A Little Bit Richer

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Iona Bain: Hello, I'm Iona Bain and welcome back to A Little Bit Richer, the podcast breaking down your finances one episode at a time, brought to you by Legal & General. Now, with so much noise about where our time and money should be spent, it's easy to forget the fundamentals of living a healthy and balanced lifestyle. What should we be investing our time in now to protect our health and wellness and hopefully prevent problems further down the line from our diet to the level of exercise we do, to the amount of time we need to spend recharging our batteries? Is there a baseline that we should aim for to help us live a long and healthy life? Well, today I am joined by medical doctor, health educator, and presenter Dr. Tosin.

Dr. Tosin is a GP using her social media to educate people and spread health awareness. She's also part of the BBC's Operation Ouch!, helping to make health and science interesting for children. And today we're going to be exploring the key areas we need to focus on to improve our overall health and wellbeing and cutting out the noise to understand where we should actually be spending our money in order to live a healthy lifestyle. Welcome to A Little Bit Richer, Dr. Tosin.

Dr. Tosin Sotubo-Ajayi: Thank you for having me.

Iona Bain: It's so lovely for you to join us. We're going to start off with a question that we begin every podcast with, which is in 30 seconds or less, can you give us a steer on the key areas to focus on in order to live a healthy life and where spending money could help with this? You ready?

Dr. Tosin Sotubo-Ajayi: I'll try my best.

Iona Bain: Okay. Go for it.

Dr. Tosin Sotubo-Ajayi: I would say when it comes to your health, don't over complicate things. Health isn't about running 5K every week or making huge lifestyle changes or investing in the latest gadget. It's about coming back to the basics, and when I say basics, I often refer to the four pillars of health. So that's sleep, nutrition, movement, and stress management, so your mental health, and making sure you are paying attention to all of those four pillars. So the key is keeping it basic and not over complicating things when it comes to your health.

Iona Bain: You did it spot on. You mentioned about the four pillars and we'll get into all of those, but let's start with movement first of all, something that a lot of people struggle with if they haven't found exercise that they enjoy. What's your advice on how you can move your body more day to day?

Dr. Tosin Sotubo-Ajayi: I think you've hit it right there on the head when you said finding something that you enjoy. I'm probably going to come back to this a lot, but it's about not over- complicating things and just really focusing on the basics. So moving your body every single day, some type of movement that you enjoy that you are going to do again and again. The biggest impact on your health is one that you can come back to is consistency. So if you are going to try and run a 5K right out the gate, or you're going to train for one of HYROX and never exercise after that again, that's not going to be the most beneficial for your health.

 And it's not just looking at your short- term health. Movement is how is that going to impact you in the long- term and your future? So how is the movement that you're doing now investing in your future health? So some basics, walking. Walking is so great, not just for your cardiovascular health, for your muscular health, for your bone health. And often people refer to 10,000 steps a day, which is a nice round number to remember, but actually it's not the be- all and end- all. And it actually didn't come from scientific background. It came from a Japanese company back in, I think the 1960s, who were trying to market a pedometer and they came up with 10,000 as a number, because everyone can remember that number.

Iona Bain: Yeah. And I certainly have it in my head, but it is a lot, and on those days where I managed to hit that target, I'm very pleased with myself, but on other days where I don't, it can sometimes feel a little bit demoralizing. But your message is don't get too hung up on that number.

Dr. Tosin Sotubo-Ajayi: No, no. It's just a number. And yes, something to remember can be useful because sometimes you need those things to motivate yourself. But as long as you're getting in some movement, and that might be walking to work instead of taking the bus, or it might be dancing or getting up from your desk, it doesn't have to be 10,000 steps a day. If you're doing that, then great. But also looking at muscular health and how are you making sure that you are keeping that muscular strength and your bone strength as well, especially as we get older, especially as women, as our oestrogen starts to decline, as we reach menopause, we lose muscle a lot faster. And that can impact our metabolism and other areas of our health. So muscle strength is really, really important.

And actually the NHS recommend at least two sessions of strengthening your muscles each week, your major muscles. That can be body weight exercises, body weight movements. It doesn't have to be in the gym. You can do that at home. You can do it at work when you're on lunch break. Again, coming back to the basics, not over- complicating things when it comes to movement and investing in your movement now so it can have an impact on your future health as well.

Iona Bain: That's really good to know that you don't necessarily have to put the hours in, in the gym in order to train your muscles in that way.

Dr. Tosin Sotubo-Ajayi: No, but everyone is different. So I will say if you are someone who finds the gym useful and it motivates you, and you are someone who has the means to afford a gym membership, then by all means go for it if it helps you.

Iona Bain: And eating a well- balanced diet, we know that's important, but there's so much noise online about fibre, fat, vitamins, protein. What is really important in this whole discourse? What should we be striving to have in our diet every day?

Dr. Tosin Sotubo-Ajayi: I think the really important thing is about inclusion and not exclusion, and I think with all the noise online, what I see, which is really scary is people excluding certain food groups from their diet for no obvious reason, but we want to make sure that we're getting the necessary food groups in a good amount. So we're looking at protein, really important for our muscle strength. So that can come from fish, meats, eggs, tofu. And then you want to look at fibre. Fibre is really important for our gut health. So fibre from fruits, vegetables, whole grains. We also want to include fats. People are scared of fats, but fats are so, so important for our health.

So good fats, healthy fats are what we call them. Healthy oils such as olive oil, avocado, seeds, nuts, very oily fish. And these fats are also really good for our brain function and our brain health because they include omega- 3s as well. So if not focusing on your nutrition is going to motivate you, how about focusing on what's actually going to make me work well? What's going to make me the best that I can be at work, the best parent I can be? You need this nutrition to be able to basically live your day- to- day life and to be able to function in work and in your household as well. So really important you're not excluding food groups. And I just wanted to touch on supplements here as well. Really important that you're not over- supplementing because we should be getting what we need from our nutrition and supplements is in the word. It's to supplement a healthy diet. It's not to replace it.

So for most people, a couple of supplements such as vitamin D, sometimes iron, so if ferritin is needed. But for most people, they should be able to get what they need in terms of their nutrients and their vitamins and minerals from their daily diet. Supplements do have a role to play, but I just want everyone to be really cautious because there's so much marketing out there and it can be so difficult to tell what's needed, what's not needed, and what is a good supplement and what's not such a good supplement.

Iona Bain: Yeah, you can end up wasting a lot of money by the sounds of it.

Dr. Tosin Sotubo-Ajayi: Yes, you definitely can, and that's the danger. When it comes to buying the latest gadget or something that you're not ingesting, it's not going to be detrimental to your health, whereas something like a supplement that you are ingesting and also spending a lot of money on, not only are you wasting money, so it can be a financial burden, but you're also possibly doing a danger to your health.

Iona Bain: Oh, so there is such a risk as taking too many of these supplements and that actually having a harmful impact?

Dr. Tosin Sotubo-Ajayi: 100%, and we've seen it, but there's also a risk of it not doing much because you have lots of these supplements that have lots of different nutrients and vitamins and minerals in them to the point where they're all combating each other and our gut finds it hard to digest what it needs to digest. So actually, although a lot of these multivitamins sound great and they might be marketed as containing lots of things that are going to benefit every single area of your health, your gut's probably not absorbing what it needs to in the right amounts. So I'd be really cautious. Always speak to your doctor if you want to start a supplement or you are concerned or you're just not quite sure where to go.

Iona Bain: That's some really good advice. And I'm really interested to get your view on whether it is possible to eat well on a budget or if folks need to accept that you have to spend a little bit more on good ingredients in order to have that well- balanced diet, but that it's worthwhile.

Dr. Tosin Sotubo-Ajayi: Obviously you have to spend some money to be able to put food on the table, but we don't have to spend loads of money to be able to eat well and live a healthy lifestyle. And it all comes back to education, and people often do end up spending a lot of money because they feel like what's marketed as the healthiest version is what they need. However, when we come back to understanding the basics of health and nutrition and really looking at those food groups and what we need, actually it's just the simple whole grains and whole foods that are going to do us the most benefit and not over- complicating things. Cooking at home with simple ingredients that you enjoy and staying away from ultra- processed foods. They're not all terrible, but actually a lot of them are expensive, and ultra- processed foods are foods that have been through stages and stages of processing. So they've gone from being in their naturalist form to being their most unnatural form. And that costs money. So actually the foods that are sometimes not so healthy for you are sometimes the most expensive because they're processed.

Iona Bain: Yeah. And sleep is a really important pillar of health. What's your advice on how to get a good night's sleep?

Dr. Tosin Sotubo-Ajayi: Sleep is so important. I could talk about sleep all day because it really, like I said at the beginning, it's one of the pillars of health, but it can affect all the other pillars and it can affect every area of your life. We know if you don't get enough sleep and good quality sleep, it can have an impact on your mental health. Obviously it's the time that your body recovers, so if you're not getting enough sleep, you're not able to actually function, get enough movement during the day, your cognition declines, and it also has an impact on mortality if you're sleep- deprived chronically. But it's not just about the amount, it's also about the quality. So you might find that you're getting seven to nine hours of sleep, but waking up still not feeling refreshed, and we often refer to what we call sleep hygiene, which is all about making sure that your sleep and your routine is at the optimal that it can be, including the environment to get you the best quality sleep.

So making sure your room is at the right temperature, making sure that you're going to bed and waking up at around the same time, because we have this sleep- wake clock that can be really impacted if you are going to bed and waking up at different times. And it can be really difficult if you work shifts, but trying your best to maintain that sleep- wake cycle. And also cutting out caffeine close to bedtime, cutting out alcohol close to bedtime. People often say, " Oh, a couple of glasses of wine will help me sleep." It might help you fall asleep, and actually you might stay asleep for those seven to nine hours, but you're not getting that deep sleep, so therefore your quality is compromised, and therefore you wake up feeling just as bad as before you went to sleep.

Iona Bain: Some home truths there. I think as somebody who definitely likes my tea, I've had to wean myself off that in order to get a good sleep. Great. I wanted to ask you as well about whether health and wealth can conflict with each other. You must have come across folks in your work who are constantly striving for that promotion, putting in all the hours, really trying to achieve financial security, but perhaps that happens at the expense of their health. So what advice do you give to people who feel that tension between trying to get on in the world, but also want to look after themselves and know how important that is?

Dr. Tosin Sotubo-Ajayi: I could definitely relate. Even as a doctor, I think I've probably been there myself before. It is a reality and it can be difficult when you're trying to have a career, hold down a job, bring in money, perhaps bring up children, perhaps looking after elderly parents. I think especially when you get to that sandwich generation of people that might be caregiving for young children, pets, and elderly parents, and trying to have a career and have hobbies outside of work and live a life. It's a lot. So your health gets deep prioritized.

However, I always come back to the analogy of being on a plane when they say, " Make sure you attach your oxygen mask first before you help others," because you are not going to be able to look after your kids, hold down a job, look after your parents if needed, or care-give anybody else if you are not at your healthiest. So it's really important that we prioritize our health because even if we don't realize it now, it will catch up with us and we may not be able to function to the best of our ability and have those high- flying careers and bring in that money and look after our children if we are not at our healthiest.

Iona Bain: So does that mean sometimes making tricky decisions such as choosing to work fewer hours or taking on fewer responsibilities, even if that does mean that there's a financial trade- off there? Or is it possible for you to balance your work and your finances with your health just by making some small changes in your day-to-day life? What's your view on the kind of thought and effort that's required to make health a big priority in your life?

Dr. Tosin Sotubo-Ajayi: Yes, I think the changes can be small, but I do think some effort is needed and some prioritization is needed. So for me, I have to schedule in everything that I do. So in my calendar goes a break, goes a walk, goes just taking some time out to journal. Everything goes in my calendar. If I need to call a friend, it goes in my calendar because I'll forget to call that friend, and then that anxiety builds up on me, " Oh, I'm not being a good friend. I didn't check in on this person." If I need to do something, it goes in my calendar because I will forget.

Iona Bain: So schedule it and then it'll happen.

Dr. Tosin Sotubo-Ajayi: If that works for you. So everyone's different, but I think it does take some thought and it takes some prioritisation the same way you schedule things at work and you prioritise them. Do that for your health, not just your physical health, but your mental health as well.

Iona Bain: That's really good advice. Let's talk about wearable tech. There are all these devices now that you can buy like WHOOP, Oura, Google Fitbit, and they can be quite expensive. So given the information and data that they provide, which can be useful, I imagine, would you say that they're a worthwhile investment?

Dr. Tosin Sotubo-Ajayi: Yeah, my answer is kind of on two ends of the spectrum here, so probably in the middle. So I think in the short- term, they can be beneficial because it gives people information that they might not have had about their body, and sometimes that information motivates them to make some changes such as moving more, getting better sleep. However, is it needed and is it necessary to live a healthy lifestyle? I don't think so. I think, again, it comes back down to education. That can be one form of educating yourself, but you can also educate yourself in other ways and getting to understand your body better; understanding what works for you; what you enjoy in terms of movement; eating a healthy, balanced diet; coming back to the basics.

And on the other hand, as a doctor, I see the other side of this. So people having too much information at their hands where it makes them overly- anxious and they're coming to see the doctor a lot more than they were before and not necessarily always needed. So sometimes we are investigating things that never needed investigating, and that can have a financial burden, it can have a time cost, and it can have a burden on your mental health and your anxiety as well.

Iona Bain: So there is such a thing as the worried well.

Dr. Tosin Sotubo-Ajayi: Yes, definitely, and I think these wearables are fuelling that in some people.

Iona Bain: And your fourth pillar that you mentioned was mental health. So how can people prioritize and take care of their mental health when there's so much that's competing for their attention?

Dr. Tosin Sotubo-Ajayi: Yeah, I'm so glad that you asked because we forget about our mental health, and it can often be a latter thought or not even thought about at all. We often focus on our physical health, and it's quite obvious when things are going wrong with our physical health. However, when it comes to our mental health, the signs are a lot slower and often not noticeable until sometimes it's too late or help would've been more beneficial earlier on. So we really want to prioritize our mental health and check in with ourselves just the same way we do with our physical health.

So if you are taking time out to exercise and move your body, what time are you reserving to check in with yourself or focus on your mental health and stress management? That might look like journaling or going on a walk. Nature is really great for our mental health and our mood. There've actually been studies to show the impact of being around nature. So if you're someone that likes to be outdoors, great. If you're someone that doesn't like the outdoors, I would say try. Try and it doesn't have to be by yourself. It can be with groups of other people if that's what's going to motivate you and also help with your mental health and your mood as well. It can be doing activities that take your mind off the stressful things in life, such as drawing, painting, dancing. Anything that you feel impacts your mood in a positive way and you're going to do again and again is really beneficial.

Iona Bain: And one last thing, whilst people are listening to this, they might want to go away and make a cup of tea whilst they're waiting for the kettle to boil. What is the one thing that you would like them to think about so that they can take steps to improve their health today?

Dr. Tosin Sotubo-Ajayi: I would say think about what small change can you make today that is enough that you can do daily and enough that you can keep doing for the rest of your life. So I've said before, that might mean getting off the bus one stop early and walking the rest of that commute to work. It might seem really small and insignificant, but actually that small change can have a huge impact, especially if done consistently for the next five to 10 years. So what small change can you do that you're going to do consistently every single day for the rest of your life?

Iona Bain: Perfect. I think everybody can act on that. So what a great way to finish our conversation. Thank you so much, Dr. Tosin.

Dr. Tosin Sotubo-Ajayi: Thank you for having me.

Iona Bain: That was a lot of food for thought, and hopefully a good reminder for you to just focus on those fundamentals to live a healthier life. Next time we'll be talking to Jodie Greenway from L&G about workplace benefits, helping you to take full advantage of what's on offer from your employer and understanding the true value of the key parks. This podcast is brought to you by L&G. If something that you've heard in this episode today inspired you to share it with a loved one, please do, and you could help others get a little bit richer as well. You can keep up with the show on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram @legalandgeneral. And if you've got a question or a topic that you would like answered on the show, please get in touch on our socials. We love to hear from you. Thanks for listening and see you soon.