0:02

Welcome to the Healthy Brain Toolbox. I'm Dr. Ken Sharlin, neurologist, and host for this show. In each episode, I interview influential people whose work impacts how we live and how we think. My guests are leaders in the health and fitness industry, physicians, scientists. Here, you'll find conversations that break down barriers, expand your horizons, and give you the tools you need to protect your health and nourish your aging brain.

Dr. Ken Sharlin 0:32

Welcome to the Healthy Brain Toolbox Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Kenneth Sharlin. Today's guest, and I have to tell you, we are old high school classmates, but we've all gone on in our career. Today's guest is Troy W. Norris. He is a Harvard trained scientist. Published researcher and founder and chief, WellBalance officer of WellBalance and the WellBalance institute for positive wellbeing. With a background in precision medicine and digital psychiatry, Troy has spent his career at the intersection of science, technology, and human flourishing. After navigating his own. journey from burnout and breakdown to renewed clarity and fulfillment. He developed the WellBalance model of positive wellbeing, a science-backed framework designed to help individuals, leaders, and organizations return to balance and thrive. He is the author of Awakening Your Lotus, transform Your Life, A guided handbook that blends research, reflection, and practical tools to help people build lives rooted in meaning, resilience, vitality, and connection. Thank you, Troy. I am very excited to have you.

Troy Norris 1:59

I love that life has brought us back together.

Dr. Ken Sharlin 2:02

We'll have to catch up on what, about 40 years, but, we won't do that on the podcast.

Troy Norris 2:08

yeah, and that's actually a really great, introduction maybe to just kind of put an exclamation point on it, I spent 40 years of my life being a high powered executive in the biotech and pharma field, a thought leader in precision medicine, which is essentially, not just treating the disease, but treating the person, and personalizing, treatments to the individual. And hit a really tough point in my life. and was searching for answers, just as positive psychology was really taking off and, to be honest, was frustrated by it because, the academic focus was very much on how do you characterize the feelings of wellbeing? That age old question of what is happiness? Very little about, okay, well what do you do about it? being an analytical guy and scientist that I am, I started researching, okay, what are the things that we can do to create these feelings of happiness and wellbeing? put it into a little framework and, created a little app on my phone and did it myself. Over three, four months made a huge difference. it was reminding me, do this. you're neglecting this part of your life that's very important according to science. fast forward, we, ended up testing whether it was actually valid as a measure of wellbeing. We compared it to Harvard's Flourish Index and University of Pennsylvania's PERMA+, the two gold standards, to measure feelings of wellbeing. we correspond with them, but we're additive because we don't just ask, how do you feel? We ask, how are you living your life? we are the, first and so far only experiential model of wellbeing that meets APAs, the American psychological as associations, guidelines for, validity, which are really rigorous, we luckily thread the needle.

Dr. Ken Sharlin 3:52

Yeah.

Troy Norris 3:53

And then we were like, okay, wait, we need to do something with this. We created the WellBalance Institute to further the research. And then we also started, building out a consumer presence, social media presence, and, mission driven organization focused on. Bringing the science of positive psychology and wellbeing into people's lives, and doing it in a way, that's highly personalized. One of the most interesting findings of our second study, the second publication, was, that your life situation, what's happening in your life right now is far and away a bigger driver of wellbeing than demographic things like age or gender or income. it emphasizes that our sources of wellbeing and our gaps in wellbeing, are affected by the background of our personality and our identities and how we react to stressors, but much more so. We've developed a assessment, which your listeners can, go online at wellbalance.org and take it for free and it'll give you a personalized profile of your wellbeing with recommendations to consider, to bring, very specific aspects of wellbeing, into your life that have been shown by science to make us happier, more resilient.

Dr. Ken Sharlin 5:02

It was good. I'm gonna dig into it a lot more detail, and I will say going through some more business related, crises at the moment, do you let it define your life? Or people will say, this too shall pass. Where for me, in one chapter in my life, I got very involved with the Ironman, triathlon in general, but symbolically, I think it was the Ironman triathlon, that 140.6 mile race. And I always said to myself, if anybody's ever seen any of those races, you don't have to participate. But seen you, you would know that people of all shapes, sizes, ages, and abilities participate. This is not for super humans

Troy Norris 5:42

at

Dr. Ken Sharlin 5:42

all. In the tradition of the Ironman, the pros will often, show up to the finish line about mid-afternoon. there are crowds that gather to see the pros cross the finish line, but then things Thin out a bit, and then it gets close to midnight because midnight is the witching hour. That's when the last finishers, you must finish by midnight. And it is a very popular time. People gather. The finish line at midnight to watch these folks who, for very varied reasons have chosen to do this. And, I just think, in the midst of that and the pain of it, it's, there's only one way to the finish line. You can choose to drop out, but I have watched people walk the entire marathon. they want to be finishers. They don't want to come in first. They don't have those expectations. They know it's gonna be painful. It's part of the journey. Their determination is to just finish.

Troy Norris 6:45

For a couple of years I lived where I had a balcony looking over the Boston Marathon finish line it's so inspiring. It gets more inspiring as you get deeper into the field and to your point, I've got an inspirational quote here that I see every day that says, you never fail until you choose to quit. You get to decide whether to fail or not. So that's kept me going as an entrepreneur, we've had so many setbacks and learnings but we're not quitting. We might struggle at 11:59 PM but we're not quitting. Happy to offer a free coaching debrief session on it. What you were saying earlier about it, is really important, it'll tell you that you're divorced and will be happier in a companionship. It'll tell you that you lost your job and you'd be happier with a job. It will tell you that your spouse passed away, but it's not gonna get you a job. It's not gonna bring your spouse back. the value is in all the other things that we neglect. We're very good at focusing on crises and dealing with crises, but as we do that, especially extended crises, like a year long job search. We neglect other parts of our lives. So the assessment really isn't about like, sure, you wanna find a job, it's not gonna help you there, but it'll point out, Hey, you called your brother lately? Maybe you haven't been part of a community organization or you haven't gone to church for a while these are things that collectively can dramatically transform your wellbeing and your mindset in ways that actually help you find a job or a companion. And also tolerate the stress. So it creates a lot of resilience by having lots of different sources of wellbeing, and not forgetting to take care of yourself, to take care of your relationships. and I think we have a concept that we call fragile wellbeing. I'm a poster child for it. A couple points in my life. It's very common to focus all of your identity and wellbeing on a narrow set of sources. Typically companion in a job. but the job can be taken away. Something can happen to your companionate relationships. if your wellbeing is standing on only two pillars, if one of them's knocked out, it puts a lot of pressure on the other one that crumbles and you're starting at the depths. That's exactly what happened to me and that's what motivated me to create this model in the first place. I'm thrilled that it actually is scientifically valid and something that's out there helping people in the world.

Speaker 9:14

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Dr. Ken Sharlin 11:06

Not devil's advocate at all, but reinforce what you're saying and say, maybe the job title isn't so important. But what is important is people's sense of what they're contributing within the context of their professional work. I'm a doctor, whether I work down the road or here at this clinic, maybe that's less important. That I have for why I hung the shingle here, my relationship with my wife is very important to me. Those are two pillars, but my question is, okay, I get what you're saying. What are the other pillars? What do to add?

Troy Norris 11:43

Oh, absolutely. A third place. outside of your home and your work. But just focusing on the work for a second, I think you make a really important point that we have jobs. And we have careers that are kind of a series of jobs. But ultimately our meaning through work is our profession. And when we talk about mattering and meaning, one of the things our first study showed is that the number one driver of wellbeing in an American cohort. is feeling a sense of purpose in a social context that creates a feeling that our lives matter. We call it significance because it includes mattering and pride but it's also about belonging and acceptance and feeling that we are accepted not only for what we do, but for who we are. even being loved is a really, really important source of what we call significance. You wanna know that your job, where you're spending much of your day. It's actually important, it's actually helping people. this idea of mattering, which underpins our wellbeing, arises from making what we call purposeful contributions. values aligned, meaningful contributions that we intrinsically feel are important, but in a social context where we're recognized for that. It can be in very small ways, right? it doesn't have to be some grand vision or some huge accomplishment where you're up on the stage getting a lifetime achievement award, it can be recognizing the cashier and having a conversation with them and letting them know that they matter and knowing that in that interaction you made a difference in their life. And it could be very small. I have a friend who was feeling purposeless and I said, you love matchas. They're weird matchas, you're kind of like a matcha connoisseur. Just go buy matchas for random people, matcha lattes. And the shift in mindset was incredible. even something as small or silly as that, gives us bits and pieces of meaning that build up over time that then increase our resilience and our ability to tolerate stress. To answer your question what are these other things? first of all, home and work are main places where we can get those, feelings that may matter. Somebody's waiting for us and wants us to come home, somebody's happy when we arrive at work. The other aspects are taking care of ourselves we have the strong need to feel that we matter, and we have the strong need to perform and be recognized. If you want, we can get into the evolutionary basis of that, but that can cause us to neglect our self-care, by which I mean both our physical health. It's not rocket science, right? It's rest and sleep, good nutrition, hydration, avoid toxic substances and move regularly within your capacity. And then on the mental side, it's being engaged, experience and state of flow, using your brain to create, and explore, while also, being aware and savoring the present. This is classic. It's not even positive psychology, it's Buddhism and then, we call it reflecting with gratitude. Taking that time to reflect on your life and observe, the good in your life. You were saying you have work stressors going on, it's probably crowding out some of those and different people will crowd out different things, whether you're an introvert or an extrovert, it maps to the MBTI personality traits as well as the ocean Five big trait, big five traits or personality, that will shape the background. The key is to keep doing things that you like to do and it make you happy and make sure that you're allocating your attention and energy to enough of these things that we know make us happy and make us feel fulfilled. If something goes wrong at work, we're fine. We've got other things to do. Social connection is really important having shared purpose, and a sense of meaning and mattering is really important. And having a community space, that's separate from work or home is a proven way to be happier and to be more resilient. If you're having issues with self-care, make it a exercise class. yoga class, mindfulness class, a breath work class, right? doing things in community that bring you joy and peace that are separate from our obligation based ways that we show that we matter.

Dr. Ken Sharlin 16:01

I would say for mine, for somebody who's had such a fitness background, it's the thing that I have not as good at this, on the self-care side. I prioritize sleep. We've got the nutrition down. About downtime Reflection and being in the moment. Sometimes, I say sort of jokingly'cause I'm Jewish by birth, but not of strong faith. But that being said, the concept of the Sabbath of a day of rest and reflection and healing and just being, or being with your pets, Pets count.

Troy Norris 16:34

Yeah.

Dr. Ken Sharlin 16:34

But I said, okay, I'm gonna do pushups every morning because the plank is one of the most fundamental human movements incorporated in the pushups. So if you can at least do some pushups, it's making small habits,

Troy Norris 16:47

yes.

Dr. Ken Sharlin 16:47

maybe you can do 5, maybe you can do 10, see how many you can and then if you can do 10, maybe you can do 11. You're exercise, you're making your heartbeat and you're building core strength and, improving posture

Troy Norris 16:59

yeah, I think, there's this important distinction between habits and rituals, which I didn't understand even three years ago as I started to get into this. habits are typically in response to a trigger. whereas rituals are much more circadian. It can either be, weekly rituals or daily rituals and having a daily or weekly ritual that fits into your life that brings you, joy or peace or just a sense of savoring. you hear about gratitude journals and little morning workouts, whatever. These are really important. but there's so many, right? There are 20, 30 different things that we can do and I think we spend a lot of time doing trial and error to see what works for us. we hope that through the WellBalance assessment we can help people find, Yeah, that breath work class is gonna help you, but you really need to do a body scan or progressive relaxation when you're lying in bed at night, depending on where your gaps are in mindset. Having rituals and healthy habits where you're responding to triggers in healthy ways, is so important. it's the little things. you are not gonna change it all at once, but you can shift the trajectory and if you shift the trajectory in a healthier way, your last 20 years are gonna be way better. That's really hard, when you're 35 years old and you got two or three kids and you've got a job and your friendships are dwindling. the idea is to Recognize that we're always being pulled out of balance by technology, by social pressures, by our own inner drive to perform. Constantly be aware of that and try to recenter in really little ways, that will hopefully accumulate over time.

Dr. Ken Sharlin 18:33

I want to eventually we've got quite a bit of time left that we can use, but, I do want to put this in the context of some of the people that I work with you're going long in your life and you're living your life as you know best, and then suddenly, you're having trouble with memory or some progressive weakness, or you're noticing a change in gait and a little trem meaning, Alzheimer's or Parkinson's. The precision markers for sure. And even in the context this wasn't the life I planned. And then how do we find purpose and meaning in that? But I wonder, Troy, if we can really way back, because two things can really catapult some of the discussion and one of them is early childhood experiences and in particular adverse, childhood experiences and in particular, those traumatic experiences that leave the child questioning their own personal value and then in the context of that, what we sometimes experience, in our adult life, particularly in professional lives, and that is the imposter syndrome, may be informed by those adverse childhood experiences. We know you and I both, that these physically shape, anatomically shape the brain, right? Both in terms of the volume of the amygdala or the neural connections. And they become hardwired reasons of survival. I tell my patients, look, you would never touch a hot oven. accidentally, of course. but if you have a grandchild, a toddler, and you're baking a cake with them, how often we say, don't touch that, honey. It's hot. And inevitably a child touches something that's hot, that's normal, right? Hopefully they don't get too seriously hurt, but the brain immediately imprints that experience, right? Immediately hardwires that experience. And at a certain age, usually I think after seven or eight years old. It's formed. And it shapes our behaviors and people, spend years in psychotherapy trying to figure out why they do what they do.

Troy Norris 20:39

I'm feeling a little attacked here, but I'm not. we knew each other during a period of, maybe not recognized at the time, because it was a very adaptive trauma response, but I was. throughout high school and for the next 15 years, motivated by fear, my amygdala from traumatic childhood experiences. And it drove me, to hyper perform while at the same time I was engaging in all the numbing behaviors of, drinking and dare I say, drugs and partying. years of therapy later here I am and big fan of somatic experiencing EMDR or any kind of bilateral stimulation and, dialectical behavioral therapy. Balance was born during a time period where I was so dysfunctional that I could not work. I spent nine months in full-time therapy and, it was literally trying to jumpstart the neuroplasticity to reset those neural pathways that had been laid down. EMDR is particularly great at that, as I'm sure you know. it was actually really interesting, because when you knew me, you'd characterize me as pretty motivated. And if you look at me today, pretty motivated and I'm very passionate, the difference is I used to be motivated by intense fear and now I'm motivated by intense love. there was this period, during the therapeutic process where I overcame that fear I was able to quiet it. It's still there, right? It can still get triggered. and then I had no motivation at all. I literally, for like six weeks. I didn't return emails, I didn't even wanna get out. I had no motivation. I wasn't depressed. I just, I wasn't scared anymore. And then over time, little by little, I started researching the wellbeing space I started developing this model and this ember started lighting in me. It was, real purpose. It was real, desire to help other people. for the first time in my life, motivated to reach towards something as opposed to fear-based responses. So, yeah, childhood trauma is tough. thank goodness this latest generation seems more aware of it, but I'm not sure aware of, mental health in general. I don't know that that comes with any wisdom and I think it's misused a lot, or misinterpreted by, 20 something kids. I think increasingly there seems to be sort of a normalization of it. the statistics are crazy in terms of physical and sexual abuse. The rates are, now that we're actually openly talking about it, the epidemiology is it's almost like it's normal to have had some form of, childhood or young adult trauma, that was more than just touching the stove.

Dr. Ken Sharlin 23:24

Oh yeah. For those listening, I think it's like one out of four women, one out of eight men. I read a headline that In Great Britain, we seem to be, there are many sexual revolutions throughout history, and I think we're in the midst of one right now. I read an article yesterday or the day before that in Great Britain, they passed a law that has banned, pornography, where thematically it's incest, pornography and the fact that we have to enact laws

Troy Norris 23:56

right?

Dr. Ken Sharlin 23:56

criminalize something that is just,

Troy Norris 24:00

I haven't spent any time on the dark web. I'll never spend time on the dark web. I know it exists though, and I'm sure it goes way deeper than that.

Dr. Ken Sharlin 24:07

Oh, and then, you know, I, this isn't a podcast about morals and ethics and all

Troy Norris 24:11

yeah.

Dr. Ken Sharlin 24:12

we are here at Sharlin Health, open about sexuality and sexual health and intimacy and the importance of that for overall physical and mental health, wherever people will land on that spectrum. But I don't believe that, sexual health should include, incest and the fact that we have to even have that discussion or, pass a law. It's just, I'm not naive. Obviously we have a huge problem with this, but, it's emblematic where we are, unfortunately.

Troy Norris 24:44

I think in all aspects of life we need to remember to ask for consent, whether it's you wanna have a conversation with somebody that's important to you, is this the right time? Is it okay? but I wanna bring it back to,'cause you mentioned imposter syndrome. that's something I've experienced fairly recently because I've made an entire career shift from, being a biotech, pharmaceutical drug development investment thought leader, with a focus on precision medicine and diagnostics. And then I walk into the international positive Psychology associations, Congress in Brisbane, Australia. It's the only time in my life I've experienced real imposter syndrome, because pretty much I've been, fortunate to have a pretty good education. I always kind of felt prepared for whatever the next challenge was wow, this was like, I'm sitting there like, why me? It took me a long time to tell a story that blended my personal history with my professional history and why this is an additive approach, to the field. and I think from a wellbeing perspective, it's not gonna get at the foundational issues, right? Of, neurological pathways that are triggered, by certain events or words but it can make a huge difference in your day-to-day life to understand we don't just give a wellbeing profile, but we also have a mindset profile. We have three categories of mindset, positivity practices that are, common and generalized in positive psychology. one is, savoring, one is, gratitude and another is what we call mental time travel. It's not really recognized in positive psychology. I'm not sure it's well researched, but the idea that you can triple your wellbeing from an experience and increase your wellbeing productivity by anticipating it, then fully experiencing it when you're in it, and then reminiscent. how often do you go through your phone and look at your old photos? Thank gosh, the iPhone occasionally sends you memories, some of them are not memories I wanna retain. I remember growing up, looking through my grandmother's photo album and reminiscing one experience gives us that wellbeing boost in the moment, but anticipating it and remembering it in a positive way can also be helpful. But those are generalized. the key though is that based on our past experiences, whether it be trauma or great experiences based on our personalities, which we can argue as to whether you're born with it or not. Some aspect of it we're born with. And the situation you're in right now. So imposter syndrome. Never experienced it until two years ago, right? Don't experience it now. Hopefully won't in the future. but it was real when I was experiencing it. this is in a category of positive purpose, we call it. There are, mindset practices that can bridge that gap. You might have body dysmorphia. There are mind body practices that have been shown to improve that a lot of people with trauma have attachment issues, including yours, truly. And there are mindful practices that you can engage in. something as simple as love and kindness and extending love to somebody silently, or compassionate act to actually do something to help somebody else that can strengthen your trust in others. You're still gonna have the fundamental attachment issue, but it's not gonna be as intense. It's not gonna be as stressful, whether it's avoidance or anxious attachment what we're trying to do with this model of wellbeing is, figure out what are some actual experiences you can create for yourself that will bring wellbeing into your life. Recognize that everybody has gaps in their mindset. you might be in a very secure relationship, but not be trusting. you should feel trusting and open. If you're in a very secure relationship, you should feel loved, but maybe because of your traumatic path, you don't. We can quantitatively detect those differences and recommend that. Given your mindset profile, these are the, mindset, positivity, practices. these are things that you can do that will improve your mindset.

Dr. Ken Sharlin 28:53

That even reframing or how you tell the narrative, for example. We've all been through difficult, painful, challenging times in our lives but all we have is the present and our experiences. For example, we've gone through difficult times with one of the businesses I own. We're shutting it down completely, which has been painful emotionally sort of purpose. I was meant to do this, but financially a significant loss. On the other hand, someone comes into your life that brings something unmeasurable, of value, of experience, And you could say if I wasn't going through that, then we wouldn't have met this and then this happened. And so I always say life is really linear. And there's all these parallel universes'cause I'm a sci-fi person. Things happen for a reason. And I could go oh, this is the end of the life as I know it and I don't.

COMMERCIAL BREAK 29:53

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Troy Norris 31:54

One of our themes, we have a foundational non-fiction book. about 70,000 words, called the WellBalance Way, and it goes through the entire model that I've been talking about and the specific practices that I'm talking about and why they work we are about 80% done. With a curriculum of what will become a nonfiction book on life passages and transitions. A fundamental theme backed by the science, our ever evolving selves, that we're always evolving, we're always changing, and, you have to live life with a philosophy that to make room for the next chapter, you have to let go of the old one. I'm sure you're familiar with this, that, marriages, births, moving in together, things that we celebrate are major life stressors in terms of their impact on our metabolism, our cortisol, our stress response, our brain. that's why we have bachelor parties is to grieve the loss, of the old self and make room for the new, for me, it's been a very hard thing to learn, right? Because it's very easy to get into ruminating about the past and wishing you'd done something different or there'd been a different outcome. But it's not until, as you were just saying, you have to let that go and you have to grieve that, and recognize you're not just grieving. You're not just grieving the other person and the loss of what you could have had together. You're also grieving for yourself and the loss of who you could have been but I think if we proactively go into life knowing that it's this wonderful journey where we are ever evolving, and expecting that we're gonna evolve, I think that the key to keeping romance alive is to realize every morning when you wake up, you are waking up with a new person and you are a new person. If you think about the conflicts that arise in long-term relationships. A lot of them are because the old version of you or the new version of you is arguing with the old version of them, and the new version of them is arguing with the old version of you. Because we get trained in these patterns. It's a less intense version of what you were saying in terms of how we train ourselves and behavior based on our experiences. if we approach those conversations recognizing that this person is very different from the person they were before, and that we're ever evolving, I would probably still end up being divorced because I just wasn't evolving in the same direction as the person I chose to have kids with. She's an amazing mom and no regrets. would've been a lot less painful though if I'd recognized what was going on in the moment that I was becoming more myself and she was becoming more her true self. And that's an okay thing. I think it changes your sort of qualitative view on how life happens. And it gives you a little more sense of agency and anticipation as well. So I will fully say, usually when we go through a midwife crisis, the instinct is to blame it on external factors, right? When things go bad, psychologically we want it to be somebody else's fault. When things go well, it's our, most of, midwife crises are caused at least 50%, usually more by the person suffering the crisis. it might've had the same outcome, but it could've been a lot less. A gradual evolution. If it was recognized for what it was.

Dr. Ken Sharlin 34:59

I like your point. I have never thought of bachelor or bachelorette parties as a

Troy Norris 35:03

It's a funeral.

Dr. Ken Sharlin 35:05

I would, but it's how you

Troy Norris 35:06

And a celebration of the future.

Dr. Ken Sharlin 35:08

it's a celebration of who I have been and a excitement of who I will become,

Troy Norris 35:15

yeah,

Dr. Ken Sharlin 35:16

The tradition of funerals in New Orleans, being celebrations, you know, when the saints go marching in, you know, it's a party. And my wife, I'll never forget, my wife, Valerie, she, ran this, It was called Mercy Seniors, or Mercy Older Adults Program. It's really an affinity marketing program for a large healthcare system. But she was the director and they really did a lot of nice things to serve this population. And she, was on a shoestring budget, but she was very good at getting volunteers,'cause you're retired and you have nothing to do and now you feel like you have a purpose and you're gonna come in and help. Well, one of her, favorite people that she developed a relationship with, who finally died a little past a hundred years old, was very meticulous in planning her own, not just her funeral. What is the food gonna be like, what are they going to eat at the wake?

Troy Norris 36:12

She must have been Jewish. On your earlier comment, I was born Goy,, but my kids are Jewish. I'm probably more Jewish than anything else, and I intend to be written into the Book of life. So, he is gonna be food at my funeral, I think, that must be a good segue to another point I wanted to talk about, which is, there's this major focus on longevity right now, adding years to your life. We, in the healthcare space talk about health span, so disease free life. Essentially you might not be extending your longevity, You're shortening that period of disability and inability to engage in your life. And we talk about, well span. So how do you not just stay free of disease or treat disease along the way to extend your health span? How do you make those later years worth living? It's about meaning and purpose finding new ways to contribute when our brains, our minds aren't as sharp as they used to be as knowledge workers, especially. or our kids have gone off to college, a lot of these can be anticipated, I'm absolutely not running your Iron Man. Now I am still jogging around the block, and this relates to your evolving identity. We tie self-worth to who we are and who we try to project externally. Our abilities change, they will change, right? Arthur Burks talks about this, and is a real expert in the area. He focuses more on the idea of shifting from quick wit, intelligence to wisdom whereas I think our evidence is showing that it's not about the wisdom as much as about the, and it's not, he's not saying this, but. It's about the contribution. What can you give to the world with your capacity you have today? and how does that change? I could never live the lifestyle of that as an investment banker doing biotech into multi billion dollar deals. No way could I have do that right now. But I found a new meaning, a new purpose of, taking my life experience, turning into something scientifically valid that hopefully can help other people's lives, right? And that'll sustain me for a while. but what if I have a stroke? and I can't even do this. we're so adaptable as humans, but there's always way to find that meaning and purpose that will drive us forward. and I think for us as a team at WellBalance, I didn't go into this thinking I'm really gonna be focused on meaning and purpose but our research points to, if we don't feel that our lives matter, nothing else does. You can work out as much as you want. You can go out to as many parties as you want. You can sleep well. But if you don't feel that you are making valuable contributions to other people's lives and being accepted for who you are, none of that matters. people talk about what we do as wellness, and I'm sure they talk about what you do as wellness. But it's not, I have to correct and say, it's wellbeing and it's well span. And we wanna not just, the catchphrase is we don't just wanna add your to your life, we wanna add life to your years. and people reference the Harvard, study of, adult development mostly from the 1950s, although they've continued it, and how important social connection and being engaged with others is throughout life. But the most striking thing is how you get this divergence and, you're either healthy and well, or you're not. And if you're not well, and when you're 80, 85, you're really not well. If you've seen the charts that they show, whether you're 20, 40, 60, you can shift that trajectory by doing little things. Doing the pushups in the morning, being nice to the cashier, reflecting on what we call, ripple reflection. And that's the idea that where it's a meditation, on the impact that you are having on other people's lives and then extending that out to how that might have affected how they affected other people's lives. And, your kindness to the cashier carried home with them. Doing that regularly reinforces your feeling that whether it's small or large, what you're doing matters. that gives life, right? there's a whole field of motivation where that actually gets you up in the morning, gets you to go to work, gets you to work out. If you don't feel like it's worth it.

COMMERCIAL BREAK 40:33

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Dr. Ken Sharlin 42:13

As we're getting toward the end if we can focus especially on that 60, 65 plus older population, where those chronic diseases become a reality. Meaning, okay, you've had high blood pressure but now you're in heart failure or now you have been told that you're in the earliest stages of Alzheimer's disease chronic kidney failure, any kind of organ failure. And it may be, a very long trajectory for that, but it's okay, aha, here it is. I knew that I was mortal, but I just didn't know really what, how this story was gonna the sort of perception that as we get older, we get increasingly invisible to society, we matter less. And so what I'm hearing you say is that much of this sense of purpose that is so important. it does have to come from within, and no one's gonna do that for you, right? No one's gonna, okay, here's your box of purpose. Just, cherish it. Your purpose pill that, fixes that. although oxytocin is pretty good stuff, but, that being said, this is the challenge of the population I'm working with. And we're still in a story, right? We're still on the earth journey. Yeah. You have this diagnoses his condition. And it wasn't planned, it wasn't anticipated. It certainly wasn't, desired. but Here it is. And I think we started off our discussion about how important it is that people are heard and acknowledged, one of the most critical missing pieces from, our modern medical model, which is focused on pharmaco intervention. I don't have to spend more than five minutes with you.

Troy Norris 43:55

Remember the pill that the sales rep tried to drill into your brain? Exactly. it's a great topic. we've been, working for the last six months or so, and we'll be launching in a couple months in academy, in the personalized wellbeing model. We're having different pathways, precision pathways. where we, have tailored curriculum that based on our data are more likely to make a difference in someone's personal life. one of our categories is difficult diagnosis, and these sort of life changing diagnoses. I think, there was a famous study where they compared, lottery winners to recent paraplegics and evaluated their wellbeing and over the course of a year they converged. and so we talk about, this concept of hedonic adaptation, which is if you don't have enough variety, if you keep doing the things you like that are comfortable and familiar over time, you get less wellbeing from them. So we recommend a breadth of things to keep it interesting and varying within a category, how you engage with it, to fight hedonic adaptation. And there's something called the hedonic Adaptation Prevention Model. and, the good thing is that hedonic adaptation also works, in response to negative events. There is a process where it gets less painful over time. We see this in grieving with difficult diagnoses, it doesn't just happen automatically, some of it happens automatically. but we can accelerate the process by finding new ways to fill our wellbeing, chalice with all the different aspects of wellbeing within our new capacities. I think it matters a lot, mostly because this is, more common. and probably a harder challenge is dealing with, chronic health condition. whether it's, survived stroke or pulmonary hypertension, that means you'd have to move out of your two story house'cause you can't get up and down the stairs. I think those difficult diagnoses, are really very much about, patients and resilience, but also doing those little things that you can still do within a category, or finding new things that stimulate your mind. Keep your body healthy within the constraints. you may have to find new community,'cause you can't go to your run club anymore and new activities and new people and ultimately new purpose. and I think obviously, I've been fortunate not to go through that yet, but as I think ahead to when it will happen, you know what the science says is that just starting small, just taking that step. If you can go for a walk outside, go for a walk outside, do things that you know be in nature. Even if you're in a wheelchair, connect with people. Call that person. You'd be surprised. They're probably only two. and it's funny'cause the busiest people you are more hesitant to call are the loneliest. And so pick up the phone and call. don't text and ask if you can call, just call, or maybe show up at their house. When was the last time you showed up at somebody's house? Unannounced? maybe that's a little too far it comes down to having an understanding of what makes us happy and then going through a process of finding new and different ways within your capacity to live a vibrant life, despite the constraint. And again, we're so re zoned and I'm sure there's some brain chemistry going on, some neuroplasticity going on in all of this. I think the key though is agency and knowing that, yeah, this happened to you. It sucks. But it did not take away your ability to choose what you're gonna do with the next hour. I think this is an Navy Seal thing, right? to break down really hard, overwhelming, daunting exercises into very small pieces. spending less time thinking about how daunting that journey is and more time thinking about, oh, cool, I get to go to the physical therapist today because I really like that one person, who's working on my knee or whatever. And finding and being aware of those little sources of happiness and joy that you can have, even when you feel like shit, I don't know if that helps. And sometimes you need more intensive intervention. we are not set up to be a mental health. that's not our intention, at all. And if something trips over into the clinical, degree of distress, then absolutely to avail yourself of whatever resources you can there.

Dr. Ken Sharlin 48:34

You guys. You are WellBalance, is offering coaching.

Troy Norris 48:38

We have a coach coalition we just launched. We have a professional assessment that's more comprehensive and nuanced. we're onboarding coaches now. we have 25 signed up. We launched it at the International Coaching Federation Summit three, four months ago. So we'll be able to soon refer people to, trained practitioners trained in the WellBalance life approach I'm a health wellness and, life coach. but honestly, the chat coach we developed based on our knowledge is way better than me. I didn't encourage people to go to our chat coach. if you have a single issue or problem, you'll hear my voice, but it's not me. it's my voice phone. And it's way better at bringing the right, ideas and or questions, to the table, to address specific issues than me as a human. so we don't necessarily do coaching, although I do it, prop bono for friends and other professionals that I work with.

Dr. Ken Sharlin 49:32

Oh, we'll do it. We barely scratched the surface. A wonderful conversation. This is, Troy Norris, who is a Harvard trained scientist, publisher, researcher, writer, and founder and chief. WellBalance officer. WellBalance Institute. Troy, before we say goodbye, folks, do want to find out more, or if you're having a special event, something you'd like people to know about, can you give us an idea, where we need to go and what we need to do?

Troy Norris 50:04

Two things. The hub is wellbalance.org It's all one word, like new balance, but WellBalance and you can access our assessment, our chat coach, soon our Academy. All of the things that I've been talking about as well as, a set of, resources. we're mission-driven, so everything digital, all of our digital products are on a pay what you can basis. Most of our members can't afford to pay right now in their lives. and so that's why we went to this policy. So pretty much everything's available for free, even if you see a price on it. Social media, our handle is wellbalancelotus, Instagram, Facebook are the best. We're also on every other channel. You'll get the full story on Instagram or Facebook. Check us out or email me at troy@wellbalance.org We've been out there for about a year and a half now. We've grown a community of 48,000 people, between social media and newsletters, 700 members. Now this year it's about making a community outta that, real people talking to each other.

Dr. Ken Sharlin 51:03

Thank you I look forward to visiting with the near future.

Troy Norris 51:07

I'm pleased to reconnect Ken. Listeners, I hope you enjoyed this. Thanks for your time.

Dr. Ken Sharlin 51:11

We're gonna support your podcast soon. I hope one's in the works.

COMMERCIAL BREAK 51:16

Hi everyone. Dr. Ken Sharlin here with the Healthy Brain Toolbox. I'd love to hear from you. If you have general questions about brain health, neurology, or the science of keeping your brain sharp. Send them to questions@healthybraintoolbox.com. I'll be reading your questions on the upcoming episodes. Please remember, these need to be general questions, can't answer personal medical questions, or provide individual medical advice. So if you've ever wondered about brain health strategies, lifestyle tips, new research, or the future of neuroscience, send those questions in. I look forward to hearing from you and who knows? You might even hear your question featured on the show. Thank you for tuning into the Healthy Brain Toolbox podcast. I hope today's conversation gave you new insights to protect and nourish your brain. Be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share this episode with anyone looking to take control of their health. Until next time, stay sharp and keep learning.