How mindfulness can lead to a healthier and more sustainable world

Mar 20

Sharing her wisdom here is Dr. Parneet Pal, Chief Science Officer of Wisdom Labs.

Hear about the relationship between mindfulness and consumptive behaviors, how to tell if stress is negatively affecting our wellbeing even if we're not formally diagnosed medically as ill, the three keys to sparking behavioral change, and more.

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This is a conversation on Green Dreamer Podcast with Kaméa Chayne, a show exploring environmental and intersectional sustainability from ideas to life. Subscribe to Green Dreamer on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or any podcast app and let’s learn what it takes to thrive in every sense of the word!

Highlights

[2:14] What first inspired Parneet's dedication to holistic wellness.

[4:48] What led Parneet into lifestyle medicine.

[5:43] Parneet explains how the majority of healthcare costs are spent on chronic diseases that are actually preventable.

[8:00] Parneet: "I think most of us know the right thing we need to do for our health and wellbeing, but there's a huge gap between knowing and doing."

[9:03] Kaméa: "Across the board, we are experiencing increasing levels of stress, burnout, anxiety, and loneliness. What are your thoughts on what the driving forces are behind this negative trend?"

[11:13] Parneet discusses how technology affects our mental health.

[13:10] Kaméa: "What is your personal biggest challenge when helping people to process and manage our more stressful modern lifestyles?"

[14:57] Kaméa: "Do you think it's easier to change the system or to train individuals to take care of themselves?"

[16:13] Subtle signs to watch out for as indicators of deteriorating health, even if we're not medically diagnosed with an illness.

[17:54] How mindfulness and self-awareness can affect our ability to be effective environmental activists for our communities and the planet.

[19:19] Parneet discusses how our daily stress responses can impact our mental and emotional health, our creativity, and our abilities to think beyond our own good.

[21:15] What mindfulness is from a scientific standpoint.

[24:35] How mindfulness can increase our general senses of life satisfaction.

[25:25] How practicing mindfulness can lead to us becoming more empathetic and less consumptive.

[27:20] How we can practice mindfulness in our own lives.

[27:50] Parneet: "Before we can change the world, we have to start with our own selves."

[29:07] Why leadership buy-in is so important in order to transform teams, organizations, and communities.

[30:58] Kaméa: "What exactly does it take to actually change our behaviors and habits?"

[33:02] Parneet: "Make sure that you seek out support, especially when you fail or when you forget to do what you want to do. And that will happen—it's very human and it's part of the change process, so it's okay when you fail or when you forget to do something. It's more important to just get back up and restart."

References

About our Guest

Parneet Pal is the Chief Science Officer at Wisdom Labs, a San Francisco-based company solving for stress, burnout, anxiety, and loneliness in the workplace. A Harvard-trained physician, she focuses on the intersection of lifestyle medicine, behavior change and technology and building wiser workplaces using the science of mindfulness, resilience, and compassion.

Keep in touch

Website: www.parneetpal.com
Twitter: @parneet_pal
LinkedIn: @parneetpal

Wisdom Labs:

Tips

Inspiration: Parneet loves the TED Conference.

Note to self: "When I'm feeling down, I remember that I'm not alone and that many people before me have gone through whatever difficulty that I'm going through in that moment."

Health practice: "I'm just working on rehabing my shoulder right now."

Sustainability practice: "I'm becoming even more aware of moving to a plant-rich diet."

Element of hope: "Kids!"

Closing words: "To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing." —Raymond Williams

Podcast Sponsor

Arbor Teas is a small, family-owned business based in Ann Arbor, Michigan with a big focus on sustainability. The company only sources loose leaf and organic certified teas, packages all its teas in backyard compostable materials, uses solar power in its operations, and offsets all of its emissions with CarbonFund. We're grateful for our sponsors making our show possible and invite you to shop organic teas from Arbor Teas.