The hidden health risks of the holiday season are explored, highlighting how stress, sugar, and lifestyle changes can increase the likelihood of heart-related issues. Practical advice is shared on managing these challenges, from making smarter food and drink choices to incorporating stress-relief techniques that promote overall well-being.

Alternative approaches to relaxation, including the use of cannabis as a substitute for alcohol, and the transformative power of therapy during stressful periods, are also covered. Actionable tips provide guidance on navigating the holidays healthily and happily while staying mindful of physical and emotional wellness.

Highlights of the Podcast

00:04 – Understanding “Holiday Heart”

01:23 – Impact of Sugar and Alcohol

05:08 – Stress Management and Therapy

08:59 – Healthier Holiday Choices

11:10 – The Value of Therapy

13:18 – Personal Anecdotes and Insights

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:04] Now we’re alive and we’re a little bit late today. I had to do a I didn’t have to do I got to do a radio interview on Holiday Heart, which is people having heart attacks because of the holiday, which obviously we’re talking about now because that’s the last thing I talked about. So Holiday Heart is just the idea that our heart has a lot of trouble this time of year. We have a lot of heart attacks. And there’s a couple different reasons for that. And some of these should be pretty obvious, but we’ll run through them anyway. Stress number one, you know, that’s a big one. We’re going to talk about that a little bit more in a second. Sugar. Sugar is the other big one. The processed foods, the sort of things radical changes in insulin levels create all sorts of havoc in the body. Long term insulin dysfunction causes diabetes, it causes dementia, causes all sorts of problems, short term causes, you know, that that energy crash. And so what ends up happening for a lot of people is they eat a bunch of dessert and they way too much food. And then, you know, they’re already tired because they all had to get up at 3 or 4 in the morning, get started cooking on everything. And so they eat these things and they’ve been drinking and so they go to bed. So they end up having the sugar crash. And then on top, coupled with that with the alcohol, people do understand that alcohol creates breathing problems and people are like, what? No, it doesn’t like.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:23] Okay. Well, let me ask you, if you’ve ever you know, if you drink, do you snore more or snore worse after you’ve been drinking? If you go. Well, yeah. I mean, I snore a lot more or I saw a lot worse after I’ve been drinking. Snoring is obstructive. Sleep apnea is one of the most deadly breathing problems you’re going to have, especially long term. So think about this, though. The two things that require the most amount of oxygen in your body are your heart and your brain. Okay. So if you start decreasing the amount of oxygen, obviously it’s going to have brain problems. But here’s a fun thing on the heart. Your heart requires a giant amount of oxygen, and it’s also supposed to pump that oxygen all over the rest of the body. So if you’re if it notices that your body has less oxygen than it needs, it starts pushing out a lot. It starts beating faster so it can move the heart, move the blood more and move the oxygen more. Well, guess what? As it beats faster and faster and harder and harder, it requires more oxygen as well. So if you’re sitting there snoring, reducing the amount of oxygen you’re bringing in by 20 or 30%, it causes giant amounts of problems in the heart, giant lots of problems in the rest of the body. Oxygen is also hypercritical for creation of energy, or ATP, which is one of the reasons why when we drink a bunch, we get, you know, you get 6 hours or 8 hours of sleep. You wake up, you’re like, I didn’t get very good sleep, right? Your body was having to deal with processing alcohol out. You had if you’re snoring, you had a lot less oxygen.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:02:47] So you created a lot less ATP, even more strain on the heart. This is also where we start to produce more free radicals. Those free radicals start damaging the cholesterol we get. That’s where we get that that damage, that oxidative stress damage to the two lipids, that lipid peroxidation. And that’s where we start getting plucking. And so again, that’s one of those issues. This is actually kind of how like I talk about this all the time. One of the cardiothoracic surgeons I used to work with before we retired, he told me that about half the patients he ever had to do heart surgery on, he would never have met had they not had sleep apnea. So this is how these things tie together. So yeah, alcohol is not great for your heart, so be careful that one. Like I said, the sugar in the process stuff is trash too. But the other big thing that people are really kind of not factoring into this is the stress. The biggest thing we have to worry about is, you know, all the all the worry, all the all the stress we put on ourselves. Now, when you get stressed out, I talk about this a lot. I’ll do kind of a abridged version. You shift from what’s called parasympathetic, which is resting, digesting into sympathetic, which is fight, flight, freeze. And when that happens, all your digestive organs start shutting down. You start producing more adrenaline, more cortisol. You start to get them. Your feet are going to run away, Right?

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:04:04] So you’re going to need adrenaline. You’re going to need cortisol because you’re stressed out, those type of things. You’re shutting off your digestive system. And then of course, we’re going to eat stuff. So it’s not going to work really well in there. And so we have all these issues. So if you can figure out a way to calm down, it’s really beneficial. Now, I mentioned this I think on Memphis. I think in Memphis, I was talking to the guys in Memphis, they’re like, well, if you can’t drink, how are you going to calm down? And I was like, Well, cannabis is a great option. Cannabis, if you’re going to put cannabis next to alcohol as far as which ones healthier it is, you know, we really have to get into like the deep chemistry of the brain function or anything like think about it, right? You know, when you when you when you drink, you know, if you’re going to drink alcohol, you know, this is just a standard one. If you’re to drink alcohol, are you more or less likely to get into fights than with cannabis? You know, when you when people, you know, drink too much, they don’t have breathing problems. You know, they can alcohol shuts off the body’s ability to remember to breathe. That autonomic respiration function cascade doesn’t do that. Cannabis inhibits the amygdala. So fear, hate, anger, terror. Calm down.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:05:08] There’s a lot of different things that from a heart rate, from it, from just relaxation, from a sympathetic parasympathetic function. Cannabis is better on. So if you’re going to weigh the two from a health standpoint, cannabis is actually healthier. So it’s one of those things where if you had, again, doses always an issue. But if you take a little bit, you know, gummy strips or, you know, flour, whatever, you’re going to do just a small amount, it’ll help kind of take the edge off and kind of calm all that down. So that was an option that I threw out there. Now, here’s the big thing. Whenever we’ve got stress in our lives, this is the best time to go see a therapist or see your coach or see your mentor. The reason is because we all have cracks in our psyche, right? Like we’re all pretty good until stress is applied. And then we start you can start kind of seeing where you’re weak. And this is phenomenal. So if you want this type of therapy isn’t for broken people. This is for people who want to learn about themselves and become better people, better salespeople, better, you know, negotiators better. You know, the more you can understand yourself better, you can have me in any relationship. So, like, learning about yourself is probably the most important thing you can do for your psyche. It is the it is the only thing you can do for your psyche is learn about yourself and self-correct. So it’s really cool because when you when you’re under this pressure, you know, these cracks become more apparent.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:06:26] And so when you go and you see somebody, you’re like, Hey, this is how I feel. This is I feel like the reason I feel like this is X, Y and Z. You know, those type of things. The therapist can see things a lot easier. And when they see these things are like, all right. Now that I have seen, we kind of cut through some of that, the cloud or the or the the mask we put on that kind of hides these things. It’s easier to see these things like, okay, here are the things in your personality. Here’s the things in your traits, here’s the things that are causing these issues. You know, there’s here some deep seated stuff we can go through. And so it’s, you know, it’s a lot, lot more productive when you’re stressed out to sit down and talk to someone and be like, This is how I feel. This is why I think I feel this way, because I’m going to get a lot more information. So if you’re like, Hey, I want I want to the least expensive way to do the most amount of good for my psyche. Go talk to a therapist when you’re in distress, you know, especially because if you if this is bothering you, like the holidays bother a lot of people for a lot of reasons. You know, like, you know, I was talking about social media and a different radio and every everybody’s posting how their families are so fantastic and their kids are there and the grandparents are there. And if you just lost a dad or a kid or something like that, that’s massively devastating. And then everybody posts these pictures. We’re like, Man, they have the most beautiful family that love each other, you know, together and this and that.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:07:44] And they do all these great things. And, you know, it makes me feel bad when in reality, because the social media you’re only posting your wins, a lot of these people took the picture and then went directly to fighting or then got drunk and kicked me out of the house or like terrible things happened. But you’re still looking at these images and whether you’re jealous of them or jealous of the idea of this type of thing that puts extra stress on. So, you know, there’s all these type of things going on. This is a great time to talk to a therapist. I was talking to Steve Scott this morning that the therapy lead that I have here, preschool counseling, wellness, because I send people to more often than not. And it was really, really funny, like how how easy, how much easier it is to see things in people and help them with things that you normally would take 4 or 5 sessions. But now they’re like, okay, here, here’s some major issues we can see and major issues we can deal with. And so here’s some steps that you can deal with these yourself. And so that’s that’s been that probably one of the best, best things that I can recommend to you is cut the sugars out again, man. And everybody, when I say that, they’re like, it can’t be as good. It’s really close, if not better. Like, try out the rebel ice cream, try out the, you know, the rest. Get online and Google keto cheesecakes.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:08:59] And like one of the best books I’ve got for this is the ultimate keto baking guide. Go to Amazon. Look that one up. It’s got a cake on the front of it’s white with a kick out. It’s great. And you can play with the amount of sweetener you put in there, but there’s a lot of things. The cheesecakes are just as good if not better. My mom’s too can’t keep up on Pie is my favorite pecan pie I’ve ever had in my life. The I we made these these cranberry crust. Is there going to be now? I can’t wait to eat those that lemon curd carves cupcakes, cookies, all sorts of things you know, you guys can make without sugar. And a lot of these things you can also make without gluten. And so, you know, there you go. You’ve cut out a lot of processed foods, a lot of, you know, life, a lot of trash, a lot of sugar. Now, all of a sudden, these things are, you know, borderline good for you. You know, like I I’ve replaced people’s I replace kids. I talk about this a lot, breakfast cereal with brownies, which was, you know, almond flour, organic cocoa, erythritol and monk fruit butter and eggs. That’s all it was. And so, you know, we’ve got lots of good proteins, lots of good fats, like they’re substantially healthier for you than that cereal was. And so. That’s how they come down there, A.D.D. and stuff like that.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:10:04] But, you know, those type of things, these things are delicious. Like, you can easily do that. Just kind of look at the recipes already making a cake, you know, in a in two weeks, make one of these things like look it up, test it out, try it. If you’re like, you know, worst thing you’re gonna have is extra cheesecake or extra cake, that’s not quite as good as normal. So but check that one out. Those are those are great options. Limiting the alcohol can be difficult for a lot of people. I get it. But, you know, you know, a moderate amount of alcohol has has some benefits because it shifts you from that sympathetic to that parasympathetic. But, you know, cutting alcohol way out wouldn’t be a bad option. You know, if you’re going to drink a bunch, you’re going to drink one night, that’s fine. If you guys are in Frisco and you like to drink, that’s cool. I developed a supplement back when I was drinking a lot that completely blocks hangovers. So if you guys are in first, go swinging, get some of that’s called Tomorrow effects. But the other thing is, is that, you know, even if you’ve never been to therapy, like right now, like, you know, this time of year, a couple of days beforehand cause it’s Christmas Eve, so, you know, hard to do. It’s a, you know, a couple days after this is a great time to talk to a therapist even for the first time and be like, hey, this is what’s going on.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:11:10] This is what you know, how things are going, and have them kind of be like, here’s some things you can work on. And one of the things I talk about this a little bit is when we look at a therapist, we need to look at a therapist like you would a good friend or like your spouse. So, for instance, if you go out to dinner with your spouse, with a good friend and you’re about to get up and walk out into the public and you’ve got something stuck in your teeth, wouldn’t you be pissed if they didn’t tell you, Hey, by the way, you’ve got something stuck in your teeth? Of course that’s you want you want your friend to do well. Who’s going to tell you? You got something obviously stuck in your mind that needs to be you need to be aware of so you can choose to do something about it or not. But you still need to be. It needs to be brought to your attention, just like something stuck in your teeth. So think of a therapist that way. Like you’re not broken, you’re not messed up. There’s nothing wrong with you necessarily, but you might have something stuck in your teeth that is obvious, like everybody else sees it. But it’s your blind spot. Everybody else sees it and it’s like, man, this guy with, you know, whatever, you know, he’s obviously, you know, got issues with X, Y and Z, but you don’t see it.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:12:12] And so since you can’t see it, you can’t do anything about it. It’s like if you if you smell bad, like again, something your teeth or if you stink, you want your you want your partner or your best friend. Big dude. Hey, before you go out tonight, I know you can’t smell that. You stink. You need to, you know, brush your teeth or take a shower or whatever. Like, that’s that’s kind of how you need to look at your therapist is someone who’s going to alert you to these things that, you know, if you knew about, you would want to change. You know, it’s not that you’re broken. It’s just, you know, how much better can you make yourself. That’s how I look at it. It’s funny because every time I go over and I talk to Holly and Scott and those guys, I was over there one time and I’m talking about I’m talking about, you know, the ketamine experience I did in psychedelic stuff. And Holly gets this giant smile on her face, the just giant Cheshire cat smile on her face. And I’ve stopped moving away since I was fine. I apparently have some PTSD I was unaware of, but now I do. And I’m working through it and she just starts dying, laughing. And so, you know, it’s it was one of those things where, you know, had I been talking about this type of stuff under stress, I would have figured this out earlier. But it is one of those fun things.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:13:18] So if you guys are going to do anything for your for your family, like, you know, for yourself, like this is such a big piece of self-care. I don’t know why people are doing this. More like, go and find out what those the things stuck in your teeth or talk to your talk to a therapist and be like, I don’t know what I don’t know. Like, help me with my blindspots. And you just like, let’s talk about X, Y and Z. As you talk through it, you kind of get this map or this picture of what’s going on in this person’s reality as we all have different realities. And you can be like, did you see? You notice this? And you go, No, okay. Well, just think about that in the future. And then all of a sudden, because you’re now aware of it, you went from unconscious to conscious about it, you see it everywhere and you’re like, my gosh, I am kind of like that. Okay? And you can start working on it. So, you know, it’s a really cool thing to do as you go through it. I have got most of my friends do this like got to hang out with Christy and Nathan. That’s what all we do to each other the entire time. And it’s hilarious. We have so much fun with it. But yeah, so like, go see a therapist now to be fantastic. So if you’re in Frisco, I highly recommend that. So first of all, counseling Wellness, Steve and Holly and those guys. I talked to Steven, those guys all the time. I actually sent my son over there when he had some issues and Allie took care of him, did a great job. So but yeah, definitely, definitely get, you know, go talk to somebody because you can cut the sugar out yourself, but you can’t see the blind spots in your personality very well. So if you guys have any questions, questions at Chalmers one second drop in the comments. Thanks for your time. Merry Christmas, by the way.

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Dr. Matt Chalmers

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