Creating Habits to Support Your Physical and Mental Health

An expert in brain health and the author of Move the Body, Heal the Mind,  Dr. Jennifer Heisz joins our podcast today to explore how our physical wellness connects to our mental health.

She is Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Brain Health and Aging at McMaster University where she directs the NeuroFit lab. Her award-winning research examines the effects of physical activity on brain function to promote mental health and cognition in young adults, older adults, and individuals with Alzheimer’s disease.

Learn about:

• Physical activity’s effect on brain function
• Ways to create and maintain health habits to build a stable wellness system
• Fascinating discoveries connecting  movement and sleep

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Visit our website: https://scsmh.education.uiowa.edu

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(spirited piano music)(upbeat music)- Hello everyone, and welcome to episode two. I can't believe it. We're now on to episode two of our new podcast here at the Scanlan Center for School Mental Health. We have with us today a special guest, Dr. Jennifer Heisz. She's here with us and she's gonna be addressing our physical dimension of wellness today, and I'm so excited to have her on. I was just showing her before we got started today, how I, like, really tore up her book when I was, oh, you can't really see that. But I have, if you have not read this book, then I highly, highly recommend it. We're gonna talk a lot about it today, but I'm gonna give a little bit of an introduction here and then we're gonna get right into it, because there is a lot to unpack in this book to support us in understanding physical activity and then sleep as well for our physical dimension of wellness. So, let's welcome Dr. Jennifer Heisz. She is an expert in brain health and the author of "Move the Body, Heal the Mind." Go get the book if you don't already have it. She is an associate professor and Canada Research chair in brain health and aging at McMaster University, where she directs the NeuroFit lab. Her award-winning research examines the effects of physical activity on brain function to promote mental health and cognition in young adults, older adults and individuals with Alzheimer's disease. Welcome, Jennifer.- Thanks so much for having me.- Thanks so much for agreeing to come on. This is great. This is a big treat for all of us. So, okay. Let's go ahead and get into it, because I know that we don't have a ton of time. But I think first always, it's like super important to bring context to everybody's research and their studies and where they're coming from. So, if you could tell us just a little bit, about what got you to this point. I mean, there is a part at the beginning of your book where you talk about, like a moment that you had around New Year's Eve or maybe on New Year's Eve in the kitchen. But, like, what even got you there? And is that the point where even where you got interested in this topic?- Yeah, so, just to give a bit of background, I did my PhD in cognitive neuroscience and back in grad school I was in my 20s, studying how the brain represents who we are, how we form memories and it became very clear to me that something wasn't right with my own brain. I was having pretty severe anxiety attacks and intrusive thoughts. So, like, OCD. I didn't know it was then back then, but I had gone to the doctor to see what they would recommend. They handed me a prescription for an antidepressant drug and I was really reluctant to take it. And then fortunately, a friend recommended I try cycling. And much to my amazement, those bike rides really soothed my mind. They quieted my mind and gave me this sense of peace that I really hadn't had in a long time. And so the profound effect of those bike rides on my own brain, caused me to shift my research and make exercise not only a priority in my own life, but to really intensely study how it's working to have such an amazing effect on the brain.- Yeah, people who exercise frequently are just like, everybody that has this, like, I have a pretty rigid exercise routine and I'm just sitting here going like,"Like, I totally,"I'm so connecting with this story right now." Okay, so what are those profound effects? So, like, I think our first question, I think where we should kind of start is what are in general the health benefits of exercise?- Oh, yeah. There just so many, like and we're really familiar with the health benefits for the body, but there are incredible benefits for the brain and for the mind. So, it can help you reduce anxiety and the effects can be felt immediately after the exercise. Exercise can have clinically significant effects on reducing depressive symptoms, especially in people who have a drug resistant form of depression. Exercise helps keep our brain young and helps us to stave off things like dementia and Alzheimer's disease. It can help protect our young people's brains from addiction. And it can help those who have recovered or are recovering from addiction to stay sober. It helps the brain heal from addiction. It can help us sleep, which I know many of us need help with. And it can help us be focused, focus better and be more creative. So, it has this whole range of things that exercise can do. And what I tried to do in the book is kind of tap into what the specific aspects are that really benefit each part of the brain and the mind.- You do a great job of this. Yeah, I mean, I learned so much reading this book and I think that's what's the most interesting piece of this book. It's like, I think people in general kind of know that we have some research that supports, like, all of these benefits that you just walked us through, but you get into the nitty gritty. Like you start naming exactly what it's doing in your body, biologically in your brain, through your blood vessels, all over your body. I mean, it's so in depth and I think that that's the piece of this book that is, like, different than other books that are trying to relay kind of the same message. So, I really, really appreciate that understanding. So, but like, this is the fascinating thing to me, right? Is that we know all of these things about physical activity and you talked about this too, especially at the beginning, we know all of these amazing health benefits of moving our bodies, and yet we don't do it.(presenter laughing)- It's hard, it's really hard.- It is hard, it's hard.- I'm sitting on the other side of this now, being very active, but I certainly haven't always been. I was never an athlete growing up. It took me a really long time to find my footing and exercise. I had, like countless failed attempts at becoming a runner. Like this was just not the thing for me, but it's the medicine I need. And so now it's just something I do every day, but my gosh, it took me a long time to get there. And so part of the problem is that the brain is actually hardwired to conserve energy, which essentially makes us lazy. So, this is a relic of our evolutionary past when, if you think about it, we had to expend a lot of energy to hunt and gather our food, resources were scarce. And so it was advantageous to conserve energy when you didn't need it for survival. But flash forward to today, we don't really need to move to survive. And certainly voluntary exercise is really seen as an extravagant expense. And so the brain goes out of its way to prevent you from doing it. And I know you're familiar with the rebuttals, like, oh, we're too tired. Do you even have time? We gotta get that deadline done. We don't have time. And it's just, it's relentless. Fortunately, there are things that we can do. Once we recognize that we're up against this battle, we just need to get over that inertia. That's the key. Getting over that inertia, getting up off the couch, getting up off the office chair and getting the body moving. Because once the body's moving, these neurochemicals are released into the brain that flood it with all this rewarding substances, that keep us alert and focused and feeling good. And it just, it perpetuates itself. But getting there is hard. So, what can we do to get there? Well, it's super simple. Just put it in your calendar. And this trick, this is something I do in my day. I block it off and I respect that time as I respect all other meeting times. Like most of us are just treating exercise, like an impromptu meeting. Like, okay, well, I'll get it in when I have time. The day goes by, the time runs out and you're tired and you just didn't get it in. It fell to the bottom of that to-do list. But this way you're doing an in advance, setting it aside, prioritizing it. Because what's gonna happen is that when you make it a priority, you're able to do all the other things in your life with much more ease and grace. Like, it's just much easier.- Yeah, I totally agree with this. It's wasn't until I, well, there were lots of things that happened that made my exercise routine kind of go sideways for a while. PhD, my mom dying, raising two little boys on my own. I just keep adding it, right? But I remember there was this day that I was in my office and my good colleague, Dr. Jacob Priest, who's actually our next guest, whose gonna be on the podcast in December, this is November. And one day he's like,"Okay, so, we need to set up a meeting." We were like, gonna write a grant or something together. We need to set up a meeting. And I was looking at my calendar and he was looking over my shoulder and I was like, and we were like, having a hard time finding that meeting time. And I was like, "Well, I'll just," I was gonna move my exercise time outta my calendar. And he's like, "Don't do that." You have to prioritize that. You have to prioritize your health. And it was almost, like, I needed one more person in my life to gimme permission to do that. And it was, like, somebody who I really respected and look up to. He's super smart, he's a great colleague. And it was that moment that I was like, I am always gonna put up my calendar and I do not care what's going on in my life. It's not moving.- No. Yeah, and it's so interesting that you say that, because we often think,"Okay, I'm carving out this time,"it's selfish." It's equated with that. Like, I'm caring for myself. This is time I need. But for somehow that's got mixed up with selfishness. And I wanna disconnect the two, because self-care is not selfish. It definitely helps you show up better in the world for everybody else. But yeah, this idea that we need to have someone else, give us permission to take care of ourselves, it's just so ingrained in how we process things and experience the world, right?- I think especially for women, I think especially for women who are just nurturers and we get rewarded for being nurturers in so many ways in our lives. And it's a really hard thing to do for ourselves. We're just, we feel guilty all the time. It's time away from my kids. It's time away from my work. It's time away from my colleagues. But we can't show up as our best selves. So, if we're not taking care of ourselves, right?- That's it, right? We can't be the best person that we wanna be. We can't give the quality love and care that we wanna give if we are ourselves are not well, right? And so it's really an investment in that and I think we need to reframe how we see it. Yeah, so there's this other thing that you talk about that I think is really fascinating in your book and it has to do with like our some, something that's blocking us from, establishing a healthy exercise routine and it's fear. Yeah and I think that this part of your book is really interesting, like how fear impacts our willingness to exercise. Can you talk a little bit more about that?- Yeah, so the resistance I was talking about before, like that relic that energy conservation, that's really like the physical resistance, but fear is definitely the psychological resistance, right? The fear of the unknown. The fear of change, the fear of a negative experience. Because let's face it, some of us have had really negative experiences that have been wrapped up with gym class or sports and that just doesn't match or it evokes a lot of negative emotional feelings. And so this idea that we need to overcome these psychological barriers as well as that physiological barrier of inertia to get moving. And so it really requires a much more compassionate approach to exercising. It's not just like a task that we're getting done. It's something that we need to really take a compassionate approach with. Be very gentle with ourselves. Baby steps first. And sort of get used to and familiarize yourself with the process. And then, it's less scary, right? Once you take that first step and you see and you feel the effects, then it becomes easier to take the next one. But it's getting over that, acknowledging that you might be afraid and then allowing yourself the space to go slow as you get back into it. Because really every step counts when it comes to mental health.- Totally it does, right? It's reminds me of, what you're saying reminds me of James Clear in the "Atomic Habits," it's just these little baby steps that over time create an enormous change.- Yes.- And you know he even recommended, I think in his book, "Atomic Habits." If you're starting a new exercise routine, and you're new to exercise, just go to the gym. Like, don't even work out. Like just show up for a while and just like walk through it and then leave and then like, build from there.'Cause sometimes the fear is just going to the gym.- Right. And the unfamiliarity of that, right? Yeah. So, I love that idea. He also has ideas about putting your gym bag by the door, having it packed. One thing that I do is I always work out in the morning, I wake up and put my gym stuff on. There's no excuse. It's on, I'm going out. And yeah and this idea that maybe we need to familiarize ourself, expose ourself to these fears and realize that it's actually a safe space for us. And then we'll be more willing to engage and move forward, yeah.- It's like associating it with those feelings that we end up getting at the end of the run, my thing is running, but whatever your exercise of choice is, trying to start to associate like, those running clothes and going out for the run or cycling or swimsuit or whatever with that feeling that I get when I'm done. I mean, I've always said when people ask me like, how do you keep this exercise routine of yours?'Cause I exercise six days a week. I'm a morning exerciser too. Usually it's running and they oftentimes will say this to me like, how do you do it? Like, how do you maintain that and there's no magic bullet, right? There's no, there's nothing. But I do oftentimes think like, when I'm not wanting to go, at the end of the day, I have never gone to bed and said to myself,"I really wish I wouldn't have exercised today."I wish I wouldn't have gone for that run." But when I don't do it, then I feel guilty, I regret it. I miss that feeling that I get when I'm done. So, I always just try to think ahead into my day. And the feeling that I want into the day.- Because you've already established that association, right? But for new exercisers, they need to learn that first, right? And so there are things we can do to kind of bootstrap that process where we can listen to our favorite music when we're, even just before we're working out. And that can help, prepare the reward system for what's to come, doing our favorite activities. So, for you it's running. I also love running, I like weightlifting too, but for some people it's dancing. Others it's walking, hiking, cycling. Choose something that you really love and then another thing that's really key, especially at the beginning, is just paying attention to your experiences in the moment. So, a lot of us go into an exercise, new exercise program with a goal. Maybe it's to lose weight or to feel better or to be stronger. And if we're focusing on too much on the goal, it actually can derail our efforts to get there. And so there's some cool research showing that if you take two exercisers and you tell one to focus on the goal and the other to focus on the experience, which can include things like heel drive, glute squeeze, attention to breath. It's the person that's paying attention to the experiences, even though they're not overly positive, which I actually really like. They're just neutral experiences. It's the one that's paying attention to the experience that really enjoys and sticks with it over the long-term.- That is so interesting, right? Yeah, 'cause I actually, one of the things that I talk about too is pairing it, instead of thinking about the goal is pairing it with identity. Like I'm not running so that I can win a 5K, I'm running because I'm a runner. It's who I am. And this is interesting too, it's like, a mindfulness practice, right? When you're living in the moment and you're focusing on or you're thinking that's really a great way of thinking about it and looking for that.- And then once it becomes your identity, then it's like you said, you just have it in your day and for people who are not moving that much lately, that may seem like a really long way away, and that's okay. But eventually you'll get there. But enjoying the journey along the way is really important to do. So, picking things you like to do, listening to music, doing what with people that you love. All of these things, can help kickstart a new exercise program and help you stick with it.- Okay, so there's this word right now that is like a big buzzword, it's not a buzzword. I hate to say that because I think that's like diminishing it when I say buzzword. But in the field of education right now, you may or may not know this Jennifer, we are talking a lot about resiliency. And we're actually seeing and quite frankly a little bit concerned about our students and even ourselves to be honest with you. And as you can imagine, we've all gone through a lot and there's like theories also out there, about how the boomers raised us and we had to learn how to self-sooth. And so then we overcompensated with our children,(presenter laughing) we became helicopter and bulldozer parents. And then we have these kids and maybe even to some extent even ourselves now, where certain things happen in our lives and we maybe experience a little bit of anxiety or a little bit of stress, or there's a challenge that's presented in front of us. And that those uncomfortable feelings, immediately go to uncomfortable feelings to I am in a state of trauma or I do not know how to overcome this. I don't know how to get through this in a healthy way. So, we fall onto unhealthy things, like being sedentary, alcohol, so on and so forth, right? You know all of this. You addressed this in your book a little bit in terms of exercise and I even have like a page number in here, but you point out that not everyone who experiences a traumatic event will develop PTSD, in your book you talk about this. Can you kinda unpack that for our audience a little bit today?- Yeah. So, there's some really fascinating research on, it's primarily done on war veterans, but obviously PTSD can happen to anyone who experiences a traumatic event. And so within war veterans, some of them will come back with PTSD, but some won't, even if they've experienced the same traumatic event. And what researchers found was that the ones who were protected from the trauma, from the PTSD had this neuro peptide Y, they had more concentration of it in their brain. And this they coined a resiliency factor that essentially protects the brain, against stress and trauma. And the amazing thing is that we can actually build more neuropeptide Y with exercise. And-- It's fascinating for me.- I know it's amazing and it doesn't even require that much exercise. Like it's not as intensive as you might imagine. It's a light to moderate form of exercise that seems to be the most beneficial.- I mean, if we need a case for why we need physical activity in schools, like that's that connection to resiliency, right?- Right, oh yeah.- I mean, well, another connection. I mean, then there's other stuff too, but I had no idea that about that. I thought that was-- Yeah, super fascinating.- So, interesting to me that through exercise, we can increase. I mean there's other things obviously, you're gonna wanna do and work on and skills you're gonna wanna build, but exercise can help with that.- Yeah and it all, it also in relation to resiliency, can make us less reactive to everyday stressors. So, I think that's, I have an 11 year old daughter and I see her, like she reacts very strongly to negative events. And very positively to positive events. So, she's got this like rapid mood swing from day to day, depending on how stressful her day is. And one thing that exercise helps us to do is actually be less reactive. So, we're much more even and calm. And this works by toning the stress system. So, when we think about our everyday stressors, that's really the psychological stress. And then exercise is really a physical stress, but they both tap into the same stress system. We only have one stress system for all stressors and we can actually use exercise to create adaptations in the stress system that make it stronger. Not just for exercise, but for everyday stressors. And so we can better cope and manage, because we're less reactive to these psychological stressors in our life, which is related to that resiliency. Even in like, life is going to be stressful, there's going to be setbacks, but if we can maintain composure and a sense of calm, then it'll be easier for us to navigate those challenges.- Sure, of course. All of you educators out there, I'm sure you're making this connection to the Core CASEL Five, which is self-management. So, I mean, that's a direct connection there. We have a great question here though. I'm gonna go ahead and put it on the screen."Would the neuropeptide Y be similar to BDFN?"- BDNF, yeah so, brain-derived neurotrophic factor is a growth factor. And this is also increased with exercise. So, exercising, it does a bunch of, it increases a bunch of neurochemicals. Neuropeptide Y is one, and BDNF is another. And both are related to stress and resiliency. So, but in slightly different ways. So, BDNF, BDNF responds to stressful or challenging situations by increasing, and it essentially, it kind of acts like, a fertilizer or buffer for the brain cells, protecting them against the stressful situations that can damage the cells and cause them to die and shrink. And so BDNF actually provides a protection, around the cells to kind of coat them in sort of this supportive substance. Whereas neuropeptide Y it seems to be more interactive with the amygdala, which is our center of fear in the brain. And so it helps to soothe the amygdala, quiet it down so it's less activated by threatening or fearful things. It's less likely to become overactivated to negative events. So, great. Obviously we've gotta very educated group here and it seems like they're working through, very complimentary approaches. So, thanks so much for your question.- Yeah, that was a good one. Thanks Wendy for that. That was Wendy Dawson. Thanks for joining us, Wendy. Okay so, this is kind of a good segue, I think into the part of your book where you talk about exercise and addiction, which I think I read this chapter three times. I'm not kidding. It is so interesting. So, and probably one of the reasons why is because we have addiction in my family. My oldest brother is an alcoholic. and so I mean, some of my earliest childhood memories of my brother is going to visit him when he was in inpatient treatment when he was a teenager. And so this has always like, kind of haunted me a little bit and like, why does this happen to some people and why don't some people get better? And you talk about how exercise can help people, not only in recovery, but it can be a protective factor too.- Yeah, yeah.- So, I don't know, which one do you wanna do first? You wanna talk about it being and used as preventative?- Yeah, let's start there. Yeah, let's start there.- This may be a little bit more positive.- Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, so the way that exercise can help in preventing drug addiction is because exercise releases dopamine, which is the main neurochemical released by all drugs of abuse, including alcohol and smoking. And so the reason these substances are addictive is because they increase dopamine to supernatural levels. And then what happens is the reward system, the brain was never designed to deal with that much dopamine. And it disrupts homeostasis. So, the receptors get stripped away, within the reward system. But what this means is that you can't enjoy the simple things in life anymore, because they're not a strong enough stimulus, because you're used to the drug or the alcohol as that supernatural stimulus. So, that's how, and so exercise increases dopamine, but to natural levels, but it also makes the receptors more sensitive to dopamine and it creates just a much more balanced reward system. And so when we're growing up, when we're curious teens, I mean, this is the design of the teen brain, right? They're supposed to go and explore and try things out and discover what this world and environment has for them and the brain rewards them for that with the release of dopamine for novelty, for learning. And unfortunately, if there's not enough positive stimulation and experience in their life, then that's when drugs and alcohol can sometimes slip in as the reward of choice. But students who are more active, they already have dopamine, their reward system is properly primed and so they're less likely to seek it out in these unhealthy domains.- Yeah and so, okay, so that's so interesting. But then you take it one step further and I'm looking, I'm like, I have so many notes, I'm like frantically looking in my notes here. You talk specifically about girls. So, I think it's like, it's on page 81 and you talk about how girls, I have to find it,'cause I wanna kinda read it. You talk about how how girls are maybe more susceptible to this in various ways and how programming for young women or for girls is really critical.- Yeah. It turns out this is some emerging evidence that, I mean, culturally, social and culturally boys have always had, higher addiction rates than girls. And that's much related to cultural pressure, social pressure. But unfortunately the gap is closing and this has to do with the biology of the woman's brain and the different sensitivity of the reward system. So, it turns out that female brains, they're more sensitive to that immediate reward that they get from the drug. So, it's more incentivizing, which means that it's much more likely to go from experimentation to addiction, that that gap is quicker for girls. So, yeah, I know as having an 11 year old daughter, I was like, "Oh my god,"okay, let's get you into some soccer."- Yeah, well you do, you referenced that. I mean, I immediately thought of, we have an organization here, I don't know if it's in Canada, because you're in Canada. I don't know if you have this organization in Canada, but it's called Girls on the Run.- I don't think we do.- Yeah, it's really an amazing group. And this is exactly what they do. It's an organization that goes into schools, mostly schools and works with young girls, like elementary, junior high and then there's some high school programming too. And they do exactly what you are recommending, right? Like they're talking to them about exercise in their bodies and how important it's to exercise in their health and so on and so forth. So, anyway, I thought that that piece of it was really, really interesting, especially since that gap is closing. Like it's something we need to pay attention to.- We need to pay, and what ends up happening unfortunately, is that physical activity drops off in high school and it's a steeper drop for girls. So, it really is a critical time that sort of that transition, that puberty transition into high school, where we really need to be supporting all our kids. But yeah.- Oh, yeah. Okay so, let's talk a little bit about recovery. So, you get some really great information about when addicts or people who have an addiction are coming out of, are trying to recoup and recover, using exercise as a way to help them do this.- Yeah. So, as I mentioned earlier when the brain gets a taste of that supernatural dopamine from drugs or alcohol, it has to compensate and create a balance. And so it does so by stripping away the rewards, the receptors and this helps it to tolerate with the supernatural dopamine levels. But what that means is we don't have the same pleasure that we would get from everyday life.- Sure.- And so it causes cravings, it causes tolerance and it's very difficult to stop using. So, when you stop using though however, you take away that supernatural dopamine and the reward system miraculously will start to rebuild. But unfortunately the process is pretty slow. And so one way that we can speed that up is by incorporating exercise into that recovery process. And this doesn't even have to be for, like big time addictions. This can be for even smaller addictions too, like that couple glasses of wine at night habit that maybe you wanna kick. Instead of having the wine, it might be better to go for a walk before dinner or after dinner. And what this does is it provides a reward system with the dopamine that it's craving and it can crush the craving that you're having. Yeah, it's a really amazing thing. And within recovery for people who have had serious addictions that have to essentially rebuild their whole life, exercise groups provide this incredible structure and social support for individuals who are recovering in addition to the dopamine surge that they would get from the movement. So, it helps them rebuild their life in a way that's, it's a little bit more acceptable. Like it's easier to form friendships with someone when you're moving together and moving towards a similar goal. And it can really act as a catalyst for positive change in their life.- Yeah. Okay, so you talk also about, oh, this is the part, page 75. Okay.- I should have my book.- You're totally laughing at me, aren't you?(presenter laughing) Okay so, you talk, obviously we know about the release of the endorphins and like I mean not obviously there's some of us who maybe need to know a little bit more about that, but you talk about this release of our creation of endocannabinoids, which are similar to-- Cannabis.- Cannabis.(presenter laughing)- The body's natural production of cannabis. Yeah. This was a kind of an interesting discovery that came about pretty recently actually. So, for a long time we thought runner's high for example was driven by these release of endorphins, but then there became this like weird finding that the endocannabinoids produced in the body, can't cross the blood-brain barrier. They're too big. And so this caused scientists to scramble like,"Well, okay, well how do we explain this?" And one group discovered that it's also these endocannabinoids which are smaller, small enough to pass the blood-brain barrier and get in. But it turns out they both work together. They both work. So, endocannabinoids cross, are produced in the body, they can cross the blood-brain barrier, but endorphins they're produced in the body, but also in the brain. And so the ones in the brain can interact with the reward system in a similar way to the endocannabinoids. And when they're there together, it just creates this incredible hedonic experience.- Yeah, but you talk about how they're maximized at different intensities. So, what do we have to do to get both.- Right. So, yeah, so the endorphins, are the body's natural painkiller. So, they kick in when exercise becomes really hard. So, like, you're vigorously exercising, you've been exercising for a really long time at a hard intensity, whereas the endocannabinoids are released at more of a moderate intensity exercise. And so to get both, you can work at a moderate intensity for a long period of time. So, that seems to be sort of the prescription for runner's high. But that said, you can get the boost in dopamine with just a moderate exercise. It doesn't have to be overly long, but to get that sort of the combined effects of these two.- So, what's long? So, like I'm calculating in my head, so what would be long?- Like maybe 60 minutes.- Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, I mean that's my.(crosstalk drowns out speaker)- And for most people that would be really hard, right? So, it makes the runner's high a little bit elusive for some people, but possible.- But it's definitely, yeah, especially, like you said, I think that a lot of people think you like, when my longer runs are like around 12, I run my longer runs on Sundays, actually not on Saturdays, on Sundays. All of this is to say, I think a lot of people think I could never do that. And I always say to them like, you absolutely can do that. Like you would be shocked at how, if you just do like-- Incrementally, yeah.- Incrementally, like a little bit each week, each month, how quickly you get there.- Well, funny story. So, I was never, I will always wanted to be a runner, but I was like, I can't do that. And I would go and I'd go hard, but I did this walk run schedule. It was like so simple and it was, like Couch to 5K programming and it was so slow. It was painfully slow. But that was finally what it took to get me to run. And then I did like the ten one where you run and walk, run for 10 minutes, walk for one minute. I ran, like, that for a very long time. Yeah. So, yes, it just takes time and patience, which-- I really like your idea though too and your suggestion to really like try to live in the moment and the experience and just think about how your body feels that you're actually giving yourself a treat, like you're disconnecting, this is you, this is the time for you where you're taking care of yourself. I think that's really powerful.- Yeah and a lot of people like, and you can get that from just a self-paced walk. Like we don't even have to talk about running, like, a walk around the block is enough to reduce depressive symptoms, to reduce anxiety, to boost creativity, to increase focus. If you add intervals into your walk where you're like increasing the pace a bit or adding a few hills, this has been shown to be really good at promoting brain plasticity and memory. I mean we can just stay with the walk for, if that's in a better comfort zone for a lot of people.- Yeah. Well and that's actually a great bridge over too, keeping your brain young and working on your memory and having this young brain and you talk about the D word and normally people oftentimes associate that, at least in my world with divorce, particularly at my age. But it's not in this book, it's dementia.- Yes, yes.- So, talk to us a little bit about, how people often associate the D word or dementia with age and basically you are saying that that's not necessarily true.- Well, just because we're getting older, doesn't mean we're gonna get dementia. That's the and even if we have a genetic risk for dementia or a family history, it doesn't mean we're gonna get dementia. And the reason why is because our lifestyle matters and it matters more than a lot of people think. So, in our lab, we studied 1600 older adults. They were 65 and older dementia free at the time. And we followed up with them five years later. So, some of the group had this genetic risk for dementia, the apolipoprotein E and the E4 version they had. And that puts them at an increased risk, whereas, and that was about 25% of the group, the rest didn't have this genetic risk. And we tracked them over time and we found that people who had a healthy set of genes but were inactive, had a similar risk of developing dementia as those who had the genetic risk. And the people who were active had the lower risk. So, it really shows, you can't change your genes, but you can change your lifestyle. And this simple thing of walking or increasing movement in your life in ways that feel good for you is such a, it's the greatest modifiable risk factor for brain health and dementia.- Wow. It's just so, it's so important for people to hear and to under understand.'Cause I think that we do oftentimes get in this mindset of like,"Well, they were born with those long legs," or "they were born with that kind of like cardiovascular,"those lungs, you know?"- Oh yeah. So, then it's like we have this fixed mindset of like,"Well, they just we have these gifts"and I don't have those, and so it's just over." But in actuality, what you're saying is your lab and other studies that supported the research that's coming out of your lab, that's not true.- It's not true.- We don't have total control over our lifestyle and that can make a world of difference.- That can make a huge difference. It's funny you say like we get this fixed mindset, because when I was growing up, my mom, I love her, but she said we're not runners. We don't, we can't run. Like, it's like a almost like, it's like a familial trait. No, mom. I have her working out now she's lifting weights and she loves it because it allows her to do all the things that she wants to do. She's a huge advocate for volunteering and community work. And the resistance exercise helps her do that better. So, back to that self-care piece, right? It helps you show up in the world as the better person.- So, that's fascinating, because my dad was my track and cross country coach forever. He was a athletic director and track and cross country coach. And so I was told the opposite, you are a runner, you don't have a choice.- Oh, interesting.- That's just interesting how,'cause it's true. What we're fed and what we're told we are, like it ends up oftentimes being the case because-- And then sticks with us, right? Even as adults now. These things are remembered.- There's lots of other things that,(crosstalk drowns out speaker) we won't talk about that.- You and me both, you and me both.- Different episode. Okay, we're kind of getting low on time, so I'm gonna like, well fast forward a little bit.- Okay, sure yeah.- Because I think that's this piece is just super, super important. We all know that sleep is a huge issue for a lot of people in this world and particularly for our kiddos. And so thinking about teachers right now and educators, coming to work sleep deprived. And then also having to try to teach and manage and guide, sleep deprived young ones. I mean, it just feels, like, a recipe for disaster.- Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it pretty much is.(presenter laughing) It's just, well, I mean if the brain needs sleep to function well, bottom line. If we're not sleeping enough, we don't feel well. We can't think well, we're certainly not gonna be exercising. It's just a recipe for a disaster. And I mean, I don't sleep that well either, but also try to set up things in my life so that I can, even if I have a rough night of sleep, I can try to make it up. So, that's one thing to keep in mind is that the brain is really good at paying back its sleep debt if you give it the time that it needs. So, whether that be on the weekend when you can sleep in, or whether it can be certain days you have, like you could sleep in a bit earlier or go to bed a bit earlier, the brain can be pay back that debt. So, but we really do need to make it a priority. I think just as a society in general, we think, "Oh, we'll just sit here and watch TV"or play on our phones for a few more hours,"rather than getting the shuteye that we need." But it's so critical for everything we do. And if we don't get enough sleep at night, then we're like nodding off during the day, right? Our tempers are higher and it can be really, really difficult to regulate our emotions, especially our kids. So, for kids, it can be a real sign that something's not well mentally or won't be well mentally soon. And so it's a big risk factor for kids. and then kids are modeling us. That's the other thing too, right? They see that if we're not prioritizing sleep, they don't think it's a priority or it's important. So, yeah. It's, yeah. It's definitely something I think that we need to be better at.- Yeah. Can you talk to us a little bit, about the number of hours we need? You say in your book and I can't remember off the top of my head, but you have, like children, teenagers.- Yeah. Yeah, yeah I got it. So, kids six to 13 should get nine to 11 hours every night. Teens seven 14 to 17 should get eight to 10 hours. Adults, 18 to 64 should get seven to nine. And seniors over 65 should get seven to eight hours. So, those are the recommendations. And the brain really needs this sleep. So, the deep sleep, so there's different stages of sleep. The first part of the sleep, the night is dominated by slow wave sleep. This deep, it's like this, almost you can think of it like a big surf sleep. It's like the brain slows down to a near halt. It's rhythms are just really slow. It's a great time. It allows it to recharge its batteries, refresh the brain, getting rid of all that metabolic debris, including amyloid plaques. And so this is a really great time to like for the brain to reset, recharge and replenish. And then the second half of the night is really dominated by REM sleep, which is like the dream state sleep. But REM sleep, it used to be, like its function wasn't really understood, until more recently. And it seems to be that REM is important for putting our emotional past into context. So, making it so that we're not so much haunted by the regrets and memories of the past, it sort of mutes them and puts them into context. So, if we're shortening our sleep every night, we're not getting enough of that REM sleep and we're much more likely to have feelings of anxiety or emotional distress.- That is the part that I wanted you to highlight. That's so interesting when we're seeing these huge, when we're seeing reports of people reporting, self-reporting, that they have these higher, increased frequency and intensity of anxiety and of depression and emotional turbulence. And then we're also seeing reports that people are having such difficulties with their sleep. It's just a light bulb went off in my head when I read that. I was like, well this half, I mean, there we need to work on this.- Yeah, yeah. And so what can you do? I mean we're talking about exercise, so I mean it does have, it plays a major role here, because exercise like two ways. So, the first way is exercise can act like a cue to time, like a zeitgeber, similar to the sun. So, the sun rises at a certain time and this sets the chrono clock, the brain's biological clock, all the rhythms get reorganized, realigned to this time and exercising at around the same time every day, can help you do that so that your brain time is more in sync with real time. But the other thing, this was super cool when I learned about this, exercise actually produces a natural sleep aid, called adenosine. So, adenosine is a byproduct of ATP breakdown and ATP is the energy currency of the cell. So, the more energy we expend during the day, through movement or other activities, the more adenosine that builds up at night. And once it reaches a threshold, it promotes sleepiness. So, the more we move during the day, the better we sleep at night.- Yeah, okay. So, now tell us a little bit about this. You said that this is the piece that I loved in terms of the, well I love all of it, but you just talked about how exercising at a particular time of day and keeping that consistent is important. And then in the book, you talk about how you're a different type, a morning type and a middle type and then an evening evening type.- An evening type, yeah.- You're evening?- I'm evening.- You said it, yeah. I was actually surprised about that.- I know.- I thought you'd join the morning crowd.- No, no. This also why I wasn't an athlete growing up,'cause all the sports were really early. No, am like a-- When you said that the book, I was like, "She is not evening."- I stay up late. Yeah, I like to sleep in.- Yeah, okay. So, like, tell us about when we should be exercising, based off of if what type we are.- Right so, well it depends on what you wanna do. So, if you are an evening type that needs to start waking up earlier. So, I am essentially like most teenagers in terms of my sleep pattern, most teens are evening types. They like to stay up late and sleep in. But there was a cool study done in teens

that had these teens get up at 7: 55:08

00 AM and go for a run around the track. And these kids were sleeping better, they were thinking better, they were feeling better. And they were sticking with this program, which to me seemed pretty amazing. And so the research shows, this is really cool the way they tested this so it, it sounds bizarre, but what they brought, they brought people into the lab and they had them follow this ultra short sleep schedule where they were like awake for an hour, sleep for an hour, awake for an hour, sleep for an hour. And they did this for three days to just essentially wipe out their sense of time. And then they introduced exercise at certain periods of time to see how introducing exercise at one time would shift the chronotype. They shift their tendency to sleep and they found they could get like daytime savings, like shifts in chronotype. So, for evening people like myself who may need to start getting up early for work or for other commitments, exercising first thing in the morning or early afternoon is best. And then for morning types, like yourself, who might wanna stay up later, I mean, to do some social stuff.- I mean, I'm pretty much an introvert, so I don't care.(presenters laughing)- Then you're more in the evening type.- Yeah.- Now, there is this idea, this pervasive idea that we shouldn't exercise before bed. And that's not supported by the evidence actually. So, there there is one caveat. So, you can work out before bed, so long as there's enough time to get your heart rate back down to baseline when your head hits the pillow. Because if your heart rate is elevated before bed, it just takes a bit more longer to fall asleep. And anybody who's ever had like an experience of anxiety, just before bed knows this to be true. And so it works in the same way. So, we just need to get the heart rate down to baseline. So, like, maybe about an hour, before you're gonna wanna go be in bed, do you think that would be good?- Or you do a light exercise, like yoga wouldn't vigorously increase your heart rate or a self-based walk, some weightlifting you would be back down. So, it just-- Depend.- It would depend. Like you wouldn't wanna go out for a super hard run and then try to sleep immediately.- We are approaching an hour. And we have another question on here from Jenni Bounds that I wanna put up here that's a good question."So, if someone with dementia starts to exercise,"will that help slow it down?"- Yes, yes. Which is great. And so what the research shows is that it helps improve or at least slow down the loss of activities of daily living. It keeps them mobile so they're functioning. It can even improve cognition as some of the research shows. So, their memory can have less of a decline or a less quick of a decline. Part of the reason, it comes partly back to that idea of BDNF, the brain-derived neurotrophic factor we talked about. So, patients with dementia or Alzheimer's disease, they have less of that in their brain and so their brain cells are less protected, but we can build more BDNF with exercise. And when we do, the brain cells are more protected. And exercise itself is one of the most powerful stimulators of brand new brain cells, especially in this hippocampus brain region, which is devastated by Alzheimer's disease. So, it can actually counteract the loss of cells from the disease by building more new cells. And so that helps to sort of slow down the progression. One really amazing research study looked at people who had been diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment, which is like they're starting to notice declines in their cognition, but it's not quite dementia. Now some of these individuals will develop dementia, some will stay there and some will actually reverse back to normal, especially if their physical health conditions, are taken care of, like if they had high blood pressure, they start taking high blood pressure medication. But if they start exercising, that significantly increases the likelihood that they'll revert back to normal. Which I think is just an amazing finding.- And hopeful.- And hopeful, yeah.- Yeah, it does bring some hope to I think people's lives knowing that. This is another good one, Sarah is asking,"Is there a current recommendation for how much"or often exercise offers all of these benefits?"- Right so, the guidelines are for physical health and they're pretty high, 150 minutes per week of moderate to vigorous exercise, which for someone who's just starting out exercising or someone who's not mentally well that's too much. That just seems like a barrier to get there. And so the around mental health and brain health, the messaging is some is better than none. Every step really counts. We see this with, especially with the depression research, that mood changes can happen with just a simple walk around the block. So, it doesn't have to be much and you can get these benefits in 10 minutes or more. And so if you think about, can you fit in a 10 minute walk every day? Probably, right? And that could be a doable thing to start with that would give you the benefits of reducing anxiety, depression, boosting creativity and focus and even keeping your brain healthy and to stave off dementia, helping you sleep too. So, the bottom line is, it seems like every, every step counts and trying to get it in as much as you can, as often as is feasible, right? Because we have to be realistic here.- Yeah. Again, I'm hopeful, right? Just getting a start is gonna make a difference for sure. Jenni asked if this information was all in your book. Yeah, I mean it it is, I mean at least I've Jenni I read three times over.- Yeah so, the book is, it talks about my personal journey, but it's focused on the research. All the references to the studies are in there. There's over 300 references. I've also done a lot of, we have a website, so there's a toolkit on the website for mental health that talks about these sort of approaches where some is better than none, taking a compassionate approach, pairing it with exercise, pairing it with group-based, things that can help a toolkit to help get you started. But yeah, the recommendations are all in there. Yeah.- Yeah. I just went ahead and put the title of the book in the chat for everybody to look at it or to look find it if they want to read it. But we have just a few minutes left. So, I'll go ahead and just give everybody an opportunity to go ahead and type in a question if they are curious about something and want some more advice or some information. Otherwise, I probably just have one more question for you, but feel free community, if you also have something to ask, then go ahead and just put it in the chat and we can talk about it. I guess my question to you before we leave is just if you had one piece of advice to give to educators right now with regards to obviously this particular topic, their physical dimension of wellness, what would that advice be?- I mean, there's many different things. It's hard to narrow it down. I think when we-- Jennifer, I said one.- I know, okay, okay.(presenters laughing) Okay, we haven't talked about this yet, so I'm gonna say this is that for most of the day, a lot of us are sitting, we're sitting down, we need to be breaking up our sedentary time, this has a huge impact. So, actually getting back to the question, about how little can we go, how low can we go with the activity here? Like how much do we need? Well, every 30 minutes, taking a two minute movement break has been shown to counteract the blood flow reduction to the brain. So, the brain needs to be bathed in oxygenated blood flow. It has all the neurochemicals floating around and if we sit for too long, it gets starved of that. So, breaking up our sitting time with these short frequent movement breaks, they don't have to be intense. They can just be like a stretch, a walk around your office, a walk to the refrigerator to get a glass of water or something. Yes and just this carving out these short periods of time to move your bodies in ways that feel good for you, as a form of self-love and self-care, not as a form of punishment, right? This is the time for you, yeah.- Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up, because I did wanna talk about that and we just kind of, we kept going and we didn't get there. But it's on page 99 I think of your book where you talk about sitting to dementia and like how that sitting in really can escalate that process and impact your brain and how you just have to get up and start moving around more frequently. And I have my watch programmed to tell me to do that. And when I was reading that, I have to stop ignoring those alerts.- Right, I know, I know.- I have to like just get up and stand up and walk for like two minutes.- And I mean, it doesn't have to be every 30 minutes. Maybe you're into something, but just being mindful of how often you've moved your body lately and yes, the brain breaks. I see Someone had made a comment about that for kids. We've done some research on this and schools often will take away physical activity in lieu of academics, right? And it's actually counterproductive because kids, we all need to be moving to prime our brain for learning. And when kids are given these movement breaks, they can absorb information, they're they're more focused. They're less distracted. They learn better, they test better. And they're learning much more in a shorter period of time. And I feel like sometimes that evidence is lost in the policy, unfortunately.- Yeah, I love that. Okay, team, we're at an hour and I know that we all have really busy schedules and I just really wanna say thank you Jennifer for coming and sharing all of your information with us this evening. I can't tell you how much I've looked forward to this day with you. I know all of my colleagues, are like sick of me talking about it. I just traveled to nor Norway with a colleague,'cause we're starting some wellness work actually with some partners of ours at OsloMet in Oslo, Norway and my poor colleague/best friend, Dr. Will Coghill-Behrends, he might be on tonight. I don't know. I'm sure he got so sick of me talking.(presenters laughing)- He's probably not here then.(presenters laughing)- I texted him today and I was like,"You better be on tonight." So, we'll see, we'll see. Okay, well thank you so much for coming and thanks team for showing up tonight. And if you have any questions about the Scanlan Center for School Mental Health and you can find us, you can go to our webpage or follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook. And then Dr. Jennifer Heisz is also easily found on the internet as well. I highly recommend her book. And I'm wishing all of you a very happy and safe holiday that's coming up shortly and hopefully we, oh, there's Will, thank you.- I'm wishing all of you well and I will see you hopefully in December. Bye everyone.- Bye.