September 2, 2025 • 42 mins
September is Healthy Aging Month. The theme is "never too late to reinvent yourself." Start with a SPIES Check-In of your well-centered fitness (Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, and Social wellness).
In this episode of The Aging Well Podcast, Dr. Jeff Armstrong and cohost Corbin Bruton introduce the SPIES Check-In—a simple yet powerful weekly self-audit designed to support whole-person health across five key dimensions: Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, and Social wellness.Rather than chasing perfection or obsessing over physical metrics, this framework helps you pause, reflect, and realign with what matters most. Whether you're navigating midlife transitions or simply want to live more intentionally, the SPIES model invites you to check in, not check out.Practical, adaptable, and grounded in science, this approach to well-centered fitness can help you build a life that feels more balanced, more connected, and more sustainable.Try it this week—and see what it reveals.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Frequent topic on this podcast is what we call well centered
fitness for spies, spiritual, physical, intellectual,
emotional and social Wellness. Welcome to the Aging Well
podcast where we explore the science stories and strategies
behind living a longer, healthier and more purposeful
life. I'm your host Doctor Jeff
Armstrong, an exercise physiologist with a passion for
(00:23):
making science simple and life better as we age with my Co host
Corbin Bruton. In this episode, we discussed
how to use this simple but powerful tool to reflect on your
whole person health each week. It's called the Spies checking a
framework that can help you livewith more intention, balance and
purpose for aging well. The Aging Well podcast
(00:46):
encourages informed decision making, and always consult your
physician in scientific literature when making decisions
about your health. Doctor Armstrong, where did the
Spies model come from and what'sthe idea behind it?
A spies model, as we've talked about a few times on the podcast
before it, before we kind of getto why we call it spies, we'll
(01:11):
just kind of go back to the ideaof Wellness.
And I probably the first time I really dealt with Wellness was
as a grad student at the University of Toledo and having
to teach a Wellness class and you promote there's several
different ways that you can identify the components or
dimensions of Wellness. I have just kind of settled over
the years on spiritual, physical, intellectual,
(01:34):
emotional and social. There are some who include
environmental and a couple of different other components to
the Wellness model, but I've just kind of prefer those five.
I think they encompass everything that we need to
consider. I have long identified it as
what I call well centered fitness, which the idea of being
(01:55):
well centered comes from being directed toward getting better
at each of those, balancing those areas not as a slice of
the pie as as Wellness is often presented, but rather as
interacting dimensions that kindof feed off of each other.
And I actually promote the well centered fitness as being more
(02:19):
of a pyramid where the physical and the spiritual are at the
base and the inner, the interaction between those is
what's going to lead to us beingmore intellectual, studying,
reading more, learning more. And then that builds into the
emotional and the social components.
And that all feeds back to the spiritual and the physical.
(02:39):
And so we have this kind of fivecomponents when the spies comes
from, as we've mentioned a few times, we're getting a shout out
to Jay friend of mine from go way back to elementary school,
who pointed out to me, it's like, you know, are you
intentional in the order in which you layout the five
components? And he says because it spells
(03:01):
out spies, and I am intentional in terms of how I spell it out
because I do think the spiritualand the physical are really the
foundational pieces. And so without the spiritual
peace, even the physical has less meaning to it.
And so I always put it in that order, never realizing that it
kind of spelled out an acronym. And so he identified the
(03:22):
acronym. So we give him credit for the
spies model. But the overall emphasis of
spies is the whole person healthversus just physical metrics.
You know, and we've talked aboutthat a bit in the past with
certain influencers that look atlongevity as just the physical
metrics but neglect the spiritual peace.
(03:42):
Yeah, special shout out to Jay for coming up with this 'cause I
love I, I think it sounds way better than well centered
Fitness, no offense. Doctor, you're wrong there.
But. I just, I just love the acronym
SPIES. So let's start with the
spiritual piece. What should someone reflect on
here each week? Well, I think you know, again,
(04:05):
it's you have to 1st define whatdo we mean by spiritual and
spiritual goes beyond the religion it is.
And so for somebody who says, well, I'm not religious, so I'm
not spiritual, I don't think there's a spiritual component.
The spiritual dimension is the idea that there is something
greater than self, that we are not the center of the universe.
(04:25):
And so a key reflection that we would want to be focusing on in
the spiritual realm is how am I connected to the universe?
Am I connected to meaning, purpose, or something beyond
myself? And so this is where some of the
mindful practices like meditation, prayer, getting
ourselves out into nature and just experiencing nature can be
(04:50):
practices that we can do to increase our spiritual dimension
over the course of the week service.
So when I'm considering, you know, my more meditative
practices, my journaling and I'mlooking at my what I'm I like
the well centered fitness. No discredit to Jay.
(05:11):
I just think slides makes it easier to talk about.
But the reason I like it is wellcentered fitness is because it
emphasizes that centeredness spies doesn't necessarily
capture that we want to be balanced in all these areas.
And so one of the keys to doing a spies check in is journaling
(05:31):
on a regular basis, ideally daily, maybe multiple times a
day, taking time out during the day to just reflect a little
bit. And so starting your day with a
little bit of meditation, centering ourselves prayer, if
that's, you know, your flavour, taking a lockout in nature,
looking at what am I going to dotoday to make a contribution to
(05:54):
the world, to society. And we're talking about making a
contribution to the world. We're not talking about having
this massive global impact. You know, you don't have to be a
world leader or celebrity to have a global impact because
just the interaction that I havewith one person, if I can get up
in the morning and smile at somebody, that smile may
(06:16):
actually lead to that person changing their behavior, having
a better day. That impacts somebody else.
That impacts somebody else. And you know, I kind of think
back to, and they're going to have Rob Kelly, Doctor Rob Kelly
on a upcoming episode of this podcast.
But I had him on my we have a spiritual podcast and we have a
spiritual problem podcast. And Doctor Kelly is kind of the
(06:40):
Gordon Ramsay of addiction therapy.
Fascinating guy. I mean, I'd strongly recommend
listening to that episode and then the upcoming episode.
But one of the things he talked about, he said, you know, I can
see somebody on the streets and say, watch, I'm going to change
this person's life and just by commenting on his sneakers.
And you know, you just walk by personally, I like your sneakers
(07:00):
and you walk on. Yes, if you turn back and see
that person kind of looking at their their sneakers, they maybe
smile kind of a little bit and that person is going to go on,
they're going to be friendlier to somebody.
They're going to treat their wife differently or their
partner differently. They're going to interact
differently with people because you've made them feel a little
bit better about themselves. And that's kind of what we're
(07:21):
talking about some of these daily practices that we can do
for our spiritual piece of the spies model.
So it's really, you know, start small and, you know, make daily
goals and then track your progress over time.
What are your thoughts? What do you do spiritually?
Well, I, I kind of before I get dive into what I do spiritual, I
(07:41):
kind of want to capitalize on the little comments of
compliments and random acts of kindness throughout the day.
I had probably, I want to say kindergarten, we had a police
officer that would come visit our school by the name of
Officer Dan, who unfortunately is no longer with us.
(08:03):
But he had such a huge impact onour community.
And he was, he would come and he'd work with us elementary
school kids. And one of the things that he
taught us was, you know, just besuper kind to others.
If you and he used this example,if you're at a grocery store or
(08:24):
you're at a restaurant and the person behind the counter is
not, is not doing good, don't get mad at them.
Don't get frustrated. Don't embarrass them because you
don't know what they're going through on their own personal
life. Maybe they're making mistakes on
that particular day because theyjust got a phone call that their
(08:45):
father is in the hospital and they can't leave their shift, so
they're not able to go there, you know, get there right away.
You know, if someone shows up toschool and they're falling
asleep, you know, don't make funof them for being too tired.
You don't know what they were doing the night before.
Maybe they were in a situation where they had to take care of a
(09:06):
loved one. And, and stress is a real thing
and it builds up and people handle it differently.
And so those little acts of kindness, just being like, hey,
you know, I like your shirt. I like your hair, I like your
shoes, things like that. It, it may seem so minute, but
it definitely can have a huge impact.
(09:30):
And I know this is a little controversial because when I was
doing personal training, I knew a lot of individuals that I
worked with were also trying to hit their weight loss goals.
And you know, as a trainer, you have that eye for it.
And you're like, hey, you know what?
You're, you're hitting your goals, you're looking good.
(09:50):
Keep up the good work, although that's, you know, try you're
trying to be empowering. Some people don't, some people
don't want to hear that in a professional setting, but I, I
think we should kind of eliminate that.
My personal opinion only becauseit's like, I feel like we've
gone in a, in a way where we've hindered compliments so much and
(10:14):
that they've become an HR violation.
But I want to hear if I'm doing a good job.
And I know a lot of other peoplewant to hear if they're doing a
good job or if they put forth the effort to put on a nice suit
jacket and, and hey man, you're looking sharp today.
I think that there's nothing wrong with that.
I think it definitely is a confidence booster and I think
(10:38):
we should move forward with going back to complimenting
people and encouraging others tohit their goals and encouraging
them. So I, I, I love that idea.
I think we should be, you know, the light of the world, which
(10:59):
ties in with my spiritual beliefs.
I try and wake up every morning,I try and do a little prayer
devotion and on my way to work, I'm listening to some worship
music or some scriptures. And I, I, I used to before
(11:19):
finding my relationship, I was very lost and I, I didn't know
what my purpose was and I didn'tknow where what I was doing.
I just had this feeling of emptiness and I had to do all
these things. And now that I have that purpose
and I don't think like the worldrevolves around me or the
universe revolves around me, butinstead, you know, I was created
(11:44):
by a God that created everythingand he created me for a purpose
and have a relationship with himin order to figure out what that
purpose is. I think it's it's a wonderful,
beautiful thing. And I think if you are not
interested in that, that that's OK.
(12:05):
That's your freedom, spiritual freedom of choice.
But I do think that everyone should have some form of
relationship with God. And I feel like prayer is so
easy and it's, it's free. Anyone can do it.
And it, it doesn't take much. You just sit there and you would
(12:27):
have a conversation like you're having a conversation with your
best friend, but you're just talking about how appreciative
you are for the life that you have given and the opportunities
that you have and the opportunities that are right
around the corner and the blessings that are going to be
coming in. And you just have these things
(12:47):
in man. It can be it can be humbling
experiences. It can be learning experience.
It could be gratitude with with if.
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(13:08):
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(13:35):
But yeah, I think, you know, just having that journaling
practice and morning ritual of whether it's prayer, meditation,
reflection, whatever it might becan be highly beneficial.
And starting the day. One tip that I picked up from
Renee Fitton, who represented ElNutra, you know, you know,
(13:56):
recent podcast episode and she talked about doing kind of
listing three things that she's grateful for every morning.
I think it's very beneficial just to, you know, I'm grateful
for this, I'm grateful for this,I'm grateful for this.
And it just puts you in that attitude of gratitude.
So next, physical Wellness. Beyond just working out, what
(14:16):
should we really be looking at? I think when we're looking at
the physical dimension, you know, we want to be looking at
movement, we want to look at recovery, we want to look at
nourishment. So diet falls into this, you
know, how much exercise we're getting, physical activity, but
also our sleep kind of falls into that physical dimension.
(14:37):
And so a good reflex reflection question for somebody should be
something like, did I care for my body in ways that support
long term energy and vitality? And again, we want to make sure
that we're cautioning people that you're not to equate over
exercising or even exercising with health.
You know that how much of your exercising isn't so much about
(15:01):
health, It's why are we exercising?
What is it doing to promote us physically so that we can
support the other dimensions of Wellness and B more centered and
other centered in our, you know,kind of the universe?
So how do we keep our minds sharp and engage, especially
later in life? Well, that brings us to the
(15:24):
intellectual dimension. And you know, sometimes you'll
see it listed as mental. I, I don't like the mental.
I think intellectual works a little bit better because it
does look at more the mental stimulation, the nerd, the
cognitive aspect of being well centered.
And so this dimension really stresses this is the importance
(15:45):
of mental stimulation and curiosity.
And so if we want to check in onourselves intellectually, what
are we doing to promote our brain and our brain health?
You know, so this could be things like reading, you know,
conversation, having regular conversation with people,
challenging conversations, not just talking about what the
(16:06):
Kardashians are up to, but talking about even talking about
politics in a balanced, proactive manner can have
stimulating effects. You know, talking about, you
know, for into the scientific literature, talking about
research studies, talking about books that we've read, engaging
(16:27):
in creative projects, you know, so it doesn't always have to be
totally intellectual. The intellectual dimension can
also involve our creative side of the brain where, you know,
what are we doing creatively? You know, are we into art?
Are we into music? Are we drawing?
Are we writing? Are we journaling?
What are we we doing? And so a weekly reflection
(16:50):
should be something like, did I challenge or feed my mind this
week or today? Or how am I going to challenge
my brain today? And it might just be, I'm going
to set a goal of reading for 30 minutes today or I'm going to
listen to a podcast like the Aging Well podcast.
What can we do do to promote themind and kind of reflecting back
(17:12):
on that, how, how well did I do that?
What did I learn today? You know, one of the things I've
recently learned is if you're having conversations with
individuals and conversation is just kind of like a surface
level, like, Hey, how are you doing today?
And someone says, good, if you respond back with the same word
(17:37):
that they just said, but you flip it as a question, tend to
kind of dive in more. So if you're like, Hey, you
know, how how was your day? How was your weekend?
Good and then you say good, whatmakes it good and then they kind
of dive into it and then you kind of get to know other
individuals. You get to learn their thought
(17:58):
process. You get to learn what makes them
tick, what their passions are, what their creative and I don't
know, like ties in with like a deeper understanding, which I'm
sure we'll probably cover when we hit the social Wellness
portion of spies. But I just think it's it's
absolutely fascinating. I'm I'm currently I'm working
(18:20):
with the youth, which is the next generation and I know the
next generation specifically that Gen.
Z, that Gen. alpha. They have a lot of negative, you
know, negative personas associated with them, but they
are actually fascinating and they are so hyper intelligent
(18:46):
and very, very smart. If you actually break down.
And I think breaking down those barriers, those generational
barriers and learning from them,just as a millennial, I can
learn from the Gen. X and the boomer generation.
I feel like I can also learn from this Gen.
(19:08):
Z, Gen. alpha. And I feel like iron sharpens as
iron and if and it's really, really cool picking the mind of
these these young, youthful, creative, intelligent
individuals and just, I don't know, it's just it's really,
really cool. So that's something that I'm
(19:30):
learning and it's as much as they quote UN quote have a bad
rap. I don't, I don't think they too.
I think this next generation that's coming up is going to be
filled with inventors and entrepreneurs and something that
is going to change, change the world that we we know and it's
(19:54):
going to be it's going to be really cool and I'm looking
forward to it. So you're kind of underscoring
the interconnectedness between these dimensions because you're
really kind of jumped up to the the social piece.
But what are you doing intellectually?
What are you doing to feed the brain?
I mean to to learn to to grow intellectually.
Well, this can sound kind of kind of dorky, but I, I've been
(20:20):
diving a lot into literature outthere, both scientific
literature as well as historicalliterature.
And I feel like it's just my opinion, but I feel like in
order to help us understand the path that we need to go on in
(20:41):
order to brighten our future, we, we got to look back into the
path the past. And I think that, yeah, I think
understanding not just a part ofhistory, but all of history is
super, super beneficial. And then if we can tie in the
science base to that, as well asa spiritual, you know, aspect,
(21:05):
it just, it points us in a rightdirection.
So for me, I've just been, I've been doing a lot of, a lot of
cool historical facts and tying it with, tying it within my
face, as well as some science and tying that in.
And, and just, you know, you as a professor at Western Oregon,
(21:29):
you know, you, you probably knowthe school Armada there and
those who dare to teach must never cease to learn.
And I just, I don't know, I justkind of live by that.
I just, I feel like, I feel likeit's, it's pointless to stay
stagnant with our, our intellectual horizon.
I think we should, we should always, always seek more
(21:52):
information and absorb more and just grow and learn and mature.
And yeah, I've been, I've been doing a lot of, been doing a lot
of diving into history to keep my intelligence.
Up. So in short, you've been reading
books more as opposed to just the Internet.
(22:12):
So, yeah, I mean, I think there's so many opportunities
for us to tap into the knowledgebase that's available to us and
that's the key this area. So just like what have I learned
this week, you know, if we kind of reflect back on the piece.
Well, one thing I haven't learned, and I'll just say this
before we move on, I am really trying to read these fiscal
(22:37):
Wellness and these financial things because I want to, I want
to prep for my future. And no matter how simplified I
get the most simple version of those books, I, it's like, I
don't know why it's like readinga foreign language to me, but I
can, I can understand, I can read a full on scientific
(22:59):
literature and I can, I can grasp that concept.
But when it comes to financial investing, I just like.
It's so funny how my brain works, but.
Yeah, I might not find it too funny how your brain works, but
yeah, I mean, the whole point isto stretch our intellect and not
(23:21):
just read the things that we arecomfortable with, but read the
things that we are uncomfortablewith.
But yeah, because I feel like through that uncomfortable
ability, just like in the gym, you need to push yourself
through that last Rep. And just because it's just
because it's hard, you don't stop when it's it's hard.
(23:41):
You know, if you want muscle growth, if you want to activate
hypertrophy, you got it. You got to push yourself until
failure. That doesn't mean that you push
yourself until you're getting injured.
But I feel like the same goes for intellectual intelligent
too. Don't just don't just do
(24:02):
something because you're good atit.
Do something that's going to challenge you so you become
better at it and so you can acquire a new skill set.
And it doesn't just have to be reading.
It can literally be doing a new skill at work.
You know, it blows my mind that people will literally say like,
oh, I'm not going to do that. It's not in my job description.
(24:25):
And yet those same people that say that are also the same
people that are super upset thatthey didn't get a promotion when
they were given this opportunityto learn a new task to become
promoted. And they say that's not in my
job description. So then that door of opportunity
(24:46):
closed for them and it opened upfor another individual who did
want to learn and grow. And now that person is getting
promoted. And I think it's just, it's
just, it's fascinating that we, we stunt our growth by staying
in our comfort zone when really the growth is outside of that
(25:07):
comfort zone. And we, we just got to have like
AI don't know, I don't even knowwhat to call it an emotional
homeostasis of being comfortablewith, by being comfortable with
being uncomfortable, I guess youcan say.
And then that becomes the new norm.
And now you've now you've just grown and and you become better
and you've just acquired a new skill set.
(25:28):
That's a good segue into the next dimension, which is the
emotional. It's OK, so this one is tricky
for a lot of people. And then what does emotional
check in look like? I think, you know, for emotional
is just being able to be a bit more self reflective, you know,
look at how they interacted withother people, how are they
(25:49):
perceiving me? And you know, some of the key
ideas in this area are naming our emotions.
You know, I'm angry today or I'mhappy today or why am I, you
know, feeling what I am feeling and being self aware.
A lot of people go through life not being at all self aware of
their emotions and just learninghow to regulate that.
(26:11):
And so if we can name our emotions, that gives us a
greater capacity to be able to make the changes emotionally
that are going to benefit us socially in and within the other
areas of the other dimensions. And so a reflection that we
might do in our kind of daily weekly spies check in would be
(26:32):
did I acknowledge how I felt or did I just power through?
And so this is where journaling,breath work, and in some cases
therapy may actually even be beneficial.
I think that emotional intelligence and social
intelligence are Emotional intelligence and social
(26:53):
intelligence are the 2 forms of intelligence that are completely
overlooked. And I yeah, I think that a lot
of individuals are lacking emotional intelligence.
Now this can be for number of reasons.
This can be for psychological barriers, this could be for
(27:19):
protective, protective manners. But I think if one if one can
understand their emotions and help regulate their own emotions
and if they can master that art,which is way easier said than
done, fully understand that. But if if one can can get that,
(27:42):
then that one becomes way more advanced than than most of their
peers. And they can also be used as a
tool to guide and help those that that aren't necessarily
good with regulating or even understanding their own
emotions. Part of emotional intelligence
(28:05):
is, you know, is social intelligence as well.
So what about social Wellness, especially for those who feel
isolated or overwhelmed? So when we're talking about
social Wellness, I can think that the real important thing to
consider is not the quantity of relationships.
(28:27):
You know, it doesn't matter how many friends you have on social
media or Instagram or any of those.
It's like the quality of the relationships, the meaningful
relationships, the few but quality relationships that you
have in life. So a reflection that we might
want to consider in our daily orweekly spies check in would be
did I connect with someone in a meaningful way this week?
(28:50):
And you know, some of that, you know, so we set goals for the
day. It might be who can I contact
today or who do I need to contact today to make a
connection with them in some meaningful way that's going to
boost their day. This is where that kind of I am
third other centeredness comes into play.
And so a prompt that we might give ourselves on a regular
(29:12):
basis is who energizes me and who drains me and what am I
going to do about those relationships?
You know who energizes me and who drives me or who doles me?
That's something that I'm kind of experiencing right now.
I was just having a conversationwith my wife where I'm I feel
(29:33):
like I'm at the age where I don't want to be around
individuals, where once I hang out with them, I feel so
exhausted. Simultaneously, I don't want to
be around individuals where I might be the one exhausting
them. I like to be around individuals
(29:55):
where they are stimulating me intellectually, spiritually,
they're pushing me, they're encouraging me, and vice versa.
So being a part of that niche orthat community where you're
constantly giving and receiving and inspiring and encouraging
(30:16):
and being encouraged all in onceand finding that purpose.
Like I yeah, I love that aspect of it.
We're the sum of the five peoplewe spend the most time with is,
as the saying goes, yeah. So if someone wants to start
doing spies check in each week, what's the easiest way?
Well, again, I think this the best way is to do what works
(30:39):
well for you. You know, first thing is how
often. I would say pick at least one
time a week. You know, it could be, you know,
Sunday night as we're starting our work week or Monday morning
could be Friday night, Saturday night, you know, whatever your
day works for you to kind of be able to reflect and to position
(31:00):
yourself going into the next cycle of time.
So pick at least one day a week.There's countless ways you can
do it. You can do voice memos.
You know, most people on their phone and they can record and
they can just, you know, sit in their car and just reflect and
record themselves. I prefer journaling.
So I go through a lot of those composition notebooks overtime.
(31:24):
I have stacks of them from yearsof journaling.
Don't know what I'm going to do with them.
I don't know if I have some hopethat maybe someday I'll live a
life that some historians are going to want to go back through
those and piece together my life.
I don't know if that will ever happen.
You can use calendar. Note.
The journaling works well for mebecause I could just in the
(31:44):
morning, get up before anybody else gets up, kind of reflect on
the day before what's coming in the day, Set my goals again.
Lately I've been doing a little bit more gratitude assessment.
You know, what are three things that I'm grateful for and just
whatever. First three things come to mind.
The way I structure it is I'll just, you know, I start with
(32:06):
kind of my sleep, you know, I, I've been tracking sleep so I'll
no sleep scores. So I have data on that so I can
look back overtime, see what's impacting that.
It's kind of jump into what the day is going to be about or you
know, whatever I need to be reflecting on.
I might set some goals, setting a goal for each of the five
dimensions. I'll usually write out my
(32:30):
mission statement, things that Ivalue and I have a few different
daily mantras that I'll I'll write to kind of set the tone
for the day. One practice that I would like
to get back to that I got to find I got to make the time.
The time is there. I need to start at the end of
the day, just kind of adding to my journal, do a second entry
(32:53):
where I'm just kind of reflecting back on the day.
Just a few statements of positive things that have
happened through the day. I used to kind of end with a
quote that maybe came up from the reading that I've been doing
and I do it on a daily basis. That may be too much for some
people. Maybe it's just once a week for
my daughter. One thing that you know, I
(33:13):
bought her several months ago. She hasn't done it as much as I
anticipated, but she'll do it onoccasion.
She'll take the car out and justI bought her a mic.
She has oh microphone and decentlittle podcasting microphone
that she can hook into her phoneand kind of videotape record
herself and in a sense kind of do a little self podcast.
(33:34):
She's not going to ever produce that or publish that, but that
act of just kind of recording and letting out any emotions and
reflecting on those different pieces is highly therapeutic
for. And so I think for some people
that might be the thing to do. Maybe it's just getting yourself
a cheap mic and recording yourself, whether it's video
(33:56):
only audio, but just pretend you're doing the Corbin Bruton
podcast, you know, and you're just talking about what happened
in the week. There's different ways that you
can do it. Everybody's different, their
personalities are different. They're key thing to remember is
you're doing this spies check inis this is about noticing, not
(34:18):
judging. We're looking at just kind of
seeing where we are spiritually,physically, intellectually,
emotionally and socially and notdoing it in a more judgmental
fashion. You know, it's oh, I didn't work
out this week. I'm such a slacker and this and
that. It's like, well, why didn't you
work out? What's going on in your life
(34:38):
that prevented you from getting your exercise in?
Or when you did exercise, what was the benefit that you you got
from how did you feel? You know, and you know, how are
your relationships going if you're struggling?
And I've had some struggles recently with just leaving
family relationships and really kind of facing myself what how
(34:59):
my stressors are negatively impacting my relationships and
what am I doing about that? And you know, one thing that
I've been doing is kind of a, you know, I've already kind of
promoted Al Nutra and Prolong and any of our viewers that are
kind of watching this can kind of jump down into the
description notes and see links to where they can save some
money on, you know, their fasting mimicking diets.
(35:23):
If I can spit that one out or ifthey need more long term help,
there's the AL Nutra health thatthey can actually get consulting
along with it and not intentionally kind of promoting
any of that. But it just kind of comes up
that that's, you know, one thingphysically that has helped me,
and I did mention Renee Fittens gratitude part of journaling,
(35:44):
but one thing that's been helping me is rebalance health,
taking their their mints there. I do the Meno mints during the
day. Tried the mellow mints as well.
So I kind of think about four mints a day just to help reduce
stress. And honestly, it is at a huge
benefit for me in terms of how much stress I have.
And if I reduce that stress, howis that positively impacting my
(36:07):
relationships where I'm getting upset less?
I've not been out on the road asmuch to kind of see what it does
for my disappointment with West Coast drivers and how horrible
they are at roundabouts and driving on the highway.
But you know, it, it is, is causing me fewer outburst.
(36:28):
I'm a little bit more patient and understanding with other
people, and that's causing me less stress, and it's causing
less stress on other people. And so being able to track that
and reflect, you know, yeah, when I've been doing these, I've
been treating people differently.
That's all part of the spies. Check it.
You know, it's not judging. It's not like, Oh my God,
(36:49):
there's such an asshole to people today.
I'm just such a jerk. It's why was I an asshole?
Why was I being a jerk? What can I do differently today?
One of my mantras that I use in my daily journaling is be your
best today, be better tomorrow. And I can't do that in a
judgmental fashion. You know, I, I can't say was I
(37:09):
my best today? Maybe I wasn't my best overall,
but did I do my best today? And if I didn't, what can I do
better tomorrow? And that's where we want to be
with this idea of the spies check in.
I think that's pretty. I would say emotionally and
intellectually mature because a lot of people can't even handle
(37:30):
feedback from a third party source.
So the fact that you're able to actually give and receive
feedback from yourself, I think that's that's really, really
cool. Yeah.
I can't tell you how cool I think that is.
So good job, Doctor Armstrong. Better if I was doing better,
(37:53):
but I'm not supposed to be judgmental.
But that's the thing. It's it's be better than you
were yesterday. And so it's almost like you have
the ability, which a lot of people, if we're being honest,
they don't, they don't have the ability to self reflect and look
back on the day through different situations.
(38:17):
How could they handle it differently if they could go
back in time, learn, grow from that, and then say, OK,
tomorrow's a new day. I'm not going to stress about
what happened. I'm going to learn from this.
I'm going to grow and I'm going to do even better than what I
did yesterday or I'm going to dobetter than what I did an hour
(38:37):
ago. I'm just going to move forward.
And so self reflecting and self grow, self reflecting with the
ability to self grow is man, that's just, that's such a cool
concept, which I, I know it happens to most of us as we
mature. But for those individuals that
(38:59):
can master that, I just, I thinkit's your leaps and bounds ahead
of a lot of other individuals. And kudos to you if you have the
ability and the wherewithal to actually to do that.
OK, so what's one thing that youwant our listeners to take away
(39:20):
from all of this? Well, it's probably actually a
few things, but you know, 1 is balance doesn't mean equal, it
means responsive. And so we're not always, you
know, the reason I don't like using Wellness model as a pie is
that it's not equal dimensions. At times we might need to learn
a bit more into the spiritual orinto the physical or into the
(39:42):
intellectual. You know, you're a college
student right now, you're going to have to sacrifice a few of
those other dimensions in order to perform well academically.
And that's OK as long as we realize that we're going to have
to make up at some point for some of the detriments that we
have accumulated in some of those other areas.
And so it's just being responsive to the areas that we
(40:04):
need and recognize that we need to grow in.
And you know, start by noticing that one domain has.
Been neglected and what can we do do that?
So, you know, if we're we're noticing that we haven't really
given focus to our social connections, then maybe what can
I do? Maybe I need to just call
somebody. Maybe I need to plan a girls
(40:27):
night or guys night out. You know, what can I do to kind
of tap into that area of neglectand boost it up a little bit?
And you know, it's important that read just recognize that
whole person Wellness supports aging well, not just longevity.
And we've talked about that. You know, we we did our piece on
Brian Johnson and how, you know,his approach to longevity really
(40:51):
neglects despise model. You know, it's focused almost
entirely on the physical side. You might argue there's the
intellectual side because he's learning things and, and trying
to advance knowledge, but it it's a detriment to what you
know. Is there a spiritual dimension
to that? I see none.
I might be missing something andif I am, then my apologies for
(41:14):
that. But I don't see a spiritual
dimension. I don't necessarily see a social
dimension because it's all aboutmy longevity not benefiting the
world. And, and as I look at longevity,
the reason I want to live longerjust so that I can have the most
impact for the longest period oftime in my life.
And I'm only scratching the surface of having any kind of
(41:35):
positive impact. So I got to live longer to do
some things that are much more positive.
And so I would say for our listeners and viewers, try the
spies, check in for three weeks,pick a period of time every
Sunday night or Monday night, Monday morning, whatever it
might be. Just ask yourself 5 simple
questions, one for each part of the model.
(41:57):
And that might be the simplest way to kind of start aging well
without adding more to your plate.
So I guess in conclusion, spiritual, physical,
intellectual, emotional and social Wellness, the acronym
spies. By following these protocol, you
could be a you yourself can be asecret agent of overall
(42:22):
Wellness. And by doing so self reflecting,
moving forward and getting getting better each and every
day. These are all steps that you can
do in order to age well. Thank you for listening.
Hope you benefited from today's podcast and until next time,
keep aging well.
Frequent topic on this podcast is what we call well centered
fitness for spies, spiritual, physical, intellectual,
emotional and social Wellness. Welcome to the Aging Well
podcast where we explore the science stories and strategies
behind living a longer, healthier and more purposeful
life. I'm your host Doctor Jeff
Armstrong, an exercise physiologist with a passion for
(00:23):
making science simple and life better as we age with my Co host
Corbin Bruton. In this episode, we discussed
how to use this simple but powerful tool to reflect on your
whole person health each week. It's called the Spies checking a
framework that can help you livewith more intention, balance and
purpose for aging well. The Aging Well podcast
(00:46):
encourages informed decision making, and always consult your
physician in scientific literature when making decisions
about your health. Doctor Armstrong, where did the
Spies model come from and what'sthe idea behind it?
A spies model, as we've talked about a few times on the podcast
before it, before we kind of getto why we call it spies, we'll
(01:11):
just kind of go back to the ideaof Wellness.
And I probably the first time I really dealt with Wellness was
as a grad student at the University of Toledo and having
to teach a Wellness class and you promote there's several
different ways that you can identify the components or
dimensions of Wellness. I have just kind of settled over
the years on spiritual, physical, intellectual,
(01:34):
emotional and social. There are some who include
environmental and a couple of different other components to
the Wellness model, but I've just kind of prefer those five.
I think they encompass everything that we need to
consider. I have long identified it as
what I call well centered fitness, which the idea of being
(01:55):
well centered comes from being directed toward getting better
at each of those, balancing those areas not as a slice of
the pie as as Wellness is often presented, but rather as
interacting dimensions that kindof feed off of each other.
And I actually promote the well centered fitness as being more
(02:19):
of a pyramid where the physical and the spiritual are at the
base and the inner, the interaction between those is
what's going to lead to us beingmore intellectual, studying,
reading more, learning more. And then that builds into the
emotional and the social components.
And that all feeds back to the spiritual and the physical.
(02:39):
And so we have this kind of fivecomponents when the spies comes
from, as we've mentioned a few times, we're getting a shout out
to Jay friend of mine from go way back to elementary school,
who pointed out to me, it's like, you know, are you
intentional in the order in which you layout the five
components? And he says because it spells
(03:01):
out spies, and I am intentional in terms of how I spell it out
because I do think the spiritualand the physical are really the
foundational pieces. And so without the spiritual
peace, even the physical has less meaning to it.
And so I always put it in that order, never realizing that it
kind of spelled out an acronym. And so he identified the
(03:22):
acronym. So we give him credit for the
spies model. But the overall emphasis of
spies is the whole person healthversus just physical metrics.
You know, and we've talked aboutthat a bit in the past with
certain influencers that look atlongevity as just the physical
metrics but neglect the spiritual peace.
(03:42):
Yeah, special shout out to Jay for coming up with this 'cause I
love I, I think it sounds way better than well centered
Fitness, no offense. Doctor, you're wrong there.
But. I just, I just love the acronym
SPIES. So let's start with the
spiritual piece. What should someone reflect on
here each week? Well, I think you know, again,
(04:05):
it's you have to 1st define whatdo we mean by spiritual and
spiritual goes beyond the religion it is.
And so for somebody who says, well, I'm not religious, so I'm
not spiritual, I don't think there's a spiritual component.
The spiritual dimension is the idea that there is something
greater than self, that we are not the center of the universe.
(04:25):
And so a key reflection that we would want to be focusing on in
the spiritual realm is how am I connected to the universe?
Am I connected to meaning, purpose, or something beyond
myself? And so this is where some of the
mindful practices like meditation, prayer, getting
ourselves out into nature and just experiencing nature can be
(04:50):
practices that we can do to increase our spiritual dimension
over the course of the week service.
So when I'm considering, you know, my more meditative
practices, my journaling and I'mlooking at my what I'm I like
the well centered fitness. No discredit to Jay.
(05:11):
I just think slides makes it easier to talk about.
But the reason I like it is wellcentered fitness is because it
emphasizes that centeredness spies doesn't necessarily
capture that we want to be balanced in all these areas.
And so one of the keys to doing a spies check in is journaling
(05:31):
on a regular basis, ideally daily, maybe multiple times a
day, taking time out during the day to just reflect a little
bit. And so starting your day with a
little bit of meditation, centering ourselves prayer, if
that's, you know, your flavour, taking a lockout in nature,
looking at what am I going to dotoday to make a contribution to
(05:54):
the world, to society. And we're talking about making a
contribution to the world. We're not talking about having
this massive global impact. You know, you don't have to be a
world leader or celebrity to have a global impact because
just the interaction that I havewith one person, if I can get up
in the morning and smile at somebody, that smile may
(06:16):
actually lead to that person changing their behavior, having
a better day. That impacts somebody else.
That impacts somebody else. And you know, I kind of think
back to, and they're going to have Rob Kelly, Doctor Rob Kelly
on a upcoming episode of this podcast.
But I had him on my we have a spiritual podcast and we have a
spiritual problem podcast. And Doctor Kelly is kind of the
(06:40):
Gordon Ramsay of addiction therapy.
Fascinating guy. I mean, I'd strongly recommend
listening to that episode and then the upcoming episode.
But one of the things he talked about, he said, you know, I can
see somebody on the streets and say, watch, I'm going to change
this person's life and just by commenting on his sneakers.
And you know, you just walk by personally, I like your sneakers
(07:00):
and you walk on. Yes, if you turn back and see
that person kind of looking at their their sneakers, they maybe
smile kind of a little bit and that person is going to go on,
they're going to be friendlier to somebody.
They're going to treat their wife differently or their
partner differently. They're going to interact
differently with people because you've made them feel a little
bit better about themselves. And that's kind of what we're
(07:21):
talking about some of these daily practices that we can do
for our spiritual piece of the spies model.
So it's really, you know, start small and, you know, make daily
goals and then track your progress over time.
What are your thoughts? What do you do spiritually?
Well, I, I kind of before I get dive into what I do spiritual, I
(07:41):
kind of want to capitalize on the little comments of
compliments and random acts of kindness throughout the day.
I had probably, I want to say kindergarten, we had a police
officer that would come visit our school by the name of
Officer Dan, who unfortunately is no longer with us.
(08:03):
But he had such a huge impact onour community.
And he was, he would come and he'd work with us elementary
school kids. And one of the things that he
taught us was, you know, just besuper kind to others.
If you and he used this example,if you're at a grocery store or
(08:24):
you're at a restaurant and the person behind the counter is
not, is not doing good, don't get mad at them.
Don't get frustrated. Don't embarrass them because you
don't know what they're going through on their own personal
life. Maybe they're making mistakes on
that particular day because theyjust got a phone call that their
(08:45):
father is in the hospital and they can't leave their shift, so
they're not able to go there, you know, get there right away.
You know, if someone shows up toschool and they're falling
asleep, you know, don't make funof them for being too tired.
You don't know what they were doing the night before.
Maybe they were in a situation where they had to take care of a
(09:06):
loved one. And, and stress is a real thing
and it builds up and people handle it differently.
And so those little acts of kindness, just being like, hey,
you know, I like your shirt. I like your hair, I like your
shoes, things like that. It, it may seem so minute, but
it definitely can have a huge impact.
(09:30):
And I know this is a little controversial because when I was
doing personal training, I knew a lot of individuals that I
worked with were also trying to hit their weight loss goals.
And you know, as a trainer, you have that eye for it.
And you're like, hey, you know what?
You're, you're hitting your goals, you're looking good.
(09:50):
Keep up the good work, although that's, you know, try you're
trying to be empowering. Some people don't, some people
don't want to hear that in a professional setting, but I, I
think we should kind of eliminate that.
My personal opinion only becauseit's like, I feel like we've
gone in a, in a way where we've hindered compliments so much and
(10:14):
that they've become an HR violation.
But I want to hear if I'm doing a good job.
And I know a lot of other peoplewant to hear if they're doing a
good job or if they put forth the effort to put on a nice suit
jacket and, and hey man, you're looking sharp today.
I think that there's nothing wrong with that.
I think it definitely is a confidence booster and I think
(10:38):
we should move forward with going back to complimenting
people and encouraging others tohit their goals and encouraging
them. So I, I, I love that idea.
I think we should be, you know, the light of the world, which
(10:59):
ties in with my spiritual beliefs.
I try and wake up every morning,I try and do a little prayer
devotion and on my way to work, I'm listening to some worship
music or some scriptures. And I, I, I used to before
(11:19):
finding my relationship, I was very lost and I, I didn't know
what my purpose was and I didn'tknow where what I was doing.
I just had this feeling of emptiness and I had to do all
these things. And now that I have that purpose
and I don't think like the worldrevolves around me or the
universe revolves around me, butinstead, you know, I was created
(11:44):
by a God that created everythingand he created me for a purpose
and have a relationship with himin order to figure out what that
purpose is. I think it's it's a wonderful,
beautiful thing. And I think if you are not
interested in that, that that's OK.
(12:05):
That's your freedom, spiritual freedom of choice.
But I do think that everyone should have some form of
relationship with God. And I feel like prayer is so
easy and it's, it's free. Anyone can do it.
And it, it doesn't take much. You just sit there and you would
(12:27):
have a conversation like you're having a conversation with your
best friend, but you're just talking about how appreciative
you are for the life that you have given and the opportunities
that you have and the opportunities that are right
around the corner and the blessings that are going to be
coming in. And you just have these things
(12:47):
in man. It can be it can be humbling
experiences. It can be learning experience.
It could be gratitude with with if.
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And if you find our conversations helpful, please
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(13:08):
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And now back to the podcast. And then.
(13:35):
But yeah, I think, you know, just having that journaling
practice and morning ritual of whether it's prayer, meditation,
reflection, whatever it might becan be highly beneficial.
And starting the day. One tip that I picked up from
Renee Fitton, who represented ElNutra, you know, you know,
(13:56):
recent podcast episode and she talked about doing kind of
listing three things that she's grateful for every morning.
I think it's very beneficial just to, you know, I'm grateful
for this, I'm grateful for this,I'm grateful for this.
And it just puts you in that attitude of gratitude.
So next, physical Wellness. Beyond just working out, what
(14:16):
should we really be looking at? I think when we're looking at
the physical dimension, you know, we want to be looking at
movement, we want to look at recovery, we want to look at
nourishment. So diet falls into this, you
know, how much exercise we're getting, physical activity, but
also our sleep kind of falls into that physical dimension.
(14:37):
And so a good reflex reflection question for somebody should be
something like, did I care for my body in ways that support
long term energy and vitality? And again, we want to make sure
that we're cautioning people that you're not to equate over
exercising or even exercising with health.
You know that how much of your exercising isn't so much about
(15:01):
health, It's why are we exercising?
What is it doing to promote us physically so that we can
support the other dimensions of Wellness and B more centered and
other centered in our, you know,kind of the universe?
So how do we keep our minds sharp and engage, especially
later in life? Well, that brings us to the
(15:24):
intellectual dimension. And you know, sometimes you'll
see it listed as mental. I, I don't like the mental.
I think intellectual works a little bit better because it
does look at more the mental stimulation, the nerd, the
cognitive aspect of being well centered.
And so this dimension really stresses this is the importance
(15:45):
of mental stimulation and curiosity.
And so if we want to check in onourselves intellectually, what
are we doing to promote our brain and our brain health?
You know, so this could be things like reading, you know,
conversation, having regular conversation with people,
challenging conversations, not just talking about what the
(16:06):
Kardashians are up to, but talking about even talking about
politics in a balanced, proactive manner can have
stimulating effects. You know, talking about, you
know, for into the scientific literature, talking about
research studies, talking about books that we've read, engaging
(16:27):
in creative projects, you know, so it doesn't always have to be
totally intellectual. The intellectual dimension can
also involve our creative side of the brain where, you know,
what are we doing creatively? You know, are we into art?
Are we into music? Are we drawing?
Are we writing? Are we journaling?
What are we we doing? And so a weekly reflection
(16:50):
should be something like, did I challenge or feed my mind this
week or today? Or how am I going to challenge
my brain today? And it might just be, I'm going
to set a goal of reading for 30 minutes today or I'm going to
listen to a podcast like the Aging Well podcast.
What can we do do to promote themind and kind of reflecting back
(17:12):
on that, how, how well did I do that?
What did I learn today? You know, one of the things I've
recently learned is if you're having conversations with
individuals and conversation is just kind of like a surface
level, like, Hey, how are you doing today?
And someone says, good, if you respond back with the same word
(17:37):
that they just said, but you flip it as a question, tend to
kind of dive in more. So if you're like, Hey, you
know, how how was your day? How was your weekend?
Good and then you say good, whatmakes it good and then they kind
of dive into it and then you kind of get to know other
individuals. You get to learn their thought
(17:58):
process. You get to learn what makes them
tick, what their passions are, what their creative and I don't
know, like ties in with like a deeper understanding, which I'm
sure we'll probably cover when we hit the social Wellness
portion of spies. But I just think it's it's
absolutely fascinating. I'm I'm currently I'm working
(18:20):
with the youth, which is the next generation and I know the
next generation specifically that Gen.
Z, that Gen. alpha. They have a lot of negative, you
know, negative personas associated with them, but they
are actually fascinating and they are so hyper intelligent
(18:46):
and very, very smart. If you actually break down.
And I think breaking down those barriers, those generational
barriers and learning from them,just as a millennial, I can
learn from the Gen. X and the boomer generation.
I feel like I can also learn from this Gen.
(19:08):
Z, Gen. alpha. And I feel like iron sharpens as
iron and if and it's really, really cool picking the mind of
these these young, youthful, creative, intelligent
individuals and just, I don't know, it's just it's really,
really cool. So that's something that I'm
(19:30):
learning and it's as much as they quote UN quote have a bad
rap. I don't, I don't think they too.
I think this next generation that's coming up is going to be
filled with inventors and entrepreneurs and something that
is going to change, change the world that we we know and it's
(19:54):
going to be it's going to be really cool and I'm looking
forward to it. So you're kind of underscoring
the interconnectedness between these dimensions because you're
really kind of jumped up to the the social piece.
But what are you doing intellectually?
What are you doing to feed the brain?
I mean to to learn to to grow intellectually.
Well, this can sound kind of kind of dorky, but I, I've been
(20:20):
diving a lot into literature outthere, both scientific
literature as well as historicalliterature.
And I feel like it's just my opinion, but I feel like in
order to help us understand the path that we need to go on in
(20:41):
order to brighten our future, we, we got to look back into the
path the past. And I think that, yeah, I think
understanding not just a part ofhistory, but all of history is
super, super beneficial. And then if we can tie in the
science base to that, as well asa spiritual, you know, aspect,
(21:05):
it just, it points us in a rightdirection.
So for me, I've just been, I've been doing a lot of, a lot of
cool historical facts and tying it with, tying it within my
face, as well as some science and tying that in.
And, and just, you know, you as a professor at Western Oregon,
(21:29):
you know, you, you probably knowthe school Armada there and
those who dare to teach must never cease to learn.
And I just, I don't know, I justkind of live by that.
I just, I feel like, I feel likeit's, it's pointless to stay
stagnant with our, our intellectual horizon.
I think we should, we should always, always seek more
(21:52):
information and absorb more and just grow and learn and mature.
And yeah, I've been, I've been doing a lot of, been doing a lot
of diving into history to keep my intelligence.
Up. So in short, you've been reading
books more as opposed to just the Internet.
(22:12):
So, yeah, I mean, I think there's so many opportunities
for us to tap into the knowledgebase that's available to us and
that's the key this area. So just like what have I learned
this week, you know, if we kind of reflect back on the piece.
Well, one thing I haven't learned, and I'll just say this
before we move on, I am really trying to read these fiscal
(22:37):
Wellness and these financial things because I want to, I want
to prep for my future. And no matter how simplified I
get the most simple version of those books, I, it's like, I
don't know why it's like readinga foreign language to me, but I
can, I can understand, I can read a full on scientific
(22:59):
literature and I can, I can grasp that concept.
But when it comes to financial investing, I just like.
It's so funny how my brain works, but.
Yeah, I might not find it too funny how your brain works, but
yeah, I mean, the whole point isto stretch our intellect and not
(23:21):
just read the things that we arecomfortable with, but read the
things that we are uncomfortablewith.
But yeah, because I feel like through that uncomfortable
ability, just like in the gym, you need to push yourself
through that last Rep. And just because it's just
because it's hard, you don't stop when it's it's hard.
(23:41):
You know, if you want muscle growth, if you want to activate
hypertrophy, you got it. You got to push yourself until
failure. That doesn't mean that you push
yourself until you're getting injured.
But I feel like the same goes for intellectual intelligent
too. Don't just don't just do
(24:02):
something because you're good atit.
Do something that's going to challenge you so you become
better at it and so you can acquire a new skill set.
And it doesn't just have to be reading.
It can literally be doing a new skill at work.
You know, it blows my mind that people will literally say like,
oh, I'm not going to do that. It's not in my job description.
(24:25):
And yet those same people that say that are also the same
people that are super upset thatthey didn't get a promotion when
they were given this opportunityto learn a new task to become
promoted. And they say that's not in my
job description. So then that door of opportunity
(24:46):
closed for them and it opened upfor another individual who did
want to learn and grow. And now that person is getting
promoted. And I think it's just, it's
just, it's fascinating that we, we stunt our growth by staying
in our comfort zone when really the growth is outside of that
(25:07):
comfort zone. And we, we just got to have like
AI don't know, I don't even knowwhat to call it an emotional
homeostasis of being comfortablewith, by being comfortable with
being uncomfortable, I guess youcan say.
And then that becomes the new norm.
And now you've now you've just grown and and you become better
and you've just acquired a new skill set.
(25:28):
That's a good segue into the next dimension, which is the
emotional. It's OK, so this one is tricky
for a lot of people. And then what does emotional
check in look like? I think, you know, for emotional
is just being able to be a bit more self reflective, you know,
look at how they interacted withother people, how are they
(25:49):
perceiving me? And you know, some of the key
ideas in this area are naming our emotions.
You know, I'm angry today or I'mhappy today or why am I, you
know, feeling what I am feeling and being self aware.
A lot of people go through life not being at all self aware of
their emotions and just learninghow to regulate that.
(26:11):
And so if we can name our emotions, that gives us a
greater capacity to be able to make the changes emotionally
that are going to benefit us socially in and within the other
areas of the other dimensions. And so a reflection that we
might do in our kind of daily weekly spies check in would be
(26:32):
did I acknowledge how I felt or did I just power through?
And so this is where journaling,breath work, and in some cases
therapy may actually even be beneficial.
I think that emotional intelligence and social
intelligence are Emotional intelligence and social
(26:53):
intelligence are the 2 forms of intelligence that are completely
overlooked. And I yeah, I think that a lot
of individuals are lacking emotional intelligence.
Now this can be for number of reasons.
This can be for psychological barriers, this could be for
(27:19):
protective, protective manners. But I think if one if one can
understand their emotions and help regulate their own emotions
and if they can master that art,which is way easier said than
done, fully understand that. But if if one can can get that,
(27:42):
then that one becomes way more advanced than than most of their
peers. And they can also be used as a
tool to guide and help those that that aren't necessarily
good with regulating or even understanding their own
emotions. Part of emotional intelligence
(28:05):
is, you know, is social intelligence as well.
So what about social Wellness, especially for those who feel
isolated or overwhelmed? So when we're talking about
social Wellness, I can think that the real important thing to
consider is not the quantity of relationships.
(28:27):
You know, it doesn't matter how many friends you have on social
media or Instagram or any of those.
It's like the quality of the relationships, the meaningful
relationships, the few but quality relationships that you
have in life. So a reflection that we might
want to consider in our daily orweekly spies check in would be
did I connect with someone in a meaningful way this week?
(28:50):
And you know, some of that, you know, so we set goals for the
day. It might be who can I contact
today or who do I need to contact today to make a
connection with them in some meaningful way that's going to
boost their day. This is where that kind of I am
third other centeredness comes into play.
And so a prompt that we might give ourselves on a regular
(29:12):
basis is who energizes me and who drains me and what am I
going to do about those relationships?
You know who energizes me and who drives me or who doles me?
That's something that I'm kind of experiencing right now.
I was just having a conversationwith my wife where I'm I feel
(29:33):
like I'm at the age where I don't want to be around
individuals, where once I hang out with them, I feel so
exhausted. Simultaneously, I don't want to
be around individuals where I might be the one exhausting
them. I like to be around individuals
(29:55):
where they are stimulating me intellectually, spiritually,
they're pushing me, they're encouraging me, and vice versa.
So being a part of that niche orthat community where you're
constantly giving and receiving and inspiring and encouraging
(30:16):
and being encouraged all in onceand finding that purpose.
Like I yeah, I love that aspect of it.
We're the sum of the five peoplewe spend the most time with is,
as the saying goes, yeah. So if someone wants to start
doing spies check in each week, what's the easiest way?
Well, again, I think this the best way is to do what works
(30:39):
well for you. You know, first thing is how
often. I would say pick at least one
time a week. You know, it could be, you know,
Sunday night as we're starting our work week or Monday morning
could be Friday night, Saturday night, you know, whatever your
day works for you to kind of be able to reflect and to position
(31:00):
yourself going into the next cycle of time.
So pick at least one day a week.There's countless ways you can
do it. You can do voice memos.
You know, most people on their phone and they can record and
they can just, you know, sit in their car and just reflect and
record themselves. I prefer journaling.
So I go through a lot of those composition notebooks overtime.
(31:24):
I have stacks of them from yearsof journaling.
Don't know what I'm going to do with them.
I don't know if I have some hopethat maybe someday I'll live a
life that some historians are going to want to go back through
those and piece together my life.
I don't know if that will ever happen.
You can use calendar. Note.
The journaling works well for mebecause I could just in the
(31:44):
morning, get up before anybody else gets up, kind of reflect on
the day before what's coming in the day, Set my goals again.
Lately I've been doing a little bit more gratitude assessment.
You know, what are three things that I'm grateful for and just
whatever. First three things come to mind.
The way I structure it is I'll just, you know, I start with
(32:06):
kind of my sleep, you know, I, I've been tracking sleep so I'll
no sleep scores. So I have data on that so I can
look back overtime, see what's impacting that.
It's kind of jump into what the day is going to be about or you
know, whatever I need to be reflecting on.
I might set some goals, setting a goal for each of the five
dimensions. I'll usually write out my
(32:30):
mission statement, things that Ivalue and I have a few different
daily mantras that I'll I'll write to kind of set the tone
for the day. One practice that I would like
to get back to that I got to find I got to make the time.
The time is there. I need to start at the end of
the day, just kind of adding to my journal, do a second entry
(32:53):
where I'm just kind of reflecting back on the day.
Just a few statements of positive things that have
happened through the day. I used to kind of end with a
quote that maybe came up from the reading that I've been doing
and I do it on a daily basis. That may be too much for some
people. Maybe it's just once a week for
my daughter. One thing that you know, I
(33:13):
bought her several months ago. She hasn't done it as much as I
anticipated, but she'll do it onoccasion.
She'll take the car out and justI bought her a mic.
She has oh microphone and decentlittle podcasting microphone
that she can hook into her phoneand kind of videotape record
herself and in a sense kind of do a little self podcast.
(33:34):
She's not going to ever produce that or publish that, but that
act of just kind of recording and letting out any emotions and
reflecting on those different pieces is highly therapeutic
for. And so I think for some people
that might be the thing to do. Maybe it's just getting yourself
a cheap mic and recording yourself, whether it's video
(33:56):
only audio, but just pretend you're doing the Corbin Bruton
podcast, you know, and you're just talking about what happened
in the week. There's different ways that you
can do it. Everybody's different, their
personalities are different. They're key thing to remember is
you're doing this spies check inis this is about noticing, not
(34:18):
judging. We're looking at just kind of
seeing where we are spiritually,physically, intellectually,
emotionally and socially and notdoing it in a more judgmental
fashion. You know, it's oh, I didn't work
out this week. I'm such a slacker and this and
that. It's like, well, why didn't you
work out? What's going on in your life
(34:38):
that prevented you from getting your exercise in?
Or when you did exercise, what was the benefit that you you got
from how did you feel? You know, and you know, how are
your relationships going if you're struggling?
And I've had some struggles recently with just leaving
family relationships and really kind of facing myself what how
(34:59):
my stressors are negatively impacting my relationships and
what am I doing about that? And you know, one thing that
I've been doing is kind of a, you know, I've already kind of
promoted Al Nutra and Prolong and any of our viewers that are
kind of watching this can kind of jump down into the
description notes and see links to where they can save some
money on, you know, their fasting mimicking diets.
(35:23):
If I can spit that one out or ifthey need more long term help,
there's the AL Nutra health thatthey can actually get consulting
along with it and not intentionally kind of promoting
any of that. But it just kind of comes up
that that's, you know, one thingphysically that has helped me,
and I did mention Renee Fittens gratitude part of journaling,
(35:44):
but one thing that's been helping me is rebalance health,
taking their their mints there. I do the Meno mints during the
day. Tried the mellow mints as well.
So I kind of think about four mints a day just to help reduce
stress. And honestly, it is at a huge
benefit for me in terms of how much stress I have.
And if I reduce that stress, howis that positively impacting my
(36:07):
relationships where I'm getting upset less?
I've not been out on the road asmuch to kind of see what it does
for my disappointment with West Coast drivers and how horrible
they are at roundabouts and driving on the highway.
But you know, it, it is, is causing me fewer outburst.
(36:28):
I'm a little bit more patient and understanding with other
people, and that's causing me less stress, and it's causing
less stress on other people. And so being able to track that
and reflect, you know, yeah, when I've been doing these, I've
been treating people differently.
That's all part of the spies. Check it.
You know, it's not judging. It's not like, Oh my God,
(36:49):
there's such an asshole to people today.
I'm just such a jerk. It's why was I an asshole?
Why was I being a jerk? What can I do differently today?
One of my mantras that I use in my daily journaling is be your
best today, be better tomorrow. And I can't do that in a
judgmental fashion. You know, I, I can't say was I
(37:09):
my best today? Maybe I wasn't my best overall,
but did I do my best today? And if I didn't, what can I do
better tomorrow? And that's where we want to be
with this idea of the spies check in.
I think that's pretty. I would say emotionally and
intellectually mature because a lot of people can't even handle
(37:30):
feedback from a third party source.
So the fact that you're able to actually give and receive
feedback from yourself, I think that's that's really, really
cool. Yeah.
I can't tell you how cool I think that is.
So good job, Doctor Armstrong. Better if I was doing better,
(37:53):
but I'm not supposed to be judgmental.
But that's the thing. It's it's be better than you
were yesterday. And so it's almost like you have
the ability, which a lot of people, if we're being honest,
they don't, they don't have the ability to self reflect and look
back on the day through different situations.
(38:17):
How could they handle it differently if they could go
back in time, learn, grow from that, and then say, OK,
tomorrow's a new day. I'm not going to stress about
what happened. I'm going to learn from this.
I'm going to grow and I'm going to do even better than what I
did yesterday or I'm going to dobetter than what I did an hour
(38:37):
ago. I'm just going to move forward.
And so self reflecting and self grow, self reflecting with the
ability to self grow is man, that's just, that's such a cool
concept, which I, I know it happens to most of us as we
mature. But for those individuals that
(38:59):
can master that, I just, I thinkit's your leaps and bounds ahead
of a lot of other individuals. And kudos to you if you have the
ability and the wherewithal to actually to do that.
OK, so what's one thing that youwant our listeners to take away
(39:20):
from all of this? Well, it's probably actually a
few things, but you know, 1 is balance doesn't mean equal, it
means responsive. And so we're not always, you
know, the reason I don't like using Wellness model as a pie is
that it's not equal dimensions. At times we might need to learn
a bit more into the spiritual orinto the physical or into the
(39:42):
intellectual. You know, you're a college
student right now, you're going to have to sacrifice a few of
those other dimensions in order to perform well academically.
And that's OK as long as we realize that we're going to have
to make up at some point for some of the detriments that we
have accumulated in some of those other areas.
And so it's just being responsive to the areas that we
(40:04):
need and recognize that we need to grow in.
And you know, start by noticing that one domain has.
Been neglected and what can we do do that?
So, you know, if we're we're noticing that we haven't really
given focus to our social connections, then maybe what can
I do? Maybe I need to just call
somebody. Maybe I need to plan a girls
(40:27):
night or guys night out. You know, what can I do to kind
of tap into that area of neglectand boost it up a little bit?
And you know, it's important that read just recognize that
whole person Wellness supports aging well, not just longevity.
And we've talked about that. You know, we we did our piece on
Brian Johnson and how, you know,his approach to longevity really
(40:51):
neglects despise model. You know, it's focused almost
entirely on the physical side. You might argue there's the
intellectual side because he's learning things and, and trying
to advance knowledge, but it it's a detriment to what you
know. Is there a spiritual dimension
to that? I see none.
I might be missing something andif I am, then my apologies for
(41:14):
that. But I don't see a spiritual
dimension. I don't necessarily see a social
dimension because it's all aboutmy longevity not benefiting the
world. And, and as I look at longevity,
the reason I want to live longerjust so that I can have the most
impact for the longest period oftime in my life.
And I'm only scratching the surface of having any kind of
(41:35):
positive impact. So I got to live longer to do
some things that are much more positive.
And so I would say for our listeners and viewers, try the
spies, check in for three weeks,pick a period of time every
Sunday night or Monday night, Monday morning, whatever it
might be. Just ask yourself 5 simple
questions, one for each part of the model.
(41:57):
And that might be the simplest way to kind of start aging well
without adding more to your plate.
So I guess in conclusion, spiritual, physical,
intellectual, emotional and social Wellness, the acronym
spies. By following these protocol, you
could be a you yourself can be asecret agent of overall
(42:22):
Wellness. And by doing so self reflecting,
moving forward and getting getting better each and every
day. These are all steps that you can
do in order to age well. Thank you for listening.
Hope you benefited from today's podcast and until next time,
keep aging well.
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