08 Oct
Wise Gurus

Wise Guru & International Best Selling Author Tom Rath Has a Simple Call to Action For You…Eat Move Sleep

 

WWB Featured Book:  Eat Move Sleep–How Small Choices Lead to Big Changes

WWB Wise Guru & Author: Tom Rath

Author Profile: Tom Rath is considered one of the most influential authors of the last decade, whose books and studies have focused on the role of human behavior in health, business, and economics.

Tom has written several international bestsellers, including the #1 New York Times bestseller How Full Is Your Bucket? In 2012, his book StrengthsFinder 2.0 was the top-selling nonfiction book worldwide. Rath’s most recent New York Times bestsellers are Strengths Based Leadership and Wellbeing: The Five Essential Elements.

He also serves as a senior scientist and advisor to Gallup, where he previously spent 13 years leading the organization’s work on employee engagement, strengths, and well-being. Rath also served as vice chairman of the VHL cancer research organization. He earned degrees from the University of Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania, where he is now a guest lecturer. He and his wife, Ashley, and their two children live in Arlington, Virginia.

Welcome Tom to World Wise Beauty-  I am truly honored to have you join me here. I am honored because you are a well-respected author and scientist but I am truly honored because you are wise human being with a great spirit and voice. I don’t know if our readers will glean all this from just a short Q&A but I promise them if they read your books they will come to my same opinion. You begin your book with a very personal story about your own health issues and facing life threatening cancer at the age of sixteen. This traumatic event at such a young age must have impacted your life in a major way. Can you share a little about how your battle with a rare genetic cancer has shaped your attitude, lifestyle and habits?

 

Author Tom Rath

 

Tom Rath: Yes, I was born with a rare condition that causes rampant cancerous growth throughout the body. As a result of this genetic mutation, I have been battling cancer for over two decades now. This has led me to do a great deal of research on the topic of health in general. Over the last decade, most of my work is focused on helping others to think about what they can do to prevent heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, and other largely preventable conditions. One of the most important things I’ve learned from this research is that the best way to keep yourself from dwelling on what is beyond your control is to learn a little bit each day about what you can do to stay ahead of your health. This daily learning and knowledge not only helps my physical health, but gives me more mental energy as well.

Lauroly Q- In some ways your early hardship was a blessing in disguise. You are probably healthier than most people without cancer. My Mom is in the advanced stages of cancer right now and has lived several years beyond what doctors told her she would because she was very health conscious most of her adult life. I share this because your book is a call to action for everyone to take good care of themselves because little changes and regular good habits can insure a lifetime of good-health and ward off many diseases like diabetes and heart disease. And in your case and my Mom’s—even slow down the acceleration of cancer. The title of your book Eat, Move, Sleep is simple. How did you decide on this title and why did you choose to make healthy living sound so simple.

Tom Rath: Yes I did hope for this book to be a call to action. That is also related to how we chose the title Eat Move Sleep, as these are the three most essential elements that we all need to keep top of mind everyday. Perhaps most importantly, it is thinking of all three of these things in combination that matters most. If you do one of the three well, it makes the other two easier. At first, I might’ve thought that embarking on an exercise program and a new diet was doing too much at one time. But it turns out that it is better to work on multiple elements at once.

Lauroly Q- You have a chapter on “sugar” and you refer to it as the next nicotine of our time. You say this because it’s addictive but many people don’t really understand the real magnitude of sugar’s effects on the body. Rather than beating people over the head with scary lectures about sugar you highlight the very rapid and positive affects one experiences just by reducing your sugar intake a little. Tell us more…

Tom Rath: Personally, if there was only one thing I could reduce or eliminate from my diet I would start with sugar. After reading hundreds of articles and studies about the relationship between sugar consumption and disease, it is clear to me the increase in sugar intake is one of the major causes of the epidemic of diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and cancer. One of the reasons we are so addicted to sugar is because having a little makes us crave more. This is a challenge but also an opportunity. I personally found that something as simple as eliminating added sugar from my coffee help me to have fewer cravings for sweet food and drinks later in the day. Making some of these little adjustments seems to work pretty well over time.

Lauroly Q- We can’t end this Q&A without talking about the very important subject of sleep. Living in a world hyped up on technology and keeping us constantly tuned in, we are losing our natural circadian rhythms, which many scientists believe we must maintain for good health and well-being. I loved your chapter called “Feast at Sunrise, Fast at Sunset”. Why is sleep so important to our health and what are the simple things we can we do to get more of it?

Tom Rath: I grew up with the mentality that sleep was the first thing you cut out of your routine if you needed to get more done. For most of my life, I treated sleep as an expense. However the more I studied this topic I realize that sleep is an investment that gives you more energy, allows you to be more productive, and so on. In terms of getting better sleep, in my own experience little adjustments like keeping the temperature a few degrees cooler in my bedroom, minimizing electrical light and device usage in the evening, and even something as simple as using a white noise app make a difference. Once you start to add up what I call the cumulative advantage from all these little changes, the result is better days.

Lauroly Closing- Thank you Tom for stopping by to share your wisdom and expertise on health and wellness based on your real life experience and scientific research.  Yes, you do have a great deal of research and studies behind you, but you are also sort of like a wise grandfather one always wants to take time to listen to. Perhaps this is because you had an amazing relationship with your own grandfather who was a huge positive influence on your life.  And maybe facing adversity and the concept of death early in life helped you to appreciate and value your life and health in a profound way. It all adds up. But one thing is for sure, we are lucky you have a wonderful gift for clear writing, communicating and sharing wisdom. Keep sharing…we are listening!

To learn more about Tom Rath and his other best-selling books, please visit www.tomrath.org.

Truly herself,
Lauroly

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *