Podcasts Health Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry LLP119: Creating Your Custom Plan for a Happier, Healthier Life with Dr. Donna Hamilton

LLP119: Creating Your Custom Plan for a Happier, Healthier Life with Dr. Donna Hamilton

Published: July 31, 2019, 10 a.m.

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Let\'s Talk about Having a Healthier Life...

We end our series on self-help & motivation this week with our final episode of the month of July. This week we are blessed to have Dr. Donna Hamilton on the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry.

Dr. Donna is a 4-time best-selling author, speaker, workplace well-being strategist and CEO of Manifest Excellence, LLC, a health promotion company that helps CEOs create happy, healthy, productive workplaces where that make it easier for people to do the job they\'re hired to do.

Dr. Donna took the time out to teach us how to create a happier & healthier lifestyle. She starts by teaching us what it really means to be healthy, talked about some of her personal struggles with health and what were 5 key areas that seem to keep a lot of people down in the pursuit of optimal health. This is another episode where you are going to be learning a lot about yourself & hopefully will know what tools you have been missing.

If you haven\'t already check out episode 118 to learn how Dr. Brad helps us eliminate all excuses & face the fear of failure head-on.

Remember to subscribe to the podcast and share the episode with a friend or family member.

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Download Episode 113 Transcript

Episode 119 Transcript...

Introduction

Dr. Berry:
And welcome to another episode of the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry. I\'m your host, Dr. Berry Pierre, your favorite Board Certified Internist. Founder of Drberrypierre.com as well as a CEO of Pierre Medical Consulting. Helping you Empower Yourself For Better HealthTM, with the number one podcast for patient advocacy, education and empowerment.

Today we bring you another amazing episode with Dr. Donna Hamilton, who is going to be getting us right in the mindset of health and how to stay healthy and really how to get healthy. And this is really purely, truly, especially from a mindset standpoint because if you\'ve been following along, we\'ve talked about, we\'ve had a series of episodes this month where we really wanted to focus on how our mindset plays such a huge factor in keeping us healthy. I started them off with the self-reflection. Then we had Dr. Michelle Clay talked to us about stress and stress relief.

Then we had Dr. Brad pretty much kinda knock it out the park talking to us about how we don\'t have any more excuses and how we need to reach in actually attain our goals and get failure out the way. So that was definitely one of the highlights of this month. And we\'re going to end it with Dr. Donna Hamilton. And of course like always I would like to, you know, do a little quick little bio. So y\'all know all these amazing people I have on here.

She\'s a four time bestselling author, speaker. She\'s a workplace wellbeing strategist and CEO of Manifest Excellence, which is a health promotion company to help CEOs create happy, healthy, productive workplaces that make easier for people to actually do the jobs that they\'re hired to do. Right? Which makes sense. She offers services to help driven professionals get unstuck and become unstoppable.
Her consulting courses, coaching, trainings and books use holistic and trauma-informed strategy to help their clients decrease stress, improve mindset, strengthen resilience, and increase productivity.

So again, that makes sense. Right? It makes sense that I would kind of end this series with someone who kind of wraps everything we talked about for the month, in like a boat. Right? And for everyone who has been following along. Who\\u2019s been given such amazing support, thank you for all you doing. You know, kind of keeping up with me. Like I said, this is National Minority Health Month, right? But again, when we talk about Minority Health Month, this is something that I want you to be talking about it in August and November, back in June. I want this to be a 24/7 or deal, making sure where our mindset is correct. Because again, your blood pressure isn\'t gonna go down if your mindset isn\'t there or a cholesterol isn\'t going to go down, your weight isn\'t going to go down.


All of these things: your stress, your anxiety, all these things aren\'t gonna work unless we include the mindset aspect of it. So definitely thankful for having Dr. Donna on to kind of help educate us on just really staying healthy in general. And then you guys are in for amazing treat like always. If you have not had a chance, go ahead, subscribe to the podcast,l leave a five star review and tell a friend to tell a friend. Like that\'s the most amazing thing about you guys is that you actually are doing that, right? So we\'re getting more and more of viewership. More and more listeners to the show as we move on from week to week. So definitely thankful for all you guys support. You guys have a great and blessed day.

Episode

Dr. Berry:
Alright, Lunch and Learn community. You heard another amazing introduction to personal friend of mine. But a person who I\'ve been following along for about three plus years now. Some give or take and all we\'ve been talking about, self-care, self-reflection, getting in the right mental mindset to get healthy. I figured, there was no way to really end this month without having this special guests on, right? So Dr. Donna please, first of all, thank you for joining the Lunch and Learn community today.

Dr. Donna Hamilton:
Thank you so much for having me and thank you for having this topic. It\'s one of my favorite topics. So thank you, thank you, thank you.

Dr. Berry:
So Dr. Donna unfortunately I got a lot of folks in my Lunch and Learn community who loved to like skip my intro. I don\'t know why they like skipping the intro. I guess they don\'t like hearing the music and that\'s okay. Right? Because I always give my guests another opportunity to kind of say like who they are. Maybe something that you know is not necessarily in the bio but just so a person who\'s just listening maybe for the first time and say well, who is Dr. Donna and why does Dr. Pierre love her so much.


Dr. Donna Hamilton:
I get it because truth be told, I\'m one of those people who tends to skip. I\'m like, let\'s get it and at the same time context is everything. So hi! Lunch and Learn community and listeners. I am Dr. Donna. I started my career as a board certified community pediatrician and I transitioned into a workplace well-being strategist. So now I do two things. With my company Manifest Excellence, we help CEOs create happy, healthy, productive work families and make it easier for people to do the job that they\'ve been hired to do. We offer courses, coaching and consulting. We also have services direct to individuals. So some people say that\'s great, but I need to do something outside of work. I also help super achievers who usually are kind of able to push through everything. We help them when they hit the wall. And so we helped them create their own personal plans that they can give back in their group and start to function at their best in mind, body, spirit in life.


Dr. Berry:
Perfect. And you know that again, I think that\'s definitely an amazing segue, right? Especially when we talk about the topic of health. And this is how I think I have to ask just a basic question. Right? And again, it almost sounds silly, but understanding, I\'m a physician, right? So they may come second nature, but to someone else who is really trying to turn that corner and whatever that health goal is, right? Trying to obtain that. Why is being healthy really so important? Why is that such a big thing for us?


Dr. Donna Hamilton:
Yeah, that\'s a great question. I agree. Some people may say it\'s simple or silly, but it\'s not, because we have to start at the beginning. And you and I were both our primary care doc. So we tend to think like, let\'s get the basics. And we know that we don\'t, not everyone focuses on health. The word health is a lot more than not to being sick. And sometimes when people say or hear the word health, what they really are thinking, at least for adults, remember my background is in pediatrics and so that is, I translate a lot of those sensibilities into adults now. A lot of people say healthy, what they really mean is not sick. The word health literally means whole. W. H. O. L. E. That\'s the root of the word. So I guess way back whenever we created the English language and someone chose the word, what they were describing was someone who was whole, W. H. O. L. E. They were functioning at their best in their entirety. That\'s what being healthy literally means. And that\'s why it\'s really important because you cannot be sick but still not be functioning well. Not feeling well physically, mentally or emotionally.


Dr. Berry:
I think it\'s extremely important, especially when you touch on the different aspects of it. Because I love that you did that because I think a lot of times the common knowledge is for, especially from a physician to really maybe focus on one aspect, right? Maybe just from a physical standpoint you look healthy but maybe we\'re not going to address those other aspects of it. How important do you feel making sure that not only the physical, the emotional, the mental, the well like all of that plays a factor in making sure we are completely healthy, which is obviously the whole?


Dr. Donna Hamilton:
That it\'s crucial. The way I described it to adults is, in pediatrics or if you were dealing with a child, whether it\'s your child or a family member or someone in the community. Intuitively we know this. So we wouldn\'t look at a child who is physically doing well and thriving, but they had behavior problems or they were depressed or they were acting up and acting out. We wouldn\'t say that child was well or healthy. We know that there was more to deal with it. If they were homeless, if they had social issues. We would know that something needed to be addressed. But for some reason, and I don\'t know what the age is so to speak. Somewhere expectations get lowered for adults.


People say, well, you know what, I\'m not overweight and I don\'t have any scary diagnoses and they ignore everything else and that doesn\'t ignore it, doesn\'t hit their radar. I\'m still somewhat amazed when I have these discussions with people and I walk them through. Being healthy is really functioning at your best in mind, body, spirit and enlightening and they\'re like, oh yeah, that makes sense. So that\'s the essence of wellbeing. That\'s another, that\'s one of the reasons that you will see that. I still talk about health, but for my understanding, the way I\'d use, I use health, wellness and wellbeing interchangeable because they all are trying to describe the same theme. Unfortunately the way we tend to be in our society, people like to try to streamline it. So people first started using the word wellness because folks stop using health to mean like in its entirety.


So people start saying, I\'m going to talk about wellness then. So people understand, I mean function at your best in every way. And then people started to use the word wellness to mean like nutrition and maybe fitness. But again, it\\u2019s part of wellness, but they kind of just, again, they got away from the sense of it means functioning in your best in every aspect. So now you\'ll see that a lot of people are talking about wellbeing and I\'m hoping we get to it at wellbeing. You know what I mean, like we get it that people stop trying to streamline away this concept of functioning at your best in its entirety. Because like I said, we\'d know what we wanted for our children. I don\'t know why for some reason for adults, people stop wanting it for themselves or for each other.


Dr. Berry:
Oh, that\'s a whole, okay. Alright. I love it. I love that point. Question. And of course I asked this as an internist who takes care of the 18 and up, how would you rate really our ability to even teach that message to others as far as just being overall healthy in the whole fear of it?


Dr. Donna Hamilton:
You know that depends on a lot of different paths. I think it depends on your specialty. I think it depends on your, you know, so whether it\'s pediatrics, whether it\'s Med, Peds, whether it\'s family medicine, whether it\'s internal medicine and you train thinking, I\'m going to be a sub specialist or you did internal medicine thinking you\'re going to go into geriatrics. So I think it really depends on how you were trained, what you were trained in and in general what you bring to your job, which is like any other specialties like any other profession, it\'s what you bring to it. I would say in general, and it might be a little bias but also can be correct. I think in general, pediatricians are the best range because and I laugh but it\'s true, but it is part of how we are training, especially for General Ped and community pediatric, which is how I was trained, so we are truly trained in the bio psycho social model, like to really take a good history to make sure that we\'re assessing developmental.


I mean if you think about it, part of the pediatric paradigm is medical home. That\'s become part of the adult medicine paradigm. But it literally was started in pediatrics in the 60s the idea that your doctor is your team leader and we\'re going to make sure that we\'re keeping touch. I\'m keeping track of everything that you need in order to be healthy, but there\'s like you said, a lot of family medicine people, a lot of internists who do take care of adolescents and young adults, they tend to be focused in into more that what a wellness and preventive aspect. I\'m hoping that as a society, understanding the importance of prevention. That more doctors will get better and have time connect the other piece you can be trained because we actually all are trained. Let\'s be honest, we all are trained in this. Then you get the specifics and the logistics of your job where depending on where you\'re employed and how, who\'s in charge of your schedule, you don\'t have time to practice good medicine.


I mean, we know we got plenty of phenomenal of what they do and people don\'t give get enough time to take care of their patients. And I used to, when I retired my clinical practice. And that was one of the reasons it was very challenging to practice what I knew was best for my patients. And I used to talk at the administrators and the scheduling people and say a little tongue in cheek, but seriously, you know, patients don\'t know they\'re only supposed to have a 10 minute problem. Yeah. Patients gonna come in. Whether you schedule me for five minutes, 10 minutes, or the 30 minutes that I need to adequately address this issue, that\'s how much time it takes to look, to take care of the patient.


Dr. Berry:
I love it and it\'s very definitely interesting point that I didn\'t even know about as far as the medical centered home starting with children, which makes sense. But, and you\'re right, like in a primary care setting, that\'s definitely been this new model that\'s come around where they really are trying to encapture a patient\'s health care even when they leave the office, which sounds like why weren\'t you doing it before? But like that\'s definitely the movement that\'s happening.


Dr. Donna Hamilton:
Absolutely. And it\'s what we need. It\'s a win-win for everyone. Patients need that. Especially when we\'re not feeling well. When you\'re not feeling well or you have a family members not feeling well that you don\'t even have enough as much energy to coordinate and organize everything. You don\'t even know what you\'re supposed to do most of the time. I mean, you and I, we\'re fortunate we\'re physicians. We have friends who are physicians. Yeah, so we have a basic understanding of what\'s supposed to happen. But again, you know, you\'re not a pediatrician. I\'m not an internist. So if I\'m dealing with an adult medicine cardiac issue, I still maybe don\'t know all the things that are supposed to happen and what all the balls that need to be juggled so to speak. That\'s where your family home, your medical home comes in and most doctors who care about their patients, which is most of us, especially in primary care. (Shout out to primary care). By the way, to all the listeners out there, it\'s really important for you to have a primary care doctor, and I say this because you and I know a lot of people don\'t, especially people who tend to have more medical issues.


Let\'s say it\'s a cardiac issue or it\'s a renal issues, kidney issues. They don\'t see that specialist a lot and they\'ll keep going there. Even women who are healthy, they\'ll tend to go to their gynecologist. I have a doctor who is gynecologist. Shout out to all the gynecologists we love you. They\'ll be the first to tell you that they are not primary care doctors. Their focus is on women\'s reproductive health. And so you need, and I really use the word need, but in this case I\'m going to, well it\'s highly, highly recommended.


Dr. Berry:
Highly, highly recommend. Dr. Donna has stamped it here on the Lunch and Learn community. Go ahead.


Dr. Donna Hamilton:
Highly recommended, your medical and your self-care team. You have someone who is your primary care doctor who\'s not a specialist. So for adults that would be an internist or an internal medicine doctor or someone who is family medicine doctor. And for children that is a pediatrician. Yeah. They\'re also family medicine doctors who do take care of children. So it would be a pediatrician or family medicine doctor who takes care of infants, children and adolescence. I know you love track, but this is all important.


Dr. Berry:
All important. No, no, that\'s okay. That\'s the Lunch and Learn community is here to learn and listen. So they going to take everything we give them. (There you go). Now question. And when we talk about being healthy, right? And at the time we\'re recording this, I\'m in an issue where I\'m struggling with quote unquote being healthy. I actually, for those who followed me on Instagram, you know that I suffered an injury chasing after my son. Right? And now I am in the rehab process of a surgery that I recently had got done. And I see the mental changes that have happened just based off that. When we talk about just some of the struggles that are associated with just being healthy. What are some issues that you kind of run across, you seen in some of your patients on the time of time basis? I said like, wow. It seems like everybody seems to be dealing with the same related issues.


Dr. Donna Hamilton:
Oh, that\'s a lot. You know, I would, I\'m gonna go to a core, something you touched on. Mindset is a really big piece. That\'s kind of a trendy word right now. The way I teach, we talk about mental, the mental arena, which is your thoughts, your beliefs, your expectations. So that mindset piece is a really big one. And that can shift if you\'re having a physical health challenge. And the mind and body are in constant communication, right? So you might actually be feeling good and tend to be more positive and with your expectations about life and your health. And then you ended up with a physical health challenge and then your mind starts to awfulize, right? And you\'re like, oh my gosh, what can happen, to cover or you just don\'t feel as good. So that\'s one of the common, common themes where people who are dealing with any type of health issue, it\'s that mindset piece and the, it really the expectation that they\'re going to be healthy, especially as they get older.


And notice I didn\'t say old, it\'s older. So people in their twenties who start getting into this belief. You know that they\'re old, they\'re starting to fall apart and anything, anytime something goes wrong it\'s like, oh I\'m getting older. And I look at was like on so many levels we have to stop that. First, because sometimes you\'re like half my age. But also there is a big connection between our expectations and our biology of belief. Which we can have a separate discussion about that. But a lot of times we start to focus on the negative and we still, we look for the negative instead of focusing on the expectation of being healthy or recovering or getting better. So those are some of the common pieces that I see. Again, it\'s a focus on illness instead of wellness and what we can do to feel better to get better. So whether instead of focusing on, okay, so how can I recover quickly so I can get back and do whatever. People are wondering, how long am I going sick? How long is this going to hurt? It\'s spoken on the negative instead of the positive expectancy. Does that make sense?


Dr. Berry:
It makes total sense and I love it because we had a recent guest, Dr Brad on here who kind of talked about how a lot of times we focus on the failure aspect instead of focusing on the goal and the win. So that makes complete sense, right? If we get sick and all they\'re doing, we\'re focusing on the sickness aspect of it and not the aspect of getting better, then it\'s going to take a long time to get better. I had decided that makes total sense.


Dr. Donna Hamilton:
Our brain and for people who are listening, I don\'t want you to beat up on yourself that this is your tendency. We\'re wired this from a neurologic perspective. We have what\'s called a negativity bias and there\'s a lot of reasons for that. The very short version, it\'s helped us survive. So if you are walking out in the street and I\'m making it up, you want into a bear, I live in the Poconos so this actually can happen. You want to remember every aspect of what you know puts you in danger so that you don\'t do that. So that\'s our mind is wired to focus on these things. And so it does take some energy and effort to shift to start to focus on the positive. But it\'s a payoff because you might be improving and not even notice it.


A good example is pain. When I was practicing and kids were a little bit different. Fortunately I didn\'t have any too many children who had chronic pain. But I did have some older adolescents who had some chronic illness. We would teach them to focus. If we gave them some pain medication. Instead of saying, well, how much does it hurt beforehand and how much that just hurt now? We would ask them to focus on the pain relief because it made them start to say focus. Although this is better because if not, people are still focusing on how much it hurts instead of is it feeling better. How much is it feeling better now? And you train yourself to focus on feeling better, getting better, you know? So in your case, for someone who\'s having a mobility issue, if you hurt on your leg or your foot, instead of focusing, I still can\'t fill in. I still can\'t walk without a limp. I still can\'t go up a flight of stairs. It\'s like, oh no, what? I walked across the room today before it started hurting. And the shifts start to help us focus on being better and being healthier and looking forward. Because our energy goes where our attention flows. So we see and we attract what it is we focus on. So let\'s focus on what we want instead of what we don\'t.


Dr. Berry:
Oh I love that. I love it. Dr. Donna, you\'ve talked about a key arenas really affecting our health. What would you say they are? Like some of the key arenas really affecting our everyday health. Whether you\'re an adult and I know you deal with children but working with adults now.


Dr. Donna Hamilton:
So whether you\'re an adult or child, the key arenas are the same. There are five and I don\'t get caught up on the number because depending on who you listen to, they\'ll define them in different ways and they\'ll give them different needs. But the concept is that we are talking about every aspect of affecting your health and wellness. So for this conversation, I teach the people, I\'ve worked with five arenas. The first is the physical. So that\'s what you would think. It\'s the body. It\'s what you put in your body, on your body, and anything that affects anything that\'s tangible. Those are all aspects of the physical arena in your life and your health. There\'s the mental arena, which we touched on earlier. Those are your thoughts and your beliefs, your inner voice. So you can see that for a lot of people, they may look good physically and their mental arena is off.


And we\'re not talking about mentally ill. We\'re talking about people who are chronically critical of themselves and others beating up on themselves. They awfulize, you know, if you say can be done, they\'re the first to tell you 500 reasons why there\'s no way, why they\'re definitely gonna die. So that would not be a healthy mental. The next is the emotional arena. Those are your feelings, which is different than the mental arena. That\'s a very important distinction. The mental arena. It\'s about thoughts. Your thoughts and beliefs are not the same as your feelings. And many, many people don\'t like to play in the realm of feelings. So that emotions - happy, sad, fear. So that\'s the emotional area and you can see why many people like to avoid that because some of those feelings are uncomfortable. But that\'s an important part of being healthy, addressing your emotional arena.
The next is the social arena and this is a big one and many people overlook it. Your social arena is what gives life variety and spice. So those are your habits, your hobbies, your money, your relationship, your job. So in medicine, for any positions who are listening, we talk about the bio psycho social. When we take a social history. For other listeners who aren\'t in medicine, that\'s why when you go to your primary care doctor, especially for first visit, they\'ll ask you what do you do? What do you do for a living? Are you married? Are you single? It\'s not just being nice and establishing a relationship though that\'s important too. This gives us a picture of all the aspects affecting your life. Because your job, your money, your, your habits. Whether you smoke, whether you text and drive. All of these affect your overall health and wellbeing. Your sleeping habits, all of these come under the social aspect of the social media.


And the lesser arena is the spiritual arena. And that\'s not religion, but religion does fall under this. The spiritual arena is around on your purpose, your mission, what gives your life meaning and how you make sense of it. That\'s also very, very important. Not only from quality of life because you can have everything looking good in those other boxes. So you\'re physically healthy mentally, emotionally. You got a job that you love and healthy relationships, with money. And you\'re still feeling like your life has no meaning or purpose. And so remember we said being healthy, as functioning in your best in every aspect. If you\'re walking around feeling like your life has no meaning or purpose, you\'re not really living your best life. You\'re not functioning at your best. That\'s why that spiritual arena is really important. It also becomes very important if you end up getting physically ill.


Because if you\'re unconscious or unspoken belief is, nah, doesn\'t really matter and your doctor is saying come on, you\'ve got to get your blood pressure under control. I don\'t know what\'s going on. If you don\'t get this under control, you\'re going to have a stroke. You could die. And if you\'re really trying to like, oh well and you\'re not depressed. I\'m making a distinction to people are depressed. But people will really kind of have this existential. Oh well if I live, live and I don\'t, that\'s fine. You\'re not going to be motivated to take stuff better. So all the arenas are connected. And so with my coaching clients, many times I will tell people, if you\'re stuck trying to make progress in one area, you would benefit from starting with another arena. So for a health thing, if you have tried six ways from Sunday to lose weight and it\'s not working, many times we find success when we start in another arena and start addressing that arena first.


Dr. Berry:
Oh I love it. And Lunch and Learn community, I tell you every time, I think I say it\'s a week now, every week. I selfishly learn just as much from the guests as you guys may be learning as you\'re listening to this right now. So I\'m definitely intrigued and remember, we do show notes so you don\'t have to like write anything down. You will get a chance to kind of have everything kind of written in a nice little pdf format so you can get those five key arenas. And I think Dr. Donna touched on it very well that you could be doing great in three of them, right? But those other two could be the reason why you can\'t lose weight. The other two could be the reason why your blood pressure isn\'t going down. The reason why, you know, you\'re not having good communication in your relationship. But also so I definitely love the fact that, you know, they really are together and again, we\'re not trying to prioritize one or the other. We\'re just trying to say, yeah, you got five that really can affect it one way. Thank you Dr. Donna for that aspect.


Dr. Donna Hamilton:
Yeah, they\'re all related. And like I tell people because we do workplace wellbeing, I see that a lot. So here\'s another way that\'s common. When you ask what are some things that we see are common, very, very common. So people will be stressed at their job for fill in the blank reasons. Not enough money, too much demand. Bully boss. They\\u2019re stressed out at work. They go home. They can\'t turn it off or they\'re still stressed out. So one, it might end up affecting their relationship, their arguing with their significant other, or they\'re kind of snippy with their kids or they\'re feeling guilty because they\'re not spending time with their kids. If that doesn\'t happen, then they\'re wondering why. Maybe they can\'t sleep well, they just, they\'re having sleep problems because the stress from work. And I\'m not saying this is always the case, but here\'s a common scenario.
So the stress from work is disturbing your sleep and then they\'re wondering why they\'re gaining weight. Because sleep disturbances can affect your weight or they\'re wondering why they\'re having trouble controlling your blood sugar. Because if you\'re not getting enough sleep, that can be a factor. So this is a scenario where sometimes the key to affecting change is dealing with work stress. It might be getting another job. It might mean having a fierce conversation with your manager. But the issue might not be getting more disciplined and not what you\'re eating. It may be, in this case we got to do something about that stress job because that\'s the one that is wreaking havoc on your physical wellbeing.


Dr. Berry:
I love it. And I think, and I especially think this segues perfectly to kind of our next point. Because obviously someone\'s not going to be able to Google how to get healthier. Because it\'s different for everybody. What do you think about the importance of having really individualized plans and goals for each individual person in their pursuit to become healthier?


Dr. Donna Hamilton:
I\\u2019m a huge fan. So much so that I\'ve wrote a book entitled Wellness Your Way. It\'s literally about making it your way because one size doesn\'t fit all when it comes to health. Now that doesn\'t mean that there aren\'t common themes and patterns. I mean that is the case. But depending on what your underlying issue is, depending on your age, where you live. There\'s so many different variables that you may have to have a customized plan. You will get better benefits if you have a customized approach to that. And what works for your friend may not work for you. I mean, we tell patients that all the time. If nothing else with prescription meds, right? I mean, we have many times, well my aunt had so and so and she had this, so I\'m gonna take that thing and we\'d like, don\'t do that. That\'s an extreme example, but it happens, right? It\'s all things.


The other piece that\'s very important. What worked for you 10 years ago, five years ago, might not work for you now. So it\'s not just customized from person to person. It\'s customized for point of life for you. You know, you may have had a health issue that a new diagnosis. You may have had a baby. I mean there\'s so many different variables that\'s going on. You may have a different job now, so you know, you can\'t take certain medications because they\'ll make you sleepy and you can\'t do that yet. There are just so many different variables. That\'s why it\'s so important to have a customized approach for you now. And the best way to do that, again, going full circle, that\'s my I having their primary care doctor who you know and trust and who knows you. That\'s why it\'s so important because they can help customize what you need now.


Dr. Berry:
Oh, I love it. And of course they can pick up your book. The book was called again, I\'m sorry?


Dr. Donna Hamilton:
Wellness Your Way.

Dr. Berry:
Wellness Your Way. And remember Lunch and Learn listeners, the link will be in the show notes as well too so you can pick that up and we\'ll make sure we support Dr. Donna and especially helping enlighten this community. Again, I\'m enlightened. Like I said I\'m, I\'ve got the five keys like ready to make sure like I\'m maximizing my approaches in every single one of them. So again definitely appreciate that aspect of the education today. Before we let you go, because I know your time is busy but couple of things I want to talk about. Because we talk about mindset being a very a buzz wordy type terminology these days, right? But what do you think about health, being healthy in self-care? Is that one in the same way? What do you think the relationship is with those things?


Dr. Donna Hamilton:
I\'m a big fan of distinctions in words and so health and self-care are different though they are interconnected. Self-care is what it sounds like. It\'s the way you take care of yourself or it\'s part of how you become healthy or how you maintain your health or how you become healthy. And so self-care helps you achieve your health goals. Likewise if you\'re healthy or not, your degree of health and wellbeing. That can affect your ability to take care of yourself. A very basic level, if you are feeling so ill physically warned him that you can\'t get out of bed, it\'s more challenging. You take care of yourself. You\\u2019re either not feeling well. Mentally, not up to it or physically you can\'t get up and go take a walk. So that\'s the one. So they are different but they are intimately related.


Dr. Berry:
And do you find any common misconceptions or issues that kind of prevent people from making sure that their self-care is where it needs to be?


Dr. Donna Hamilton:
Oh absolutely. The biggest misconception is that self-care is a luxury and it involves luxury items. Yeah, I love a mani, in spa day as much as the next person, I\'d love it. But there\'s more to self-care than massages and mani and even meditation. Those are some of the common things people they gotta take care of myself and you\'re spotting. You take care of myself at the learn how to meditate. These are all examples of self but self-care is, it\'s broader than that. And we have to encourage people to look at self-care in different categories. Self-care. It doesn\'t have to be this separate thing that you make time for. You can have small spurts of self-care that are quick and easy. You can have longer spurts of self-care like a nice vacation but you can also have self-care but you do in the moment at work and also self-care isn\'t always the juicy fun stuff.


Self-care is going in for your annual exam. Self-care is making sure you get your cholesterol level under control. You know self-care is going to the dentist and having your eyes checked right. Those are acts of self-care too. Self-care cannot be having a plan to manage stress at work. It can be making sure once an hour you get up and you walk around if you have a desk job. So there\'s lots of different ways that we can create self-care that are not these luxury things that you have to add to your schedule.


Dr. Berry:
I love it. And first of all Lunch and Learn community. You know I love that Dr. Donna. She has told you to get your regular annual visit like three times today and I\'m loving every single time she says it because I am 100% here for it.


Dr. Donna Hamilton:
Yes, thank you. We have to start with the basic and Dr. Berry knows I\'m a big fan of acknowledging and then be real. I\'m not saying that it\'s easy or necessarily pleasant to do. That does not change that it\'s important to do. So it\'s important. That\'s why you listen to this podcast. Actually listening to this podcast can count as self-care depending on your intention and the spirit with which you listened to it. And I\'m sure most of you are listening to it with the intention of learning information about your health. That\'s taking care of your mental arena. You\'re filling in your mind with healthy beliefs, accurate information from trusted, valued physicians in healthcare providers. Because Dr. Berry, he\'s not just going to bring you anyone. He\'s going to bring people know what they\'re talking about.
So that self-care. Because it can be confusing these days to have good, reliable, trustworthy health information. You know doctor Google, we love it. But that isn\'t the best way to get reliable health information. And by not the best way I would say don\'t do it. Unless it is taking you to a trusted website, of a trusted physician you know. So this counts as self-care, especially if you put the information that you learned into action. Take one step, like one step. And that is counts self-care.


Dr. Berry:
I love it. And before we let you go and the last question I always employ to my guests, how is what you\'re doing? How can what you do to help empower others to take better control of their health?
Dr. Donna Hamilton:
What we teach literally is around knowing what you need and then advocating and taking appropriate actions. That is a core of what we teach at my company. A core of my approach when I work with coaching clients, it\'s around giving people the information that they need and then inspiring them forward. That is, people say, don\'t tell your secret sauce, but I\'m going to share that with them. That\'s part of my secret sauce. And Dr. Berry knows I\'m big on inspiration and motivation and that\'s not a Pollyanna sort of way. You know, because doctors, we tell people what to do and we tell them how to do it right. So think about a prescription, take two pills. That\'s what to do. Take it, you know, at bedtime, a little bit of food. That\'s how to do it. The Art of medicine is inspiring people to do it and that\'s a big piece of what we have to do. And that\'s why you\'ll find, and people who talk to me and follow me, we\'ll find that I focus on what\'s to do, not instead of what not to do.


We talked a lot about that. I will share a lot of inspiration and uplifting information because people need that now more than ever. It\'s easier to take action, take care of yourself when you feel like there\'s a purpose. So that is a big piece of it. When you start to think about your five arenas, you start to think about, well how am I doing in each of these areas? What\'s working? What needs some work if feels so much more manageable for starting to feel more manageable than, oh my goodness, what\'s going wrong? What my doctor said, all these numbers of bad, blah, blah, blah, and I\'m afraid I\'m getting old. And all that negative self-talk that can actually put you into. It can shut you down. Part of a stress is a freeze response. So people talk about fight or flight, which a lot of your listeners may have heard of.
There\'s a third part that people don\'t recognize, which is freeze response. It is a physiologic response.

So we get overwhelmed. We shut down because we think like our mind and our bodies are programmed so that it kind of, it feels like it\'s keeping us safe. It doesn\'t always, but so we keep people inspired and motivated with information and to know that they\'re doing what\'s best for them. To understand how to get advocates and how to get good healthcare to support them. Because you don\'t need to be a doc. That\'s the other thing I tell people. I mean, we want you to have a medical literacy. We want you to understand what you need. But we train a long time to learn all this information. You don\'t have to take on all that responsibility. And I say this, everyone who the recovering control freaks out. Raise if you\\u2019re listening, tell the truth.


I\'m raising my hand to, you like to have control because then they\'ll say. That\'s a lot of responsibility to put on yourself. Also not realistic. So get someone who can help you. Take care of yourself. And that\'s that empowered piece. So you know how to talk to about. You know questions asked. You know how to advocate for yourself. But then also you can trust them to help you achieve your goals and that\'s how this all comes together. So it makes it easy. You have to help your doctor help you and that\'s how we help you. You keep you up lifted and educated so you know what to do and what to ask for.


Dr. Berry:
I love it. I love and Dr. Donna thank you for definitely knocking out, knock in that question out of the park. Absolutely an amazing, and again, Lunch and Learn community knock down is when someone that we\'ve been friends for going on three plus years now and every time I see Dr. Donna is, and again this is not just fluff like she is really inspiring. She is really being positive. She\'s really making sure that you are in a right mindset to be able to move forward. So Dr. Donna, thank you for joining the Lunch and Learn podcast and really help educating us and getting us together. But before I let you go. And again, I keep saying that, but this is a timeframe that I like to show off my guest. I\'m very fortunate enough to know some amazing people doing some absolutely amazing things.


Dr. Donna hinted at a little bit when she talked about her book on this your way. Dr. Donna I want you to kinda take the floor, let people know what you\'re doing, what you got for them, books, courses, whatever that is, please let them know now, because I don\'t know if Lunch and Learn community realizes there\'s like no, like this is actually like a big dog right here talking to you. That\'s why I always give the opportunities like, no, just let these folks know like who you are. And they said, ok. Yeah, yeah. That\'s Dr. Donna Hamilton.


Dr. Donna Hamilton:
Thank you Dr. Berry. Yes. So as we talked about in the beginning, for those of you who skipped, right, and I am a four time bestselling author. I\'m an international speaker. I have been featured on ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So my information is out there and not that we need to have it validated by others, but I\'m doing something that other people find valuable. So that\'s Dr. Berry mentioned you can get my book Wellness Your Way. He\'s going to have a link to the site where you can go to get an autographed copy for me and it\'s on Amazon. We are in the process of shifting over some logistics. So if you run there and its listing is not right there right now, don\'t worry, it\'s getting up there. What apart through our company manifest excellence, as we mentioned, we do work site wellbeing consulting.


One of the pieces of we\'re very, very excited about as we\'re rolling out new trainings and courses for managers and CEOs around trauma informed leadership. We\'re really excited about this. But people may not realize it, but about two thirds of every adult has survived at least one childhood trauma or what we call in pediatrics adverse childhood event. And then if you add, when they get to be adults, you add so-called regular traumas like car accidents and having surgery or so by having a fire. That\'s a lot of the workforce that is walking around having survived a trauma and so a certain subset of that has may have post-traumatic stress or they\'re just, they interface a little differently. And we are teaching employers how to have a trauma informed workplace. So we can talk about that a separate podcast. We\'re teaching people how to be trauma informed with each other so that we all have workplaces that help us get our job done instead of causing us to shut down and be more stressed and less healthy.
So we\'re really very excited about that. I also have a gift. I want to make sure that your listeners have. If they go to manifestexcellence.com/chooseyou. We have a checklist. This is not about trauma informed. I should\'ve mentioned this earlier. This is for what we\'re talking about today. It\'s a self-care checklist. There\'s so much out there around how to be healthy. Even after listening to all this information, you still say, but where do I start? So we\'ve put together a nice short sweet document that goes over some of the key healthy habits. They\'ll give you the most bang for your buck. So whether there\'s certain habits that whether you\'re trying to be healthy, address diabetes or weight control or whatever, is there certain habits that will give you health benefits across all the different arenas. So we have that list and it\'s combined with a nice checklist and you can write your notes down and you know what to talk to your doctor about.


Dr. Berry I said I\'m really big on that. And a lot of times we have all these wonderful ideas and then we go to the doctor\'s office and the patient doesn\'t remember anything they want to talk about, like not one thing. And so we have it all in one document. We\'ve got prompting questionnaires. Some of my health goals are blank. I want to talk to my doctor about blank. Doctor can help me with, you know, so please do that for yourself. Again, we want you to be empowered, but we don\'t want you to be burdened. So we are giving you the tools so that you can help your doctor help you.


Dr. Berry:
I love it. Absolutely. Oh, okay. Say it again. That\'s why I love to have amazing guests who bring us stuff. Right? So we\'re going to actually leave with stuff to be able to kind of get onto the next level because Dr. Donna said correctly. We can tell you all we need to tell you, but you still have to take that action, right? So I want to make sure you download this checklist that take action, get healthy, get to your doctor, get that wellness appointment done and over with, right? So you don\'t have to have Dr. Donna come after you because you have not done it yet.


Dr. Donna Hamilton:
It would be to encourage and love you for. That sounds healthy and like fluffy and all of that. But I always do. I tell people, most people do a good enough job beating up on themselves. They don\'t need me or their doctor beating up on them. So we are going to come behind you and courage you forward and say what\'s going on? If I did imitations better, I imitate, a nice loving, caring grandmother voice or something like that to inspire people forward. Because most of us know, especially if you\'re listening to this podcast, you are learning what it is to do. So we just have to help you get out of overwhelm so that you can do it. And that\'s part of my expertise. Helping people move from the stuck to unstoppable.


Dr. Berry:
I love it. And what\'s your website again so people know where they can find you?


Dr. Donna Hamilton:
Go to manifestexcellence.com and that\'s where we\'ll have all the workplace wellbeing information. There\'s lots of blog posts you can go and we have, I want to say about seven years worth of blog articles about self-care. How to be healthy at work. There\'s safety. There\'s a lot of information there. If you are a CEO or manager and you want to bring us in to help with your, to do lunch and learns at your office or to do checkups for your employee wellbeing program, you can contact us there. Or if you are an employee who wants simply some information about how to be healthy, you can contact us through there and they\'ll get the information to us. And for the guests and for the gift, it\'s manifestexcellence.com/chooseyou. That C. H. O. O. S. E. Y. O. U.


Dr. Berry:
I love it, Dr. Donna. Again, I can\'t thank you enough for not only such an amazing discussion today on health, but really accumulating an amazing month of podcasts that really focus on, we\'re not just talking about blood pressure. We go, trust me, I\'ve got plenty of podcasts that talk about that, right? But like we want to make sure that we\'re hitting home the fact that you\'re like, no, your mindset, I got to get right. If you want to get healthy, we\\u2019re halfway, we\'re already on the other side of halfway towards 2019 and depending on when you\'re listening to this. So you can start today if you didn\'t start the first six months. And Dr. Donna you had been such an amazing job and definitely thank you again for joining the Lunch and Learn community. Educating us. Getting us together. Like I said, even though I thought I was a little bit healthy, I\'m going to make sure I take myself to the next level.


Dr. Donna Hamilton:
That\'s right. We need to aim high, be healthy. Function at your best, in mind, body, spirit, and life. Aim high.


Dr. Berry:
Thank you Dr. Donna.


Dr. Donna Hamilton:
Thanks Dr. Berry.

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