Unlocking the Secrets of Longevity with Dr. William Choctaw

Ever wondered how to leverage your personal power to craft a healthier, happier and long-lasting life? Get ready to explore the secrets of longevity with our distinguished guest Dr. William Choctaw. In this enlightening conversation, Dr. Choctaw dissects the essential habits needed for living a longer, healthier life, such as maintaining a well-rounded diet, staying active, and understanding nutritional labels. This isn’t about grueling workouts or drastic diets but about setting achievable goals based on your life stage. You'll learn how just two hours of moderate activity per week can have a profound impact on your long-term health and happiness. 

Unlock the secret to preventing heart problems, the world's leading cause of death, in our enlightening discussion with Dr. Choctaw. We delve into the importance of managing weight, cholesterol, and blood sugar levels, the need to routinely check blood pressure, and the role of sleep in maintaining heart health. It's all about taking ownership of your health and staying in tune – mentally, physically, and spiritually. So join us as we explore how you can harness your personal power to make healthier choices and take active steps towards a fulfilling life.

Choctaw Medical Group, Inc.
Healthcare Quality Leadership Education Group

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Chapters

• 0:00 Essential Habits for Long Life
• 16:55 Managing Health and Preventing Heart Problems

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Healthy Wealthy and Wise podcast with doctor William Choctaw, MD JD. Our mission is to empower you with the knowledge and the tools you need to thrive in all aspects of your life. Join us now as we discuss everything from new attrition and exercise to money management and personal growth. Doctor Choctaw will provide insightful advice on how to improve your physical and financial health, as well as your emotional and mental well-being. Whether you're looking to boost your energy levels, unlike financial freedom or cultivate a more positive mindset we've got you covered. Get ready to become the best version of yourself. So let's get started. Here's doctor William Choctaw, MD JD.

Speaker 2: 0:51

Good morning. Welcome to the Healthy Wealth and Wise podcast. I'm Dr. William Chuck Tong, and I will be your host for this morning. Today, we're gonna talk about essential habits for long life. Essential habits for a long life. Our podcast is part of our Leadership Mass Class series, and we're delighted to have been with us. And so let's get started. I believe life is about being of service helping others. I believe knowledge is power. I believe leaders can change the world. If you're listening to this podcast, I'm gonna suggest that you're already a leader because you're interested in expanding your your knowledge and skill set, and welcome to all journey. We frequently talk about different topics and most of our topics tend to be healthcare associated. I am a physician with over fifty years experience in general surgical practice. And I these podcasts are based on my experience in my personal life and also with my patients. So we're gonna concentrate today about heart disease heart disease. Why? Heart disease is the single most common cause of death in the world. And particularly in the United States. Twenty five percent of deaths in our country is caused by heart disease and related issues. So it's a very, very important area to try to mitigate those systems that create a decrease in our long term survival and ultimate happiness. As we talk about the essential elements for him, we are gonna particularly concentrate all those areas where we use our personal power. Our personal power. But with me and by that is that we're gonna be talking about what we can control ourselves. There's a lot in life that we cannot control his individuals and his human beings. So we're gonna concentrate on what we can control out personal power. One, because we think that that's the most effective. Two, because we think that that's where most about actual strength is And we think that by doing that, we'll be more successful. Because quite honestly, those things that we can't control To some extent, control is illusory. And we spent a lot of times, many times trying to control people annual circumstances that are outside of our purview. So we're gonna try to retrain ourselves to look inward. And see those things that we can do to make life better and longer. The first essential element is for us to eat better. We can control what we eat. And basically, we all know this. But basically, we need to eat more fruits and vegetables. I like to say, we like to eat foods with more color, more different types of color in them. But fruits and vegetables is a good place to start. We wanna limit sweetened drinks, red processed meat, and food fat dairy products. And of course, we want to avoid trans fat So what is that latency? You said with doctor Chalka, how do I know whether this trans fat in the food that I get or that I purchase? How exactly will I know that? Well, we want to start to read more nutrition labels. In other words, when you go into the store, and you pick up the item that you want to purchase, read the label many times by law, Companies have to lay out on the label in detail what's in the product that you are buying. And if you wanna see the number of calories, the number of sugars, the number of carbohydrates, the number of fat, the number of protein, get in the habit. Of reading labels. A second essential to long left, long lives and thriving is being more acted. Notice I didn't use the word exercise. I said, be more acted. And that includes exercise. A lot of times when you say exercise, people think of getting on a track and running it, etcetera, etcetera. I'm saying, be more active physically. Get up, move around, walk around. As we do that, we have to set certain goals for ourselves because it really depends on which stage of life we are in. Right? If we are in junior high school and high school. They probably even have classes in school called physical education. So that's built into our schedule. As we graduate from high school and to college, we probably have to run around and walk more up and down stairs, etcetera, etcetera. And there's also physical education classes that we can take So many times that is built into our normal routine. But as we transition into the workforce, there are the sedentary problems or issues of life take effect. We may work where we sit at a desk. And we may sit at that desk for hours on on end. So then we have to get creative And we have to come up with ways that we can move around and again be more active. Activity, physical activity, in my judge is more than just basic exercise. It is both physical and mental, meaning that we're a physical moving Well, we like what we're doing, and that's the mental part. So I'd like to call it being more active as compared to go out and exercise x number of minutes. Speaking of that though, it is important for some of you who are very organized and very structured you want to know, well, how many minutes should exercise or be more active. In general, in terms of moderate activity, I would say about two hours per week. So you can divide that up into however you want. So many hours per day and so many minutes per day if that works for you. But the important thing is to be more active. And again, Activity. Increase activity plus enjoyment is what I call being more active. Okay? Physical exercise plus enjoyment is what I call increase activity. And that's an essential element that we need to work on practicing more. That's particularly true, obviously. If you are in the baby boom area, let's say you've worked thirty, forty, fifty years of your lives. And you're now slowing down. You're no longer working full time. You have more free time. Those are the years where you have to be even more circumspect about increasing your physical activity and mental component to that. That can certainly include things just walking just what taking a walk every day for a certain period of time, building it into your regular routine, but make sure you have physical and mental activity simultaneously on in your increased activity for the week. An essential element to long life. If you are a smoker, stop, real simple. If you are a smoker, quit. Now I realize that that's not always easy to do. But clearly, that needs to be on as part of your absolute plan. Smoking in this country is the most common preventable cause of death in the United States. Smoking. Again, I understand smoking is a habit. And habits are not easy to break, but is certainly one. That if you have this habit, you wanna stop. It damages smoking damages, the nicotine damages, the circulatory system. It increases the risk of other multiple type diseases. And let me say, when I say smoking, I'm including vaping, vaping, And I'm also including secondhand smoke. And a number of studies have shown that children who are around smokers parents who smoke or people in the homeless smoke also can have a secondary harm caused by smoking itself. So clearly, you want to eliminate smoking. If you are not able to do it yourself, seek help. You can seek help through your physician or or through other clinical support groups that can help you stop smoking. It is doable, and many people have done it. If you drink alcohol, I'm gonna suggest stop. Now I realize it's interesting. We don't have smoking commercials on television, but we have a plethora of alcohol commercials on television, I submit to you as a position that alcohol is just as dangerous to you in one way or another as smoking is and you should stop. Alcohol can damage your liver not to mention just the neurological effects of alcohol over a period of time on your brain, not to mention the activity when you are at drinking and how it affects your behavior and then your actions not to mention directly or indirectly the number of contributions in terms of auto accidents and other types of accidents, smoking and along with and alcohol along with smoking should be stopped. Shouldn't be stopped. I realize that that's not easy to do because it's a habit. I mean, for many, it's an addiction. And certainly, it's one of those situations where first, you admit that it's a problem, and then you seek help. If you never admit that it's a problem, most of times, you would not seek help. You will make an excuse just like with smoking well that helps me to relax Well, that makes me feel better. Well, I just think a little I don't take a lot, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Again, as a position with fifty years of experience in in medical practice, you need to stop. Another essential element for long life is healthy sleep. Now, sleep is something that we've always literally been figuratively taken for granted. Right. So, well, I sleep every night when you eat the healthy sleep. Well, you need to sleep a certain number of hours for a night tour adults, and we'll just stick with that for right now. I'm talking about seven to nine hours of sleep per night. Now some of you said, oh my goodness. I I can't sleep that vlog. That should be one of your goals. And when I say sleep, I'm not talking about light sleep. I'm talking about deep sleep. Rim sleep, r e m, rapid eye movement sleep. Okay. And how do you know when you're in deep sleep, dreaming? If you're dreaming, you're in deep sleep. And even if you may not remember what the dream was about, when you wake up, he said, wow, I had a dream, but a commitment was about But if you are dreaming, you're in deep sleep. So we want deep sleep for you when when you were sleeping at night. Studies have shown that if you that your body basically psychologically works out a lot of mental and psychological issues, while you're asleep, and that makes sense. Think about it. Think about all the things your brain has to do per day. It is working twenty four or seven while you are awake. Making sure to keep you on task, making sure that you do what you wanna do, making sure that you could do your job, making sure you take care of yourself and your family. Making sure you respond appropriately. That's a lot of work. Right? So there's a lot of extra stuff that's unnecessary that that that the brain needs to clean up. So think about sleep as that time that the brain does is clean up work. It sort of fine tune itself. It sort of polishes itself. It sort of makes sure that it's in maximum mode to be efficient for you the next day and the next day and the next day, HIP on the other hand, you deprive yourself of sleep. The brain does not have time to do this cleanup work, and that extra material that's no longer beneficial to you begins to back up and cause problems with the normal efficiency of the brain. So it makes sense. Think about that. So you need to sleep so that your brain can rest bottom line. You need to sleep so that your brain can rest. A rested brain is a more efficient brain and a more functional brain. So if you take care of your brain, it will take care of you. Health to sleep has been shown to improve cardiovascular disease. It's been shown to decrease depression again because the brain is able to work out a lot of those psychiatric and neurological issues that it may have or psychosocial issues that it may have. To improve your activity and your well-being when you are awake. Clearly sleep. Again, a good night's sleep has been shown to help to decrease blood pressure. And in some studies cholesterol and also obesity. Because a lot of these things are stress related. Right? They're stress related. So if you could sleep and have a good healthy sleep, then you're able to benefit in a number of different areas. Children many times have to sleep longer or more hours than adults and it's important to keep that in mind. And quite honestly, I can remember when I started out there was a surgeon. As interns, we used to stay pride in littlestly. And, you know, I think back now, how silly that was because, honestly, the more sleep you get, the more efficient you are, and the more functional you are in terms of doing whatever work you scheduled to do. It is important to manage your weight And when I said, manage your weight, I mean, I don't mean obsess over your weight. I mean, manage your weight. So how does one manage your weight? One, you should wait yourself to deal with it even before I have to get in the shower. You should know what your body mass index is. Your BMI. Now if you don't know what the BMI is, I'd recommend that you go to your your favorite search engine, Google, Microsoft, whichever one you like, and put in BMI, just those just those letters. And you'll get homeless definitions of what the BMI is, but you should be familiar with the BMI. Your bottom yes and nips and have an idea where you are on that scale Now, what's important about the BMI is that it is not perfect, but it can give you a general idea about whether you need to work harder or or or or less hard in terms of managing your weight. If you find that your biomass index is than it should be. In other words, that you are obese or overweight. Certainly, it's appropriate to seek help. And I would recommend seeking help from a a a expert with with weight management and weight loss. And I'm about medical expert. There are a number of different things that are available now to come to manage weight that were not available twenty to thirty years ago that includes appropriate medication. So I will start with the medical support system to help you with that. If you have been told by your position that you're cholesterol this high cholesterol that's a part of the type of material in the body, that if it continues to be high, it can start to clog up the arteries and create problems with heart attack. And and and and hard other hard issues. And so it's important to keep that in mind to make sure that your cholesterol is at a normal range. Now you may be given medication to manage your cholesterol. I would suggest that you take your medication faithfully, and if there are problems or issues with the medication that you inform your physician immediately. Blood sugar if you have a blood sugar problem, if you have been told that you are diabetic or maybe you've been told that you're pre diabetic, Maybe there's a very strong family history of diabetes in your family. You certainly want to be cognizant caring for your blood sugar. If you've been put on medication, obviously, you wanna take your medication as prescribed You wanna keep all your physician apartments, you wanna eat properly as recommended by your healthcare professional, And as a part of this, all of this, quite honestly, is connected. All these seven or eighties central elements that we're talking about, all connected And so you have to manage your weight and also exercise. And one of the ways to help to manage it, what pressure is that you should measure your blood pressure. You can get one of the blood pressure cups in the pharmacy. Innovative policy and learn how to measure your own blood pressure at home because indeed your blood pressure at home is probably more accurate many times than the reading of your blood pressure when you go to seeing the doctor. We have what we call the white coat syndrome. In many times, when individuals go to see a position, and they see their Bicos or walk into a building board, all those different Bicos and center scopes, that blood pressure may go up a little bit because they get a little uncomfortable, a little anxious. So you wanna get into the habit. Again, I've taken control of your blood pressure. That's true to what a lot of this is about in terms of your personal management of your health. And and follow your follow-up with the requirements to measure your blood pressure. Usually, that means that you sit with both feet firmly on the floor. It take a few minutes to relax, close your eyes, think of something relaxing and comfortable and then measure the blood pressure. Some can also do that standing, but you can stand up and measure your blood pressure also. But it's important that you do that and you get in the habit of doing that. Why? Because you're taking control of your health. And so you may have become a more important partner in your health management, I. E. In your potential heart problem or limiting limiting or preventing a potential cardiac problem. It's important to keep in mind that men and women are different in terms of how they present with heart attacks. In other words, when the blood supply to the heart is diminished to the extent that the heart stops beating, but does not be properly many times that can precipitate a fraud attack, which can result in death. Many years ago, certainly back when I was in medical school in the early seventies. We were taught that the classic heart attack was a crushed and subthermal chest pain in the middle of the chest that radiated to the right arm. That indeed is true, but it's probably true more for men than it is for women. Why is that? That's because those studies in those patients that gave us that information were all men. Because back in the sixties and the fifties people in these medical studies were men, they were not they did not include women. As a result, the whole different set of symptoms and sides occurred with women. And now you have physicians who specialize and health disease in women alone. And I would take that a step further. Not only are a lot of these studies based primarily on men. They're probably based primarily on one particular racial group in Caucasian. My point is very simple being, if you see patients who are from a diverse ethnic group, Hispanic, African American, Asian, etcetera, etcetera, American Indian. Many times, their symptoms may not be the classic symptoms that you would in some of these old textbooks, so you have to stay flexible and you have to evaluate the patient at that time. Certainly the most serious type of cardiac artery narrowing and the classic heart attack occurs. As the blood supply to the heart gets less and less and less. And so we wanna do things to prevent that to occurring. So in summary, let's call it healthy habits. You wanna stay tuned. What do I mean by staying tuned? You wanna stay tuned mentally physically and spiritually. M p s. Remember that mentally, physically, and spiritually. You need all three. Most of us do not like we work on one or the other, but you need all three and you need all three at the same time. So that you wanna drink more water, and that's one of the ways to stay healthy physically. Most of us don't drink enough water. It's certainly now as because of the effects of global warming, that the planet is getting hotter and we're here having record heat in different parts of the country and different parts of the world. And so for that reason, you wanna drink bottled water. You obviously wanna eat a balanced diet, a a balanced meal. And that includes having more fruits and vegetables. You wanna stay energized. You wanna interact with people more. You wanna get good sleep. You're seven to nine hours of sleep at night, so your brain has time to rest and revitalize itself for the next twenty four hours or so that it must function. And I'm gonna suggest as a part of those healthy habits, you wanna give to others, you would be amazed at how helping others, however that is, will end up making you to a better. Even if you just walk out and say good morning to somebody or have a nice day or thank you. Etcetera, etcetera. Whenever you help someone else, it reflects on you either consciously or unconsciously. And I would certainly encourage you to do that. And then, of course, you wanna do more exercise. My basic principles. God is in charge, principal number one, I am a position of faith. And I believe having God in my life has allowed me to be more effective both in terms of how I help my patients and how my patients have been able to help me. Personal number two, no bad days. I do not have bad days. I decided about thirty years ago that I had enough bad days than I chose. Not to have anymore. I've mentioned that because you too could stop having birthdays just by choosing not to. Don't sweat the small stuff. Most stuff is small. My experience has been in my life. So whenever I get upset and concerned about something, most of the times, it's not as big a deal as I thought it was. And usually, I'll be able to let those things go. Control the controllables. Many times when I see patients doing my practice who are stressed, it involves some uncontrollable event or person that they are trying to control. And use it when we get down to the back, that those things you can't control and you need to let go that immediately that is allowed us to want to decrease that stress level. Forgive this is therapy principle number four. Bad things will happen to you, but you have to forgive individuals who do say those things. And you'll be amazed at how therapeutic that is for you. And finally, everything is relationship and relationships are based on mutual respect, mutual and good communication. If you have those three things, you have a good relationship. If you do not, then you have work to do. Let me say, if in conclusion, if you right now, as you listen to my voice, you are going through some things. Let's say you're struggling. Just remember, this two should pass. This two should pass. And finally, be the change you wanna see in the world. We all wanna make the world a better place. So be the change. You wanna see in the world. Have a wonderful day.

Speaker 1: 26:54

Thanks for listening to the healthy, wealthy, and wise podcast with Dr. William Choctaw, MDJB. We hope you enjoyed this episode. In fact, if you found this episode helpful, you can support and subscribe to the podcast on your favorite podcast platform with the keywords Dr. William Choctaw. And you'll find it very quickly. Also, subscribing helps ensure that you don't miss any future episodes. And then take the next step of action and share it with your family, friends, and all your coworkers. They'll glad you did. So until the next time, live your best possible life, the best possible way You've been listening to the Healthy Wealthy and Wise podcast with doctor William Choctaw, MD JD.