Dr. Teri Fisher: Hello and welcome to episode number 10 of Anti-Aging Insights. Can’t believe we’re already here at episode number 10. It’s been a lot of fun bringing these first 10 episodes to you, and I can’t wait to bring you many, many more. Today, we’re going to tackle a topic that’s very special to me. And it’s one of the main reasons that I practice aesthetic medicine. This is my concept of health esteem.

You may or may not have heard of that term before, but it’s something that I think is extremely important. And I want to start by going through a little bit about what is health esteem, what is its relationship to aesthetic medicine, and get into how we can affect our health esteem through various treatments and other things as well, not only aesthetic medicine.

So let’s start off with defining health esteem. You’re probably familiar with the term self-esteem and what is self-esteem? Well, that tends to be defined as a person’s overall sense of wellbeing when it comes to themselves, how they think about themselves, and how they feel that they portray themselves to the world.

Health esteem, in my view, my definition, is how you view your own health. And this can be seen on two ends of the spectrum. For example, you can think of somebody who really does not have a high degree of health esteem, who really, by that definition, unfortunately doesn’t care a lot about their health. They may be making some unhealthy choices. They may be smoking. They may be eating a poor diet. They may not be exercising. They may be doing a lot of things that unfortunately do not contribute to a healthy lifestyle.

On the other hand, you could think of somebody who has an extremely strong sense of health esteem. And this is the type of person that is going all out to make sure that they do everything that they possibly can to ensure that they are as healthy as possible. In other words, everything that they can control to live a healthy lifestyle, they choose to do that. So it may mean not smoking. It may mean exercising on a regular basis. It may mean eating a well balanced diet. It may mean consuming minimal alcohol. You can think of lots of different ways that someone can benefit from putting their health as a priority and then following through on those actions.

So why is this important and how does this relate back to aesthetic medicine? Well, if somebody has a strong health esteem, chances are they also have a very strong sense of self-worth, of self-confidence, and of self-respect, and that’s really the key, because if you feel good about your health, it translates into just about every single other aspect of your life. It can present itself in your mental wellbeing. It can present itself in your emotional wellbeing. It can influence the way that you interact with others. It can influence the way that you interact with friends and partners and relatives, and everybody that you come into contact with. It can influence the way that you are perceived and the way you carry out your job when you go to work everyday.

Now, when it comes to health esteem, there’s also a very, very important aspect in addition to the mental and the emotional part of the health esteem, there’s also the physical aspects of health esteem. And this is where the aesthetic medicine practice can really come in. Let’s define aesthetic medicine first of all. So aesthetic medicine is the branch of medicine that focuses on improving a person’s physical appearance, typically through various types of treatments, it could be neuromodulators such as Botox. It could be fillers such as hyaluronic acid injections. It could be laser treatments. It could be PRP treatments. There are many different types of treatments. The bottom line is that these typically are being done in order to improve the physical appearance of a person. So, how does that help with health esteem? Well, when one puts the effort into their physical appearance, this can translate into improved mental and emotional health. When you look good, you feel good. And alternatively, it works the other way around too. It’s a two way street. When you feel good, you tend to look good. Because that feeling of contentment, that feeling of happiness, it comes through in the way that you are perceived by other people, whether it’s as simple as a smile, or whether it’s as subtle as the way you interact with someone when you’re having a conversation.

So when it comes to the aesthetic medicine treatments that are available, if you choose, if one chooses to go through some treatments, these in turn can influence a person’s health esteem, which ultimately, ultimately impacts the way that they carry out their life, and the way that they are able to interact with others around them, and the way that others interact with that person.

Now I’ve talked a lot about the benefit of improving the physical appearance when it comes to health esteem. Now I do want to say, because I want to present all sides of the coin here, that that does have some potential risks and drawbacks as well. One of the things is that some people can take that to an unhealthy extreme, so that health esteem actually becomes unhealthy when a person is constantly trying to achieve perfection in their physical appearance. And as many of you will know, perfection is just not possible when it comes to anything. Nothing in life is perfect. There are always things that can be done to be improved. But that doesn’t mean that they necessarily should be improved. Yes, there’s lots of stuff that we can do to make improvements, but when it becomes an obsession, when it becomes so focused on by a person that it then takes over their life, that then becomes a problem and that can actually become unhealthy behavior. And that can actually have a negative impact on health esteem.

That person could for example be excessively exercising. That person could be restricting their diet and as a result, that person can have lower self-esteem. So I think it’s very important to be aware of that, that there are two sides to the coin. There is definitely a benefit to prioritizing your health esteem, and again that means the mental, emotional, and physical aspects, but there’s also a downside if you go too far. So making sure that those goals are realistic is very important.

So let’s talk about some tips then of how we can improve health esteem without going overboard. This all comes down to moderation. As most things are in life, moderation is key. So regular exercise is key. It’s critical. It’s vital. Too much exercise is not a good thing. Healthy eating is critical. It’s really important to make sure that you have a balanced diet getting lots of fruits and vegetables, fresh foods, less processed foods, but I am of the opinion that you should not entirely be cutting out every single goody or sweet forever. I don’t think that’s healthy personally. And so again, it comes down to moderation. Stress management is very important, finding ways to deal with stress. And then ultimately when it comes to the aesthetic treatments, yes, doing certain aesthetic treatments that fit for you and for your lifestyle, I believe are critical. It’s important. That’s why I’m here because I want to help those that want to feel better about themselves by looking better. But, I’ll be the first person to tell you that when it goes overboard, it’s no longer a healthy action, and I discourage people from trying to constantly aim for perfection because I don’t think that is realistic.

So I hope this short podcast episode gives you something to think about. We’ve talked about the definition of health esteem, the way that you can feel about your own health. Having a strong sense of health esteem, whether it be the emotional, the mental, or the physical aspects of health esteem, it is critical to make that a priority in your life so that you can go out and interact with the world in a way that you feel good about yourself, and you exude that self-confidence and that happiness that you can share with other people. And in return, that is the way that people will interact with you. Again, We want to be cautious of not taking that too far. As with everything in life, moderation is the key, but overall, I believe that prioritizing your health esteem has wonderful benefits in our lives.

And so, with that being said, if you want to discuss how you can potentially look at some appropriate aesthetic treatments to help you with your health esteem and improve the confidence, improve that vitality, improve the happiness that exudes from you with a strong sense of mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing, then I would be delighted to chat with you. Feel free to reach out to me at Anti-Aging in Vancouver. Our phone number is (604) 261-9121. You can always reach out to me through my website at DrTeriFisher.com or on Instagram, my Instagram handle is DrTeriFisher.

And so again, thank you for listening to the podcast today. Given today’s topic of the podcast, more than ever I want to finish off with the saying that we have outside of the anti-aging clinic. If you visit us at the clinic, take a moment and look at the mural outside the clinic and you’ll see that these three words are printed up there in big, bold letters. And it’s simply this message that I want to leave you with, and that is: Live Life Well. I’ll talk to you again next week.