May 9, 2022 • 40 mins
While it is true that many things in life are out of our control, it is also true that many things are in our control. And it is on these things that we should be focused! On this episode of the Fitness Disrupted podcast, Tom uses a recent study to show how our movement is connected to how we feel, both physically, and mentally.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Fitness Disrupted, a production of My Heart Radio.
I am Tom Holland, and this is Fitness Disrupted. There's
a line I used frequently when I am on TV,
(00:21):
especially the home shopping channels, where I gosh, I think
I've done well over a hundred shows by now, and
selling different fitness equipment, different things like that. But it
also comes up in many other aspects of my life
and my job, where I say now, I exercise primarily
(00:44):
for my sanity more than for vanity, and that's true.
At fifty three, I am much more focused on how
I feel, and that goes for feel in good and
being injury free. Don't get me wrong, I still care
(01:08):
how I look, and that is an added benefit, but
it's not the primary one as it is for so
many people, especially when we are younger. But that's the
amazing aspect of exercise in that it doesn't matter what
your main goal is. To look better, feel better, live longer,
you get the other two. So if your goal is
(01:31):
to look better, that's your primary goal, you're gonna feel
better and you're gonna live longer. If your goal is
to live longer, you're gonna feel better and look better.
It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter why you start. But
now I exercise primarily at least in the moment, because
(01:55):
of how it makes me feel. That's immediate. When you
find exercise that you like, not that you don't like.
Not that's a punishment. Not when you exercise to punish
yourself for eating something, which whole another show, and it's
not the way to do it. You shouldn't do that.
(02:17):
And the math doesn't even add up. But it's instantaneous
when I go for a run, when I get on
a bike, when I choose my form of cardio, and
what I've learned over the years is it is a
huge coping mechanism for me. So something happens that potentially
(02:37):
could raise my heart rate, as I said, I live
my life as if I have a heart rate monitor,
and my goal is to not let anything raise that
heart rate, like someone cutting me off in traffic, someone
being rude on an airplane, whacap and reacently my choice
how to react to that, right, And so for me,
(02:59):
exercise eyes now is an amazing tool to feel good
in the moment. And the Grand Canyon, the second Grand
Canyon run I just did, that was an entire day
of bliss until the end. If you haven't heard that
episode yet, I just released that one, my second Grand
(03:21):
Canyon run. My first one is still They're They're all good,
They're like kids. You love them all, just differently, those events,
those experiences. But yeah, I choose that suffering because before
that suffering, the final couple of hours was eight hours
(03:46):
of just Heaven Beyond. And so that's what today's podcast
is about. It's a recent study on exercise and depression
and it's amazing and it's not new. In other words,
there's so many studies. This is a meta analysis, so
it looked back at many other studies into exercise and depression.
(04:11):
But here's where I'm getting to in my life as well.
You know, I consult for specific fitness company home exercise
equipment and what I would love for them to do.
You know, part of my job's thought leadership giving them
ideas talking about studies like this is to get away
from the commercials that just focus on weight loss. What
(04:32):
if there was a commercial that showed this harder to
do can totally be done. In other words, focused on
how good exercise makes you feel, focused on the cognitive benefits,
the mental benefits above the physical. How amazing would that be?
And I'm pushing them and pushing them and pushing them
(04:55):
to do that. And the company that does that first
and best. There's some companies that touch on it, touch
on it. But this is one of the major problems
with fitness and exercise and the goals that most people have,
the expectations that most people have. Short term, I'm gonna
finish with a commercial and a topic that I did
(05:16):
a podcast on that was a little controversial for people,
and I have to do more of those because it's
so important. All Right, So exercise and depression, minutes matter.
An amazing new study meta analysis, look back at a
handful of studies on depression and exercise, and once again,
(05:38):
when this podcast over, you should be so excited because
it is validating so much of what I talked about
minutes mattering and how powerful movement and exercise is. All right,
quick break, we will be right back by the way.
(06:01):
When I talk about minutes mattering, when I talk about
the micro workout plan, doing micro workouts throughout the day,
I do them myself. Everything I talked to you about
I do myself. My new added micro workout is hundred
You know my hundred AB exercise routine I've talked about
(06:25):
and did a fit tip about. I do it before
recording every podcast. Now mix up the types, but my
point is I do them. This works a fifty three.
You know, I talk about my events and I do
the events to show you it can be done, to
(06:46):
show you that I walked the walk, and I wasn't
injury free. When I was a kid, I couldn't run
my entire childhood. I had shin splints and angle issues.
Sat on the bench soccer. We won the state championships
in fifth grade, mostly on the bench, got a couple
(07:06):
of minutes, but it was in pain. And back then
they knew nothing that diagnosed osgood slatters, all these different things.
Now that they have some idea, much better idea of
figuring out and diagnosing things. No, and so to think
that I had the ultimate not one, but many excuses
to never run again, how sad. And so my point
(07:31):
is I do it and it all works. I just
gotta give a time. All right, So let's talk about depression, right,
I'm someone, as most are, who have experienced this. Uh,
someday I will talk much more in depth about my issues,
(07:51):
but focusing on the positive now. But suffice it to say,
I have some experience, a lot of experience, and I'm
gonna read right from this study. By the way, the
study association between physical activity and risk of depression pretty straightforward,
not as crazily worded as many of the studies I've
brought to you in the past. A systematic review and
meta analysis. Again, meta analysis and systematic review means that
(08:15):
they are not conducting research, they are looking back at
past research. Okay. Depression is the leading cause of mental
health related disease burden and a major cause of disability worldwide,
affecting approximately two hundred and eighty million people I mean insane,
(08:36):
and I would argue probably much higher and accounting for
more than forty seven million disability adjusted life years in
two thousand nineteen. Depression is also associated with premature mortality
from other illnesses and suicide. I would argue that the
thoughts we have in our head, the stress, the unchecked stress,
(08:57):
this is one of the major benefits of exercise. You know.
We can talk about the other myriad benefits and I do,
and I will continue to because there are so many,
but the stress reduction that we get from exercise prevents
so many other issues, not just depression. Don't hear that enough.
(09:18):
Don't see it in marketing, it's all about weight loss.
It's all about how you look. I don't do any
cardio and look how skinny I am. I'm gonna get
back to that. Started to get worked up. This was
published online A twenty two just came out Jamma psychiatry,
(09:39):
and I'm gonna read you there. But what made this
study different? Right? This meta analysis? And I quote they say,
no study has yet synthesized the evidence to describe the
strength or shape of the association by conducting a dose
response meta analysis using harmonized exposure estimate. Now, now we
got the words out right. What they're basically saying here
(10:01):
is they're looking at the the dosetress like how much, right,
how much you need? And then they're going to talk
about kind of the the shape of the association. Right,
it will make more sense in a second. All right,
here's the abstract. I love, I love these studies that
I love bringing them to you. The importance depression is
leading cause of mental health related disease burden and maybe
(10:23):
reduced by physical activity. But the dose response relationship between
activity and depression is uncertain. This is one thing I
get it. I complain about this frequently when doing reviews
of studies, talking about studies. It's always like, how much like,
what's the minimum exercise you can do and get benefit?
I get it, people, But in all my years now
(10:46):
of doing this, if you want the least amount, you
haven't found what you love. Wow. I never quite set
it like that, but it's true. If you're looking for
the least them ount, you're not doing it right. Because
if you told me Tom you can only exercise ten
(11:07):
minutes a day once, I would be stressed and be
really stressed because it doesn't allow me to feel good
and get all the benefits. There's four major benefits. It's
such a good study and one of the first ones
that really just pulled out these four things in this way.
I'll get to that a second. I'm always getting ahead
of myself. If you want the minimum dose, you're not
(11:27):
doing it right. You haven't found your exercise. If you
want the minimum amount of food that you that is healthy,
you haven't found the healthy food, right. That's the beauty
of healthy food. By the way, always going off on tangents,
but like when you find like I have the fruits
and vegetables and lean sources of protein and healthy fats
(11:48):
that I love, not depriving myself, and you can eat
a heck of a lot of vegetables and a heck
of a lot of eggs because you enjoy it and
their low calory, many of them, and they make feel
good and you don't over eat, you're not super hungry.
See totally off on a tangent. All right, let's get back.
So the objective of this study to systematically review and
(12:12):
meta analyze the dose response association between physical activity and
incident depression from published perspective studies of adults. Again, we
can get studies into depression. Now, this is really what
starts to separate this study and make it a really
good one in my opinion. Okay, they included perspective cohort
studies reporting physical activity at three or more exposure levels
(12:34):
doesn't really matter for you. You don't have to understand that.
And risk estimates for depression with three thousand or more adults,
so sample size had to be more than three thousand,
three thousand or more. That's a really good size, right,
and that starts to weed out potential issues with the
findings and the associations. Okay, and not only three thousand
or more in the study, but three years or longer
(12:55):
a follow up. So now they're trying to control for
pre existing depression, right, So that's a good thing when
you have that length of time and you have that
big a sample size. Okay, here's the specifics. So they
narrowed it down and included just fifteen studies that fit
this criteria. Okay, almost two hundred thousand participants, one thousand,
(13:19):
one and thirty participants and two just over two million
person years were included. Approximately six of the participants in
the studies were women. All but one included studies that
originated in high income countries, so that could be a
potential issue like does this uh, you know as the
association for you know, the less affluent countries as well
(13:42):
and people. And then the specifics with where six were
from the United States, six from Europe, one from Australia,
one from Japan, and one study that included data from India, Ghana, Mexico,
and Russia. And again, this study reports the first dose
response meta analysis of siations between physical activity and incident
(14:02):
depression to the researchers knowledge. What are the findings relative
to adults not reporting any activity, Those accumulating half the
recommended volume activity, which is four point four hours per week,
they had eighteen percent or risk of depression. So for
(14:25):
those who did nothing again self reports, those who accumulated half,
what I would argue is a pretty low volume of
physical activity almost twenty percent lower risk of depression. Adults
who accumulated the recommended volume of eight point eight hours
(14:45):
per week had pent lower risk. And they throw in
the met hours per week and things like that, just no,
it's it's a handful of hours. It's not a lot.
And I'm going to get back to that too, because
that is such an important takeaway of this as well. Okay,
(15:07):
and here's what's confusing, and I'm gonna always put in
everything right. They were diminishing additional potential benefits and greater
uncertainty at higher volumes of physical activity. So what they
found was this was that the strength or shape of
the association. So what they're saying is after you got
above the recommended the benefits were diminishing, so they they
(15:28):
started to drop off. Now there's a reason for that.
Just hold on to that thought, Okay, what you need
to know is you don't have to do a lot
couple of hours per week low intensity, low to moderate
intensity exercise. Okay, this isn't red in my notes because
(15:49):
this is so important. Based on an estimate of exposure
prevalences among included cohorts, if less active adults had achieved
the current physical activity recommendations, eleven point five of depression
cases could have been prevented. That's amazing. That's an amazing finding.
(16:10):
If those people who were doing basically nothing got to
the couple of hours per week low to moderate activity,
more than ten of depression cases could have been prevented.
Not with drugs, not with therapy, but especially not pharmaceutical
(16:32):
interventions which are expensive and have side effects. No drugs,
this is free. A lot of the movement was walking,
and you are in control of the dose people. And
this is why I talk about micro workouts. You sure,
you can go for an hour to hour walk in
(16:52):
the morning to our two hours of whatever type of
cardio vascular exercise you can do thirty minutes on the
but whatever your cardio is can do that. But you
can and should also break it up and do ten
minutes in the morning, and a twenty minute walk after lunch,
and maybe a forty five minute walk with your dog
in the evening. And what I love about the findings
(17:13):
is it's going to bring in a bunch of the
studies and effects that I've talked about another podcasts. All right,
eleven point five of depression could have been prevented. You know,
this is where the I'm not one of those people
who screams from the rooftops about, you know, medicine being reactive,
(17:36):
but it is. It's much more lucrative to sell a drug, then,
That's what I'm trying to say, than it is to
sell activity. That's true. And ten over ten percent of
people could have avoided it completely just by doing the
minimum or the recommended. So the minimum amount of expers
(18:00):
eyes amazing. And I'm gonna go out on a limb
here and say, because of the limitations of the higher
activity levels, that number will be higher without fail believe
that based on everything I have studied and learned and experienced,
and and no, all right, let's take a quick break
(18:21):
and we come back and to bring it all home,
all right, I'm gonna talk about the why why for
awesome reasons and again tie into I do say so myself.
A bunch of the podcast I've already done a lot
of its common sense, but a lot of it. Some
of the causes you go okay, And this is why
(18:43):
I repeat over and over, because you're gonna start to go, oh,
maybe I didn't believe that the first time I heard
Tom talk about it. Maybe it took three times. Now, Oh,
now I'm starting to connect the dots. Now it's starting
to make sense, because it doesn't always make sense. If
it did. All this information we give out to people,
they believe it right away. All right, quick break, We'll
be right back, and we're back talking about one of
(19:12):
my favorite topics, just the psychological aspect of exercise. There's
so much to it, performance, Alzheimer's, memory, happiness. Why are
those benefits not highlighted more? Why are they not in commercials?
(19:33):
Why are they not in advertising? You can't show it.
You can't show it the way you show a skinny person.
You can't show it the way you can manipulate images
on Instagram. And you can't just have it genetically, as
so many people in this industry do. Listen, I was
(19:53):
a fitness model with Wilhelmina. For years, I saw it.
I saw some really unhealthy skinny people and really unhappy
skinny people. It's not about being skinny. It's about being
healthy and it's about being happy. And you can't tell
either of those things from a picture from a body type.
(20:18):
All right, let's get back into this because it's so good.
Reading from the study once again, the greatest differences in
risk observed between low doses of physical activity, suggesting most
benefits are realized when moving from no activity to at
least some Oh my gosh, this got me so excited
(20:38):
when I read this. Read it again. Most benefits are
realized when moving from no activity to at least something
sounds familiar, excessive moderation, right, So for those people who
are on the couch, for those of you who are
listening and like you're just not even close to there yet,
I get it. I've worked with you. I've worked with
thousands of people like you of the years, and I
(21:02):
loved it. I love working with I loved working with
all clients and did back when I was a trainer
and coach every type of age and fitness level and
goals you know, from kids up to you know, plus.
But give me someone who's just starting. Give me someone
(21:24):
who I know I'm going to make feel good right
away with not a lot. Not by killing them as
I was literally told to do at one gym many
years ago for orientations. Kill them to the first session,
make them crawl out. That's a good idea, and that
was the head of the personal training department. Again, I
(21:47):
go off on tangents, but for good reason. It's one
of the problems with fitness and trainers and lack of
education understanding. Let me continue though. Accumulating an activity volume
equivalent to two point five hours of brisk walking per
week was associated with twenty five lower risk of depression.
(22:09):
I mean it takes my breath away. So people will
talk about how much do I have to walk to
lose weight. I've contributed to those articles for thirty years.
Over thirty years, I get it again. I'm not I'm
not dismissing the way we need to be a healthy weight.
But when you focus on the cognitive benefits that you
feel immediately, that's how you make it a lifestyle change.
(22:35):
When you find the activity that you enjoy that feels good,
and you don't do too much too soon and you
break it up and you do the other things I'm
gonna outline shortly. That's when you start to feel good,
you start to do a little more, you start to
eat a little better, and then the weight changes. But
you focus on the psychological first. Plus you have to
(22:57):
go in believing what I'm telling you, because then it
becomes easier. Not only do you feel good like your
body and your mind those hormones, serotonin and things like that,
but if you truly believe you're doing great things for
your body and your mind becomes exponentially easier. And then
if you do that long enough and you see the
(23:17):
body change, then you're Then you're done. You're hooked. Then
you're me and you can all be this. I promise
you're just not gonna do it the same way I do.
You might not run. Many of you won't, and that's fine,
all right. Let me go on. I'm gonna read it
once again. Though, accumulating an activity volume equivalent to two
point five hours of brisk walking per week was associated
(23:39):
with lower risk of depression beyond amazing, and at half
that dose, the risk was eighteen percent lower compared with
no activity two and a half hours per week. Break
that up. Are you doing five days? Are you doing
three days? Are you doing seven days? And that's why
(24:00):
I love looking at it as a seven day plan.
In other words, what's my goal by the end of
the week two and a half hours? You go, You
don't have to do the same amount every day unless
you want to. In other words, one day you can
do thirty minutes. The next day you can do forty five,
third day you can do five if you prefer to
(24:21):
have that. Like every day, I'm gonna go out at
you know, whatever time, at lunchtime, after work, whatever, and
I'm gonna do thirty minute. That's great, But you don't
have to, and life gets in the way, and you
can't and shouldn't beat yourself up when you go, oh,
I had that thirty minute walk, couldn't do it? No
do more than next day, or break it up, you know,
(24:41):
over the next few days. And the final sentence here
again little confusing. Only minor additional benefits were observed at
higher activity levels. I'll get back to that. This is
the only other red passage in my notes because it
is so important and one of the most important takeaways
(25:02):
of this podcast. Our findings therefore have important new implications
for health practitioners making lifestyle recommendations, especially to inactive individuals
who may perceive the current recommendation target as unrealistic. That's
a word salad for. People aren't doing it because they
think they need to do more than they need to do.
(25:26):
People aren't doing it because they don't think they're going
to get the benefits from micro workouts, from doing a
little bit a lot, not a lot, A little bit
minutes matter. That's why I put it in the title.
It's exactly what this is saying. And so for all
those people, especially the people who are listen, significantly overweight,
(25:50):
aches and pains, and they go, what's the what's the point?
And they may have tried it in the past and
not lost the weight, not achieve the goals that they've
read or seen from sources that they shouldn't have been trusting.
Those are the hardest people to get motivated. And when
(26:12):
I think back to the handful of people who I
have interviewed and met over the years who exemplify this.
David Garcia, listen to that podcast if you want a
real life example of what I just read. Someone who
had well over a hundred pounds to lose and did
everything I'm describing here slowly over time, and he lost
(26:36):
over a hundred and fifty pounds fifty kept it off
for over ten years. But if you're on your couch
and you're not feeling good about yourself and you're not
feeling good physically, and you go, I'm not three hundred
minutes a week or whatever whatever the recommendation is. Are
you look at these crazy workouts. So you look at
these images on Instagram, you go, I'm never gonna be that. Hey,
(26:56):
yes you could and be maybe you don't want to,
and the image is not indicative of health or happiness.
All right, So ten thousand steps you don't have to
do and shouldn't do ten thousand steps right out of
the gate. That's a problem. Average American does like three
to four thousand, So to jump up to ten thousand
(27:18):
right away and to expect to do that every day,
I don't always do that when I'm traveling, like I
just did you know, Yes, I went to the Grand
Canyon and we had a cross, so I made up
the steps. But guess what, the day I traveled, I'm
not sure I hit ten thousand steps because I got
in a car and I drove to the airport. And
I went to the airport and I sat and I
had breakfast, and then my running partner and I got
(27:39):
on a plane. We sat on that plane for six hours,
and then we got all off. We went to the hotel.
Oh No, I sat in a car for three and
a half hours and got out, walked to the restaurant,
had pasta, walked back to the hotel, I went to bed.
Did I care how many steps I got in that day? No,
(28:01):
it's a cumultive effect over time. I don't want to
do that every day, and I'm glad I don't have to.
And I made up for it the next day, and
I think I had seventy steps, and running partner ran
a little farther. I think you had a hundred thousand.
But this is a problem with the recommendations. This is
a problem with beat yesterday ten steps kill yourself. Now,
(28:23):
just start moving more. That snowball effect is so powerful.
All right, let's wrap this all up. So what's the why?
This is what I love. I'm so glad to study
HIT on these four things. So why, what? What are
what's the what is the effect? What is the activity
(28:47):
doing the exercise to help decreased depression. Four things they
pulled out improved physical self perceptions and body image. Yeah,
feel better about yourself. You feel better about yourself. And
I would argue that's also because you're doing something. You know,
this is cognitive behavioral stuff with depression. I'm the biggest
(29:09):
proponent of cognitive behavioral therapy. Get out and do something. Start,
get off the couch. Feel good about something, whether that's
a hobby or working or exercise or all the above.
That's huge. So improve physical self perceptions, embody image. Yeah,
you feel good because you're doing something, full stop. Number
two more social interactions. Oh my gosh. Have I talked
(29:31):
about that in the past. How important that is? And
if your home feeling bad about yourself, you're on the couch,
you're not moving a lot, you don't feel good. We
are social creatures, the blue zones. Social interactions. Listen, this
is you know. I know my weakness is it's getting
in enough water. I don't sleep enough. And number three,
(29:52):
I actually like to be alone more than I probably should.
I ran the Grand Onion by myself and I loved it.
I purposely took a different route along the way so
that I could avoid people because I wasn't there to
be chatty. I was there to like have the most
amazing solo experience in one of the most amazing places.
(30:15):
But we need to have social interactions. So maybe you're
walking with other people, maybe you're walking outside and you're
just around other people. Maybe you're going to the gym.
The social interactions are important. They're part of the whole puzzle.
And I love number three, the personal development of coping strategies.
(30:40):
I talked about that at the start, you can it
stresses a choice, and that stresses a lot of people
out when you tell them that you're situation is not stressful,
it's your interpretation of it. I can be running through
the Grand Cannon and hit the wall the way I did,
like I've never gone from feeling so good to holy cow,
(31:01):
which just happened. And that's where my coping strategies kick in.
Have I been here before? Do I have the tools
necessary to get myself through it? And the answer was
hadn't quite been their way the specific way the wheels
were falling off, but I was pretty sure I could
get through it. And so that is connected. When you
(31:26):
have control, it's a control when you don't feel you
have control. That's really depressing. And that's why I end
every episode talking about control. Coping strategies is everything self efficacy,
believing you can get through something. And that's why when
(31:47):
someone tries to drive me nuts or something happens, getting
to work out in I'm moving more. I know the
alternative and the other coping strategies not as positive, all right.
And number four and to wrap it up with this,
I love this. Did this show about this recently. The
(32:10):
role of the environment as a potential moderator of the
association between physical activity and depression should also be considered.
For example, the use of green space is associated with
the lower risk of depression. The biophilia hypothesis people being
outside makes us happy, makes us happier. You can work
out in your home gym. You can go to the gym.
(32:31):
You go to the gym, you have the social interactions,
you got, the improved physical self perception and body image,
you've got the personal development of Coping strategy might not
have the role of the environment or the environment playing
a role. You don't have to have all of these
all the time. But I walked the dogs in the
morning in the woods for this two, get the low
(32:54):
level activity to clear my mind, to disconnect from you know,
social media and electronics, and to get that biofit to
connect with nature. I know this sounds for even for me,
a little out there, but it's not. I had like
the craziest moment in the Grandkid many but one in particular.
(33:16):
I stopped on a cliff about seven hours in maybe
and experienced complete silence in a way I had never
experienced it before. It was uncomfortable for a short amount
of time. It was so bizarre and so cool, and
it was connecting. And if you want hear more about that,
(33:37):
listen to the podcast I did on the biophilly hypothesis.
All right, I could go on and on, but then
you'll write and say, Tom, shorten it. So let me
give you the takeaways again. In the study, relative small
doses of physical activity were associated with substantially lower risk
of depression. Read it again, Relatively small doses of physical
activity substantially lower risks depression. Minutes matter, Stop saying, just
(34:06):
stop saying only something. I only walked for an hour
this morning, or I just did ten minutes of you
know the bike. I hammer every person I know to
stop saying that. And we have to all stop saying that.
Who said we didn't evolve to go to the gym
for an hour? People? We've all to move all day long,
(34:27):
we have all to connect with people. Our modern society
is just horrific at at our for our health, physical
and mental. All right, all right? So what are the
possible limitations of the study? I gotta talk about that.
Uh And I read directly it is still possible that
the associations observed in the President analyses could overestimate the
(34:47):
role of physical activity because of reverse causality. Really obvious, right,
Depressed people move less, so X equals why orders? Why
equal X? I think both are true? You Like? This
is where I would say that I'm gonna throw common
sense in, Like, I'm all for the scientific method, but
(35:10):
of course, when you're depressed, you move less. So it's
chicken and egg which came first, doesn't matter, doesn't matter
in my opinion, I understand it matters when we're trying
to measure these type of things in research. Depress people
move less, Depressed people need to move more. That's what
we have to take away from this. And they say
(35:34):
to limit risk of bias from undiagnosed depression. They only
included studies with at least three years of follow up.
That was the main reason that they excluded studies that
didn't have at least three years a follow up to
try to limit that bias from undiagnosed depression. Perfect No.
And finally, as I've talked about with just about the
(35:55):
vast majority of studies when it comes to diet and exercise,
a limitation of these analyzes is that it included studies
that use self reported measures of physical activity, which are
subject to yes recall and social desirability biases. I'm gonna
tell you what I think you want to hear because
it makes me look good. I'm gonna not tell you
the bad things I ate. I'm not going to tell
you how little I exercise. I'm gonna over report. It
(36:16):
just part of all these studies, and it will always
be a limitation. All right, What's the final takeaway. It's
under our control how much we move, and how much
we move is the who we connected to, our attitudes
and what we put into our mouths. Those three things
I say at the end of these podcasts. We control
(36:40):
how much we move, what we put into our mouths,
and our attitudes. I could throw in, you know, the
following line that they're all connected. Exercise is so much
more than weight loss. Let me leave you with this.
I'm debating if I should. I'm gonna I talk about
the commercials and how I would love for this to
(37:01):
be a part of it. Remember the Peloton commercial Everyone
was up in arms did a podcast on that and
I had people like weren't happy. And if you don't
know the story the Peloton commercial at the holidays where
a woman was given a Peloton stationary bike by her
husband and the backlash was she's skinny, how dare the
(37:26):
husband give her a bike? As if people who aren't
overweight don't need to exercise. I'm not going to go
deep into this, and if you want to hear me
really rant, listen to that episode why the Peloton backlash
was so wrong? And if you think that it was
wrong or that it was right, the backlash was right
(37:47):
and the commercial was wrong. You need to listen to
more of these episodes. You can't tell the health of
a person by looking at them. What is her blood pressure,
what is her cool us to all? What is her stress? Like?
That is the there's so many things I listed off
in that episode. But let's just stick with the topic
(38:09):
at hand. Depression as powerful, if not more so, then
pharmaceutical interventions. That's what many of the studies show. Exercise.
What are the downsides? What are the side effects? When
you listen to the commercials and and I know many
of you are probably on medication for depression, and you should,
(38:32):
you know, listen to your doctor. But over time, many
of those types of people when doctors prescribe exercise and
do it in the right way, and you start to
feel better about yourself and you start to do all
those behaviors they just talked about outside biophilia, getting around people,
amazing things happen. Exercise is so much more than weight loss.
(38:54):
We don't see that, we don't read that, we don't
hear that. It's not on Instagram. Let's look at the
crazy workout I'm doing. Look at the crazy outfield. How
much agin I'm showing, Look how great I look? How
do you feel? Be happy? I am all right? What
an amazing study again, if you want to look it up,
(39:16):
just came out. Association between physical activity and risk of depression,
A systematic review and met analysis GAMMA psychiatry April. Thank
you for listening. I love what I do. I love
reading these studies. I love bring them to you. Reinforces
every single show reinforces how amazing exercise and eating healthy
(39:38):
and being happy is, and how they're all connected and
how we're in control of all those things. If you
want to reach out, Tom h Fit is Instagram, Tom
h Fit is Twitter, you go to Fitness Disrupted dot com.
Email me through the site. My recent book is The
Micro Workout Plan. It's connected to everything I just talked about,
and I talked about the cognitive benefits. It's not just workouts,
(39:58):
it's the science. So you can grab that too if
you're interested, and if you do have it. By the way,
I haven't broken a hundred reviews yet. It's my goal.
I'm a goals oriented person. You have read it and
enjoy it, would greatly appreciate an Amazon review. Thank you
ahead of time. I remember my goal is to help
all of us, myself and you, with our best lives.
That's it. That's it. I don't want to be biased,
(40:20):
because if if my bias keeps me from achieving that
goal for myself, what good is it? I am Tom Holland.
This is Fitness Disrupted. Believe in yourself. Fitness Disrupted is
a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from
my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
(40:44):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Fitness Disrupted, a production of My Heart Radio.
I am Tom Holland, and this is Fitness Disrupted. There's
a line I used frequently when I am on TV,
(00:21):
especially the home shopping channels, where I gosh, I think
I've done well over a hundred shows by now, and
selling different fitness equipment, different things like that. But it
also comes up in many other aspects of my life
and my job, where I say now, I exercise primarily
(00:44):
for my sanity more than for vanity, and that's true.
At fifty three, I am much more focused on how
I feel, and that goes for feel in good and
being injury free. Don't get me wrong, I still care
(01:08):
how I look, and that is an added benefit, but
it's not the primary one as it is for so
many people, especially when we are younger. But that's the
amazing aspect of exercise in that it doesn't matter what
your main goal is. To look better, feel better, live longer,
you get the other two. So if your goal is
(01:31):
to look better, that's your primary goal, you're gonna feel
better and you're gonna live longer. If your goal is
to live longer, you're gonna feel better and look better.
It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter why you start. But
now I exercise primarily at least in the moment, because
(01:55):
of how it makes me feel. That's immediate. When you
find exercise that you like, not that you don't like.
Not that's a punishment. Not when you exercise to punish
yourself for eating something, which whole another show, and it's
not the way to do it. You shouldn't do that.
(02:17):
And the math doesn't even add up. But it's instantaneous
when I go for a run, when I get on
a bike, when I choose my form of cardio, and
what I've learned over the years is it is a
huge coping mechanism for me. So something happens that potentially
(02:37):
could raise my heart rate, as I said, I live
my life as if I have a heart rate monitor,
and my goal is to not let anything raise that
heart rate, like someone cutting me off in traffic, someone
being rude on an airplane, whacap and reacently my choice
how to react to that, right, And so for me,
(02:59):
exercise eyes now is an amazing tool to feel good
in the moment. And the Grand Canyon, the second Grand
Canyon run I just did, that was an entire day
of bliss until the end. If you haven't heard that
episode yet, I just released that one, my second Grand
(03:21):
Canyon run. My first one is still They're They're all good,
They're like kids. You love them all, just differently, those events,
those experiences. But yeah, I choose that suffering because before
that suffering, the final couple of hours was eight hours
(03:46):
of just Heaven Beyond. And so that's what today's podcast
is about. It's a recent study on exercise and depression
and it's amazing and it's not new. In other words,
there's so many studies. This is a meta analysis, so
it looked back at many other studies into exercise and depression.
(04:11):
But here's where I'm getting to in my life as well.
You know, I consult for specific fitness company home exercise
equipment and what I would love for them to do.
You know, part of my job's thought leadership giving them
ideas talking about studies like this is to get away
from the commercials that just focus on weight loss. What
(04:32):
if there was a commercial that showed this harder to
do can totally be done. In other words, focused on
how good exercise makes you feel, focused on the cognitive benefits,
the mental benefits above the physical. How amazing would that be?
And I'm pushing them and pushing them and pushing them
(04:55):
to do that. And the company that does that first
and best. There's some companies that touch on it, touch
on it. But this is one of the major problems
with fitness and exercise and the goals that most people have,
the expectations that most people have. Short term, I'm gonna
finish with a commercial and a topic that I did
(05:16):
a podcast on that was a little controversial for people,
and I have to do more of those because it's
so important. All Right, So exercise and depression, minutes matter.
An amazing new study meta analysis, look back at a
handful of studies on depression and exercise, and once again,
(05:38):
when this podcast over, you should be so excited because
it is validating so much of what I talked about
minutes mattering and how powerful movement and exercise is. All right,
quick break, we will be right back by the way.
(06:01):
When I talk about minutes mattering, when I talk about
the micro workout plan, doing micro workouts throughout the day,
I do them myself. Everything I talked to you about
I do myself. My new added micro workout is hundred
You know my hundred AB exercise routine I've talked about
(06:25):
and did a fit tip about. I do it before
recording every podcast. Now mix up the types, but my
point is I do them. This works a fifty three.
You know, I talk about my events and I do
the events to show you it can be done, to
(06:46):
show you that I walked the walk, and I wasn't
injury free. When I was a kid, I couldn't run
my entire childhood. I had shin splints and angle issues.
Sat on the bench soccer. We won the state championships
in fifth grade, mostly on the bench, got a couple
(07:06):
of minutes, but it was in pain. And back then
they knew nothing that diagnosed osgood slatters, all these different things.
Now that they have some idea, much better idea of
figuring out and diagnosing things. No, and so to think
that I had the ultimate not one, but many excuses
to never run again, how sad. And so my point
(07:31):
is I do it and it all works. I just
gotta give a time. All right, So let's talk about depression, right,
I'm someone, as most are, who have experienced this. Uh,
someday I will talk much more in depth about my issues,
(07:51):
but focusing on the positive now. But suffice it to say,
I have some experience, a lot of experience, and I'm
gonna read right from this study. By the way, the
study association between physical activity and risk of depression pretty straightforward,
not as crazily worded as many of the studies I've
brought to you in the past. A systematic review and
meta analysis. Again, meta analysis and systematic review means that
(08:15):
they are not conducting research, they are looking back at
past research. Okay. Depression is the leading cause of mental
health related disease burden and a major cause of disability worldwide,
affecting approximately two hundred and eighty million people I mean insane,
(08:36):
and I would argue probably much higher and accounting for
more than forty seven million disability adjusted life years in
two thousand nineteen. Depression is also associated with premature mortality
from other illnesses and suicide. I would argue that the
thoughts we have in our head, the stress, the unchecked stress,
(08:57):
this is one of the major benefits of exercise. You know.
We can talk about the other myriad benefits and I do,
and I will continue to because there are so many,
but the stress reduction that we get from exercise prevents
so many other issues, not just depression. Don't hear that enough.
(09:18):
Don't see it in marketing, it's all about weight loss.
It's all about how you look. I don't do any
cardio and look how skinny I am. I'm gonna get
back to that. Started to get worked up. This was
published online A twenty two just came out Jamma psychiatry,
(09:39):
and I'm gonna read you there. But what made this
study different? Right? This meta analysis? And I quote they say,
no study has yet synthesized the evidence to describe the
strength or shape of the association by conducting a dose
response meta analysis using harmonized exposure estimate. Now, now we
got the words out right. What they're basically saying here
(10:01):
is they're looking at the the dosetress like how much, right,
how much you need? And then they're going to talk
about kind of the the shape of the association. Right,
it will make more sense in a second. All right,
here's the abstract. I love, I love these studies that
I love bringing them to you. The importance depression is
leading cause of mental health related disease burden and maybe
(10:23):
reduced by physical activity. But the dose response relationship between
activity and depression is uncertain. This is one thing I
get it. I complain about this frequently when doing reviews
of studies, talking about studies. It's always like, how much like,
what's the minimum exercise you can do and get benefit?
I get it, people, But in all my years now
(10:46):
of doing this, if you want the least amount, you
haven't found what you love. Wow. I never quite set
it like that, but it's true. If you're looking for
the least them ount, you're not doing it right. Because
if you told me Tom you can only exercise ten
(11:07):
minutes a day once, I would be stressed and be
really stressed because it doesn't allow me to feel good
and get all the benefits. There's four major benefits. It's
such a good study and one of the first ones
that really just pulled out these four things in this way.
I'll get to that a second. I'm always getting ahead
of myself. If you want the minimum dose, you're not
(11:27):
doing it right. You haven't found your exercise. If you
want the minimum amount of food that you that is healthy,
you haven't found the healthy food, right. That's the beauty
of healthy food. By the way, always going off on tangents,
but like when you find like I have the fruits
and vegetables and lean sources of protein and healthy fats
(11:48):
that I love, not depriving myself, and you can eat
a heck of a lot of vegetables and a heck
of a lot of eggs because you enjoy it and
their low calory, many of them, and they make feel
good and you don't over eat, you're not super hungry.
See totally off on a tangent. All right, let's get back.
So the objective of this study to systematically review and
(12:12):
meta analyze the dose response association between physical activity and
incident depression from published perspective studies of adults. Again, we
can get studies into depression. Now, this is really what
starts to separate this study and make it a really
good one in my opinion. Okay, they included perspective cohort
studies reporting physical activity at three or more exposure levels
(12:34):
doesn't really matter for you. You don't have to understand that.
And risk estimates for depression with three thousand or more adults,
so sample size had to be more than three thousand,
three thousand or more. That's a really good size, right,
and that starts to weed out potential issues with the
findings and the associations. Okay, and not only three thousand
or more in the study, but three years or longer
(12:55):
a follow up. So now they're trying to control for
pre existing depression, right, So that's a good thing when
you have that length of time and you have that
big a sample size. Okay, here's the specifics. So they
narrowed it down and included just fifteen studies that fit
this criteria. Okay, almost two hundred thousand participants, one thousand,
(13:19):
one and thirty participants and two just over two million
person years were included. Approximately six of the participants in
the studies were women. All but one included studies that
originated in high income countries, so that could be a
potential issue like does this uh, you know as the
association for you know, the less affluent countries as well
(13:42):
and people. And then the specifics with where six were
from the United States, six from Europe, one from Australia,
one from Japan, and one study that included data from India, Ghana, Mexico,
and Russia. And again, this study reports the first dose
response meta analysis of siations between physical activity and incident
(14:02):
depression to the researchers knowledge. What are the findings relative
to adults not reporting any activity, Those accumulating half the
recommended volume activity, which is four point four hours per week,
they had eighteen percent or risk of depression. So for
(14:25):
those who did nothing again self reports, those who accumulated half,
what I would argue is a pretty low volume of
physical activity almost twenty percent lower risk of depression. Adults
who accumulated the recommended volume of eight point eight hours
(14:45):
per week had pent lower risk. And they throw in
the met hours per week and things like that, just no,
it's it's a handful of hours. It's not a lot.
And I'm going to get back to that too, because
that is such an important takeaway of this as well. Okay,
(15:07):
and here's what's confusing, and I'm gonna always put in
everything right. They were diminishing additional potential benefits and greater
uncertainty at higher volumes of physical activity. So what they
found was this was that the strength or shape of
the association. So what they're saying is after you got
above the recommended the benefits were diminishing, so they they
(15:28):
started to drop off. Now there's a reason for that.
Just hold on to that thought, Okay, what you need
to know is you don't have to do a lot
couple of hours per week low intensity, low to moderate
intensity exercise. Okay, this isn't red in my notes because
(15:49):
this is so important. Based on an estimate of exposure
prevalences among included cohorts, if less active adults had achieved
the current physical activity recommendations, eleven point five of depression
cases could have been prevented. That's amazing. That's an amazing finding.
(16:10):
If those people who were doing basically nothing got to
the couple of hours per week low to moderate activity,
more than ten of depression cases could have been prevented.
Not with drugs, not with therapy, but especially not pharmaceutical
(16:32):
interventions which are expensive and have side effects. No drugs,
this is free. A lot of the movement was walking,
and you are in control of the dose people. And
this is why I talk about micro workouts. You sure,
you can go for an hour to hour walk in
(16:52):
the morning to our two hours of whatever type of
cardio vascular exercise you can do thirty minutes on the
but whatever your cardio is can do that. But you
can and should also break it up and do ten
minutes in the morning, and a twenty minute walk after lunch,
and maybe a forty five minute walk with your dog
in the evening. And what I love about the findings
(17:13):
is it's going to bring in a bunch of the
studies and effects that I've talked about another podcasts. All right,
eleven point five of depression could have been prevented. You know,
this is where the I'm not one of those people
who screams from the rooftops about, you know, medicine being reactive,
(17:36):
but it is. It's much more lucrative to sell a drug, then,
That's what I'm trying to say, than it is to
sell activity. That's true. And ten over ten percent of
people could have avoided it completely just by doing the
minimum or the recommended. So the minimum amount of expers
(18:00):
eyes amazing. And I'm gonna go out on a limb
here and say, because of the limitations of the higher
activity levels, that number will be higher without fail believe
that based on everything I have studied and learned and experienced,
and and no, all right, let's take a quick break
(18:21):
and we come back and to bring it all home,
all right, I'm gonna talk about the why why for
awesome reasons and again tie into I do say so myself.
A bunch of the podcast I've already done a lot
of its common sense, but a lot of it. Some
of the causes you go okay, And this is why
(18:43):
I repeat over and over, because you're gonna start to go, oh,
maybe I didn't believe that the first time I heard
Tom talk about it. Maybe it took three times. Now, Oh,
now I'm starting to connect the dots. Now it's starting
to make sense, because it doesn't always make sense. If
it did. All this information we give out to people,
they believe it right away. All right, quick break, We'll
be right back, and we're back talking about one of
(19:12):
my favorite topics, just the psychological aspect of exercise. There's
so much to it, performance, Alzheimer's, memory, happiness. Why are
those benefits not highlighted more? Why are they not in commercials?
(19:33):
Why are they not in advertising? You can't show it.
You can't show it the way you show a skinny person.
You can't show it the way you can manipulate images
on Instagram. And you can't just have it genetically, as
so many people in this industry do. Listen, I was
(19:53):
a fitness model with Wilhelmina. For years, I saw it.
I saw some really unhealthy skinny people and really unhappy
skinny people. It's not about being skinny. It's about being
healthy and it's about being happy. And you can't tell
either of those things from a picture from a body type.
(20:18):
All right, let's get back into this because it's so good.
Reading from the study once again, the greatest differences in
risk observed between low doses of physical activity, suggesting most
benefits are realized when moving from no activity to at
least some Oh my gosh, this got me so excited
(20:38):
when I read this. Read it again. Most benefits are
realized when moving from no activity to at least something
sounds familiar, excessive moderation, right, So for those people who
are on the couch, for those of you who are
listening and like you're just not even close to there yet,
I get it. I've worked with you. I've worked with
thousands of people like you of the years, and I
(21:02):
loved it. I love working with I loved working with
all clients and did back when I was a trainer
and coach every type of age and fitness level and
goals you know, from kids up to you know, plus.
But give me someone who's just starting. Give me someone
(21:24):
who I know I'm going to make feel good right
away with not a lot. Not by killing them as
I was literally told to do at one gym many
years ago for orientations. Kill them to the first session,
make them crawl out. That's a good idea, and that
was the head of the personal training department. Again, I
(21:47):
go off on tangents, but for good reason. It's one
of the problems with fitness and trainers and lack of
education understanding. Let me continue though. Accumulating an activity volume
equivalent to two point five hours of brisk walking per
week was associated with twenty five lower risk of depression.
(22:09):
I mean it takes my breath away. So people will
talk about how much do I have to walk to
lose weight. I've contributed to those articles for thirty years.
Over thirty years, I get it again. I'm not I'm
not dismissing the way we need to be a healthy weight.
But when you focus on the cognitive benefits that you
feel immediately, that's how you make it a lifestyle change.
(22:35):
When you find the activity that you enjoy that feels good,
and you don't do too much too soon and you
break it up and you do the other things I'm
gonna outline shortly. That's when you start to feel good,
you start to do a little more, you start to
eat a little better, and then the weight changes. But
you focus on the psychological first. Plus you have to
(22:57):
go in believing what I'm telling you, because then it
becomes easier. Not only do you feel good like your
body and your mind those hormones, serotonin and things like that,
but if you truly believe you're doing great things for
your body and your mind becomes exponentially easier. And then
if you do that long enough and you see the
(23:17):
body change, then you're Then you're done. You're hooked. Then
you're me and you can all be this. I promise
you're just not gonna do it the same way I do.
You might not run. Many of you won't, and that's fine,
all right. Let me go on. I'm gonna read it
once again. Though, accumulating an activity volume equivalent to two
point five hours of brisk walking per week was associated
(23:39):
with lower risk of depression beyond amazing, and at half
that dose, the risk was eighteen percent lower compared with
no activity two and a half hours per week. Break
that up. Are you doing five days? Are you doing
three days? Are you doing seven days? And that's why
(24:00):
I love looking at it as a seven day plan.
In other words, what's my goal by the end of
the week two and a half hours? You go, You
don't have to do the same amount every day unless
you want to. In other words, one day you can
do thirty minutes. The next day you can do forty five,
third day you can do five if you prefer to
(24:21):
have that. Like every day, I'm gonna go out at
you know, whatever time, at lunchtime, after work, whatever, and
I'm gonna do thirty minute. That's great, But you don't
have to, and life gets in the way, and you
can't and shouldn't beat yourself up when you go, oh,
I had that thirty minute walk, couldn't do it? No
do more than next day, or break it up, you know,
(24:41):
over the next few days. And the final sentence here
again little confusing. Only minor additional benefits were observed at
higher activity levels. I'll get back to that. This is
the only other red passage in my notes because it
is so important and one of the most important takeaways
(25:02):
of this podcast. Our findings therefore have important new implications
for health practitioners making lifestyle recommendations, especially to inactive individuals
who may perceive the current recommendation target as unrealistic. That's
a word salad for. People aren't doing it because they
think they need to do more than they need to do.
(25:26):
People aren't doing it because they don't think they're going
to get the benefits from micro workouts, from doing a
little bit a lot, not a lot, A little bit
minutes matter. That's why I put it in the title.
It's exactly what this is saying. And so for all
those people, especially the people who are listen, significantly overweight,
(25:50):
aches and pains, and they go, what's the what's the point?
And they may have tried it in the past and
not lost the weight, not achieve the goals that they've
read or seen from sources that they shouldn't have been trusting.
Those are the hardest people to get motivated. And when
(26:12):
I think back to the handful of people who I
have interviewed and met over the years who exemplify this.
David Garcia, listen to that podcast if you want a
real life example of what I just read. Someone who
had well over a hundred pounds to lose and did
everything I'm describing here slowly over time, and he lost
(26:36):
over a hundred and fifty pounds fifty kept it off
for over ten years. But if you're on your couch
and you're not feeling good about yourself and you're not
feeling good physically, and you go, I'm not three hundred
minutes a week or whatever whatever the recommendation is. Are
you look at these crazy workouts. So you look at
these images on Instagram, you go, I'm never gonna be that. Hey,
(26:56):
yes you could and be maybe you don't want to,
and the image is not indicative of health or happiness.
All right, So ten thousand steps you don't have to
do and shouldn't do ten thousand steps right out of
the gate. That's a problem. Average American does like three
to four thousand, So to jump up to ten thousand
(27:18):
right away and to expect to do that every day,
I don't always do that when I'm traveling, like I
just did you know, Yes, I went to the Grand
Canyon and we had a cross, so I made up
the steps. But guess what, the day I traveled, I'm
not sure I hit ten thousand steps because I got
in a car and I drove to the airport. And
I went to the airport and I sat and I
had breakfast, and then my running partner and I got
(27:39):
on a plane. We sat on that plane for six hours,
and then we got all off. We went to the hotel.
Oh No, I sat in a car for three and
a half hours and got out, walked to the restaurant,
had pasta, walked back to the hotel, I went to bed.
Did I care how many steps I got in that day? No,
(28:01):
it's a cumultive effect over time. I don't want to
do that every day, and I'm glad I don't have to.
And I made up for it the next day, and
I think I had seventy steps, and running partner ran
a little farther. I think you had a hundred thousand.
But this is a problem with the recommendations. This is
a problem with beat yesterday ten steps kill yourself. Now,
(28:23):
just start moving more. That snowball effect is so powerful.
All right, let's wrap this all up. So what's the why?
This is what I love. I'm so glad to study
HIT on these four things. So why, what? What are
what's the what is the effect? What is the activity
(28:47):
doing the exercise to help decreased depression. Four things they
pulled out improved physical self perceptions and body image. Yeah,
feel better about yourself. You feel better about yourself. And
I would argue that's also because you're doing something. You know,
this is cognitive behavioral stuff with depression. I'm the biggest
(29:09):
proponent of cognitive behavioral therapy. Get out and do something. Start,
get off the couch. Feel good about something, whether that's
a hobby or working or exercise or all the above.
That's huge. So improve physical self perceptions, embody image. Yeah,
you feel good because you're doing something, full stop. Number
two more social interactions. Oh my gosh. Have I talked
(29:31):
about that in the past. How important that is? And
if your home feeling bad about yourself, you're on the couch,
you're not moving a lot, you don't feel good. We
are social creatures, the blue zones. Social interactions. Listen, this
is you know. I know my weakness is it's getting
in enough water. I don't sleep enough. And number three,
(29:52):
I actually like to be alone more than I probably should.
I ran the Grand Onion by myself and I loved it.
I purposely took a different route along the way so
that I could avoid people because I wasn't there to
be chatty. I was there to like have the most
amazing solo experience in one of the most amazing places.
(30:15):
But we need to have social interactions. So maybe you're
walking with other people, maybe you're walking outside and you're
just around other people. Maybe you're going to the gym.
The social interactions are important. They're part of the whole puzzle.
And I love number three, the personal development of coping strategies.
(30:40):
I talked about that at the start, you can it
stresses a choice, and that stresses a lot of people
out when you tell them that you're situation is not stressful,
it's your interpretation of it. I can be running through
the Grand Cannon and hit the wall the way I did,
like I've never gone from feeling so good to holy cow,
(31:01):
which just happened. And that's where my coping strategies kick in.
Have I been here before? Do I have the tools
necessary to get myself through it? And the answer was
hadn't quite been their way the specific way the wheels
were falling off, but I was pretty sure I could
get through it. And so that is connected. When you
(31:26):
have control, it's a control when you don't feel you
have control. That's really depressing. And that's why I end
every episode talking about control. Coping strategies is everything self efficacy,
believing you can get through something. And that's why when
(31:47):
someone tries to drive me nuts or something happens, getting
to work out in I'm moving more. I know the
alternative and the other coping strategies not as positive, all right.
And number four and to wrap it up with this,
I love this. Did this show about this recently. The
(32:10):
role of the environment as a potential moderator of the
association between physical activity and depression should also be considered.
For example, the use of green space is associated with
the lower risk of depression. The biophilia hypothesis people being
outside makes us happy, makes us happier. You can work
out in your home gym. You can go to the gym.
(32:31):
You go to the gym, you have the social interactions,
you got, the improved physical self perception and body image,
you've got the personal development of Coping strategy might not
have the role of the environment or the environment playing
a role. You don't have to have all of these
all the time. But I walked the dogs in the
morning in the woods for this two, get the low
(32:54):
level activity to clear my mind, to disconnect from you know,
social media and electronics, and to get that biofit to
connect with nature. I know this sounds for even for me,
a little out there, but it's not. I had like
the craziest moment in the Grandkid many but one in particular.
(33:16):
I stopped on a cliff about seven hours in maybe
and experienced complete silence in a way I had never
experienced it before. It was uncomfortable for a short amount
of time. It was so bizarre and so cool, and
it was connecting. And if you want hear more about that,
(33:37):
listen to the podcast I did on the biophilly hypothesis.
All right, I could go on and on, but then
you'll write and say, Tom, shorten it. So let me
give you the takeaways again. In the study, relative small
doses of physical activity were associated with substantially lower risk
of depression. Read it again, Relatively small doses of physical
activity substantially lower risks depression. Minutes matter, Stop saying, just
(34:06):
stop saying only something. I only walked for an hour
this morning, or I just did ten minutes of you
know the bike. I hammer every person I know to
stop saying that. And we have to all stop saying that.
Who said we didn't evolve to go to the gym
for an hour? People? We've all to move all day long,
(34:27):
we have all to connect with people. Our modern society
is just horrific at at our for our health, physical
and mental. All right, all right? So what are the
possible limitations of the study? I gotta talk about that.
Uh And I read directly it is still possible that
the associations observed in the President analyses could overestimate the
(34:47):
role of physical activity because of reverse causality. Really obvious, right,
Depressed people move less, so X equals why orders? Why
equal X? I think both are true? You Like? This
is where I would say that I'm gonna throw common
sense in, Like, I'm all for the scientific method, but
(35:10):
of course, when you're depressed, you move less. So it's
chicken and egg which came first, doesn't matter, doesn't matter
in my opinion, I understand it matters when we're trying
to measure these type of things in research. Depress people
move less, Depressed people need to move more. That's what
we have to take away from this. And they say
(35:34):
to limit risk of bias from undiagnosed depression. They only
included studies with at least three years of follow up.
That was the main reason that they excluded studies that
didn't have at least three years a follow up to
try to limit that bias from undiagnosed depression. Perfect No.
And finally, as I've talked about with just about the
(35:55):
vast majority of studies when it comes to diet and exercise,
a limitation of these analyzes is that it included studies
that use self reported measures of physical activity, which are
subject to yes recall and social desirability biases. I'm gonna
tell you what I think you want to hear because
it makes me look good. I'm gonna not tell you
the bad things I ate. I'm not going to tell
you how little I exercise. I'm gonna over report. It
(36:16):
just part of all these studies, and it will always
be a limitation. All right, What's the final takeaway. It's
under our control how much we move, and how much
we move is the who we connected to, our attitudes
and what we put into our mouths. Those three things
I say at the end of these podcasts. We control
(36:40):
how much we move, what we put into our mouths,
and our attitudes. I could throw in, you know, the
following line that they're all connected. Exercise is so much
more than weight loss. Let me leave you with this.
I'm debating if I should. I'm gonna I talk about
the commercials and how I would love for this to
(37:01):
be a part of it. Remember the Peloton commercial Everyone
was up in arms did a podcast on that and
I had people like weren't happy. And if you don't
know the story the Peloton commercial at the holidays where
a woman was given a Peloton stationary bike by her
husband and the backlash was she's skinny, how dare the
(37:26):
husband give her a bike? As if people who aren't
overweight don't need to exercise. I'm not going to go
deep into this, and if you want to hear me
really rant, listen to that episode why the Peloton backlash
was so wrong? And if you think that it was
wrong or that it was right, the backlash was right
(37:47):
and the commercial was wrong. You need to listen to
more of these episodes. You can't tell the health of
a person by looking at them. What is her blood pressure,
what is her cool us to all? What is her stress? Like?
That is the there's so many things I listed off
in that episode. But let's just stick with the topic
(38:09):
at hand. Depression as powerful, if not more so, then
pharmaceutical interventions. That's what many of the studies show. Exercise.
What are the downsides? What are the side effects? When
you listen to the commercials and and I know many
of you are probably on medication for depression, and you should,
(38:32):
you know, listen to your doctor. But over time, many
of those types of people when doctors prescribe exercise and
do it in the right way, and you start to
feel better about yourself and you start to do all
those behaviors they just talked about outside biophilia, getting around people,
amazing things happen. Exercise is so much more than weight loss.
(38:54):
We don't see that, we don't read that, we don't
hear that. It's not on Instagram. Let's look at the
crazy workout I'm doing. Look at the crazy outfield. How
much agin I'm showing, Look how great I look? How
do you feel? Be happy? I am all right? What
an amazing study again, if you want to look it up,
(39:16):
just came out. Association between physical activity and risk of depression,
A systematic review and met analysis GAMMA psychiatry April. Thank
you for listening. I love what I do. I love
reading these studies. I love bring them to you. Reinforces
every single show reinforces how amazing exercise and eating healthy
(39:38):
and being happy is, and how they're all connected and
how we're in control of all those things. If you
want to reach out, Tom h Fit is Instagram, Tom
h Fit is Twitter, you go to Fitness Disrupted dot com.
Email me through the site. My recent book is The
Micro Workout Plan. It's connected to everything I just talked about,
and I talked about the cognitive benefits. It's not just workouts,
(39:58):
it's the science. So you can grab that too if
you're interested, and if you do have it. By the way,
I haven't broken a hundred reviews yet. It's my goal.
I'm a goals oriented person. You have read it and
enjoy it, would greatly appreciate an Amazon review. Thank you
ahead of time. I remember my goal is to help
all of us, myself and you, with our best lives.
That's it. That's it. I don't want to be biased,
(40:20):
because if if my bias keeps me from achieving that
goal for myself, what good is it? I am Tom Holland.
This is Fitness Disrupted. Believe in yourself. Fitness Disrupted is
a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from
my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
(40:44):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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