Lifestyle Medicine - for newbies

[CDreamer]

Good Morning - well here at least!

There are a number of threads on Lifestyle (Functional for our US friends) Medicine but few seem to really understand just what Lifestyle is about and I’ve noticed a huge assumption that it’s about weight loss or nutrition. And it’s not.

It’s based on science, it’s well researched and it’s effective for improving QOL and in some cases, reversing chronic conditions without use of drugs - but there is a small window of opportunity for it to be effective for AF, without any other treatment so to any and all Newbies - please do look at what Lifestyle factors really mean and in order of what I have found to be most important to manage is:-

1. Stress - both physical ie: over exercising and pushing yourself until your body produces stress. And worry and psychological stress and emotion, some of which will be external stressor and some inner stressors but ALL of which you can learn to manage when you find out what works for you.

2. Sleep - getting 6-8 hours of good quality sleep is essential for healing. Personally I normally only manage 4-5 hours at a time but 2 x 4 = 8 so what if it is sleep 1 and sleep 2 because you have to get up in the middle of the night. If you can’t get back to sleep within 20 minutes it’s time to do something about it so look at consulting a sleep clinic - doctor’s rarely can offer anything other than pills which usually compound sleep issues rather than help.

3. Exercise - moderate exercise which leaves you feeling energised = good. No exercise or over exercising = stress = inflammation = higher risk of AF.

4. Nutrition is more than diet and weight loss. It’s about ensuring you have all of the essential nutrients to maintain health and for us AF’ers - then some - so plenty of anti-inflammatory foods, preferably organic, always fresh and never processed.

I’ve found one of the best places to learn about Food as Medicine is here:-

thedoctorskitchen.com/thrif...

A good starting place for learning about Lifestyle Medicine is drchatterjee.com/ There is a series on Sleep at the moment.

For Breathing - buteykoclinic.com/

For exercise health.harvard.edu/heart-he...

Managing Stress - too many helpful sites to mention but start with breath. Everything about stress management whether it’s physical or psychological starts with learning to breath properly and yes - we don’t know how to breath properly! Yoga teaches breath, Pilates teaches breath, Stress Managment teaches breath and just about all strategies for managing stress start with teaching breathing techniques - so start by just observing how your are breathing - fast and shallow - increases the body’s stress response - long, deep and slow - soothes the stress response.

That is my 2 min guide to Lifestyle Medicine but there’s always lots to learn.

Have a good day everyone.

[Physalis]

I thought you'd have a flood of replies. My initial thoughts.

Stress, I'm quite good at managing stress usually but sometimes it is unexpected. Actually, very little phases me, I don't go up or down very much which is a good and a bad thing. A year or so ago something happened which really pleased me and for a week I didn't have any AF, usually it was every two days. Doing something that gives you pleasure is something you should build in to your life like reading for example. Being really nice to people in the hope that they might be really nice to you back! Try not to bear grudges!

Exercise, I have noticed on this forum the number of times people are daft enough to push themselves to the limit and then get AF. Don't do it, just exercise very moderately. I have survived this long without doing any form of exercise just normally moving around.

My son commented to me the other day that a lot of people he knows who played sport a lot have got problems with knees, backs etc but he didn't and his body's still all in one piece and working properly. Mind you, he's just bought an exercise bike but he just rides it for half an hour or so twice a week while watching TV.

Diet. I have just received in the post this morning 10g of Kombuchaorganic® Live Certified Organic RAW Milk KEFIR Grains. I've a feeling that it will be like those ginger beer plants that we had in the seventies which ferment and grow and then you give a lot away.

I must say the the organic yoghurt starter culture was very nice. You have to heat the milk up to boiling point and then bring it down to I think about 40 degrees and keep it there. That was a bit of a problem, my slow cooker couldn't do that. I now put one and a half litres in a vacuum flask and leave it for a while which works.

I bought that after watching Tim Spector's video on here

youtube.com/watch?v=gRMEZnE...(Not working as expected?)

[CDreamer in reply to Physalis]

Thanks Physalis. I know a lot of members who already work with this but thought it would be good for newly diagnosed.

You are correct you will soon be looking to give away your kefir grains - but they don’t replicate as quickly as the water grains. If you have too much kefir then strain it (nylon sieve only) comes out texture of thick yogurt & delicious on fruit.

I follow Prof Spectre’s work & joined his nutritional survey on Zoe App. I’ve been working with gut biome now for many years.

You may find this blog interesting - I learned most of what I know about the value of cultured foods from Tiffany. Some great recipes culturelove.co.uk/

[secondtry]

Good summary CDreamer. I would just add what helps me on the 'Lifestyle journey' is to keep in mind I am not looking for one silver bullet to cure AF & all other chronic diseases, just slowly reversing many accumulated bad habits. I have done this for 7 yrs and am very pleased with the results.

[Peony4575]

That is an excellent summary and resource thank you for putting it together . I would like to see more on lifestyle ( acts as a reminder if nothing else) as a way of tackling disease as opposed to reliance on ( and suffering from) drugs

[irene75359]

Thank you so much CDreamer - in my notebook!

[Singwell]

Saved. The Lifestyle advice I've checked out for m post in this group - yours in particular - have really helped me improve my QOL over the last year and get me into a more positive mindset. All of this contributes to navigating life with AF. I'd add to your links the work of Dr Tim Spector, one of our leading epidemiologists who's done extensive research into the miscrobiome. There's lots of video material of Dr Tim on various YouTube channels.

[CDreamer in reply to Singwell]

Thanks Singwell - don’t worry about the links I’ve been following Prof Spector’s work for a long time now. I use the App and am waiting for the new Zoe App on specific testing for personalised medicine based on his work to launch in UK - launched in US a while ago & I have registered but they were only accepting limited registrations and not sure I got in.

I did take part in one of Imperial’s study on gut and the results I received back was that my eating plan was excellent. You had to log in everything you had eaten for the previous period - think it was a week. They are doing great stuff - BUT if you watched the interview with John Campbell - he explains exactly why he couldn’t have done these studies within academia and there in lies the political difficulties me thinks.

One of the doctors I see (She’s an NHS Consultant) has also done a huge amount of work on the gut biome and how it regulates the immune system and in 2018 was giving lectures to the staff at our local hospital.

[Singwell in reply to CDreamer]

Will check that out re politics of medicine. I too have registered for the Zoe App and look forward to get going with it. Unfortunately I just missed out on the 'poo project' since the first wave of the pandemic had hit when I first found out about it and the research team had switched their focus to the symptoms App. I noticed a lot of the 'new wave' medics are now using social media to disseminate quality information about lifestyle and medicine. I really hope this is a wind of change. There is such opportunity here.

[CDreamer]

What a shame that the AFA are not promoting their own Lifestyle Programme for AF. My hope for the future is that some, any of the doctors working with the AFA, will get on board with Lifestyle and really embrace what it is, how it can help but more importantly get a programme together to educate people.

[Singwell in reply to CDreamer]

Absolutely! Once I'm in a better place with successful ablation I think I'm going to ask my GP to set up an AF information clinic. I haven't always had good experiences with him but he's interested in AF and is the researcher in the practice. We need these in every NHS trust. BP clinics too. AF is practically an epidemic in the developed world and that HAS to be down to lifestyle.