Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 21- Exercise and Mental Health, Depression and Self-Perception.

Episode Date: April 23, 2020

In this episode, Danny answers the question of how exercise impacts various aspects of mental health including:depressionself-perceptionhappinessconfidenceThis is a common question that gets asked and you may just find some uncommon answers! Enjoy this episode!  Follow Danny On INSTAGRAM Grab A Free Guide on Over 10 Fitness Topics HERE! Get More In-Depth Written Content HERE! Interested in Working With Coach Danny? Click HERE! Want To Have YOUR QUESTION ANSWERED ON DYNAMIC DIALOGUE? Ask it HERE!Support the Show.

Welcome back to another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. I'm your host Danny Matringa. And I hope wherever you're at, wherever you're listening to this, things are going well. It's pretty hard to imagine that anybody listening to this is somewhere in the world where they haven't been impacted in some way, shape or form by the things going on with COVID-19, particularly regarding the topics we'll talk about today. That being said, I have this kind of inescapable feeling that things are getting a little bit better. At least where I live in California, it seems as if we have flattened the metaphorical curve, the spread of this virus. Seems like we may be getting closer and closer to normalcy. People have been cooperating. There's been less dissension. Overall, it just feels like

there is at least a light at the end of this tunnel. If you remember how this whole thing started, you'll likely remember many of the talking heads, politicians, people on the news saying that this could extend for who knows how long, potentially even into the fall and the winter. And while that's of course still on the table, I cannot help but feel like we are getting more and more used to the way we have to live to get this over with quickly. We are adapting and I feel as if there may well be a light at the end of this tunnel and perhaps we'll get out of this sooner than later. Again, I'm not a qualified epidemiologist, virologist, so I technically don't know. I'm just telling you how I've been feeling and it's encouraging. So today's podcast is going to be all about mental health. It's one of the more popular questions I've been asked. I got two emails this week.

One from Taylor Dinkle who asked, can you talk about the ways strength training or exercise in general contributes to mental health? And another from Jessica Guillen who asked, can exercise and a healthy diet be a substitution for antidepressants to help adults combat depression. So we're talking about direct and indirect ways exercise and healthy eating can impact long-term and acute mental health. So in many ways, we have this idea of what we expect or think mental health is or what we think it is

to be mentally healthy. But at the crux of that, we have to make sure that we have two definitive definitions, if you will. There is one that is a bit more clinical. And mental health or mental illness on the clinical spectrum is usually referencing, right, some degree of pathology or chemical imbalance. Conditions like bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, things like that might fall more under the umbrella of clinical mental health. But then you have more of your subjective interpretive mental health, which might be your confidence, your perceived happiness, your day-to-day zeal, right? So there's a lot of nuance,

there's a lot of layers to this, but I think I'm qualified to speak on some of them, and that's what we'll talk about. But let's first talk about the ways that exercise can indirectly improve mental health. And the first thing we have to take a look at is its impact on things like endorphin and neurotransmitters. So these are at the chemical level, right? And when people are dealing with mental illness, depression, a lot of the things we see in today's society, even anxiety, there's always going to be some degree of chemical interaction. I'm cautious about saying imbalance because that kind of denotes that things are permanent, and they're certainly not. But in today's day-to-day life where we've become increasingly, increasingly sedentary, we have tremendous amounts of stress and anxiety bombarding us at any given point in time, it's often hard to find balance and balance

those pathways, at least at the chemical level, naturally. And that's one of the areas where exercise can actually succeed quite well. Think, for example, of the runner's high, which is correlated with the release of endorphin. Endorphins are just one of many neurotransmitters that we actually release when we exercise that stimulate dopamine, serotonin, and a lot of positive chemicals in the brain that play a role in mood regulation. So that's a direct way that a little bit of exercise, particularly aerobic or endurance exercise, can actually acutely change the chemistry of the brain. And regular exercise can impact serotonin levels and boost your mood and sense of well-being as well as impact appetite and sleep. So again, appetite, which is correlated with nutrition, right? And sleep, which is correlated with essentially everything can all be indirectly and positively impacted by exercise. So we have regular exercise stimulating serotonin and dopamine, as well as improving appetite and sleep,

all of which are indirectly connected to mental health, right? It also has the ability to level and kind of regulate more intense hormones and stress hormones, like epinephrine and norepinephrine, right? Your fight or flight hormones that can be damaging to our health by increasing things like stress and anxiety, right? So those are just the immediate direct chemical ways that exercise can impact our mood. that exercise can impact our mood. And it's not too different when we talk about nutrition, given that, you know, we are kind of constituents of everything that we eat and eating a lot of healthy, nutritious foods that are loaded in vitamins, minerals, proteins, carbohydrates, and healthy fats. All of those things play a role in providing our body with the building blocks that it needs to put these things into place. Our hormones are synthesized from these things. Our biological

processes require these things. And ensuring that we have the things we need to run the hardware effectively is always going to give our body a better chance of running optimally at both the physical and chemical level. So that's where we can talk about diet and exercise really directly impacting somebody's mental health. Some of the encouraging ways that diet has an ability to do it, right, is by increasing our energy through providing us with nutrient-rich foods and fuel. So, you know, mental health, again, existing on a spectrum, at least from the subjective and interpretive level, right? The more food that we have, or quality of fuel that we have to provide our body with energy and micronutrients we have to run our various processes, the better we can function. And if

you are malnourished, meaning either you're not eating enough calories or you're eating enough calories but not getting enough nutrition, it's pretty hard to live an energetic, excited life. And giving yourself the fuel you need through generally more healthful food choices is going to set you up again for more long-term success compared to the traditional Western diet, right? Which may well be very high in calories, but devoid of certain aspects that would comprise complete and holistic nutrition for a healthful, healthy human being.

If you're not getting the food you need, that's one thing. But if you're getting enough food, but not enough nutrition, right? That's where we can run into problems. And a lot of people spend a lot of time eating, snacking. They're certainly getting enough calories, but they're not getting adequate nutrition. Excuse me. Nice little yawn this morning. So understanding that we know now that there's a direct and indirect link between food choice and actually how we feel from a

chemical level and with the things going on with our body. So if you want to set yourself up for the best mental health, there's certainly reasons to optimize your nutrition and diet over time, without a doubt. Where this conversation can really get deep is when we talk about the indirect ways that nutrition and training can impact mental health. So directly meaning, you know, hey, when I eat X, I get Y. When I train X, I get Y. Indirectly is a little bit more of a perception-based thing, and it's a little bit more of an individualized thing. But the first thing that I want to hit on in regards to exercise and mental health is, or and nutrition and mental health, is when you know that you are doing something positive

for your body, for your mind, for your spirit, it tends to create momentum. And, you know, if you're having a bad day or you're struggling with mental health or you have some perhaps chemical imbalances, the actual act of investing a little bit of time, energy into your physical self, into your nutrition can be motivating. It can be uplifting. It can create a sense of, hey, you know what? I'm worth it. My body and mind are worth it. I'm going to push myself. I'm going to get a great workout and I'm worth it. My body and mind are worth it. I'm going to push myself. I'm going to get a great workout. And I'm going to fuel my body for recovery. All right, not just for muscle gain and muscle repair. But you know, I'm going to have a good meal right now

because I want to support my continued development as a physical being my personal growth as a body. And doing that creates a lot of momentum because here you are putting effort into something. You're going to get return from something. You're supporting it with your mindset and your nutrition. And it's a really positive organic thing to do. And so that's going to indirectly support mental health simply by virtue of just your, you know, you putting time into yourself in a way that many people don't, right? A lot of people live their lives, they go to a job they hate, you know, they work for somebody they don't like, they come home, they take care of kids, maybe they take care of things

around the house, they don't make a lot of time for themselves. And doing that over and over and over again, day in and day out, really impacts mental health. But taking a little time and investing in your body, physical body, your health, your nutrition, you kind of reset the framework around, hey, look, I'm an organism that's worth taking care of. And when I take care of myself, I feel good, I do better. And so the first and most obvious indirect way that exercise impacts mental health is it forces you to take a hard look in the mirror and dedicate some time to your well-being. And doing that can tremendously impact how you perceive

yourself, the importance of your body, and it can create a ton of momentum in a way that a lot of things simply can't. Another way that exercise can really impact mental health is by helping stabilize hectic situations by incorporating and kind of injecting the necessity for routine and management throughout your day or week. What I mean by that is if you're going to make a run at living a healthy life, you need to schedule some workouts and you need to make time for nutrition. And a lot of people dealing with mental health, anxiety, frustration, they're having a hard time getting things going, perhaps they're scattered. At least on my end, I can tell you that having some routine baked into your day can really help. And making defined time for exercise is a really, really powerful tool, given that, you know, you can do it almost every day, at least a healthy cookie, but you can do some type of exercise, mobility, aerobic training every day and build your day around that. And it creates a stable

foundation for you from which you can kind of build a more structured approach to living your life. And a lot of people, particularly young people really struggle with this. They have feelings of anxiety, listlessness, not knowing exactly what it is they should be doing. And when you have to make a decision about what you're going to do every single moment of every single day, it can be quite daunting because there's so many things that can distract us and so many things and directions we can allocate our attention. Hey guys, just wanted to take a quick second to say thanks so much for listening to the podcast. And if you're finding value, it would mean the world to me if you would share it on your social media. Simply screenshot

whatever platform you're listening to and share the episode to your Instagram story or share it to Facebook. But be sure to tag me so I can say thanks and we can chat it up about what you liked and how I can continue to improve. Thanks so much for supporting the podcast and enjoy the rest of the episode. So setting some time aside for exercise and saying, this is what I want to be working on right now. This is what I want to be working on at 8am Monday through Friday, blah, blah, blah, you know, injecting some structure through exercise can be very, very beneficial for again, creating a routine and helping to stabilize a otherwise quite hectic lifestyle that a lot of us deal with on a day-to-day basis. Perhaps the most obvious indirect way that exercise can boost mental health is by increasing

perceived confidence. Simply getting stronger, seeing your body develop physically and make changes is a really encouraging and uplifting situation. You needn't look much further than your scrawny high school guy who starts lifting halfway through his high school career, builds a little bit of muscle, maybe gets a girlfriend here and there, maybe he gets laid, builds some confidence, and he's really feeling himself. That's not an atypical scenario for a lot of people who need a confidence boost. And it's not just the physical change that causes it. It's the ability to say, you know, on your first couple weeks in the gym, man, I can't lift that. And then a couple months later, you are able to lift that and seeing that growth is incredibly

encouraging. And it happens all the time throughout a well-programmed training career. The ability to do what was once daunting and see changes that you thought perhaps once impossible is very up there, it starts to force you to ask the question, what else can I do in my life that I perhaps wrote myself off from being able to accomplish? Are there things that I can now do that I'm stronger, more fit, I have better perseverance, I have better follow through, right, that are really going to impact my life outside of fitness. So small incremental gains with your physical fitness seem to remind people, if you will, that when you challenge yourself and you challenge your body, good things happen. And this is not, this is not, you know, exclusive to fitness. So reminding people that if you put your head down and you do something and you work at it hard enough, you will likely get there. That's the amazing thing about physical fitness. A 45 pound barbell is a 45 pound barbell every day of the week, no matter how bad your day's going, right? No matter how good your day's going,

ups, downs, all around, a 45-pound barbell is always going to be a 45-pound barbell. And having that consistency, right? This is metaphorical, of course, really makes a big difference. What it tells you is that, hey, no matter how shitty my day's going, those weights are going to be there and they're going to be fair. Life is not fair. Life tends to beat us down, sometimes kick us around, and oftentimes it's simply not fair. But that 45-pound barbell is always fair. On some days it might feel lighter, and other days it might feel heavier, but it's always going to be there and it's always going to be fair.

heavier, but it's always going to be there. And it's always going to be fair. It's an opportunity for us to say, hey, no matter how bad things have been, how inconsistent they might have been, I can always go to the gym, and it's going to be there. And it's going to challenge me in a unique way every time. And pushing through that is practice. It provides consistency. It's fair. And you really truly do get into it what you or rather get out of it what you put into it. And that is an incredible thing to be constantly reminded of. And again, another way that exercise impacts mental health is it's fair. It's a constant reminder of how effort and impact are inextricably connected, meaning the more effort you put forth, the greater impact you will make on a goal, on a project, all of this stuff, right? You just cannot get away from that

in life. And having that there on your good days and on your bad days is a really, really good tool to keep in your back pocket. So again, these are all indirect, meaning I can't track them or quantify them, but they're common, right? Like these are things that I've seen all the time with people, okay? Another thing that I see quite often is the way improving body composition impacts confidence, right? There's no secret that losing a little bit of weight, tightening up, getting a little more tone, building some muscle, just changing the way you look can really increase your confidence. But that doesn't just live exclusively to the gym, right? It's not just about a physique thing. That confidence isn't exclusive to your new physical body. Seeing that growth and development gives you confidence that extends into the work

you're doing perhaps at school, maybe what you're doing at home, maybe what you're doing in the workplace. Seeing your body change is a constant reminder that humans are very adaptive and they have the potential and the ability to evolve. And that's a really, really a constant reminder that humans are very adaptive and they have the potential and the ability to evolve. And that's a really, really positive constant reminder. And living in a world where I'm making positive change, my body is getting better, it's improving, I'm investing the time into it, I'm worth that, you know, I'm healthy, that's a really positive place to come from. And if you're living your life from that base, you're going to do exponentially better than somebody who say on the flip side is coming from the base of, oh man, I'm out of shape.

I don't like the way I look in this. I know I need to get to the gym, but I don't. I just don't have time. You know, if I didn't have this and that, you know, people who tend to make excuses or people who tend to genuinely have reasons that they can't get to the gym. But at the end of the day, they're living in an unhealthy body. They have a look that they're not satisfied with, perhaps they're even self conscious of that can create anxiety, right? A lot of people wake up, look in the mirror, and they have anxiety about what they look like physically, the way that people will judge them for how they look, because unfortunately, we do live in a society where people cast a tremendous amount of judgment

on people based on how they look. Look, and that's for better or for worse. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I think it's completely, entirely, and wholly unfair that we look at somebody who's morbidly obese and say, oh, well, that's just unfair. Poor them. We need to give them every excuse in the book because much of obesity is lifestyle related and it can be, at least in some part, put on the individual who is living that life. And they are somewhat certainly responsible for living in a body that is that unwell. However, right, you know, getting away from that and getting back to the idea of working on your fitness, you know, fighting against that, staving that off, continuing to put time and energy into your physique and your body is the antithesis of slipping into obesity,

degeneracy, and generally letting your body go to quote unquote shit. If you put that work in and you walk around in a body that you're confident in, that you're proud of, and that functions well, you're going to do a whole hell of a lot better than if you're on the other side of that coin. And that's not rocket science. You know, that's not being a skinny person elitist or fat phobic. It's just the facts. It's no different than your car, right? You know, if you're driving around in a beater car with all the windows blown out and garbage all over the place, you're not going to be super stoked to pull up to a first date with

that car and be like, hey, hop in. You're going to be like, man, maybe I should at least clean the trash off the floor. And then on the flip side, if you roll up in a Lamborghini, you're probably going to be like, hey, how's it going? I got this badass car, much like your physique, which is representative of a few things. Now, granted, a Lamborghini and a beater car are more representative of income than they are anything else. But you can't miss that correlation there. Sure, it's metaphorical. But at the end of the day, what you put into your body, you have to look at every day and other people get to look at every day. And the confidence that comes from knowing that, one, I put enough effort into my body to be happy with where it's at, not just from an aesthetic standpoint, but from a health standpoint, and know that other people see that and appreciate it is a really, really big confidence boost

that I think a lot of people just take for granted. Again, that's why I like that car analogy. What you pull up to within your body, right? It doesn't have to be the best body there, but if you're confident with the fact that you take care of yourself, everything's going right chemically, that is going to make a huge impact on your mental health. And to just wrap this up, we will talk a little bit about mental health and depression. Of course, how does exercise and healthy eating kind of play a role in that? So one in 10 adults in the United States struggles with depression. This is per Harvard, okay? Antidepressants are an incredibly common way to treat depression, right?

SSRIs are a very common option, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. These are the drugs commonly associated with treating depression. But they're not the only solution. And research actually has shown that exercise is as, if not a more effective treatment for some people in some cases, right? So obviously exercise helps protect against heart disease, diabetes, and improve sleep, lowers cholesterol, lowers blood pressure. High intensity exercise is good for endorphins, all good stuff. And this kind of activity spurs on these proteins, right? Called neurotrophic proteins or growth factors, right, stuff in the nerve cells that actually make new connections. And these improvements in the brain can make us

feel better. And in people who are depressed, right, scientists have connected these types of activities to the hippocampus, right, which is the region which regulates mood. So exercise supports nerve cell growth in the hippocampus, improving cell connections, which can help directly with relieving depression. So there's a direct correlation between exercise and managing depression. Does this mean you get off your depression medication if you're somebody who's dealing with it? Certainly not. But it is something positive that those out there who are dealing with it? Certainly not. But it is something positive that those out there who are dealing with depression or struggling with an unstable mood can look to exercise as something you can look to as a really accessible remedy. So there you guys

have it. Those are some of the kind of direct and indirect impacts that exercise has on mental health. Now, I am not a mental health professional. I'm not a mental health expert, but I'm somebody who has some firsthand experience with feelings of depression, some dark thoughts, both in my own mind and with family. It's not uncommon. So just sharing that, being transparent with you guys,

exercise has changed my mental health and really impacted my life positively. And I think it should be part of everybody's preventative mental health self-care routine, even a first-line treatment against those who are dealing with acute feelings of depression and mental illness. As always, talk with your doctor before doing any of this stuff. But I am of the school of thought that we should turn towards remedies that are very accessible first and those should be at the front line. So guys, if you enjoyed the episode, do me a huge favor. Take a screenshot and share it. This could really change somebody's outlook on how they can

manage their mental health proactively and take steps towards living a fitter and healthier life just like you have. Do not take for granted the fact that a lot of people out there simply don't know where to start and feel alone. So sharing an episode like this might make a really big difference. And if you could, leave me a five-star rating and review on iTunes.

That helps people find the show and it helps me get my message out there. And I'd be extremely appreciative if you would do that for me thank you so much for tuning in and remember it's always a good day to be a good person