What happens when you put some of the world’s leading health, wellness and longevity experts in the same room? Put simply, you’re subject to a mind-boggling array of insights and expertise that expand your understanding of optimal human performance. And let’s not forget the opportunity to interact with some of the insurance, financial planning and group benefits industries’ best and brightest. The Longer. Healthier. Better Symposium in Boston last week offered all that and more.
Bridgewell Financial Partner Chad Tranter was our representative at the symposium. The event, hosted by global insurance and financial services giant John Hancock, is another stop on our firm’s annual learning circuit of conferences, workshops and seminars. The goal is to glean insights to improve our client service experience and to bring new ideas to the many client groups that we serve, along with the industry partners that help drive our growth. It’s also a way for us to achieve a Bridgewell mandate: reinforcing the concepts of wellness and total well-being across the financial services sector.
Much has changed in our industry over the past decade. The understanding of wellness and the need to incorporate well-being focused programs, diagnostic tools and proactive health and fitness programs to prevent disease and other conditions has only gained momentum. Programs developed by Bridgewell partners such as Manulife, with its popular Vitality platform, have helped encourage healthier living habits among Canadians eager to maximize both their lifespan and health span. Needless to say, healthy living is connected to group benefits and insurance in countless—often transformative—ways.
It helps that we also have professionals and personalities driving home much of that messaging using media ranging from podcasts to live speaking engagements. Some of them were in attendance in Boston.
Take Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, functional medicine doctor and the author of the bestselling book Forever Strong . Lyon outlined her research around how being sedentary is, in fact, a disease state, along with the importance of protein and skeletal muscle to enhance longevity. In a follow-up session, Kristen Holmes, vice-president of performance at wearable performance tracking device manufacturer WHOOP, discussed the importance of measuring sleep and recovery, managing stress and how doing so helps individuals become more productive by maintaining an optimal state throughout their day. The good news: WHOOP will soon be featured on the Manulife Vitality platform.
Talks on the importance of sleep didn’t end there. The next day Dr. Matthew Walker, Professor of Neuroscience at the University of California, Berkeley, delivered a presentation called Sleep is Your Superpower. The rest guru explained the four key components of sleep—quantity, quality, regularity and timing—and discussed a range of other factors that contribute to (or detract) from a good night’s rest, including bedroom temperature and consuming CBD and alcohol before bed.
Other notable sessions included an interview with former New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees and current Boston Celtics point guard Jrue Holiday, who discussed the importance of focusing on the moment and being the best possible teammate. Dr. Mark Hyman, host of the blog and podcast The Doctor’s Pharmacy, took a longevity-focused deep dive into the benefits of cold plunges and saunas, the importance of eating protein at your first meal of the day and the potential advantages of intermittent fasting. Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford, Associate Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics at Massachusetts General Hospital helped make sense of the fascinating (and often confusing) new world of GLP1 drugs and the impact they could have on mitigating obesity rates.
Dr. Josh Ofman of cancer screening biotechnology company Grail focused on proactive health. Specifically, he outlined how the company is using blood samples to detect cancer markers early to boost survival rates. It was a good tie-in to the many prevention-focused benefits featured in the Bridgewell Health Lab and how they can help enhance lives.
We’d be remiss if we didn’t recognize our partners at Manulife who are not only supporters of these many concepts and initiatives, but like Manulife President and CEO Roy Gori, took the time to address the audience and share their views. The team at Manulife are leaders in both the wellness longevity space and financial services—and deserve recognition for their great work.
In short, some of the key takeaways from the symposium were the indisputable benefits of quality sleep, muscle retention, strength and resistance training, early detection of disease and the many strategies that can be employed to prevent it. By leveraging emerging technologies such as the early blood screening innovations of firms like Grail, the future is bright for increased longevity and health span.
Most importantly, this was another chance for our team to broaden its knowledge of cutting-edge medicine and wellness-related lifestyle choices to help our clients live longer, healthier and better. It was a worthwhile visit to Boston.
The Bridgewell Financial Team
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