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Joané & Jonathan: Hi. I'm Joané Hart and I'm Jonathan Hart and this is The Hart of Health, the show where we focus mainly on

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health and self optimization. Here, we like to talk about our

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experiences and knowledge when it comes to health and biohacking.

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We hope you enjoy the show.

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Joané: Hi everyone. On today's podcast, we're talking about our

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goals for the year. Jonathan: I feel like I've got a little bit of goal setting PTSD

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from last year.

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Joané: Last year, at the beginning of the year, we set

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goals for the year and then, well, everybody knows what

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happened then. With a lockdown in our country and the virus and

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borders being shut down and people not being able to travel,

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a lot changed and you kind of get scared to set goals because you

1:10

just don't know what's going to happen in the future and things

1:14

can change at any moment. So we're definitely not setting

1:19

travel goals for this year. Jonathan: I don't think traveling will be a thing, especially since

1:26

South Africa has a new variant, which is just typical. It's sort

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of one of those things where you realize just how your goals can

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sort of mean nothing because you don't have full control of what

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happens in the world. I definitely think people now

1:50

realize that you can't really make such long-term grand schemes

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because those are the ones that are more likely to not be able to

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foresee the thing that's coming. That's going to completely ruin

2:02

your ability to do those things. Joané: Yeah. How many people had business goals and then because

2:09

of the virus and lockdowns, they weren't even allowed to work or

2:15

operate. So definitely don't set goals too far in the future. I

2:21

still think goal setting is important and I still really like

2:25

it, but I learned when to set goals more than three months into

2:30

the future. Jonathan: Yeah. That's probably good peer advice, I think. On a

2:37

month to month basis, things don't change too drastically, but

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in the span of a year or two years, things can change very

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dramatically. As we've now found out. Things were pretty stable

2:50

for awhile, but now we realize just how volatile things can be.

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Now it's hard to escape that reality and be like, yeah, I'm

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going to expect everything to remain exactly as it is now for

3:02

the next 10 years.It's like, no. I think shorter term planning is

3:10

a good idea and try and anticipate the unexpected as

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well. So now you've gotten that. We've now got an example of

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something that can happen. So you can also maybe now think out of

3:22

the box a bit more to think of like what could happen.

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Joané: Yeah. I think saving money should be one of everybody's

3:31

goals. If you're not able to work, you think, Oh, I'm living

3:38

from month to month, paycheck to paycheck and then a global

3:42

pandemic breaks out. Jonathan: Yeah and that's a problem. We realize just how many

3:48

people are living month to month because they took real strain. So

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I think the lesson you can learn from this is that living month to

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month is a very fragile position. For the times where things get

4:06

rough, it'd be nice to have a bit of savings. As this relates to

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health, that will reduce your anxiety as well.

4:14

Joané: Yeah. If you know that you have a safety net in the bank and

4:18

you get retrenched from your job, then you're not going to freak

4:23

out as much. You're not going to be as stressed. You're not going

4:25

to be in such a tight position. I think maybe a lot of people's

4:32

goals will involve setting themselves up for the future.

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Almost like doomsday prepping. I don't know for sure, but for the

4:46

last few decades around every 10 years or so there's some sort of

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recession happening or some economic problem. Obviously I

4:56

remember 2008 and then now obviously 2020 was a very bad

5:03

financial year for most of the world. And then obviously 2021

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will still suffer because of it. A lot of people are going to be

5:16

traumatized by this. Also know you should always be prepared for

5:23

like some sort of recession hitting or financially challenging times and saving money, building some sort of a

5:33

safety system for yourself would be good. And also doing things

5:38

like, Oh, if you have a business, keeping your costs low or getting

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remote employees o r p aying freelancers and stuff like that.

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Setup your business so that you don't have super high expenses.

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Then if there is a problem, you can survive a little bit longer.

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I think things like that. Jonathan: There were a lot of lessons learned in this last year

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for many people Joané: And take care of your health because if a health

6:10

pandemic breaks out and you have insulin resistance or heart

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disease or something that you got because you had poor diet and

6:20

lifestyle before, then you're going to be one of the people

6:24

that's more at risk. So taking care of your health is super

6:30

important and will also help you in the future.

6:33

Jonathan: Yeah. This is the message that's not being spoken

6:35

about enough. Everyone's putting too much emphasis on masks,

6:40

social distancing, sanitizing and all those things. Not to say that

6:48

I know that those things are ineffective or that no one should

6:51

bother with those things. Obviously the research still

6:55

needs to be done and the jury is still out on just how effective

6:59

they are for better or worse. But you can say one thing for sure is

7:06

I haven't heard any of the mainstream media really talking

7:10

about like, Oh, people, this is the time where you should get

7:13

healthy. You should make sure you're getting good amounts of

7:17

vitamin D, sleep, zinc or whatever, you know? Just some

7:22

sort of health advice, even if it's not necessarily the best

7:26

advice, like say go plant-based. There's just nothing. There's no

7:32

messages coming through saying how you live and what you eat and

7:39

what you do directly correlates to your chances with this virus.

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Looking after your immune system means looking after your whole

7:52

body. That includes sleep, diet, exercise, and lifestyle factors.

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That's definitely what it's always been. One of my goals is

8:02

to be super healthy, but I feel like a lot more people have now

8:06

sort of watershed in this moment. There's a lot of people who sort

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of, in this lockdown, didn't give a crap about their health. I

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think everyone knows someone who's gained weight in the

8:17

lockdown. The COVID-19 pound injection. Then we also know a

8:24

lot of people who now use this as inspiration to now get up off the

8:28

couch and do stuff outside and actually try and be more healthy.

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So it's gone sort of two ways. Maybe a few people just stayed

8:37

the same and didn't really change. But I definitely noticed

8:40

there was a swing where a lot of people are now trying to be more

8:44

healthy because they realized, Oh crap, viruses can be deadly and I

8:48

want to be more healthy. However, other people just think, if I

8:52

just stay inside and wear masks and social distance, I can eat

8:56

whatever I want to get fatter and more unhealthy. Then, when I

9:00

eventually get the virus, then hopefully there's a vaccine. I

9:06

don't know what you think if you say, I don't really care about

9:09

health anymore, especially in these times, because it's hard

9:13

for them to be like, okay, there was such a clear example that the

9:17

entire world got to see of why it's important to be healthy. I

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know there's extenuating factors that some people might encounter

9:28

that make it very difficult, but you can make an impact no matter

9:33

what your situation and you can swing the odds in your favor by

9:38

just making a goal to get a little bit more healthy.

9:42

Joané: And it's empowering. There's so much that's out of our

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control. There's so much uncertainty in the world and that

9:50

can make you feel really anxious and maybe even depressed, but you

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can try to take control over some parts of your life. Even if

10:01

that's just, Oh, I'm taking control over my decisions and

10:05

actions every day. If you start exercising, if you do things to

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take care of yourself, to take care of your health, that's going

10:13

to make you feel better. That's gonna make you feel more

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confident and more empowered and not as hopeless. If you've been

10:21

affected by the pandemic, if you've been retrenched, if you've

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ike so many people have ended up in really bad situations, okay,

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you can't help that that happened . There's maybe not that much you

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can do, but you can focus on, "what can I do in my life?".

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That's why setting goals is important because that gives you

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some way to improve your life some way to turn some of the

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chaos into order. Jonathan: Which is a very good stepping board from diet and

11:01

exercise and lifestyle, to so you might not be able to work, but

11:08

you can still get your life in order. You can still manage the

11:12

space around you. You can still make things neat and turn the

11:17

chaos into order, like you said. So that's why one of our goals

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for this year, which we can pretty safely say, we can still

11:25

keep as the goal is to try, be more minimalist and get things

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less chaotic and more organized. Last year threw us into a ton of

11:35

chaos and we just now need to actually make it a goal to sort

11:41

out all the chaos that occurred in the last year and try to get

11:44

our lives in order. Joané: Yeah. And I just love the concept of minimalism. Just

11:50

starting by sorting out your house, make your bed, and going

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through your clothes that you don't wear. Just clean up your

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space. Just start there. If you're going to be stuck at home,

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you might as well do something and make it a space that nice to

12:12

live in. A space that's clean, organized, and that supports your

12:15

health because clutter can make you feel more anxious. So, we've

12:21

been doing that. We've been sorting out our kitchen cupboards

12:25

and sorting our clothes and reorganizing things. Seeing what

12:31

systems can we improve. Things like that. I definitely think

12:36

that it's a really great goal to have this year and like you said,

12:42

that's one that we can definitely stick to because it doesn't

12:46

matter what happens in the world. You can still try to keep the

12:50

space around you tidy. Even if you just have a room, like you

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don't have a whole house or a flat or something. You just have

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your room. Well, that's great. You have a smaller space to keep

13:04

in order. Much less to organize, but make your bed and just see

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what you can do. Jonathan: Yeah. Whatever stands out to you as being out of place

13:14

or unorderly, just fix it until you can look at your room and go

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like, wow, everything's in order. It'll make you feel a lot better

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and you'll be a lot happier in the space. And that will

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definitely have an influence on your health. Joané: If you make a to-do list and then you tick something off,

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you actually get a bit of a dopamine hit. So if you made a

13:39

list of things that you could do like wash the car, throw out old

13:46

clothes, or clean out the fridge. Every time you just do one simple

13:51

task, you will feel better. You will get that dopamine kick and

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that's quite cool. I like that. Digital minimalism. You also want

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to sorta digital clutter. Jonathan: I was searching that. That's something that's

14:10

difficult. It's actually easier to stay on top of then to go back

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after years of not staying on top of it.

14:17

Joané: And unsubscribing from email lists that you don't want

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to be part of or sorting out your social media accounts. Are there

14:25

there social media accounts that you don't want to be on anymore.

14:28

Do you want to delete your profile? Or people say, if it's

14:33

Facebook or LinkedIn, are there connections or friends that you

14:36

have on those platforms that you don't want to be associated with

14:42

anymore or connected with. Like tidying things up, deleting

14:47

files, and having some sort of organizing system.

14:52

Jonathan: Yeah, that's definitely one thing we learned from our trip to America. Too many things and options and things to do is

14:59

actually very anxiety provoking. Here in South Africa, you go to a

15:05

store, even a mega store like a Walmart, you'll go to the cheese

15:11

section and they might be max six or seven brands of cheese and

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that's it. And you look at them and you can say, okay, I'll go

15:21

with this one. Where in America you go to Walmart and the cheese

15:26

sections got like 62 different types of cheeses to choose from.

15:30

There's like no way in hell you're ever going to get to the

15:35

bottom of trying all the cheeses, first of all, and you almost get

15:40

like paralyzed by all the decisions that you could have. It

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was like just too many options and you can correlate that to,

15:47

Oh, I've got too many things to do and try and figure out. What

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can you delete? What can you... Joané: Simplify? I liked the whole idea that the word decision

16:00

comes from the word incision, which means to cut away. So it's

16:05

like, what can you cut away? I think it was Arianna Huffington I

16:10

was telling you about this earlier today. So sometimes the

16:14

best way to complete a project is to quit it. Delete it or

16:21

whatever. Jonathan: Yes, you've got to ask yourself, is this incomplete

16:25

project so important? Is it going to change everything or is it

16:30

very vital to going forward or is it just something that you felt

16:35

like you needed to do or wanted to do? And it's not actually that

16:39

big of a deal. Because the quick thing to do would be just be to

16:42

cut that project out.

16:46

Joané: Go through your calendar. Are there things that you've put

16:50

on your to-do list months ago that you just really don't feel

16:53

like doing anymore? I read in the Tim Ferriss's book, Tribe of

17:02

Mentors, yesterday, someone said if you get asked to do something,

17:08

you should ask yourself, would I do this on Tuesday? Because so

17:12

many times you get asked to do something weeks or months in

17:15

advance. And now all of a sudden it's a Sunday and you see on your

17:20

calendar, I have to do this thing on Tuesday. Would you want to go

17:25

or not? So it's like sometimes if something is weeks or months in

17:29

advance, it's easier to say yes to it. But then if you had to ask

17:34

yourself, well, if it was only two days from now, would I want

17:38

to go? If the answer is no, just don't do it.

17:42

Jonathan: Yeah. Obviously, you'd have to take each situation

17:45

individually. But yeah, it's a good thing when people say like,

17:54

Oh, come do this or do that or wants you for this or that. Just

18:01

because they're asking about next month, don't just agree and then

18:03

say no later. Rather say from the beginning,"Im not really

18:10

interested in doing this". Joané: Yeah. Become good at saying no, but also learning the

18:18

art of the slow yes. Now I can't remember where I heard this idea

18:22

at first, but just don't say yes immediately. Give it some time

18:27

before you say yes to something. Really think about it first.

18:33

Jonathan: Yeah. You can even say, give me some time to think about

18:35

it. Joané: Yeah or I'll get back to you that. So, you're responding

18:38

to someone, but you don't want to say yes too quickly. Now all of a

18:42

sudden you're stuck with a project or you have to go to this

18:46

party or something that you don't want to do, or you didn't want to

18:51

go to, but you felt too bad to say no or something like that.

18:56

Getting good at saying no is also part of minimalism. Your calendar

19:04

won't be full of clutter. Jonathan: Yeah. You can very quickly get your calendar so

19:10

full. And often when you start getting into this spiral, then

19:17

other things start happening. So now, oh shit, you didn't have

19:20

time to do everything. So then you worked late. Sleep gets

19:24

affected. When your sleep gets affected, your diet gets affected

19:27

. Your exercise gets affected. Your whole lifestyle gets

19:31

affected if you're taking on too many things and not saying no

19:35

enough. So you've got to set boundaries and say, no, my health

19:41

is important. I've got to get X, Y, and Z in place as a minimum,

19:46

you know? Look at our four pillars of health for ideas on

19:51

things you can do to sort of get your health prioritized.

19:57

Joané: Yeah. The four pillars of health are; sleep, diet,

20:01

exercise, relationships. Those things are really, really

20:05

important. Jonathan: Also, with one of the pillars missing it, it doesn't

20:13

really stand up, but we can definitely say that sleep is the

20:17

most vital pillar and people definitely end up sacrificing

20:22

that one first for goals. Joané: Oh yeah. It's easy to sacrifice sleep for other goals.

20:27

It's always stupid if you wake up at 3:00 AM to exercise and you're

20:32

only getting five hours of sleep because you're waking up early

20:36

for the sake of your health, because you need to exercise,

20:38

sacrificing that sleep, and then putting the stress on your body

20:42

from exercising is actually not that great for your heart. Make

20:47

sure you get the sleep first and then try to work in the exercise.

20:49

See where else you can manage your time better, but try to make

20:54

sure you get enough sleep. Jonathan: Yeah. The benefits from exercise, aren't from the

21:00

exercise. It's from the recovery from the exercise. So there's no

21:07

use waking up at 3:00 AM to exercise on four or five hours of

21:12

sleep because there's no recovery in that equation. You're now in a

21:19

massive recovery deficit and you're going to have to really

21:22

rest the next few days and make sure you get on top of your sleep

21:27

to recover from what, how much stress you put onto your body.

21:30

You can put a lot of stress on your body, but then you've just

21:34

got to recover the same amount or like the same degree. Because if

21:40

you are overworking and under recovering, you're actually

21:46

declining. You're not improving. You're not getting healthier. You

21:51

probably getting more unhealthy and you're probably gonna run

21:55

down your immune system, which is now important for everyone.

22:00

Everyone's realized that this is an important thing. You're not

22:06

realizing how much it's affecting other things because you think

22:09

like, okay, I'm going to wake up at four o'clock every morning to

22:12

exercise because that's my, my goal. But you don't realize it's

22:16

having a cascading effect on everything else. So you've got to

22:19

try to keep things in balance. Joané: I was just thinking about you saying that you get the

22:26

benefit from exercise and the recovery, the only benefit that I

22:31

g et from exercise that is immediate, where I feel like this

22:34

is the benefit that I got from the workout in the moment, is the

22:38

mental health benefits. So exercising is very good for

22:43

anxiety relief. Obviously all the other benefits come from the

22:48

recovery, but if I'm feeling anxious and I pick up that

22:52

kettlebell and do a few exercises, I feel much better or

22:55

go for a walk. Then you also get sunlight, which is great. Because

23:02

last year, beginning of October, I started exercising regularly.

23:07

Well, I joke, I say playing around with the kettlebells and t

23:11

he dumbbells and stuff, and it's just done wonders for my mental

23:16

health and my mental health really suffers without it. But it

23:19

makes sense because if you're in the fight or flight mode and a

23:23

lion is going to try and eat you, or somebody's going to try and

23:26

kill you, you should run away or fight, which are very physical

23:32

actions. So, if you're anxious, but you're just sitting still,

23:36

you have all this cortisol and adrenaline floating around in

23:39

your body and it's harder for your body to get rid of that If

23:43

you're not moving. So moving and breathing automatically forces

23:49

you to breathe better. It's such a great combination for anxiety.

23:55

I definitely recommend that people add exercise into their

24:00

goals for the year, because even if you have to stay home, you can

24:04

do home workouts. There are so many home workouts on YouTube and

24:09

challenges that you can do or just go for a walk or do

24:12

something that you enjoy. Exercise is a type of goal that

24:17

you can add to your life, where, it doesn't matter what happens.

24:22

You can do it. Okay... Obviously if you're in a terrible accident

24:25

and you have to recover, you can't do that or you're paralyzed

24:29

or whatever, but if you can exercise and your not, try to

24:33

make that one of your goals. Jonathan: Yeah definitely. I was referring to the physical health

24:41

benefits, but obviously for mental health, it's a different

24:45

story. Joané: But if your sleep deprived, then you don't

24:49

necessarily get as much of an anxiety relieving effect from the

24:52

exercise because the sleep deprivation is messing with your

24:56

adrenals and you're feeling more anxious because of the sleep

25:00

deprivation. Jonathan: That's why sleep is the main pillar.

25:04

Joané: Yes, the main pillar. Exercise is only third on our

25:07

list. Jonathan: Yeah because what you eat is more important than

25:12

exercise. Joané: And the quality of your sleep is almost always more

25:15

important than what you eat. Jonathan: Yeah and that's why we ranked them in that order. So

25:23

yeah, don't set too long term of a goal. Unless it's something

25:30

that you know is within your control, no matter what the

25:34

situation. Joané: I have a long-term goal. It's kind of a forever goal, but

25:40

I'm only like allowing myself to think and plan for three years,

25:44

although you can't really plan ahead three years in advance for

25:47

this. But for me, it's to post blog posts every day because one

25:52

of my goals is to become a better writer. So it's also about

25:56

practicing that skill and forcing myself to do more research and

25:59

stuff like that. That's a goal that I can do forever because as

26:03

long as I have a phone or a laptop, okay, if I lose internet

26:08

connection, then I can't do that. But as long as I have an internet

26:12

connection, I can stick to that goal. Like, it's my website, it's

26:15

my blog, I have control, I can post on it. So that's a long-term

26:21

goal for me. But other than that, I'm just focusing short-term like

26:26

three months in advance max. Jonathan: Yeah. And if you don't have health as one of your goals