February 28, 2024 • 25 mins
A recent systematic review published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine came to the conclusion that physical activity should be a mainstay approach in the management of depression, anxiety and psychological distress. In this episode I discuss this and other aspects of self-care can impact on our mental health.
It is important to understand that good mental health is not the absence of negative feelings. I discuss this in more detail and the importance of embracing the full spectrum of life and our emotions and how resilience is key.
Referencing this systematic review in the BMJ:
Singh B, Olds T, Curtis R, et al
Effectiveness of physical activity interventions for improving depression, anxiety and distress: an overview of systematic reviews
British Journal of Sports Medicine 2023;57:1203-1209.
Learn more about Fiona's speaking, radio and consultation services at Informed Health: https://informedhealth.com.au/
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Credit for the music used in this podcast:
The Beat of Nature
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Fiona Kane (00:01):
Hello and welcome to the Wellness Connection podcast
with Fiona Kane.
I'm your host, Fiona Kane.
Today I'm going to be talkingto you about a recent study.
So there's a recent studythat's been published in the
British Journal of SportsMedicine so the BMJ, and it's
talking about the effectivenessof physical activity
(00:22):
interventions for improvingdepression, anxiety, distress
and overall systematic reviews.
Essentially it's about exerciseand what it does for mental
health, what it does for yourmood and for your anxiety.
So that's a shorter way ofsaying it.
So essentially this was areally, really big study.
(00:42):
So it was a study where theylet me just look at here to sort
of explain what it was.
So it was a study where theylooked at 97, they did 97
reviews of a whole bunch oftrials, so that was like over a
thousand trials, thousands ofparticipants, and so it was a
(01:04):
really big review of all of thestudies that have been done so
far.
And the conclusion I'll readthe conclusion and then I'll
discuss it.
But the conclusion was thatphysical activity is highly
beneficial for improvingsymptoms of depression, anxiety
and distress across a wide rangeof adult populations, including
the general population, peoplewith diagnosed mental health
(01:26):
disorders and people withchronic disease.
Physical activity should be amainstay approach in the
management of depression,anxiety and psychological
distress.
So that's it's sort ofrecommendations that physical
activity should be recommendedand any physical activity is
beneficial.
(01:46):
Anything is better than nothing.
So I think it's actually justreally important to bring this
up, because they even theycompared physical activity to
medications and they found thatphysical activity works better
than medications.
Now I will just stop for amoment and say I'm not telling
(02:07):
anyone to stop takingmedications.
In fact, I advise you don'tjust stop taking medications.
It's quite a dangerous thing todo so.
If you choose to take, to stoptaking medications, you do it
under your doctor's supervision.
But what I would say to you isthat it's just it shows you that
because we think of themedication as being the cure all
when exercise can be very, veryhelpful indeed, if not more
(02:29):
helpful in some cases.
So I think it's just importantto include exercise as part of
your treatment, and medicationmay be needed or it may not, but
you bring the exercise in earlyon and then you work with your
doctor about whether or not themedication is the right thing
for you.
But the good thing aboutexercise is, generally speaking,
there's no bad side effects,unless you're into yourself or
(02:51):
something like that.
But that in general, just doingkind of the basic exercise is
is a really good thing and I youknow and it's, and for so many
reasons you know.
So, just besides the fact thatoften it means you're getting
outside and you're getting somevitamin D from the sunshine we
know vitamin D is reallyimportant for depression and and
(03:13):
you're getting and you're justwhen we go outside like and like
of course, you can do insideexercise as well.
So this actually does includeyou know whether or not you're
doing like a little workout homebased on an app or whatever
you're watching online, or ifyou're just doing some stretches
every day, or if you put onyour favorite song and just
dance around and you're notdoing anything formal.
(03:34):
So that's already beneficial aswell.
So the outside bit doesn't haveto be the case, but just
pointing out with the outsidebit, the good thing about the
outside bit is you are getting,when we go outside, even looking
up, we know can be reallybeneficial for our mood because
we're looking down and we'reposture.
So as you just going outsideand you look up and you look at
the sky and you look at theclouds and, and you know, you
(03:56):
know just the birds and thetrees and the butterflies and
whatever.
So just something about thatthat just reminds us that when
we're kind of alone inside andwhatever, it can be very just
about us when we go outside,this other people as a world out
there is, where actually quitesmall and, you know, as part of
the world, and I kind of justgives us a, I suppose, a, an
(04:17):
ability to see that that whennot the world's a bigger place,
you know, get perspective, Isuppose, is what I'm trying to
say.
So going outside is really,really beneficial.
Is actually pouring rain rightnow.
I don't know if you can hearthis on the microphone or not,
but just got distracted sosuddenly got very dark and it's
pouring rain.
Talking about looking outsidethe sunshine, anyway.
(04:40):
So what we know is that evenjust going outside and just
looking out, looking at the skyand whatever, and getting
amongst getting vitamin D isreally great as well.
As the exercise in this studywas specifically looking at the
exercise itself, and theexercise is no, it's the
endorphins and it's you feelingstrong when you do exercise and
when you feel a bit fitter, youfeel healthier, you feel better.
(05:01):
But you know, when we move ourbody become toxins to our system
.
We keep our bowels going.
Doing exercise uses energy, butit also gives you energy.
Also, when you're doingexercise, you feel like you feel
like you're showing up foryourself.
You're doing your practicingself care, so you're doing
something that's you know,that's that's good for you,
(05:21):
that's the supportive of you andyour health.
So there's a whole bunch ofReasons to do with potentially
being outdoors or whatever.
There's so many reasons thatadd up to exercise being really,
really beneficial.
And and look, I would also say,in regards to going back to sort
of the medication thing too,I've had this conversation.
(05:42):
I remember in particular, afriend who was in trouble a few
years ago and I've seen this afew times where sometimes you
are so overwhelmed, there's somuch going on, you are such, in
such a state of I can't eventhink of the word.
But it could be a mania, couldbe a just a I could just in that
(06:03):
adrenaline state and sometimeswhen people are in that state,
they cannot plan, they cannot doexercise or plan eating protein
or what I could.
It's kind of even thinkstraight.
So in that situation, obviouslysometimes for people also,
medication first is a good idea.
Not always and it's differentwith everyone.
And I'm not the expert on themedication, by the way, you
(06:24):
talked to people who that that'sa job is not my job, just an
observation for me.
But sometimes People do needmedication just to calm them
down.
So sometimes if you just sooverwhelmed and so you can't
even think straight, then youneed some sort of medication to
sort of calm you down enough orstraighten you out enough so
that you can plan things likeFood and exercise and all those
(06:46):
things.
I don't think sometimes peoplethink, oh no, no, I've got to do
the exercise and diet and thisand that, whatever, because I
know it's what I need to do.
But If you just physically cutbecause your brain does one lie
to, because it's so hyped up,whatever, then sometimes the
solution list, the short termsolution, is some sort of
medication under supervision,obviously, support from from a
(07:08):
therapist of some kind, andgetting you to a place where
you're calm enough and able tothink straight and plan things,
and then you can then sort ofsay I can't put these things
into action.
So if you're early enough andyou're not in that situation,
then I would suggest you put allthese things in first.
But if you really it's dire andyou're really struggling I
(07:30):
don't struggle more to trying tomake it perfect, to put
everything into place, justgoing to help me get some
medication calm it down then youcan put some things into place
because you just can't do it.
If you can't do it, you can'tdo it, that's fine.
And the other thing to withexercise is don't get like
people get caught up on or mustmean I have to go to the gym or
do this or do that.
No, it just means move,movement right.
(07:52):
So that can look like a milliondifferent things.
That can certainly be done athome and it can certainly be
about getting up and down offyour chair and just, you know,
holding on to the, the holdingon when you do it so you don't
fall or do a push up againstpush ups against the wall, like
I said, putting your favoritesong on and just dancing around
the room.
There's not sort of the don'tget caught up on.
(08:13):
It means 45 minutes at the gymevery morning or means boot camp
at 5am every day.
It can mean those thingsabsolutely, but it doesn't have
to mean those things.
And also then I have talkedabout this before, but I thought
I would just sort of add inthere is sort of a reminder,
some of the other things thatcan that can be useful as far as
(08:34):
helping treat your mentalhealth.
So one is a gratitude diary,certainly any, any ability to
have gratitude.
The more we see in the place ofgratitude, the more we can feel
grateful for things and we canSee better for sure things or
see positive things.
So I know you see what you lookfor and if what you look for is
(08:58):
if you're, if you're lookingfor opportunities, if you're
looking for Proof that there'sbeauty in the world and it's
wonderful things, you'll seethat.
But if you're looking forconfirmation that the world's
all bad and it's all going tohelp, you'll also see that.
Because Both is there is alwaysboth things there at one time.
That's the beauty or thechallenge or the reality of the
(09:20):
world.
However, you can just choose toonly see one and not see the
other.
So I think I've used theexample before, but it's an
example of you know, there's adisaster and we see the disaster
, but we don't see the peoplewho help the people.
When you see later on, when yousee the footage or information
or documentaries, films orwhatever about some disastrous,
(09:41):
horrible thing happened.
What you often see is is greatstories of people, courage and,
you know, like I just recentlysaw now I can't remember the
name of the film, but so AnthonyHopkins was in this film
something time to me.
Anyway, it's a film about aBritish man during World War two
(10:02):
who was able to get a lot ofJewish children out of.
I think it was.
My name, was a Poland, belgium,I can't remember now might have
been Poland, but essentially hesaved a whole bunch of children
from what would have been aterrible fate and basically got
them adopted into homes in theUK until, hopefully, after the
(10:25):
war.
Some of them might have stillhad family and were able to go
back, and maybe many of themwon't, but anyway he helped, I
think, hundreds of children and,and you know, a really like
World War two.
I mean we could talk about allterrible, awful things that
happened, but something ofbeauty like that happens, right.
So so the world is always bothhappening, that is, terrible
(10:47):
things and there's disastrousthings, but then there's
beautiful people and kind peopleand brave people and and just
wonderful things that happened,and there's beauty in the world
and there's beautiful things andthere's awful things.
That's all there.
So what happens often whenwe're depressed or when we're
feeling down is that we only seethe negative stuff.
And I'll I'll I'll includemyself as well because, as
(11:08):
anyone who knows, who's beenlistening to this podcast or
watching this podcast, that I'vehad, you know, a fair bit of
grief grief over a few deaths inmy family and friends and
things in the last few years andI have my moments.
I really have my moments, andsometimes you know, I'll be out
at lunch with some friends orsomething and I'll just later on
here back what I said and whatI was talking about, and I'm so
(11:30):
depressing to be aroundsometimes.
So I'm not this is not ajudgment on anyone, that's just
the way it is that when we, whenwe have a lot of negative
things or things that weperceive as negative, or just
we're having a tough time of it,or all sorts of things, we we
can end up just only seeing badand and it's just a reminder
(11:50):
like just to start to hearyourself to and and to look for
something good.
And it may need lots of therapyand medication and lots of
things.
Depends on what's going on foryou and why you're feeling that
way.
But but, yeah, it is importantto look for beauty, look for
good things, because good thingsdo happen and there's heroes in
situations, not just bad guys.
So it's just look for thosethings in the world, look for
(12:12):
proof that there's.
You know there's those thingsin the world because it is there
.
If you look for it, you willfind it.
Also, just things like aconnection.
Connection is so importantmaking friends and and finding
the right friends for you andunderstanding that sometimes
there are seasons in life and sothere are seasons jobs.
There might be seasons forfriendships and relationships.
(12:34):
Sometimes these things change.
But so, if you don't have afriend circle at the moment,
either reconnect with an oldcircle or connect with someone
new or go to some sort of groupor some sort of interest group.
But come, you know connectionsreally important and when you go
out and talk to other peopleand realise this other people
that experience same things asyou it can be really good, as
(12:56):
long as your group is.
Yeah, some groups, some of thegroups I've seen on Facebook
that I've gone into, are supernegative.
So if you're in a group, that'sjust all about let's just all
be victims forever and we can'tbe responsible for anything in
our lives.
It's all just happened to usand that's all.
Just sit here and be victims.
I don't think that's a goodgroup.
You can certainly all talkabout your tough time and how
(13:17):
hard it is, and I've anyonewho's watched and seen any of my
stuff will know that I talkabout the importance of having a
moment of being a victim, likeit is okay to feel really awful,
to feel really bad and to feellike you're a victim and it's
not fair and all of those things.
That's absolutely valid.
I just don't recommend thatpeople live there.
It's an experience you have,it's a feeling that you have and
(13:38):
you work through it or you gethelp to work through it, but you
just don't live there forever,that's all.
So it's not that it's not validto have those feelings and
experiences.
It's just not helpful to livethere.
You can choose to, but it'sreally not helpful and it
doesn't really make for a happyand healthy life.
The other thing that I wanted tomention as well there's a
(13:58):
couple of things in regards toterms and terminology.
So I was listening to a podcastthis morning and I.
There was a psychologist onthat podcast and she.
She said that I might not getit exactly right I won't name
her in case I'm sort of gettingit slightly wrong but the
essence of what she said wasthat mental good mental health
(14:23):
is not the absence of feelingbad feelings, or feeling bad or
sad feelings or something alongthose lines.
It's not the absence ofdifficulty.
So good mental health is notthe absence of anything bad
happening or any difficulty inyour life or any difficult
feelings, and it's not it's andso good mental health isn't
(14:44):
happiness.
So because a lot of people theyget confused about what good
mental health is and they thinkthat if you have good mental
health, that must mean thatyou're just happy all the time
and you never have anychallenges and you never have
bad feelings or bad thoughts orfeel bad or anything like that.
That's simply not true.
So good mental health is notwhether or not you ever have any
(15:07):
of those feelings, it's how youmanage them.
So if you feel enraged andangry, good mental health is
when you know how to workthrough those feelings and not
going out and smashing someone.
So good mental health is whenyou have an argument with
someone or a debate or adiscussion and you're able to
walk away and kind of go hey, wedisagree, but that's fine and
(15:31):
you're not taking it personallyand you're not getting all aggro
about them and you're not thosethings.
That's one that I've hadchallenges with over the years.
I will admit I get veryexcitable in different debates
and things and sometimes I'vehad learning and I've had to
learn how to kind of just cooldown and calm down and just be
okay that other people have adifferent opinion.
I can find that hard sometimesand it's just again admitting
(15:52):
that some things I havechallenges with we're all flawed
.
We're human beings, we'reflawed and it's not so much it's
not me kind of thing, sort ofdiagnosing that and turning it
into a pathology.
It's just me recognizing somethings about myself and being
aware and working through thatand learning how to do that
better.
So the truth is that having goodmental health is just about how
(16:16):
you manage life, because thetruth is that, like I was
talking about before, good andbad things are in life.
Good and bad things happen inlife.
Life is a mixture of lots ofthings and it can be really
really tricky and it can be hardto find your way in it and
things change and you havetraumatic experiences or grief
(16:37):
experiences or failures andwhatever.
But you also can have successand you can have love and you
can have fun and you can becurious and you can learn and
you can all the different things.
It's just that, it's all there.
Life is all of the things and Ithink it's when you good mental
(16:58):
health, is one, just knowingthat.
That it's all of the things.
It's all of the things you know, succeeding or failing, it's
just wherever you are in the.
You know, I think my mentorShandu, who's been on the
podcast before, we talk about itbeing snakes and ladders, and
life is like that.
It literally is a game ofsnakes and ladders.
So you'll kind of be doingreally well and you'll be really
(17:18):
pleased with yourself and, oh,I'm so evolved and I'm so
healthy, and then you're not,because something happens that
absolutely reminds you thatyou're not as evolved as you
thought you were and all youknow.
Life just happens and it justbrings you down.
And you know, I know that,certainly that and some of these
things it just seems you havejust no control over.
And then suddenly justsomething, a terrible event
(17:42):
happens or a really upsettingevent or whatever it is, and it
really knocks you over, knocksyou through six and it can take
you, you know, days, weeks,months, years to get, really get
back up again, depending on thesituation, depending on you.
So you know, life is is just,life is all the things and it's
all of the colors and it's allof the shades, and so, you know,
(18:04):
good mental health is actuallyunderstanding that it's an ex,
accepting that, just anacceptance of it is what it is.
That is just how life is.
And rather than getting again tolike, rather than getting too
judgmental about what stageyou're at and this is another
one for me it's like oh, Ishould have been over this five,
(18:25):
six years ago.
How could?
I'm still going on about thisthing.
I'm really like, I annoy myselfsometimes because I feel like I
haven't gotten past somethingor moved on from something or
learned something or achievedwhatever it is.
I get really frustrated withmyself, but I'm learning.
You know, a lot of it's aboutjust accepting the process and
accepting where you're at.
And if you're up where you'reat, that's where you're at now
and certainly you can work onmoving forward.
(18:48):
But part of moving forward isalso just an acceptance of where
you are right now and now wecan get really frustrated with
that or ourselves or thesituations.
That it is what it is.
And so having that acceptance,knowing that it is what it is it
doesn't mean there's nothingyou can do, but having
acceptance of where it is nowand doing what you can to move
(19:11):
forward as you can, at whateverspeed you're able to, depending
on what resources you havearound you, and learning how to
roll with it rather than beingthrown around all over the place
.
And actually one of the examples, or one of the to picture this
in your mind again referringback to my mental Shandu, is she
(19:31):
talks about being in your boator being outside of your boat.
And if you think of you andyour life and that you have this
boat that you travel in andwe've all got our own boats, it
doesn't mean we can't connect upwith each other's boats or you
know we've about, butessentially we've got our own
boat and what often happens iswe end up outside of the boat,
(19:52):
so we fall out, or we get out togo and rescue someone over
there or whatever, but we end upoutside of the boat and then we
wonder what?
We're just getting thrownaround everywhere and we've got
to remember to just get backinside our boat and part of that
is just to know what's yoursand what's not and to know what
you can control and what youcan't.
And really the boat a lot ofthe boat analogy is around self
(20:15):
care.
So it's around, you know,eating protein and eating plenty
of veggies and drinking plentyof water and the exercise that I
was talking about before themovement, and it might be
meditation or relaxation or, youknow, going and having therapy
or whatever it is that you needto do, no-transcript Self-care
and making sure you get enoughsleep, all of those things.
(20:35):
So getting back in your boat, alot of it is around just like
it's kind of Grounding yourselfspeed.
We need a boat analogy but it'spracticing their self care and
getting back into the self careroutine and looking after
yourself, and some people needmore than others.
They really need to practice ahell of a lot of self care to
stay okay and and some peopleneed more like, at different
(20:59):
times we might need more thanothers.
Certainly there's times runninga lot more than really good.
Focus on it needs to be my mainfocus and there's other times
where I can Not be quiet asfocus on it, but I can't
completely let go of self carebecause things fall apart pretty
quickly for me, physically andemotionally actually.
So, you know, mental health iskind of more about learning to
(21:20):
roll with it.
Learning to kind of roll, youknow, rather than getting dumped
by every wave.
It's kind of going with it, asyou know, and then kind of
working out what we're to fromhere.
And even just the word mentalhealth, because I was looking at
the definition of mental health, because when you say mental
health, people often thinkmental health means like a
mental, like there's somethingwrong with you.
I'm like and I know that's avery judgmental saying that I,
(21:43):
but I'm just a statement of how,how people relate to a certain
word.
So I'm not saying that peopleare mental or whatever.
But yeah, I think youunderstand what I'm saying.
Forgive me for how I've justsaid that, but they just relate
the word mental health to beingmeaning that something wrong.
Alright, which is better way ofsaying what I just said.
And essentially, mental health,and just reading a definition
(22:05):
here, it's a person's conditionwith regard to this
psychological and emotional,emotional well being, and a big
part of you know assessmentswhen you are assessing,
diagnosing people with mentalhealth issues.
It's not whether or not theyhave certain thoughts and
feelings, it's also how theydeal with them, how they manage
them.
So so, yeah, the word mentalhealth is just talking about
(22:27):
your how you're managing life,essentially emotionally, and and
we get better mental healthwhen we practice lots of self
care and we learn how to go withit more than, rather than,
fight against it, because lifeis life and it's thanks and
letters and stuff happens.
So the more that you learn tosort of go with it and go with
(22:48):
the flow.
Go with the flow doesn't meanyou can't make decisions along
the way and take different Turnsand whatever, but it just means
that sometimes, if you're onthat wave and it's like you
can't get off, what you need todo is just protect yourself till
it lands to your land on shoreand then the next step.
So sometimes you just can'tcontrol that or how long that's
going to go for, because that islife sometimes.
(23:11):
So so anyway, getting back tothe beginning of this is just
the effectiveness effectivenessof moving your body in regards
to your mental health, anxietyfor, for depression and all of
that I just cannot emphasizeenough please move your body and
if you need support, helparound that, see a health
(23:32):
professionals, so whether or notit's an exercise physiologist
or your physio or personaltrainer but if you need to sort
of see someone to help around itbecause you have issues around
that or Issues with your abilityor your function or whatever,
then just get support aroundwhat that might look like for
you.
I think anything is better thannothing, so rather than kind of
(23:53):
throwing the baby out thebathroom so I can't do this, so
I can't do it.
So well, again, I've talkedabout this before, but it's what
can you do and maybe needadvice around that, and it's
fine, get professional advice.
Anyway, I hope that this ishelped point out to you a little
bit more about mental health,the way we look at it and what
we can do to support our mentalhealth, and just really
(24:15):
emphasize to you the importanceof the studies say it over and
over again and this is a bigstudy looked at the whole lot
the importance of moving yourbody movement in regards to
managing your mental health andhaving good mental health.
Anyway, I will leave it at that.
Please remember to like,subscribe, share and if you're
(24:39):
on rumble or YouTube, you'rewelcome to comment as well, and
and I will see you all againnext week.
Thank you, bye.
Hello and welcome to the Wellness Connection podcast
with Fiona Kane.
I'm your host, Fiona Kane.
Today I'm going to be talkingto you about a recent study.
So there's a recent studythat's been published in the
British Journal of SportsMedicine so the BMJ, and it's
talking about the effectivenessof physical activity
(00:22):
interventions for improvingdepression, anxiety, distress
and overall systematic reviews.
Essentially it's about exerciseand what it does for mental
health, what it does for yourmood and for your anxiety.
So that's a shorter way ofsaying it.
So essentially this was areally, really big study.
(00:42):
So it was a study where theylet me just look at here to sort
of explain what it was.
So it was a study where theylooked at 97, they did 97
reviews of a whole bunch oftrials, so that was like over a
thousand trials, thousands ofparticipants, and so it was a
(01:04):
really big review of all of thestudies that have been done so
far.
And the conclusion I'll readthe conclusion and then I'll
discuss it.
But the conclusion was thatphysical activity is highly
beneficial for improvingsymptoms of depression, anxiety
and distress across a wide rangeof adult populations, including
the general population, peoplewith diagnosed mental health
(01:26):
disorders and people withchronic disease.
Physical activity should be amainstay approach in the
management of depression,anxiety and psychological
distress.
So that's it's sort ofrecommendations that physical
activity should be recommendedand any physical activity is
beneficial.
(01:46):
Anything is better than nothing.
So I think it's actually justreally important to bring this
up, because they even theycompared physical activity to
medications and they found thatphysical activity works better
than medications.
Now I will just stop for amoment and say I'm not telling
(02:07):
anyone to stop takingmedications.
In fact, I advise you don'tjust stop taking medications.
It's quite a dangerous thing todo so.
If you choose to take, to stoptaking medications, you do it
under your doctor's supervision.
But what I would say to you isthat it's just it shows you that
because we think of themedication as being the cure all
when exercise can be very, veryhelpful indeed, if not more
(02:29):
helpful in some cases.
So I think it's just importantto include exercise as part of
your treatment, and medicationmay be needed or it may not, but
you bring the exercise in earlyon and then you work with your
doctor about whether or not themedication is the right thing
for you.
But the good thing aboutexercise is, generally speaking,
there's no bad side effects,unless you're into yourself or
(02:51):
something like that.
But that in general, just doingkind of the basic exercise is
is a really good thing and I youknow and it's, and for so many
reasons you know.
So, just besides the fact thatoften it means you're getting
outside and you're getting somevitamin D from the sunshine we
know vitamin D is reallyimportant for depression and and
(03:13):
you're getting and you're justwhen we go outside like and like
of course, you can do insideexercise as well.
So this actually does includeyou know whether or not you're
doing like a little workout homebased on an app or whatever
you're watching online, or ifyou're just doing some stretches
every day, or if you put onyour favorite song and just
dance around and you're notdoing anything formal.
(03:34):
So that's already beneficial aswell.
So the outside bit doesn't haveto be the case, but just
pointing out with the outsidebit, the good thing about the
outside bit is you are getting,when we go outside, even looking
up, we know can be reallybeneficial for our mood because
we're looking down and we'reposture.
So as you just going outsideand you look up and you look at
the sky and you look at theclouds and, and you know, you
(03:56):
know just the birds and thetrees and the butterflies and
whatever.
So just something about thatthat just reminds us that when
we're kind of alone inside andwhatever, it can be very just
about us when we go outside,this other people as a world out
there is, where actually quitesmall and, you know, as part of
the world, and I kind of justgives us a, I suppose, a, an
(04:17):
ability to see that that whennot the world's a bigger place,
you know, get perspective, Isuppose, is what I'm trying to
say.
So going outside is really,really beneficial.
Is actually pouring rain rightnow.
I don't know if you can hearthis on the microphone or not,
but just got distracted sosuddenly got very dark and it's
pouring rain.
Talking about looking outsidethe sunshine, anyway.
(04:40):
So what we know is that evenjust going outside and just
looking out, looking at the skyand whatever, and getting
amongst getting vitamin D isreally great as well.
As the exercise in this studywas specifically looking at the
exercise itself, and theexercise is no, it's the
endorphins and it's you feelingstrong when you do exercise and
when you feel a bit fitter, youfeel healthier, you feel better.
(05:01):
But you know, when we move ourbody become toxins to our system
.
We keep our bowels going.
Doing exercise uses energy, butit also gives you energy.
Also, when you're doingexercise, you feel like you feel
like you're showing up foryourself.
You're doing your practicingself care, so you're doing
something that's you know,that's that's good for you,
(05:21):
that's the supportive of you andyour health.
So there's a whole bunch ofReasons to do with potentially
being outdoors or whatever.
There's so many reasons thatadd up to exercise being really,
really beneficial.
And and look, I would also say,in regards to going back to sort
of the medication thing too,I've had this conversation.
(05:42):
I remember in particular, afriend who was in trouble a few
years ago and I've seen this afew times where sometimes you
are so overwhelmed, there's somuch going on, you are such, in
such a state of I can't eventhink of the word.
But it could be a mania, couldbe a just a I could just in that
(06:03):
adrenaline state and sometimeswhen people are in that state,
they cannot plan, they cannot doexercise or plan eating protein
or what I could.
It's kind of even thinkstraight.
So in that situation, obviouslysometimes for people also,
medication first is a good idea.
Not always and it's differentwith everyone.
And I'm not the expert on themedication, by the way, you
(06:24):
talked to people who that that'sa job is not my job, just an
observation for me.
But sometimes People do needmedication just to calm them
down.
So sometimes if you just sooverwhelmed and so you can't
even think straight, then youneed some sort of medication to
sort of calm you down enough orstraighten you out enough so
that you can plan things likeFood and exercise and all those
(06:46):
things.
I don't think sometimes peoplethink, oh no, no, I've got to do
the exercise and diet and thisand that, whatever, because I
know it's what I need to do.
But If you just physically cutbecause your brain does one lie
to, because it's so hyped up,whatever, then sometimes the
solution list, the short termsolution, is some sort of
medication under supervision,obviously, support from from a
(07:08):
therapist of some kind, andgetting you to a place where
you're calm enough and able tothink straight and plan things,
and then you can then sort ofsay I can't put these things
into action.
So if you're early enough andyou're not in that situation,
then I would suggest you put allthese things in first.
But if you really it's dire andyou're really struggling I
(07:30):
don't struggle more to trying tomake it perfect, to put
everything into place, justgoing to help me get some
medication calm it down then youcan put some things into place
because you just can't do it.
If you can't do it, you can'tdo it, that's fine.
And the other thing to withexercise is don't get like
people get caught up on or mustmean I have to go to the gym or
do this or do that.
No, it just means move,movement right.
(07:52):
So that can look like a milliondifferent things.
That can certainly be done athome and it can certainly be
about getting up and down offyour chair and just, you know,
holding on to the, the holdingon when you do it so you don't
fall or do a push up againstpush ups against the wall, like
I said, putting your favoritesong on and just dancing around
the room.
There's not sort of the don'tget caught up on.
(08:13):
It means 45 minutes at the gymevery morning or means boot camp
at 5am every day.
It can mean those thingsabsolutely, but it doesn't have
to mean those things.
And also then I have talkedabout this before, but I thought
I would just sort of add inthere is sort of a reminder,
some of the other things thatcan that can be useful as far as
(08:34):
helping treat your mentalhealth.
So one is a gratitude diary,certainly any, any ability to
have gratitude.
The more we see in the place ofgratitude, the more we can feel
grateful for things and we canSee better for sure things or
see positive things.
So I know you see what you lookfor and if what you look for is
(08:58):
if you're, if you're lookingfor opportunities, if you're
looking for Proof that there'sbeauty in the world and it's
wonderful things, you'll seethat.
But if you're looking forconfirmation that the world's
all bad and it's all going tohelp, you'll also see that.
Because Both is there is alwaysboth things there at one time.
That's the beauty or thechallenge or the reality of the
(09:20):
world.
However, you can just choose toonly see one and not see the
other.
So I think I've used theexample before, but it's an
example of you know, there's adisaster and we see the disaster
, but we don't see the peoplewho help the people.
When you see later on, when yousee the footage or information
or documentaries, films orwhatever about some disastrous,
(09:41):
horrible thing happened.
What you often see is is greatstories of people, courage and,
you know, like I just recentlysaw now I can't remember the
name of the film, but so AnthonyHopkins was in this film
something time to me.
Anyway, it's a film about aBritish man during World War two
(10:02):
who was able to get a lot ofJewish children out of.
I think it was.
My name, was a Poland, belgium,I can't remember now might have
been Poland, but essentially hesaved a whole bunch of children
from what would have been aterrible fate and basically got
them adopted into homes in theUK until, hopefully, after the
(10:25):
war.
Some of them might have stillhad family and were able to go
back, and maybe many of themwon't, but anyway he helped, I
think, hundreds of children and,and you know, a really like
World War two.
I mean we could talk about allterrible, awful things that
happened, but something ofbeauty like that happens, right.
So so the world is always bothhappening, that is, terrible
(10:47):
things and there's disastrousthings, but then there's
beautiful people and kind peopleand brave people and and just
wonderful things that happened,and there's beauty in the world
and there's beautiful things andthere's awful things.
That's all there.
So what happens often whenwe're depressed or when we're
feeling down is that we only seethe negative stuff.
And I'll I'll I'll includemyself as well because, as
(11:08):
anyone who knows, who's beenlistening to this podcast or
watching this podcast, that I'vehad, you know, a fair bit of
grief grief over a few deaths inmy family and friends and
things in the last few years andI have my moments.
I really have my moments, andsometimes you know, I'll be out
at lunch with some friends orsomething and I'll just later on
here back what I said and whatI was talking about, and I'm so
(11:30):
depressing to be aroundsometimes.
So I'm not this is not ajudgment on anyone, that's just
the way it is that when we, whenwe have a lot of negative
things or things that weperceive as negative, or just
we're having a tough time of it,or all sorts of things, we we
can end up just only seeing badand and it's just a reminder
(11:50):
like just to start to hearyourself to and and to look for
something good.
And it may need lots of therapyand medication and lots of
things.
Depends on what's going on foryou and why you're feeling that
way.
But but, yeah, it is importantto look for beauty, look for
good things, because good thingsdo happen and there's heroes in
situations, not just bad guys.
So it's just look for thosethings in the world, look for
(12:12):
proof that there's.
You know there's those thingsin the world because it is there
.
If you look for it, you willfind it.
Also, just things like aconnection.
Connection is so importantmaking friends and and finding
the right friends for you andunderstanding that sometimes
there are seasons in life and sothere are seasons jobs.
There might be seasons forfriendships and relationships.
(12:34):
Sometimes these things change.
But so, if you don't have afriend circle at the moment,
either reconnect with an oldcircle or connect with someone
new or go to some sort of groupor some sort of interest group.
But come, you know connectionsreally important and when you go
out and talk to other peopleand realise this other people
that experience same things asyou it can be really good, as
(12:56):
long as your group is.
Yeah, some groups, some of thegroups I've seen on Facebook
that I've gone into, are supernegative.
So if you're in a group, that'sjust all about let's just all
be victims forever and we can'tbe responsible for anything in
our lives.
It's all just happened to usand that's all.
Just sit here and be victims.
I don't think that's a goodgroup.
You can certainly all talkabout your tough time and how
(13:17):
hard it is, and I've anyonewho's watched and seen any of my
stuff will know that I talkabout the importance of having a
moment of being a victim, likeit is okay to feel really awful,
to feel really bad and to feellike you're a victim and it's
not fair and all of those things.
That's absolutely valid.
I just don't recommend thatpeople live there.
It's an experience you have,it's a feeling that you have and
(13:38):
you work through it or you gethelp to work through it, but you
just don't live there forever,that's all.
So it's not that it's not validto have those feelings and
experiences.
It's just not helpful to livethere.
You can choose to, but it'sreally not helpful and it
doesn't really make for a happyand healthy life.
The other thing that I wanted tomention as well there's a
(13:58):
couple of things in regards toterms and terminology.
So I was listening to a podcastthis morning and I.
There was a psychologist onthat podcast and she.
She said that I might not getit exactly right I won't name
her in case I'm sort of gettingit slightly wrong but the
essence of what she said wasthat mental good mental health
(14:23):
is not the absence of feelingbad feelings, or feeling bad or
sad feelings or something alongthose lines.
It's not the absence ofdifficulty.
So good mental health is notthe absence of anything bad
happening or any difficulty inyour life or any difficult
feelings, and it's not it's andso good mental health isn't
(14:44):
happiness.
So because a lot of people theyget confused about what good
mental health is and they thinkthat if you have good mental
health, that must mean thatyou're just happy all the time
and you never have anychallenges and you never have
bad feelings or bad thoughts orfeel bad or anything like that.
That's simply not true.
So good mental health is notwhether or not you ever have any
(15:07):
of those feelings, it's how youmanage them.
So if you feel enraged andangry, good mental health is
when you know how to workthrough those feelings and not
going out and smashing someone.
So good mental health is whenyou have an argument with
someone or a debate or adiscussion and you're able to
walk away and kind of go hey, wedisagree, but that's fine and
(15:31):
you're not taking it personallyand you're not getting all aggro
about them and you're not thosethings.
That's one that I've hadchallenges with over the years.
I will admit I get veryexcitable in different debates
and things and sometimes I'vehad learning and I've had to
learn how to kind of just cooldown and calm down and just be
okay that other people have adifferent opinion.
I can find that hard sometimesand it's just again admitting
(15:52):
that some things I havechallenges with we're all flawed
.
We're human beings, we'reflawed and it's not so much it's
not me kind of thing, sort ofdiagnosing that and turning it
into a pathology.
It's just me recognizing somethings about myself and being
aware and working through thatand learning how to do that
better.
So the truth is that having goodmental health is just about how
(16:16):
you manage life, because thetruth is that, like I was
talking about before, good andbad things are in life.
Good and bad things happen inlife.
Life is a mixture of lots ofthings and it can be really
really tricky and it can be hardto find your way in it and
things change and you havetraumatic experiences or grief
(16:37):
experiences or failures andwhatever.
But you also can have successand you can have love and you
can have fun and you can becurious and you can learn and
you can all the different things.
It's just that, it's all there.
Life is all of the things and Ithink it's when you good mental
(16:58):
health, is one, just knowingthat.
That it's all of the things.
It's all of the things you know, succeeding or failing, it's
just wherever you are in the.
You know, I think my mentorShandu, who's been on the
podcast before, we talk about itbeing snakes and ladders, and
life is like that.
It literally is a game ofsnakes and ladders.
So you'll kind of be doingreally well and you'll be really
(17:18):
pleased with yourself and, oh,I'm so evolved and I'm so
healthy, and then you're not,because something happens that
absolutely reminds you thatyou're not as evolved as you
thought you were and all youknow.
Life just happens and it justbrings you down.
And you know, I know that,certainly that and some of these
things it just seems you havejust no control over.
And then suddenly justsomething, a terrible event
(17:42):
happens or a really upsettingevent or whatever it is, and it
really knocks you over, knocksyou through six and it can take
you, you know, days, weeks,months, years to get, really get
back up again, depending on thesituation, depending on you.
So you know, life is is just,life is all the things and it's
all of the colors and it's allof the shades, and so, you know,
(18:04):
good mental health is actuallyunderstanding that it's an ex,
accepting that, just anacceptance of it is what it is.
That is just how life is.
And rather than getting again tolike, rather than getting too
judgmental about what stageyou're at and this is another
one for me it's like oh, Ishould have been over this five,
(18:25):
six years ago.
How could?
I'm still going on about thisthing.
I'm really like, I annoy myselfsometimes because I feel like I
haven't gotten past somethingor moved on from something or
learned something or achievedwhatever it is.
I get really frustrated withmyself, but I'm learning.
You know, a lot of it's aboutjust accepting the process and
accepting where you're at.
And if you're up where you'reat, that's where you're at now
and certainly you can work onmoving forward.
(18:48):
But part of moving forward isalso just an acceptance of where
you are right now and now wecan get really frustrated with
that or ourselves or thesituations.
That it is what it is.
And so having that acceptance,knowing that it is what it is it
doesn't mean there's nothingyou can do, but having
acceptance of where it is nowand doing what you can to move
(19:11):
forward as you can, at whateverspeed you're able to, depending
on what resources you havearound you, and learning how to
roll with it rather than beingthrown around all over the place
.
And actually one of the examples, or one of the to picture this
in your mind again referringback to my mental Shandu, is she
(19:31):
talks about being in your boator being outside of your boat.
And if you think of you andyour life and that you have this
boat that you travel in andwe've all got our own boats, it
doesn't mean we can't connect upwith each other's boats or you
know we've about, butessentially we've got our own
boat and what often happens iswe end up outside of the boat,
(19:52):
so we fall out, or we get out togo and rescue someone over
there or whatever, but we end upoutside of the boat and then we
wonder what?
We're just getting thrownaround everywhere and we've got
to remember to just get backinside our boat and part of that
is just to know what's yoursand what's not and to know what
you can control and what youcan't.
And really the boat a lot ofthe boat analogy is around self
(20:15):
care.
So it's around, you know,eating protein and eating plenty
of veggies and drinking plentyof water and the exercise that I
was talking about before themovement, and it might be
meditation or relaxation or, youknow, going and having therapy
or whatever it is that you needto do, no-transcript Self-care
and making sure you get enoughsleep, all of those things.
(20:35):
So getting back in your boat, alot of it is around just like
it's kind of Grounding yourselfspeed.
We need a boat analogy but it'spracticing their self care and
getting back into the self careroutine and looking after
yourself, and some people needmore than others.
They really need to practice ahell of a lot of self care to
stay okay and and some peopleneed more like, at different
(20:59):
times we might need more thanothers.
Certainly there's times runninga lot more than really good.
Focus on it needs to be my mainfocus and there's other times
where I can Not be quiet asfocus on it, but I can't
completely let go of self carebecause things fall apart pretty
quickly for me, physically andemotionally actually.
So, you know, mental health iskind of more about learning to
(21:20):
roll with it.
Learning to kind of roll, youknow, rather than getting dumped
by every wave.
It's kind of going with it, asyou know, and then kind of
working out what we're to fromhere.
And even just the word mentalhealth, because I was looking at
the definition of mental health, because when you say mental
health, people often thinkmental health means like a
mental, like there's somethingwrong with you.
I'm like and I know that's avery judgmental saying that I,
(21:43):
but I'm just a statement of how,how people relate to a certain
word.
So I'm not saying that peopleare mental or whatever.
But yeah, I think youunderstand what I'm saying.
Forgive me for how I've justsaid that, but they just relate
the word mental health to beingmeaning that something wrong.
Alright, which is better way ofsaying what I just said.
And essentially, mental health,and just reading a definition
(22:05):
here, it's a person's conditionwith regard to this
psychological and emotional,emotional well being, and a big
part of you know assessmentswhen you are assessing,
diagnosing people with mentalhealth issues.
It's not whether or not theyhave certain thoughts and
feelings, it's also how theydeal with them, how they manage
them.
So so, yeah, the word mentalhealth is just talking about
(22:27):
your how you're managing life,essentially emotionally, and and
we get better mental healthwhen we practice lots of self
care and we learn how to go withit more than, rather than,
fight against it, because lifeis life and it's thanks and
letters and stuff happens.
So the more that you learn tosort of go with it and go with
(22:48):
the flow.
Go with the flow doesn't meanyou can't make decisions along
the way and take different Turnsand whatever, but it just means
that sometimes, if you're onthat wave and it's like you
can't get off, what you need todo is just protect yourself till
it lands to your land on shoreand then the next step.
So sometimes you just can'tcontrol that or how long that's
going to go for, because that islife sometimes.
(23:11):
So so anyway, getting back tothe beginning of this is just
the effectiveness effectivenessof moving your body in regards
to your mental health, anxietyfor, for depression and all of
that I just cannot emphasizeenough please move your body and
if you need support, helparound that, see a health
(23:32):
professionals, so whether or notit's an exercise physiologist
or your physio or personaltrainer but if you need to sort
of see someone to help around itbecause you have issues around
that or Issues with your abilityor your function or whatever,
then just get support aroundwhat that might look like for
you.
I think anything is better thannothing, so rather than kind of
(23:53):
throwing the baby out thebathroom so I can't do this, so
I can't do it.
So well, again, I've talkedabout this before, but it's what
can you do and maybe needadvice around that, and it's
fine, get professional advice.
Anyway, I hope that this ishelped point out to you a little
bit more about mental health,the way we look at it and what
we can do to support our mentalhealth, and just really
(24:15):
emphasize to you the importanceof the studies say it over and
over again and this is a bigstudy looked at the whole lot
the importance of moving yourbody movement in regards to
managing your mental health andhaving good mental health.
Anyway, I will leave it at that.
Please remember to like,subscribe, share and if you're
(24:39):
on rumble or YouTube, you'rewelcome to comment as well, and
and I will see you all againnext week.
Thank you, bye.
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