Exploring the benefits of lifestyle medicine with Dr. Robert Kelly
Welcome to the latest episode of The Work Well Podcast! Today, we invited Dr. Robert Kelly, cardiologist and Lifestyle Medicine Physician. 15 years ago, Robert realised that his challenge as a cardiologist was not just to treat the presenting illness but to fix the reasons why people are getting sick in the first place. This is when his journey in lifestyle medicine started.
Robert is a certified Tiny Habits Coach and a Behaviour Designer, which means he helps people and patients design ways to successfully break through in their own life: to help find their true happiness and success in life, career, relationships, family, self-care and health. Through his website, he offers information and programmes related to healthy habits and nutrition for patients and organisations.
Enjoy our conversation with Dr. Robert Kelly.
Robert's work as a lifestyle medicine coach
Robert became a lifestyle coach after he realised that he could do much more for his patients by introducing them to a healthy and sustainable lifestyle to prevent, treat and in some cases reverse cardiovascular disease. In this first part of the episode, Brian and Robert talk about Robert's beginnings in lifestyle medicine and the nature of his courses.
During the pandemic, Robert identified a need to educate patients on what it actually means to prevent cardiovascular illnesses. It is not about going to the doctor to get "fixed", but rather about getting involved and changing the very causes of the disease.
"I discovered that few doctors were coaching patients about lifestyle medicine. I decided to try and do this just at the beginning of COVID and coaching patients through Zoom." Says Robert.
Currently, he not only focuses on individuals but also has programmes to coach other physicians on how to treat patients from the perspective of lifestyle medicine. All through his programmes Healthy Living Nutrition, Heart Mind Body, and Corporate Wellness & Lifestyle Medicine.
What is lifestyle medicine?
Is lifestyle medicine as simple as encouraging people and healthcare professionals to prescribe exercise, good nutrition, and social wellbeing resources, as opposed to pills?
According to Robert, "lifestyle medicine is an area of medicine, so it's evidence-based, practiced by doctors. (...). Lifestyle medicine is about the ability to prevent, treat and reverse chronic disease, which cause 80% of all illnesses and are reversible."
Robert explains that, when having heart conditions, 20% of it comes from your genes and the other 80% comes from your lifestyle. So what matters in lifestyle medicine is to encourage patients to make small changes every day to achieve long-term results. This incentive can come from prescriptions, but the reality is that it also involves changing the very mindset of patients.
Prescriptions for lifestyle medicine
Robert makes a comment on how prescriptions don’t always work in lifestyle medicine because people don’t follow them, they need to be reminded each day.
In this regard, he says: "There are plenty of exercise champions in workplace who are not the challenge, it is the other 90% of staff who need most support”.
To see a positive impact from lifestyle medicine, people must change their behavior and perspective of certain activities to actually embrace them. To do this, Robert, who is also a behavior coach, says you must acknowledge the actions that lead you to the healthy habit.
For example, if your goal is to start going for walks every day, start with 5 minutes and acknowledge the fact that, to do so, you have to put on your runners first and you need to celebrate that you took action, after all your emotion (feeling good) will make any behaviour a habit.
This perspective of behavioral design actually applies to other initiatives. Robert explains that behavioral design depends on factors such as motivation, how easy it is for you to do the activity and having a reminder / prompt so that you do the behaviour. These 3 factors will dictate if the activity becomes a regular behaviour in your life.
How long does it take to form a habit?
There's a lot of research on this topic, so Brian questions whether it has something to do with a person's willpower or if there's another way to put a time to it. "I mean, some people are just able to stop [unhealthy habits]. Other people aren't, but everybody needs to, so you have to create ways that make it easier." Robert adds.
There's no way to put a specific time to a habit, and temptations will always be present, but just making small changes like throwing away the ashtray if you're quitting smoking, for example, is a way of improving the chances of success in building a habit.
What has changed in medicine since COVID?
Promoting lifestyle medicine, especially during COVID, Robert has identified a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Even though we see people moving a lot more as a positive side effect of the pandemic, this apparent increase in physical activity is not translating to an improvement in general public health.
“One of the comments I made recently was the concept that people are running away from their health. The reason I made the comment is that there are a lot of people exercising and I have lots of patients exercising. Unfortunately, some of them come in with heart problems.” Says Robert.
He has been able to identify a huge amount of work-related stress as the cause of this. People are using exercise to “resolve stress”. Activity is really important for health but the root cause of stress must be dealt with as well.
Robert urges physicians to be more creative in their solutions to treat illnesses because now it is not a matter of cause and effect. We have to see the whole picture of health, life and wellbeing.
As Robert says, small positive changes over time can lead to incredible results.
If you’d prefer to watch our conversation, you can view it on YouTube through this link.
If you liked this episode, and you'd like to know more about Robert Kelly and his work, follow him on LinkedIn or visit his website Dr. Robert Kelly
About Your Host
Brian Crooke is a wellbeing educator, speaker and adviser, empowering organisations to promote and sustain wellbeing within their workplaces.
He is the founder of The Work Well Institute and the Work Well Community and is Course Director of the Postgraduate Certificate in Workplace Wellness at Tangent, Trinity College Dublin. He is the host of The Work Well Podcast.
If you’re looking to bring sustainable wellbeing to your workplace then check out The Work Well Institute’s flagship programme, Developing a Workplace Wellness Programme that Lasts.
In his spare time, Brian is bringing free resistance training to every county and community in Ireland through his parkHIIT social enterprise.
If you have any suggestions for future topics you'd like to hear on the show, email Brian directly, brian@workwellpodcast.com