 Great. Alright. So I think we've covered introductions. As I mentioned, I'm an RD. I'm going to explain kind of what that is if you don't know. And I've had over 10 years of experience in the wellness and nutrition space. And so I wanted today, I think oftentimes in medical programs, healthcare programs, there's a now a competency to discuss wellness for students. However, I've always been really disappointed, if I can be honest with you, in my discussions about wellness and the lectures that I've personally had as a student. I don't feel like they're really engaging enough and kind of apropos to the times and what we face as modern healthcare students pre health students. I'm hoping that I can kind of give at least, you know, touch on that a little bit today so I would love if you could all in the chat kind of explain to me what track you're currently on. You know what type of pre health student you are because I know we've got a diverse audience today. So that would be really helpful for me to know kind of who I'm speaking to do we have any pre med students do we have any pre PA students here. I would love to see in the chat. I'm a grad student MSC engaged medicine awesome pre nursing wonderful things for Andy and Megan. Anybody else want to share what they're, what they're currently on in terms of track. Otherwise, I will just keep going and feel free to chime in more as we go so as I mentioned you know when you think of the word wellness, I think a lot of times it's this white washed just kind of, you know, sand, yoga, like, like serenity, but nice three to two plus PA program awesome. So these are the photos that I kind of think we are at least the media portrays with wellness. But what is wellness really wellness is more of a balance of the grit that we face whether we're in a masters of science whether we're in pre nursing whether we're in PA med school. It's going to look like a lot of grinding a lot of studying. It might look like some weekends away where we're just letting loose entirely, or it might look like I put this here because I wanted this to be a question of here or is this sweat from working out. I know I shed a few tears in my PA program just because it gets to be a lot but I think you know, being open and honest and authentic with our own emotions is a component of wellness that isn't talked about enough. So I'm hoping that today in terms of objectives we can kind of learn about what wellness really means, not just that white washed, pretty, you know, picture perfect idea, but really the fact that it encompasses eight dimensions. And also I want us to really introspectively reflect and think what might be our current gaps in our own wellness routine. Are we even focusing on it at all. And then understanding foundations of physical wellness because those kind of sub domains or subsets of wellness are the two at least two that I can think of that I feel like I have the most credentials to speak on so I'm not going to cover all eight dimensions in depth but. And then lastly, I want you to be able to take away today ways in which you can incorporate physical wellness into your unique routine as a pre health student whether you're a master's of science PA nursing whatever it may be. I know that everything that I share with you can be applicable to your life so in terms of what wellness means. There are eight dimensions as I mentioned, and it is supposed to be all encompassing of someone's life. You might not, you know, focus personally on every domain. Some you might, you know, for example, spiritual or religion maybe that's not something you choose to spend time on financial, you know might not be something you're focusing 100% on not not having a full time salary perhaps but it is something to acknowledge. So I just wanted to briefly touch on what each dimension of wellness is. So first being the emotional examples and what this really means is practicing gratitude, having that retrospective or introspective thinking you know thinking like, where did you come from and where are you today that's what I meant by that retrospective thinking I think we don't do that enough as health care students it's all about that constant go go go that innate desire to achieve the next thing. But I think it's important to really focus and reflect on the past. There are some feelings with others, allowing vulnerability and taking time to quiet the mind which is easier said than done. Spiritual as I mentioned earlier taking time to practice your faith or spirituality that you choose, maintaining connections to groups maybe that's a youth group or certain faith and traveling to learn and expose yourself to other religions and the intellectual aspect is having patience with yourself as you accumulate rapid amounts of knowledge in one one sitting. When I was in PA school, I would have quite literally 500 slides from my anatomy course that I had to digest and kind of sift through. And it was just drinking from the fire hose so being able to have that patience with oneself and understand that you're not meant to know at all, and you're just a beginner is really really important to maintaining that wellness. Physical which I'm going to focus on most is making time to move your body and enjoyable ways eat the right things and then prioritize sleep. Our mental wellness is taking time to unplug from tech daily which again is also much easier said than done to do. Getting the sunlight I can't express the importance of vitamin D and connecting with nature, really touching grasses, as the kids say these days, and just being mindful of resources that are non renewable that we need to prioritize and take and be, you know, have a conservation, conservation, conservation mindset financial you know living within your means when you're a pre health student making a budget for yourself that you know allows for that flexibility and fun because what is wellness without that balance. Moving on to the last two occupational. This will look like perhaps for you setting realistic goals for your future career and focusing on that work life balance, not letting the ego get in the way for example for my for myself personally. What specialty did I want to pursue as a PA, you know I really really loved the adrenaline rush of my ER rotation, and my ego perhaps would have said oh yeah those ER PAs they make the big bucks, they save lives they treat the acute patients. But was that really sustainable for me and was that really going to give me the life that I wanted, same goes for nursing, same goes for you know, masters of science communities. What is that career going to look like for you, and knowing to maintain an open mind to that what you go into school with in terms of career might change. What is your social life, making an effort to zoom out and keep in touch with family and supportive loved ones. So, again, I'm going to have us turn to the chat to take a little bit of a brain break, but I'm curious to know, in all of those domains, what areas of wellness do you feel like you currently struggle with the most. If you guys could share those that would be really helpful for me. Thank you so much for being patient. Thanks, Jenny. Yeah, I think that's important to know that we, we struggle with that work like work life balance, not only in pre health but in our careers as well. Brooke, Randy or Megan, can any of you guys chime in timing of meal prep planning working out having time to relax. Thank you for sharing that Megan yeah we're going to talk about about that. That's all. Okay. Interesting. Yeah, work life balance. I love it. Thank you. Alright, and then perhaps maybe the same question but I'm asking the same question and just a slightly different light and this applies more to the pre health students but do you think that the areas of wellness that you might struggle with will be the same when you start working or do you think those might change. What are your thoughts there. Definitely the emotional aspect of health care is huge and knowing when you can decompress is and not taking your work home with you. Thank you for saying that that's so important. So again finding that specialty area of medicine or health care that you can most most definitely and most comfortably do that might be important for you. Mental. Yes, perfect. Thank you guys all for for chiming in so I think it's important no matter what stage of the game you're at to check your emotional temperature and really assessing where you stand with your personal wellness at every stage of your training is so so important. I mentioned earlier as a dietician turn physician assistant I feel like I have the most qualifications to focus on the physical aspect, not discounting any of the others but this is what this talk is going to focus on and hopefully I can help give you some good tips and and we don't want to give in from there but before we begin in our deep dive of physical wellness I want you to remember this statement. The wellness industry is currently worth $5.6 trillion and you'll notice this big fat up there. Most of this money is profited off of insecurities. If you really look at ads within the mental or excuse me the wellness space. A lot of it really calls down to the fact that there's something wrong with you but but in all actuality there isn't. For example detox teas or things of that nature we have a detox system in our body it's the liver. As long as you have a working liver you're just a okay so just kind of as we enter this discussion of wellness I really want us to focus on this important fact that the wellness industry is pretty wacky, and there's a lot of money made. And I feel like I'm very very present and, you know, active on social media so I see a lot of this, and as a healthcare professional I'm trying to combat misinformation on a daily basis. I feel like influencers for better or for worse they're here, and they can sometimes muddy the waters when they share information that might not be scientifically founded or based. So I want you to think about your latest scroll on social media, have you seen someone promoting something or using anecdotal evidence as truth, I think that is something I personally see all the time. I know what's problematic about that. And with the wellness industry in general, is that we're forgetting and our MSC here can attest to the good old adage that correlation does not equal causation. And this is something that is done way too often in our promotion of either supplements, or even wellness apps or things like that like noon, for example, is kind of the latest diet trend. I may be forgetting others, but using fear mongering statements is also something if you pull out your microscope or your your magnifying glass that you'll see often using the it worked for me statement as evidence. Like, oh this worked for me well so it's going to work for grandpa Randy to for being reason why someone should buy a product cherry picking data in studies to meet a certain agenda. Or this is my biggest pet peeve, applying rat data or mice data to human subjects. You'll see this so so often and maybe Megan if you are you know honed in and keyed into wellness influencers and things maybe as a, you know, masters and science you can also see this. But this is something that just grinds my gears. And then again, using marketing terms like detoxing or hormone balancing is one that I'm seeing a lot now that just is really really quite I'll go so far as to say the word toxic language, because hormone balancing, what does that even mean what hormones are you talking about so I could get off my soapbox now but when it comes to physical wellness thinking about firstly our nutrition. We have to be sustainable and there is no quick fix. And I know that that's sometimes hard to hear. But I wanted to share the three nutrition mantras that I personally live by and those are first and foremost to aim for what I call the power three. They're going to be carbs protein and color. So carbs are quite literally the fuel and energy that our body and brain require to function at our optimal best protein is important for so many things. But it's really going to be such a great great tool for maintaining our weight and having that good energy. If I don't eat adequate protein I feel sluggish my mood is off there's and I know I'm using an anecdotal statement with that but but we've seen in the research how important protein is. And then the color piece is something that I just used to kind of encapsulate fruits vegetables because those are where things like fiber come in so fiber is a nutrient of concern for Americans. Men and women are not reaching their goals 25 grams from in 30 for men each day it's extremely hard to maintain that but that's going to be important for so many things like maintaining optimal balance of gut bacteria, maintaining cholesterol levels and really just allowing our bodies to stay fuller longer. We incorporate things like fiber, whether that's from whole grains fruits or vegetables. It really levels out our blood sugars and just maintains that satiety factor, which is so important for a student because when you're studying all day, you can't afford to have to, you know, go and make meals every every few hours. The second mantra I live by is what can be added to the meal instead of taken away as a dietitian I never like it when we're being called the food police or when we have a restrictive mindset with food. Instead, you know, thinking what can you add to your pizza on the weekend, can you add a little side salad or a half cup of vegetables or fruit on the side, what can be added to maybe hit those three power three. And then number three, of course, eating things that you actually enjoy. For me that's dessert every night, even if it's just a bite of chocolate, I have to have it. And I know that if I allow myself to have that. I'm not going to binge or overdo it. I have that restrictive mindset. So, because this is actually an image prayer this is the Canadian my plate version so the food pyramid has been discontinued years ago, and the United States has what's called the my plate. This is optimal nutrition for the average American person so a quarter of our plate being from protein a quarter from whole grains, and then half the plate being fruits and vegetables. The one thing that is different from the Canadian version versus the USA is that their drink of choice in Canada is water, and in the United States it's milk. You know, calcium is important, especially for certain people with certain chronic conditions, but I think water is great. And that's why I chose this image here. But that's super pretty. And I don't want to make you feel like nutrition has to be super aesthetic and pretty and Instagram and tick tock worthy. So I wanted to show some real life examples these are as an RDA take food eat the, the, the phone eats first. I always take pictures of my food, but this was a breakfast I made during PA school oatmeal is something I live by because it's cheap. It's a source of soluble fiber. It keeps me full through the entire morning, and it's very portable so for our nurses who are student nurses. You need something quick you can pack that in a Tupperware and then eggs are easy I just actually scrambled my eggs in the microwave don't judge me. There's a first snack of Greek yogurt which is super high in protein whole grain with chia seed oatmeal that you can either buy or make super cheap if you make it at home with fresh berries that I kind of splurged on. And then I was able to find pre pre made salmon. I love pre made meals, because sometimes cooking is not something we have time for as students on a bed of. So this was either quinoa or orzo pasta. All right. So, as a pre health student prioritizing good nutrition is so important I know somebody earlier, I think it was Megan, you said timing of meal prep working out and having time to relax. So these are some tips that I think if you can really, really ace you're going to be so so ahead of the game and ahead of your peers. The first is focusing on consistently hitting the basics like I mentioned, aiming for the power three meals, taking some time to evaluate your own relationship with food and remembering that there are no bad foods and food doesn't hold moral value. So, if you did have a night where you just went out and got fast food you know not being guilty for yourself that's something both men and women are, I think guilty of and experiencing research I just saw an article showing that men are dealing with eating disorders a lot earlier than we realized to learning to be flexible and how to make nutritious choices on the go. This was personally huge for me when I was on clinical rotations as a PA student. Sometimes you have to go to rural areas where you're going to be away from the comforts of your own home. So I relied on little grocery stores gas station sometimes with the only grocery stores I had. And so knowing how to make nutritious choices at those locations is really important to maintaining good nutrition and health. And then get in the habit of meal prepping I know it's hard it's really tough. You can just carve like even 30 minutes on a Sunday night, you're going to set up your entire week, and it's going to be worth the worth your while. And then teaming up you know if you live with a roommate or if you have friends, I sometimes will kind of dividing conquer with meal prep with a friend so will split tasks will do grocery shopping together or will cook together, and we could like batch prepare groups or something and then split what we make and share it kind of a fun idea. So I want you to think about the nutrition traps that I see time and time again both my patients and friends doing. I'm even guilty of a lot of these two in the past and sometimes currently the first is skipping meals. So, whether or not you are on your surgery rotation, and you see the first cut and you pass out we don't want that to happen. You're going to be more likely to do that if you skip a meal, or if you're writing your thesis or taking it is an exam you want to have that glucose to your brain and fuel fuel your body and more ways than one so skipping meals is just set up for self sabotage. So again, you know you've got a pharmacology exam coming up you forget to eat because you're so focused on studying, or this is something I know I'm guilty of working in the hospital you have coffee for lunch. Coffee is not a meal please remember that that doesn't count even though it does curb your appetite and keeps you going that much longer it just doesn't set you up for good nutrition. The second trap is ignoring your body, knowing that the gut brain connection, your gut and your brain are connected via the vagal nerve, vagus nerve. If, if one is off if your brains off your guts going to be off and vice versa. So if you're really stressed your stomach's more likely to be affected certain foods for some certain people work better for some so trying to be mindful of what literally works for you is also important. And then something I kind of alluded to earlier, this deprived binge cycle is something I see so so commonly. So point of view, you really crave a food that you tell yourself is off limits. For me that's like banana bread or cake or something super super sweet and carby. And you ignore that craving all day until you finally given and binge on that food at night. That I think we're all all guilty of doing that at some point in our life, what whatever type of food that is for you. But those are some of the most common nutrition traps that I think are most relevant to you as a student. I want us to again go back to basics and remember to try to eat three meals a day. I know it sounds so simple but it's really not. It's a lot easier said than done sometimes when you're busy to eat three meals, and then trying to keep excuse me for this typo I missed within trying to keep the fab three that power three carbs protein and color. In within an hour waking up if you can. And then if you notice you're hungry, you know go for more allow yourself that permission. I want you to start thinking about the way that you eat when we eat. How many of us are guilty myself included for scrolling social media while we're eating lunch, or checking emails or texting someone when we're eating. Are you distracted when you're eating are you stressed or are you rushed. I'm a 90s kid growing up in school. I only had about 20 minutes to eat lunch, like throughout the entirety of my schooling. And as a result now in my 30s I'm very rushed to eat. So I think really focusing on slowing down taking up that full 30 minute lunch hour time frame that you have is important. And then this sounds super weird, but chewing your food and aiming to take the full I already mentioned this the full 30 minutes so really chewing your food. So that allows it to digest better does wonders for somebody with ideas or something like that. Lastly, I think it's so important to shift our mindset with nutrition and trying not to be black or white and taking this all or nothing approach. I really encourage you not to try to jump on every fad diet trend, and remembering that what what works for you might not for another and vice versa. So I'm not sure if people in the webinar tonight know what a registered dietitian is or does. But it's something that could potentially if you find yourself struggling with nutrition, could be helpful for you, and definitely for your future patients so registered dietitians like myself rds can be consulted and utilized in any setting within a hospital or clinic. They're a member of the interdisciplinary healthcare team and we manage a lot of different conditions so example roles. We do diabetes education of course, nutrition for pregnancy right because they're very, very important micro nutrients of concern for pregnant women. We do pediatric nutrition which is what my career has consisted of so things like managing a baby's formula and take or their amounts of breast milk for optimal growth. We do transplant nutrition education, people post transplant are extremely immunosuppressed. And so there are certain types of foods that you have to avoid that a dietitian educates on. We manage to feeding or parental nutrition nutrition so when a patient has a pathology that prevents them from being able to eat by mouth, we have to give nutrition from other means and that's the job of the rd. We work in sports nutrition school settings. We do diets for Caesar seizure prevention perhaps some of you know that the ketogenic diet was actually originated to prevent seizures. So, lots of things, including eating disorder treatment. Right. So, we can't I'd be remiss if I didn't focus on other components of physical wellness and the next is activity and rest. For me personally physical wellness I'm not a personal trainer or anything. Though I do enjoy working out I find this to be the hardest to say on top of when I was both a student and now as a practicing provider but it's so so important. What helps me kind of stay on track is if I remember the connection that research has shown between maintaining that good physical activity and emotion and stress reduction. So, this is a review article but this shows that our physical activity really not only leads to a reduction in cortisol levels but it helps restore balance of leptin and ghrelin which are hunger hormones in our body. And so, knowing that this cascade happens from just working out and being physically active is so so powerful. And then we've all heard that exercise gives you endorphins exercise makes you happy you know legally blonde movie. This is actually a graphical representation of why that happens so when we exercise regularly the pituitary gland is involved right it helps increase endorphins. It helps kind of secrete and endogenous opioid peptide so opioids meanings things that make us feel good. And those in turn reduce anxiety symptoms and depressive symptoms and pulled research worldwide shown that physical exercise is more effective than a control group, and obviously a viable remedy for depression, which is definitely something that unfortunately too many medical students healthcare professionals struggle with. So, you know, we all know that physical activity is so so important whether it's cardiovascular exercise or weight training or flexibilities balance things like that but what I again hopefully what I showed in the nutrition component of this talk is that you're doing something that you enjoy because if you don't it won't be sustainable for the long term. I put the current guidelines up here just because I think it's important to kind of get a frame of reference of what is out there in terms of the studied research for optimal health. So, you know, it's getting a recommendation of 150 minutes every week of moderate intensity aerobic activity plus weight training. Or if you wanted to bump it up a notch and maybe do a hit workout, you could bump that time down a bit and only do 75 minutes. Know that this is cumulative it doesn't have to happen all in one sitting. And you can spread it out throughout the week and it still counts, and you can also do a equivalent mix of both. Notice, though, that strength training via weights is in there for all of them. So some exercise tips that I can give just from somebody who kind of failed at exercising a regularly during PA school are first to schedule it in and then maximizing what you have and then I'll talk about exercise snacks but I had a friend a colleague in PA school who I really, really admire. And he made this the topic of exercise for him he was a runner. He made it a non negotiable during school, and I didn't and I really regret that I didn't have enough self discipline to make it that non negotiable. But what he did was no matter what the test was the next day no matter what he had on his agenda, he would schedule it in for 30 minutes at least of, you know, pretty strenuous activity, and like I said non negotiable he do it every single night. And remembering that a little bit is better than nothing sometimes I personally struggle with the thought that well, if I don't sweat a bunch or if I don't put in like an hour that I might as well just not do anything at all. That's something I struggle with but I know it's wrong. I'm going to skip over to maximizing what you have. You probably I don't know where you live it's an apartment complex or a home but you know there's got to be fitness equipment somewhere at your disposal whether it's an exercise band soup cans, whatever. Or fear in an apartment you know maybe you have a gym facility hospitals also have gyms so asking questions how do you get access to that either when you're on rotations, or you know if you're an employee. So something that I think we don't think about enough is if you are on an insurance plan, sometimes not all because they're not all created equal, but some insurance plans give like sweat equity benefits where they give you a certain dollar value to reimburse you for something to keep in mind and not forget the term exercise snacks is actually something that has been studied in research recently. And I think it's a funny word but that that is what it says in the papers. Exercise snack is defined as less than one minute bouts of vigorous activity spread throughout the day, and small concept studies have proven that it leads to improve cardiorespiratory benefit and offsets detrimental effects of sedentary activity so things like exercise snacks would be like little squats in your office or taking the stairs, or you know, maybe doing push ups against the wall or even on the ground if you're feeling a really really like you're a go getter that day so exercise snacks I think are important for those of us who are working full time, or who are in the study didactic mode of your program. Alright, and I would be completely remiss if we didn't focus on sleep as a component of mental wellness so I've taken you from nutrition to physical activity and now kind of focusing on rounding out with sleep. And it's generally recognized that students of all ages and levels whether you're a master's of science student nursing student prepay. We students just don't get adequate levels of sleep and the studies show that sleep is one of the most important things that we can do for longevity health promotion things of that nature. So this sectional study focusing on just medical students I know not not any of you tonight are med students but you know we can kind of take take some things from the study showed that over 75% of those students identified as poor sleepers and a third of them sleep less than the recommended amount which is about seven to nine hours a night. Something I found really interesting with this study to and it's been replicated and repeated many times is that people who are who do consider themselves to be poor sleepers also have lower GPAs. So, I know that when we're in professional programs like PA school or masters, you know, GPAs might not matter as much as if we're in our undergrad program, but it is something to just take with a grain of salt you're going to perform better if you sleep optimally. So, thinking about sleep and how to get it, because this is also something I struggled with. And it might be something you struggle with to if you work night shifts, or if you're rotating on night shifts is sleep hygiene. And there are four pillars of good sleep hygiene. And the first is regularity so how often are we getting the recommended amount of sleep throughout a week throughout a month a year, what what have you. And the way that we get regular regularity with our sleep is trying to stick to a similar schedule. That means you know waking up at the same times even on weekends trying to go to bed at the same times even on weekends. The problem with this and something I mentioned earlier is that there might be times in your career where you have to flip flop between day and night shift and that kind of throws off your circadian rhythm. So, in those instances, or you know maybe you're a parent and you have a child waking you up in the middle of the night frequently, you're going to have to try to rely on the other three pillars, if that is your your instance. And let's see who was your, our pre Brooke is your pre PA student. Some of my, you'll be interested to know some of my colleagues I did not have to work a night shift in clinical rotations, but some of my colleagues in school did. So just keeping that in mind that it's so so important to get that worked out. The next pillar is continuity. So how, how often are we able to sleep through the night is what that means. One of the things to think about for maintaining continuity of sleep is first and foremost avoiding sleep disruptors. So those are things like too much caffeine, especially late in the day, trying to avoid alcohol late at night which for some people makes them get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. So I put in parentheses here naps. I was a big nap taker in PA school like whether it was a catnap or a power nap that does really throw off your sleep cycle and schedule, and then cell phone that light that you visualize you know as you're trying to maintain a dark space just really throws you off. So, personally, and this is not a sponsorship or anything. I love the calm app because I love using sounds and sleep machines like noise machines at night to help me get to sleep so that's just something to, to perhaps help you out. The third pillar of sleep hygiene is quantity. So again sleep societies recommend that seven to nine hours but everybody's different. I don't know if this is scientifically proven or not but I feel like women need more sleep than men. Maybe maybe I'm wrong but just knowing that that differs. But I just want to really really underscore the fact that I promise you that all nighters are never going to be worth it. No matter how important you think that quiz or test is or that a is just never worth taking an all nighter And then lastly and not least is quality of your sleep. This refers to how well you're sleeping and if you wake up feeling refreshed the next day on a consistent basis. And factors that obviously affect this are going to be things like location, you know when you're on rotations you're going to be sleeping in hotel rooms that might throw you off a little bit the temperature of your room. And some people don't realize that sleeping at a cooler temperature actually does help us sleep better. And then that presence or absence of light so again for our night shifters really trying to get those blackout curtains if you can is going to be so so important. And in a nutshell that is sleep. And I hope that with that we've rounded out all aspects of physical wellness and we've kind of really really taken a deep dive in not only the nutrition piece, the physical activity piece, but then the sleep piece and that I hope that you feel inspired now to think more consistently about incorporating wellness into your routine, especially those nutrition things. And I want to thank you so much for your time tonight. I wanted to make this talk short and sweet and to the point. I am more than happy to take any questions or comments, so that we can kind of get a conversation going. I absolutely love chatting about this subject as you can hopefully can see. So, if anybody has any thoughts, put it in the chat right now. Thank you so much Caroline I know not quite in the medical school but I've learned certainly a lot I do work in health care and it's always such a challenge trying to balance the wellness piece. While we're waiting for our audience to put some questions in the chat please feel free I do have one question, and you've talked about the meal prepping and sort of writing things down making sure you have things scheduled. I'm curious what other ways were you able to keep yourself accountable, especially in terms of finding a community of friends that you can be studying or going to school with to make sure that some of your wellness goals you accomplish them throughout your schooling and your career. That's a great question in terms of the nutrition piece. You know, I, I'll be honest and transparent I personally in college have dealt with some disordered eating patterns personally. And that's something I'm very confident that I've gotten over and that's why maybe you kind of saw me talk about that eating disorder that you know relationship with food component a little bit more than some others might focus on in a wellness talk because of that past. I don't like to write down what I eat or track calories or anything like that. For me that is a habit that just provokes more anxiety for me. So definitely don't, don't get accountable, don't have an accountability factor from that aspect for myself. In the years of being a nutrition professional, I've really been able to kind of check my emotional temperature and self regulate and really check in with myself, my hunger levels my own personal hunger scale, and my feelings of, you know, feeling fresh or not. So I constantly check in with my own self. And I know that if I'm feeling kind of sluggish it most likely had to do with something that I didn't do in the kitchen. So that I think learning to really listen to our own bodies is important. In terms of the accountability piece with friends. I often did study with friends, and would take time to just decompress over lunch, not try to have to study or, you know, get notes in during the lunch hour but really just focus on conversation with friends so that was my time of wellness in my PA program. Additionally, on rotations when we were all dispersed throughout the country actually, we tried to have a zoom meeting my little friend group who I studied with to kind of check in and discuss each other's events and struggles and wins and things like that. So, I don't know if that answers your question I think it's a really tough question to answer and just a little blurb but finding that that tribe and that group of people you you feel can open up to and kind of be your vulnerable self with is really important. And then, you know, if you want to find a gym buddy or an accountability buddy to meal prep with, hey, the more the merrier. So that's kind of my my two cents on that. Thank you. Yes, of course. Next question I'm going to take is Megan so in terms of your work as an RDN did you have to deal with supporting patients post antibiotic use such as H pylori infections. That is super interesting. At the time when I was practicing as a dietitian. The research was in favor of probiotic use research now actually shows that probiotics really don't do as much good as we thought, especially for an acute patients are neonatal pediatric patients they're actually really really harmful. Maybe, you know, five years ago I was doing more with recommending because our DS can't necessarily prescribe but we can give recommendations for probiotics. But I would always try to take a food first approach to sort of reseed the gut with that good bacteria and that's done through fibrous foods. The bacteria in our food are ferment on and really eat prebiotics and those prebiotic foods are those fiber foods so I can't think of any patients with H pylori that I worked with directly like in memory. But but definitely that would be something that an RD could could assist with Randy asks, how did you balance your sleep schedule during PA school. I mentioned my friend his name's Jackson I feel comfortable saying that he was the runner who did such a good job at making exercise and non negotiable for me my non negotiable was sleep. And it always has been and so I might not be Randy the best person to ask that. But I call myself a grandma I go to bed pretty early like 910 every single night, and I try to wake up around the same time every day so for me that's just my non negotiable. I've never in my life pulled an all nighter pretty proud of saying that. It's just something that's so important for me and if I don't get enough sleep personally I'm just dead the next day I'm just not a functioning human being. So, it's really tough if that's not the way you are maybe you are used to kind of having that awkward sleep Skype schedule cycle. But focusing remembering those pillars of sleep hygiene and maybe just deciding to focus on one for a month, and knowing that it's not going to be a quick fix it takes a long time to kind of reset if sleeping is struggle a struggle for you. So there are also medications to that you can talk to your provider about if you really really are at that point of needing help say you have insomnia or something. But I think for most people. A lot of people who are actually on sleep medications to don't actually focus on all the four pillars of sleep hygiene, and if they did they you know potentially could not even need the medication. One is what is your take on using watches or phones to put in reminders to take breaks and have snacks, not necessarily to be stringent with calories. I love that idea. You know, perhaps you are the type of person that when you're studying and you're in the zone, and you're really really focused you completely forget to eat. And that's actually not very uncommon. So if that is you and if you identify like that, then I highly recommend yeah just like your iPhone gives you like the stand up little nudges, you might want to do that for snacks. If eating and you know maintaining that good consistent three meals snacks a day is a problem for you I love that. How do you approach busting myths about nutritional or vitamin supplements with your patients. Great question I try to do it on social media I try to just share obviously evidence based research. And I just try to show the gaps in the research so this is where really understanding how to kind of nitpick apart research studies is important. And I think using the causation does not equal correlation is probably the best catch all phrase you can tell your patients. Salaries are extremely difficult to to run. It's really hard for either ethical reasons what have you but a lot of nutrition is gray. And so understanding that you just can't have that anecdotal approach to nutrition you know what worked for Sally is not going to work for Joe it just it just doesn't work like that. So that's the best answer I can give to that I suppose. One of the questions asks, how did you manage making time to stay connected to family and friends when in PE school. Really tough question to answer. I probably wasn't the best at it but having, you know, one of the things that helped me was having a family group chat that I texted my family on. So I didn't feel like I had to text everybody. You know, create the family chat and throw in updates here and there. I'd also try to be pretty transparent with my family if I was having a rough week in terms of lots of exams lots of quizzes I'd say hey you're not going to hear for me for a week but I'm doing all right. And then when I could I try to FaceTime them so that was the best way I could do it. I'm a fan of snail mail I'd send my sister little cards and things here and there. And they'd do the same to me so that was what I did. I actually did manage to travel quite a bit during PE school I tried to prioritize really just taking advantage of my breaks we didn't get many. Not as much as the med students did, because my, my program was condensed to 28 months. But when I did have a week off. I would go on a trip ride visit my family. And then I get asked what are some spaces to find new recipes or food to try out that might not be triggering when it comes to calorie counts, or watching influencers stringently way out ingredients. Great question. That's a great question I'm trying to think off the top of my head of websites. If, if disordered eating patterns are something that, you know, you might, you might struggle with the resource need a NED a I can put this in the chat here is a great one. That's a great one that that has many links for resources and things like that. You know, I, I encourage you, no matter what if you're looking for a recipe or a blogger or a food blogger, try to look for one that's a registered dietitian. There are hundreds of them out there. But we as RDS are bound to an ethical code, a moral code for our patients just like medical students, you know, we, we say the oath. We are hold to those same standards as dietitians. So we're, we're going to always give you the best most balanced approach to nutrition so that's my biggest recommendation is just no matter what food blogger you go to or what influencer you look to to make sure that they're a registered dietitian. Any suggestions for someone who struggles with water intake any tips to promote hydration. Big fan of straw cups. I don't know what the scientific phenomenon is but when you put a straw and something it helps you drink more. I'm a huge fan of ice water. I don't know if you're on the Stanley Cup trend or not. But that is my biggest tip is to get a straw cup. For the nurses I don't know how compliant that is for the floor because it's like technically open so you might have to have a full covered cup. But yeah it is really tough. You know, the meo drops adding flavor adding water. You know lemon lime fruit things like that can be helpful. Also keeping in mind to that you can get hydration from foods. So your fruit things like watermelon berries those are going to give you hydration as well so it's just one of those things that is, you know, just something that's kind of tough just like meal prepping there's really not a great answer you just nothing to it but to do it type of thing. All right, does anybody else have any more questions Janie thank you for putting putting that little note in the chat. So guys, I want to thank you again so much for your active participation tonight it really makes me so happy to see that you're focusing on wellness you're thinking asking these questions and hopefully some of the tips I gave you were were helpful to you in your career. Thank you so much Caroline and just one last question in case our students were wondering how they can get in touch with you. Yes, most definitely. As I mentioned I'm active on social media. I'm on tick tock I'm on Instagram my handle is at the clinic dietitian I will put that here just because dietitian is a hard word to spell it spelled with a T. That's my handle if you'd like to check out. I will say I've got somewhat of a lens toward pediatric nutrition on my account so not as broad of a topic is what we're talking here but always happy to to chat. I have a YouTube channel as well where I talk about my experiences as a new grad PA, kind of my journey from going from dietitian to PA I'm going to talk about things like salary transparency job hunting job search things of that nature so for those of you in the in the chat tonight who are pre PA students that might be of help to you but otherwise. Yeah, always happy to answer any questions I get. I don't see any additional questions in the chat so just want to thank you so much again Caroline and thank you for everyone who attended. I know we're currently standing in your way to a weekend so thank you so much for joining us and hope you have a good weekend and we hope to see you at the next webinar. Thank you so much everyone I hope you have a lovely weekend take care. Bye everyone.