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The Mind-Body Connection: How Exercise Transforms Mental Health
12 Plays1 month ago
In this episode of the Growing with Sol podcast, I dive into the powerful connection between physical activity and mental wellbeing. I share how exercise became a lifeline during my own struggles with depression and anxiety, and explore the science behind why movement matters for our mental health.
Research confirms that regular physical activity significantly improves mood and depressive symptoms for people of all ages. Whether it's martial arts like my beloved jiu-jitsu or simply daily walks with my dog Mochi, finding movement that works for you can interrupt negative thought patterns and create space for healing.
Beyond the physical benefits, sports and group activities combat the loneliness epidemic by helping us build community. If you're feeling overwhelmed or anxious, even a 20-minute daily walk contributes to the recommended 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week that health experts suggest.
What physical activity helps your mental wellbeing? DM me or share your thoughts on socials!
If you're looking for support in building self-esteem and confidence, I'm currently accepting clients. Click the link in the show notes to schedule your discovery call!
See you in the next episode! ✨
Articles referred to in this chapter:
Mind-body connection is built into brain, by WashU Medicine
Role of Physical Activity on Mental Health and Well-Being: A Review, by PubMed Central
Depression and anxiety: Exercise eases symptoms, by Mayo Clinic
The impact of sports participation on mental health and social outcomes in adults, by PubMed Central
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- Drop your thoughts in the comments—how has movement helped your mental health?
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Transcript
Introduction to Growing With Soul Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
Hello beautiful souls and welcome back to another installment of the Growing With Soul podcast. My name is Marisol Moran and I'm a certified life coach specializing in self esteem and confidence. The Growing With Soul podcast focuses on continual growth and healing, especially in the small steps we take every single day. If you are looking to heal, to grow, and to connect with your true self, this podcast is for you.
00:00:25
Speaker
Additionally, I am accepting clients, so if you would like support in reaching your goals or building self-esteem or confidence, click the link in my show notes to schedule your very own discovery call.
Exercise and Mental Health Connection
00:00:35
Speaker
As you could imagine in this episode, we are going to be talking about exercise.
00:00:40
Speaker
However, it is not going to be in that super fitnessy way, though that is a conversation I do enjoy, perhaps one we could have later on. It's going to be fitness and physical activity when it comes to mental health and overall self-care.
00:00:56
Speaker
Self-care in and of itself right now, I feel like can be a very difficult thing for us to do. If you are like me and if you are like many of the people that I know, many of the people that I've worked with.
00:01:09
Speaker
Self-care in times of stress and anxiety and anguish and uncertainty seems to just like fizzle out and like go away.
00:01:20
Speaker
and essentially, the more stressed you are the less you take care of yourself when it should be the opposite. The more stressed you are, the more uncertain things feel, the more chaotic life feels, the more you should be taking care of yourself.
00:01:34
Speaker
The more you should be taking the time to put yourself first, whatever that looks like. In this particular case, we are going to be talking about physical activity, exercise, because again, that seems to be one of the first thing that one of the first things that goes
Impact of Exercise on Anxiety and Depression
00:01:53
Speaker
essentially.
00:01:53
Speaker
So one, why is it important? And two, how can you make sure that you are staying active? So let's go ahead and get into it.
00:02:05
Speaker
One of the things that a lot of us, and by us, I mean those of us listening to this, those of us in the mental health and well-being space often talk about is the mind-body connection.
00:02:20
Speaker
And you may already be familiar with this and like what the mind-body connection is. Essentially, it is that, don't want to say connection again, but I feel like that's like the one word.
00:02:31
Speaker
Like and we all know what a connection is, so it makes sense to use, but you can't use the word in its own definition. But essentially, the mind-body connection is sort of that tie between a sort of ah who we are mentally and our physical being, our corporeal being, and how one feeds into the other and there's this constant feedback loop and how when we influence one, and it impacts or affects the other.
00:02:59
Speaker
So when we are looking a little bit more deeply into the mind-body connection and whether or not it's real, there has been research done into this And in research that was published, I do believe was in the last couple of years. have to double check. But again, all the studies and like articles that I reference are going to be in the show notes, just so you are aware.
00:03:24
Speaker
But it was a a study that was published within the last few years in the journal Nature. It explained that there was this phenomenon happening, um such as like why anxiety makes some people want to pace back and forth, why stimulating the vagus nerve, which regulates internal organ functions such as digestion and heart rate.
00:03:48
Speaker
may even alleviate depression, and why people who exercise regularly report more positive outlook on life. So there were these researchers wanting to dig into this and see what is it about anxiety that makes us want to pace.
00:04:03
Speaker
What is it about anxiety? If you're like me and you're very anxious, then you're like picking at your cuticles and you just have like hangnails that you feel like just to go up your entire arm. you know what i'm saying?
00:04:15
Speaker
Like that's a physical manifestation of anxiety. Like why is anxiety manifest in that way? Oh, additionally, when I feel the anxious, I feel sick to my stomach. Very physical manifestation of anxiety.
00:04:27
Speaker
But additionally, when it comes to like the vagus nerve, which does regulate organ function and digestion, ah why does stimulating that alleviate depression?
00:04:38
Speaker
Why does exercise actually impact and facilitate a more positive outlook? it goes back to that mind-body connection. So not only have researchers noticed that there is this connection, this tie between our mental health and well-being and our physical health and well-being, but they've done some research into it as well.
Personal Experiences with Exercise and Mental Health
00:05:02
Speaker
Now, when it comes to exercise in and of itself, One of the things that i wanted to really focus on is the connection between exercise and depression.
00:05:15
Speaker
And I wanted to focus on it because I guess maybe a bit selfishly, like it is something that I experienced, something that I lived through. And I wanted to highlight this. and I'm going to get into like, I suppose the caveats for lack of a better word later on.
00:05:32
Speaker
But one of the things that I definitely like to highlight is that when it comes to these types of things, and by that I mean like physical fitness or like our nutrition or like overall just like healthy habits that we can incorporate into our daily lives and routines, I'm not saying that this is going to be the cure of your depression.
00:05:57
Speaker
What I am saying is that it can – help you manage it. For some of us, maybe it can eventually lead to no longer being depressed, depending on the type of depression you have.
00:06:11
Speaker
But overall, if we can help ourselves in any capacity, why don't we do it and why don't look into it? That's what this is. So there have been studies when it comes to like overall physical activity and improving depressive symptoms, which when you're depressed, the last thing you want to do is anything, really.
00:06:34
Speaker
Like the last thing you want to do is even get out of bed. The last thing you want to do is take a shower, brush your teeth, let alone... go do a full like circuit at the gym. But when we're talking about physical activity, it doesn't have to be a full weight training session. It doesn't have to be like in my case, jujitsu, or if you do another martial art, like physical activity could literally going for a walk.
00:06:56
Speaker
which is actually something I did a lot when I was depressed, not because I wanted to, but because I bought a dog. I bought a dog and he needed to be walked and he needed to go out and potty.
00:07:07
Speaker
So when I say Mochi saved me, that is one of the ways. I'm not saying go out and buy a dog, but go for a walk. Anyway, um within the research that that I did for this episode, it was shown in some studies that physical activity and exercise have been shown to improve depressive symptoms and overall mood of people of all ages, which is amazing because when I tell you when I look into these things, and there are so many studies on like adolescence,
00:07:37
Speaker
Like, great, I love that, but also that's not who you guys are, really. So exercise has been implicated in lowering depressive and anxious symptoms in children and adolescents as well, but also people of all ages.
00:07:53
Speaker
know, within this research specifically, people were pulled worldwide, and that research has revealed that physical exercise is even more effective than a control group and is a viable remedy for depression.
00:08:07
Speaker
So again, this might depend on the type of depression that we're talking about here. But if you're not doing anything, like literally, if you are feeling some depressive episodes, experiencing depressive episodes, and you are just doing nothing, you're raw-dogging definitely go speak to someone. But two...
00:08:28
Speaker
you can begin to incorporate some physical activity into your daily life to help yourself. I'm not saying to cure yourself, but to help yourself. So in addition to that, when we are looking at these things,
00:08:46
Speaker
one of the many things or one of the ways, like what's the mechanism behind it? One of those mechanisms when it comes to say like anxiety, for example, and you're dealing with a lot of anxiety and you have especially that desire to move and like to move the energy, say if you pace back and forth, or even if you don't have that desire to move the energy, because if you were like me and you feel anxious and you feel sick to your stomach or you just start start picking at your cuticles,
00:09:15
Speaker
Maybe the sign is you need to move the energy. So exercise and physical activity would be the solid choice there. But why is it that it works so well?
00:09:29
Speaker
It's because it's taking your mind off of your worries. Thinking about something else instead of worrying can get in the way and break that cycle of negative thoughts that feed into depression
Social Aspects of Exercise for Mental Health
00:09:41
Speaker
and anxiety.
00:09:42
Speaker
So for me, a really great example of experiencing that is jujitsu. Because when I'm at jujitsu, like, i' how much one I'm trying to learn, okay?
00:09:54
Speaker
I ah do not wear contacts. Okay. So I have to like really focus to make sure I can see the technique that the professor is showing. And then when I'm practicing, I'm trying to make sure I remember the technique that the professor showed. And then when I'm sparring, I'm trying to not get choked out.
00:10:10
Speaker
So all of my attention and energy is focused on trying to get the better position, trying to survive survive. If I'm lucky and skilled enough, when?
00:10:23
Speaker
So with all of that, it does not leave me any mental space to think about the millions of things that are on my mind that are causing the anxiety and that are bringing down my mood.
00:10:37
Speaker
It's a simple mechanism, but it's an effective one. So it's definitely something to think about. Now, if it's inspiring to go try jujitsu, lovely. Slide into my DMs. We can talk about it because I have a lot of thoughts about that.
00:10:51
Speaker
But also find something else that you like as well. It's going to help you take your mind off things for a little bit and give yourself a little bit of a respite when it comes to worrying about things.
00:11:02
Speaker
Speaking of sports though, that is also something that I really wanted to look into when it comes to the connection between sports and overall mental health and well-being. One of the things that seemed almost like a no-brainer to me, but I wanted to dig into it a little bit more deeply,
00:11:22
Speaker
is the social aspect of sports and our mental health as human beings, especially in like me the era how we're in right now. Because I feel like the topic of loneliness comes up so much with people and nowadays.
00:11:41
Speaker
And whether it's the male loneliness epidemic, which is the whole other can of worms, but Loneliness there is at the forefront, but also the conversation of how making friends is so difficult nowadays and the conversation as well as people not really they showing up for their community where people might plan an event or you might invite a bunch of people over to your home for like a potluck or something and like You invite 10 people, 8 say they're going to show up and then like everybody cancels last minute or they just don't show up.
00:12:17
Speaker
Now you're left there like I put all this effort into this and nobody's even here. Like so many people are talking about how all of these things are happening and how they're experiencing all of these things.
00:12:29
Speaker
So if we, and so I'm thinking to myself, I'm talking about physical activity, mental health, exercise and mental health. And a key component to my own physical activity for the last like 10 years of my life has been jujitsu.
00:12:45
Speaker
And part of that, part of sports culture for a lot of sports is that team aspect, is that social aspect as well. And it has been shown that sports participation can be predictive, essentially, of better psychological well-being over time.
00:13:06
Speaker
It can have higher or produce, essentially, higher positive affect and greater life satisfaction. But why is that? Like greater life satisfaction is such a huge thing.
00:13:18
Speaker
Because if there's one thing that I'm constantly working towards, one for myself, but also at the end of the day, like what is it that I do with my clients? It's create overall...
00:13:32
Speaker
greater life satisfaction through the avenue of self-esteem and confidence, but also when it comes to relationships. And am a huge proponent of healthy relationships being integral to our overall health and well-being.
00:13:49
Speaker
So playing sports offers the opportunity to form relationships and to develop a social support network, both of which are likely to influence mental health.
Addressing Loneliness and Building Routines
00:14:01
Speaker
Develop a social support network. Clearly linked to <unk> influence mental health. How many of us have that social support network?
00:14:14
Speaker
Whether it be our families, because that is so valid. Or friendships. And I think a lot of us nowadays don't anymore. I was on threads recently and this woman posted how she needed to get some sort of like medical care done, and some sort of, I think, surgery.
00:14:32
Speaker
But the recovery was going to be like the first few days after surgery, the recovery is supposed to be really intense where she was going to need someone there to help her take care of herself because she was going to be able to get out bed for like the first two or three days.
00:14:46
Speaker
But she was alone in San Diego and didn't have anyone to count on to like help her with that. I get being maybe new to a city. i don't know the full context there.
00:14:58
Speaker
But that, because everybody underneath the thread was like, oh, I experienced the same thing or I just don't get treatment because I have no one to help me take care of myself afterwards.
00:15:09
Speaker
And like people are foregoing medical care because they don't have ah support network around them. Now that's literally physical like physically, like that's impacting their physical health, not just their mental well-being.
00:15:25
Speaker
Sports is one way that we can create community, can create friendship, can create found family that can be that support network for us and you for the other people as well.
00:15:37
Speaker
So what can you do? That got a little deep. but But what can you do then if you are experiencing a lot of anxiety, a lot of stress, if you're experiencing depressive episodes, if you're feeling lonely and that is weighing you down and making you feel like life is just utter shit?
00:15:55
Speaker
Well, all of those kind of necessitate different plans of action. However, for all of those, what we can do is start moving. And like I mentioned before, it literally literally can be just going for a walk.
00:16:12
Speaker
If you will have the financial means, it could be getting a dog. Now, I was very depressed when I bought mochi.
00:16:24
Speaker
Was it wise? Was it fiscally responsible of me to get him? No. Was it the best decision I ever made in my entire life? Yes. And I say this as I recorded on his gotcha day.
00:16:35
Speaker
Literally on the day of recording, it is five days, like five years to the day that I brought Mochi officially into my life. And it was the best decision I ever made.
00:16:47
Speaker
And not only did he help me remember what joy felt like, But having to take care of him ended up meaning I had to take care of myself.
00:17:00
Speaker
And part of that was going for at least two walks a day.
Practical Tips for Integrating Exercise into Daily Life
00:17:08
Speaker
so That what ended up being my new routine that had me walking, had me doing some physical exercise, had me out in the sun, getting some vitamin d feeling the sunlight on my face, which is extremely important because how many of us have like a seasonal affective disorder, whatever it's called? Affective depression?
00:17:30
Speaker
SAD? Whatever the acronym is, okay? Like how many of us have that? And then finally it's like spring now, so we can go and like be in the sun and go for your walks.
00:17:41
Speaker
Your hot girl walks, okay? So that is one easy thing that we can do. Now in terms of the science behind that, for most healthy adults, the US Department of Health and Human Services has exercise guidelines and they recommend at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity a week.
00:18:00
Speaker
Or get at least 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic exercise or activity a week. You can mix the two. So if you're thinking like moderate, 150 minutes of moderate exercise, if you just go for like a walk a day maybe 20-minute walk a day or so, like that, that's good.
00:18:20
Speaker
If you go to the gym a couple times a week, like like you can, that's a very attainable goal. Additionally, you can also find that the correct type of exercise that you like. Maybe going for a walk sounds like just incredibly boring.
00:18:33
Speaker
Maybe you want to do Pilates. Maybe you want to do Jiu-Jitsu or another type of morpho art. Maybe it is weight training, Olympic lifting, whatever it is that sounds like it's going to be fun for you.
00:18:45
Speaker
Do that. And if finances are something that might get in the way, maybe there are some community resources around where it'll be a little bit more accessible financially.
00:18:59
Speaker
Whether that be, i don't know, do like the YMCA, community centers, like maybe there's something out there in your community that you haven't quite been able to fully take advantage of.
00:19:13
Speaker
Additionally, if part of what is bringing you down mentally is that lack of community, join a sport. And it's a low-pressure way to meet new people because you're all there for this other purpose of learning and participating and having fun in this activity.
00:19:31
Speaker
But through that process, you'll be socializing with people. You'll have the opportunity to create fan great friends and find people that you get along with.
00:19:42
Speaker
And if you don't want to be in a super competitive sport, there are community leagues. Like when I lived in the, I didn't live in the Bay Area, but when i worked in the Bay Area, I commuted to the Bay. One of my coworkers, she ran this like softball league, literally for people who were new to the city, new to San Jose.
00:20:04
Speaker
And they literally would just like, play softball in a park, and then like go for drinks afterwards. And it was how she made a lot of friends and how a lot of people who were new to San Jose got to connect and create friendships and community that way.
00:20:20
Speaker
So you can always find something in your community like that, or you can create it as well. Ultimately, when it comes to our overall mental health and well-being, it is important to do the small things that are going to make a big impact.
00:20:36
Speaker
and to create a healthy habit around it. So if you are feeling a lot of anxiety lately, if you are feeling some depression creep up, a lot of stress, what is the low-hanging fruit that you can do in order just to pick yourself up even just a little bit?
00:20:54
Speaker
And that's usually exercise. That's honestly, if you're like me, exercise is a lot easier to get a hold of than like sticking to like a healthy nutrition plan. So remember that.
00:21:07
Speaker
Remember that going for a walk is literally as easy as putting on your shoes, for a lot of us at least. And if that's what you can do to help yourself, find a way to incorporate it into your daily life because that's when it's really going to make a big impact.
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:21:24
Speaker
Thank you for tuning in today to the Growing With Soul podcast. If today's episode resonated with you, subscribe and leave a review. It definitely helps. You can also follow me. You can find me on Instagram as well as on TikTok and threads yourcoachmadi.
00:21:39
Speaker
And if you are looking for support this year, i am accepting clients. You can schedule your very own discovery call through the show notes. Until next time, keep growing.