Empowering the Mind and Body for Better Mental Health

Can six minutes of reading a day actually improve your mental health? Are you aware of how exercise can unleash a flood of positive energy and vibes? This episode is a deep dive into how our emotional, psychological, and social well-being contribute towards our mental health. We talk about the fantastic benefits of exercise on your mood, how reading can boost your confidence and problem-solving skills, and the importance of healthy social interactions. 

But it doesn't end there. The episode also highlights the profound power of accountability and reaching out to those in need. We discuss the significance of a strong support system and how each of us can play a role in fostering that. Whether it's understanding how to navigate social settings, communicate effectively regardless of our differences, or reach out to someone struggling - we cover it all. Join me, Corey Wallace, on this journey towards better mental health. Together, we can make a difference.

Transcript

Speaker 0: 0:00

I'm your host, cory Wallace. I am a master barber, active 25 plus years, I'm a bestselling author and I'm a United States veteran. Let's get right into the topic of the month. October is World Mental Health and Depression Month. That kind of hits home hard for me, and the reason being being a veteran, being a father, being a business owner and entrepreneur, I deal with a lot of stress. And not only do I deal with a lot of stress I'm pretty sure I'm actually positive there's other men out there just like you listening deal with the same thing. Whether it be, you know, you work for a company, you work for yourself. If you're married, you're dealing with your wife and your kids. Your mental health is extremely important. So today's topic we're gonna talk about is mental health. Three key things that I do wanna discuss is your emotional health, your psychological health and your social wellbeing. Why I chose these three is because they kind of encompass everything. They bleed over into each other, but they're definitely separate, okay.

Speaker 0: 1:03

So the first key point I wanna talk about is your emotional health. Well, what does that mean to you? Right? Are you in a good space all the time? Are you in a bad space all the time? Are you emotionally depressed? Whatever it is, you need to have the ability to recognize it and you need to be able to correct it. And if you can't, then you have to seek out help for that. And I think one of the best ways of doing it is through exercise. I exercise a lot, right? Well, give or take a lot. I'm a three, three times a week, sometimes four times a week type guy. Some guys are every day of the week. It just whatever floats your boat is just fine, but make sure you exercise.

Speaker 0: 1:42

And the reason why you wanna exercise for your emotional health is because exercise actually raises the endorphins in your body and the serotonin, and those are associated with good moods, with good emotions. That's what you want, because when you don't exercise, you actually drive yourself, not necessarily in a state of depression, but you're not giving your emotions what they need to promote good energy. And basically, to promote good energy, good vibes, good emotions, you need serotonin, you need your endorphins. I mean, if you think about it, when that serotonin kicks in and your endorphins kick in, you feel good. Think of anything that you've ever done in your life where you have accomplished, you won, or you got the date that you wanted, or your fiance said, yes, that's part of it. It's the physical response. But see, the best way to sustain that, or continue to have that, is you gotta exercise. Exercising is good for your emotional health.

Speaker 0: 2:43

The second thing I wanna talk about is your psychological health. Now, what does that mean to you as well, psychologically? How are you doing as men? 100% of the time, we're in our heads right, cause we're thinkers. Not only are we thinkers, right? Well, let me back up, majority of us are thinkers and not all of them are thinkers. Not all men are thinkers. But for the most part, problem solving comes natural, right. We look for solutions. We don't look for excuses or patch overs. We want a solution to what's going on. So, with that being said, psychologically, when you are in a good current state of psychological awareness, you're mind man, you're running on all 10. You're solving problems, you feel satisfied, you're confident, you exude actually confidence when you're psychologically sound.

Speaker 0: 3:42

But what happens when you're not psychologically sound? How does that affect your current state of life? What do you do? How do you respond to your spouse or your buddy or you know you're driving in traffic and somebody cuts you off right? How do you respond to that when you're not psychologically in a good space, we don't have to speak on it. We know what time it is. You know what you do. I've done it in the past myself. So how do you impact your psychological well-being in a positive manner? Well, I'm going to tell you right now.

Speaker 0: 4:13

One of the best ways to do is read. I know, believe it or not, reading six minutes a day can improve your psychological health. Just six minutes a day, I know you hear sometimes you got to read 30 minutes or an hour or whatever. Just fit it in. Physically read, use your eyes to read. I understand we live in a society where you have audio books. That's good too, but when you actually sit down and physically read something paper, softback, hardback, whatever it is, magazine and put it in your hands, it makes you focus on what's in front of you and in this way, your brain is focused on the task at hand. So there's no outside distractions. See, the thing is with audio books. Audio books allow your other sense to take place, which is your vision. Right, when you're reading, physically, you're looking at whatever it is in front of you. You read. Not only are you focusing your vision, you're focusing your hearing and that internal voice. Does that make sense? So, to better improve your psychological health, just read six minutes a day. Just give it six minutes a day, and it will definitely lower your blood pressure, your heart rate. It makes you focus on the task at hand and I think that's more important than anything else. So psychological well-being in short. When that is running on all cylinders, everything else is running on all cylinders as well your heart, your cholesterol, your acumen, your attention to detail. All of that is kicking in.

Speaker 0: 5:52

So the last thing I want to talk about is your social well-being. What is social well-being? Well, social well-being is your ability to communicate. Do you set boundaries? Do you have mutual respect, regardless of any differences?

Speaker 0: 6:06

Being able to communicate in a social setting is a really good sign and a bad sign of your social well-being, depending on how you communicate, depending on how comfortable you are in a social setting may need to leave some room for improvement, and that's okay to face that. There's nothing wrong with that. Everybody in this world has gone somewhere or has been introduced to something that made them feel socially awkward. But if you sit back and you unpack it and say why do I feel awkward? Unpack it, Unpack what it is like. Ask yourself why, why do I feel like this? Unpack it and then move forward. You'll be okay. You'll find out what's going on.

Speaker 0: 6:48

The best way, I would say, to get rid of that social awkwardness is to surround yourself with a positive support system. So that is, people that are genuinely just positive, they're not faking Environments that are genuinely positive. It's not a facade that improves your social well-being, really encourages you to develop a barometer for BS, and that's where you start setting your boundaries, because your social well-being is more important to you than to be in a room with a bunch of idiots or someone talking crazy. Does that make sense? So what you want to do in order to do that, in conjunction to surrounding yourself with a positive support system, have healthy relationships, have truly healthy relationships.

Speaker 0: 7:38

You ever meet someone and they say I got a bunch of friends. That's a big red flag. That's the huge red flag. Like, what do you mean? You don't have a lot of friends, so your social well-being is weird. That's what I hear. You think about it. Pay attention to the people around you. Oh, I don't have a bunch of friends, so she doesn't have a bunch of friends, or he doesn't have a bunch of friends.

Speaker 0: 7:56

We are a social community, we are social animals, so why don't you have a friend or, more importantly, a couple of friends calling and say, hey, let's go hang out? Then that tells me and it should tell you they don't have the ability to have open conversation, they don't have the ability to really communicate and have a mutual respect despite any differences. Think about that. That should hit a nerve, as he does for me, like whoa, okay, so I'm not right about you Doesn't mean you're a bad person, but you're a little awkward. So I'm a pass on that. I'm going to set the boundaries on you, but I'm going to go over here.

Speaker 0: 8:35

What a support system is better? I can have open conversations and healthy relationships with people with the same ideals. So, in short, emotional health, psychological health, social well-being and the things that you can do to sustain good emotional health, good psychological health and social well-being. Now I want to thank you for tuning in and listening from behind the chair and basically my goal, as I mentioned before, is to have these conversations with you all or, better yet, let me back up, share these conversations that I have in my personal setting, in my barbershop, with all the men out there in the world that may not be able to make it to the barbershop. First and foremost, but more importantly, I don't want you to sit and think that you have to bottle everything in, like listen into behind the chair. I'm pretty sure there's going to be an episode that you will be able to relate to on a whole other level because you're going through it or you've been through it.

Speaker 0: 9:39

So my challenge to you is to make sure that you're accountable for that man to the left and right of you. Like I said, I'm a veteran. So if you know he needs help, don't make him ask for help. Go give him help. It's nothing wrong with asking your buddy, your best friend, your brother, your father, your uncle. Hey, you doing all right today. You need to talk. Nothing wrong with that. We got to take care of each other. So, in closing, if you want to get in contact with me, please email me at cfw, at thestagpatbarbershopcom, and I usually get to those emails. I'll clean them up in about 48 hours. I'll please leave a review and I hope to see or hear from you soon.