Dr Sam Watts

When we think about looking after our health, we tend to think about what we eat, how much we move and whether we’re getting enough sleep.

But how often do we think about the quality of our relationships?

The now famous Harvard Study of Adult Development has followed people since 1938. One of its most ground breaking findings was that those people living with close, loving relationships experienced significantly longer and healthier lives, even when all other lifestyle variables were taken into account.

More specifically, those who were most satisfied with their relationships at 50 were the healthiest at 80. This is a powerful finding.

And in a separate review of 148 studies involving more than 300,000 people, stronger social relationships were associated with 50% lower risk of dying during the study periods.

This is such a vital concept and one that I am knee deep in researching as it informs a chapter of my next book.

But it also got me thinking that scheduling and protecting time with and for our loved ones often falls quite far down the pecking order of priority relevant to our work, exercising, hobbies and the general busyness of daily life.

But the data shows this is a mistake and that in terms of pound-for-pound gain, prioritising time with our friends, family and loved ones on a regular basis may turn out to be one of the most clinically predictive and important things we can do for our health and longevity.

I would love to know your thoughts on this?

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I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how we approach health and wellbeing.

And I’ve started to wonder whether we’ve got something a little bit backwards.

We spend so much time talking about how to get healthier, how to live longer, how to optimise our sleep, our diet, our exercise, our stress levels.

But here’s a question I’ve been asking myself recently.

👉👉What’s the point of being healthy if we’re not using that health to live a life we absolutely love?

For me, health isn’t really the end goal.

It’s what allows me to get out into the mountains, ride my bike, go surfing, explore new places, have adventures, spend time with people I love, and keep doing those things for decades to come.

And I’m increasingly interested in shifting the conversation away from simply being healthy towards building a life worth being healthy for.

Because surely the real goal isn’t just to add more years to our lives, it’s to add more life to our years.

And I’d genuinely love to know what you think about this.

What are the things in YOUR life that make you want to stay healthy?

What is it that you want your health to allow you to keep doing, experiencing or enjoying?

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Going back millennia, the traditional medical practices of ancient Greece advocated the use of sea water immersion – called thalassotherapy – as a powerful vehicle for supporting health and managing illness.

And an incredible study conducted at Ghent University in collaboration with the Flanders Marine Institute in Belgium, adds powerful support of this belief, specifically in the arena of cancer.

More specifically, the research exposed human lung cancer cells to natural sea spray aerosol collected off the Belgium coast.

And what happened next in the lab shocked everyone.

The lung cancer cells exposed to the sea spray had key genes linked to cell growth promotion TURNED DOWN. Specifically, the sea spray aerosol was able to downregulate the infamous mTOR pathway which is instrumental in cancer cell growth, metabolism and development.

And whilst it is obviously vital to stress that this is early research conducted in labs, as opposed to in humans, it suggest real promise in the potential use of marine biological compounds as anti-cancer agents.

Similarly, whilst this study is obviously not suggesting a walk on the beach can cure cancer, it does justify the use of such approaches as another aspect of a fully integrative cancer survivorship protocol, especially as it is free, easy and hugely enjoyable!

Here’s the study reference: Marine biogenics in sea spray aerosols interact with the mTOR signaling pathway - PMID: 30679557

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients (1 large mug/300 ml):

* 1 tsp (or 1 tea bag) of dried Tulsi (most supermarkets now stock this)
* Fresh ginger 1-inch piece, sliced or lightly crushed
* Whole black pepper 4–6, lightly crushed
* 300mls water (about 1 cup)
* Optional: 1 tsp raw honey (added when the tea reaches drinking temperature; never heat honey)

Method:
1. Add the tulsi, ginger, and crushed pepper to a pan and then add the water.
2. Bring to a rolling boil, then simmer for a few minutes.
3. Strain. Sweeten if desired (remember: honey only when warm, not hot).
4. When nursing a cold, aim to drink 2-3 cups per day until the symptoms resolve

When we think about the human body and our health, we must always do so through the lens of our evolutionary history.

We must never forget that we evolved in and among the natural world, and not separate to it. As such, the one thing we would have been exposed to, in massive amounts each and every day of our lives, was natural light.

As hunter-gather communities still do today, we would have risen with the sun, been exposed to it all day, and then prepared to wind down and sleep with its setting.

Fast forward to the 21st century and the frontier breaking science of circadian medicine is showing just how unimaginably powerful exposure to natural light is.

One of the things I have learnt from my good friend is that exposure to natural light is one of the important drivers of essential constructs of health promotion and disease prevention, including immune regulation, inflammatory status, hormone balance, digestion, sleep and so much else besides.

And the best bit, is that it’s completely free!
So for me, getting at least 10-minutes of natural light every morning, and as much as possible during the day (I go for a short 10-min walk every 90-minutes where possible) and exposure to natural dusk light in the evening are now among my top health priorities to support health and longevity.

How much natural light do you get, I would love to know!

In Ayurvedic medicine, dried clove buds are revered as both a culinary and medicinal herb, and traditionally it has long been thought of as an important anti-cancer herb.

And what’s so interesting is the ways in which modern science is supporting this notion.

More specifically, in recent years, there has been lots of clinical interest in the potential anti-cancer actions of cloves, much of which centres around eugenol, one of the major bioactive compounds found in cloves.

And this research suggests that eugenol may possess several key anti-cancer actions, including the ability to reduce cancer-cell proliferation rates, promote apoptosis (programmed cell death), and influence key pathways involved in supressing cancer promoting inflammation, angiogenesis and metastases.

Whilst its important to emphasise that much of this early research is still lab based, as opposed to being human clinical studies, it still gives an important nod to the potential benefits of including cloves into your diet if living with cancer, especially as it is so easy to use; here’s one of my favourite ways to use it:

Clove, Ginger & Cinnamon Tea
• 2 whole cloves, lightly crushed
• 2–3 thin slices fresh ginger
• ½ cinnamon stick
• 300ml water

To make, simply add all the herbs into a pan, add the water and bring to the boil before gently simmering for 8–10 minutes, strain and enjoy.
 

Last week, at the amazing conference, I had an immensely powerful conversation with an inspiring woman living with terminal breast cancer.

She told me that the most powerful and important healing force in her life is love.

But she also said that, so often, love goes under-noticed and under-recognised in our daily lives simply because it is so close to us.

The people we love most are usually the people we see most often. And that intense, up-close familiarity can breed a kind of subconscious under-appreciation. They simply become too close to see.

But when you are told you only have a few months to live, the window is wiped clean and everything comes into stark, awe-filled focus.

When there are only a certain number of morning kisses, bedtime stories, slow coffees or weekends away left, these ordinary moments become electrified.

Exquisitely beautiful. Intensely meaningful. Entirely consuming.

It reminded me of memento mori, the Stoic principle of remembering “that you must die.”

Far from being morbid, remembering that our time here is finite can be profoundly life-affirming. It can remind us to live more passionately, more consciously, more lovingly, right now. All vital constructs for deep healing.

For example, imagine you were told today that you had exactly seven days left to live.

How differently would you greet your partner tonight?

How much more deeply would you listen to your children?

Would that email, TV show or text message still feel so important?

Who would you call and what would you say?

Who would you hold a little longer?

And when did you last tell the people closest to you that you actually love them?

Because perhaps we don’t need to wait until the window is closing to finally see clearly through it. I know that speaking to this inspiring woman radically shifted my perspective. For the better.

How beautiful is this; thanks so much for all you’re amazing work and research, and to the equally amazing for leading the vanguard of a paradigm shift in how cancer survivorship is viewed and managed.

Here’s the study reference:

A Controlled Trial of Arthroscopic Surgery for Osteoarthritisof the Knee. PMID 12110735

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