November 10, 2025 • 53 mins
John and Rich talk about high blood pressure, stress, what Brothers need to know about hypertension and ways to mitigate their blood pressure issues. They talked about the silent epidemic, how stress and culture drive hypertension, taking ownership of our health, and healing the whole person (spirit, physical, emotional and mental).
Brought to you by Holver Travel - www.holvertravel.com
Brought to you by Holver Travel - www.holvertravel.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Raw and Refine, the Gentleman's Hour, where we're
going to have conversation with middle aged black men about
what's going on. We welcome you to listen, comment, and like,
and hopefully encourage others to join for future conversations as well.
We always like to start off with a toast, and
(00:29):
with that toast, it's because we are gentlemen and we
do it Raw and Refine. Well, welcome back to Raw
and Refined. I'm John and I'm here today with my
brother Rich and today we're talking about something that hits
home for me, not just as a man, but as
(00:52):
a physician. We're talking about hypertension, high blood pressure, pressure,
whatever you like to call it. That's what the topic
of the conversation is today. It's one of those conditions
that becomes almost normal in our community, but it's not normal,
similar to diabetes, and as we've talked about in some
(01:12):
of our previous podcasts, it's becoming too much of a norm.
And these are things that we definitely can have some
impact towards. So hopefully our conversation today will help us
with that and help us try to be more diligent
and aware of high blood pressure and the potential effect
that can have on us all as well. By no
(01:35):
means it's hypertension harmless. It has very serious side effects
associated with it. Even though it's termed well because it's
term the silent killer, let me put it that way.
I've seen it in my patients. I've dealt with it
personally as I do have high blood pressure as well,
and I know the kind of tale it can take
(01:56):
it if we don't pay attention. So Rich well as
high blood pressure, and some of you out there, I'm
sure Doe too. So today Rich and I want to
unpack what's really going on with this, the stress, the culture,
and the steps we can take to protect our health.
But as we do with raw and refined, we always
(02:18):
like to toast it off with a drink for tonight.
And I think I heard correctly from my brother Rich,
We're going with te tea tonight, Am I correct?
Speaker 2 (02:27):
That is correct, brother. I'm doing an herbal tea tonight.
It's called a wild berry, That's what I'm doing. It's
over there getting it steep on at the moment. And then,
as I had mentioned to you, one of my colleagues
is a beekeeper and I just got a fresh shipment
of honey from him today, two different batches, some a
light and a dark. I'm really excited about the dark.
(02:50):
It looks like molasses. So it's just his bees one
just a different group of a different group of plants
for those. So yeah, that's the beverage for tonight this evening.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
And herbal tea wild berry sounds great. Brother, I'm gonna
go with the chai tea tonight. I love that chai tea.
Green tea is also a good option. As we get
into our conversation today, I will caution us though about
being careful about black tea because that is high in
the cafee.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
It's it's like drinking some coffee as exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
And like you, my brother, I got a good friend,
a listener of ours as well, who's a beekeeper, and
he has let us sample his honey. His honey is
absolutely delicious, and he's even trying to perfect a hot
honey that we sometimes put on some wings and have
(03:47):
a good time with as well. But yes, that's probably
another conversation. But I give props to my brother out
there who's doing the honey.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
So thank you, thank you, thank you, man.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Honey that just sounds excellent on some fried chicken.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Yes, yes, we're go ahead to talk about how good
that is too, but we you know, we still got
to come back to what we're talking about today.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Yes, we're talking about high pretension right on wings. Too
much fried chicken might be contributing to the.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Exactly, So we don't. We just real, folks, So that's all,
you know. So we're gonna keep it real as we
have our conversation. So nothing wrong with it. You know,
as we say, moderation now, folks, moderation that's the key
to a lot of this as well. So we're gonna
get started our first part of this conversation. It's just
talking about you know, again, what we referenced earlier as
(04:53):
the silent killer, that is what hypertension is. Hypertension has
negatively again affected us as black men. Roughly about one
and two adult black men have hypertension, and that's according
to the CDC. What we've also seen in some studies
is that by the time we reach the age of
(05:13):
fifty five, almost seventy five percent of us are going
to have high blood pressure now real quickly. High blood
pressure nowadays is honestly and I need you all thinking
about this. It's really any blood pressure that's not normal.
Now there are different stages to that as well, but
(05:36):
as of right now, normal blood pressure reading is one
twenty over eighty. So if it's above that, then you
do not have normal blood pressure. So we have got
to work on what though and bringing those numbers down,
and through the conversation today we will talk about opportunities
on how to do that as well. But the hard
(05:57):
part about this, folks, is that again, we can have
high blood pressure for years and not know it, especially
if we don't go to our providers to be checked
at least on a yearly basis for our physicals, because
you don't usually have symptoms related to high blood pressure
until it's been so high for so long that it
(06:19):
starts to affect other aspects of your body and your health.
So we're trying to prevent that and it's easy. It's
gonna start checking the blood pressure.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Well, there you go. That's our standing for.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Over seventy nine. That's that's what I was this morning.
Yesterday was not as good, but this morning it was
one twenty four over seventy nine.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
So that's our stand and rather so you're getting it
there and hopefully for the most days, that's what that's
looking like as well.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
So we get unfortunately, life happens right well as we're
talking about this, stress and all that kind of stuff
can impact your your exercise schedule, all those kinds of things,
and so you know, my life got crazy in August
and September.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
And so.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
We had just made the decision, my doctor and I
in early August that we needed to tweak my meds
a little bit because I was starting to creep back
up a little bit. My blood sugar numbers were doing great,
but over here off to the side, we noticed that
the bee peep was ticking up just a little bit.
So we had gone from two meds. We had gone
(07:26):
for benaza pierrol in and loaded pine. He had removed
down loaded pen and so then we decided, well, maybe
we need to roll there and loaded pen back in
and if it starts doing better like it did with
the blood sugars, we can take it back out. But
so I just sent him a I sent him a
PDF the other day because you know, I take my
do my readings almost every day, proud to do it
(07:46):
in the morning, sometimes up their way in the evening one,
just to mix it up a little bit. I sent
him a think it was like sixty days worth of
data and was like, I think we need to keep
rolling with it, dog, because it's not it hasn't backed
off yet. And so because he had when he put
the prescription in, he didn't give me any refills. He
was like, we're just gonna do this this the sixty
(08:06):
day bump, see what the numbers look like, and then
we'll decide to go from there. So you know, life
is life is happening, and so you know we're dealing with.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
It, you know exactly. And I like what you were saying.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
That's important that you are checking at home as well,
so not just relying on what you get at the
doctor's office your home. Always doctor man, very right. Always
have the stress of coming in.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Stress of coming to the doctor, driving and traffic man right.
My doctors in downtown Chicago that's an hour away from me,
you know, and it's through Chicago traffic to get down there,
you know, so bad time right, they get there perfect,
and see that it's gonna be nine hundred dollars when
I leave this boom boom.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Right right right right.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Always had no Honestly, the last my last doctors visit,
it was normal in the doctor's office, and I freaked
out because it's never been It's never been normal in
the doctor's office. You know, they just.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Hated to be higher.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
But yeah, yeah, it's so even when I go to
the doctor, to my doctor, my pressures usually have when
I first get there and then we'll sit around, you know,
relax for a little bit, yeah, and then get it.
It gives this back down the normal. So right, so
I get it. But yes, if you have opportunities to
be able to check those blood pressures at home, do that.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
But make sure you're in a relaxed setting as well.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Don't get off a call, don't just have that cup
of coffee. Don't be running and then trying to sit
down and check your blood pressure. Your body needs to
relax when you're checking it. And keep a recording of
those readings so that you'll have some information to give
to your doctors or your your primary care providers as
you go see them as well too.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah, if you've got if you if you're want of
those people that use Apple products, you know in your phone,
there's there's the Apple Health and it allows you you
can record, you know, in there, keep it running on
tab of everything. You know, you get nice little uh
little graphs and it even will point out trends and
(10:18):
all of that kind of stuff if you notice. Is
that so? But you know, it's so easy nowadays to
keep tracked. One thing though, is make sure your meter
is not like nine hundred years old, right right.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
That may need to be updated, or you need to
change the batteries sometimes, you know, folks forget that they're
batteries in those things, right, and that sometimes needs to
be changed in order to get a more accurate read.
And bring your monitor at times to your doctor's office
so they can see what that looks like compared to
what they're getting in the office as well.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Yeah, we do that, so we'll do we'll do that
from time to time so we'll get a reading online
and then you know, he'll do it. And it depends
because you know, my doctor is my doctor's old school.
He still you know, puts the cuff on and puts
the whatever you recall it, I forget the name of it,
the listening device, and he puts it up under the steposcope,
(11:12):
the stethoscope.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Thank you, I was black.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
He does it old school with the stethoscope, you know,
puts it up under there in turns of a little now.
But then his nurses or other professionals they come in
and they use the machine. With their machine of course,
is a lot more you know, intense or you know,
just better professional. It seems like they're the ones we
have at home, or at least it's a more heavy duty.
(11:35):
But yeah, we got two blood pressure comes now. One
is about a year old and other ones about four
years old. So I don't use the four year old
one anymore, but you know, it still works. But to
your point about the batteries, most of them now they
most of them now, you know they they've got to
plug in, you know, lithium batteries and stuff like that.
So but to your point, yeah, you're going to get
(11:56):
the readings are going to be impacted if the battery
is low. It's not getting full power and all that
kind of stuff, and it's not gonna inflate the same
had pressure if that battery is weak in there.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
And the size of the cuff matters. So if you
got big arms, you can't use a normal size cuff
because that's gonna fit too tight and give us the
wrong reading as well, so definitely make sure you got
the right size that wraps fully around your biceps of
your arm when you're checking. I'm not a fan of
the wrist. I'm not a fan of the fingercheck. Love
(12:30):
pressure cuffs, So if you don't get one, get one
that goes around the bicep.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
I sometimes we'll do it on both arms, just to
see do the right arm and then the left arm.
But now you know, I wear my I've got my
glucose monitor on, so typically whatever side that's on, I
do it on the.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Other side, you know, So that's good.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Yeah, right now, right now I'm petching on the right arm,
so I test my blood pressure on the left arm.
So it's varying for me. Every well, every fifteen days.
It's gonna switch over, you know, whitch I switch arms
with the when I was put on a new patch,
new CGM, and so then I'll switch over to that side.
So I don't know if it's a difference, you know,
(13:13):
we're not. No human is perfectly symmetrical. So I'm I'm
sure there's be some differences from one side to the other.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
And that's exactly right. It's a matter of how our
arteries and vessels are related to our hearts, so our
hearts sits mostly left center, and that's why we usually
like to check our blood pressures on the left side.
It gives us what we think to be a more
accurate reading than on the right side. Unless you've got
a heart change, you know, naturally type deal, then that
(13:41):
would be different. But that's rare that that's present as well.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Okay, so let's kind of talk about how stress the
pressure within, how stress and culture drive hyghpertension, the stress piece.
I mean, can I can tell you off just off
the top, you know, I can honestly say I don't
know that I've consciously experienced a stress trigger where you
know it's I've gotten like, well, I know that shot,
(14:07):
you know, you I hear people say, boy, that's such
such you know, pissed me off, and that's shot my pressure,
you know that kind of thing. I've never I don't
know what that would feel like, or I don't know
that I've ever experienced that where you know, I've heard
people talk about that or you know, talk about how
you know, maybe they got a little dizzy or something
or light headed. I've never or the chest tightening up
(14:29):
or something like that that might be, you know, that
stress related hypertension kind of thing. But as a doctor,
I'm sure you've had you've had patients talk about that
kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Yeah, you know, so all of that can have some
impact on our blood pressures overall, But remember what we said.
You know a lot of people aren't going to necessarily
feel the effects of that blood pressure going up, even
though you know, we're all living stressful lives and things,
and and how we manage that stress is going to
be really impactful on how we take care of our
blood pres sure as well. But some things that we
(15:02):
got to remember is that when we get stressed, you know,
we have these natural responses such as in cortisol levels
E benefrent or adrenaline in our bodies that can start
to go up, and that can naturally raise our blood
pressure as a result of that. But hopefully that doesn't
stay at high levels unless there's something going on physiologically
(15:22):
as well. But let's put it this way. You know,
you mentioned something too rich, and that is is that
you don't necessarily have those moments where you're like, oh
my goodness, they just got my pressure up on ten
right now? You know why, because a lot of that
is we've become conditioned, I feel, you know, I mean,
we living with the stress of just being a black man.
(15:47):
We live in with the stress of our children, of
our relationships.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Exactly up really really slowly. I'm paying attention to that exactly.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
And with current state of affairs that we're living in,
you know, that pressure is even higher in some search
circumstances as well too.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
We're becoming conditioned to living on ten.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Exactly exactly, so ten becomes the norm, and that's not
the norm.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
You know.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
We got to remember that that's not the norm.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
That exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
So that's the part of things that we've got to
be conscious of and be supportive of each other, and
that as well, to recognize I'm not the only one
going through that, you know. I know my other brothers
are going through that as well. So hey, if I
can help in some way to calm that situation down
at least for a moment, then that's a moment that
(16:48):
they're doing probably a little bit better as well.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
I think one of the ways to help with that
is we have to attack the we have to attack
the traditional cultural conditioning. The traditional norms is you know,
we did have that. We did the episode on John Henryism. Clearly,
I think is something that we need to address. It
plays out on the regular all the time because we
(17:15):
are we're juggling all of these things, right, We're juggling
work with juggling finances. There is this notion in the
community historically for men that we have to you know,
we have to have this hard exterior. We can't show
that we're weak or retired or any of that kind
of thing. And so to your point about supporting each other,
(17:35):
being supportive, we have to get into the habit of
extending that support whether somebody's asking, because most aren't going
to ask, right, most are correct, Most are going to
stay silent and just keep on trying to push on
through and just making sure the other side the support
to help greatly need it. You know, I was thinking about,
just like I said back in when things got crazy
(17:57):
at the Creab here in August and September, just getting
the call from you periodically, Hey, let me just check
in and see how you're doing. You know, that lifts
a lot. It makes everything a little a little lighter,
a little easier to deal. Just being able to just
knowing that you got my back and you checking on.
You know, I'm just trying to I'm trying to push forward.
(18:18):
I'm trying to get this done. I'm trying to take
care of that. I'm trying to make sure that baby
is good. I'm trying to make sure that the moms
is good, you know, and and just put pressing forward.
So again, good looking out. But yeah, that that that
helps so much with managing that stress. We have to
we have to check in and we have to we
have to not wait for our brothers to say I
(18:40):
need help, because a lot of they're never.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Going to exactly exactly something. They don't need it right
right right.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Sometimes, like you said, just a just a phone call
just to say, hey, how you doing? You know, if
you plan it on going for a walk. Hey hey bro,
what you got going on right now? I'm about to
go take a walk, you know, just to get some
fresh air. And I was thinking about you. How about
I swing up, swing back and pick you up and
we just go go for a walk together. I wouldn't mind,
(19:09):
and actually would love to have your company in doing so.
You know, a brother be like man, all right, you know,
I wasn't playing on doing nothing, stept watching the sports
or whatever type deal. Yeah, come on, swing by, We'll
go ahead and do this thing. And those are things that,
like you said, Rick, I mean, how often are you
gonna call and say, Yo, I feel.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Like going for a walk. Why don't you come pick
me up?
Speaker 1 (19:29):
You know what versus you know, someone that offers you
the invitation, and more times than not, it's a welcomed
invitation to go through something and do it together. How
much mental strain we're under and how that can help
to reduce that, man can be so impactful as well.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
I saw this thing and I shared it on Facebook
the other day.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
This video to do with.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Saying there walking backwards it can temporarily remove or eliminate
anxiety because of the actual active walking backwards. You've got
to use so much of your brain power to effectively
do that because it's so you know, it's not normal
for most people, and so it can eliminate anxiety for
(20:12):
up to two hours afterwards. That process, which I thought
was interesting because as just part of my walking all
the time, I walk backwards, but it's just part of
my walking meditation.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
That I do.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
It changes your mindset, right, So if you have opportunities
to change your mindset, then that can definitely positively impact
your overall mental health, especially so real quick example, folks
who are smoking, So one of the things that I
try to encourage them is to say, hey, whenever you
get that urge to grab that cigarette, let's try to
(20:47):
divert that urge to something else. Let's say you get
you about eight ounces of water. Let's say you go
for a five to minute walk at that time. What
that can do is that can change your mindset as
to what you initially wanted in that cigarette. And then
next thing you know, hey, you bypassed one of those
smokes that you were gonna get because you decided to
(21:09):
change your mindset and think about something different as well.
So that is definitely ways to help to improve that.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Let's talk about breaking the cycle.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Song sure thing, man, I think the way we can
help break the cycle. Of course, we've had some of
our previous conversations where we talked about ways to reduce stress.
We talked about vacation in, we talked about checking in,
we talked about music, dance, meditation, prayer, all of those things.
But even from a health standpoint, and we gotta be
(21:43):
real and we're gonna keep it real too. For some
of us, we may need some medication to help us
keep these blood pressure under better control as well. And
I'll be honest, for some of us, and I won't
even say something. For most of us, it's gonna take
at least two or more blood pressure medicines for us
to get that and keep it under control. But just
because we're starting on some medication doesn't mean that you
(22:07):
have to stay on that medication. And you're a prime
example of that. Rich you were able to, you were onto,
you were able to come off. Things have changed, which
is requiring you to be back onto for now, But
that doesn't mean that that's going to have to be
the ongoing process of this.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yeah, I don't got me to understand that, you know,
because when I was talking about endo chronologists, you know
about the diabetes. You know, I'd gotten to the point,
you know, I'm off all of it. I'm off the
insul and the only thing I'm on is just the
one pill, the met FORMU. But in the recent period,
and again it was COUK, life got crazy. But I
wasn't pleased with my numbers. My last A one C
(22:46):
didn't move like I wanted it to. So I'm like,
should we be thinking about adding another medication? And she
was like, she was like, I'm looking at everything. I
don't think so she said, I'm thinking. She's like, your
kidney numbers look better. Your kidney is actually theater than
it was a year ago. So everything that you're doing,
you just keep doing what you're doing. Just get back
on your schedule, back on your plan that you have
(23:08):
been on, and you'll be and you'll be good. And
I was like, okay, but yeah, so we you know,
we look at it, we tweak, we you know, we
try and get as close as we can to write.
But what her point was was, don't if this doesn't
get better, if the numbers don't start to get better,
even if if you get back, she said, if you
get back to your true routine like you had been
(23:29):
before life got crazy, you're doing that for a while
and then you're still not seeing the numbers that you
want to see, then come back and we'll talk about
it then, because then that means you're doing all the
things right. You're back to your normal exercise, you're back
to your normal diet, you're living the way you quote
unquote want to be you're supposed to be. If we're
(23:50):
still not getting there, then come back, and then maybe
we do need to talk about another man. And the
point is is another medicine? Isn't that isn't a bad thing?
Speaker 3 (23:59):
You know? Necessary?
Speaker 2 (24:00):
You know, because part of my mind said, was I
gotta get off all of these meds right and making
me feel horrible and this and that and so is
it is it that I shouldn't be on the meds?
I'm not on the right man? Is this something that
I could better manage with some meds but not twelve
meds or like you said, whatever, We need to to
get into that best into that best state, not just
(24:22):
being pumped full of medications just for the sake of it.
I think that requires that real back and forth, that
real collaboration with your doctor as opposed exactly just your
doctor telling you what to do, or you decide I'm
gonna go to the doctor, but then I ain't gonna
do a damn thing. The doctor said, right.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
You know that's right.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
What's the point, right exactly?
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Well, you could have saved you, You could have saved
your copey, you could have you know, if you weren't
gonna do what they said to do. You know, you
shouldn't have went in the first place, exactly oblivious, you know,
and just let stuff start falling off.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
Exactly wise otherwise, you.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Know, with them, you know, it should be a collaboration.
It's your body. It's just like with your car. Right
you go to the botany and you have a conversation
right halftime, you know, they want you to do this, this,
this and this, and I'm like, well do I really
need that? Well, yes, you do need to have that
appendix removed. It's about the birth. Okay, Well, you know
you don't need to get that warp removed, as you know,
(25:21):
that's cosmetic whatever. You know, we need to be engaging
in the conversation, engaging in the collaborative process about maintenance
and maintaining this vehicle, this body.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Your connection with your healthcare provider is vitally important for
your health and wellness. But you know, and again, medication
is just a part of the treatment profile.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
You know.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Yes, we still need to work on those things to
help us reduce stress, like we talked about. Yes, we
do need to try to get our bodies active, and
activity is at least about thirty men to day as well. Yes,
we need to get our rest. Sleep is important. Your
body needs to be able to relax, and that's how
your body relaxes is through good rest as well. You
(26:13):
may be resting, but you might have a condition called
sleep apnea. And if you do have sleep apnia, that
needs to be treated as well, because we now know
how sleep apnea affects high blood pressure as well as
cardiovascular shoes like stroking heart disease too.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
If you're smoke.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Smart, that helps you raise your head up, get your
some better breathe than at night, do something that's right.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
And if you smoke, you need to cut out those
cigarettes because they do more harm than they do any
potential good folks. So that also is it. You gotta
curb your alcohol intake as well.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
So I can't smoke, I can't drink, cut out all
the food and cut right right and the process, so
I can't hand no salami, I mean damned.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
To take life away, right e salid huh right, So no,
and that's not what we say right right right, But
if you're doing that as the majority of your intake
every day, yes, we have got to cut.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
That down and make a change.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
I'm not saying you got to cut it out one
hundred percent, hey, but we got to incorporate better eating
habits into our diets, and we need to encourage each other.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
To do that as well. So I'm sorry, Jock. I
just I thowt this other meme I saw today, and
the thing it was hilarious. It said it asked the question,
should should doctors? Should all doctors be this honest? And
and and the boy said the boy said, that said
(27:59):
something to the effect, you know, high blood pressure or obesity,
or you know something runs in my family. And he said,
the problem is nobody runs in your family.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Right right, right right, That's it, That's it, he.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Said, So should doctors be that honest? Should that just suggest?
I mean, do you just come out and sadio clients? Look,
if you lose seventy five pounds, then maybe this would
be a little better on you.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
That's hilarious, rich, But yes, the problem is it's all
about the communication. It's all about the connection that you
and your provider have. I do have those people in
my practice. I'm like, look, man, you know we could
have done better with this type deal. Yes, we got
to lose you know, twenty pounds that we got to
(28:50):
get to what we got to put in the effort.
Others you might have to build that relationship up so
that they don't feel like you just getting down on them.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
And you you know, you're just.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Giving them negative information, but they know that you care
about them and their health and wellness. Where you can
get what I like to say, let's get real now
with the conversations.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Yeah, my doctor, my doctor has been my doctor for god,
I can't remember how long.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
It's been decades, you know, it's it's it's literally been decades.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
So you know, I think we we have achieved a
level of comfort with each other. You know, like I'm
overdue for my next colonoscopy, and so you know I'm
gonna get it done. I'm gonna get it done. Lean in, doctor, come.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Right, right, right right, And.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
But yeah, the point was my last appointment, my last appointment.
And of course Regina's in the background saying get them.
But uh, in my last you know, we before we
talked about anything else, he hadn't even sat down.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
Good.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
He was like, so I should just take that colonoscopy
off your orders, off your order. We're just gonna say
the hell with it. We're not just We're just not
gonna do those anymore. Hunt and I was like, I
know I'm gonna do it. Man, quit tripping, you know.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
But you know, I was.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Just I appreciated the fact that he feels comfortable enough
to call me out on things, you know. So yeah,
we were talking about soul food without the salt, I guess,
or the realities of life. You know. You was talking
about exercise and walking and and things like that. I
try to get in the walking every day good, you know,
(30:41):
That's what I say. I try to My plan is
is on days that I work out, I walk about
a mile. On days that I don't work out, I
walk two to three miles. And I usually try to
walk post meal, you know, post yeah, post lunch or
post and post dinner, you know, those kinds of deal,
(31:02):
because post breakfast is usually when I go work out.
I usually kind of get up, eat a little something,
and then and then I hit the gym on my
gym days. So yeah, I try to walk all the time.
And and that's that happened is born out of me
trying to control my blood sugar because walking is you know,
I could I could eat I could eat five doughnuts
and go take a walk. And I mean that's an exaggeration,
(31:25):
don't you know. Don't choke me through the through the screen, right,
you know, you know what it helps. It helps with
the sugar, with the sugar, with the spikes in general,
and then you know it helps for me, It helps
it come back down faster if I walk, you know,
(31:47):
if I walk post meal, even if it's not a
long walk, but for me, a fifteen minute walk is
about a mile because I hot my pasts. You know,
I got long legs. But yeah, that that that walking
helps a lot. I think, you know, the whole twin
health experience that I went through, what that really forced
me to do was pay a lot more attention to
how my inputs. My inputs impact my body. So when
(32:11):
I say my inputs, I mean my eating, my exercising,
my stress management, which for me includes walking, meditation, and
includes once a month I meet with a group of
group of brothers. We got a small little collective and
we just talk about life, whatever's going on, you're going. Unfortunately,
(32:31):
right now, forty seven pops up a lot because he's
impacted the world in such a way. But these inputs.
When I say that the things that I can do
to control or mitigate some of the stress that life
puts on us, because it does it all the time.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Exactly, an exercise or I like to start, I'm starting
to try to use the term activity versus exercise these days. Yeah,
that's just because, yeah, because exercise sometimes can have a
negative turn you know, connotation to it as well.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
But it's activity.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
It's about us being active, getting the heart rate up,
but doing things that we enjoy doing as well. So
for folks who may have limitations in walking such as
their back, knees hip and things like that going on, Well,
there's the warm water activities that we can do. There's
the recumbent bicycles that we can do. There's dancing if
(33:26):
you enjoy dancing. I even say sexual activity and things
like that are still good excis activities to do because
it still helps to get that heart rate up and
hopefully you're doing things that you enjoy doing as well. Right,
if you can get others to exercise people off, yes, exactly,
because you're automatically thinking I got to go to the gym.
(33:47):
I don't want to join a gym. I don't you know, this,
that and the other one to sweat.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
It's like to sweat, which is just crazy to me
because you know, to each their own, but yeah, do
something versus to do nothing, right, you know, And so yeah,
calling it exercise can turn some people off, but saying
let's go for a walk does it don't necessarily have
that same connotation. And then you know, when we're talking
(34:12):
about our age group, I mean, the reality is is
that certain types of exercise are going to be a
negative anyway. And then if you've been if you've been
out of shape for a long time, and now you
know your doctor says to you, look, your fat ass
needs to get moving right, right or whatever, and you know,
then you also get moving. That doesn't mean go go
(34:33):
go and start trying to pick up the pick up
a bus, right. You know, there's a difference between between
tai chi and and and and karate right right. I
mean there are levels to all of this, you know.
And if you if you haven't been active, very active,
(34:54):
then you need to be easing into.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
It, right.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Don't try to knock out the whole routine in fifteen
minutes when you have been doing it in five years, Like.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Just do something if you if you haven't, if you've
just been sitting on your ass for for for years,
get up and walk to the corner. Right, you just
start to start with something simple. Don't don't do the
stuff that's gonna shut you down immediately, because you you know,
I see people on Facebook. They was like, oh, I
gotta do I gotta get in shape. And they went
and went out and went to this this gym with
(35:26):
this uh with this military drill instructive type of trainer. Right,
you know that the whoop they ass right, you know,
set them home, be down and broke, and now they
soar it. They pitiful, they can't move for a week, right,
and now they're dejected, and then they give up. You
weren't supposed to be in that class in the first place.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
You were supposed to be in there, walk around the
gym three times and have a conversation with some friends group, right,
and then in three months you were supposed to be
in that easy class. You know it up right to
it because the whole goal is lifestyle improvements, not temporary fixes, right,
trying to when we're trying to get this machine functioning
(36:13):
better long term, Right, it's about the consistent baby steps
that eventually have moved you to this other place where
you can't even remember what you were like.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Over there, right, And we got to stress to it
is that, folks, You know, just make sure that what
you do, where you do it, you are in a
safe and comfortable environment as well. So sometimes that's important
to have others with you just so that you can
feel safe and comfortable in whatever those activities are. So
(36:44):
that's the one thing to just remind our listening folks
about that as well.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
Yeah, because otherwise you're adding more stress, right right right?
You just hey, I got a question for you, doc.
Inflammation and high blood pressure. First, first two part question really,
first part, what is inflammation really? You know, we're here
to term all the time people, inflammation does that? I mean,
I think like it means everything swelling up and getting bigger?
(37:12):
Is that what it means?
Speaker 3 (37:12):
I mean?
Speaker 2 (37:12):
What is inflammation inside the body? And how does the
wreck everything and how does relate to high blood pressure?
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Inflammation in general terms is basically when our body is
trying to respond to something that it doesn't like happening
to it. So in some instances that could be blood pressure.
Blood pressure could be a sign of inflammation in our
body rise in your blood sugar. Diabetes is actually an
(37:41):
inflammatory process and it of itself as well. But it
could be that swollen joint that's inflamed. It could be
having a cold or so sniffles that are coming up
can be signs of inflammation as well. So think of
inflammation more as our bodies response to something that's irritating it.
(38:02):
That's the kind of way I like for us to
think about inflammation.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
Okay, because like you know, if if I need to
clip my toenails and I'm trying to work out and
one of them is rubbing and it gets it starts
to irritate me, then it kind of swells up a
little bit, right, it gets red, and it gets puffy,
it gets hot. Are those all kind of.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Like that's inflammation as well. So all of those are
signs of inflammation, and you know, our body is sending
our cells there are some protein changes and other changes
that are going on to try to reduce again whatever
causing that irritation in our bodies, to reduce that inflammation.
(38:44):
And then sometimes you know, we take anti inflammatories to
try to help us with that as well. And that's
not something I encourage us to take always because they
can have negative side effects too, but sometimes we need
that in order to bring down the inflammation and help
our body do what is still trying to do for
(39:04):
us as well.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
So, you know, we talked about this once before. I
think we pretty much had an episode where we talked
about travel as an antidote to Yeah, stress, I'm just
that just popped in my head. I'm thinking about this
in terms of, you know, ways to counter to heal
and to be whole and think about the whole, the whole,
(39:28):
the mind and body, the spirits, you know, the different
components that make us up. How we can the more
we improve all of these, Right, We've got our spiritual,
we've got our physical, our emotional, and our mental. If
we are trying to address all of these effectively, then
that improves our chances of long term reductions.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
And the exactly stress is a huge impact on our
body and our health. You know, That's why we spend
so much time really talking about our too wellness as well,
because our mental health definitely impacts our physical health. And
if we're able to at least keep one component of
that doing well, we're gonna have a better chance at
(40:12):
keeping our physical health doing better for the long term.
What the things we can do, man, I mean we've
said it, you know, meditation, prayer. If stress is getting
to you mentally, sometimes therapy is highly important and that
as well. And the aspect of community rich How many
times have we said together, you know, we got to
(40:34):
find our tribe, We got to find our folks. We
got to find our people that we feel safe and
comfortable with in order to reduce those stressors that are
going on in our lives which are impacting our physical
health pace. We've got to We can't do this thing along.
We talked about that earlier. We think we on an
(40:55):
island on this thing and we got to just suffer
through it. That's that job henryism we spoke about earlier
and before. No, that is not the right way to
go about this, and we got to change that mindset
as relates to that as well.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
That's the path to the short term exactly. It's trying
to trying to muscle through everything, trying to man up
the world. You know, it's not gonna work right every
It will be down any and everybody if you try
and take that approach. The emotional health we build that,
(41:31):
like you said, you build that in community. You build
that in conjunction and collaboration with others. It's really hard
to effectively manage your mental health and your spiritual emotional
fitness being totally.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
Right yourself right.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
You can't because there's so many things that we can
talk ourselves out of. You know, if I had to
allow myself to go take a walk, or to eat
right and things of that nature, man, please, there's so
many things that I could find as a distraction or
a reason why not to. But if I have that support,
(42:09):
and that support is you know, our relationships, our support,
our friends, our family, our coworkers, those are the things
that help us to stay motivated. You know, I talk
about these accountability partners and I say how important accountability
partners are. That's that group that you have that you
(42:29):
go walking with and just be able to have conversations with.
You guys are supporting each other in that wellness us.
You know, one of us is not on this one today.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
We miss him. We know he's got a lot.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
Going on, but he is part of our accountability tribe
as well. But it's important we gotta check in on
each other. We got to encourage each other, but sometimes
we might have to you know, encourage each other's in
ways that we know how to encourage each other that
and not it be malicious or or evil intent way
(43:05):
of encouraging each other as well. So that is highly important, man,
and that's going to help us just live a better
productive and hopefully a happier you know, existence as well.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
So you got to have you a good doctor in
your life. That's that's that's probably the key, right, have
you a good doctor that you can have a good
relationship with. So, you know, I look at it as
as being a double blessing. I have a like I said,
I've got a good doctor that I've had for a
few decades now, and then I have you, you know,
so everything that you know, everything that that that he
(43:42):
and I talk about, but not everything, but everything that
I have questions about, you know, I hit him with
my questions, I get his answers, and then I come
back and talk to you. Yes, you know, and it's
all good. Exists. You better also use perplexity or one
of these other ones just right, you know, make sure
(44:03):
you get good information from our sources. I think that
that's a really huge piece that we just have to
kind of hammer on a little bit. Is that that relationship?
And I know it's you know, it's a lot of
cats in our age group that don't have a doctor,
a regular doctor. And I still think you need to
get agree with you totally. Life is going to keep happening.
Your automobile is going to continue to have parts fail, Right,
(44:27):
you need an expert that right ain't as young as
it used to be. You know, the parts are getting
harder to find exactly. There are a few few there
are a few and a few people that that know
how to pick you know, I mean, you know this
is all an analogy, but the reality is is you
know you've got to have that certain things require required expertise, right,
(44:49):
you know, you know you can, you could, yeah, you can.
You could change and you could change an outlooks yourself.
But maybe you shouldn't be trying to rewire the crib
exactly exactly, especially if you're a school teacher, right, you know,
if you're not actrician, right, you know, you know you can.
You can change your tire, you can change this park plug,
(45:10):
but maybe you should let somebody else wap that transmission.
You know, you know expertise matters, you know, you need
to develop those relationships, cultivate those relationships. And the reason
why that doctor patient relationship is so important is because
so much of it is should be driven by science
and data. So you need someone who's who's got that expertise.
(45:33):
And then also you want the long term view, and
that's one of the things, you know, Like I said,
that's why I think it's so important. Now. I've thought
about changing doctors on many occasions, primarily because my doctor
is an hour and a half away and I don't
always want to drive that far to see him. But
that has not that has not yet been good enough
(45:55):
reason for me, not, you know, for me to change,
because we've got a great relationship. He knows me, I
trust him. And check this out. He's a white dude. Yeah,
I've got a white doctor. He's been the same doctor
for decades. But one of the things that I like
about him is that, well he's not.
Speaker 3 (46:14):
A black man.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
He makes he makes a concerted effort to do all
of his research on how everything. So every conversation that
we're having, he's giving me all of the data from
all of these studies and he's talking about what these
studies say or don't say about how this might impact
like people differently or whatever. So you know he's conscious
of that reality and he factors that into everything that.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
Yeah, he sounds like he's got some of what I
like to cause some cultural competency with him and he
cares about you, so you know, yeah, it would be Hey,
you know studies of Sean and we've talked about this previously,
how having a someone who represents you and your culture
tends to help you be better, do better, feel better
(47:01):
as it relates to your health and wellness too. But
there aren't enough of people like that out there as well,
so you know, we have to find those folks who
still have a care about who we are as individuals
and willing to.
Speaker 3 (47:15):
Try to go to extra steps to try to.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
Understand who we are to try to help us through
our journey too. So you've got a great, great doctor too, Rick.
Speaker 2 (47:25):
Yeah, and he was referred to me. He was referred
to me by actually, you know, Heather. He's been my
doctor for decades because he was referring to Heather.
Speaker 3 (47:35):
Years ago.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
So I don't know how they knew each other or whatever,
but that's how I ended up with.
Speaker 1 (47:42):
Yeah, and real quick, Rick, Yeah, I know that we
get probably ready to wrap this up in a moment,
but I do want to make sure that we say
one other thing. And this is something that I hear
a lot. I know folks out there probably thinking it too. Well,
what about natural remedies? What about natural supplements? You know,
how does that look as far as helping us with
(48:02):
blood pressure management? That being the topic. So what I'll
just touch on on that real quick, is that what
you've heard us talk about today, those are the natural
ways to help approach your your blood pressure, health and
wellness as well.
Speaker 3 (48:18):
You know, if you want to look.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
At what apple cider vinegar does or what you know,
the next natural supplement, it.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
Does help with blood It does help with short term
blood sugar like right before a meal, fifteen minutes before
a certain meal, it can help it spikes.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
As you said, short term benefits there and things of
that nature too. So again we're not saying that things
like that cannot potentially have some benefit, but it's not
going to take the place of all that we really
have been trying to encourage us to be doing and
working on as well.
Speaker 2 (48:56):
Right, just make that part of the whole right, you know,
if you want to, if you if you want if
you want to throw some apple side of vinegar in there,
and do some other things like that. You know that
the whole consistency. So if that's part of a full
package of things that you are doing every day to
improve your overall health and well being, you know, you're
you're doing that, and you're also walking, and you're also
(49:17):
doing meditating, and you're also doing these things to be
stress and you're also telling those people in your lives
that it's time for them to get the hell away
from you or whoever, whatever you need to do to
protect your mental health. And you know, the learning how
to say no, you know, and saying saying it with
a smile, no, yes, yeah, no, no, no, And you
(49:41):
don't always need to explain yourself right, just need to
sometimes you just need to say no. You need to
protect your peace and do those things. You know that.
You know, some of these things have become a little
more popular, but they're very real in that making those choices,
the people choices, having the right people in your in
your space, having the right people around you your circle matters.
All of these things can contribute to the level of stress.
Speaker 3 (50:04):
In the law.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
That's it exactly, Bruh. So I totally totally agree with that.
No as well, and that's important as we go through
that as well. And you know, as we're closing it out, Rich,
I want to say that, look, our life's journey, it's
not one hundred meter dash. You know, this is running
a New York marathon. I mean, that is how we've
(50:29):
got to think about this. We can't go for these
New York marathons now, you don't exactly, we don't have
to try to figure this out and get it done quickly.
But we need to be working towards the process of
staying and being healthy. And we can do that. And
we're human. We get that. There's only one perfect being
(50:52):
that I'm aware of that's been in our existence, you know,
and that's Jesus. So the rest of us are trying
to be as best as we can, and we just
need to be mindful that we continue to try to
strive towards that as well. So you know, you know,
Jesus was an I'm with you all the way, brother.
You know, science has said that all people have evolved
(51:15):
from Africa, but you know, some people still try to
debate that I'm being.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
A little more specific. He ain't had a blue eyes,
and if he did, you know what, it's all kinds
of chocolate. People that have blest you too, like hair
was like hair was like wool. I'm just saying I'm
being We don't always do that, you know, But so
you said it earlier. This this isn't necessarily a life sentence.
(51:43):
Your blood pressures up. We can change that. You can
put it in the work, You can put forth the effort.
You know. The goal is to make the best quality
of life possible for as long as possible while we're here.
Not just be above the dirt, but be above the
dirt and the best possible way. And it starts with
one small decision at a time. Value your peace as
(52:05):
much as your grind. Value your family and friends and
wanting to be around and be with them and be
able to enjoy them, not just be in the right
share and off to the side where everybody says, hey,
looking on for Richard, he said, hey, that's him over
the head. No, you want to be in. You want
to be a part of the conversation, right in the party,
(52:27):
be doing all of the things, still with your people, so.
Speaker 3 (52:31):
You know, totally agree, totally agree.
Speaker 1 (52:35):
So brothers, get checked, be checked, checked on each other,
Listen to your body. If something's going on, go see
somebody about what's going on, because the sooner we can
help affect it, the most likely the batter the outcome
will be.
Speaker 3 (52:52):
As well.
Speaker 1 (52:53):
Man, we are in a process now where we've got
to understand how important life is for us and for
those that are around us, that care about us and
that we care about as well. We've got to take
care of ourselves. We got to take care of each
other throughout that process as well. So I just think, brothers,
(53:15):
you know, we can do it. Hopefully this was a
great episode and hopefully it brought some questions, and if
it did, please send those questions to us comments as well,
and have those conversations with those around you.
Speaker 2 (53:29):
Have those conversations, know those numbers, because you deserve a
life that isn't lived under pressure. Absolutely take care.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
Everybody appreciate you.
Welcome to Raw and Refine, the Gentleman's Hour, where we're
going to have conversation with middle aged black men about
what's going on. We welcome you to listen, comment, and like,
and hopefully encourage others to join for future conversations as well.
We always like to start off with a toast, and
(00:29):
with that toast, it's because we are gentlemen and we
do it Raw and Refine. Well, welcome back to Raw
and Refined. I'm John and I'm here today with my
brother Rich and today we're talking about something that hits
home for me, not just as a man, but as
(00:52):
a physician. We're talking about hypertension, high blood pressure, pressure,
whatever you like to call it. That's what the topic
of the conversation is today. It's one of those conditions
that becomes almost normal in our community, but it's not normal,
similar to diabetes, and as we've talked about in some
(01:12):
of our previous podcasts, it's becoming too much of a norm.
And these are things that we definitely can have some
impact towards. So hopefully our conversation today will help us
with that and help us try to be more diligent
and aware of high blood pressure and the potential effect
that can have on us all as well. By no
(01:35):
means it's hypertension harmless. It has very serious side effects
associated with it. Even though it's termed well because it's
term the silent killer, let me put it that way.
I've seen it in my patients. I've dealt with it
personally as I do have high blood pressure as well,
and I know the kind of tale it can take
(01:56):
it if we don't pay attention. So Rich well as
high blood pressure, and some of you out there, I'm
sure Doe too. So today Rich and I want to
unpack what's really going on with this, the stress, the culture,
and the steps we can take to protect our health.
But as we do with raw and refined, we always
(02:18):
like to toast it off with a drink for tonight.
And I think I heard correctly from my brother Rich,
We're going with te tea tonight, Am I correct?
Speaker 2 (02:27):
That is correct, brother. I'm doing an herbal tea tonight.
It's called a wild berry, That's what I'm doing. It's
over there getting it steep on at the moment. And then,
as I had mentioned to you, one of my colleagues
is a beekeeper and I just got a fresh shipment
of honey from him today, two different batches, some a
light and a dark. I'm really excited about the dark.
(02:50):
It looks like molasses. So it's just his bees one
just a different group of a different group of plants
for those. So yeah, that's the beverage for tonight this evening.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
And herbal tea wild berry sounds great. Brother, I'm gonna
go with the chai tea tonight. I love that chai tea.
Green tea is also a good option. As we get
into our conversation today, I will caution us though about
being careful about black tea because that is high in
the cafee.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
It's it's like drinking some coffee as exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
And like you, my brother, I got a good friend,
a listener of ours as well, who's a beekeeper, and
he has let us sample his honey. His honey is
absolutely delicious, and he's even trying to perfect a hot
honey that we sometimes put on some wings and have
(03:47):
a good time with as well. But yes, that's probably
another conversation. But I give props to my brother out
there who's doing the honey.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
So thank you, thank you, thank you, man.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Honey that just sounds excellent on some fried chicken.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Yes, yes, we're go ahead to talk about how good
that is too, but we you know, we still got
to come back to what we're talking about today.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Yes, we're talking about high pretension right on wings. Too
much fried chicken might be contributing to the.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Exactly, So we don't. We just real, folks, So that's all,
you know. So we're gonna keep it real as we
have our conversation. So nothing wrong with it. You know,
as we say, moderation now, folks, moderation that's the key
to a lot of this as well. So we're gonna
get started our first part of this conversation. It's just
talking about you know, again, what we referenced earlier as
(04:53):
the silent killer, that is what hypertension is. Hypertension has
negatively again affected us as black men. Roughly about one
and two adult black men have hypertension, and that's according
to the CDC. What we've also seen in some studies
is that by the time we reach the age of
(05:13):
fifty five, almost seventy five percent of us are going
to have high blood pressure now real quickly. High blood
pressure nowadays is honestly and I need you all thinking
about this. It's really any blood pressure that's not normal.
Now there are different stages to that as well, but
(05:36):
as of right now, normal blood pressure reading is one
twenty over eighty. So if it's above that, then you
do not have normal blood pressure. So we have got
to work on what though and bringing those numbers down,
and through the conversation today we will talk about opportunities
on how to do that as well. But the hard
(05:57):
part about this, folks, is that again, we can have
high blood pressure for years and not know it, especially
if we don't go to our providers to be checked
at least on a yearly basis for our physicals, because
you don't usually have symptoms related to high blood pressure
until it's been so high for so long that it
(06:19):
starts to affect other aspects of your body and your health.
So we're trying to prevent that and it's easy. It's
gonna start checking the blood pressure.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Well, there you go. That's our standing for.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Over seventy nine. That's that's what I was this morning.
Yesterday was not as good, but this morning it was
one twenty four over seventy nine.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
So that's our stand and rather so you're getting it
there and hopefully for the most days, that's what that's
looking like as well.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
So we get unfortunately, life happens right well as we're
talking about this, stress and all that kind of stuff
can impact your your exercise schedule, all those kinds of things,
and so you know, my life got crazy in August
and September.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
And so.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
We had just made the decision, my doctor and I
in early August that we needed to tweak my meds
a little bit because I was starting to creep back
up a little bit. My blood sugar numbers were doing great,
but over here off to the side, we noticed that
the bee peep was ticking up just a little bit.
So we had gone from two meds. We had gone
(07:26):
for benaza pierrol in and loaded pine. He had removed
down loaded pen and so then we decided, well, maybe
we need to roll there and loaded pen back in
and if it starts doing better like it did with
the blood sugars, we can take it back out. But
so I just sent him a I sent him a
PDF the other day because you know, I take my
do my readings almost every day, proud to do it
(07:46):
in the morning, sometimes up their way in the evening one,
just to mix it up a little bit. I sent
him a think it was like sixty days worth of
data and was like, I think we need to keep
rolling with it, dog, because it's not it hasn't backed
off yet. And so because he had when he put
the prescription in, he didn't give me any refills. He
was like, we're just gonna do this this the sixty
(08:06):
day bump, see what the numbers look like, and then
we'll decide to go from there. So you know, life
is life is happening, and so you know we're dealing with.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
It, you know exactly. And I like what you were saying.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
That's important that you are checking at home as well,
so not just relying on what you get at the
doctor's office your home. Always doctor man, very right. Always
have the stress of coming in.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Stress of coming to the doctor, driving and traffic man right.
My doctors in downtown Chicago that's an hour away from me,
you know, and it's through Chicago traffic to get down there,
you know, so bad time right, they get there perfect,
and see that it's gonna be nine hundred dollars when
I leave this boom boom.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Right right right right.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Always had no Honestly, the last my last doctors visit,
it was normal in the doctor's office, and I freaked
out because it's never been It's never been normal in
the doctor's office. You know, they just.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Hated to be higher.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
But yeah, yeah, it's so even when I go to
the doctor, to my doctor, my pressures usually have when
I first get there and then we'll sit around, you know,
relax for a little bit, yeah, and then get it.
It gives this back down the normal. So right, so
I get it. But yes, if you have opportunities to
be able to check those blood pressures at home, do that.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
But make sure you're in a relaxed setting as well.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Don't get off a call, don't just have that cup
of coffee. Don't be running and then trying to sit
down and check your blood pressure. Your body needs to
relax when you're checking it. And keep a recording of
those readings so that you'll have some information to give
to your doctors or your your primary care providers as
you go see them as well too.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah, if you've got if you if you're want of
those people that use Apple products, you know in your phone,
there's there's the Apple Health and it allows you you
can record, you know, in there, keep it running on
tab of everything. You know, you get nice little uh
little graphs and it even will point out trends and
(10:18):
all of that kind of stuff if you notice. Is
that so? But you know, it's so easy nowadays to
keep tracked. One thing though, is make sure your meter
is not like nine hundred years old, right right.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
That may need to be updated, or you need to
change the batteries sometimes, you know, folks forget that they're
batteries in those things, right, and that sometimes needs to
be changed in order to get a more accurate read.
And bring your monitor at times to your doctor's office
so they can see what that looks like compared to
what they're getting in the office as well.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Yeah, we do that, so we'll do we'll do that
from time to time so we'll get a reading online
and then you know, he'll do it. And it depends
because you know, my doctor is my doctor's old school.
He still you know, puts the cuff on and puts
the whatever you recall it, I forget the name of it,
the listening device, and he puts it up under the steposcope,
(11:12):
the stethoscope.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Thank you, I was black.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
He does it old school with the stethoscope, you know,
puts it up under there in turns of a little now.
But then his nurses or other professionals they come in
and they use the machine. With their machine of course,
is a lot more you know, intense or you know,
just better professional. It seems like they're the ones we
have at home, or at least it's a more heavy duty.
(11:35):
But yeah, we got two blood pressure comes now. One
is about a year old and other ones about four
years old. So I don't use the four year old
one anymore, but you know, it still works. But to
your point about the batteries, most of them now they
most of them now, you know they they've got to
plug in, you know, lithium batteries and stuff like that.
So but to your point, yeah, you're going to get
(11:56):
the readings are going to be impacted if the battery
is low. It's not getting full power and all that
kind of stuff, and it's not gonna inflate the same
had pressure if that battery is weak in there.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
And the size of the cuff matters. So if you
got big arms, you can't use a normal size cuff
because that's gonna fit too tight and give us the
wrong reading as well, so definitely make sure you got
the right size that wraps fully around your biceps of
your arm when you're checking. I'm not a fan of
the wrist. I'm not a fan of the fingercheck. Love
(12:30):
pressure cuffs, So if you don't get one, get one
that goes around the bicep.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
I sometimes we'll do it on both arms, just to
see do the right arm and then the left arm.
But now you know, I wear my I've got my
glucose monitor on, so typically whatever side that's on, I
do it on the.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Other side, you know, So that's good.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Yeah, right now, right now I'm petching on the right arm,
so I test my blood pressure on the left arm.
So it's varying for me. Every well, every fifteen days.
It's gonna switch over, you know, whitch I switch arms
with the when I was put on a new patch,
new CGM, and so then I'll switch over to that side.
So I don't know if it's a difference, you know,
(13:13):
we're not. No human is perfectly symmetrical. So I'm I'm
sure there's be some differences from one side to the other.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
And that's exactly right. It's a matter of how our
arteries and vessels are related to our hearts, so our
hearts sits mostly left center, and that's why we usually
like to check our blood pressures on the left side.
It gives us what we think to be a more
accurate reading than on the right side. Unless you've got
a heart change, you know, naturally type deal, then that
(13:41):
would be different. But that's rare that that's present as well.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Okay, so let's kind of talk about how stress the
pressure within, how stress and culture drive hyghpertension, the stress piece.
I mean, can I can tell you off just off
the top, you know, I can honestly say I don't
know that I've consciously experienced a stress trigger where you
know it's I've gotten like, well, I know that shot,
(14:07):
you know, you I hear people say, boy, that's such
such you know, pissed me off, and that's shot my pressure,
you know that kind of thing. I've never I don't
know what that would feel like, or I don't know
that I've ever experienced that where you know, I've heard
people talk about that or you know, talk about how
you know, maybe they got a little dizzy or something
or light headed. I've never or the chest tightening up
(14:29):
or something like that that might be, you know, that
stress related hypertension kind of thing. But as a doctor,
I'm sure you've had you've had patients talk about that
kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Yeah, you know, so all of that can have some
impact on our blood pressures overall, But remember what we said.
You know a lot of people aren't going to necessarily
feel the effects of that blood pressure going up, even
though you know, we're all living stressful lives and things,
and and how we manage that stress is going to
be really impactful on how we take care of our
blood pres sure as well. But some things that we
(15:02):
got to remember is that when we get stressed, you know,
we have these natural responses such as in cortisol levels
E benefrent or adrenaline in our bodies that can start
to go up, and that can naturally raise our blood
pressure as a result of that. But hopefully that doesn't
stay at high levels unless there's something going on physiologically
(15:22):
as well. But let's put it this way. You know,
you mentioned something too rich, and that is is that
you don't necessarily have those moments where you're like, oh
my goodness, they just got my pressure up on ten
right now? You know why, because a lot of that
is we've become conditioned, I feel, you know, I mean,
we living with the stress of just being a black man.
(15:47):
We live in with the stress of our children, of
our relationships.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Exactly up really really slowly. I'm paying attention to that exactly.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
And with current state of affairs that we're living in,
you know, that pressure is even higher in some search
circumstances as well too.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
We're becoming conditioned to living on ten.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Exactly exactly, so ten becomes the norm, and that's not
the norm.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
You know.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
We got to remember that that's not the norm.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
That exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
So that's the part of things that we've got to
be conscious of and be supportive of each other, and
that as well, to recognize I'm not the only one
going through that, you know. I know my other brothers
are going through that as well. So hey, if I
can help in some way to calm that situation down
at least for a moment, then that's a moment that
(16:48):
they're doing probably a little bit better as well.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
I think one of the ways to help with that
is we have to attack the we have to attack
the traditional cultural conditioning. The traditional norms is you know,
we did have that. We did the episode on John Henryism. Clearly,
I think is something that we need to address. It
plays out on the regular all the time because we
(17:15):
are we're juggling all of these things, right, We're juggling
work with juggling finances. There is this notion in the
community historically for men that we have to you know,
we have to have this hard exterior. We can't show
that we're weak or retired or any of that kind
of thing. And so to your point about supporting each other,
(17:35):
being supportive, we have to get into the habit of
extending that support whether somebody's asking, because most aren't going
to ask, right, most are correct, Most are going to
stay silent and just keep on trying to push on
through and just making sure the other side the support
to help greatly need it. You know, I was thinking about,
just like I said back in when things got crazy
(17:57):
at the Creab here in August and September, just getting
the call from you periodically, Hey, let me just check
in and see how you're doing. You know, that lifts
a lot. It makes everything a little a little lighter,
a little easier to deal. Just being able to just
knowing that you got my back and you checking on.
You know, I'm just trying to I'm trying to push forward.
(18:18):
I'm trying to get this done. I'm trying to take
care of that. I'm trying to make sure that baby
is good. I'm trying to make sure that the moms
is good, you know, and and just put pressing forward.
So again, good looking out. But yeah, that that that
helps so much with managing that stress. We have to
we have to check in and we have to we
have to not wait for our brothers to say I
(18:40):
need help, because a lot of they're never.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Going to exactly exactly something. They don't need it right
right right.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Sometimes, like you said, just a just a phone call
just to say, hey, how you doing? You know, if
you plan it on going for a walk. Hey hey bro,
what you got going on right now? I'm about to
go take a walk, you know, just to get some
fresh air. And I was thinking about you. How about
I swing up, swing back and pick you up and
we just go go for a walk together. I wouldn't mind,
(19:09):
and actually would love to have your company in doing so.
You know, a brother be like man, all right, you know,
I wasn't playing on doing nothing, stept watching the sports
or whatever type deal. Yeah, come on, swing by, We'll
go ahead and do this thing. And those are things that,
like you said, Rick, I mean, how often are you
gonna call and say, Yo, I feel.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Like going for a walk. Why don't you come pick
me up?
Speaker 1 (19:29):
You know what versus you know, someone that offers you
the invitation, and more times than not, it's a welcomed
invitation to go through something and do it together. How
much mental strain we're under and how that can help
to reduce that, man can be so impactful as well.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
I saw this thing and I shared it on Facebook
the other day.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
This video to do with.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Saying there walking backwards it can temporarily remove or eliminate
anxiety because of the actual active walking backwards. You've got
to use so much of your brain power to effectively
do that because it's so you know, it's not normal
for most people, and so it can eliminate anxiety for
(20:12):
up to two hours afterwards. That process, which I thought
was interesting because as just part of my walking all
the time, I walk backwards, but it's just part of
my walking meditation.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
That I do.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
It changes your mindset, right, So if you have opportunities
to change your mindset, then that can definitely positively impact
your overall mental health, especially so real quick example, folks
who are smoking, So one of the things that I
try to encourage them is to say, hey, whenever you
get that urge to grab that cigarette, let's try to
(20:47):
divert that urge to something else. Let's say you get
you about eight ounces of water. Let's say you go
for a five to minute walk at that time. What
that can do is that can change your mindset as
to what you initially wanted in that cigarette. And then
next thing you know, hey, you bypassed one of those
smokes that you were gonna get because you decided to
(21:09):
change your mindset and think about something different as well.
So that is definitely ways to help to improve that.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Let's talk about breaking the cycle.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Song sure thing, man, I think the way we can
help break the cycle. Of course, we've had some of
our previous conversations where we talked about ways to reduce stress.
We talked about vacation in, we talked about checking in,
we talked about music, dance, meditation, prayer, all of those things.
But even from a health standpoint, and we gotta be
(21:43):
real and we're gonna keep it real too. For some
of us, we may need some medication to help us
keep these blood pressure under better control as well. And
I'll be honest, for some of us, and I won't
even say something. For most of us, it's gonna take
at least two or more blood pressure medicines for us
to get that and keep it under control. But just
because we're starting on some medication doesn't mean that you
(22:07):
have to stay on that medication. And you're a prime
example of that. Rich you were able to, you were onto,
you were able to come off. Things have changed, which
is requiring you to be back onto for now, But
that doesn't mean that that's going to have to be
the ongoing process of this.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yeah, I don't got me to understand that, you know,
because when I was talking about endo chronologists, you know
about the diabetes. You know, I'd gotten to the point,
you know, I'm off all of it. I'm off the
insul and the only thing I'm on is just the
one pill, the met FORMU. But in the recent period,
and again it was COUK, life got crazy. But I
wasn't pleased with my numbers. My last A one C
(22:46):
didn't move like I wanted it to. So I'm like,
should we be thinking about adding another medication? And she
was like, she was like, I'm looking at everything. I
don't think so she said, I'm thinking. She's like, your
kidney numbers look better. Your kidney is actually theater than
it was a year ago. So everything that you're doing,
you just keep doing what you're doing. Just get back
on your schedule, back on your plan that you have
(23:08):
been on, and you'll be and you'll be good. And
I was like, okay, but yeah, so we you know,
we look at it, we tweak, we you know, we
try and get as close as we can to write.
But what her point was was, don't if this doesn't
get better, if the numbers don't start to get better,
even if if you get back, she said, if you
get back to your true routine like you had been
(23:29):
before life got crazy, you're doing that for a while
and then you're still not seeing the numbers that you
want to see, then come back and we'll talk about
it then, because then that means you're doing all the
things right. You're back to your normal exercise, you're back
to your normal diet, you're living the way you quote
unquote want to be you're supposed to be. If we're
(23:50):
still not getting there, then come back, and then maybe
we do need to talk about another man. And the
point is is another medicine? Isn't that isn't a bad thing?
Speaker 3 (23:59):
You know? Necessary?
Speaker 2 (24:00):
You know, because part of my mind said, was I
gotta get off all of these meds right and making
me feel horrible and this and that and so is
it is it that I shouldn't be on the meds?
I'm not on the right man? Is this something that
I could better manage with some meds but not twelve
meds or like you said, whatever, We need to to
get into that best into that best state, not just
(24:22):
being pumped full of medications just for the sake of it.
I think that requires that real back and forth, that
real collaboration with your doctor as opposed exactly just your
doctor telling you what to do, or you decide I'm
gonna go to the doctor, but then I ain't gonna
do a damn thing. The doctor said, right.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
You know that's right.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
What's the point, right exactly?
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Well, you could have saved you, You could have saved
your copey, you could have you know, if you weren't
gonna do what they said to do. You know, you
shouldn't have went in the first place, exactly oblivious, you know,
and just let stuff start falling off.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
Exactly wise otherwise, you.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Know, with them, you know, it should be a collaboration.
It's your body. It's just like with your car. Right
you go to the botany and you have a conversation
right halftime, you know, they want you to do this, this,
this and this, and I'm like, well do I really
need that? Well, yes, you do need to have that
appendix removed. It's about the birth. Okay, Well, you know
you don't need to get that warp removed, as you know,
(25:21):
that's cosmetic whatever. You know, we need to be engaging
in the conversation, engaging in the collaborative process about maintenance
and maintaining this vehicle, this body.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Your connection with your healthcare provider is vitally important for
your health and wellness. But you know, and again, medication
is just a part of the treatment profile.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
You know.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Yes, we still need to work on those things to
help us reduce stress, like we talked about. Yes, we
do need to try to get our bodies active, and
activity is at least about thirty men to day as well. Yes,
we need to get our rest. Sleep is important. Your
body needs to be able to relax, and that's how
your body relaxes is through good rest as well. You
(26:13):
may be resting, but you might have a condition called
sleep apnea. And if you do have sleep apnia, that
needs to be treated as well, because we now know
how sleep apnea affects high blood pressure as well as
cardiovascular shoes like stroking heart disease too.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
If you're smoke.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Smart, that helps you raise your head up, get your
some better breathe than at night, do something that's right.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
And if you smoke, you need to cut out those
cigarettes because they do more harm than they do any
potential good folks. So that also is it. You gotta
curb your alcohol intake as well.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
So I can't smoke, I can't drink, cut out all
the food and cut right right and the process, so
I can't hand no salami, I mean damned.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
To take life away, right e salid huh right, So no,
and that's not what we say right right right, But
if you're doing that as the majority of your intake
every day, yes, we have got to cut.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
That down and make a change.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
I'm not saying you got to cut it out one
hundred percent, hey, but we got to incorporate better eating
habits into our diets, and we need to encourage each other.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
To do that as well. So I'm sorry, Jock. I
just I thowt this other meme I saw today, and
the thing it was hilarious. It said it asked the question,
should should doctors? Should all doctors be this honest? And
and and the boy said the boy said, that said
(27:59):
something to the effect, you know, high blood pressure or obesity,
or you know something runs in my family. And he said,
the problem is nobody runs in your family.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Right right, right right, That's it, That's it, he.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Said, So should doctors be that honest? Should that just suggest?
I mean, do you just come out and sadio clients? Look,
if you lose seventy five pounds, then maybe this would
be a little better on you.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
That's hilarious, rich, But yes, the problem is it's all
about the communication. It's all about the connection that you
and your provider have. I do have those people in
my practice. I'm like, look, man, you know we could
have done better with this type deal. Yes, we got
to lose you know, twenty pounds that we got to
(28:50):
get to what we got to put in the effort.
Others you might have to build that relationship up so
that they don't feel like you just getting down on them.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
And you you know, you're just.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Giving them negative information, but they know that you care
about them and their health and wellness. Where you can
get what I like to say, let's get real now
with the conversations.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Yeah, my doctor, my doctor has been my doctor for god,
I can't remember how long.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
It's been decades, you know, it's it's it's literally been decades.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
So you know, I think we we have achieved a
level of comfort with each other. You know, like I'm
overdue for my next colonoscopy, and so you know I'm
gonna get it done. I'm gonna get it done. Lean in, doctor, come.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Right, right, right right, And.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
But yeah, the point was my last appointment, my last appointment.
And of course Regina's in the background saying get them.
But uh, in my last you know, we before we
talked about anything else, he hadn't even sat down.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
Good.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
He was like, so I should just take that colonoscopy
off your orders, off your order. We're just gonna say
the hell with it. We're not just We're just not
gonna do those anymore. Hunt and I was like, I
know I'm gonna do it. Man, quit tripping, you know.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
But you know, I was.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Just I appreciated the fact that he feels comfortable enough
to call me out on things, you know. So yeah,
we were talking about soul food without the salt, I guess,
or the realities of life. You know. You was talking
about exercise and walking and and things like that. I
try to get in the walking every day good, you know,
(30:41):
That's what I say. I try to My plan is
is on days that I work out, I walk about
a mile. On days that I don't work out, I
walk two to three miles. And I usually try to
walk post meal, you know, post yeah, post lunch or
post and post dinner, you know, those kinds of deal,
(31:02):
because post breakfast is usually when I go work out.
I usually kind of get up, eat a little something,
and then and then I hit the gym on my
gym days. So yeah, I try to walk all the time.
And and that's that happened is born out of me
trying to control my blood sugar because walking is you know,
I could I could eat I could eat five doughnuts
and go take a walk. And I mean that's an exaggeration,
(31:25):
don't you know. Don't choke me through the through the screen, right,
you know, you know what it helps. It helps with
the sugar, with the sugar, with the spikes in general,
and then you know it helps for me, It helps
it come back down faster if I walk, you know,
(31:47):
if I walk post meal, even if it's not a
long walk, but for me, a fifteen minute walk is
about a mile because I hot my pasts. You know,
I got long legs. But yeah, that that that walking
helps a lot. I think, you know, the whole twin
health experience that I went through, what that really forced
me to do was pay a lot more attention to
how my inputs. My inputs impact my body. So when
(32:11):
I say my inputs, I mean my eating, my exercising,
my stress management, which for me includes walking, meditation, and
includes once a month I meet with a group of
group of brothers. We got a small little collective and
we just talk about life, whatever's going on, you're going. Unfortunately,
(32:31):
right now, forty seven pops up a lot because he's
impacted the world in such a way. But these inputs.
When I say that the things that I can do
to control or mitigate some of the stress that life
puts on us, because it does it all the time.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Exactly, an exercise or I like to start, I'm starting
to try to use the term activity versus exercise these days. Yeah,
that's just because, yeah, because exercise sometimes can have a
negative turn you know, connotation to it as well.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
But it's activity.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
It's about us being active, getting the heart rate up,
but doing things that we enjoy doing as well. So
for folks who may have limitations in walking such as
their back, knees hip and things like that going on, Well,
there's the warm water activities that we can do. There's
the recumbent bicycles that we can do. There's dancing if
(33:26):
you enjoy dancing. I even say sexual activity and things
like that are still good excis activities to do because
it still helps to get that heart rate up and
hopefully you're doing things that you enjoy doing as well. Right,
if you can get others to exercise people off, yes, exactly,
because you're automatically thinking I got to go to the gym.
(33:47):
I don't want to join a gym. I don't you know, this,
that and the other one to sweat.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
It's like to sweat, which is just crazy to me
because you know, to each their own, but yeah, do
something versus to do nothing, right, you know, And so yeah,
calling it exercise can turn some people off, but saying
let's go for a walk does it don't necessarily have
that same connotation. And then you know, when we're talking
(34:12):
about our age group, I mean, the reality is is
that certain types of exercise are going to be a
negative anyway. And then if you've been if you've been
out of shape for a long time, and now you
know your doctor says to you, look, your fat ass
needs to get moving right, right or whatever, and you know,
then you also get moving. That doesn't mean go go
(34:33):
go and start trying to pick up the pick up
a bus, right. You know, there's a difference between between
tai chi and and and and karate right right. I
mean there are levels to all of this, you know.
And if you if you haven't been active, very active,
(34:54):
then you need to be easing into.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
It, right.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Don't try to knock out the whole routine in fifteen
minutes when you have been doing it in five years, Like.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Just do something if you if you haven't, if you've
just been sitting on your ass for for for years,
get up and walk to the corner. Right, you just
start to start with something simple. Don't don't do the
stuff that's gonna shut you down immediately, because you you know,
I see people on Facebook. They was like, oh, I
gotta do I gotta get in shape. And they went
and went out and went to this this gym with
(35:26):
this uh with this military drill instructive type of trainer. Right,
you know that the whoop they ass right, you know,
set them home, be down and broke, and now they
soar it. They pitiful, they can't move for a week, right,
and now they're dejected, and then they give up. You
weren't supposed to be in that class in the first place.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
You were supposed to be in there, walk around the
gym three times and have a conversation with some friends group, right,
and then in three months you were supposed to be
in that easy class. You know it up right to
it because the whole goal is lifestyle improvements, not temporary fixes, right,
trying to when we're trying to get this machine functioning
(36:13):
better long term, Right, it's about the consistent baby steps
that eventually have moved you to this other place where
you can't even remember what you were like.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Over there, right, And we got to stress to it
is that, folks, You know, just make sure that what
you do, where you do it, you are in a
safe and comfortable environment as well. So sometimes that's important
to have others with you just so that you can
feel safe and comfortable in whatever those activities are. So
(36:44):
that's the one thing to just remind our listening folks
about that as well.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
Yeah, because otherwise you're adding more stress, right right right?
You just hey, I got a question for you, doc.
Inflammation and high blood pressure. First, first two part question really,
first part, what is inflammation really? You know, we're here
to term all the time people, inflammation does that? I mean,
I think like it means everything swelling up and getting bigger?
(37:12):
Is that what it means?
Speaker 3 (37:12):
I mean?
Speaker 2 (37:12):
What is inflammation inside the body? And how does the
wreck everything and how does relate to high blood pressure?
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Inflammation in general terms is basically when our body is
trying to respond to something that it doesn't like happening
to it. So in some instances that could be blood pressure.
Blood pressure could be a sign of inflammation in our
body rise in your blood sugar. Diabetes is actually an
(37:41):
inflammatory process and it of itself as well. But it
could be that swollen joint that's inflamed. It could be
having a cold or so sniffles that are coming up
can be signs of inflammation as well. So think of
inflammation more as our bodies response to something that's irritating it.
(38:02):
That's the kind of way I like for us to
think about inflammation.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
Okay, because like you know, if if I need to
clip my toenails and I'm trying to work out and
one of them is rubbing and it gets it starts
to irritate me, then it kind of swells up a
little bit, right, it gets red, and it gets puffy,
it gets hot. Are those all kind of.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Like that's inflammation as well. So all of those are
signs of inflammation, and you know, our body is sending
our cells there are some protein changes and other changes
that are going on to try to reduce again whatever
causing that irritation in our bodies, to reduce that inflammation.
(38:44):
And then sometimes you know, we take anti inflammatories to
try to help us with that as well. And that's
not something I encourage us to take always because they
can have negative side effects too, but sometimes we need
that in order to bring down the inflammation and help
our body do what is still trying to do for
(39:04):
us as well.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
So, you know, we talked about this once before. I
think we pretty much had an episode where we talked
about travel as an antidote to Yeah, stress, I'm just
that just popped in my head. I'm thinking about this
in terms of, you know, ways to counter to heal
and to be whole and think about the whole, the whole,
(39:28):
the mind and body, the spirits, you know, the different
components that make us up. How we can the more
we improve all of these, Right, We've got our spiritual,
we've got our physical, our emotional, and our mental. If
we are trying to address all of these effectively, then
that improves our chances of long term reductions.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
And the exactly stress is a huge impact on our
body and our health. You know, That's why we spend
so much time really talking about our too wellness as well,
because our mental health definitely impacts our physical health. And
if we're able to at least keep one component of
that doing well, we're gonna have a better chance at
(40:12):
keeping our physical health doing better for the long term.
What the things we can do, man, I mean we've
said it, you know, meditation, prayer. If stress is getting
to you mentally, sometimes therapy is highly important and that
as well. And the aspect of community rich How many
times have we said together, you know, we got to
(40:34):
find our tribe, We got to find our folks. We
got to find our people that we feel safe and
comfortable with in order to reduce those stressors that are
going on in our lives which are impacting our physical
health pace. We've got to We can't do this thing along.
We talked about that earlier. We think we on an
(40:55):
island on this thing and we got to just suffer
through it. That's that job henryism we spoke about earlier
and before. No, that is not the right way to
go about this, and we got to change that mindset
as relates to that as well.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
That's the path to the short term exactly. It's trying
to trying to muscle through everything, trying to man up
the world. You know, it's not gonna work right every
It will be down any and everybody if you try
and take that approach. The emotional health we build that,
(41:31):
like you said, you build that in community. You build
that in conjunction and collaboration with others. It's really hard
to effectively manage your mental health and your spiritual emotional
fitness being totally.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
Right yourself right.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
You can't because there's so many things that we can
talk ourselves out of. You know, if I had to
allow myself to go take a walk, or to eat
right and things of that nature, man, please, there's so
many things that I could find as a distraction or
a reason why not to. But if I have that support,
(42:09):
and that support is you know, our relationships, our support,
our friends, our family, our coworkers, those are the things
that help us to stay motivated. You know, I talk
about these accountability partners and I say how important accountability
partners are. That's that group that you have that you
(42:29):
go walking with and just be able to have conversations with.
You guys are supporting each other in that wellness us.
You know, one of us is not on this one today.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
We miss him. We know he's got a lot.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
Going on, but he is part of our accountability tribe
as well. But it's important we gotta check in on
each other. We got to encourage each other, but sometimes
we might have to you know, encourage each other's in
ways that we know how to encourage each other that
and not it be malicious or or evil intent way
(43:05):
of encouraging each other as well. So that is highly important, man,
and that's going to help us just live a better
productive and hopefully a happier you know, existence as well.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
So you got to have you a good doctor in
your life. That's that's that's probably the key, right, have
you a good doctor that you can have a good
relationship with. So, you know, I look at it as
as being a double blessing. I have a like I said,
I've got a good doctor that I've had for a
few decades now, and then I have you, you know,
so everything that you know, everything that that that he
(43:42):
and I talk about, but not everything, but everything that
I have questions about, you know, I hit him with
my questions, I get his answers, and then I come
back and talk to you. Yes, you know, and it's
all good. Exists. You better also use perplexity or one
of these other ones just right, you know, make sure
(44:03):
you get good information from our sources. I think that
that's a really huge piece that we just have to
kind of hammer on a little bit. Is that that relationship?
And I know it's you know, it's a lot of
cats in our age group that don't have a doctor,
a regular doctor. And I still think you need to
get agree with you totally. Life is going to keep happening.
Your automobile is going to continue to have parts fail, Right,
(44:27):
you need an expert that right ain't as young as
it used to be. You know, the parts are getting
harder to find exactly. There are a few few there
are a few and a few people that that know
how to pick you know, I mean, you know this
is all an analogy, but the reality is is you
know you've got to have that certain things require required expertise, right,
(44:49):
you know, you know you can, you could, yeah, you can.
You could change and you could change an outlooks yourself.
But maybe you shouldn't be trying to rewire the crib
exactly exactly, especially if you're a school teacher, right, you know,
if you're not actrician, right, you know, you know you can.
You can change your tire, you can change this park plug,
(45:10):
but maybe you should let somebody else wap that transmission.
You know, you know expertise matters, you know, you need
to develop those relationships, cultivate those relationships. And the reason
why that doctor patient relationship is so important is because
so much of it is should be driven by science
and data. So you need someone who's who's got that expertise.
(45:33):
And then also you want the long term view, and
that's one of the things, you know, Like I said,
that's why I think it's so important. Now. I've thought
about changing doctors on many occasions, primarily because my doctor
is an hour and a half away and I don't
always want to drive that far to see him. But
that has not that has not yet been good enough
(45:55):
reason for me, not, you know, for me to change,
because we've got a great relationship. He knows me, I
trust him. And check this out. He's a white dude. Yeah,
I've got a white doctor. He's been the same doctor
for decades. But one of the things that I like
about him is that, well he's not.
Speaker 3 (46:14):
A black man.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
He makes he makes a concerted effort to do all
of his research on how everything. So every conversation that
we're having, he's giving me all of the data from
all of these studies and he's talking about what these
studies say or don't say about how this might impact
like people differently or whatever. So you know he's conscious
of that reality and he factors that into everything that.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
Yeah, he sounds like he's got some of what I
like to cause some cultural competency with him and he
cares about you, so you know, yeah, it would be Hey,
you know studies of Sean and we've talked about this previously,
how having a someone who represents you and your culture
tends to help you be better, do better, feel better
(47:01):
as it relates to your health and wellness too. But
there aren't enough of people like that out there as well,
so you know, we have to find those folks who
still have a care about who we are as individuals
and willing to.
Speaker 3 (47:15):
Try to go to extra steps to try to.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
Understand who we are to try to help us through
our journey too. So you've got a great, great doctor too, Rick.
Speaker 2 (47:25):
Yeah, and he was referred to me. He was referred
to me by actually, you know, Heather. He's been my
doctor for decades because he was referring to Heather.
Speaker 3 (47:35):
Years ago.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
So I don't know how they knew each other or whatever,
but that's how I ended up with.
Speaker 1 (47:42):
Yeah, and real quick, Rick, Yeah, I know that we
get probably ready to wrap this up in a moment,
but I do want to make sure that we say
one other thing. And this is something that I hear
a lot. I know folks out there probably thinking it too. Well,
what about natural remedies? What about natural supplements? You know,
how does that look as far as helping us with
(48:02):
blood pressure management? That being the topic. So what I'll
just touch on on that real quick, is that what
you've heard us talk about today, those are the natural
ways to help approach your your blood pressure, health and
wellness as well.
Speaker 3 (48:18):
You know, if you want to look.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
At what apple cider vinegar does or what you know,
the next natural supplement, it.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
Does help with blood It does help with short term
blood sugar like right before a meal, fifteen minutes before
a certain meal, it can help it spikes.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
As you said, short term benefits there and things of
that nature too. So again we're not saying that things
like that cannot potentially have some benefit, but it's not
going to take the place of all that we really
have been trying to encourage us to be doing and
working on as well.
Speaker 2 (48:56):
Right, just make that part of the whole right, you know,
if you want to, if you if you want if
you want to throw some apple side of vinegar in there,
and do some other things like that. You know that
the whole consistency. So if that's part of a full
package of things that you are doing every day to
improve your overall health and well being, you know, you're
you're doing that, and you're also walking, and you're also
(49:17):
doing meditating, and you're also doing these things to be
stress and you're also telling those people in your lives
that it's time for them to get the hell away
from you or whoever, whatever you need to do to
protect your mental health. And you know, the learning how
to say no, you know, and saying saying it with
a smile, no, yes, yeah, no, no, no, And you
(49:41):
don't always need to explain yourself right, just need to
sometimes you just need to say no. You need to
protect your peace and do those things. You know that.
You know, some of these things have become a little
more popular, but they're very real in that making those choices,
the people choices, having the right people in your in
your space, having the right people around you your circle matters.
All of these things can contribute to the level of stress.
Speaker 3 (50:04):
In the law.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
That's it exactly, Bruh. So I totally totally agree with that.
No as well, and that's important as we go through
that as well. And you know, as we're closing it out, Rich,
I want to say that, look, our life's journey, it's
not one hundred meter dash. You know, this is running
a New York marathon. I mean, that is how we've
(50:29):
got to think about this. We can't go for these
New York marathons now, you don't exactly, we don't have
to try to figure this out and get it done quickly.
But we need to be working towards the process of
staying and being healthy. And we can do that. And
we're human. We get that. There's only one perfect being
(50:52):
that I'm aware of that's been in our existence, you know,
and that's Jesus. So the rest of us are trying
to be as best as we can, and we just
need to be mindful that we continue to try to
strive towards that as well. So you know, you know,
Jesus was an I'm with you all the way, brother.
You know, science has said that all people have evolved
(51:15):
from Africa, but you know, some people still try to
debate that I'm being.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
A little more specific. He ain't had a blue eyes,
and if he did, you know what, it's all kinds
of chocolate. People that have blest you too, like hair
was like hair was like wool. I'm just saying I'm
being We don't always do that, you know, But so
you said it earlier. This this isn't necessarily a life sentence.
(51:43):
Your blood pressures up. We can change that. You can
put it in the work, You can put forth the effort.
You know. The goal is to make the best quality
of life possible for as long as possible while we're here.
Not just be above the dirt, but be above the
dirt and the best possible way. And it starts with
one small decision at a time. Value your peace as
(52:05):
much as your grind. Value your family and friends and
wanting to be around and be with them and be
able to enjoy them, not just be in the right
share and off to the side where everybody says, hey,
looking on for Richard, he said, hey, that's him over
the head. No, you want to be in. You want
to be a part of the conversation, right in the party,
(52:27):
be doing all of the things, still with your people, so.
Speaker 3 (52:31):
You know, totally agree, totally agree.
Speaker 1 (52:35):
So brothers, get checked, be checked, checked on each other,
Listen to your body. If something's going on, go see
somebody about what's going on, because the sooner we can
help affect it, the most likely the batter the outcome
will be.
Speaker 3 (52:52):
As well.
Speaker 1 (52:53):
Man, we are in a process now where we've got
to understand how important life is for us and for
those that are around us, that care about us and
that we care about as well. We've got to take
care of ourselves. We got to take care of each
other throughout that process as well. So I just think, brothers,
(53:15):
you know, we can do it. Hopefully this was a
great episode and hopefully it brought some questions, and if
it did, please send those questions to us comments as well,
and have those conversations with those around you.
Speaker 2 (53:29):
Have those conversations, know those numbers, because you deserve a
life that isn't lived under pressure. Absolutely take care.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
Everybody appreciate you.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.