From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
My training as an actor prepared me for caregiving. As actors, we show up ready to explore what might happen without a clear sense of the outcome. This requires you to be nimble, flexible, and curious, qualities I had to embrace daily as a caregiver.
For nutrition, the game-changer according to the Pareto principle is cutting out ultra-processed foods. These are the items produced in factories, laden with chemicals, inflammatory oils, and excessive sugars, all of which severely compromise your immune system.
When you think you're at 100% of your physical or mental capacity, you're not. We have enormous reserves within us (which we don't tap into for good reason), but we are all capable of pushing ourselves a lot further than we think.
When considering the prevalence of this disease, we're speaking of 7 million diagnosed patients in the US. But how many Americans currently have the initial stages of Alzheimer's already festering in their brains? I concur with the higher estimates, suggesting around 40 million people.
By encouraging them to pay attention as they overeat, we can reduce the reward value of that habit to zero in just 10-15 sessions of eating. These are people who could have been overeating for decades, but their behaviour can change quickly.
The physical and mental aspects of our lives are inseparable and taking care of the basic physical requirements is essential. Athletes and leaders rarely experience deep relaxation and this can become transformative in their lives.
In the spring, when we lose an hour of sleep, we observe a consequential 24% increase in heart attacks the following day. In the Autumn, when we gain an hour, we see a corresponding 21% reduction in heart attacks.
Unfortunately, it tends to be females who are the most affected by these conditions- influenced by external factors, they will check their weight very regularly, and do everything they can to lose weight- but then will lose the motivation, willpower and focus to control it.
Those suffering Anorexia Nervosa are obsessed with weight, checking sometimes 30 times a day, and keeping a close reign on their weight. A pound gain in weight can be perceived as terrible.
The more we recognize that we are the ocean and the waves represent different aspects of our being, the less any individual wave of difficulty will consume, overwhelm, or define us.
In 2012, I was put to the forefront of people's eyes during the Olympics. It was the first time I'd been on the cover of a magazine- and it wasn't about being a size-zero or really-skinny, it was about being strong and promoting what healthy looks like.
It's disappointing to see the amount of people who choose to profit from the pain and self-consciousness of teenage girls without even thinking about it. If you are motivated to constantly talk about your image, your weight and to guide people through ridiculously unhealthy juice fasts- then you are already poison; you've drunk the kool-aid.