Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!

Internal medicine physician Shirisha Kamidi discusses her article “Small habits, big impact on health.” Shirisha explains why prevention is often more powerful than treatment when addressing conditions like diabetes and hypertension. She shares a real-world example of a patient who normalized high blood pressure through simple lifestyle adjustments rather than medication. The conversation emphasizes the cumulative power of small habits such as evening walks, balanced eating, and stress management. Shirisha also highlights the importance of shifting from a reactive medical model to a proactive partnership between doctor and patient. Learn how individual wellness choices can create a ripple effect that strengthens the health of entire communities.

True team-based care starts with you. When you join ChenMed, you’ll feel seen, heard, and valued. That’s because ChenMed practices transformative, physician-led care, focusing on prevention and empowering providers to have a lasting impact on their patients and communities.

So, whether you’re applying for a primary care physician, nurse practitioner, cardiologist, or medical director position, you’ll feel supported and fulfilled in every aspect of your career. Find a job that feels right. Visit ChenMed.com/Physicians to learn more.

VISIT SPONSOR → https://chenmed.com/Physicians

SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST → https://www.kevinmd.com/podcast

RECOMMENDED BY KEVINMD → https://www.kevinmd.com/recommended

Transcript

Kevin Pho: Hi, and welcome to the show. Subscribe at KevinMD.com/podcast. Today we welcome Shirisha Kamidi, internal medicine physician. Today’s KevinMD article is “Small habits, big impact on health.” Shirisha, welcome to the show.

Shirisha Kamidi: Thank you so much for having me today.

Kevin Pho: All right, so we are going to talk about your article in a little bit. Just first off, briefly share your story and tell us a little bit about your practice.

Shirisha Kamidi: OK. I am a triple board-certified physician certified in internal medicine, pediatrics, and lifestyle medicine. Currently I am working as a hospitalist at Baptist Hospital in Southaven, Mississippi. My interest is also in lifestyle medicine as it can impact a lot in patients’ health outcomes.

Kevin Pho: All right, so that is a little bit of a contrast, right? You are a hospitalist, but you also focus on lifestyle medicine. So you almost see two ends of the spectrum. If they do not follow lifestyle medicine, they could also end up in the hospital, right?

Shirisha Kamidi: That is right. I feel like as a hospitalist there is a lot of scope to practice lifestyle medicine. When somebody is sick and in the hospital, they understand the severity of the illness that they are going through. At that time, if we provide lifestyle education, they feel like that is the right time to get that input and incorporate it into their life so that they can make a big impact on their health outcomes.

Kevin Pho: Your KevinMD article is titled “Small habits, big impact on health.” Now, I want you to talk about that article for those who did not get a chance to read it, but what led you to write it in the first place?

Shirisha Kamidi: As I said, I am big on lifestyle medicine prevention. The reason why I wrote that article is because in my life, I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes mellitus. I experienced how diabetic life is, such as checking your sugars, counting your carbs, restricting your carbs, eating more healthy food, incorporating a fiber diet, calculating your protein intake, and making sure you have healthy calories during your pregnancy.

When I was pregnant for the first time, I was diagnosed with diabetes and I was able to manage my diabetes with diet modification and exercise. With my second pregnancy, I knew I was at a very high risk of gestational diabetes, so I was very proactive at that time. I started my lifestyle modifications even at the beginning of my pregnancy and I was able to prevent it. So the second time I was not diabetic, which had a big impact on how I see all these chronic diseases and everything. That is when I strongly believed that we can prevent chronic diseases and we can even reverse chronic diseases by lifestyle changes.

Kevin Pho: So tell us more about your article itself. For those who did not get a chance to read it, give us a few examples of some of the small changes patients can make.

Shirisha Kamidi: With very small changes, we can start with doing a five-minute walk every day and slowly increasing it to 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and then 20 minutes. So slowly taking small changes in life like doing a five-minute walk, starting to eat more vegetables, incorporating more fruits into your diet, managing your stress, doing some relaxation techniques, and having good social relationships are key. All these things can impact our health. So I would strongly suggest everybody start with small changes and consistent changes to have that impact on our health.

Kevin Pho: And that is really the key, right? Small and consistent because a lot of patients, especially in my setting as a primary care doctor, want to make big changes and then they will start off very strong but eventually taper off. So I think having that small consistent change would only add to the long-term habits that they need to develop in order to keep at it.

Shirisha Kamidi: Yeah, I can give you examples. I have seen an elderly patient who had high blood pressure. It was within my family, so they just approached me about this. They thought this is all from stress and their blood pressure would be OK once their stress is gone from their life. So I educated them that no matter what we are going through in our life, even if you are in a stressful situation, your body should be able to keep your blood pressure within a normal range. If it is not, that means we are prone to having elevated blood pressures, and if it is persistent, we are diagnosed with hypertension.

So I suggested to her to have a 20-minute walk, try to eat more healthy food, and focus on doing some yoga and meditation. She practiced those things and after six months we rechecked her blood pressure and she had a normal blood pressure at that point.

Kevin Pho: What is it like to incorporate lifestyle medicine in the hospital setting like you do? People who are sick enough to be in the hospital could be there for something as common as pneumonia or acute coronary syndrome. What is it like to talk to these patients about lifestyle medicine when they are so sick that they are an inpatient?

Shirisha Kamidi: I feel like they are more receptive when they are in the hospital because they have no other job. They are not going to a job, they are not rushing, and they are not taking care of any other things. They realize that they are in the hospital because their health is not right. So whatever we tell them at that point in time, they are more receptive. So I take every opportunity to educate all my patients who are overweight and obese to make sure that they understand why this happens, what is going on, and what we can do to make it better.

I feel like they are very receptive. Sometimes sharing my own stories with the patients makes a big impact too. When I tell them that I was diabetic during my first pregnancy and I did this and I was able to prevent this, then they think this is realistic. Whatever she is saying is possible. So they feel like they are connecting to me more when I share my own personal stories. I feel like we should take every opportunity to educate the patients and get some good health outcomes.

Kevin Pho: So we talked about walking as a small change. What other small changes can we suggest?

Shirisha Kamidi: I feel like adding more vegetables and fruit to our diet is important. So maybe start with one portion. Add at least one portion of vegetables with every meal and have one portion of fruit with every meal. That can bring a whole lot of change in health benefits.

Kevin Pho: And in terms of sleep, that is another thing that is a big part of lifestyle medicine. Tell us about the importance of sleep and how you counsel patients to improve their sleep.

Shirisha Kamidi: As a hospitalist, I see patients with insomnia. Everybody has a mindset that they can’t go to sleep. They say: “I could not sleep last night. I need medicine.” Then I take the opportunity to educate patients that sleep is more complex. It is not just a simple thing where I can’t sleep so I take medicine and that is the end of the story. It is not that. Sometimes what happens is when these people are taking medications, at one point they get so used to it and start developing resistance to that. This means that that medicine doesn’t work on them anymore, and once they stop taking that medicine, they can’t sleep. So that becomes a big problem.

So I educate my patients that when we eat healthy matters. Dinner time should be at least two hours before sleep. What we eat also matters. Don’t eat carbohydrate-rich food or you will not be able to sleep due to a sugar rush. Limiting screen time helps. You don’t watch any screen at least one to two hours prior to your bedtime. That really helps. Avoiding naps close to the actual sleep time at night also helps.

Having exposure to sunlight during the daytime actually wakes us up. So we are in that circadian cycle where we are up in the morning and by the end of the day we don’t have that sunlight exposure. Then your melatonin kicks in, which is a natural hormone that helps us in getting good sleep. Having good sleep has a lot of impact on our health. It reduces our cortisol, our stress hormone, which impacts our blood pressures and other stuff. Also, surprisingly, I learned that it has an impact on the immune system too. When somebody has good sleep, our immune system works better. So I feel like it has a lot of impact on our health.

Kevin Pho: You practice in Mississippi and in your article you talk about some of the unique local characteristics of the population, like strong community ties. So how can that be leveraged to improve public health in the area that you practice in?

Shirisha Kamidi: I feel like when it comes to health, community activities also play a big role. Having a community gathering where we can talk about how we can make small changes helps. Having a walk together or having a small 2K run or 5K run helps in educating that activity is important. That helps us in preventing chronic diseases and also to reverse chronic diseases.

Kevin Pho: I love what you are saying. I think that your message that lifestyle medicine can be incorporated in every setting and not just a primary care setting that I am familiar with can definitely be emphasized. And if you can do it as a hospitalist, there is no excuse that other physicians and other specialties can also include small tidbits of lifestyle medicine in whatever specialty they practice in.

Shirisha Kamidi: Thank you.

Kevin Pho: So we are talking to Shirisha Kamidi, internal medicine physician. Her article on KevinMD is “Small habits, big impact on health.” Shirisha, let’s end with some take-home messages that you want to leave with the KevinMD audience.

Shirisha Kamidi: Small consistent habits have a huge impact. I also want to make a point that these diseases start decades before we see them diagnosed. That is why I want to prioritize healthy habits in kids. It is really important to start being healthy when we are very small because the disease starts when we are literally in the womb. So every habit matters.

Kevin Pho: Shirisha, thank you so much for sharing your perspective and insight. Thanks again for coming on the show.

Shirisha Kamidi: Thank you so much for having me.