Tim mouth eat move sleep. Book Review: Eat, Move, Sleep: How Everyday Decisions Affect Health and Longevity by Tom Rath

We are accustomed to the fact that the transition to a healthy lifestyle requires some kind of cardinal changes, such as a complete rejection of nicotine and alcohol, regular sports activities, a change of residence. In many ways, this is why we don't pay enough attention to the "little things" - the daily decisions about what to eat for breakfast: oatmeal or a sandwich? Call a colleague or walk to his office? Go to bed early or let yourself relax a bit and watch your favorite show until late? But it is these “little things”, according to Tom Rath, that have a significant impact on the duration and quality of our life. The author has developed a simple technique that allows him, having a serious illness, to lead an active lifestyle and do what he loves. The technique is based on three main principles - quality sleep, constant movement and proper food. No matter what lifestyle you lead today, you can always change in order to live a long and fulfilling life. About what habits should be changed, what and when to eat and how to add more movement to your life, read in this book.

Current page: 1 (total book has 12 pages) [available reading excerpt: 3 pages]

Tom Rath
Eat, move, sleep. How everyday decisions affect health and longevity

Project Manager A. Derkach

Computer layout M. Potashkin

Art Director S. Timonov

The cover design uses illustrations from shutterstock.com.

The original English edition was published in 2013 by Missionday Arlington, Virginia, USA

All rights reserved. No part of the electronic version of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including posting on the Internet and corporate networks, for private and public use, without the written permission of the copyright owner.

* * *

Dedicated to my wife Ashley, daughter Harper and son Everett, who light up my day and give me hope for an even better tomorrow.

Eat, move, sleep

Every decision you make matters. Today you can make choices that will help you become stronger tomorrow. Making the right decisions increases your chances of living a long and healthy life.

A hundred years ago, people were dying from infectious diseases because they didn't have the right medicines. And today they continue to die from diseases that could be cured. The next time you see your friends, think about the fact that two of the three of you have every chance of dying prematurely from cancer or a heart attack.

Our trouble is that usually we do not think about the negative consequences of everyday decisions. It is unlikely that you want to go on a diet right now so that at the age of 60 you do not die of a heart attack due to the fact that you ate too much fried, sweet and meat. But preventing the disease at sixty will be possible, but much more difficult.

No matter what lifestyle you lead now, you can always change in order to live a longer and more fulfilling life. At any age, it is useful to learn how to make the right choice. The way you eat, sleep, move every day is very important. From my own experience, this can change a lot.

My story

It happened when I was sixteen. I was playing basketball with my friends, and suddenly it seemed to me that something was wrong with my vision - some kind of black dot was always floating in front of my eyes. I hoped that soon everything would pass, but it only got worse. Then I complained to my mother, and she immediately took me to the optometrist.

It turned out that this black dot was a tumor on the retina of the left eye. According to the doctor, I could go blind. I had to donate blood to get a complete picture of the state of my body. A couple of weeks later, my mother and I were again invited to the clinic to get acquainted with the results of the analysis.

The doctor said that I had a rare genetic disorder called Hippel-Lindau disease (VHL). Usually it is inherited, but in my case it was a rare type of genetic mutation that occurs in one case in 4.4 million. It disrupts the production of a gene responsible for suppressing cancer cells, which leads to the rapid development of neoplasms in almost all organs.

I remember very well how I sat at a massive wooden table in front of the doctor, and he told me that I would have to fight cancer for the rest of my days. My heart sank into my heels, and my brain frantically searched for the answer to the only question “Why?”. The doctor, meanwhile, said that I could soon develop cancerous tumors in the kidneys, adrenal glands, pancreas, brain and spinal cord.

This prospect frightened me even more than the risk of blindness. A conversation in the doctor's office made me look at my life in a whole new way. Will I be treated differently if they find out about my illness? Will I ever get married and have children? But more importantly, will I be able to live a long and happy life?

The doctors did everything possible to save my vision - they froze the tumor, tried to remove it with a laser. Unfortunately, I am permanently blind in one eye. Resigned to this loss, I began to seek any information about my rare disease.

It quickly became clear to me that the knowledge I was gaining could help me prolong my life. Over time, I have found that annual eye exams, MRIs, and CT scans keep me under control. If doctors found a tumor at an early stage, they were more likely to stop its development. This was great news. Now I could live much longer, even if it required complex operations.

For the past 20 years, I have been undergoing the necessary examinations every year. At the moment I have small neoplasms in the brain, kidneys, adrenal glands, pancreas and spinal cord. Every year I look to see if any of them have grown so large that they need to be removed. Most often, the question of the operation does not arise.

It may seem that living in constant expectation of the growth of active tumors is terrible. Perhaps that would be the case if I relied on something I could not control - my genes. But I keep everything under control with annual check-ups and do my best to reduce the risk of developing and spreading cancer cells in my body.

Year after year, I learn how to eat, move and sleep properly to improve my chances of a long and happy life. I put what I learned into practice every day. And every day I make a vital choice on which my future depends.

Little things matter

Making the right decisions is not easy - you have to compromise all the time. But the game is worth the candle. New data is constantly emerging about treatments for cancer, heart failure, and other chronic diseases. Every day I find new ideas that could help my loved ones live healthier and longer lives.

For the last 10 years I have been trying to systematize all the knowledge I have gained so that others can use it. I try to find proven and simple methods that will help people make the right decisions and live a healthy life. To do this, I study a lot of research literature - from medical and psychological journals to highly specialized works.

Of course, I'm not a doctor. And not a specialist in nutrition, exercise or sleep disorders. I'm just a patient. I am also a researcher and a very keen reader, and I like to find useful information and share it with my friends. In this book, I have collected the most interesting and effective techniques that I happened to learn about.

Everything I wrote about here influences my daily choices. Every bite that goes into my mouth increases or decreases my chances of spending another couple of years with my wife and kids. Half an hour of morning exercises give me strength for the whole day. A sound sleep at night allows you to cope with the tasks of the next day. So, with a healthy diet, exercise, and sleep, I can stay active, a good husband and father, and a passionate person.

All our actions, even the smallest ones, have a cumulative effect. If you make the right decisions more often than the wrong ones, you are more likely to live healthy into old age. Life is generally a game of luck. Take for example four diseases that are generally preventable: cancer, diabetes, heart failure, and lung disease. Together, 9 out of 10 people die from them. At the same time, studies have shown that, subject to certain simple rules, 90% of people could live up to 90 years. And not just to live, but to live without diseases that so poison mature years. And if someone from your family died of cancer or a heart attack, you still have a chance to avoid a similar fate.

Scientists have already proven that longevity is not inherited. Life expectancy is determined only by your habits. That is, the point is not how many your parents lived, and in as you live.

I myself am living proof that even with a bad genetic predisposition, you can survive. My lifestyle allows me to control the appearance of new and the growth of existing tumors.

Yes, unfortunately, nothing can definitely prevent cancer or guarantee you a long life. Do not believe those who promise such things. But everything I write about in this book will definitely help you increase your chances of living as long and happy as possible.

30 days to make the right decisions

I hope that you will find useful ideas in the book that you want to test in practice. Spend a month on this. Experience shows that new habits are acquired in about two weeks. The main thing is to take the first step, on your own or together with like-minded people.

In each chapter, you will find three evidence-based techniques and how to use them in practice. Try to use at least one of them within a month. Write down what needs to be done on paper and stick it in a visible place. This will help make the new skill a habit.

If the technique works, use it constantly, if not, try something else. Only you can figure out what works for you and what doesn't. But do not try to use everything that is described in this book. Not worth it. Introduce at least a couple of ideas into your life. In addition, at www.eatmovesleep.org you can:

Make a personal action plan based on your habits and tasks;

Download the First 30 Day Plan and other teamwork resources.

Take action! It is only important to develop a plan that will be effective in your particular situation. You can practice applying new skills with like-minded people or on your own - whichever suits you best. And remember: a couple of good habits acquired over the next month will allow you to fully live all the years to come.

The Eat, Move, Sleep Equality

A healthy breakfast in the morning will give you energy for the whole day. This will help you eat right throughout the day. And if you eat right and move a lot during the day, then sleep soundly at night. And after a night of good sleep, you will be full of energy the next day.

Poor sleep, on the contrary, immediately negatively affects our nutrition and activity. After a sleepless night, you will want to eat something unhealthy for breakfast, and the rest of the day you will hardly feel a surge of energy. As a result, all three elements will begin to act against you, and your life will deteriorate every day. That is why it is so important to correctly build all three components.

New research has shown that the combined positive effects of all these elements bring more benefits than diet or exercise alone. And eating right, moving and sleeping will be much easier if you debug all three processes at the same time.

If you eat right, move a lot and sleep well today, you will be full of energy tomorrow. You will be more attentive to friends and family. Achieve more at work and in other areas of life.

The main thing is to understand that your future depends on the decisions you make today.

1. Basics

Forget about fast weight loss

Believe me, you are not the only one who can not understand the latest trendy diets. Approximately three-quarters of those surveyed believe that it is impossible to eat right, relying on modern, ever-changing theories. At the same time, more than half of the respondents say that it is easier to calculate income tax than to draw up the right diet.

Perhaps that is why more than two-thirds of Americans cannot cope with being overweight and obese, although almost all of them adhere to diets. The problem is that "diet" implies a temporary effort. And because of this, many popular diets are doomed to failure. If you see an ad for a new diet that promises results in a few weeks, stop and think about the consequences.

If you want to lose weight, you will be offered many diets that will allow you to quickly get rid of extra pounds, but will not help you maintain your gains for a long time. Some "especially prominent" nutritionists suggest eating (you won't believe it!) only cookies or drinking only smoothies for several days. But even if you lose a couple of kilograms on such a diet, it will have a very detrimental effect on your health.

Even popular diets are doomed to failure if they take into account only one element of the equality "eat, move, sleep." In the early 1990s, low-fat diets were in vogue. As a result, many companies began to produce fat-free products. Diet bakeries opened on every corner, and fat-free crackers and chips appeared in stores. I, too, succumbed to the general craze for everything fat-free.

But it turned out that the reduction in the total proportion of fat is achieved by adding carbohydrates, sugar and synthetic substitutes. Manufacturers simply replaced fats with sugary ingredients.

Then came the turn of low-carb diets. People began to eat animal proteins in large quantities, not considering how this may affect the body. At the same time, vegetarian diets are also not very useful if animal proteins are replaced with processed carbohydrates or sugary foods.

Calorie-based diets have also proven to be insufficiently effective. As one of the researchers said: "Contrary to the theory of nutrition, calories are different calorie." It turned out that eating everything in moderation is also harmful.

Quality what you eat is much more important quantity. This was the main result of a study conducted at Harvard based on observations of more than 100,000 patients over 20 years. The researchers concluded that the type of food has a greater impact on health than the number of calories consumed. Even the level of physical activity is not as important as the quality of nutrition. As one scientist noted: “The idea that you can eat anything in moderation is just an excuse for gluttony.”

Popular diets can be helpful, but only as part of an integrated approach to nutrition. Remember what diets you have already tried. Take the most useful ideas from them and make them part of your diet. Try to choose foods that are lower in fat, carbohydrates and sugar.

Eating right is not that hard. Healthy food can be delicious. Prioritize foods that will give you energy for the day and keep you healthy into the future. It's much easier to stick to a healthy eating plan every day than it is to stick to one diet after another all the time.

Once you start eating right, be patient. Many people give up diet after diet because they don't get immediate results. The body needs time to respond to a change in nutrition. It usually takes a year or so. Instead of trying to get rid of a couple of pounds in the next month, think about how to change your entire diet, and then your new habits will bring many benefits in the future.

Immobility is your enemy

Morning exercise is not enough. Exercising three times a week is also not enough. The key to your health is constant movement.

For centuries, our ancestors spent most of their time on their feet. From the time of hunting wild animals until recently, physical labor has been the main occupation of man during the day. And only in the last century everything has changed dramatically.

Now during the day we sit more than we sleep (on average 9.3 hours per day). But our body is not adapted to this, because obesity and diabetes have become the scourge of the modern world. And the benefits of a diet and half an hour of exercise will not outweigh the harm of a sedentary lifestyle.

As a child, I was constantly on the move. I ran around with my friends, played basketball and played different sports. No wonder I was full of energy and strength.

Everything changed when I started working full time. All of a sudden I was spending most of my time sitting. At best, I managed to snatch an hour to work out in the gym. Another hour I spent walking from home to the office and back. Add to this 8 hours of sleep, and it turns out that I spent a whole 14 hours a day sitting in a car, in an office or in a taxi. Not at all like the active lifestyle that I led before starting work.

It is more important to reduce the overall amount of chronic inactivity than to add infrequent bursts of physical activity. Studies conducted by representatives of the US National Institutes of Health among 240,000 people over 10 years showed that exercise alone does not give the desired effect. And even seven hours of physical activity a week does not bring the expected result. Moreover, in the most active group of subjects who spent more than seven hours a week in the gym, those who otherwise led a sedentary lifestyle had a 50% higher risk of dying from a heart attack than the rest. So physical activity cannot outweigh the harm from a sedentary lifestyle.

You spend more and more time sitting. Let's count. Every morning you sit while you have breakfast and watch the news. Then you get to work for half an hour or an hour by public transport or by car. Then you work, that is, you sit in place for 8-10 hours. And in the evening you return home again (sitting!) And spend the evening with your family (also sitting!). Then you watch an hour or two of TV and go to bed.

Of course, you move throughout the day, but if you look at the average day, it becomes clear that there are many, many more periods of inactivity. Your task is to analyze your day and try to add movement, or at least reduce the time spent sitting. Trust me, there are hundreds of opportunities to move more throughout the day.

Sleep more - get more done

Minus one hour of sleep does not mean plus hour of active work or rest. Just the opposite. If you sleep an hour less, your well-being, productivity and ability to think clearly deteriorate. But people stubbornly sacrifice sleep for the sake of other benefits of civilization.

Some companies encourage working late, the main thing is that all tasks are completed. People boast that they only get four hours of sleep, because the main thing is work. I myself was in a similar trap, but then I realized how harmful this behavior is.

A performance study by renowned scientist Anders Erickson found that it takes 10,000 hours of “targeted training” to achieve outstanding results in your business. This statement has caused a heated debate about the role of innate talents and long practice, but the debaters overlooked one important point. In Erickson's seminal 1993 study, there was another important factor in high performance: sleep. In his opinion, for maximum effectiveness, a person needs to sleep 8 hours and 36 minutes. By comparison, the average American sleeps 6 hours and 51 minutes on average on workdays.

Surely you want to be sure that the pilot of your plane, your surgeon, your children's teacher or the head of your company had a great night's sleep the night before. But just representatives of such important professions lack sleep more often than others. And almost 30% of working people sleep less than six hours.

Inefficiency caused by lack of sleep costs us and our employers almost $2,000 per person per year and leads to an overall decrease in productivity and quality of work. People who sleep less than six hours are more likely to "burn out at work." So if you want to be successful, get enough sleep!

Studies conducted by Professor Erickson among musicians, actors, athletes and chess players have shown that rest significantly increases personal effectiveness. He found that the most prominent representatives of these professions took a break every one and a half hours of work. Frequent and regular pauses allowed them to fully recover and get back to work.

Don't let sleep deprivation slow you down. If you take too long to complete a task, your efficiency will decrease. Try to divide the working day into several parts, do not forget to take a break and get enough sleep at night. If you need to work an hour longer, sleep an extra hour.

You need to find the elements of healthy nutrition in your previous diets and make them part of your eating habits.

Every morning you need to plan the physical activity for the day in order to remain effective.

Get more sleep today so you can do more tomorrow.

Rath is known for his study of strength-based leadership and human well-being. Tom Rath's research became the basis for his books, many of which are bestsellers. Rath is a senior researcher and consultant at Gallup, Inc. or the Gallup Institute, perhaps America's most respected public opinion organization, founded by scientist and statistician George Gallup. Rath has been with Gallup for 13 years, leading research and advising on staff motivation, personal strengths, and well-being.

Tom Rath received his bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Michigan and his master's degree in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. In addition to his academic work at Gallup, Inc., Rath is Vice Chairman of the Hippel-Lindau disease research organization. In addition, he is regularly invited to lecture at the University of Pennsylvania.

Tom Rath's first book, The Power of Optimism: Why Positive People Live Longer (How Full Is Your Bucket?), co-authored with his grandfather, Donald O. Clifton, became a bestseller in his last year on the authoritative New York Times list, and not only became a bestseller, but also took first place in it after publication in 2004.

In 2009, Tom Rath published another bestseller, this time by the Wall Street Journal, Strengths Based Leadership: Great Leaders, Teams, and Why People Follow. Leaders") was created in collaboration with Barry Conchie and was based on Roth's research at the Gallup Institute. The book describes the qualities that the authors believe true leaders should have, the expectations that are placed on them (for example, (trust, compassion, stability, hope), and, most importantly, the authors give advice that readers can use to develop own leadership potential.The book has not yet been translated into Russian.

Wellbeing: The Five Essential Elements, another 2010 New York Times bestseller co-authored with Jim Harter, is based on Gallup's wellness research, moreover, both in the universal human and in the psychological sense - well-being or prosperity as a combination of social, economic, psychological, medical and spiritual indicators. In 2011 the book was translated into Russian. The five elements of well-being, according to Roth and Harter, include career, social, financial well-being, good health, and contribution to society. The book is small, but literally to the eyeballs filled with advice - as they say now, life hacks - with the help of which even the most inert reader can change his life for the better.

One of Roth's most famous books, "StrengthsFinder 2.0", which can be translated as "Talent Identification", was published in 2007 and became a #1 bestseller by the Wall Street Journal. In 2011, The Economist listed the book as one of the world's best-selling business books, and in 2012, the book topped the lists of the most commercially successful non-fiction books on amazon.com.

At the age of 16, Rath was diagnosed with the disappointing diagnosis of Hippel-Lindau disease, a rare genetic disease that provokes an increased growth of cancer cells in various parts of the body. Since then, Rath has been researching and experimenting with various ways to slow the growth of tumors in his kidneys, adrenals, pancreas, and spine.

In 2012, he took a year off from Gallup to focus on a new book, Eat Move Sleep: How Small Choices Lead to Big Changes. The book was released in October 2013 and became an immediate New York Times bestseller. In addition, Eat Move Sleep was named one of the best non-fiction books of 2013 by Apple iTunes. The book talks about the impact of nutrition, movement and sleep on a person's well-being and offers practical advice on how to significantly improve your health indicators using simple steps. Perhaps, advocates of a healthy lifestyle will not find anything fundamentally new in Eat, Move, Sleep, but the book is valuable precisely because of the abundance of tips and techniques tested by the author from his own experience.

Tom Rath is an American writer, researcher, and public speaker. More than five million copies of his books have been sold worldwide, translated into 16 languages.

Tom Rath received his bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Michigan and his master's degree in psychology from Pennsylvania.

Van University. In addition to his academic work at Gallup, Inc., Rath is Vice Chairman of the Hippel-Lindau disease research organization. In addition, he is regularly invited to lecture at the University of Pennsylvania.

reat Leaders, Teams, and Why People Follow" was created in collaboration with Barry Conchie and is based on Roth's research at the Gallup Institute. The book describes the qualities that the authors believe true leaders should have, the expectations that are placed on them (for example, (trust, compassion, stability, hope), and, most importantly, the authors give advice that readers can use to develop their own leadership potential.The book has not yet been translated into Russian.

Wellbeing: The Five Essential Elements, another 2010 New York Times bestseller,

co-authored with Jim Harter, is based on Gallup's research on well-being, both in a human and psychological sense - well-being or prosperity as a set of social, economic, psychological, medical and spiritual indicators. In 2011 the book was translated into Russian. The five elements of well-being, according to Roth and Harter, include career, social, financial well-being, good health, and contribution to society. The book is small, but literally to the eyeballs filled with advice - as they say now, life hacks - with the help of which even the most inert reader can change his life for the better.

One of Roth's most famous books, "StrengthsFinder

2.0", which can be translated as "Talent Identification", was published in 2007 and became a #1 bestseller according to the Wall Street Journal. topped the lists of the most commercially successful non-fiction books on amazon.com.

In 2012, he took a year off from the Gallup Institute to

focus on a new book, Eat Move Sleep: How Small Choices Lead to Big Changes. The book was released in October 2013 and became an immediate New York Times bestseller. In addition, Eat Move Sleep was named one of the best non-fiction books of 2013 by Apple iTunes. The book talks about the impact of nutrition, movement and sleep on a person's well-being and offers practical advice on how to significantly improve your health indicators using simple steps. Perhaps, advocates of a healthy lifestyle will not find anything fundamentally new in Eat, Move, Sleep, but the book is valuable precisely because of the abundance of tips and techniques tested by the author from his own experience.