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Health & Fitness Redefined
Health and Fitness Redefined with Anthony Amen. Take a dive into the health world as we learn how to overcome adversity, depict fact vs fiction and see health & fitness in a whole new light.Fitness Is Medicine
Health & Fitness Redefined
What If Everything You've Been Taught About Mental Health Is Wrong?
Mind fitness is as crucial as body fitness, serving as preventative medicine for our mental health before we reach crisis points. Brain fitness expert Arnold shares how we can break free from societal conditioning to live our authentic lives rather than meeting others' expectations.
• Modern mental health struggles began long before COVID-19
• We spend 20-25 years being conditioned to be the same as everyone else
• Most people are living "someone else's life" rather than their own
• Constant comparison on social media creates a "fitting in" mentality
• Education systems focus on conformity rather than helping students express uniqueness
• Helicopter parenting prevents children from developing mental resilience
• Experiencing adversity is essential for personal growth and development
• Replacing your inner critic with an inner cheerleader is the first step to mental freedom
• Exercise is the most effective antidepressant with zero negative side effects
• The will to live and mental determination are powerful healing forces
• Arnold's 15-week program helps remove the 34 "straitjackets" limiting our potential
Visit braingymfitness.com to learn more about Arnold's training program and masterclasses or to schedule a personal consultation.
Learn More at: www.Redefine-Fitness.com
Hello and welcome to Health and Fitness Redefined. I'm your host, anthony Amen, and today we've got another great episode for all of you. Super excited to have this out. Happy April to everyone listening, hopping into Easter's right around the corner, meaning the weather's starting to turn here in New York, thank God, because it's been a brutally cold winter. Anyway, without further ado, let's welcome to the show, arnold. Arnold, it's a pleasure to have you on today. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2:Excited to be here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, excited to have you calling all the way from Romania, so that's fun. Yes, opposite side of the world, tell us a little bit about how you got into this field.
Speaker 2:Well, the field is brain fitness. Actually, the idea came to me in 2019 when I was on my bike. I'm Dutch, I lived then in the Netherlands and I had just been supporting my sister in a mental illness institution where they put you for all kinds of therapy type of classes and my sister was diagnosed with depression and it didn't work. Actually, the therapy and everything what they wanted to do, they made the situation worse and because, well, it's hard for her to talk with the let's call it management, so I went with her there. I was really surprised how little these folks are keeping their knowledge and experience up to date. It was kind of shocking. And at the same time, they just looked at the therapy in the classes, like what they call, in business terms, utilization. It's like we need to get our classes full. We're not interested whether it helps you or not.
Speaker 2:And on my way back home, I was on my way back home to help my mother who had dementia for the last eight years. So I had very personal experience dealing with dementia, with the elderly, depression, with my sister, and I know a lot of people are struggling with it and I'm like, hey, the moment you're in this situation where things are not going well in well for for your mental and emotional health. What can we do to prevent? Because the moment you're there, sorry to say, you're screwed and and there's not much which can help you uh, actually, in most cases nothing. So, um, but then it's, it's kind of too late. And so that's when I was on my bike home and I said, just like body fitness, we need brain fitness. So that is, um, when I started building this brain fitness off that's a lot to deal with your sister, your mom.
Speaker 1:It definitely takes a whole on an individual to have to balance everything, even on top of everything, on top of your personal life, especially mental health. Like you said before, covid was the eye opening how bad mental health got and it just skyrocketed. The number of people that were dealing with depression and anxiety Coming out of it. They said that people looking for like counselors and therapists it has almost tripled in the last five years. It's just the whole way it was approached and the anxiety that was pushing to societies really took a toll on our mental health as a whole and you're still seeing the effects of that today. Is that something you're seeing on your end?
Speaker 2:Well, I started noticing it nine years ago when I worked with young people, with teenagers, people in their 20s, when I lived in budapest in hungary, and I was surprised to hear and this is nine years ago, so this was for the kofi thing that all of them and I'm not exaggerating all of them they they were having experience with stress, burnout, depression, and each and every one of them knew someone who had committed suicide. This was nine years ago and I was totally shocked by that and I was like whoa, what's happening here, and fast forward a couple of years, is that, yes, you're right with the COVID thing and it get more attention and interest, but also, it's it was a trend which had already started. So it's not like everything was okay and then the COVID came and the illness became an issue. No, it was already there, but it became more visible and actually, well, it's a trend which has been continuing ever since and the trend means it's really in a bad situation.
Speaker 1:I totally agree. I actually think, if you want to look back to see when cases really started going up in general, like the first jump the year at least for us here in the States the years they started introducing participation trophies, and teachers got afraid to use red ink and you had to treat everyone like they were this special snowflake of an individual. And the reason that that plays a parallel to mental health is if I say to somebody grown up the whole time you're amazing, you're special, you're, you're the best at abcde, and then something bad happens in my life, which is inevitable as humans, that I'm going to take that to heart and I'm having no coping skills of how to deal with that situation. So that's going to make me go off the edge and I'm going to have panic attacks, depression, anxiety. All that's going to build up, because I was never taught as a kid about how to deal with hardship, how to deal with things going wrong in my life, because everyone put me in a bubble and said good luck.
Speaker 1:You take that as just a parallel example to exposing kids to bacteria viruses getting outside. The kids that are put in a bubble really super clean environments, never go outside, never have interactions with people, get a lot sicker when they get older, as opposed to those kids that play, put in a bubble of really super clean environments, never go outside, never have interactions with people, get a lot sicker when they get older, as opposed to those kids that play in the mud or go constantly around everyone like you need to expose them to these things because they get again, their immune system learns to cope, and that's really what you're looking for.
Speaker 2:I totally agree, uh, but it's not only physical, it is also mental and emotional.
Speaker 1:In the.
Speaker 2:US, you call it helicopter parenting. It's like everything is managed and everything is done and everything is to make them feel fine, whereas, just like you said in the beginning, it's like, well, we basically live in a duality. It is not everything is going to be okay the rest of your life. No, you're going to experience shit in your life. And, just like with the good things, it's like you need to experience and, based on your experience, you build a resilience and you build up ways to deal with that. But they don't learn it because everything is like oh, let's be careful, let's not do that.
Speaker 2:I was just this morning talking with a friend about his son had to go to a birthday party in the same city and he had to bring them. And then he had to wait birthday party in the same city and he had to bring them, and then he had to wait two hours in the car. I said why don't you go on the bike? He was like that is the way I grew up. I grew up in an extreme environment. My father was a military, so everything was about being very tough and whatever, and it was really over the top. But now it's like it's flipped to the total other side. It's like people are treated like pussies and that might seem nice, but inevitably you will experience setbacks and, like you said, if you're not used to deal with it, it's like what should I do?
Speaker 1:you're not used to deal with it. It's like what should I do? You're not wrong whatsoever. And I'm going to give a personal example for those that don't continually listen to my show and for you yourself, but my parents. I'm one of four, right, so I had the experience growing up to see how different people react and how each of my siblings are different as far as mental health goes, because we are still all close. Me personally, I was a very private individual growing up, so my mom knew that I was upset. My mom knew I was having mental health issues because I got bullied, beat up in school for years. I got bullied, beat up in school for years and there wasn't like an over-interaction because I didn't tell her like all the details of everything that was going on.
Speaker 1:And then, come middle school, I tried killing. I thought about killing myself and I remember like my parents were out, I had a knife in my hand and I was like, all right, I'm going to end my life, like right now, like this is going to, this is it, this is the end of it. And I didn't do it. Obviously, and the biggest reason I didn't do it is because one I felt like my parents loved me and they said, okay, my family's going to be upset if I'm no longer around. And in order to get over this depression, I need to figure something out Like cause, I told. Told myself I'm going to kill myself, but to not be in the situation I'm in now, because I can't take another day going to school and going through what I was going through there. So I told myself, if I'm not going to end my life, I need to be a different person. I need to change my personality, I need to change who I am, I need to change what's going on with my environment around me. So I went to bed that night and I was laying with my eyes open and I said, okay, I'm now no longer going to be this version of anthony and I'm going to become a different version of anthony. I'm no longer going to be shy, I'm no longer going to be quiet like.
Speaker 1:One of the biggest things that contributed to getting bullied was that I had no friends and I was all alone and everything was like, if I could build the, could build the support of our environment in school, like I have at home, I could have more protection network, and I only do that by coming out of my shell. So over the course of three to six months I used little tactics to help make myself more outgoing. A lot of repetitive thoughts in my head. Time was talk to people, talk to people, talk to people you're not going, you're not going, you're not going over. And I convinced myself that I was a totally different person. And it worked like over the course of years. I built friends, I built a support group and I never told my parents about any of this until actually recently because I started coming public about it.
Speaker 1:But like I'm going to your point and going to what this is about, I didn't have a therapist, I didn't have a counselor, I didn't have anyone else. I put myself through grueling months of training of mental health for myself to become a different person. And now how does that relate to who I am? Now I get upset, but I've never had depression like onset episodes that last years. A lot of things don't bother me like anymore. I could just end up brushing up. My wife says to a point that like literally nothing bothers me, but like the point being like my mental health and my outlook on life, because I really think like overall, my life is very good. There are stressors. I'm like a very positive, happy, very good. There are stressors. I'm like a very positive, happy person 99% of the time. That's all because of that moment.
Speaker 1:And if you fast forward to when I had my really bad accident, which a lot of people know about, and doctors wrote me off and said like this is it? Your life is going to be basically over. You're going to be stuck on medicine. You never really move your neck again, never move the shoulder again, I had the mental capacity to say no F you. I said that in my head. Obviously I'm going to redo my life. You don't know who I am and I'm going to be somebody who overcomes this. And I did in the study of my own business, went through shit, starting your own business of having no money and building something from the ground up. You don't know me, I'm going to do this on my own.
Speaker 1:That's all contributed back to that suicide episode where I was able to overcome that because they didn't have this lack of a better word of people saying you dude, you're gonna be great, you're a special snowflake. No, I had to figure it out myself and move on from there. And I think that, like to your point where people get overly involved and people jump and say, no, it's great, you're such a great person, blah, blah, blah, blah. That person never then has the opportunity to grow and become somebody else. Obviously, you need to show someone support. That's what I needed support.
Speaker 1:But I didn't want people telling me how great I was. I don't want people saying that that version of anthony is fantastic and that version of anthony is amazing and you don't need to change. It's everybody else. No, anthony needed to change. Anthony needs to work on his mental health and and he needs to pick himself back up, get kicked in the mud, stand back up and go again. But all I need to know is that there's people that around that love me and I think that if you can incorporate that into society, I think that's how you curb and help our mental health epidemic we're having going on now. I don't know your thoughts on that. That was a lot, but that's my story.
Speaker 2:Well, congratulations on the work you did about yourself.
Speaker 2:That is a very deep point. From where you are now, so total chapeau to what you've been doing. And what I call this is that most people are living someone else's life. They're not living their own life. What do I mean by that? Is the moment you're born.
Speaker 2:When are you a good kid? When you do what your parents tell you to do. When are you a good kid when you do what you go to school? When you? When are you a good student? When you do what your teacher tells you to do, then you, well, doesn't matter which school primary school, high school, maybe you go to university or vocational training. When are you a good student? When you do what your professor or your teacher tells you to do so?
Speaker 2:By the time we're 2025, the only thing what we have learned is to live someone else's life is to meet the expectations of other people, meet the expectations of your parent. Well, you, just before the show you were explaining about your kid, it's like, oh, it's not crying, or it's crying, yeah. Well, it's not a good kid, you're just crying. It's like it's constantly the expectations of other people which you're supposed to meet.
Speaker 2:When are you a good student? When you meet the expectation of your teachers. When are you well, I'm not even talking about working when are you a good employee? When you do exactly what your boss tells you to do. So it's constantly meeting expectations of other people, but the consequence is that you live someone else's life, you're not living your own life, and what you just described, anthony, is the process where you change from what I call fitting in to flying out is like fitting in means living someone else's life, and now you made a decision and say I want to live my own life, I want to understand who I am and what I want to do right, and that's the issue of it right.
Speaker 1:So everyone's constantly looking for on social facebook and instagram and they always compare themselves to everybody else. And I want to be like that person and I want to fit like this person and it's this I want to be like everybody else. Kind of mentality, not just I want to be my own person, like who gives a about everybody else, like just focus on being you and that's to your point. But I want to kind of tie this right. So what you said where, like you're growing up, you need to be what your parents want you to be, you go to school. You need to be where your teachers want you to be, like, even schools aren't the creative outlets that they were designed to be anymore. They want you to go through exactly how they want you to graduate and who you were supposed to be is all defined by your teachers and the way the school's designed. And you don't realize that, like, until you're out. And then you go, like you said, it makes you go to college, and then you're hearing it from professors who are trying to design you to be an individual and tell you you need this exact thing in order to be happy. So you're constantly chasing somebody else's dream, constantly chasing somebody else's vision. And then when you graduate, you're like, well, now what? So you just try to do something on your own. But you're like, eh no, I'm just going to go work for somebody because that person can tell me that I'm happy. And then you're 40 years later down the line and you're like, holy shit, my life, like what was it worth? Like I always constantly listen to everyone else's approval. I never got my own approval, I never really dove for myself, and you only see that inside of a small group of people and most of those people end up being entrepreneurs, because it's really tough and a lot of people don't mention that. Like you no longer have people telling you're doing a good job. You no longer have like, oh, this is how you do this. It's a lot of work, and I think this is the biggest struggle for me personally is like you have to design everything. And then you have all these people that work for you that you are trying to tell them how to do a good job in order to fit your vision, to make things work, because that's what they're looking for. They're looking for, hey, I'm doing a good job, which is fine. Some people are like that and some people enjoy that. But like there's the other group of people that we don't coddle to, we don't help out, and those are the people that are the free thinkers that really want to do things themselves and design their own life and do things their own way and there's no systems that help push people to be like that.
Speaker 1:Like you talk about, my generation is when it really started. Like I've talked about the participation trophies, I talked about how helicopter parents like you mentioned and even take it to the point when you're going to cop, like you're in high school and your parents and your guidance counselors are all asking what college are you going to? It's you're in high school and your parents and your guidance counselors are all asking you what college are you going to? It's never like well, what do you want to do? Like well, you want to start your own business. Do you want to do this? You want to do that? It's well. What school are you going to go to? What major are you going to take? What are you going to be after you do that? It's like well, ever said, you don't have to go to college. Like I was told, I have to go to college and I went to college and it did nothing for me, like, so what? What was the point of going to school to see? If somebody else told me that this is the way? I need to be happy it's. It really played a lot of roles. And then we dig ourselves into deep debt, right, four years of undergrads, expensive as and then I was at the point where like, oh, I need to look at my master's degree in order to get funds to have a business, to open up a business. So I did two years of that wasted even more money. So I ended up being a quarter million dollars in debt for something that I never even ended up using or like contributing to any of my success, and it took seven years of my life.
Speaker 1:And or you look at individuals that just go and take these majors that really don't lead to careers. So many people are forced into these little buckets of these liberal arts majors that really like don't matter in the workforce, like don't aren't going to get them that leg up. It's what they expect. So when they graduate and everyone told them that this is what they had to do, they had to study this degree. And then they graduate and it's now like okay, I can't get a job and I'm super freaking in debt, I have nothing going for me, I can't afford an apartment. I have to move back in with my mom and dad. There's no independency, there's no self-growth, and they just stuck and in this little tiny hole that almost becomes impossible to get out of it's it's. Then it leads to more mental health issues. So it's like a this never-ending cycle, if that makes sense yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, what I say is that, in the whole education system, and including your upbringing, is we. That's why it takes 20 to 25 years. They're doing everything to make you the same as everybody else. That's why it takes so long. It takes 20, 25 years and they're putting on it. You got to be the same as everybody else, behave in the same way, follow orders, be obedient, do everything what's expected of you, whereas we all human beings are unique. You are unique, everybody is unique, whereas if we would be using it and that's why it takes so long, because we need to condition you, to manipulate you for 20, 25 years to make you look the same as everybody else, whereas you and I and everybody else is a unique human being so it would be much, much more beneficial. It's like, well, some education, of course, to read and write and speak another language. That is very useful, but it's like it would be much more helpful if it helped you to express your uniqueness.
Speaker 2:I was at the beginning of my 40s when I, after a perfect storm, I found a very good coach. This is, by the way, 25 years ago, so that was, having a coach was not very common then, but it's like that was the first person in my life I repeat, the first person in my life, I repeat, the first person in my life who asked Arnold, what do you want? Huh, I had no clue. Nobody my parents, my teachers, my bosses, nobody cared what I wanted. It's like we want you to do this and do it as I'm told, and then you're fine and you're okay. And he was like I didn't know, because for 40 years of my life nobody had ever asked me that question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, this is what it comes down to, right. I couldn't agree more than you Like. There's so many issues, so the real question is how do you get past that? As an individual who brainwashing is just just because lack of a better word on this, people are going to take that to heart. But I mean, that's really what it is. Uh, after 20, 25 years of that, like, how does an individual get past that and become their own self?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, that is what I've been working on for, I would say, the last 25 years, first for myself and then helping my clients how to create this path and how to do that. And that's why I ended up building a training program which is called from fitting in to flying out, and it's a 15-week training program where I help people what I call you call the brainwashing, and I totally agree. I call it conditioning. So what I do is unconditioning, to help you to remove the conditioning. And we don't realize it.
Speaker 2:But I've identified 34 different straitjackets that we all wear and in any sports event last summer we had the Olympics in Paris and whatever and I ask people, how many people are there who won a gold medal who are wearing a straitjacket and they look like Arnold? What's that? A crazy question? That's a stupid question. Of course nobody does. But why do you do? Because those straitjackets are limiting our capability, are limiting our talents, are limiting our qualities. But we don't realize it. Because that is what the education system is. It puts you in straitjacket after straitjacket after straitjacket, and I help people to reveal what those straitjackets are and the steps they can take to take it off and express themselves the way they really are.
Speaker 1:So what's the simple version Like? What message can we leave listeners to Like? Here's a place to start to help realize that, like their own individual and they can surpass what society wants them to do?
Speaker 2:Well, step number one is be kind to yourself. We are so used that everybody else is criticizing us all the time my father was, he was a military officer. I never get a compliment in my life from him, so he's always criticizing. That's not good. That's what happened in business. That's happening at school. That's happening. We always focus on what you don't do.
Speaker 2:So, based on that voice, you develop your own inner critic. It's literally called your inner critic. It's most like the things we say to ourselves are really terrible. So what I say so step one is be kind to yourself, meaning, replace your inner critic with an inner cheerleader, because you already mentioned it, anthony is that you don't have people cheering you on. You don't have people. Like I said, in my upbringing I had only criticism. Nobody helped me, even in this process, nobody helped me. Even in this process, nobody helped me. I all had to do it by myself. Yeah, so if, if, on top of that, I would be constantly criticizing myself, well, I probably would have killed myself as well. Yeah, so it's it's like. That is why I say is like, develop an inner cheerleader. You are supposed to be your own biggest fan and you don't need to tell anyone, but you've got to support yourself in doing that.
Speaker 1:Here's a great example. Like in both fitness and in both the business owner side of it, it's a marathon, right? You start at the start line and there's hundreds of people cheering you on, whether that's you starting your own business or you're starting your own weight loss journey, right, everyone's cheering on. Go gun goes. You start running. After the first 10th of a mile or quarter mile, there's no more people and then you're stuck running 26 miles by yourself with nobody but your own thoughts pushing you forward, to take the next step, to move on, and then you get to the finish line. You finish what you're trying to do, whether you lost 100 pounds of weight loss or you have a really successful business and you're making a lot of money and then people look at you and go, oh, it must be easy for you. Like, that's what you get at the end. Or then the small group of people are sharing your own, everyone else criticizing you.
Speaker 1:Look at politics as an example. With entrepreneurs, you take the top most successful people in the US. Take Bill Gates, take Jeff Bezos, elon Musk. You get so successful to a point you start getting critics of everyone saying, oh, it's got to be easy for him. It's unfair. Look how rich they are. Why do they need that kind of money? Because these people were so taught that you follow somebody else's dream. You follow the college route, you do that, you climb a corporate ladder, you're going to be successful, and instead they're watching somebody who didn't do that. Most of these people didn't even go to college or drop out, and they're way more successful than them and they just become jealous. And that jealousy turns to hate and they start. Well, it's not, they're just different. That's all. That's why it's unfair when realizing every single person can be as successful as those people. It's just a matter of you need to push yourself for 26 miles on your own and you don't.
Speaker 1:No one sees the battles that you go through with your own mental health, whether it's a weight loss journey and you can, like you're trying to gym for the first or second time, it's tough. It's tough to start moving and moving like a pound weight. You feel pathetic. You're like I don't understand all these people lifting so much more than me, people doing so much more than me, and it's hard and it takes years. Or you're starting a business Like there's so many times you just want to give up and you're just like, wow, this is the toughest thing ever. Like I'm struggling financially, I'm struggling mentally, like I don't know if I want to move forward, like how do I know when I make it, and you just constantly have these battles with going through any kind of journey like that. And people don't understand that until you do it.
Speaker 1:And so that's why I can look at people like really successful people, really in shape people or I know it's not easy, I know the I can tell by looking at somebody who is successful in every aspect of life, like they must've had some shit thrown at them along the way. And I don't understand people that are going to sit there and get mad at these individuals. Like they deserve that. They went through fucking shit. They deserve every single payment. They deserve that body that they have because they did.
Speaker 1:They made sacrifices that I wasn't willing to make. They missed family meals, they missed holidays. They tracked during Thanksgiving if it's the weight loss side, or tracked during Christmas. They didn't eat those sweets. They had the strictest diet or they had the strictest financial health like that. They took sacrifices I was unwilling to take and therefore they're more successful to be in those two aspects and that's why they deserve it. And you look at things that way and say I'm okay with them being more successful than me. I need both those ways because I didn't take those sacrifices, and that's fine. Everyone has their own end point. But you can't be jealous and you just be okay with it, and then you can start looking at yourself well, if I want to be like this, I need to make those sacrifices, and then you really start seeing the world differently. That makes sense yeah, totally, totally.
Speaker 2:But people have to understand that in this world of duality, which I explained earlier, is like you only learn and grow through adversity. So if you want to learn and grow a lot, you need to have a lot of shit in your life, which I had and I'm still having. While I was struggling with my startup yourself, I had three years ago a very severe car crash. A guy came in to me with 80 kilometers an hour. I crashed into that car. It was 100% his fault. But well, I won't bother you with the details. But on top of my struggling getting my business started, my startup, I was severely kind of handicapped and I had to take care of my mother with dementia. At the same time, folks, even if you look at me, people seem to be fine. They have no clue what shit I went through.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, that's the world in which we live. Of these millionaires and billionaires, a lot of the kids they have, children. These children are just lazy bastards. They do nothing and everything is being done for them and paid for them and whatever. These folks know nothing. They can deal with nothing. Just because there was no adversity, everything was fine and okay. So adversity, you can say I don don't want adversity, but you might also welcome it, because that is your way to grow I mean, look at the most successful people they're all.
Speaker 1:most of them are self-made, right? Self-made billionaires, self-made millionaires. They had the shit of the shit. You read some of their books and you're like, oh my god, they went through that, like that's crazy. Like you hear their stories but like, to your point, then they have kids and then their kids don't have those adversities. So they end up blowing all the money and understanding everything and being like not understanding how the way the world works. So it's.
Speaker 1:I did a couple episodes on this already. But adversity is what makes people. So adversity is what makes people and to your point, you need to go do shit. But you need to go do shit and not have people pick you up. You need to pick yourself up, like, look at, I have an infant. This is a great example and I think people are really going to understand this.
Speaker 1:When kids are learning to crawl and walk right, what do you? Are you supposed to hold them the whole time and make sure they don't fall and make sure that they just end up being okay? No, you're supposed to let them stumble, you're supposed to let them kind of tip over so they learn, like, how not to distribute their body weight and how to move, and they, we have it as kids. It's innate inside of ourselves Like, oh, I shouldn't do that, that hurts and maybe I need to do this in order to start moving or start talking, they need to screw up a thousand times and they fix themselves as opposed to us as parents, thinking that we're just going to do it for them because we can't.
Speaker 1:At that stage, they don't understand us. We're just going to do it for them because we can't. At that stage, like they don't understand us. So they just learned the world through making mistakes and picking themselves back up. And they do that for the first year of life, like that's what humans are meant to do. And then, when they start becoming like independent and they start understanding us, then to your point as a parent or as a school is are we going to sit there and conform them, or are we going to let them fail and pick themselves back up and just let them know that we love them? But it's okay that they fail as long as they get their ass back up?
Speaker 2:Yes, but that is the type of world in which we live. So you do fitness. It's like if you pull one kilo every day, you're like, oh look, I pulled one kilo, that's not going to make you stronger, so it's like you need to increase the weight to increase your strength, and so that is with anything in life, and that is the not good trend. Which is happening with mental illness is that people are like oh, you shouldn't be sad, you shouldn't be depressed, you shouldn't be anxious. Well, it's totally normal. It's totally normal to be anxious about the future or worry about the future. It's it's. If you, you had a lot of setbacks, you you might be depressed. That's okay. And so don't try to say it shouldn't be there, it's not allowed, it's not allowed in my life and I need medicine and all kinds of shit to to say that is not in my life. Hey, but it is part of life. It is part of life and you will grow over it and and, and then you will go to the next step, whatever. And don't run immediately to your doctor and say I, I need some antidepressants, because the antidepressants will cause, on average, six side effects for which you need other medicines. It's like, hey, I'm depressed sometimes. Well, guess how I did was depressed when, well, I I cannot do. My main thing was doing sports. I cannot do anymore because my heel is destroyed.
Speaker 2:Is it like it can be sad and depressed? Yeah, for some time, but now I will. I need to be able to. I can walk again. Yeah, I can walk. Nobody is happy that they can walk. I'm happy that I can walk. So it's like, don't, don't say that challenges and setbacks and problems should not be part of your life. It is a part of your life and you need to deal with it and there's nothing wrong with you. It's not like your parents or someone else take you to the doctor. I know you need to take some pills because you're a bit sad, yeah, of course. When you go broke with your startup and you don't have any money, yeah, then you're sad. Or you're anxious about whether you're sad, yeah, or you're anxious about whether you can meet payroll tomorrow. That is just normal, but it doesn't mean it's like, oh, we need to get him to shrink, and therapy and medicine, because it's part of life.
Speaker 1:I mean, look at, take pharmaceuticals as an example. Like you said, people get the sniffles and it's let's run to the doctor. Like they're just not. Like you're supposed to get sick to your point, right, your body's meant to get sick and get over it. There's a lot of sicknesses that you don't need medication for. There are some you do absolutely, but, like a common cold, you don't need to run to a doctor and be like I have the sniffles, make these go away. Like you, just, it's just part of life. Like you're supposed to get sick. People that are afraid to get sick. Like what's going to happen is you're going to get 70, 80 years old and then a really simple disease is going to kill you because you didn't expose yourself to it as an infant or as a young adult or as an adult. You just hid, hid from it.
Speaker 1:Or, like you said, depression or getting upset Like you're supposed to get upset. It's a part of life. You don't need to run to somebody else to feel better. Like I still get upset. I still have days I get super stressed. Or you get super sad, like it happens, but the difference is I don't let it control my life. I have an episode 24, 48 hours, whatever. And it's like, okay, what am I doing and what can I do to help myself move on from this? And there are sad things that happen, but it's, how are you going to react to it? And you look I look from looking to myself as opposed to looking on the outside, looking for the people and your body as much as this phrase is overused is a temple right and it's only going to be able to help you for, as efficient as it is, the same example as the immune system goes, the same example as your physical health. If you don't take care of your physical health and your body's too busy fighting, like type 2 diabetes or high blood pressure, all these preventable diseases, and it's not running smooth, like that's why depression and anxiety is going to be harder, because your body's preoccupied trying to take care of the other things going on, like treat your body well, take care of your health, and you're going to see a huge difference.
Speaker 1:I mean, the most underutilized antidepressant that has beat out every antidepressant on the market, like any pill form and has absolutely zero negative side effects, is the thing that's not used at all. What is it working at? That's it get you want to help serotonin and dopamine releases. Exercise. There's no side effects besides good ones, right and there's no pill you have to take and you'll feel a lot better. I mean, people don't even do that, and that's way better than every kind of SSRI out there, and no doctor is prescribing exercise. They're prescribing pills Like no, you're 100 pounds overweight. Go start exercising. Think about how much you're going to feel Like. It's the one thing you should go for first before hopping onto anything like that.
Speaker 2:I would like. I totally agree, anthony, and I would like to add add it is body fitness and brain fitness, because the reason that I now can walk reasonably well is because I was extremely fit and doing all kinds of sports and exercise. Otherwise by now I would have been in a wheelchair. But the main thing was a psychologist who checked my brain because it appeared that three years after my accident and I still had a lot of complaints and I said there's something not right. And finally over here in wainia they found out I had a tbr yeah, traumatic brain injury, which caused all those problems. But that psychologist who tested me and said your brain is totally messed up, but the way that you're still alive and that you're so clear and you're so well operating is because you have been working on brain fitness. So she said a regular person would have had my brain situation that would be totally messed up.
Speaker 1:But she said because you were working for the last 25 years on my brain fitness, that's how you survive you ever want a good example of that, I highly recommend you either talk to a nurse or a doctor, or you go spend time at a hospital and you go look at stroke units, or you go look time at a hospital and you go look at like stroke units, or you go look at hospice units. And there's one thing you're going to notice above everything else is the will to live and the will to get better. Nothing to do with how severe the stroke, how how sick you are, how old you are. It's all about willpower. And let me give you some examples. It's when someone loses the will to live at an elder age from the sickness, they die right away. Some cases, like there's been so many times my wife has told me stories or I've seen myself people say I'm done and they die that night right.
Speaker 1:Or you look at we see it with stroke patients like people, a lot of family relatives and everyone has stroke. It's the ones that say I'm gonna get better and get over this, get better and get over it. It takes a lot of work, but they do. They start moving again. They start walking again, things start disappearing, they start living a relatively normal life. The ones that say, no, I can't get over this, end up staying in the hospital, eventually, end up getting permanent issues from it and then passing away, ultimately, from things.
Speaker 1:So it's like willpower, which is mental health to your point, and that's brain fitness 101 is the thing that will keep you going forward. More than anything, it shows how crazy strong our willpower is as individuals and it's all inside of us. It's all here already saying, hey, I need to do better, I need to be better, I can lift more, I can do this. I mean crazy examples. Go look online of parents right, the kid has something heavy falling on them and all of a sudden, the parent runs over and is able to lift this crazy heavy object that they've never been able to lift in their life because their brain's like fuck, I gotta get this off my kid. And people have done spectacular things with willpower, knowing I need to do this, and it just hits them, the adrenaline hits them and go forward. It's absolutely insane and if you ever need to, if you're going to say, I recommend you just go see if you can get into hospice units and just start talking to people. It will, it will blow your mind.
Speaker 1:Some people, just okay, I'm done, or the other ones that want to live longer and push through it and end up getting over these things that are supposed to kill them. But I, I totally couldn't agree more. It's something that needs to be worked on and checked out. We went like way over, but it's perfectly okay, because I love this topic so much. It's my favorite by far. So, arnold, I'm just going to just kind of start wrapping this up, but I'm going to ask you two final questions. The first one is going to be if you were to summarize this episode in one or two sentences, what if you were?
Speaker 2:to summarize this episode in one or two sentences. What would be your take on message to people?
Speaker 1:The main thing. What I would like people to take away is to live their own life. I love that. Yeah, I 100% couldn't agree more. And the second one, best one of all for you how can people find you get a hold of you? Learn more about what you do.
Speaker 2:Go for it. My website. I would send them to my website. It's braingymfitness braingymfitness.
Speaker 2:And there I have my training program, which is a 15 week program. It's not 15 week in just one stretch now, it's each week a 90 minute session. Then you do your homework, you learn, you grow, whatever, and then we have another session of 90 minutes, total 15 weeks, which is not crazy. It might seem a lot, 15 week training program, but hey, it took you 20, 25 years to become the same as everybody else. So by only having a 15-week program to make you well, release your uniqueness again, that is not much of a stretch. So I have a training program. I have some master classes which are videos around specific topics like what is your uniqueness, like dealing with aging, what are your emotions, habits. So they're around approximately an hour, an hour and a half about the specific topic. So those are the two products which you can find on Brain GymFitness. If you still have any questions, there's a link to my calendar there so you can book a meeting and we can have a discussion.
Speaker 1:I absolutely love this. I'm going to give you a different outro for everyone here, which is share this episode to those that need to hear this. There we went through a lot of different types of topics, things of how people, things people need to hear and I think the only way truly that we change as a society is for more people to think like Arnold and I do and a few of our listeners here today. So share this, blow this up, get the word out and if we can get enough people to truly understand that we need to help our young people, because our young people are the future bar none. Our young people because our young people are the future bar none. So we need to show, like our kids and then our kids' kids, if you're grandparents, like, let's change the world, let's change the world for the better, let's get through this mental health epidemic, guys. So please go ahead, share. Let's grow this episode, let's grow this podcast. Don't forget fitness is medicine. Until next time, outro. Music Bye.
