122 Replay of How to Shift Mindsets to Motivate Healthy Behaviors with Dr. Beth Frates, President of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine and Award Winning Teacher at Harvard Medical School
We all have a tendency to regress to unhealthy behaviors, especially when we're under stress. In this episode Dr. Beth Frates, President of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, advises us on how to practice self-awareness so that our moment to moment decisions and behaviors align with our best selves.
Beth Frates, M.D. is the mom of two amazing college age boys; she's also a pioneer in Lifestyle Medicine education, an award-winning teacher at Harvard, and president-elect of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. Dr. Frates is passionate about empowering people to adopt healthy habits through research backed methods in health and wellness coaching. For all the links and resources we talk about on this podcast and for the transcript. Please go to https://mindbodyspace.com/episode/102
Listen to episode number 92 https://mindbodyspace.com/episode/92, Beth joined me for the first time to talk about sleep and how to get our kids interested in healthy lifestyle behaviors.
We continue the conversation, starting with why prevention is such a hard sell and how to get around it by talking about healthy behaviors using evidence-backed motivational tools. Stick around to the end because Beth shares her top 3 tips for teens with us. In this episode, we also touch upon the current recommendations regarding substance use.
Find out more about Beth here:
https://www.bethfratesmd.com/
PAVING the Path to Wellness with Dr. Peg Frates President Elect of American College of Lifestyle Medicine and award winning teacher at Harvard Medical School.
TRANSCRIPT:
Juna Bobby 0:00
Welcome to the MindBodySpace podcast, where you can boost your resilience just by listening. You'll get research-backed tools to stress less and be happier and healthier while working toward your highest potential. Hi, I'm Dr. Juna Bobby. I'm a board-certified physician and a mom of two amazing kids. Over ten years ago, I left one of the most prestigious medical practices in New York City to specialize in mind-body medicine. Since then, I've had the privilege of teaching my science of Resilience Program to students who are curious and motivated to learn how to thrive in an increasingly complex world. I created this podcast to reach all the people who could benefit from the conversations that I have with experts in performance psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and lifestyle medicine. I also share tips on some of my favorite topics, like how to train our brains to focus better and how to get organized for extreme productivity. In my special RX Chill Pill episodes, I guide you through relaxation response exercises, using my extra calm voice to counteract your daily stress. I do all this because I love sharing science-backed self-help tools that have changed my life and many other people's lives. I do know that there's way too much information out there. So I work hard to curate and share trustworthy sources for free. By subscribing, rating, and sharing this podcast, you support this effort, and I am truly grateful.
Hello, today. I'm so excited to be here with Dr. Beth Frates. We will be talking about her new book, paving the path to wellness. It's a guide to thriving with a healthy body, peaceful mind, and a joyful heart. Dr. Frates co-wrote this book with doctors Michelle Tollefson and Amy Comander. Dr. Frates is the new president-elect of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, and she's an award-winning teacher at the Harvard Medical School.
Juna Bobby
Hello, Beth, how are you?
Beth Frates
Great. Juna.
Juna Bobby
Thank you so much for joining me today. We were having this fantastic conversation before I hit record. And this is actually why I started this podcast because I would have conversations with people, and I would think I wish I could share this. And I was always regretful that we couldn't record it and share it with people. And that's why I started the podcast. So whenever you and I meet, I should always have the record button on because we just talked about something so amazing. And it was Beth giving me real-time mentorship tips and advice. And she was, you know, basically telling me how great I am.
Beth Frates 2:37
Wonderful. May I share some of what I was thinking?
Juna Bobby 2:42
Sure, yes, absolutely. We were talking about stress. I was in the stress response because I couldn't remember something in the last podcast episode.
Beth Frates 2:49
Exactly right. And I was sharing that you have so many gifts and talents. And I said that I was so happy that you're doing this podcast because I think when brilliant, compassionate, and creative people like you; when you do a podcast, people listen for not only the information, but they also listen to hear your responses and to think about the questions that you have for your guests and yourself. And the last podcast, we talked about different mnemonics. I was describing the paving the path to wellness paving steps, mnemonic, and you, you have created a beautiful mnemonic: RELAX, and we were going through it, and like most people, there was a period where for a moment, you couldn't remember one of the words. It happens to absolutely everyone. You know, what I was admiring was that you were continuing to record, and you were saying, "Now wait, I'm having a moment here," and you were laughing, and you're being authentic with the whole process that I was thinking oh, the listeners are going to say, oh, that's me. Oh, it happens to Juna too. I can't believe it. And Juna is just relaxing through it. You didn't stress about it. You were confident that you could figure it out because I even gave you an out. I said, well, let's skip that, and let's go on to the next one. You said no, I've got this like no, I need to get this, and then you somehow remembered the one you couldn't pull up from your hippocampus. You did it with such ease and grace, and this is part of, I believe, the beauty of Juna, which is your authenticity
Juna Bobby
Oh, that's so sweet.
Beth Frates
Every time I see you, you are full of curiosity, you are full of compassion, and a real desire to connect—a real desire to learn in the situation. You and I've been in multiple different situations together now, in this podcast, and a CME conference, on a call with a high school trying to figure out how we can implement lifestyle medicine into a curriculum for middle schoolers. I've seen you in various scenarios. You bring the same person forward Juna; this authentic, loving, wonderful human being. So I'm delighted to be with you.
Juna Bobby 5:30
Oh, my gosh, that's so awesome. And folks, I did not pay her to say these things.
Beth Frates
No!
Juna Bobby
Beth, you are truly one of my mentors. You see a side of me, and you see things that I might be capable of that sometimes I don't even feel capable of. So everybody should get someone like Beth to talk to. On a regular basis, somebody who believes in you, somebody who sees the good sides of you and your potential.
Beth Frates 5:57
Exactly, exactly. I see you as a major leader, and I know that you are and that you will continue to share your wisdom, your experience your light with the world in various ways.
Juna Bobby 6:12
Oh, thank you. Well, just like you, I'm so passionate about this topic. And just want to say a few words about you. You are a fantastic coach. Everybody should be coached by Dr. Beth Frates. Because of exactly what I said — how you can see someone's good side, as someone's potential. I think that was one of the reasons why I muddled through trying to remember that mnemonic because I know you. I know that you're so patient, and you're such a beautiful person. Sometimes I have been in situations where I've forgotten my own name because I'm so stressed out.
So let's talk about that stress component; when we talked about Paving the Path to Wellness and the steps to paving in the last podcast, I talked about being stressed out. And going back to your old self; of going back to a mindset of somebody that maybe you thought you were before. You're not athletic; you're not somebody who can eat clean, sleep well, or handle stress well. So these are all identifiers of the story that we tell ourselves about our mindset. And even though I've gone through so many decades of loosening that up for myself, I still, when I get very stressed, will go back to that, like I will grab the bag of potato chips and, like, sit around and lie down and not move for hours. That will happen to me. And on the last episode, you talked about going back to joyful childhood situations where I was moving my body; later as an adult, I was even a second-level kung fu student. In my late 30s, I started ballet, I'd never done ballet before I showed up to a ballet class and I did it for years thereafter. I was good at the barre, not so great at the center. And after that, I got my yoga certificate with Dharma Mittra in New York City. So all of that is a part of me. But I can still have regressions.
Do you have any tips for when somebody is stressed out? I read a paper written by you to my class last week about how when people are stressed out; they are less likely to exercise; they're less likely to meditate; all of the things that are highly beneficial for when you're stressed.
Beth Frates 8:24
Yes, it's critical that we find ways, and it's very individual; to find ways to reduce stress. Now there are two parts to this reduced stress—in the moment. So a stressful thing happens, and how do we reduce stress in the moment? And then have consistent stress reduction techniques that we can do when things are good? We know that they're helping us; they're helping our body or physiology so that when we are stressed later, we handle it better like exercise, right?
We know that when we exercise, we're putting ourselves in a little stressor, and we're going into sympathetic response and our body's used to going into it, and then we come out when we stop, and we have our endorphins, and we have our dopamine, and we have our serotonin flooding our brains and making us feel good.
And we understand that there's that we can feel good after a stressor, and then it becomes less of an anxiety producer when we have that stress response. So let's do it in the moment; in the moment is so important because when someone says something to you or you receive an email and it's an amygdala hijack from someone, meaning they are in a threat situation. They're responding to you in an email with no prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex, or the CEO of the brain, the planner, the one that is rational, they're not using the prefrontal cortex. They're in the limbic system response, the amygdala response, which is all emotional, and there's no rationalization available to them. So they flare, and they send some email to you, and your normal response is to get a stress response and to flare back and to respond. What we would call protect, protect yourself, protect whatever it is they were threatening—your reputation, your actions, your job, your motherhood, the way you are parenting, who knows what they sent, but instead, the best thing to do is realize the stressor, and then use the pause before the response.
So instead of running right back at that email, and that keyboard, take that time out, have a pause, and maybe take a walk, we know that a 5 to 10-minute walk can reduce our levels of stress, and our state of anxiety. Or perhaps you're someone who responds to music, so turning the music on and dancing around the room, calling a friend, or jumping rope, whatever it is for you. That will reduce your stress levels. Then when you come back to the situation, you're more creative and more open-minded. And if you think to yourself, "What can I do to reach higher ground here for all of us?"— for the person who attacked you with the amygdala flare, for yourself, your team, your department, your work environment, or maybe your family? If it's a family issue; what can you do to help reach higher ground that gives you that perspective? It's hard to get that perspective right in the moment. So taking the time out. And honestly, as you well know, having trained with Benson Henry's Institute, as I have here at Harvard, deep breathing is one of the most consistent tools that work. Easy, just a deep breath in and out. Long exhalation turn on that parasympathetic response. Get out of the sympathetic response. So practicing simple things like deep breathing; simple, but so profound.
Juna Bobby 12:22
But neurologically, you're distracting yourself from that trigger that sends you into the stress response and distracting your brain into integrating the parts of your brain that are the sensory-motor cortex. So that's like on the outer part of your brain, your parietal lobes. And so you're kind of pulling yourself out of that bottom-up stress response, like almost a distraction.
Beth Frates 12:47
Out of that amygdala, exactly out of that amygdala. And if you can, so when you're deep breathing, well, ask: what am I feeling? And you really think about your breath coming in going out, then you can think about your feet on the ground, you're doing exactly what you said, you're tapping into your brain and your sensory cortex, which is not the limbic system. Yeah. So when we're stuck in our amygdala, stuck in our limbic system, we want to get out of it, like you just beautifully described.
Juna Bobby 13:13
Let's go back to that moment, even a split second, right, because we turn on that stress response in 1/100 of a heartbeat. So especially if it's a visual response, if you react to something visually, it's so fast, you can't even catch it. So how do you in that? In that nanosecond, tell yourself "No, you really don't want to attack back," right? Because you might be like, "Yes, I do. Well, I need to."
Beth Frates 13:41
Right, and a lot of people do, and they will attack back.
Juna Bobby 13:46
I think this is the second part you were going to talk about; the daily practice and where that comes in. Because you can't expect yourself to stop this evolutionary response of protecting yourself if you haven't worked on it and told your brain a different way to act. Right? And the times when you don't have that stressor. So can you go into that more daily practice on how that could help us have that? Pause?
Beth Frates 14:10
Right, exactly. Great point. So if we practice meditation, and there are a lot of different definitions of meditation, taking time to be quiet, peaceful, focus on your breath, let the to-do list go, it may come in, but you just put it aside and get back to your breath or your mantra. And you can do this 5 minutes, 10 minutes, hopefully, 20 minutes in the day, but even 5 minutes in the day, some is better than none. What research does show, as you know, when you look at MRI scans of meditators versus non-meditators, you actually see a difference in their brain.
So their prefrontal cortex, there's more material, there are more neurons there, you have more volume frontal cortex; which is the CEO of the brain, which is the thing for the planner, the organizer, the rational, how do I manage this. So meditating alone will help you build capacity in your prefrontal cortex. So that's one of the major changes that happen. It also helps you to regulate your heart rate to help you stay in a calmer phase where you don't increase your blood pressure and heart rate. So when we practice these, these different methodologies of relaxation could be the relaxation response, meditation, mindfulness-based stress reduction; there are many different techniques that put us into a place of peace, quiet, thinking about sensations of breath, or feet on the ground. So there's walking meditation when you're just thinking about how your feet are hitting the ground, how your muscles feel, as you pull one leg up and place it in front of the other. There are different ways to get us into that. But when we do this regularly, and when we practice self-awareness, when we take that time to think, Who am I?
I took this CME; it was the science and art of yoga CME.
Juna Bobby 16:21
And CME is continuing medical education. So that means you actually got credit toward your medical license, which we have to do every year.
Beth Frates 16:30
And I was very interested in the science of yoga and the art of yoga. And one thing I took away from that course is an important self-awareness, self-reflection exercise; thinking about "who I am" and being able to answer the question, "Who am I?" It's like your own personal mission statement. So who am I in times of stress? Who am I, in times of quiet and peace and happiness and success and thriving? Who am I when the going is really tough when there are arguments, when there's disagreement when there's a struggle? Who am I? Hopefully, we're consistently the same person. But if we don't actually sit and take the time to identify and define for ourselves who am I, then we're not sure who to bring to the table. When we get that stressor, if you thought it through, I spent time on this; it was an eight-week CME. We met for three hours once a week talking about these types of issues and yoga itself and breathing, and it took me time to think about it. I believe that I am a compassionate person who wants to help make the world a better place, day by day, person by person, interaction by interaction, moment by moment, using the education that I have been fortunate enough to have through medical school and training and lifestyle medicine and coaching and mind body medicine—using everything that I've been given. And everything my family has given me. A lot of this is book learning. And some of it is heritage and family and tradition and I bring all that to the table. So that I can be a healer and a helper to anyone; someone in the grocery store, a student at the medical school, whoever I may interact with at the time, that's who I want to be. That's who I believe I'm meant to be. That's what I strive to be. So when I know that something that is difficult happens, what do I say in that millisecond? If I have already worked through "Who am I?" I'm someone that's going to lead us to higher ground regardless of the tension in the room. I'm going to try to get us to higher ground. Then I'm ready for that challenge in that second in that at that moment, when the challenge hits me, I've already done the work leading up to that, so I been exercising my parasympathetic response can come in, and I won't allow my sympathetic drive to take away my peace by increasing my heart rate and blood pressure. And then of course, the amygdala flare, and I'm just in threat mode. So instead, I try to think, Okay, I identify there's a threat. This isn't going well. Let's bring myself; let's bring Beth to the table, show up calm and try to do what I know I meant to do.
Juna Bobby 19:55
I love it. I love it. But like you said it took you the three hours of eight weeks; that's 24 hours of multiple different kinds of meditation. And some of that is reflection. Meditation is reflection, thinking about yourself, and connecting to your core values. I always ask my students if they ever think about their core values? And do you think about it every day? Because even after I'm sure, you know, after that eight-week course, you still have to remind yourself every time things come up. And it's like, it's almost like a habit we should have, right? Think about what our core values are, because, as you said, most of the time, core values don't change that much. You know, even though our mindsets around things can change, even though a lot of circumstances can change, even though we can change our personalities. But a lot of times, core values, deep core values, like you're saying, that sense of purpose doesn't change. And that is so important in these moments where you flare-up. And also, you need to remind yourself; you need to practice it, and remind yourself about that before these things happen.
Beth Frates 21:01
Absolutely, exactly. And perhaps next time, we'll focus a little bit on the coach approach and how you can coach yourself—into addressing stressors in the best way possible. Maybe we can talk about that.
Juna Bobby 21:19
I love it. Yes, because I think really, it comes down to stress. Because you like you said, you can learn all these behaviors; you can learn all the most healthiest things you should be doing and must be doing. And stress comes in, and everything's out the window. And that's okay for short periods of time. We're looking for a high average of healthy behaviors. And you know, we're not looking for perfection. There's no 100% of the time.
Beth Frates 21:42
No, it's not possible. It's not possible. Yeah. I was gonna say it's progress, not perfection, right? We're looking for progress. We're always looking to learn and grow no matter what age or stage we are in life. How do I learn from this? How do I grow? How can I help others learn and grow? It's about growing really and developing each day, right? No matter how old we are, we're always able to learn and grow.
Juna Bobby 22:08
That's the whole point of a well-lived life. To be able to grow from something, I think our brains love to learn basically.
Beth Frates 22:18
Exactly.
Juna Bobby 22:20
Keeps it alive. Beth, thank you so much. I love talking to you as usual.
Beth Frates
Thank you so much, Juna.
Juna Bobby
That was Dr. Beth Frates, president-elect of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. You can find out more about her at BethFratesmd.com. That link is also in the show notes at mindbodyspace.com/podcast. On Beth's website, you can find out more about her coaching practice, and you'll also be able to find her books Paving the Path to Wellness Workbook, the Lifestyle Medicine Handbook, an Introduction to the Power of Healthy Habits, and the Teen Lifestyle Medicine Handbook: The Power of Healthy Living.
Thank you so much for listening.
If you enjoyed this, head over to mindbodyspace.com and opt into my newsletter; you'll get special tips from the neuroscience-based planner and course, which was developed from over 10 years of experience teaching high performing students of all ages at Juilliard, NYU, Columbia, Achievement First and many other organizations. I really appreciate you supporting this free podcast by hitting the subscribe, share and download buttons. Until next time, this is Dr. Juna wishing you and your family wellness.
Read Dr. Frates’ article in Newsweek:
For Extra Protection From COVID's Worst Effects, Look to Lifestyle Medicine | Opinion Beth Frates, Faculty Member, Harvard Medical School
Dr. Peg Frates’ book: PAVING the Path to Wellness:
https://www.bethfratesmd.com/books