In this episode I discuss the truth about self-discipline and freedom, what does it really mean and how can you harness it to support your life and health goals? In my opinion, the wrong interpretation of these words leads to us sabotaging our goals.
I discuss how the sacrifices we make today are investments in our future freedom. Delving into how resisting immediate desires - like the all-too-common urge to raid the fridge - can set us on a path toward long-term well-being and satisfaction. It's not about restriction and deprivation, its about making nourishing choices that positively impact your health and life.
I'll share with you effective strategies that will help you to resist instant gratification, and highlight the powerful role of epigenetics in shaping our future selves.
I then discuss longevity and quality of life. Modern medicine can often add years to life, I explore how your choices can enhance or detract from the quality of those years.
Learn more about Fiona's speaking, radio and consultation services at Informed Health: https://informedhealth.com.au/
Sign up to receive our newsletter by clicking here.
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Credit for the music used in this podcast:
The Beat of Nature
In this episode I discuss the truth about self-discipline and freedom, what does it really mean and how can you harness it to support your life and health goals? In my opinion, the wrong interpretation of these words leads to us sabotaging our goals.
I discuss how the sacrifices we make today are investments in our future freedom. Delving into how resisting immediate desires - like the all-too-common urge to raid the fridge - can set us on a path toward long-term well-being and satisfaction. It's not about restriction and deprivation, its about making nourishing choices that positively impact your health and life.
I'll share with you effective strategies that will help you to resist instant gratification, and highlight the powerful role of epigenetics in shaping our future selves.
I then discuss longevity and quality of life. Modern medicine can often add years to life, I explore how your choices can enhance or detract from the quality of those years.
Learn more about Fiona's speaking, radio and consultation services at Informed Health: https://informedhealth.com.au/
Sign up to receive our newsletter by clicking here.
Instagram
Facebook
LinkedIn
Credit for the music used in this podcast:
The Beat of Nature
Hello and welcome to the Wellness Connection podcast with Fiona Kane. I'm your host, Fiona Kane. I wanted to talk to you a little bit about self-discipline today. I've talked about some of these things before, but they come up over and over in my clinical work with clients and just in my conversations with people. I think it's worth continuing this conversation.
Fiona Kane:I heard something this week that made me really think about discipline. I thought I might start by sharing that quote with you and talking about that. Then, a little bit later, I will talk to you about some strategies in regards to stopping yourself from going to the fridge over and over again. I'm going to start by just going to refer to a quote, so I'm just going to be reading. This is actually a quote by Jordan Peterson.
Fiona Kane:He said you could think of discipline. When we think of the word discipline, you could think of it as you shouldn't do that, as in you're being told what to do. You shouldn't do that. It's about being disciplined. If you think of a disciplinary that's a hard word to say discipline figures in your life. It could be parents or teachers or bosses or whatever. I think that a lot of us, when we hear the word discipline, we are thinking in terms of that, as in a parental figure, a figure who's telling us you can't do that, or someone who's telling you what to do. He said, yes, you could think of it as being you shouldn't do that. He said what discipline is? Is it's really the integration into a higher form of freedom? I'm going to say that again and then I'm going to explore that a little bit for you. He said it's the integration into a higher form of freedom. What that's really saying is it's about not that immediate gratification. The higher form of freedom is the action you take now, improving your life sometime in the future or ensuring you have a better quality life. An example of it in work or finance would be you show up for work, whether you feel like it or not. You show up for work and you make it happen, do you get paid and you put money away and do you invest for the future, and then you are able to have holidays and live your life the way you want to live your life, or buy a home or whatever it is that you do when you earn money and then hopefully enough money that you can retire and be comfortable. Essentially, that's an example of that higher form of freedom is that the reason that you go to work now is that later on you might be able to choose not to, and then you can make different choices about how you want your day to look.
Fiona Kane:When I translate this to things like actions in regards to health, things like diet, exercise, those kind of lifestyle factors, it's that thing of I could eat whatever I want. I should be allowed to eat whatever I want right now. Yes, you are allowed to. However, actions do have consequences. Then, saying, okay, what's my future going to look like if I eat this? Now?
Fiona Kane:Of course, if we eat things occasionally, and it's all about balance and all the rest of it, I'm not saying you can never have a Mars bar or whatever it is. This is not about that. If that's all you're doing, if you're living on Mars bars or insert a food, that's probably not a good idea to eat all of the time, there's a problem. You can say I can do anything I like and you can and eat all the junk in the world, but it's more likely to in the shorter term, it's more likely to make you feel tired and wired In me. It will drop my mood, certainly drop my energy, and you'd be craving sugar all the time because your blood sugar would be going up and down In general. It's going to affect your concentration, your mood, all of those things and probably your sleep as well. Also, you 'd actually will be tired all of the time. There'd be lots of things that would be affected by that. I would say that that would definitely affect my life because it will actually affect my function. It'll affect my ability to do my job, whether or not I've got the energy to even just energy to do things I want to do. I might be wanting to go out with friends, but maybe I'll be too tired or whatever it is. It certainly does. If you just go, I can do whatever I like and you can. But if you do that and then it means you eat junk food all the time, that will be a challenge for you. It'll be a challenge in the short term, as in it's going to make you feel always whatever it is, however you feel when you eat that way. But it's also a challenge in the longer term because you are then also more likely to develop issues, develop chronic health issues or health issues that are going to impact on your life. They may impact on your longevity, but they certainly. Even if they don't do that, they will certainly affect your quality of life. It might be the thing of I could do what I like now, but the question is, how do you want your life to look in two years and five years and 10 years and 20 years?
Fiona Kane:For as much as we have control over, of course, there's a lot of life we have no control over, but for as much as we have control over, I've talked before about epigenetics. Epigenetics essentially is whether or not you trigger certain genes and things. So essentially, genetics is like I've got, you know, fair skin and blue eyes. Epigenetics is more about okay, I might have a genetic family history of something, but epigenetics is whether or not it happens. So, whether or not I smoke, or I eat lots of rubbish food all of the time, or I don't exercise, or I do exercise my thoughts, my all sorts of sleep, all sorts of lifestyle factors those lifestyle factors will switch things on or off. Does which genes on or off? So I may not develop heart disease if I eat this way, but I may develop it if I eat that way, that kind of thing right. So that's epigenetics. That's the bit we do have control over. And then there's a certain element of life that is luck.
Fiona Kane:But anyway, based on the bit we do have control over, what is it that you want for your, for your future? What do you want your future to look like? So, if we go back to this, you know discipline is it's the integration into a higher form of freedom. It's actually been at a hold, that picture in your mind, of what that is for you. So, with the financial one, we usually clear about what that is it's, you know, the holiday or the house or the car or family or whatever it is that you want the financial thing for. Well, often it's the same thing actually for for health and for lifestyle changes.
Fiona Kane:So the reason like I know some people exercise or do those things because they really enjoy them and that's great and I kind of enjoy exercise. I can't say I don't enjoy it at all, but most of us do it because we like the outcome of it. We do it because of what it you know how, what it helps us to achieve right. So it's about your goals. So it's the same thing. So it could be that I want to be able to take the grandkids to Disneyland. I want to be able to travel. I want to be able to go on that big European trip that I've been wanting to go on for my whole life and I don't want to be, you know, asleep on the bus and not able to get off the bus or not able to walk, not because you know you go on as big European trips. You're up at six in the morning every day on the bus and you're you're traveling around and get off the bus and you've got you know really quick amount of time that you've got to get here, there and everywhere and try and find the bathrooms and line up here and line up there and walk here and walk there. If you're not really functional, that's going to be really, really hard, if you're really tired or you can't walk all of those things. So you know. So that kind of it's that kind of thing.
Fiona Kane:It's looking to the future and going. What are your dreams look like? Now your dreams might look completely different to that. That's just an example, right, but the idea is it's like well, the higher form of freedom. So for me, the higher form of freedom is to be as functional as I can, be functional and independent and healthy for as long as I live and hopefully I'll have longevity, but I'm not looking to be a hundred, but what I am looking for is all of those years to be functional and independent and, if I have any say over that, that's how I want it to be again. Luck, all sorts of things in life, but but what I do, the choices I make now, are largely about that, and it's not perfect. It's kind of the 80-20 rule because, you know, we want to have a bit of fun along the way.
Fiona Kane:However, that's that's kind of what he's talking about. So so he's sort of saying that, you know, his example is you know, you're a lot freer if, when you're 50, you have the physique of someone who's 30, right, so there's a lot of freedom in that, because you can, you well, you're energetic, all of the things you know. I actually wish I had the energy of, you know, the average person in their 20s or 30s. I don't, you know so, and I'm in my 50s, I'm in my early 50s, so that is a certain level of freedom, right. So there's that freedom to and I've talked about freedom to before because, again, when we're thinking of discipline and we're thinking of freedom we often think of it's like freedom from, so discipline as a being disciplined and told what to do, or Freedom from, as in not having to listen to that to the man or not have your do as I'm told, or whatever.
Fiona Kane:So we see those words as things around getting away from being told what to do or you know, or rebelling to the person who's trying to restrict your life. And that's, I think, because we see it. Those words that way kind of causes us to React in quite childish ways in regards to diet and lifestyle on those kinds of things, me included. Not having a girl Did anyone, it's just all of us or many of us but so we kind of had that rebellious child come up. So you can't tell me what to do. So that's what happens when, I think, we kind of confuse what we mean by freedom and by discipline.
Fiona Kane:So freedom is not just about what you have freedom from, but it's freedom to like you've got, if you, if you're retired and Maybe you are, I have got the whole day to figure out what you're gonna do. Well, you have freedom to now. You could spend the whole day on the couch or you could go for a walk, we could do some housework or you could catch up with people, what all the different things you can do, go and volunteer somewhere, but you've got freedom too. So it's about what you do with that freedom, right, and? And the thing is that if you put certain strategies into place now, that gives you the freedom later on.
Fiona Kane:So it's not like you know, cuz I always hear that old, you know I'll wall it that you know they still died it. They still. They still died anyway. You, the person who didn't drink, didn't smoke and whatever. They died anyway. Yes, they did. We all die and there is always that. I've talked about it before. The difference Excuse me, I just have some water. The difference between Brian Jones and and Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones is that Brian Jones died when he was 2070, had a very weak Constitution. Keith Richards has a very strong Constitution. Obviously he's gonna be around with. You know the cockroaches after the nuclear wall, right, it's always the joke. So you know there's that component to it that some of us will live forever and be fine and you know others won't, right? So there's such, again, that genetic component to it.
Fiona Kane:However, when you look in reality, when you look around and when you see what happens for most people with who live really kind of poor lifestyles, they start to develop problems, whether it can be as early as their 30s, if not 40s, but definitely about a time they're in their 50s and 60s and these become chronic health problems. And so for most people that choose to not exercise, not eat well, not manage their mental health, you know not, not sort of, um, you know, deal with their stress and get enough sleep and have good relationships and all things, all the factors that relate to Good health, for people who don't do those things and kind of actively do the opposite, you know they've got really sedentary lives, eat junk food all of the time, they don't drink enough water, don't you know all that kind of stuff. Then you most obvious outcome for those people, and the most likely is that they got are going to end up with Problems as they get older and those problems are going to cause restricted restriction of their freedom. Right, because when you can't just go, get out of the drive, drive, or you can't drive to where you want to go, get out of the car just walking and do what you want to do. You can't go on holidays because you need to care to help take you, or because you know you're too tired now to do those things, or you know you've. You know you just feel cruck all the time when you can't eat certain foods, that you can't be away from the bathroom and like the list of the millions of other things that could be restricting you right, if you've got all those things going on, that doesn't. That's not freedom, that's the opposite to that right. So again, going back to this, you know discipline is the integration into a higher form of freedom. The high for, for more freedom is actually staying functional and well and energetic until day you die, and independent and be able to make those choices yourself. And again, if you know, if you have any saying that, for me it's like, well, as for as much as say, I do have in that, because life is life, I want to have saying that and I want to make a difference. So what happens to is that you know I in medicine today Is we can keep people alive for a really, really long time. So people with with heart failure, heart disease and and diabetes and and all sorts of health issues and lung issues, whatever, once upon a time those people would have died a lot earlier, but we can keep them alive. Moderate medicine can keep them alive for a long time now I.
Fiona Kane:But what happens is you get put on a you know a concoction of all different drugs, lots of drugs usually. They all cause sort of nasty side effects. I keep you alive, but they also cause nasty, or at least uncomfortable, side effects. And then you need to go on another medication to count of the side effect from that one, and then another medication to kind of the side effect from that one, and so on and so forth. So you end up on a cocktail of medication with a whole bunch of side effects, side effects like it. You need to feel like you need to sleep all day, or you've got muscle pain, or you You're foggy in your brain and all this kind of stuff besides the fact that whatever condition you have is possibly causing some of those issues as well. So people can live for another 10, 20, 30 years in that condition, and so longevity may or may not be a big issue. However, it's what that longevity looks like. So if you have an extra 30 years, but it's extra 30 years being really incapacitated and you can choose not to not everyone can choose again, life happens.
Fiona Kane:I get that this is not a judgment in any way. I get it. I'm in my early 50s and there's things now that I that I really regret that I didn't do earlier and that I wasn't consistent with my exercise as Personal trainer I was a trainer this morning and there's so many things I find hard now that I wouldn't have if I had have done things differently, right. So this is not a judgment, it's just. This is just sort of a scientific observation of the facts and and choices we make, and some of us don't get choices and some of us do have them. But for those of us who have choices, I would advise you to make choices that that give you the higher form of freedom, right, the higher form of freedom. So you know, back to Jordan, he actually kind of said that you know it's, we have, that you know I can eat whatever I eat, whatever I want to eat, whenever I want to eat. It's that thing you know and you can. But he said you know that's not freedom, it's actually makes you completely subordinate to your hunger. So you're being controlled by something. You've been controlled by your hunger, right? So? So I think it is really important to go for that higher form of freedom and and and you know your strategies find strategies to help you do that. I can certainly help you with that.
Fiona Kane:I'm just going to stop for a moment to remind you before I go into the next part. Please like and subscribe and share this podcast. Whether you're on YouTube or Rumble, or whether this is, you know, apple or wherever you're listening to this, it really makes a difference for me. The more people that hear about this, the more more people that can learn and helps my business and also helps your friends and family learn more that can support their health. So please do me a favor. Like, subscribe and all that jazz makes a big difference to also where people find me. Basically, you get pushed up in categories and seen more if people like what you're doing. So if, if you're interacting with my, my staff, or you're commenting whatever the, I know, the, the lords of the algorithms will show to more people. If you don't, they don't. So please, if you can do that.
Fiona Kane:So, getting back to what I was just talking about, so I was just talking about that higher form of freedom to me. Most of the time, I make choices that are about that higher form of freedom and sometimes I don't, because that's fine too, but it is about going for that higher form of freedom. So the other part of this conversation that and I have talked about this stuff before but is is talking about the how to avoid going to the fridge over and over again and always kind of like looking for food. Obviously, there's the obvious answer, which is make sure you're eating regular, healthy meals, because if you do that, you're probably not as likely to be going to the fridge all of the time. So it's obviously ruling out, captain obvious, that maybe you're just hungry and maybe you're hungry because you haven't eaten enough or you haven't eaten for a while. But we're actually talking obviously more about when it's over and over again and generally it's when you're not hungry. So I'm just going to give you a couple of those strategies today and because I don't want this to go for too long. But I would say that the one thing would be to.
Fiona Kane:The idea is to there was two things actually. First of all, I would just say to you identify what it is. Are you hungry or not? So if you're hungry, then we've got to look at why you're hungry Again, eating enough of it recently, or you're eating an imbalanced diet, which is means, you know, not having enough protein and fat in your diet. So you get really hungry fast after your last meal, eating lots of junk food again, blood sugar will go up, blood sugar will go down. You'll be hungry again. Or maybe your gut bacteria is out of whack and that's making you crave sugar. I don't know.
Fiona Kane:There's lots of reasons, which is why you come and see someone like me. But so established is it like? Is it a physical thing? Are you physically hungry? So if that's an issue, then address whatever that is, or come and get some help to address whatever that is. So then the next thing is so is it an emotional thing? So it's a boredom thing or so, like you've had some sort of stress thing. So commonly it's sort of people get triggered by something, having a bit of a stress response about something, and that's why they go looking for the snacks.
Fiona Kane:So the first thing I would say is what you don't do is you don't say whatever you do, don't eat the thing. Whatever you do, don't go and do a thing because, of course, the way our brains work, if you've got to tell yourself not to do it, you've got to think about the fact that you've got to not do it. So picture in your mind what you've not got to do, and that sort of obviously doesn't end well, because you say God, don't eat the chocolate, don't eat the chocolate, don't eat the chocolate. Of course, that's going to make you think about the chocolate more, right? Also, it's going to trigger all of the child inside of you. The rebellious child is going to say I can do what I like, right? So you don't go. It's not about going. God, do that. You shouldn't do that.
Fiona Kane:So what you do do, though, is, I would say, is Interrupt it. So, rather than go straight to the fridge, have something else to do on the way. So you don't say I'm not allowed to go to the fridge or I can't go to the fridge. You just say, before I go to the fridge, I'm just going to go and do this. So it could just be getting on with your day. It could be the next email, the next thing, the next whatever you're doing, whatever you're doing wherever you are. So it could just be the next thing you need to do, right?
Fiona Kane:Or it could be like a specific strategy, especially if there's stress related, if you are kind of having that stress response. So, first of all, going back a step, when you distract yourself, it takes about 90 seconds to distract yourself and often once you do that, you just keep going on with things and you don't think about it for another half an hour or hour or whatever. It is right, so distraction is a really good tool. So it's not saying I can't do it, it's like oh yeah, I can go to the fridge, but I'm just going to do the thing right. So it's just doing something else first.
Fiona Kane:Now, if it's more of kind of a stress thing and you're really finding that hard to do, then it's kind of like what are the strategies that you can use that can help you burn off that stress at that time or manage that stress at that time? That aren't food related. So for me it could be just to remember to breathe. It could be more likely for me I might put on a song on my phone and I'll dance around a bit, sing a song that makes me feel happy, or whatever. Or I might put on just something that could be a YouTube video or it could be something that kind of just distracts me, makes me laugh, makes me sing, whatever. So it might be something like that.
Fiona Kane:But the other thing is too and this is a bit that I wanted to talk about, because I have talked in detail more about this before and I'm sure I will over time because it's a popular topic but the other thing is to remember that if we are having a stress response, if we're having a stress response to something, then if you think of the animal kingdom, animals react like by moving when they've had a stress response. So if an animal almost gets hit by a car or something apparently a deer do this, they get hit and then they're all right but they kind of shake it off right. You see, ducks do it as well. Ducks will have a roar and they'll shake it off. So literally the human body, because when we have a stress response, all of these different hormones get released into our system. We need to use them up and so sometimes literally shaking them off can really really help. So literally just shaking it off.
Fiona Kane:So it could be sort of dancing it off, it could be shaking it off whatever, but it's just kind of moving your body and shaking it off. It could be doing like I've been doing. I've been doing a kind of founded sort of download where I do this somatic. It's a 10 minute somatic exercise video that I do. But the exercises are like yoga type exercise, doing the child's pose or doing kind of different stretches and things, and I find that those are really helpful as well because they're kind of just center ground me and you're being present in your body and that sort of calms you down.
Fiona Kane:So it's different things depending on where you are, what's going on at the time, but certainly anything that involves moving your body and children know this. Because children, if you think about sort of stress, you can have stress for a few reasons. You can have stress in your body because maybe you've eaten a whole lot of sugar, or you can have stress in your body because you've had something stressful happen. But you know, children, when they eat a bunch of sugar what do they do? They go zooming around, they get the zoomies and they're running around everywhere. They actually know naturally they need to burn it off. They need to burn off that excess sugar and those excess hormones or whatever in their system.
Fiona Kane:So it's a natural body function for us to move and we don't often especially if you're like me and you've got a job that involves you sitting down we don't think to get up and move so literally I will put a song on and instead of get up and do a bit of a dance or dance my way around the house or the office or whatever it is. So just be aware that moving your body like that can be really useful. So it's not about sort of saying I can't go to the fridge, it's just about distracting yourself and finding some other things you can do instead. And you just actively do those things and it just means you might just slow you down for the fridge and it might stop you entirely going to the fridge until it's the next meal or something. But it's good to get those strategies because if the strategy is fridge, go straight to the fridge, straight to the pantry or whatever it is. It could be the corner shop or in a place where you go and buy your chocolate bar, whatever it is.
Fiona Kane:But do they still have corner shops? I suppose they do their quickie-mart type places. What are they called? I think that comes from a game that I used to play a million years ago. What was it called? Oh yeah, larry, let's just say Larry, quickie-mart, but you know I'm 7'11", that kind of thing. That's what I meant when I said quickie-mart. I still got that language from that game in my head. It shows you how old I am. I think this last game I played was, let's just say, larry, so that must have been 30 years ago or something, anyway.
Fiona Kane:So whatever it is, but it's just stopping that immediate response, if you're immediate response, is you do it this way all the time, every time. That's kind of a neural pathway that you have in your brain that has been taught that you know, have this problem, do this thing, have this problem, do this thing. You know, have this stress response. Eat the chocolate, go to the convenience store, go to the fridge, whatever it is right. So it's just interrupting that and it's creating new neural pathways that say, oh, feeling stress, shake it off. Right, feeling stress. Put on a song and sing to my favorite song. So what you're doing is you're creating new neural pathways and new ways for your body to deal with those things and or at the very least, just interrupting or slowing down the going to the fridge thing.
Fiona Kane:So anyway, I will leave it at that. I hope that was helpful and, like I said, please like, share, subscribe all of that. Now there will be another video. I don't know which ones on which side, but there'll be a video on one side and a subscribe button on the other side, at the bottom of this video. So please do one of those things watch the other video or subscribe, or both and I hope you have a great week and I'll talk to you again soon. And I'll talk to you again next week. Thanks Bye.