Smart Advice with Carissa Lucreziano

Investing in yourself: Practical tips for a healthier, richer life with Dr. Noah Levine

Episode Summary

"Health is wealth." In today’s fast-paced world, prioritizing your health is more important than ever. While wealth is often measured by financial success, Canadians are increasingly recognizing that true prosperity includes physical vitality, mental clarity, and overall well-being. More people are making their personal wellness a priority, even as they juggle the demands of work, relationships, and daily life. In this episode of Smart Advice, host Carissa Lucreziano sits down with Dr. Noah Levine, family physician and Corporate Medical Director at CIBC, to explore the powerful connection between health and financial well-being. Discover expert insights and practical tips for carving out time to invest in yourself, building resilience, and creating habits that support both your health and your wealth. If you’re seeking balance and a more intentional, fulfilling life, this episode is for you.

Episode Notes

 

Here are three reasons why you should listen to this episode:

  1. Understand the powerful connection between financial well-being and your physical health, and how to disrupt that cycle.
  2. Learn practical strategies for building resilience, managing stress, and maintaining balance in a fast-paced world.
  3. Gain expert advice on preparing for retirement—emotionally, physically, and financially—so you can enjoy a purposeful and fulfilling next chapter.

Resources

Episode Highlights

[00:16] Redefining Financial Well-being in a Changing World

[03:11] Dr. Noah: “Our financial wellness is so closely connected to our overall well-being. Financial stress can have impacts on a number of areas of our health, one of those is sleep.”

[05:47] Basics of Health and Well-being

[09:43] The PERMA Model of Well-being

[12:21] Building Resilience and Coping with Stress

[16:06] Dr. Noah: “The flexibility mindset is basically a conviction that no matter what happens, I'm going to find a way to deal with this.”

[17:47] Employer Support for Employee Well-being

[23:28] Preparing for Retirement

[28:25] Elevating Financial Well-being Through Intentional Living

[28:59] Dr. Noah: “I don't really think it matters where you start. I think what matters is making a commitment to yourself and taking that first step.”

About Dr. Noah 

Dr. Noah Levine is a Family and Occupational Medicine Physician and the Corporate Medical Director at CIBC. With over 25 years of clinical experience, he has dedicated his career to supporting the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of individuals and teams. Dr. Levine also serves as a physician at Cleveland Clinic Canada, where he helps patients navigate the intersection of health, lifestyle, and long-term vitality.

He is an expert in holistic wellness, workplace health strategies, and resilience-building. At CIBC, Dr. Levine plays a key role in shaping a culture of well-being by offering proactive health guidance to employees and executives alike. Passionate about empowering people to thrive both personally and professionally, he brings a compassionate, science-backed perspective to the evolving conversation on health and financial well-being.

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Episode Transcription

Carissa Lucreziano: Welcome to Smart Advice, a podcast connecting you with timely financial advice, investment strategies and economic trends, empowering you with insights to make informed decisions about your money. 

The definition of wealth is changing — and fast. Today, it's not just about how much money you have in the bank. It's about how you feel, your energy, your mindset and your overall well being. Because real wealth that's feeling strong, focused and alive and having the financial confidence to back it up. The first ever CIBC Ambitions Index tells us something powerful. Canadians are putting their health and wellness first, with financial stability right behind. And the truth is, they go hand in hand. 

When you're running on empty, burned out or sleep deprived, it shows up in every part of your life, including your finances. There's a great quote I always come back to, loosely borrowed by an ancient Greek physician, “Without health, wealth is meaningless.” And today, that couldn't feel more real. So, let's talk about what it means to live fully. 

In this episode, I'm joined by Dr Noah Levine, someone who's not just passionate about health, but about helping people live their fullest lives. As a family medicine and occupational medicine physician at Cleveland Clinic, Canada, Dr. Levine completed medical school and residency at the University of Toronto, and has been practicing medicine for over 25 years. He's also the corporate medical director at CIBC, where he provides employees tips and advice on health and well being. 

He's an advocate for helping people build resilience and long term well being in a world that doesn't always make it easy. And I'm really excited to talk to him today. Together, we will explore how to reconnect with your well being, and how doing so can create real momentum in your body, your mind and your finances. Dr. Levine, thank you so much for joining me. It's such a pleasure.

Dr. Noah Levine: Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm really glad to be able to join you today. 

Carissa: Let's start with the big picture and the evolving definition of wealth. Wealth is increasingly seen as more than just financial success is deeply intertwined with health and wellness. In your view, how does our financial health and overall well being influence and shape each other?

Dr. Noah: That's a wonderful place to start. Before we dive into that, though, I just want to point out that the health information we're going to discuss today is going to be of a general nature and shouldn't be construed by our listeners as being medical advice specific to their situation. I do recommend that any decisions regarding your health be made in consultation with your healthcare practitioner.

With that caveat in mind, it's really common for us to speak about the foundations, or pillars of our health and our wellbeing, like our physical health, our mental and emotional health, our social health. And our financial health is one of those pillars as well. These areas of our health are interrelated and they impact on each other.

The way we perceive and experience our well being is really a combination of all these factors of any given time. As you alluded to in your question, our financial wellness is so closely connected to our overall well being. Financial stress can have impacts on a number of areas of our health; one of those is sleep. A survey recently showed that 40% of Canadians reported having difficulty falling asleep due to worries about their finances.

Financial stress has also been linked to shorter sleep duration and poor sleep quality. Financial stress can also impact our mood and cause anxiety. Financial worries are associated with higher levels of psychological distress, as well as higher rates of depression and anxiety. And financial stress can also lead to suboptimal coping strategies like substance use or overeating. 

One of the biggest tolls that financial stress can have in our well being is on our personal and our social relationships. Rising costs of living that we're unfortunately living through can contribute to increasing social isolation. Sometimes people have to pass up on opportunities to spend time with family and friends because of the cost of activities or needing to work. And financial stress is also a big source of tension in our personal relationships. It's really one of the hardest things to talk about in relationships, and unfortunately, it's one of the more common causes of divorce. 

As an occupational medicine physician and a corporate Medical Director, I would also be remiss if I didn't consider this from a work perspective. Financial stressors can impact the way we function in the workplace. One of the impacts could be a reduction in productivity. Financial concerns can be a powerful distraction in the workplace. A survey a couple of years ago showed that Canadian workers reported spending about 30 minutes a day worrying about their finances while at work, on average. Employees may sometimes go to work while feeling unwell to avoid lost wages.

Employees who are financially stressed report being less engaged at work and feel a lower sense of belonging and feel less energized in the workplace. About 1 in 5 Canadians have reported taking a sick day to deal with increasing financial stress rather than a medical concern.

Carissa: Yeah, extremely insightful. I think too this is something that's weighing on a lot of Canadians, and definitely an aspect to consider when you think about overall well being. These days, social media is bursting with advice from wellness influencers with ultra optimized morning routines to finfluencers pushing the latest money hacks. Some of it can be helpful, but some of it is just noise and can lead people down the wrong path. I always tell people: when it comes to your finances, work with a qualified advisor. I imagine you feel the same about medical advice.

In a world where everyone is an expert online. How do you help people narrow in on what actually supports their well being? 

Dr. Noah: When it comes to these kinds of discussions, I really like to go back to basics. I think it's really important to focus on the basics to create a really strong foundation for our health and well being, and that encompasses a few significant and important areas. I'll touch on what I think are most important. But as you just alluded to, speaking as a physician, one thing that we do really try to do is move beyond a one size fits all approach and really try to tailor our advice and our discussions to the particular circumstances of the person we're speaking to.

But, going back to the basics for a moment, simple practices can make a big difference to our health and to our well being. What do I mean by that? Well, let's start with nutrition. When it comes to nutrition, paying attention to what we eat and how we eat can make a big difference. That means aiming to eat a balanced diet with an emphasis on fruits and veggies and lean proteins and whole grains healthy fats. Trying to reduce the amount of refined sugars and ultra processed foods.

It also includes trying to engage in mindful eating. Eating with attention and intention. Also recognizing the role, at the same time, that eating plays in our social connections in our cultures and our religions, and trying to put this all together helps to nourish both our body and our soul. 

Coupled with nutrition, is physical activity. I think here, Canada's 24 Hour Movement Guidelines for Adults provide a pretty useful framework to help to improve our physical health and reduce the risk of important health issues like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, anxiety, depression, even dementia. Those guidelines recommend that we work our way up to at least 150 minutes per week of moderate to vigorous aerobic physical activity. The same guidelines recommend muscle strengthening activities at least twice per week, and as well, several hours per week of lighter physical activity. Putting that all together helps to really reduce our risk of various health conditions. 

Another important foundation is our sleep. For adults up to 65 years of age, the average person requires about 7 to 9 hours of sleep per 24 hour period. For older adults, the number is 7 to 8 hours. This is a pretty good approximation of what we should be aiming for in terms of sleep quantity.

Sleep quality is also important so that we awaken feeling refreshed, and so that our sleep supports our energy levels, our alertness and our mood throughout the day. Unfortunately, so many of us don't get enough sleep or don't get good quality sleep. Sleep is of such vital importance to our health and well being. So, if you're experiencing challenges through sleep, this is really an area where it's worth reaching out to your healthcare provider to review.

Let me add on a couple more areas that are important. Substance use, what goes into our bodies makes a big difference to our health and our well being. Substance use and substance misuse is a very complicated topic. Just to strip it down to the basics, it's really important for us all to be mindful of the substances we use and the settings in which we use them, and the manner in which we use them, and to pay attention to the way that our substance use is impacting our lives in every sphere of our life.

Lastly, let me also mention social relationships. We all live busy lives. We're all trying to strike a balance between work, school, hobbies, self care and other activities, and too often, we tend to deprioritize our social connections. But the quality of our social relationships has been increasingly recognized as a major determinant of our health, so it's really something worth focusing on. Loneliness has been associated with an increased risk of premature death from all causes comparable to obesity, smoking or even physical inactivity and social connections improve both our physical and our mental health. They're associated with a reduced risk of heart disease, stroke, dementia, and a decreased risk for depression and anxiety. 

That's one part of the answer. Covers the what, and maybe even a little bit of the how, of what we can do to take care of ourselves. But I wanted to add another dimension to this, which is the why, and I think that's something we don't want to lose sight of.

Well being is not just the absence of disease or the absence of illness. It really means living our life to the fullest to maximize our personal potential and our happiness. When we think about our well being in this way, our happiness is more than what we would call hedonic happiness, which is the pleasure we might get from experiences or from things or objects. 

We all know that that kind of happiness can fade quickly. What I'm referring to here is more about a deep sense of contentment in our lives. There's actually a framework for this. The psychologists talk about the PERMA model of well being, P, E, R, M, A. The P stands for positive emotion. These can be about the past, things like satisfaction, a feeling of pride or serenity. They could be about the present. Those can include the sensory pleasures that I just mentioned. But it could also be absorption in an activity that we're engaged in, and positive emotions can also, of course, be about the future: hope or confidence or faith. 

This element of our well being is, I think, particularly challenging to us as humans because we're wired to pursue what feels good to us in the moment. It's much harder for us to consider how our decisions and our activities and our choices will impact our emotional state over the longer term.

The E in PERMA stands for engagement. This means being immersed in a challenging task that is in balance with our skills. It could be work, but it could also be sports or hobbies. The R stands for our relationships, and we've spoken a little bit about this already. Our relationships with our family members, our friends, even our pets, can provide us with a sense of being loved and supported and valued.

The M is meaning. Having a sense of purpose or participating in something or serving something that's bigger than ourselves, whether it's work or charity or the community, a religious organization or anything else, can really impart meaning to our lives. 

Finally, the A in PERMA is achievement. Positive accomplishments, both big and small, are really important for our sense of contentment and a sense that we're growing and evolving over time. I really think that this PERMA framework is really useful for thinking about how we can maximize our well being and our happiness. I think it can help guide us to make choices that are important for our own personal well being.

Carissa:  Yeah, thank you. Let's talk about a very important topic, and you leaned into it a bit when we were talking about the financial stress and how that impacts. But, so many Canadians are feeling stretched, and life can feel like a juggling act between work and family and caregiving and just trying to keep up with the pace of change. If you think about in 2025 alone, the economic ups and downs have been enough to make anyone feel unsteady. Many Canadians, I'm sure, are asking, “How do I stay grounded through all of this?”

From your perspective, how can we take care of our mental health and physical health and build resilience for the future? Because it just seems that in an environment that we're in, we're going to continue to have some of these ups and downs, and how do we deal with that?

Dr. Noah: It's a great question. We're talking about resilience. We're really referring to our ability to bend rather than break and to bounce back when we're faced with the challenges and the curve balls, both big and small, that life throws at us every day. We just spoke about the pillars of our health and our well being, and how those are vital to give us a solid foundation and that helps anchor ourselves when the world around us is changing and unstable. I really do believe that building that healthy foundation is part of building up our resilience. 

On top of that foundation, it can be really useful to layer on some micro skills, or smaller skills, that can help us deal with stress in the moment. That could start with building self awareness, which could be as simple as pausing periodically to think about and reflect on how we're doing. And maybe noticing those moments when we might not be functioning well or where we don't like how we're showing up. Then, to use those particular moments as a driver to make some positive changes. 

We can also try to layer on some techniques to help tamp down our reflex stress response in the face of acute stressors. Things that we can do in a very short time to mitigate our response. That could be things like going for a quick walk or taking a break, to read or listen to music or to go outside or getting together with friends or celebrating something joyful. Any of these things can help tamp down that stress response. Another thing to consider here is building mindfulness into our day. 

Mindfulness activities help to lower our blood pressure and our stress hormone levels. They help to improve our concentration. They improve our mood and even our coping ability. That could be something as simple as practicing deep breathing. It could be something as involved as engaging in a regular meditation practice every day. But regardless of how you build that in, the science shows us that when you work on those skills to build resilience, you'll actually become more productive and efficient in other areas. That helps you feel more in control in the face of stress and change. 

Instead of adding extra time to our day by doing these extra things, it actually improves our day and helps us live and work smarter and better, rather than longer. There's one other aspect about building resilience I want to speak about. I'm going to bring in some information that one of my psychiatry colleagues at Cleveland Clinic has shared with me. 

She's involved in treating first responders, ambulance drivers, police, fire, et cetera. Of course, these individuals deal with highly stressful and even life threatening situations, day in, day out. She's spoken about how many of the people she sees as patients often express surprise that they haven't developed a mental health problem after seeing or being involved in a major trauma. She's pointed out that this outcome is actually more the norm than the exception. 

There's a concept called the flexibility mindset that might account for at least some of how these people are able to remain resilient in the face of challenges, and it's something that all of us, I think, can find instructive. The flexibility mindset is basically a conviction that no matter what happens, I'm going to find a way to deal with this. There's really three beliefs that are at the core of this. 

The first of these is optimism about the future, a belief that things are going to turn out well, and this is really motivating. The second belief here is a tendency to see threats as a challenge to be met. What that does is it gives us more agency. It gets us thinking about what we need to do, and it allows us to feel that there's at least some level of control that we can impart over the situation we're in. The third belief is confidence in our ability to cope. It's a little extra push that encourages us to try new ways to cope and be open to new strategies. It can be really helpful to remember times when we've coped in the past. 

We've all just lived through a global pandemic. It was hard and it was really stressful at times, but here we are. We made it so we have some ability to cope that we've all demonstrated. Of course, no one has all these beliefs all the time. Nobody is always optimistic about every situation, but having the flexibility to move between these beliefs and make use of our different coping abilities makes us more likely to adapt to events that are stressful for us. 

Sometimes it really helps to pause and reflect on what is bothering me right now and then ask, What am I able to do? It's not focused on flexibility and on actively thinking about different strategies that can help us be resilient in the face of the stressors we face every day. 

Carissa: Dr. Levine, I love how you really took us through that. It's really the awareness that I took away, that being aware of when something's not feeling right. Why are you feeling that way? Then exercising some of these micro skills as a coping mechanism. 

In the ambitions index, we found that 91% of Canadians say that work life balance is the key to happiness, which really speaks to where people's priorities are shifting. You're in a very unique role as Chief Medical Director at a major bank, helping bridge health and workplace culture, something that has been starting to surface as a really new and important phenomenon. 

From your experience working with leaders and teams, I'm curious, how do you see the role of employers evolving when it comes to wellbeing, and what kinds of support is making a difference? Right now?

Dr. Noah: What we've spoken about so far is really focused on what we can do as individuals to improve our own health and well being. But, consider this, we as employees are typically spending a large portion of our waking hours in the workplace. Just by virtue of time alone, employers are in a position to make a positive impact on the health of the people in the organization. Organizations, in my experience, want to protect their most valuable resource, which is the group of people that they have working for them. 

There's been a lot of time and money invested in finding them and training them and supporting them in the workplace. In that context, enlightened employers recognize that work can impact the health of those prized employees, and also they recognize that facilitating the health and well being of those employees helps to maximize people's performance in the workplace. 

Employers are also seeing a rise in healthcare costs. Some of these are direct costs, such as the increased price tag associated with providing benefits covering the rising cost of prescription drugs that we're using. But there's also indirect costs that employers are exposed to, such as those related to the growing burden of chronic health conditions. It's estimated that more than half of Canadian workers are living with at least one chronic health condition. We actually expect this number to rise over time due to the aging population. 

We're also seeing a phenomenon where many younger Canadians are also experiencing chronic health conditions. This is going to be a more prevalent problem over time. The increasing impact of chronic health conditions affects the health and the functioning of employees. That results in impacts to the organization, like absenteeism and reduced performance when people are at work. All of this is playing out against a backdrop in Canada, where our healthcare system is strained. 

Right now, 1 in 5 Canadians don't have a primary care provider that they can see on a regular basis. Half of Canadians wait at least a month to access vital mental health care services, and the average wait time to see a specialist is often more than 6 months. Employers have an opportunity here to really impact the health and well being of their employees, and they can do it at different stages of the health continuum. Most commonly, this takes the form of what we would call primary prevention. 

What that means is intervening before health effects occur from a condition to prevent the development of that health condition itself. Many people will already be used to seeing primary prevention in their workplace, in the form of flu shot clinics. During the pandemic, many workplaces also played a role in facilitating access to other vaccines, like the COVID vaccine. It could also include facilitating healthy changes in the workplace, like looking at the ways that work is scheduled to help facilitate a better work life balance for employees, or organizing social outings or walking meetings to get people moving in the workplace. 

But employers, I think, also have a role to play in facilitating secondary prevention. Secondary prevention is what we think of as screening to identify a health condition in its early stages, before the onset of symptoms and signs or disability. At first blush, you might think that that's more of a role for an employee's family doctor or nurse practitioner, not their employer. I don't necessarily disagree with that, but we just spoke about how the healthcare system is strained right now, and many people don't have access to a healthcare provider. 

In that context, I don't think it's outlandish for employers to think about stepping in to help fill that gap. In fact, some already are. Let's not forget that employers already facilitate healthcare access for so many Canadians. That includes funding of  healthcare benefits that many of us rely on, but it also includes access to programs like employee and Family Assistance Programs or even mental health training for their managers. So, employers are playing a big role in the healthcare space already, and I do think that's gonna continue.

Carissa: Very insightful, everything from how corporations are starting to think about the well-being and the culture internally to all the supporting kinds of tentacles, if you will, in healthcare and spanning healthcare to mental, physical wellbeing and the extension of family. This space looks like and sounds like it is going to continue to be very important, and you'll see more and more adoption throughout different corporations. 

I want to pivot a little bit to the topic of retirement. Retirement is one of the biggest milestones we can plan for, and it's really no longer about the day you stop working. With Canadians living longer, retirement is becoming a full life chapter filled with opportunities, maybe travel, second careers, volunteering or really diving into long postponed passions. Setting yourself up financially is foundational. Building in the flexibility for things like the duration of retirement and really planning your income to support the lifestyle that you choose, this next stage of life is so connected to purpose and well being, and we hear it all the time from family and friends. 

Dr. Levine, your perspective on this. How can people prepare themselves more around the emotional, physical is very important as well, but kind of the whole gambit of preparing for retirement when retirement really isn't an age. It's at a time where someone maybe wants to move into that next chapter. But when we talk about work as such an important piece of someone's being, how do you help people prepare for that?

Dr. Noah: Well, it probably won't come as a surprise to you that I think preparing ourselves for retirement, from a health perspective, is just as important as the financial aspect of it. Your retirement and the post retirement years can be associated with a range of health related concerns. From a physical perspective, as we age, chronic health conditions become more common. Heart disease, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, all of these can occur, and they can impact our ability to maintain our independence in our lives. 

Our mental health can also be really impacted by retirement. Nearly a third of retirees are affected by depression. That's significantly higher than the rate in the overall adult population. We already spoke about how our mental health is impacted by social isolation and loneliness. That can be really accentuated in retirement, as some of our social scaffolding goes away when we don't attend the workplace every day, we don't have those connections anymore. 

Let's also mention our cognitive health. Age related cognitive changes are common, and it can progress even to neurocognitive disorders like Alzheimer's and some. With that in mind, back to your question, what can we do to prepare ourselves for this really important transition, and this really important stage in our life.? What are some smart practices that we can incorporate to optimize our longevity and our health span, the period of time where we're healthy and we can enjoy our lives? 

We've spoken about many of these already to some degree, but I just want to run down a few of them again with this lens in mind. Let's start with activity. We reviewed a lot of the benefits of physical activity for our physical and mental well being. But, one thing that's important to keep in mind in this space is that regular physical exercise has been shown to reduce the risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer's. It can slow down cognitive decline in those who are beginning to exhibit those issues. 

When it comes to diet, we talked about eating a diet that's rich in whole grains and green leafy vegetables, olive oil, fish, nuts, limiting red meats, limiting sugar, limiting Ultra processed foods, limiting alcohol. That helps to support not only physical and mental functioning, but also our cognitive functioning. Sleep also really important have and establish a regular sleep routine to help bolster all those areas of our health. Let me focus on a few other ones, and I think you were alluding to this. 

The first is the social engagement piece, and you already pointed out how important that is. When it comes to taking away our social connections in the workplace, it may require us to be more diligent about staying in touch with our family and friends post retirement. Maybe it's joining clubs or social groups volunteering to help foster those important social connections. But we know that spending time with our family and friends produces stress. It combats mental health issues, enhances intellectual stimulation, helps protect against cognitive changes as well. 

A couple more points I want to make. So, mental stimulation is very important. When we participate in mentally stimulating activities, it leads to greater brain volume in several regions of our brain. It helps to improve our memory as well. So, challenge your brain. Learn something new, play puzzles. Keep raising the bar for something you've already mastered. Don't lose sight of your purpose or the meaning in your life. Whatever your purpose is, whatever brings meaning to your life, setting and working on personal goals post retirement will help bolster your contentment, which we spoke about earlier, and bring that fulfillment from your retired life. 

All these practices together can help us hopefully enjoy a long and healthy retirement. One other thing I want to just point out that goes back to the financial aspect of things. Our health care needs, unfortunately, tend to increase as we age, and not everything is funded by our public health care system. I think it's really important, and this is more in your wheelhouse, to factor in some degree of increased health related spending into our retirement planning.

Carissa: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I mean, one tip that I often share is to kind of test drive the retirement lifestyle, build a mock budget, and live on that income for six months to a year. It's a great way to surface any surprises. But to your point, building a retirement income plan that accounts for– could be 30 years, including that health care cost essential and the rising cost of health care, to your point, is really, really important. 

When it comes to finances and building wealth, it's the small steps that build momentum over time. Things like automated contributions to your investment accounts, increasing your savings rate with each pay raise, and revisiting your cash flow for opportunities to optimize your finances can accelerate your financial plan. I know it's the same with our health. When we are low on time or energy, it can feel like real change is out of reach, but small intentional habits can completely shift the trajectory. 

Finally, for listeners who are looking to invest more intentionally in their wellbeing, what's one step they could take today? They could take this week or within this month to start? 

Dr. Noah: Right, the proverbial one simple trick. I like how you granted this in the financial example, because the phenomenon, the magic that is compound interest, is a really interesting way of thinking about this. I think we could think about our health in much the same way. Small investments that we make in our health today can pay off in a really big way down the road tomorrow. Truth is, I don't really think it matters where you start. 

I think what matters is making a commitment to yourself and taking that first step. Whether it's starting to go out for a five minute walk in the evening or cooking more fresh food instead of ordering in, or taking steps to improve your sleep or cutting back on alcohol. Any positive change can help start us on the right path, and it can be something we build up over time. That's important too. There's a ton of literature about healthy behavior change. We could probably spend hours discussing it, but I just want to focus on one very tiny aspect of it, as it pertains to the question that you just posed to me. 

If you think about your financial goals, it's pretty simple to visualize your progress towards your goal. You just look at the balance on your financial statements each month, and you'll see it grow over time from compound interest. It's much harder to visualize those results in the realm of health. Health related results are often less obvious. It might be very slow improvements or changes in our physical or mental functioning. But it could also be the bell that never rings, or the dog that never barks. Meaning that we might make changes now that nudge our health in small but positive ways and far downstream what might have been a very negative outcome actually gets avoided and never happens in the first place. 

These kinds of health related outcomes and goals can be more nebulous, and because of that, it can actually impact on our motivation over time. It can make it harder to sustain those positive changes, because we may not be seeing the kind of progress that we're looking for. Here's my one really simple tip, and that is to think about what you are trying to accomplish, and why. No matter what change you choose, it's so important to get in touch with your motivation, with your why, with what's driving you to make that health change. 

That is the touchstone that you can keep returning to when you experience slips or lapses in your progress, which are inevitable. It's also what you can use to help propel you to keep building on that foundation over time. Hopefully, that is what's going to pave the way to a long and healthy and wealthy retirement. 

Carissa: Dr. Levine, your perspective on how small intentional actions, whether it's getting better rest, setting boundaries or just pausing to check in with yourself can have a positive impact, really hit home. We often talk about building wealth through smart financial decisions and staying focused on what matters most. But what this conversation reminded us is that real wealth goes beyond the numbers. It's about how we feel, our clarity and our purpose and the ability to enjoy the life you're working so hard to build. So whether it's carving out time to review your portfolio or simply making space in your day for a walk, it's often those small, intentional choices that build the kind of future and life we really want.

Dr. Noah: Thank you for inviting me. I really enjoyed our conversation. I hope this information was useful to people who are listening.

Carissa:  Thank you for tuning in to Smart Advice. I'm Carissa Lucreziano. If you enjoyed this episode, feel free to share it with your social network. To make sure you never miss an episode, follow Smart Advice on your favorite podcast platform. For more tips, tools, and financial advice visit cibc.com/smartadvice.