with me through thick and thin for 27 years, and we have three great kids. My oldest, Caitlin, who I do mention in the book, you referenced our skiing relationship, which we still look fondly back on. She started law school a few weeks ago in Boston.
00:03:52
Speaker
My son Ryan is a freshman in college up in Boston. And my baby Emily is a freshman in high school, just started a couple of weeks ago as well. And we're here in Rhode Island. They're close enough where they come home when they need to. And it's been a great, great ride in terms of practice. Wonderful. Thank you for sharing that. And Georgia actually lived in Georgia before moving.
00:04:19
Speaker
here. So you mentioned Emory in the book, right? That's actually where my brother-in-law went to medical school as well. So something there in common. Who knows? You guys might have crossed paths depending on the year, of course. So thank you for sharing that and about your children and where you grew
The Path to Medicine: Fascination with Biology
00:04:38
Speaker
up. Now let's talk about your upbringing a little bit. So you're from New York. You're an only child, correct?
00:04:46
Speaker
So let us know how is it that someone like you and your upbringing becomes a doctor? Just what led you to become a doctor? So it had everything to do with Long Island. I kid around with a lot of friends back in the 70s and 80s. My daycare was essentially my dad's boat on the Great South Bay on the south shore of Long Island.
00:05:14
Speaker
And from the earliest, earliest recollections I can come up with, I was fascinated by all creatures living. And my dad fished and shell fished a lot. So my exposure to biology and the environment and various ecosystems was extraordinary. At a really young age, I just became mesmerized by anything living.
00:05:42
Speaker
And then as a fisherman, we dissect or fillet our catch to bring home. And my dad would still comment. To this day, he just turned 90 a few weeks ago. One of his fondest memories was how long it would take me to pull my weight on the boat because I would sit staring at the intestines of fish and shellfish, et cetera, crabs.
00:06:10
Speaker
So I remember in kindergarten when we sat around in a semicircle and everyone said, what do you want to be when you grew up? I said, doctor and baseball player right away in kindergarten. And I never let that go. The baseball part I did, but the physician part I never did.
00:06:31
Speaker
and went to medical school in New York and trained in New York for my residency at NYU Winthrop, it's called now, NYU Winthrop on Long Island. And then for my fellowship, chose Georgia. I thought we were going to stay on Long Island forever, but my wife convinced me otherwise.
00:06:55
Speaker
that we were going to explore new territories. And it's been, as I said, a great trip. So that's kind of my upbringing and where the whole physician thing started.
Why Gastroenterology?
00:07:06
Speaker
And through my training and my career, I knew it was slammed up the right choice for me. It's always been my passion and will be till the day I retire, if ever.
00:07:18
Speaker
And you mentioned like looking at the intestines of the fish and all the gut, you know, gutting it. So I guess that explains then your choice of going into gastroenterology out of all the fields or what was it then when you were studying and in residency that you're like, Oh yes, gastroenterology. This is it. That's a story too. I love stories. I love them.
00:07:43
Speaker
So basically, I was a kid of the 1980s. And if you are a Stranger Things fan, 1980s was about malls and video games. And then the earliest incarnations of these super systems our kids now have at home, right? We were playing Atari and Nintendo and all that. And myself and my friends were video game kids in the early days.
00:08:11
Speaker
So I had that hand-eye coordination and fascination through medical school, really. And believe it or not, I think that played a big part in my choice because now, all seriousness, I play the equivalent of the hand-eye coordination skills of video games in people.
00:08:33
Speaker
So I took what I was pretty good at and what I was fascinated with, integrated them, came up with this perfect solution. Plus I loved both internal medicine and general surgery. Didn't like the idea of not being able to do hands-on procedural things in medicine
00:08:59
Speaker
also didn't quite like the lifestyle of general surgery. I don't think it would have allowed me to do the things I like to do as much. So gastroenterology was an integration of the two. But I like to kind of end it by saying that
00:09:17
Speaker
I proved my parents wrong when I was a kid and they said these video games are never going to amount to anything or get you anywhere. Boy, did I show them all these years later. So here I am. I'm laughing as I'm muted here because I'm a mom of two teenagers, one, a 15 year old boy, everything you were saying about the hand-eye coordination in the video games. I'm sure my son will prove me wrong as well as all the time he's invested in all that as to how it will be effective.
00:09:47
Speaker
for him as he gets older and what he chooses to do. So for all of us parents listening, it gives us some hope of what it is, the skills they're developing.
00:09:58
Speaker
Well, two things to that point. Number one, there's a study that without question proves video game surgeons are superior when it comes to laparoscopic skills, number one. And for some reason, number two, residents in training and surgery do better in terms of their technical skill and progress when they listen to rock and roll in the OR.
00:10:24
Speaker
I don't know who came up with that study or how they figured that out. I didn't really read it in depth, but I thought it was kind of neat. I wonder what it is about the music frequency or the beat in rock and roll that maybe creates that focus or drive as someone is doing a procedure.
00:10:43
Speaker
I think we're gonna cover that later because I touched upon some similar notes in the book. And that's whatever inspires or drives you as an individual is going to put your mind and then secondarily your body into a better place, a space that is incredibly creative. And that's, I think, the key to everything and why it works.
00:11:10
Speaker
So let's talk about that part of creative. And we were talking about your parents. At the beginning of the book, you mentioned about these two type of parents, your parents and then the friends of your parents in the neighborhood. And a lot of it was these friends of your parents were more of these creatives kind of living life in the moment type of people.
00:11:30
Speaker
Can you describe this scenario because you do mention it quite a bit also in your book as how these two types of personalities of people Kind of their results in life may be a little bit different or unique
00:11:44
Speaker
Yeah, so I don't think we even have to go back to the 1970s. I bet you can go back to your last gathering, whether that was before or now, hopefully after this pandemic stretch where we're having gatherings again. But I am sure that you walk into a social space, so to speak.
00:12:06
Speaker
and there are certain type of people, and yes, I am going to characterize and stereotype them, but hey, how's it going? Great, how are you?
00:12:18
Speaker
I'm okay, tired, but, and then you get into those conversations that, yeah, life is just going by so fast, et cetera. And then you get into more conversation and it's, well, what's been going on lately? Well, you know, we've been hanging out home a lot. We binge watched this series, et cetera.
00:12:44
Speaker
Well, yeah, life is going to go by pretty fast when there's not this incredible reference point and then variety added on your timeline, which is going to really change your perspective on how much you've done or accomplished in a certain point of time. But then you have those people and you know who they are. You walk into a party, they come in, everybody lights up, like the whole atmosphere changes, right? You go up to them, hey, how's it going?
00:13:14
Speaker
Yeah, we're doing great. We just got back from some camping trip. Or we took this really odd vacation out to the Baja Peninsula of Mexico and surfed, or we hiked. And those people never, ever say, well, life is going by so fast, or I'm tired all the time.
00:13:40
Speaker
They're already dialed in on that next trip they're going to take, what they're going to accomplish next, etc.
00:13:49
Speaker
And then you sit back and you kind of scan the room again. And even physically speaking, there's a difference between group A and group B. And I'm not just talking the aura. I mean physically. People who are more motivated to do things and tackle life.
00:14:10
Speaker
Compliment that by being much more physically active to allow that, if that makes sense. In other words, your life is going to complement what you like to do in your life, to perpetuate it, to optimize it. And I'm a big believer in that, and I noticed that early on. I just could recognize the differences in those people
00:14:37
Speaker
And I knew really early which of those people I wanted to be, who I looked up to. And the funny thing is, and I do mention it in the book years later, the kids of group A are very much like the parents of group A. And the kids of group B aren't very much like the parents of group B. And their kids are just as fun and motivated, et cetera.
00:15:04
Speaker
And that you may think is genetic. Oh, they were just born that way. But I think it was much more than that. I think it was a mindset. It was this idea of people okay with getting out of their comfort zone frequently for something better. And that's kind of how I tried to live my life. And in retrospect,
00:15:33
Speaker
I continue to do that. I continue to push the envelope. And I think that's what actually got me through some of the more bluesy down moments early on, especially in this pandemic.
00:15:46
Speaker
That is such a perfect transition to talking about then this pandemic. You mentioned getting out of your comfort zone. Well, you got out of your comfort zone during this pandemic and wrote a book, something that was not one of the things that you thought you'd do, right? This is your first book, correct? Correct. Yes. So you got out of your comfort zone to write this book. Now explain to us a little bit about the emotions that were going on then
00:16:15
Speaker
right, you know, March or so, 2020 when things started shutting down and you were then asked to basically go home for now because no, you know, only emergency procedures were going to be done. So explain
Coping with the Pandemic: Writing as an Outlet
00:16:31
Speaker
to us that and your mindset during this time, please. So you learn a lot about yourself.
00:16:39
Speaker
during challenging times in your life and when you have time to reflect. It's amazing how my life has always been such a whirlwind because of my career and all that's involved in it.
00:16:54
Speaker
that even when I was going through things, I didn't always recognize or put together what I was going through. And I realized after the fact that I have always been prone to ups and downs, but not to the degree that I experienced early on in the pandemic. It's almost as if there was this little buildup periodically that was going on.
00:17:21
Speaker
And then in the early days of the pandemic, I really swung pretty low. I was in a down moment. And what happened for me was I hit this point almost like doing a puzzle. My whole life has been about putting this puzzle together and getting the pieces to fit. And then suddenly early on in the pandemic,
00:17:44
Speaker
I was not only not interested in doing the puzzle anymore, but the pieces in front of me didn't quite make sense. I couldn't fit them. It was almost as if I was at a point where I was incapable of continuing my life puzzle and couldn't figure it out until I reflected back saying, wait a minute.
00:18:08
Speaker
I've had these down moments before, not to this degree. How did I manage them then? Because here I am now.
00:18:17
Speaker
And it was all about finding my root purposes in life and what I enjoy the most and why I chose the directions I did and how those allowed me to progress and build. It's almost like the principle of fitness. You've got to break down muscle to build it up stronger.
00:18:41
Speaker
And somehow that stuff started to come together in my head, but I still couldn't climb out of my slump early on when I was told, hey, everything you were ever meant to do since those early days on the boat in kindergarten, that's on hold. And those people who need you,
00:19:01
Speaker
to do urgent procedures and et cetera, you can't because there's this other unforeseen pandemic going on. And I remember one of my patients who I've known my whole career saying, but I need you right now. What do you mean you can't take care of me? And the curtain just came down and everything started to go a little dark. So along that line of thought,
00:19:28
Speaker
my salvation and my answers came with this little pamphlet or manual that was sitting on my kitchen table.
00:19:37
Speaker
that I originally intended to be just a handout to my patients to give them some helpful tips on nutrition and fitness. Because in 15 minutes that I'm allowed to see my patients before I have to move on, I can't do all that. But if I could give them something to take with them, then they can ask me questions either
00:20:00
Speaker
by email or at our next visit, et cetera. But one of those things in life that I put to the side and I'll get to it when I get to it, life's going by so fast. Well, now life not only slowed down, but it froze in its tracks.
00:20:16
Speaker
And as the rain was hitting the windows and everything was sort of really gloomy, I looked over and there it was. And I said, you know what? Nothing to lose. I'm going to pick this pamphlet up and I started typing. And an extraordinary thing happened for me. I didn't necessarily at first come up with answers for those I was trying to provide them to.
00:20:41
Speaker
But I started by providing some of my own answers. As I was typing, some insights came to my head about how great my life has been to this point. How this setback was maybe a bit greater magnitude and the whole world was involved.
00:21:02
Speaker
but there was gonna come a point where we're gonna come through this and maybe my experiences could absolutely be conducive to my original purpose and that was helping other people out, learning from it and then providing a bit of light for everyone else. So I just kept typing through the night, through the tears and through the heartache and then another amazing thing happened and that was that I looked up out the window, not only had the rain stopped,
00:21:32
Speaker
But there was a light on the horizon. The sun was coming up. And that was real symbolic to me. Sun came up that day. It was gonna come up every day. And I was gonna be there for that. And I was just going to go all out. And I was gonna send the message and help out as many people as I could. And that's where this book evolved. Thank you so much. And I did like how you said metaphorically and
00:21:58
Speaker
realistically, that sun came out after this gloomy day, the contrast of the emotions of feeling how you did, then seeing the sun come out after you've been riding all night and creating this really, really insightful and helpful book for anybody that is looking to shift their
It's All in Your Head: Book Insights
00:22:18
Speaker
life and their health. So again, it's a guide to health, fitness, rediscovery in the new normal, and that's the subtitle. It's all in your head. Now let's go over that title of it's all in your head. What made you choose that? And you're very thorough, of course, with all the different things and explorations of your own life, but I'm curious right now as to why you chose that title.
00:22:42
Speaker
So I didn't want the title to necessarily be so strong that it said, hey, stop, you're crying and belly aching. You're just kind of imagining it. If you just think positive, everything will work itself out. Not quite like that, but in my case, in my situation,
00:23:12
Speaker
What I meant by it was all in my head is that there were keys or clues or answers to my own path and discovery and perhaps even salvation if I really think back to those moments.
00:23:30
Speaker
that they are locked away somewhere in the attics of my mind to try and rip off a Grateful Dead lyric a little bit. They were locked away up there and I had to find them.
00:23:43
Speaker
Our ancestors, our predecessors, the great artists over time, musicians, philosophers, and writers have all tried to give us little clues in their work in terms of finding our way.
00:24:01
Speaker
And I consume sort of that stuff on a large scale. And I know it's all tucked in there. And then I have my own life experiences as well. So it's all in your head as more men to say, hey, the answers may be closer than we think they are. They may be a little simpler than the complexity that we've made things.
00:24:27
Speaker
And if we search for them and get some guidance from some friends, some family, some people who love us, our providers, et cetera, maybe we can find those answers. And that's kind of where I was going with that rather than a harsher, hey, snap out of it kind of thing, if that makes sense. Makes perfect sense. And especially when you read the book, you realize that it does make sense. You mentioned puzzle.
00:24:56
Speaker
earlier that it was part of this puzzle that you kind of put together. And in this, you did put a puzzle together, all these different kind of aha moments that kind of built up to what it is you believe about fitness and nutrition now. And the story of your own life, growing up, how different things and
00:25:18
Speaker
distractions and meeting girls and this kind of started shifting your focus of food. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about how it is that food has become this way in which maybe we do use more than for nourishment, that we use it maybe for an addiction to numb
00:25:41
Speaker
can we go into that and without, I know, I don't want to give out too much of your book itself because it is a lot, but if you don't mind sharing that part, that would be great. Kendra, I've got nothing to hide, so say what you will, number one. I love the way you interview. Number two is,
00:25:59
Speaker
Food very much over the last several decades has become part of what I mentioned before. Part of our comfort zone, it has become part of our social structure, how we relate to other people, what we do when we're feeling bad, what we do when we're feeling good,
00:26:30
Speaker
We've become much more interested in all things food. It has now become more and more acceptable to do food challenges. What used to be in the olden days called gluttony, essentially.
00:26:46
Speaker
And I am not telling anyone to go out there and starve yourself and be miserable with nothing but celery sticks and water. What I am saying is we need to understand, all right, that first and foremost if you're comfortable with your life and where things stand and you're feeling healthy
Food, Health, and Comfort Mechanisms
00:27:10
Speaker
you're good to go, then listen no further. But if you're someone like many of my patients who are experiencing health-related consequences due to their weight, they're just not happy with where things stand. They don't feel healthy. They're not able to do or optimize the things they really want to do. And they have these concerns that that is going to negatively impact their health going forward and their timeline, so to speak.
00:27:40
Speaker
Because those same people who say life is so short, well, if you're unhealthy and you're shortening it on the other end as well, guess what? Life is going to go by fast because it's shorter. So I think what I tried to do is to start this conversation that, hey, whatever your arguments are in terms of ideal weight, etc.,
00:28:04
Speaker
We have to bring back this conversation that we're going in the wrong direction, statistically speaking, as a society in terms of our body weights, our activity levels, our fitness levels, et cetera.
00:28:18
Speaker
And maybe part of that is that we're no longer just using food as nourishment and moving on to other things and activities. Maybe it's become much more than that in our lives, keeping us in our comfort zone. We're going to it more out of habit than out of necessity.
00:28:44
Speaker
we are now no longer having the same thresholds in terms of how much we need to eat to be satisfied. Bigger has become better and we supplement that with high calorie drinks and beverages. We've lost our accountability for some reason to ourselves, but in that same note,
00:29:09
Speaker
because this is part of other people's comfort zones as well, they are enabling it and reinforcing the behavior because if you're part of someone's comfort zone, they don't want you to leave their comfort zone. They're comfortable with you in it.
00:29:27
Speaker
So as you notice, groups of people tend to all support each other's comfortable behaviors. And the person who maybe questions that and makes some positive changes that mess with someone else's comfort zone, they're almost made to feel as if what's wrong with you.
00:29:49
Speaker
Why are you doing this? You don't need to do this or that. So we're getting into these negative feedback loops that I think are quite dangerous.
00:29:59
Speaker
But the interesting thing over the last several months of research and data I've been reading is there are a lot of advocacy groups in medicine now saying, hey, we're being too harsh on people that are above ideal body weight. And we're actually becoming discriminatory against them. And we should back off and understand that there's a genetic and a metabolism role in all this.
00:30:26
Speaker
well i gotta be honest with you uh... i take everybody's point of view very seriously
00:30:32
Speaker
But I don't want to cop out on my patients that I think are experiencing negative effects from this. I am very much their advocate and I don't discriminate against them. I want them healthy. That's my job as their provider. That's why I was called, I think, to this life, to protect people. And I don't like the trends that I see that are going on.
00:30:59
Speaker
And I think we need to talk about how we're going to fix them going forward. It is so true because we see the different trends of, of course, body self-love and body appreciation in contrast with, of course, still a lot of different things that are happening with that continue to happen with body dysmorphia that occurs and the different eating disorders.
00:31:28
Speaker
but you mentioned an eating disorder, if you don't mind, shit, on Orthorex, which is the one in which I feel like I was at some point probably a little so consumed when I changed my lifestyle so much into the part of looking at labels. Is this nutrition or not? Can you explain the definition of that? Because there's so many contrasting ways in which we view
00:31:58
Speaker
nutrition, and it's very easy to go to an extreme in any of these chapters of life. Correct. And remember, there's psychology involved with all of this. And if we don't appreciate the individual and the psychology involved, and that's why I'm so, so big on before doing any of this, start with some realistic goals.
00:32:26
Speaker
and start by understanding yourself and why you do the things that you do. If you don't start there and it's just a number on a scale or a size dress at a wedding,
00:32:42
Speaker
or looking good for a few months or a few weeks on vacation in the Caribbean, you're going to more than likely not succeed long term. But the simple way of describing that disorder that you mentioned, which is of course the opposite of the people who completely disregard
00:33:02
Speaker
any behaviors and modifications and say, I'm just going to live my life and not be one of those people miserable on diets all the time. It's taking things too far. And I think that's the name of the chapter where orthorexia was mentioned.
00:33:24
Speaker
And that does tie into psychology a bit. People who go down that road tend to be type A personalities, perfectionists. They want to always do more and more and more. And it might just simply be an overcompensation for
00:33:43
Speaker
maybe some other choices earlier on. I don't know. I mean, I'm not a psychologist by any means, but I do a lot of psychology on the side as a gastroenterologist. But I think what we need to be careful about is to stick to the basics of accountability.
00:34:06
Speaker
and science and understand ourselves better and stop looking for hacks and pushing things too far to extremes because then you will be miserable. Number one is if you take the enjoyment out of anything completely and you don't have a built-in reward system,
00:34:30
Speaker
Then what's the use? You become that robot I mentioned in the beer commercial that simply works out all the time and can't go into a bar and have some fun with their friends. But on the flip side, we have to have that balance struck where we understand our own metabolisms, our bodies, our goals, be accountable to ourselves,
00:34:57
Speaker
continue to sustain those goals, and careful of the extreme swings in either direction, which is where we fail. So I think keeping things a bit more straightforward and simple sometimes is the best. I mean, everybody has a revolutionary program, right? If you do this program in 30 days, you're gonna look like this supermodel or this fitness guru.
00:35:24
Speaker
That's just not true. All of this stuff is a lifetime in the works and should be. It is your life. So it should be a lifetime of continuing to work hard and get it right. Thank you for explaining that. And that part of a lifetime that really is so true and fitting because it has to do with choosing lifestyle
00:35:51
Speaker
a lifestyle that works. And you mentioned about the part of knowing that you're setting a realistic goal, not like saying, oh, I'm going to start working out seven days a week when you had never worked out at all. Set up realistic goals, build up on that, build up on that in order to create a lasting and healthy life for you. Now, let's talk about stress because stress is something that
00:36:21
Speaker
can come up a lot even when we're changing our lifestyle as we're thinking, oh my gosh, did I eat this too much? Did I do this much? Did I work out enough? Did I not? How does stress in our life affect our health and hence even our weight and such?
Stress, Lifestyle Choices, and Balance
00:36:44
Speaker
looking back to a couple of questions ago, stress is going to impact everything we do, how we behave and the choices we make. And we all know it and we've seen it very pronounced in the last couple of years. Hey, it's a tough world out there.
00:37:03
Speaker
And it's not getting any easier, is it? The variables are just so much more numerous, and it always seems that things are so dramatized on social media and television, etc., that the stakes always seem to be higher, and we always need to be reaching for these very unrealistic goals that other people are defining for us as perfection.
00:37:33
Speaker
But maybe the answer isn't looking like a 20-something that lives in the gym seven days a week. And I don't know how they pay for it. Maybe they're just so successful that that's their employment. But most of us aren't those kids in the gym. You throw a family in on that, and you throw other interests and other people's interests, and you need to be a bit more selfless. Wow.
00:38:02
Speaker
That's a really tough thing to juggle all of those things. So I think some of the stress are self-imposed when, as you mentioned, someone starts out this vision of changing their life. Well, why does it necessarily have to be that level of perfection? Maybe there's some more realistic individual goal.
00:38:29
Speaker
that you want to start out with. And if you go, if you achieve that and go beyond it, that's great. That's the golden goose right there to continue to jump from gold to gold. But that imposes a stress in and of itself in terms of trying to achieve something that is too excessive. And that leads to what you asked before taking it too far.
00:38:54
Speaker
The other part of this too is remember, we love to medicate when we're stressed, when we're depressed, when we're not feeling well. It could be alcohol, it could be drugs, it could be any vice you name, but it can also be calories.
00:39:14
Speaker
And just like any of those other things, we do develop psychological and metabolic addictions to calories. We get a high off of our sugar rushes and we do not like our crashes. So that's another part of the stress component, how it plays in. If we're medicating our stressful week by unwinding on the couch with a couple of glasses of wine,
00:39:45
Speaker
a really rich dinner. Hey, that's wonderful now and then, right? Like once a week, treat yourself. That's great. Be accountable to that. Don't be excessive with it, but treat yourself.
00:39:58
Speaker
But when it comes to, okay, Monday night we've got this meeting and we're going out to dinner with the people at work for a business dinner and you do it then. And then Tuesday is somebody's birthday party. All right, we're gonna go out for that. And then Wednesday is some happy hour. We're getting together with these folks and doing it then. And then the weekend are two different barbecues in the summer or in the winter. You go skiing and then you're in the lodge all day drinking.
00:40:27
Speaker
Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. You're unwinding an awful lot. And is that on the back end actually helping your stress? Or is it going to compound it if you're not hitting your goals or your health becomes compromised from that? So stress is part of everything. There's no question about it. It could be one of the roots of all evil.
00:40:55
Speaker
But the world's not gonna get easier. And we're not going to be able to control all of the variables around us. But the one thing we are in control of is our view on these things and our own behaviors. And as I said, our accountability to ourselves. And I think that's the key to all of this.
00:41:22
Speaker
You summed it up beautifully. Thank you so much. And it is a great way to see it about that part of, is it compounding? And are all these things we're doing for leisure maybe on the long term actually creating more possibilities for more stress? I heard something one time that either we, any choice or anything we do, we're either investing in our future or taking away from it.
00:41:46
Speaker
in some of these things that we may think are helping us and the long term might be taking some years out of our life. It's kind of like you're putting into the bank or it's taking money out of the bank. So how you described that reminded me of that.
00:42:01
Speaker
in the part of a comfort zone and also getting out of that comfort zone, as well as trying to fit exercise into your lifestyle. Because a lot of times, that is one of the things we say, we don't have time. We're working this time. Where do you fit it in with all these things?
00:42:20
Speaker
So you mentioned a program that worked for you with how you started kind of to get really into Tony Horton's P90X back in the day.
00:42:33
Speaker
and then just, you know, kind of going through that first week of hardship and then kind of crossing that threshold of pain to then make it to week two and completing 90 days. But how did you fit that into your lifestyle and the choice of fitting into your lifestyle come about?
00:42:50
Speaker
So initially, I can almost oversimplify the story, but there's more to it than that. I have to thank my mother-in-law June, who at a down moment way back when, when I wasn't at the fitness level I wanted, gave me this book.
00:43:09
Speaker
And in that book, and it was called Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, and it's all small stuff, really, there was one memorable chapter or paragraph that said, hey, why not set your alarm clock an hour earlier than you would have normally? And I was always of the mindset that, no, I need that extra hour of sleep. I was up late. I was doing this and that.
00:43:38
Speaker
I would be miserable all day. And I took a gamble and rolled the dice. And that was one of the toughest gambles I ever took in terms of getting out of my comfort zone. But I gambled that that extra hour was my time that wouldn't impact anyone else's time negatively, particularly my family.
00:44:04
Speaker
It would not get in the way of my job more often than not, because that is, believe it or not, not the witching hour for when the emergency room calls.
00:44:15
Speaker
And somehow I was going to compensate for that lost hour by maybe trying to sneak to bed early instead of watching news reports that I've already seen three times. I didn't need to see the rerun again. And maybe I would feel so much darn better that my quality of sleep
00:44:37
Speaker
would be better in the time I was able to sleep. And that was one of Arnold Schwarzenegger's comments of his speech that broke the internet. He said, sleep faster. And I didn't know what he meant at first. And I was like, that's crazy. But for me, I translated that into more quality of sleep.
00:45:01
Speaker
is absolutely more beneficial than a night tossing, turning. And believe it or not, things like alcohol or overeating, overindulgence, they mess with your sleep. You don't get the same quality. So I kind of cleaned up my diet at the same time. And that hour transformed my entire existence. And then I built upon that hour once I realized that that was incredibly successful.
00:45:29
Speaker
I then worked out how to surf during my call weekends.
00:45:36
Speaker
if I went at first light and had my pager available, I could still do that in the morning and then go to work. And I could also bring my surf gear with me to work that if I got out early and it was a favorable swell, I could then surf in the evenings, especially in the warmer months when the daylight is longer.
00:46:00
Speaker
And it just kept adding, I kept not only finding this time, it was always there. I just didn't appreciate, I could do something with it.
00:46:12
Speaker
that as opposed to the people at the party that said life is going by so fast, I pulled a string and stretched mine out because I filled the time that I had with more of the things I wanted to do that are going to do two things, fill up my life to make it seem longer, but also prolong my life so it will be longer.
00:46:37
Speaker
And that's, that's been the whole entire key to everything I've ever done to approach this space. It's, you're definitely investing a lot on the front end for your life quality as well. Not the quality of life, just like you mentioned, the quality of sleep. Same here, your quality of life as well as your quantity will be different based on the choices that you're making. I want to tie in this into the part of how
00:47:05
Speaker
exercise
Exercise: Psychological and Emotional Benefits
00:47:06
Speaker
helps a lot of people that listen to this podcast are probably in the midst of grief. Can we talk about the effects that exercise have on our mindset and our emotions, please?
00:47:20
Speaker
So for me, it has been transformative and magical. I don't know if that is true for everybody, but I will tell you there are many studies to support that when we are in better physical condition and shape and fitness levels, there is incredible psychological benefit.
00:47:46
Speaker
I don't have to go to studies, I can tell you very candidly and very truthfully that that has been the case for me.
00:47:56
Speaker
I can't tell you how many mornings I get up to work out, I've had a rough night of call, I take the chance anyway that I'm going to work my way out of feeling crummy that morning, proceed with my workout and I'm lifted up and I have a much better day than if I didn't work out.
00:48:17
Speaker
So there's that part of it, but I think another understated part of it is that whole concept of having a goal that you reach. If you start with a goal and you slowly get there,
00:48:33
Speaker
That is so self-inspirational and I'm huge on this concept of self-inspiration. As I said, I don't need the 20-year-olds to tell me how to be inspired. I inspire myself because I've been around a while and I've seen a lot of things.
00:48:49
Speaker
but you hit that goal and all of a sudden, wow, I did that and I found the time, I made the time and I made these changes and I feel way better and I look way better and someone commented to me how much better I look and it's not just physical. There's something about your aura mentally that makes you just seem like one of those group Bs at my parents' party, right?
00:49:18
Speaker
And that just carries to the next step. Well, if that was so great, rather than using food as my sort of drug of choice, why can't I use fitness and wellness and nutrition as my drug of choice to give me the next high?
00:49:37
Speaker
And that's where that ladder came up, that I just kept pushing it and pushing it. And positive things beget positive things, right? So the more fit I got, the better I surfed or snowboarded. And then that inspired me to want to work out more so I could maintain that level and so on and so forth. So it's just been one big positive feedback loop that's been a blast.
00:50:01
Speaker
It has, and you mentioned a lot how it also affected even just your interactions and your family. You were more present, happier, probably happier at work, happier because you had already started your day with something that you were doing for yourself and for your health and all the chemicals that are released in the body also create these happy hormones that happened, right? So that also created a ripple effect in your social life.
00:50:30
Speaker
And I think I am better at what I do now. When you're physically feeling good, when you're mentally feeling good, not only are you more efficient and skilled at whatever it is you do, but you're more creative too.
00:50:53
Speaker
these idea flows and streams which mainly come to me while I'm working out. First thing when I get up and while I'm working out is when I get most of my creative ideas and energy.
00:51:06
Speaker
And that creative energy carries me to be inspired to do the things that I do. And as I said, I hate to keep beating this concept to death, but it's this positive feedback loop. We all have the capability of finding and using that will just self inspire us to whatever goals we wanna hit. And I encourage that tremendously.
00:51:34
Speaker
Thank you. And it's even just with the title of your book being it's all in your head, finding in yourself and in your own little file cabinet of your life, all these different other moments that give yourself proof and inspiration of things you've been able to accomplish and do and use those as launching pad inspiration for yourself in the present as well. So for every person listening to this,
00:52:01
Speaker
Each and every one of you are extraordinary. And if someone as simple as me can find this type of success, just think about what someone as extraordinary as you can do.
00:52:16
Speaker
You can blow me away. And that's great. I'll be here cheering for you every step of the way. But I really believe in this concept that every single person has lived an extraordinary life. It took a pandemic for me to recognize how extraordinary mine has been. But now that I've found it, there's no turning back.
00:52:42
Speaker
What a beautiful way to wrap this episode in conversation with those beautiful words that actually got me even teary-eyed and it's true, we are extraordinary beings and all of us so unique and what we all bring to the table and our experiences is unique and let's just use that to make our lives better and hence the lives of others better as well and the world.
00:53:04
Speaker
So thank you once again, Dr. Pianka. And again, this was Joseph D. Pianka with the book, It's All in Your Head. And please tell us how we can find it and where we can buy it or find you.
00:53:18
Speaker
Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and I am mainly on Instagram and TikTok and Usher's page.
Finding Personal Inspiration and Improving Life Quality
00:53:27
Speaker
And Kendra, you have been a blast. You absolutely made my day. You're just great. So thank you for the opportunity.
00:53:36
Speaker
I appreciate you so much and I feel like I already know you since I finished you to reading your book this morning before this interview and I really highly recommend for anybody that's been struggling or even just wanting how to kind of up their game in the
00:53:52
Speaker
fitness world or health world, read this book. I know that I'm in kind of those moments of my life. So I kind of earmarked the parts of my BMR and all these kinds of things to kind of take a look at those parts of my life and kind of see where I can tweak things that I'm already doing to kind of just enhance the quality of my life. So thank you once again, Dr. Piazza. Thank you and you have a wonderful day. Thank you.
00:54:22
Speaker
Thank you again so much for choosing to listen today. I hope that you can take away a few nuggets from today's episode that can bring you comfort in your times of grief. If so, it would mean so much to me if you would rate and comment on this episode. And if you feel inspired in some way to share it with someone,
00:54:47
Speaker
who may need to hear this, please do so. Also, if you or someone you know has a story of grief and gratitude that should be shared so that others can be inspired as well, please reach out to me. And thanks once again for tuning into Grief Gratitude and the Gray in Between podcast. Have a beautiful day.