How Food is Medicine with Dr Rupy Aujla #4

1. Adopt a Holistic Lifestyle Approach

If facing health issues, consider a holistic lifestyle approach encompassing exercise, sleep, mindfulness, and nutrition, as this can optimize your body’s environment for self-healing, as demonstrated by Dr. Rupi Orjula’s experience.

2. Apply the Four Pillars Framework

Use the ‘Eat, Move, Sleep, Relax’ framework to identify which area of your health needs the most attention and start making changes there. This 360-degree approach to these critical areas works synergistically and can lead to profound improvements.

3. Prioritize Quality Sleep

Make sleep a priority, as it is a crucial, often overlooked, factor in chronic health conditions. Good sleep reduces cravings, improves satiety, supports brain health, and aids in restorative mechanisms; avoid eating too late and create a calming pre-bed routine.

4. Practice Daily Gratitude

Engage in a daily gratitude practice, such as thinking of three things you are grateful for, to gain perspective, overshadow stress, and promote positive energy. This practice can also help prevent rumination and lead to better sleep.

5. Eat a Colorful Plant-Rich Diet

Focus on eating a variety of different colored plants, rather than counting calories or macronutrients. The phytochemicals found in these plants confer benefits by impacting gene expression and inflammation pathways.

6. Practice Meal Preparation (Mise en Place)

Prepare meals and ingredients in advance, such as using Tupperware for lunch or chopping garlic, ginger, and chili. This tactic makes cooking less stressful and ensures healthier, convenient food options in fast-paced societies.

7. Recognize Lifestyle as Medicine

View practices like meditation, exercise, and food as powerful forms of medicine, understanding their profound impact on body pathways. These interventions have widespread effects on hormones, gene expression, and brain health.

8. Take Control of Your Health

Understand that improving health requires personal effort and taking control, rather than solely relying on a GP for medication. Actively seek out resources and ‘homework’ to engage in your own well-being.

9. Treat Food as Body Information

Understand that food acts as information for your body, capable of changing the expression of your genes and altering hormone levels. This perspective highlights food’s profound influence on overall health.

10. Prioritize Health in Spending

Re-evaluate household spending to prioritize health, recognizing that the proportion of income spent on food has decreased over the last 20-30 years. Health should be the blueprint for every other aspect of your life.

11. Demystify Healthy Eating Costs

Challenge the preconception that healthy eating is inaccessible and expensive by learning practical ‘hacks’ to heighten nutrient density without breaking the bank. Preparing meals from scratch, though it takes time, is much better in the long run.

12. Use Food as a Health Gateway

Leverage the universally recognized importance of food and delicious healthy meals as a ‘Trojan horse’ or conversation starter. This approach can introduce less recognized but equally important health topics like sleep and meditation.

13. Engage in a Family Gratitude Game

Play a daily gratitude game with family members, asking ‘What have you done today to make someone else happy?’, ‘What has someone else done to make you happy?’, and ‘What have you learned today?’. This fosters reflection, connection, and communication.

14. Learn from Diverse Health Disciplines

Don’t be precious about traditional medical titles; be open to learning from various health disciplines, such as meditation teachers, personal trainers, or musculoskeletal therapists. This broadens understanding of how to create better and healthier lifestyles.

15. Listen to Patient Experiences

As a medical professional, listen to patients when they say something has worked for them, rather than dismissing it. Listening in a non-judgmental fashion has huge therapeutic value and often reveals valuable insights.

16. Research Patient-Reported Interventions

If a patient reports an unconventional health improvement (e.g., meditating away high blood pressure), don’t dismiss it; research it. If it’s harmless, safe, not costly, and provides tangible benefit, support their efforts.

17. Meet Patients Where They Are

Always listen to patients and tailor health advice based on their understanding, beliefs, and socioeconomic situation. Different people want to start at different points in their health journey, so adapt your guidance accordingly.

18. Utilize Online Health Resources

As a GP, refer patients to trusted online resources or books to provide ‘homework’ and empower them to take control of their health. This tactic serves as a time-saving resource and encourages patient engagement beyond the 10-minute consultation.

19. Practice What You Preach (for Doctors)

As a medical professional, engage in lifestyle practices yourself (e.g., cooking, physical activity, meditation) to foster open-minded conversations and more enthusiastically counsel patients on these topics. Your own practices influence the conversations you have.

20. Implement Culinary Medicine Training

For medical professionals, learn how to cook and apply culinary medicine principles to improve personal well-being and combat burnout. This training also enhances the ability to counsel patients on food and lifestyle.

21. Support Community Kitchens

Advocate for or affiliate GP surgeries with community kitchens, like Made in Hackney, to teach local communities how to source, prepare, and cook whole foods. This blueprint helps make the link between food and health accessible, especially in low socioeconomic areas.