How to Live Vibrantly to 100 with Dr. Em Wong

This week on the Courageously Unconventional podcast, I'm joined by Dr. Em Wong!

Dr. Em is an integrative medicine doctor who teaches about brain care and does wellness coaching. She is an artist and author of iHeal Mag online. Her goal is to be healthy of mind and body at her 100th birthday party—and she wants to invite you along on the journey.

In our conversation, we talk about the book she's writing with Coach Emma Caronna called Vibrant to 100: Extend your Brainspan and Shape How You Age. Their book gives practical tips and advice about lifestyle habits that can help us be healthy of mind and body as we get older. They also teach readers how to apply coaching tools like mindset dexterity, emotional resilience, and brain wiring, to manage their stress and build sustainable habits.

Dr. Em and I discuss…

• How dialing down your inner critic can help with brain health
• Recognizing ageism (especially toward yourself!)
• The long-term benefits of investing in your health 
• How loss of muscle impacts health and aging
• How to help the older adults in your life by role modeling healthy habits
• Why you should incorporate fun and adventure in your life
• Some simple things you can start today

Enjoy this conversation with Dr. Em Wong!

Connect with Dr. Em Wong

Take the Brain Health Check https://www.fyrebox.com/play/7z1rlbae5yqv0plnrv/.
Website: integrityhealing.info
Instagram: instagram.com/integrityhealing.info
Facebook: facebook.com/IntegrityHealing
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/dr-em-wong

Connect with Lynn Grogan:
If you’re considering a major career or lifestyle change and want to talk to someone, I’m here for you! See if we're a good fit for 1:1 life coaching by scheduling a free consultation here: https://lynngrogan.com/work-with-me/

Visit my website: https://lynngrogan.com

Let's Connect! Find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lynngrogan/

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Original music by David Delaney of The Whiskey Boys: Linktr.ee/whiskeyboys

Transcript

Lynn Grogan [00:00:00]:
Welcome to the Courageously Unconventional podcast. Today, we have a special guest on the show. Dr. Em Wong is here, and we're gonna talk all about brain health. So if you're like me, you, kind of, sort of have an idea of what brain health entails, but it's always good to have a definition. So Dr. Em defines brain health as having two components. 1st, there is the cognitive ability or performance component, which includes things like day to day attention span, problem solving, memory, processing speed, and language. So these are dependent on factors like your quality of sleep, alcohol intake, feeling under the weather, allergies, and your overall health. The second is the preventative component, which includes how we take care of our brains and protect them from harm to prevent future conditions like strokes, dementia, and other brain diseases.

Lynn Grogan [00:00:51]:
So both of these components, the cognitive ability or performance component and the preventative component are integral in evaluating a person's overall brain health. So overall, we should all be thinking about the health of our brains. If you wanna live a long, healthy, and vibrant life, your brain health will be a critical part of how you get there. So please enjoy this conversation with Dr. Em Wong. Alright. Welcome back to the Courageously Unconventional podcast. Today, I have a very special guest on the show, Dr. Em Wong. Em, thank you for coming on the podcast.

Dr. Em Wong [00:01:27]:
Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity. It's great to see you again, Lynn.

Lynn Grogan [00:01:31]:
Yeah. Likewise. So why don't you go ahead for anybody who's not familiar with you, introduce yourself, your background, that kind of thing?

Dr. Em Wong [00:01:39]:
I'm an internal medicine doctor by training, and, I am basically my specialty is women's health, and I also have advanced training in integrative medicine, and I am a health and wellness coach.

Lynn Grogan [00:01:55]:
Amazing. And I've had the pleasure of knowing you for several years now. Like, obviously, we first met at Katrina Ubell MD Coaching. You were a client and then later a coach. And I personally have learned so much from you over the years. So when you reached out and you were like, hey. What if we, you know, if we came on the show, I just, like, jumped at the opportunity.

Lynn Grogan [00:02:12]:
And, you know, I'm excited to talk to you because you're doing something incredibly courageous with your next adventure in life. So do you wanna talk a little bit about that? I know you are writing a book, and I'm sure that you have a lot to say about that process.

Dr. Em Wong [00:02:29]:
So we met, I wanna say maybe 4 or 5 years ago when I was a client, with Katrina, and I really appreciated your coaching then. And I really loved coaching so much that I went through that coach training myself, the life coach, training myself. And I really just felt like it was transformative, and I decided that I would get into brain health. And so, I mean, that that was really the initial path.

Dr. Em Wong [00:03:01]:
And I wanted to just learn more about, sort of what we can do to kind of improve our brain health. And so I started writing this blog. And, I think as I wrote the blog and went through that process, I realized that I really wanted to raise more awareness about this and hopefully educate people about how important lifestyle is when it comes to not only the sort of day to day function of our brains, but actually over the long term, we can actually prevent some of the brain, health conditions that we see in older folks.

Lynn Grogan [00:03:34]:
Yeah. And what is so you're writing this book. Can you tell me, like, a little bit more about what the book is about, what the process has been like?

Dr. Em Wong [00:03:43]:
Sure. So the book is called Vibrant to 100: Extend your Brainspan and Shape How You Age. So it's a book about basically how we tweak our lifestyle. Right? So it's kind of like eat, move, sleep. What do we do to kind of make connections with people? It's all the stuff that you've already been reading about. If you read the news or any kind of you're interested in health at all, I'm sure. You've seen all these articles and all these new books that are coming out about brain health and what we really wanted to do. My coauthor and I, Emma Caronna, we really wanted to introduce the concept of how we change these habits. Because I think at this point, most of us kind of know what we're supposed to do if we've been paying attention at all, but it's still a challenge to integrate this into our lives on a day to day basis.

Dr. Em Wong [00:04:34]:
And that's really where the coaching tools come in. So it's about sort of, how do we frame our mindset in a way that is motivating, in a way that is compassionate to ourselves, that gives ourselves grace when we are not, you know, doing our best in terms of, you know, the choices that we make and just understanding that that's very human, and we have many, many years to sort of tweak and and adjust and and figure out what works for us.

Lynn Grogan [00:05:03]:
What do you think is different about your book that you're not seeing out there right now? Because it sounds like you're adding something to the conversation that hasn't been seen quite yet.

Dr. Em Wong [00:05:12]:
So I feel like other books that I've seen out on the market, I would say there's a lot about the practicalities of, like, what to eat, how to do your exercise, how much to sleep, things like that. And, you know, connecting and all of that is really great. And, you know, definitely, you know, no, not don't mean to cast any shade on any of the books that are out there now, but as I said, I feel like there's a component that's missing that is sort of like, how do I actually do that? And, of course, there's a whole bunch of books that are written about sort of how to build habits and the whole James Clear work. Right? And sort of like, how do we sort of develop more helpful habits? And so really we're trying to put together some sort of coaching tools, and a lot of that comes down to managing our minds and specifically managing our stress. Because as you know, as a coach, a lot of times, we actually can increase the amount of stress on ourselves because we're so hard on ourselves, we beat up on ourselves. And, you know, if I'm not making the right choice when I'm, you know, sitting down to dinner or if I am going to sleep too late, you know, it's like there's a part of my brain, that inner critic that really wants to be like, or, you know, like, you're not you're not taking care of yourself.

Dr. Em Wong [00:06:26]:
You know what's wrong with you? And, so as, you know, what we're really talking about in the book as we kind of tap into that inner healer, I'm gonna call it inner coach. It's really sort of offering ourselves that compassion and saying, oh, well, you had, you know, a human moment and you decided that you're gonna stay up late and scroll on your phone and that's okay and we don't have to do that every night and it's not a reason to beat up on ourselves, it's not a reason to sort of, you know, have more stress. Like, why, you know, why do we need that second error? We really don't. Right? 

Lynn Grogan [00:07:01]:
Yeah. Well, even just you saying it in that way, I almost feel a little bit calmer too just hearing that. Just just that different way of talking to yourself versus, you know, what would you say is the opposite of, like, the inner healer? Like, the critic? 

Dr. Em Wong [00:07:17]:
The inner critic. Yeah. So the way that I visualize this and the way we talk about it with my patients or my clients is that I often feel like my inner critic. Right? It's like you're on, you're on the street at Times Square in New York, and there's this huge video sort of, like, you know, flashing images, and my inner critic is just so loud. Like, if you're at a rock concert with these huge video images, and your inner critic is just like, you know, and you're kind of like. And so, really, my goal with all of this work is really just to make it's like that inner critic is never gonna go away because really what it's trying to do is to help you survive in the world, and it has helped you survive in the world all these years. And so it's never gonna go away, but we really wanna just dial the volume down and wanna get it down to, like, you know, I feel like down to the size of your cell phone, and there's, like, a little image on your phone. And it's you know, you can dial the volume down a little bit more.

Dr. Em Wong [00:08:12]:
Sometimes it'll be a little louder, sometimes it'll be less, but at least it's sort of something that you can have, you know, some control over as opposed to just, you know, being overwhelmed and just drowning in sort of, the input that's coming from that inner critic. And what that means is that, you know, you wanna at least recognize that there's some balance to be had. Right? And so this is that Native American sort of parable about the two wolves inside your head. Right? There's a wolf that's always constantly, you know, telling you how terrible you are and all the things you're doing wrong, and then there's this other kind of loving kind wolf that's sort of trying to take care of you and nurture you. And so the wolf that gets stronger is the one that you feed. And so if we feed that inner critic and buy into everything they're telling us, and that's just gonna get louder and louder, whereas the other wolf is the one that, you know, we really want to nurture and feed so that there's some balance to be had. And, hopefully, even that becomes a stronger voice, the sort of mentor voice as we get older.

Lynn Grogan [00:09:12]:
Yeah. I love the imagery of that. And just thinking through of like, I guess one of my questions is is like, what have you learned over the years that are like maybe those common narratives on aging that even just debunking those or thinking about those differently helps you feed, you know, the nice inner healer wolf instead of the inner critic one. 

Dr. Em Wong [00:09:33]:
So I think the biggest realization for me as I've done this work is, you know, I started out just talking about brain health and kind of, like, the science behind brain health and and sort of, like, with my doctor brain sort of thinking about, okay, you know, what are all the things that we can do? And I think one of the things that I didn't realize is how this is really actually a, you know, it's like, it's really a social activist sort of movement because I think that what we don't realize is how prevalent ageism is. Right? And so we think about sort of, like, you know, racism, and we think about, like, all the different ways that we discriminate, right, in our society. We talk about LGBTQ, and we talk about sort of like neurodiversity, and we've been able to develop some language around some of these stigmas that are out there in society and really proactively address them, which is really great. And I feel like one of the last Baskins of prejudice is actually ageism, which is so ironic because it's the one prejudice that we cannot escape because we are all getting older all the time. And one of the things that I try to encourage people to think about is that, you know, aging is a normal process. We are all aging at the same rate every day. Right? You and I are aging one day at a time, one week at a time. There was a newborn baby.

Dr. Em Wong [00:10:56]:
Right, we're all aging at the same rate every day and so it's not as if we can stop this process and it's not as if we can slow it down, it just is happening. And so we can either accept it and embrace it and sort of take it, you know, good or bad. Right? Or we can just sort of say, oh, no. I don't want that. But it's funny because when we think about little children growing up, right, we're kinda like, okay. Babies are great for this reason. Right. They're so cute and adorable and cuddly, but they cry and they poop and we have to change the diapers.

Dr. Em Wong [00:11:28]:
And so it's almost like, and then they're toddlers and then they have tantrums, and then they're teenagers, and then they have teenager tantrums. And, you know, they're, right, they're they're they're sarcastic, and they're mean, and, you know, like and they just these are just life stages that we go through. And it's almost like every life stage. There's the good and the bad. And somehow when we think about aging, it becomes or, you know, when we look at our, you know, kinda elders, it becomes a lot more all or nothing. It's kinda like it's either really great, like there's exceptional elders. Right? Or it's all bad, and they're kind of like sitting there, you know, kind of, lonely or, you know, or weak or frail or whatever. Right? And so that's just not it's not a true narrative.

Dr. Em Wong [00:12:11]:
The true narrative of aging is that there's a huge range just as there is at every stage of human life.

Lynn Grogan [00:12:18]:
Yeah. I think that's been one of the most interesting things for me traveling in the way that I do, you know, being a full time RVer, we're often in spaces with a lot of older adults because that's kind of a common thing that happens in the US. And just to see the wide range, I'm seeing exactly what you're just staying there. It's not an all or nothing. It's just different levels of capability, different ways that we have cared for ourselves over the years. And it just you know, it changes from person to person. So I think that's been the most fascinating thing. And once in a while, I'll meet somebody in their gosh, I think most recently somebody in their nineties.

Lynn Grogan [00:12:53]:
And I was like, wow. This guy is out here playing bocce ball with us. He's, you know, carrying on. And it was just kind of every time I see an example of that, I'm like, this it has me question. Like, hold up a mirror to me to question. What do I think about in terms of aging and staying healthy, throughout the years? So one of the things that actually was interesting as, you know, like, as I was thinking about this interview was, you know, the premise of your book is that, you know, you're living to a 100.

Lynn Grogan [00:13:27]:
And I was with a group of friends last week, thirties, forties, and fifties. And I asked all of them, what age do you imagine that you're going to live to? Great. And we're all very, I would say, healthy individuals. We're actually at hot springs, like, soaking in the warm water, doing something healthy. And the range was pretty much maybe 80. So I actually thought it was interesting to kinda think about this. Like, how does our sense of how long we will live? Like, how does that impact how we care for ourselves, what we do in our lives? And does that limit us just having this sense? Because, obviously, we have no idea how long we're gonna live.

Dr. Em Wong [00:14:10]:
That is such a fascinating question. And as I got into this, I realized there's actually a lot of research that's been done on this. And so the kind of research that's been done is, like, how does ageism actually affect our health? And it turns out that when we're ageist against ourselves, there's actually physical impacts on our health.

Dr. Em Wong [00:14:30]:
So the sort of example they always give in the research is, like, if I believe that I'm older and I, you know, and my knees are gonna hurt if I go out there and walk, then I just stop walking. And so I'm just in my house, and then I'm sedentary. And then, of course, I have all those health consequences that come from being sedentary. Right? And I may have a belief in my head that, you know, well, after about 70 people don't go out and walk in the street anymore. Like, I don't know. Like, there's all these different, like, health beliefs that we may have. Right? And so that 90 year old that you're talking about who's playing bocce ball, like, he just didn't get there by accident. Right? He intentionally decided that he wasn't going to be the 90 year old who's sitting at home on the couch, right, and sort of just in the dark.

Dr. Em Wong [00:15:14]:
Right? I mean, he's out there and he's putting himself out there, and he's constantly wanting to challenge himself and be physically sort of active. Right? And that's a choice that we make in our heads as well as actions that we physically take. Right? And so coming back to your question about sort of like, you know, how do our beliefs actually shape how we age? You know, the reality is if you think about sort of, your retirement savings. Right? And you think about, okay, well, I'm gonna live until 80, so I'm just gonna save up enough money until I'm 80. Right? You have no control over that. You have no control over whether you live to be 80 or 90 or a 100. So what happens between 80-90? Right? When you don't have that money, what happens? Okay.

Dr. Em Wong [00:16:01]:
Well, then you fall on the state or you fall on the Social Security or, you know, your family members, you know, have to pick up the slack. Right? And so it's kind of like, can I plan ahead with my help? Can I invest in my health now so that those gains are compounded and so I can be healthy when I'm 90 and a 100 and taking care of myself? Right? So it's the same kind of philosophy. Like, we can't know, but what we can do is invest now in our thirties and forties and fifties. And this is the time because you can certainly invest when you're 80 for when you're a 100, but it's not gonna have the same impact as if you started when you're 50, Right? Because of the, you know, magic of compounding. Right? So the same thing happens with our health. Yeah. Yeah.

Lynn Grogan [00:16:44]:
Well, it sounds like with that, you're not just talking about money, which obviously does have compound impact. But what other types of things are you talking about when you look at that age range, which I'm thinking most of the listeners are within 30 to 60 range. What kind of things are you talking about there that would really significantly impact?

Dr. Em Wong [00:17:04]:
So one of the easiest things to think about is sort of like, so we've all know about osteoporosis, and we all know that there's bone loss. And most of us will know as we get older that our bones get weaker and weaker, and we may be at more and more risk for fractures, which, of course, lead to disability, etcetera, etcetera. Right? And I think what most of us don't realize is that our peak bone mass is actually at 30, which means that we begin to lose a little bit of bone every year, right, between 30 and however old you're gonna be, whether that's 80 or a100. Right? And it turns out that we also are losing muscle mass at the same rate. So there's a process called sarcopenia that actually parallels the loss of bones. So you're losing muscle at the same time as you're losing bone. So we lose about half a pound of muscle a year. And so by the time we're 50 or 60, we've lost probably 15 to 20 pounds of muscle.

Dr. Em Wong [00:17:55]:
If we haven't been active, we haven't been proactively building our muscle. Right? And I think what most of us don't realize is that muscles are not just great for balance and strength and all the things that we need to, you know, move around, But it actually is an endocrine organ. It's a hormonal organ that produces really healthy hormones for us, including brain derived, neurotrophic factor, which is something that helps us, you know, grow our brain cells and tend to our brain cells. And it's also, you know, producing happy hormones, so endorphins, right, and, and other mild kinds just like, you know, 20 or 30 different chemicals that our muscles are always producing. So if you lose a little bit of muscle every year and you're not proactively building that muscle back or maintaining that muscle then by the time you're 70 or 80, you're not gonna have very much muscle left. And it's very hard to build a new muscle at that age, especially if you don't have a lot to begin with. So this process of muscle loss, this process of bone loss is going on all the time, and you can think of it like inflation. Right? So it's kind of like inflation.

Dr. Em Wong [00:18:58]:
It's eating away at your savings account all the time. So unless you're proactively sort of looking at investing, if you have everything just sitting in a checking account with no interest, right, you're just losing the purchasing value of your money all the time. And it's the same thing with your body. You're actually losing, right, sort of function in your body as you get older. And that function impacts our brains. It's not just our physical body. Right? Because you can't separate your physical body from your brain.

Lynn Grogan [00:19:28]:
I have so many questions from this, but the first one I immediately thought of, was what about the person who's listening who's, like, immediately might be dropping into, like, shame or just like, oh, no. I have gotta get on this, and, like, obviously, an inner critic would be coming out there. Like, what would you say to this person who says, okay. You know what? I'm actually in my mid forties. I may be in my mid fifties, and I haven't been doing what you just recommended. Is it too late? What can I do now?

Dr. Em Wong [00:19:55]:
So definitely not too late. It's never too late. It's not too late when you're 90. It's not too late when you're, you know, 95. Right? So it's never too late. And, what I'm suggesting, it's just exactly like the investing thing. Right? Like, you can still invest at the age of 80. You can still invest at the age of 90, and you can still make a little bit of extra money.

Dr. Em Wong [00:20:14]:
But if you wanna take advantage of the magic of compounding, right, the earlier that you start, the better. And that's for two reasons. 1 is the physical decline in the body, but the second is really just having that habit in your life. Right? So when I have people who come in and they're like, well, you know, I do a little bit of stretching, and I only do, like, 10 minutes a night, or I might only do 10 minutes, you know, once a week or something like that. I'm almost like, that's great. Whatever you are doing right now, whatever you are doing right now, you know, it's like, that that counts. Don't let your brain tell you that that doesn't matter because it does. What matters is that you actually are taking 10 minutes out of your day or your week to even think about your life and your health and your long term sort of like you're moving your body.

Dr. Em Wong [00:21:03]:
Right? And so it could be that you're not an exerciser. It could just be that you're somebody who's active and you're just doing chores in your house. And it's possible that, you know, you get up every, you know, hour or 2 when you're sitting at your computer and you, you know, go get your water, you walk around the block, right, and so what we're finding now is that, you know, because we tend to have this idea that when you're active, you have to go to the gym and you have to be there for an hour and it has to be 3 times a week or 5 times a week or whatever the number is. Right? And it turns out that there's such a thing as somebody who's active and sedentary. So how can you be active and sedentary at the same time? So you're active and sedentary. This isn't the research term, right? Because what we see is that if you're sitting for 23 hours a day or 24 hours a day, and you're only at the gym for an hour every day or every 5 times a week or however often, you're still sedentary for a pretty long period of time. And that sedentariness actually affects your health no matter how active you are at the gym. And it offsets a little bit.

Dr. Em Wong [00:22:06]:
Sure. It does offset, but it's not as important as being a little bit active throughout the day. Right? So the ideal thing is to actually have a period of exercise, and that can be as short as 20 minutes or 30 minutes, and it's great if it's an hour. But what's more important is to break up that sedentariness. Right? So if you're sitting at your computer like I do a lot or if you're, you know, driving, it's important to get up and walk around, you know, when you go for a rest stop, You know? Get up, walk around, you know, actually be walking during that time. And if you're, you know, having a break and getting a drink of water or whatever it is, walk while you're drinking. Right? So just breaking up those periods of sitting is so crucial.

Lynn Grogan [00:22:50]:
Okay. So I think what I hear you saying is first off, like, to maybe drown out that inner critic is to look at what you are doing versus what you're not doing. Credit. And really, yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I honestly, as you were listening, I was like, alright. Ding, ding, ding. I'm doing a few things.

Lynn Grogan [00:23:05]:
Yeah. Quote, unquote right. Not that there's a but, so it sounds like almost building yourself up. So you're coming from that positive place. And then considering, like, okay. Throughout my week, like, or throughout my day, how could I break up those periods of being sedentary? And it doesn't have to be complicated. And that's what I hear you saying. It could be walking and drinking water.

Lynn Grogan [00:23:25]:
It could be something very simple.

Dr. Em Wong [00:23:26]:
Yes. Yes. And that's a huge thing that we advocate in the book is, you know, we wanna really go for that 1 or 2% shift in the trajectory. Right? So if you think about a flight, right, so if it's sort of like if I'm going from a to b, right, if I just change my trajectory by 1%, then I'm already going to a different destination than I was. And I think that when we sort of have this stereotype of aging in our minds, we tend to be very sort of, all or nothing. Right? And the sort of the nothing part, like, where you end up, you know, kind of not being able to sort of be active or or have a healthy brain or whatever, it's because you're sort of thinking of the passive route. So if I do nothing and I sit on the couch and I watch TV and I'm, you know, and I'm just sort of not paying attention to my health at all, then I may end up there. Right? But if you sort of are proactive and even if you change a little bit, right, then you get to be that 90 year old with the bocce ball, you know, game.

Dr. Em Wong [00:24:29]:
Right? So you, you know, you get to change your trajectory because you're starting at a place where, you know, you're building a little bit at a time. And I wanna emphasize, so you were saying earlier about how, you know, so you build yourself up on what you're doing now, and I I just wanna, you know, just I just wanted to highlight that because I think in our brains, we're kinda like, oh, okay. We're just building ourselves up. Right? Because that's the inner critic talking. Right? Yeah. And we'll yeah. And and and we get to be like, okay, inner critic. You know, you get to, like, you know, rain on my parade here and say I'm not doing enough.

Dr. Em Wong [00:25:05]:
Right? That whole enough word that we love as coaches. Right? And the answer is that, you know, it's almost as if just listening to this podcast is enough. Just having the awareness that this is a thing is enough. Because when you look at the data on, like, what people know about brain health, it's really fascinating to me that more than 50% of the population, 50 or 60% of the population, really doesn't even think about brain health. We don't have brain health as part of our narrative in day to day conversation. We talk about brain health, we talk about mental health, right? We talk about sleep health and nutrition, and we talk about exercise, but do we talk about brain health? No, but all of these things sum up to brain health And brain health actually is the most important health because our brains are who we are, right? It's our identity. Our brains are literally where our memories are, where our stories are, how we do what we do every day, who we are. Right? Our brains are ultimately what our whole body is trying to do is to make sure our brains are functioning well.

Dr. Em Wong [00:26:09]:
And yet when we talk about health we don't talk about it in terms of brain health and so that's something that I really want to emphasize in the book is that when we talk about self care and especially for women right it's really hard for us to sort of carve out that time and say oh you know like I'm being selfish when I like, you know, exercise or I, you know, do something for myself. Right? And I really want people to try and reframe that because it's not you know, if self care is something that doesn't, you know, resonate with you, call it brain health. Right? I'm doing this for brain health. I'm doing this is brain care. Because when it becomes brain care, it becomes here's how I get to be more of myself. Here's how I get to have the energy to take care of all the people I have to take care of in my life. Right? When I'm taking care of my brain, then this is how I get to be basically all the things that I need to be in this life. And when I'm not taking care of my brain, again, on a day to day level, I'm just not firing on all cylinders.

Dr. Em Wong [00:27:09]:
My energy level is low. My focus isn't there. Maybe I snap at people when I'm not being patient with them or compassionate with myself. Right? When I don't get enough sleep. And compassionate with myself, right, when I don't get enough sleep. And so just think about, like, how much your day to day function is really impacted by how much you're able to take care of yourself. And if you can reframe that in terms of how I'm taking care of my brain, then it becomes something that immediately sort of translates into how I'm functioning and how I'm showing up in the world.

Lynn Grogan [00:27:41]:
Yeah. Well, and I think that's so important because to your point, if you're just treading water, trying not to drown, it makes it really hard for you to not only go about your day to day functioning and aging healthfully, it also makes it hard to do new things and to put yourself out of your comfort zone and to try things in different ways. Like, it makes it hard to expand past there. But I wanna go back to something that you kinda just touched upon because I think a big thing that will come up around this is, well, how do I have the time, especially if someone is caring for younger people, maybe they're caring for the older members of their family, maybe both at the same time. How do you manage bringing this into the fold, but then also, obviously, paying attention to all those other priorities?

Dr. Em Wong [00:28:27]:
Yeah. So that's a great one, and I wish I had the answer. It's a constant struggle for me, and I think for all of us. Right? It's just balancing, what I would say is our, you know, personal care needs with the needs of others. Right? And so I think that the first piece is, again, giving yourself credit for whatever it is that you're doing, whether it's just listening. Now I don't wanna say just because you have a great podcast, but whether it's listening to a podcast, whether it's, you know, reading something on social media or watching something on social media, that's about brain health or about health at all. Right? I think giving yourself credit for even being interested and curious about this is huge. And I think that the second thing is just really sort of recognizing that there are gonna be times in your life, there's going to be seasons in your life when you're going to be able to do more or less.

Dr. Em Wong [00:29:20]:
And that's just normal human life. Right? So if you're going through a stage right now, which I think most of us kind of can recognize, we call it the sandwich generation. Right? I don't love this term, but, but it's, you know, where you're taking care of your elders and you're also, you know, having, you know, younger people in your life that you need to take care of, whether it's your kids or nephews and nieces or whatever it is. And so you're kind of caught in the middle, and then you're having to work, and you've got these financial pressures and all of that. Right? And so it's kind of like whatever you're doing, it's good enough. It's good enough for now. I'm doing the best I can. And I want people to really understand that it's not like we're trying to prevent something, you know, way down 20 years from now, and I shouldn't worry about it until then.

Dr. Em Wong [00:30:03]:
What the metric that they wanna pay attention to is how I'm feeling day to day. You know, when I let's just say we focus on one thing like sleep, which is one of the key things to focus on. Right? And most of us don't get enough sleep. Right? Or sleep quality is not very good. But if I were just to pay attention to one thing, let's just say that we're gonna hone in on, I don't know, getting myself to bed half an hour earlier than I normally am. Right? Then what I'm gonna do is just kinda track my energy level. If I can do that, right, how often am I able to do that? Let's just say I normally would go to bed at, I don't know, midnight, right, and I'm gonna try and go to bed at 11:30. Right? So first of all, I just track that and just sort of say, well, you know, in this 1st week, how often was I actually able to do that? Maybe I only did it once, maybe I only did it twice.

Dr. Em Wong [00:30:50]:
What was my energy level the next day? Right? Maybe it made no difference. Maybe I wasn't able to do it at all. Maybe I forgot about it. Right? And then just to kind of have that awareness and then the following week just look back and then say, okay. Well, why didn't that work out for me? Oh, it's because I was scrolling on my phone or I got busy with this or that or I had all these things on my to- do list. So I was lying there, you know, kind of like stressing about those things. And so what can I do about that? Right? So these are all our coaching tools that we have for behavior change. And I think what we're really trying to do there is to help people see that it doesn't actually have to take up that much more time out of your day.

Dr. Em Wong [00:31:29]:
Right? We're talking about 5 minutes or, you know, 15 minutes or half an hour of awareness of what we're doing and then just sort of, like, you know, fitting that in because that's part of what we can do to be more effective the next day. Because if you've had that extra half hour of sleep, it probably doesn't take you as long to do the stuff that you normally have to do, right, and right it's that kind of like it's a trade off. You invest this now and then tomorrow or next week or next month, you're gonna find yourself more productive and more efficient, more able to do, you know, the things that you wanna do and show up the way you want to.

Lynn Grogan [00:32:09]:
Yeah. And, I mean, I think what is great about that approach too is that even if you are caring for all these other humans in life, you are already sleeping. It's not like, oh, now I've gotta add sleep to the mix. You're actually talking about enhancing something you're already doing and just trying to get 1% better. And if it's in a lot of times, what I hear you're saying is, like, you're eliminating something. You're eliminating scrolling or you're trying to figure out, you know, a different way of managing your to-do list so it's not waking you up or keeping you up. So it's not like you're adding something to the mix. You are helping your brain just by doing something you're already doing, just improving it a little bit more.

Dr. Em Wong [00:32:49]:
Improving it a little bit more. And I would encourage people to also think not just about these, you know, they are crucial, right? Eat, move, and sleep are very crucial and we focus a lot on them. But I also want to really introduce this concept of fun because I think that when there's fun, there's novelty, there's curiosity happening in our brains. That's building neuroplasticity, and that is something that you're going to want to do. So when you say, you know, making time to do something, you know, how can I be more creative in my life? I mean, one of the main reasons I was drawn to this is because I'm an artist. And when I learned about the science of like how art affects our brains, how art improves the connectivity and actually helps us build our neuroplasticity in our brains, it really just lit up so many things in my head because it doesn't matter whether we're talking about music or whether we're talking about visual arts or just being in nature. Right? We're stimulating our brains with an enriched environment. Right? And so whether you're an observer of art or whether you're a maker, right, it doesn't matter because when we are in that sort of, like, right side of our brain, what we're doing is that we're stimulating a part of our brain that is fun, and it's, exciting and different, right, than our sort of day to day.

Dr. Em Wong [00:34:09]:
And so my question is, how do we incorporate that into what we're already doing? Right? So, like, for example, let's say that you're somebody who, you know, has little kids and you're kind of like, I don't really have time to exercise. But what if you were to engage your kids in just an art project for 20 minutes? And so then you get to do your art and show them, you know, what you're doing, or maybe it's music. Maybe it's like we sing along for 20 minutes in the car while we're commuting somewhere. Right? So we have carpool karaoke going on. Right? And so it's that kind of thing where we're incorporating fun and engaging other people and that is the kind of thing that actually is building your, you know, your brain health and not necessarily taking up any extra time and creating more fun. Right? So it's kind of like it's like the scrabble square with the triple, you know, triple points.

Lynn Grogan [00:35:03]:
Well, I love that you brought this up. I love that you brought this up because I think a lot of times we think about, like, okay. This is very serious. We're working on brain health. I've gotta go lift weights, like, lift weights and get to sleep. And what you're talking about is like, and let's have fun with it too. Let's introduce novelty. Let's get out in nature.

Lynn Grogan [00:35:23]:
Let's do something that stimulates your brain in a different way than maybe what the sedentary stare to screen is like for you.

Dr. Em Wong [00:35:31]:
So if you're picking something new that you're gonna do in terms of activity, I mean, I would encourage you to do something that you consider is gonna be fun and, you know, try it out and just don't be like, I'm committed to this forever. You know, I have to get up at 6 AM and go to the gym and, you know, whatever. Like, that is just not a sustainable activity. That is just not gonna be something that you're gonna do for the next 30 years. Right? And not that something that you pick now has to be something that you do for 30 years.

Dr. Em Wong [00:35:58]:
But for me, like, I have always loved dancing and, but I've never been a dancer. Right? Like, I don't consider myself to be a dancer. And so, like, I go to Zumba classes, and sometimes I do Zumba online, and I just find it fun. It's something about the music and moving and having to, like, you know, follow the steps and everything. And I'm super goofy and very uncoordinated when I do it. It just makes me laugh, you know? And so I think that's the kind of thing that, you know, and it might be for you, it might be gardening or it could be, you know, people just love getting out there with the dirt and seeing the, you know, flowers or their veggies or whatever, you know, and I think that it should be something that fills your cup and gives you energy in some way.

Lynn Grogan [00:36:38]:
Yeah. I mean, in the last year, I started learning to play ukulele, and most of the yeah. It's been so fun. And, like, it's kind of what you were just saying about dance. Like, most of the playing I've done has been in groups of people, which was way outside my comfort zone because I always have this idea with music and maybe with a lot of other art forms. You must practice by yourself first, and then you can go. It's like a perfectionist mindset. And I had a friend that has been, you know, teaching us along the way, and he's like, no.

Lynn Grogan [00:37:08]:
Just get out there, and you see a wide range actually at a lot of these, you know, music jams. It's older individuals. It's people who have picked up instruments late in life. And so to you, you know, what you were saying before, it's never too late to try something. And it had always been a dream of mine to play music. And so I'm like, oh, here in my forties, I can do this. I've seen a lot of lot of age range there, and it's just it is so fun, and it's such a different way of, like, interacting with people and using my brain for sure.

Dr. Em Wong [00:37:36]:
So it's one of these things that comes up a lot because, you know, people are always like, well, I do crossword puzzles or I do Sudoku or something. It's like, that's supposed to help my brain. Right? And I'm like, yeah. It helps, but it's a little bit like going to the gym and only doing a bicep curl. I'm only doing a bicep curl in the gym when I could be moving the whole rest of my body. Right? But when you learn a new language or you're playing a musical instrument, you're moving so many parts of your brain. Right? You're basically like you're interacting with other people.

Dr. Em Wong [00:38:05]:
You have to listen. You have to like, you know, take in the music. You have to kind of figure it out on the fly, you know, and the timing and the cadence and whatever. Right? And so there's so many moving parts and you're lighting up all these different parts of your brain at the same time and that moving yourself out of your comfort zone, like you were saying, and being around, you know, in a more social setting, like that that is our growth edge when we can push ourselves and and go past into something that we're feeling uncomfortable about and make it more comfortable. Right? And when we make it more comfortable, that is some new wiring that's going on there. There's some new neuroplasticity that's happening there, and then you get to be proud of yourself for being like, oh, I did that. Right?

Lynn Grogan [00:38:48]:
Yeah. I did that. I love it. Well, what would you say, a lot of the stuff we've been talking about is for ourselves, but let's say we're looking around and we're seeing the older individuals in our lives. Maybe we're seeing, like, a partner or a spouse who maybe they aren't taking the types of actions we would imagine we would hope for them to be taking to have healthy brains. Like, what do you recommend when we see this happening?

Dr. Em Wong [00:39:10]:
So, well, we know as coaches that we, you know, we can, we can hope to influence other people, but, it's their lives and their choices. Right? And so I think that the best thing that I can advise you is that, you know, if that person loves spending time with you, then how can you be a role model or even bring them along? How can you for example, let's just say that you have a book club, and you are going to that book club and you're like, mom, I'm going to this book club tonight. Do you wanna come with me? Oh, I don't know. I haven't read the book. I don't know your friends. You know, still came on. Just come and, you know, just say it's alright. It's fine.

Dr. Em Wong [00:39:50]:
Right? And then just, well, you can just listen or you can just, you know have some tea in the corner or whatever you want to do right and so bring them along if you go to a library if you go to like your music jams right it'll just come and listen And and the more that you can include them and give them a sense of, like, you know, safety in being with in a new group. And you're really pushing their comfort zone, but you're kind of, like, taking them along with you. Like, I'm here with you. I'm here to support you, and you don't have to come. Right? But the more that you can kind of accompany them and help them to see that there is a bigger world out there, there's a broader kind of community out there for them and they will gradually get used to that and it may take 10 times, it may take 20 times but the other people in my group will get to know them, oh hey great it's good to see you you know like thanks for coming. Right? And so they get a sense of belonging. They get a sense of sort of, there's a bigger world out there than, you know, and then you don't become, like, the sole person that they have to interact with. Right? It becomes something that they get to look forward to.

Dr. Em Wong [00:40:54]:
Because I think when it comes to older folks, a lot of times, you know, it's kinda like we only have this much time and we you know, so we're taking them to their doctor's appointments, and we're taking them to, you know, physical therapy or whatever it is. Right? And then we're having dinner with them. And so there's some kind of, like, activity where you're with them, and it might be 1 on 1 or it might be small family group, but there's no reason that you couldn't include them in some, you know, other activities that may or may not be of interest to them, but if it's of interest to you and they get to spend time with you, you know it's worth a try to see if it's something that they would be into and it could be animal rescue, I mean it could be you know, a gardening, you know, whatever event that you're going to check out, you know, whatever it is.

Lynn Grogan [00:41:39]:
Well and I think, you know, it's just like your 1% better might be way different than their 1%. It's going and sitting and listening might be enough. What would you recommend if those humans are living far away? So maybe you only see them once or twice a year because you live at a great distance, but you are still very concerned about their health, their brain health, all of that from a distance.

Dr. Em Wong [00:42:02]:
Yeah. So, again, it's all about role modeling. Right? So, what I find really interesting about all of this is that, I think I mentioned earlier that about 50 or 60 of the pop percent of the population doesn't actually know very much about brain health, and this is done through a Dana Foundation survey, actually. They found that it turns out that people who are 50 and under know a whole lot more about brain health than people who are 50 and older. So if you take the population of 50 and under, about 40% of people identify that they feel like, oh, well, I know something about brain health. I've, you know, read or learned something about it. Whereas if you're older than 50, it's less than 20%. And so if you're between 50-60, then there might be, like, maybe 20% of people who identify that they know something about brain health.

Dr. Em Wong [00:42:49]:
But if it's 65 and older, it's gonna be less than 10%. Right? So the older you are, the less likely you are to actually know anything about brain health. And so it's sort of like the more that we can role model what we're doing because we're learning about it, and this is relatively new science. Like, when they were growing up, this brain health was not a thing. I mean, when I went to medical school, neuroplasticity was not a term we ever heard. I didn't hear that until maybe 10 years ago. Right? And so this is all relatively new. And so if you're in that sort of, like, 40 and underpopulation, this could be just the, like, this is just the water we swim in.

Dr. Em Wong [00:43:23]:
But for anybody who's older than that, they haven't heard that. They still know about, oh, I had to take care of my heart, you know my arthritis or my diabetes or my hypertension but they don't see how that all leads up to like their brain health and they're terrified about brain health. I'm terrified about brain health. Right? And I, you know, have to force myself through that kind of fear. Right? And force myself to learn more about brain health. And the more that I learn about it, the more empowered that I feel, the more that I feel like I can do something about it. But if you're in that older population, you don't know very much about brain health in Cali. I don't wanna know very much about brain health because I wanna hear all the nasty, you know, gloomy statistics out there.

Dr. Em Wong [00:44:02]:
Right? They don't necessarily know that there's this empowerment piece. But if you're role modeling for them, you know, mom, I'm eating more avocados now because I know that's a healthy kind of fat. Hey. How about if we have salmon and, you know, salmon for dinner with an avocado in our salad? You know, these things are really great for our brain. Right? So you're kind of role modeling for them what you're doing. I'm learning the ukulele, and it turns out that it's really great for my brain. Do you wanna come with me to a jam? Right? Like, it's that kind of bringing them along on your own journey to brain health that will inspire them, believe it or not, over time.

Lynn Grogan [00:44:37]:
Yeah. Well, and I think it's, like, it's more of an offer versus you should do this, which nobody likes to be told what to do nor do we listen. But just saying, hey. Here's an offer to you. Here's an offer to you. You repeat it. Take it or leave it. But just by being exposed to it, it does give a different perspective on how you could go about it.

Dr. Em Wong [00:44:55]:
Just like they would with a kid. Right? So if you have a kid who, you know, refused to eat their veggies or broccoli, it's just like you're gonna eat your broccoli and veggies, and eventually at some point, that kid might say, well, my mom always ate her broccoli. Not my mom always told me I had to eat my broccoli and forced me to eat it. Right?

Lynn Grogan [00:45:17]:
So if somebody was listening and they're like, okay. If they were just gonna take one action, say over the next week, they're like, alright. Let's get going on this. What would be, like, a few simple things that somebody could do just even in the next span of, you know, the week?

Dr. Em Wong [00:45:32]:
So, I always think about it in terms of, like, less and more. Right? So what could I do less of, and what could I do more of? Right? So when it comes to less, right, so I'm gonna say fit less. Right? We talked about sitting earlier, and I'm gonna say dress less, which I know is harder to, you know, actually action on take action on, but even if we just hear that judgmental inner critic voice in our head and we recognize it and we say, okay, let's dial that down a little bit. We're reducing the stress a little bit, right? So stress less and sit less and then what are we doing more of? So I wanna say sleep more for sure, right, and I wanna say have more fun. Right? So what can I do? What's one thing that I can do that would be more fun? And it could be something very simple, like I'm gonna go and, you know, listen to some guilty pleasure. Like for me, I have this guilty pleasure where I listen to romances, historical romances. I have this favorite author named George Shittmeyer and I, and I would just go listen and I know all these books by heart because I've read them like 20 times And so it really is a quote, unquote waste of time when I listen to it, but I just feel like, you know, I just go listen for 5 or 10 minutes while I'm brushing my teeth at the end of the day. And it just gives me that sort of indulgence feeling, like I'm taking care of that, you know, inner child who kind of just needs to be a little bit coddled.

Lynn Grogan [00:46:57]:
I love it. Okay. So move a little bit more, sleep more, stress less, and try something fun. Any or all of those sounds like it would be perfect. Yes. Just any or all any and 1% more. Is there anything we didn't touch on today that you're like, wanna make sure people know about this or any final thoughts as we wrap up? 

Dr. Em Wong [00:47:17]:
Well, I just, again, I really appreciate this opportunity. And, I think the one thing we didn't touch on is, you and I have a colleague, Emma Caronna, who did a lot of writing in Katrina's program and is the most amazing writer. And, she's actually one of the main reasons I'm even writing this book is because she's my co author and I was like I don't think I can do this without her help. She has just been so amazing, she gets very jargony in my writing. And as you say, it gets very jargony in my writing. And as you say, it's a heavy topic. Right? When we talk about brain health, it can feel very heavy, and there's a lot of judgment that comes along with sort of what are we doing right, what we're not doing right, and all of that. And it's just been amazing to have Emma, you know, come in there and just sort of say, well, we need we need to have really solid evidence in science for what we're saying, and we really need to make it sort of accessible for people and understandable and even try and get a little bit lighter and flatter and so she's just been someone who's really helped me sort of walk that line between sort of how do we make this accessible and yet really science based.

Dr. Em Wong [00:48:28]:
And so I just really wanna give her a great shout out.

Lynn Grogan [00:48:32]:
I love Emma so much, and she's also somebody I've learned a lot from over the years. And I'm just imagining this balance there between the two of you and, like, the magic that you're creating. It really makes me so excited for your book to come out. Do you have any sense of when people could expect to see it? 

Dr. Em Wong [00:48:50]:
I'm just gonna throw it out there that it might be early next year. So, yeah, it's funny. This started out as, you know, a simple little project. We're just gonna do, like, 80 healthy brain tips. It'll be fine. And, it's just grown and grown because I think as we've sort of learned more about what we really want for ourselves and our readers, It's become so much more about this sort of, tapping into the inner healer, that inner coach, and figuring out how to help people have grace and compassion for themselves as we get older. So

Lynn Grogan [00:49:29]:
Amazing. Well, I can't wait to read the book. I definitely wanna have you back on the show when it does come out, and I'm sure we can dig into it more. If somebody wanted to find you online, where would they go looking?

Dr. Em Wong [00:49:41]:
So my blog is at integrityhealing.info, and that's just the easiest way to find me. I'm also on social media. Thank you again for this wonderful opportunity. I'd love to have people come and check out our blog. I also have a brain health quiz if you wanna take that. So it gives you a little bit of insight into maybe how you're doing in terms of your brain health. You know, how are you doing with the eat, move, sleep, and socialization and all of that. 

Lynn Grogan [00:50:10]:
Yeah. I actually took the quizzes over the week, and they were really great questions, and I thought that whole experience of doing it was just so fun. So, you know, even if you wanna add fun in that way, you can go over to Em's website. I will have all the links in the show notes. So thank you, Em, for coming on the show today. Thank you everyone for listening. This has been the Courageously Unconventional podcast. I'm Lynn Grogan, and we'll see you next time.

Lynn Grogan [00:50:35]:
Thank you. Hey, friend. Thank you for listening to today's conversation. If you're considering a major career or lifestyle change and you wanna talk to someone about this, I'm here for you. You can learn how to work with me 1 on 1 on my website, which is lynngrogan.com, and I also have details in the show notes. See you next time.