Episode 3: Wearable tech, is it worth the hype?

Oct. 3, 2023 |  29 mins  

Join our host Jennifer Botterill as she chats with Dr. Greg Wells, a health and high-performance expert, physiologist, and author from Toronto, Ontario. In this episode you’ll learn what wearable tech is all about, the benefits of incorporating it into your daily routine and how could it help you achieve your health goals.

Announcer:

You are listening to the Beyond Age podcast series.

Jennifer Botterill:

Hi, and welcome to Beyond Age, a Manulife exclusive podcast. Manulife cares about the physical, mental and financial wellbeing of Canadians. And during this podcast series, we chat with industry experts to uncover the truth about holistic health and aging to keep you living healthier for longer, no matter your age. I'm your host, Jennifer Botterill, and today I'm joined by Dr. Greg Wells, a health and high performance expert from Toronto, Ontario. We'll be discussing wearable technology and whether it is worth the hype. Welcome, Dr. Greg.

Dr. Greg Wells:

Jen, it's so good to see you again. Thank you so much for having me on the show. I'm psyched to connect again just because I've seen obviously your amazing work over the last little while and you're brilliant analysis and insights, so hopefully we can have a great chat and take it to another level in a different field.

Jennifer Botterill:

I really appreciate that. I've always admired and respected the work that you've done in many industries, including the many connections you've had with sport. So thank you for joining us. To get started, why don't you tell us a little bit more about yourself please and how you first got into this field?

Dr. Greg Wells:

So competitive swimmer growing up broke my neck when I was 15, rehab, all that sort of stuff. And I got back to swimming, but not quite at the level that I wanted to be at. All my friends made the Olympics, I didn't, but I ended up doing kinesiology because I was fascinated by the human body. Went on to do a Master's PhD post-doc, consulted with the Canadian Olympic team through the Sports Center Network and also built a research practice at Sick Kid's Hospital and exercise medicine. So worked with Olympic level athletes or children with cancer and cystic fibrosis. We call it extreme human physiology, but all around optimizing health and wellness and performance. And a few years ago I got fascinated by wearable technology. I was sitting in my laboratory at the University of Toronto and looking out at my PhD students and everyone was doing physiological measurements and I realized, oh my gosh, we can do almost all of those measurements on a wearable device now got to get into this. And so for the last five or six years have been fascinated by wearable tech.

Jennifer Botterill:

Okay. So about the wearable tech then. Can we start the basics? So what exactly is wearable tech and what does that term include? Is it a specific device? Is it an app that you put on your phone? Can you give us a little further context please?

Dr. Greg Wells:

Sure. I mean the amazing thing that's happening right now is I think that to some extent, for better or for worse, we are seeing an integration between humans and technology. Just think about, most of us now carry a phone, but then a lot of other people are wearing rings or watches or other types of wearables that collect data, usually physiological, and then give us insights about how hard is our workout, how stressed are we, how good is our sleep? So we encompass wearable technology as any device that sits on the human body, that collects data about our physiology or some cases our psychology, and gives that information back to us to hopefully help us live a better, healthier life.

Jennifer Botterill:

So for many of our listeners, they've probably heard of the Fitbit or the Garmin or the Apple Watch. What do you believe are the best features of these devices?

Dr. Greg Wells:

So they all do a lot of the same stuff. So I'm kind of agnostic, Greg. I personally have chosen to put my effort and energy into Apple Watch and we've built an app called VIIVIO and it's designed to put everything into one place that I can get all of the data that I would want as a physiologist at sort of the highest level that allows me to track my workouts, my sleep, my stress level. And some examples of that is we have an accelerometer. So accelerometer measures, how much movement are you doing? A lot of us read that in terms of the number of steps that we take. But these devices, many of them also collect your heart rate and your heart rate as an athlete tells you how hard are you working at your activity, walking, run, jog, swim, bike, yoga, gardening, whatever that happens to be.

It can collect your heart rate and tell you how hard is your workout, right? I happen to be in the Apple ecosystem, therefore an Apple watch makes sense for me because I've got the iPhone, it connects and it's easiest for me to use that. But let's take a look at each one of those and sort of examine what they are really focusing on and what they seem to do really well. I think Fitbit is doing a great job at quantifying the number of steps that you take and feeding that to whoever is using the device so that they know how physically active am I over the course of day. That's really what they have done a great job of. If you just want, I just want steps, then I would say for sure just get a Fitbit and keep it super simple and win that one.

And they're very economical. They've got some options that are really affordable, therefore it's an easy sort of thing to add. And then Apple Watch has things like an accelerometer, so it can tell how much movement is being done. So that's your steps has a heart rate monitor built in. They've got now an oxygen saturation monitor, which is interesting in its potential to detect sleep apnea if you're into an easy platform that is almost intuitive. I think AppWatch has done a great job of making it very accessible, really good data, something that's comprehensive, holistic for your entire lifestyle and many different things. And it's a great starting point. And then there's the Garmins, which are used by a bit hardcore runners and cyclists because they've really focused in on GPS measuring where is this device on a map and telling you how fast are you traveling on your bicycle or how fast are you're running or are you going up a hill or down a hill and how much power did you create during your ride? So if you want to train in a very focused way for an endurance event, I think Garmin wins, but it depends on your objectives. Those are the different leaders in the space. So it's fascinating to see how all of them have found a niche, if you will. And those are the key ones that are having a lot of success right now.

Jennifer Botterill:

Now I think about many different people in my life, whether it's me personally, whether it's my husband, whether it's my parents. And thinking about for any listener, how will they know when it would be beneficial for them to wear a wearable device, whether it's throughout the day, at what age, during their lives, would it be helpful?

Dr. Greg Wells:

It's so interesting. I think it really spans the entire range of the human age spectrum and also to some extent the human health spectrum. So if you think about an older person living at home by themselves and they have a watch that can detect a fall and automatically call a loved one that's a wearable tech device, it could be super valuable. At the same time, I've got an eight year old boy who's fascinated by his step count and he's fascinated by trying to beat his buddies at the number of steps that he gets during the course of his day at camp. Right now, my wife Judith, is fascinated by her sleep and she has a ring that collects her sleep data because that's a big focus for her right now is trying to feel more rested. And me, the biohacking physiologist, I have a wearable device that allows me to track my workouts, my sleep. It applies to the younger people who might be interested in their physical activity levels, older people who might be interested in using it as more of a safety device. And then people of my age, so I'm in around 50, and Judith my wife who's a little bit younger than me, is being fascinated by sleeping better. So there's many different things that we can use it for to get insights that then hopefully enable us to make some lifestyle changes, feel better and to get healthier.

Jennifer Botterill:

And it's amazing how applicable it is to everyday life. When I think back to my life as an athlete and the simple heart rate monitor that we wore several years ago and how it's evolved. Is there anything else from your experience that you wanted to summarize in terms of the benefits of incorporating some of these wearables into your daily routine?

Dr. Greg Wells:

I think there is. I'm actually very encouraged by the data, and you can look at it in a couple of different ways. You can look at it at the number of people that keep using them or the number of people that stop using them. And in the context of the fact that about 85% of Canadians don't get enough physical activity to prevent a chronic disease, that's not even to be healthy. That's just not to get cancer, heart disease types, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, depression. We know that only about 15% of the population is getting enough activity not to get sick. We want more people being more physically active if we possibly can in absolutely any way; walk, run, jog, swim, bike, paddle, garden, housework, don't care, just move a little bit more. So how do we nudge that number up? How do we get more than 15% of the population being physically active?

Well, the data on wearables suggest that after six months, about 30% of the people who started using a wearable are still using that wearable. Now that might not mean 70% of the people stopped, but in the context of 85% of people don't get enough physical activity to get 30% of the people still using one is I think a massive win. So if you can get a wearable device, if you can use it to track something that is meaningful for you, a little bit of physical activity, maybe some nutrition, maybe sleep, maybe your exercise patterns and you use that on a continuous basis over a long period of time, give you the information that you need to know. If the lifestyle changes that you're making are having an effect, then I think that that is definitely something that can be very, very helpful for many people moving forward. I've certainly found it super helpful for me over my journey just to keep track of what I'm doing and maybe send some information to some of my buddies to get them off the couch and doing something as well to encourage them.

Jennifer Botterill:

Good for you, Dr. Greg. And you talked about the consistency of that, of monitoring. Well, how can people benefit from the data that's collected from these wearables, right? Or for some people, is it just interesting and nice to have or how can you create that into a health benefit?

Dr. Greg Wells:

It's really interesting. When we look at the data that's been done on wearable devices and the accuracy of the data that it collects, it shows very high reliability. So that means that if you measure yourself against yourself using the same device at the same time of day consistently over time, it is hyper accurate for you comparing you to yourself. In terms of validity, does the wearable device compare to laboratory quality data? So let's say sleep for example; does the number of deep sleep minutes that you get correlate to if you went to a sleep lab with electrodes on your head? It's a little bit less accurate, still reasonable relationships, but the reliability is the key. So it's brilliant at you detecting changes in you. And if you do that consistently over time, you can see trends begin to emerge. You can begin to see when do I get a good night's sleep, when do I not get a good night's sleep?

When am I active? I've learned that when I travel, because I travel a lot through speaking and as you do and events and sports and all these different things that we go to, when I travel and I sleep in a hotel, it is hard for me to be physically active and to get a good night's sleep. So I now put a ton of energy into making sure that I bring my clothes, bring my gym stuff, hook up with other people for workouts, do the sleep protocols, all of the things that we do because I have found in my data that is a real dip for me under normal circumstances. And everyone might be able to find those challenging moments and then make course corrections with your health objectives and maybe overcoming a challenge that you're faced with types diabetes, maybe it's mental health, all those sorts of things. When we have this data, it's definitely something that we can use to make course corrections in our lifestyle to improve our health.

Jennifer Botterill:

Right, of course. And we've talked a lot about, I think the benefits that we've seen. Is there a flip side? Are there any limitations or drawbacks surrounding wearables that we need to be aware of that come to mind for you?

Dr. Greg Wells:

I think the number one drawback of all of these wearable devices is that we should use them to give us the information that we need to make good decisions to make our life better. The challenge is that they're on your body 24/7, so it's very easy to become obsessed over them and to obsess over the data. And you might get a great night's sleep, but get some data off of your wearable device that says, hey, maybe it wasn't that good, and then you don't feel good as a results So at the end of the day, we really just want to make sure that we are living our lives. I don't want people looking at them 24/7, a little bit of data here and there just to make some micro course corrections in your life, I think is the way to make them work for you for a long period of time.

It's an estimate. It's a broad paintbrush, like we're not doing the detailed analysis that you would if you were in a laboratory. So take it all with a grain of salt and of course you feeling you is the most important data that you could possibly have. I love going for a run every single week and having no technology on me whatsoever, no music, no wearable, no heart rate, no GPS, so that I can just feel what it's like to go for a run. And also I think that going for an easy walk with no technology, no music, no podcast, no heart rate, no GPS, out in nature in the park near your house is one of the most powerful beneficial things that you can do. And if you separate yourself from your technology, that actually has tremendous health benefits as well.

So as much as technology can help us, we also want to be very careful not to use technology compulsively. And separate ourselves from our technologies so that our physiology and our psychology and our emotions, our mindset and our health set or our soul set, can all calm down. We want to use our technology intentionally, not compulsively. And if it's intentional, to give us some information that helps us, that's fantastic. But if we're constantly checking our devices all the time, some data suggests that humans touch their phones about 400 times a day, but we want to make sure that we're being intentional about it because it's very easy to get too engaged with it too often, and thatactually becomes something that's a detriment to us rather than something that's helpful for us.

Jennifer Botterill:

Absolutely. And so when people do collect this data from the wearable devices, at what point should they potentially seek help from a healthcare professional or a specialist?

Dr. Greg Wells:

It's cool because you've actually found another one of the major problems with wearable technology, and that is they collect data, but they're not awesome at telling you what the data means for you. And so let's say your deep sleep numbers are relatively lower than we would want to see them. So it's normally we want about 25% or two hours a night of deep sleep. And let's say you're only getting 30 minutes and you see that data, but it's really hard to know what are my numbers? Are they good or are they bad? And so whenever we get this data and you have questions, you do need to find your trusted web. And right now there's a proliferation of information on the internet and some of it's true and a lot of it definitely isn't. And a lot of it's designed to get clicks and all those sorts of things.

And I believe that one of the great advances that we could make in the next five years is to establish the trusted web of people who are experts, who have the qualifications, have done the research, have the practice to be able to give us advice on where we need to go with our health and wellbeing. So if you are not sleeping well and if you notice it on your wearable device that the data corroborates that feeling that you're just not getting a good night's sleep, then for sure it's worth having a conversation about that with your family doctor and maybe getting a referral to a sleep specialist to evaluate, do you have sleep apnea? Are you having disturbed sleep so you can corroborate the information that you're getting from your wearable. Similarly, if you are feeling like maybe I don't have enough energy, maybe I'm not as fit as I'd like to be, and you get the wearable device and you notice the app, I'm only getting three to 4,000 steps a day, then that's something that you could talk to a personal trainer or a registered kinesiologist about to help them craft a weak plan for you to get you to be more physically active and to have some accountability to check in with someone to make sure that you're making that progress.

And it might be joining a walking group, joining a running group. If it's stress, maybe you join a meditation group and you check your heart rate variability. So that's definitely a gap that exists right now is using the data to give you your own personalized recommendations. But obviously the human experts, I mean, that's where you're going to get the best advice because it'll be for you and it'll be a conversation, it'll be a relationship, and that's something that you can build on over a long period of time.

Jennifer Botterill:

And can you expand a little bit more on how these healthcare professionals and specialists could best make use right of the information that they're collecting and gathering from your wearable? If you go in to see someone, how are they going to break that down to every individual's benefit? Is it specifically the data? Is it through data and conversation? Or how do they get their best overall view to help every individual?

Dr. Greg Wells:

Let's just say you're going in for your annual physical with your doctor and you have a smart scale at home and it's been tracking your weight and your percent body fat over months and feeding that into your device, and you can share that information with your doc. And instead of just going in and stepping on the scale once a year and having a annual data point, you can go in and say, hey, this is the trend over the last six months. What do you think about this? So you and your healthcare provider have more information. Now, the data from your wearable is not laboratory quality, but it is data and it is what it's, so we all know that. Then you and your healthcare provider, your doctor, your naturopath, your dietician, your psychologist, your registered kinesiologist, your personal trainer, whoever is helping you to improve your health and wellbeing mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, can then have a conversation about the data and say, oh, it looks like it's trending up.

It looks like it's trending down. You're going in the right direction. Maybe we need to make some course corrections. And hopefully the expert that you have chosen to speak to, can give you some actionable tips on how to improve your sleep, how to make some better decisions around food more often, not all the time, but maybe we course correct. And instead of having dessert every day, we just do it on the weekends or something like that. Or maybe it's a morning walk, or it's two minutes of mindfulness in the middle of your day just to decrease your stress level for your afternoons at work. So we're just looking to find the right things to do and checking your data with your expert to be able to get the right suggestions for you and then test those. Do they work? Do you like them? Are they integratable into your life? And then move on from there.

Jennifer Botterill:

And it sounds like learning about these trends could be hugely beneficial. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back after this message

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Jennifer Botterill:

Welcome back to Beyond Age. Dr. Greg, you've given us quite a broad scope of the different options for wearable technology. What are the new and upcoming technology trends that you've heard about in the health and tech world?

Dr. Greg Wells:

I think one of the most interesting ones that's coming up, which I think can have some huge benefits for people is blood glucose monitoring. Right now, in order to get your blood glucose measurements, you actually have to measure blood. So you have to put in a needle or you have to put a pin prick in the skin, get a drop of blood out, do the blood glucose analysis and find out what your blood glucose levels are. This is obviously critically important for people with type one and type two diabetes,. And we know that type two diabetes is something that we can treat with nutrition and exercise, in addition to obviously any meds that your doctor might prescribe for you, it is lifestyle modifiable in terms of type two diabetes. Therefore having that data on your blood glucose levels through a wearable device, and not something that pokes through your skin, would enable us to have much better in terms of more consistent data, not necessarily more accurate because obviously directly measuring your blood would be more accurate than a wearable, but the aggregate of having that data over the course of the day, the week, the month, the year, I think is something that could be incredibly beneficial for upwards of 25 to 30% of the population.

So I'm actually super psyched about that one. Another really interesting thing that's been seen that we now have access to that used to be only available in the lab is something called heart rate variability. And heart rate variability is how much your heart rate changes, and that can give us an indication of how stressed you are with a low heart rate variability, counterintuitively indicating high stress and high heart rate variability, lots of variation in your heart rate, counterintuitively again indicating that you are more relaxed. So that's definitely something we can use throughout the course of the day, the week, the month, the year to get a handle on how we're feeling. And I'm also really interested in oxygen saturation measurements, which tells us how much oxygen is loaded into your blood because so many people struggle with sleep apnea, and this would enable us to be able to say, we have someone who might be having some sleep apnea. Definitely go chat to your doc about that and see if you might want to talk to a sleep specialist to get some support on that. We know that that's related to cancer, heart disease type diabetes and also mental health as well.

Jennifer Botterill:

And are those readily available for people or they're in the works for people at this point in time?

Dr. Greg Wells:

Oxygen saturations currently available, and that is on a number of different devices you can access your oxygen saturation levels. Oxygen saturation during sleep isn't available on all of the software yet, but I think that there's potential for it to be dropped in very soon. We're working on that in terms of blood glucose measurement, non-invasively, like no needles, no pinpricks, no blood that's in development. I expect to see that within the next 12 to 24 months.

Jennifer Botterill:

Amazing, amazing. When it comes to healthy aging in particular, is there any evidence to suggest that wearing wearable tech has helped people improve their health and their longevity and how

Dr. Greg Wells:

We're learning so much about aging right now, I'm personally fascinated. I'm 52 and when I wake up in the morning, it is no longer automatically I feel awesome like I used to. I have to stretch, I got to get warmed up. It's crazy how much more effort it takes to be healthy and well. And we're learning so much about aging that suggests that what we experience is aging isn't necessarily caused by progression of time. It's often associated with a decrease in physical activity or a decrease in the quality of our sleep. And we know that we can slow the progression of aging through lifestyle. We know that if we're more physically active that what we experience as aging is slowed significantly. Does wearable tech in and of itself decrease the symptoms of what we experience as aging? I don't think that it does. I don't think putting a device on your arm would change the trajectory of aging if you don't modify your lifestyle.

However, if you use a wearable device to give you information and motivation to be more physically active, to make better choices around food, to get a better night's sleep, to shift out of sympathetic stress, nervous system activation to parasympathetic rest and recovery, nervous system activation through things like meditation or getting into nature or taking asana a few times a week or 30 second cold shower first thing in the morning, there's lots of different things we can do to make those shifts. That's fascinating to me. So as long as it's something that motivates you and informs you to be more physically active or make any of the other lifestyle changes that we've just spoken about, then I think it's a wonderful thing. But wearable tech in and of itself is probably not that powerful yet. Until we have something that sticks on the side of your head and changes the way that your brain works to make you get up off the couch and go for a walk regardless of if you want to or not. But I don't think we're quite there yet, and that might not be something that we're looking to implement.

Jennifer Botterill:

Maybe not yet. But you do talk about the number of correlations to your lifestyle and how it can just give you a bigger, clear picture of your lifestyle and any changes you might want to make. Are there any myths or misconceptions about wearable health technology or the use of AI and healthcare that you think needs to be debunked?

Dr. Greg Wells:

You know what? I'm always hesitant to debunk things because science is a progression, and as we learn through testing our hypotheses, eventually no matter what, we are going to discover that some of the things that we thought were true maybe aren't. And that's just the progression of science. And I worry that by debunking something, we're saying science doesn't work or that means that, well, I'm not going to worry about what the next discovery is because that other discovery was wrong. So I just want to share with everyone that science is learning. It's an ongoing process, and we will learn things that prove to be absolutely true. We know, know that for example, saunas three times a week for 20 minutes at a certain temperature that makes you sweat is associated with an extension of our expected lifespan and reduction of cardiovascular disease. We know that.

I mean, it was practiced in Scandinavian countries, but now we've done the research to back it up and look at those. We now know that that is probably true. Well that be true in a hundred years, who knows? But right now, that is definitely something that's working. We're learning a lot about cold water immersion, for example, that may or may not prove to be true. So there's lots of things that we are learning about. I actually think that artificial intelligence is something that has tremendous potential for helping us to be able to express our questions and get hopefully evidence-based information back. The quality of data and the likelihood of getting inaccurate data or completely fabricated data out of AI right now is significant. But I'm hoping that that changes. And what we're working on in my group is training AI on trusted information from advisors.

So I'm feeding my books into it and say, only scrape from my books or checking out books from other people that I trust and building the trusted web. So if you can use AI to help you understand information from your trusted web people that you trust, then I think that it has tremendous potential. But right now, use it with caution, and it's more of an experiment right now, but for sure it's going to play a huge role in the future. I can't imagine really a doctor of the future not using artificial intelligence to check their recommendations. For example. And I also work in diagnostic imaging. I do a lot of MRI research. We now know that if you can train AI on data sets for breast cancer, for example, it does a fantastic job of detecting breast cancer more accurately more quickly than a radiologist can. We always want to be considering what does the future hold. I think there's tremendous potential, definitely not there yet at the consumer level, but I can't imagine a future where it's not a big part of what we're going to be experiencing.

Jennifer Botterill:

Right. Well, it's certainly incredible to learn about the progression of science as you referred it to, and it's good to know that some of the approaches we took, even when I was playing on Team Canada, you mentioned the saunas, the cold baths. We were traveling in Finland, and that was part of our routine. Even up until I retired, I remember my last big games, the cold baths were still a part of that recovery process and certainly helped with us for longevity. So in terms of your ideal world, where would you like to see the future of wearables lead and the future of technology and healthcare all together?

Dr. Greg Wells:

I've been at Sick Kid's for the last 20 years and have been very fortunate to do research on cystic fibrosis and leukemia. And a couple of my grad students did cardiology work and lupus work and inflammatory rheumatoid arthritis work. And it's always intrigued me about what would it take for me to walk into the hospital at someday in the future and for it to be empty? That would be the ultimate. What does Greg Wells's future for healthcare looks like? There is no healthcare, because we're not treating disease anymore, we're shifting to prevention. And the way that we can prevent the vast majority of chronic illnesses, and the big ones are there's four or five that kill the vast majority of people, cancer, heart disease, obesity. We know what the problems are, and we also know that lifestyle is an effective way for us to reduce the effect of those conditions and to probably extend the amount of life that we can live before those conditions affect us.

So instead of having a 10 year slow decline to our statistical age when we die, it's 82 great years and one bad week instead of 72 great years and 10 bad years. So that's what the goal is for me, is empty hospitals and shifting from a treatment of disease model to a prevention of disease model. Obviously I think technology can play a role in that, but also what plays a role in that building parks, I believe in building accessible cities that bike paths are a part of walking paths are a part of making it easy for children to do physical activity at school, building physical activity options into our workplaces, prioritizing healthy nutrition at school, at work, at home, building in holistic mental health practices like mindfulness and meditation and prayer, if that's in your belief system and getting out into nature and all of those other practices that we can do.

I really believe that the future has to shift towards a prevention model. Does tech play a role in that? It absolutely could. We can use technology to figure out which of those tactics work for us and maybe use artificial intelligence to come up with a nutrition plan for ourselves or a workout plan for ourselves. There's so many different ways that tech could help us move to that better future, but it does require a huge shift, and it does require a political shift from short-term band-aid fixes to long-term actual prevention of these afflictions that affect the vast majority of us. So that's my vision. I don't know if I'll be able to do it. I'm working at it as much as I can, trying to push that agenda forwards with my friends who are politicians and trying to push information out into the world that helps people at scale. So that's what it's all about. That's the dream. And if I don't get there, maybe my kids will, who knows?

Jennifer Botterill:

Absolutely. And the hospitals might not be empty yet, but thank you for all the incredible work that you do on a daily basis to help people with those tools and the methods in terms of that prevention piece. So much valuable information that we have all learned throughout this discussion. So finally, is there one or two key takeaways that you would like our listeners to take away from our discussion today?

Dr. Greg Wells:

Probably the number one takeaway is that it's possible to make improvements if you have data, if you measure where you're at and if you make micro adjustments in your lifestyle, this does have an effect. And over time, things will change, and it doesn't matter how much you do. We know that 15 minutes of walking is enough to reduce your risk of 13 different types of cancer by 24 to 40%, two to three minutes of mindfulness meditation, rewires the deep white matter tracks of neurons inside the brain. We know that this stuff works. It doesn't take much to have an effect. The magic is if you're able to do it consistently over a long period of time, that's what actually changes your nad. It changes your physiology, changes your psychology, and builds it in as part of your life and makes it something that is part of you forever. And that's really what I'm hoping people can take away, is that it is possible to make these little tiny adjustments. Just stick with it, put your energy towards one or two things at a time. Don't overcomplicate it, don't make massive changes, micro changes over time. And if we're able to tech helps you to do that, then that's fantastic.

Jennifer Botterill:

Amazing. Dr. Greg, thank you. I think you inspire so many of us with the work that you do on a daily basis, that you are constantly helping people and to show people what is possible, to live their best life and to be their most well on a consistent basis. So thank you for sharing your insights. It's been an absolute thrill for me to interact, and all of our listeners will appreciate your insights. So thank you, Dr. Greg.

Dr. Greg Wells:

My pleasure. Thanks so much, Jen. Thanks for your insights, your analysis and facilitating this conversation and all of the amazing things that you've brought to the world too. And inspiration for people like my daughter who's 13, who looks up to you as well. So thank you for everything that you've done.

Jennifer Botterill:

Thank you so much. So that's it. Thanks for tuning in to Beyond Age, an exclusive podcast from Manulife. Tune into the next episode where we talk to Kasley Killam from Los Angeles, California, all about how social connection and relationships can keep you feeling young. Don't forget to visit our website manulife.ca/livehealthier for more tips, videos, and content from Manulife that can help you live healthier for longer, no matter your age.

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