Read the full transcript of Intervention Cardiologist and Lifestyle Medicine Physician Robert Kelly’s talk titled “Small Steps Towards A Heart-Healthy Mindset” at TEDxTralee 2024 conference.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
ROBERT KELLY: So, I’m delighted to be here today to talk to you all about small steps for your heart health. But I need a little bit of assistance from you all. Now, only if you are able, unlike James’s request, could I get you again to stand up, please? Brilliant.
So there are now about a hundred people looking at me somewhat worried. But for me, your hearts are pumping and you’re all alive. So I’m going to ask 30 of you to sit down. Now, I have two assistants who are going to randomly pick out the 30, so don’t all sit down yet.
So the really sad truth is that statistically out of 100 people, 30 people will die from heart disease. That’s 30%. 30% will die from heart disease. So if the 30 people in the room with the worried hearts would all please stand up again, please stand up again, because it doesn’t have to be this way.
And in fact, the great news is if you follow the steps, it won’t be this way. And so at this point, you can all sit down. And I’m going to share with you exactly why. So I’m here today as a cardiologist and as a health habits coach. And I want to encourage all of you to enjoy a long and a happy life by doing one small step for your heart health every day, starting right now today.
So in 1991, my younger brother Dan died from sudden cardiac death when I was in my final year at medical school. And this absolutely shattered our lives. But in that, I found a purpose in my life to help as many people as I can to prevent heart disease and sudden death.
Traditional medical school had taught me very much about focusing on the physical health and disease of patients. I would tell patients what to do, hand out information leaflets like how to lower your blood pressure, and then write out a prescription in about 10 or 15 minutes of a clinic visit. I later learned as a cardiologist how to put stents into people’s arteries.
But despite those interventions, I discovered that many of my patients were not actually getting better. They would all take medications, but they would assume that that would cure them of all their heart problems. With that, I was worried because I was trying to prevent heart disease as to what I should be doing. So I took a closer look about what health actually is. And health is not just about your physical disease.
It’s also about your emotional health, your lifestyle health, your behavior, your environment, which are very, very important parts of your heart health. And following from that, I also then discovered really worrying statistics. Chronic stress, poor sleep, social disconnection from your family increases the risk of having a cardiac event by almost 30%. And that is totally independent of whether you smoke or whether you have a bad diet.
Lifestyle Medicine
Now fortunately, I came across this wonderful integrative area of medicine called lifestyle medicine. And lifestyle medicine is an opportunity for you to prevent, to treat, and to potentially reverse heart disease and reverse all the chronic diseases like diabetes, blood pressure, cholesterol, obesity. And even better than that, lifestyle medicine reduces the rate of hospital admissions by almost 70%.
So if you start eating a healthy diet like a Mediterranean or a whole food plant-based diet, if you take regular exercise every day, so a brisk pace for 30 minutes each day, and if you spend a little bit more time with family, you can actually reduce your risk of having a heart attack by 50%.
And if you lower your stress and you sleep better, and if you stop smoking and reduce alcohol, you can also lower your heart risk. And even better than that, you can live longer. So there are eight key inspired lifestyle pillars. It’s an integrative health approach that involves mind, body, and heart.
It involves nutrition and healthy eating, stress reduction and freedom from addictions, physical activity and resistance-based training, inner well-being and mental health, physical activity, inner peace and resilience, restful sleep, and deep family and social connection. But this all sounds very easy, doesn’t it? I mean, you just do these pillars and you get healthy.
But the problem is, we all know this, we’re great at saying we’re going to do things, but when it comes down to doing them, we’re not so good. So if you take the example on the 1st of January, you give up everything you think is bad for you, sadly, the majority of people are back doing all the bad things by the 21st of January. And if you’re the person who’s been trying, like so many people, to use the diets to lose weight, regressively, we all know the weight just comes back to us. And part of that is because we all think that if we do the same things again and again, that we’re going to get a different result. And we all know that’s not the case.
So we have to change the way we approach this. We have to change the way we think about our behavior to achieve much more positive and long-lasting results. So three years ago, I decided to totally transform my cardiology practice. My real purpose was to try to prevent and treat people with their heart disease.
And so what I did was I started a lifestyle program where I coached patient groups. And of the initial groups, half of the participants were actually the nurses, again, and health care professionals.
And the results were extraordinary because over 90% of people reported improvements in their health and in their self-care. And in terms of the health group, 70% reported that they were working better and that they were much more satisfied in their jobs.
Changing Behavior
So how is this possible? Well, the way it works is that I set up a program to help people change their behavior. And the first step in that is to encourage everybody to focus and prioritize your health and make that your most important desire. And then when you do that, you must commit to actually doing healthy behaviors every day.
Now, the purpose with all of this is why it’s to improve your heart health. This is all about your own health. This is about your self-care. So now you really want to do this. You have some plans of how you’re going to do this. You have to set a goal for yourself. And you want to set a goal that’s really, really big and something that makes you come alive. So for all of you, that will be very, very different.
But bigger goals might be to run a 10K or to do a marathon. Or maybe you’d love to lose that weight. Maybe you want to fit into a dress. Maybe you’d love to be able to get rid of your stress forever. Or maybe, like most of my patients, you’d love to get off half the tablets you’re taking.
The next big change, and it’s a big shift for everybody, comes from within. So knowing what you need to do for your health and then actually doing things about it is the key to what you decide to do and the outcome or the results that you get. So your success actually starts in your mind.
And in truth, 80% of successful behavior change comes from within your mind. So you have to be healthy in your mind first if you want to achieve success. So there are a few key steps to follow with that. You have to assume that you have actually achieved your health goal. And the way you do that is you say to yourself every day, “I am so happy and grateful now that I am running my 10K.” Or “I am in my new dress.” Or alternatively, “I am that person who’s totally free of stress.” Wouldn’t that be amazing? Wouldn’t it be just amazing to be that way? And you’d feel amazing. And you’d feel so healthy. And you’d feel absolutely fantastic.
And then what’s crucial is that you hold on to that feeling. And you hold on to that feeling every single day as you try to change your behavior. Now sometimes you might forget to do that. And one of the tricks around that is you get a little card or a piece of paper. And you write your goal down on the card. And you look at the card and you read it every single day. And with that, you do something quite different, I suspect, for most of you, is you visualize. And you practice positive affirmations to see yourself actually being that healthy and to feel that way.
And for any athletes in the room, this is very familiar to you. Because all the Olympic gold medal winners, they visualize and do affirmations every single day of the week. So the Olympic gold medal for your heart’s health. So this particular approach allows you to narrow that situation where you were at, where you know everything you should be doing about your health, to actually doing this. So you get the opportunity to transform your own health.
So now you have a very clear vision about what you want to do with your health. And now you also have a destination or a goal that you’ve set. So you have to plan your route. And when you plan your route, you’ve got to have as much fun, and you’ve got to really enjoy this. You’re doing this for you. You’re doing it for your care, your self-care, and your own health. So you have to take steps to reach the destination that you set out for yourself. So we go back to the inspired pillars again.
So I encourage you all to pick one pillar that you’d like to work with, just one. And then pick one behavior, not 10 behaviors, one behavior that goes with that pillar. So the most important thing with the first step is that you pick a behavior that you find easy to do. You want to start with it easy.
So a good example of that would be drinking a glass of water with your breakfast, your lunch, and your dinner as part of a healthy eating goal. Or if you want to do a physical exercise resistance type training goal, it is important only if you’re able to do this. Remember that, Viv? Because when you get out of bed tomorrow morning, you should stand out and try and do a squat or a push-up. That’s not for everybody. You have to be able to do it.
And then the second thing that’s really important when you pick a behavior is that the behavior aligns with your goal. There is very little point in drinking gallons of water if you want to improve your sleeping habits.
And the last point of the behavior is the behavior has to help you achieve your goal. So it has to make you more healthy. You have to be able to feel better so that you are actually able to achieve your goal. Now there’s one major component that’s missing in terms of making the behavior work. And that is every time you do a behavior, you have to celebrate. So we’ll take the example of the glass of water. We can do it this evening, actually, for your dinner. You can all do this.
So when you sit down to have your dinner this evening, have a glass of water on the table and drink the glass of water. Remember, this is really good for your healthy eating. And when you drink the glass of water, you have to celebrate. So we either do a high five or a thumbs up. Or you can say something if that’s what you like, like a “yippee.” Or maybe just put a smile on your face. So I’ll be looking around the hotel this evening to see who’s doing that. And hopefully it will be a glass of water because that’s good for your health.
Take Action For Your Health
Let’s reflect a little bit. So losing a very close friend, a family member, or a sibling like my brother, Dan, is truly everybody’s worst nightmare. And it destroys so many other lives. But it also creates a huge opportunity for everybody else to engage with your own health.
So whatever you do, don’t wait for something terrible to happen to your health. Ask yourself, are you prepared to accept the consequences of your current lifestyle? Are you? So heart disease and strokes are the commonest cause of premature death.
But they can be avoided if you look after your health and take the few steps. So start today by making a call after this presentation and ringing your GP or your doctor and make an appointment. And make sure you actually follow through on it. Or adopt these lifestyle pillars as your new way to health and monitor your progress.
And get your family and your friends involved with you because they can really help you to succeed. So there’s a huge opportunity to learn from them. And as I said, enjoy this experience. Celebrate your success. And remember why you are actually doing this. You’re doing this for your health. Why is this so, so important? This is all about you.
So let me come back to the 30 people with the worried faces from the start. You can avoid having a heart attack or a stroke. Be inspired. The solution is actually inside of you. You can picture your ideal health. And come up with your goals. And feel that feeling of success. And do the actions. And enjoy great health forever.
So I want to finish by teaching all of you one small step to your heart health in addition to the glass of water that you also have. But this small step is a very dynamic step that will help you to lower your stress. It will help you to sleep better tonight. And it will also have a profound impact on your heart health. So I want everybody just to sit back comfortably in the chair. And you can close your eyes if you want to. You can keep them open equally well.
And I want you to think of two things that you are most grateful for today. And it’s really important that you feel that gratitude of what that gratefulness is all about. And then you have to celebrate now. So your high fives, or your thumbs up, or a big smile. I see lots of smiles. And maybe a few “yippees” in the room. Very quiet room. Woo!
So this is one powerful small step that can dramatically improve your heart health. And that might save your life and the loads of people that you have around the room today. Thank you.
