We believe in functional mental wellness, a holistic approach to mental health. We know that there's hope for those of us who have experienced trauma, even profound trauma and that's why we created the universe is your therapist podcast, we believe whether you call it God, the universe, source, unity or love that there is something much greater than us that conspires for our good, we envision a world of healing and connection, and we teach you simple but powerful practices that integrate your mind, body and spirit so that you can come home to your highest self and your truest identity. You are not broken, you are loved, and you can heal. My name is Amy Hoyt, and together with my sister, Lena, we will take you on a journey of healing and self discovery. Hi, everyone, welcome back. We are super excited today to dive a little bit more into our movement and mental health theme. And this week, we're going to be talking specifically about how movement can heal our brain. There's a lot of interest in brain health. And especially when we're talking about mental health, it's very closely correlated. And then we also want to check in about our challenge. So this month's challenge is to move your body every day for one mile. I have been struggling a little bit not being 100% consistent, but feeling like I'm doing a lot more movement than I was before the challenge. So keep going. Remember, it's progress, not perfection, and Lena, How's it been going for you?
Good. Um, we talked about our previous episode about tracking the mile, I've been able to be really more much more conscious about getting my steps in every day. And because my mile is about 2300, I ended up doing sometimes four miles a day. That's not often but sometimes four miles a day. And it just has helped me keep it more in the forefront and my brain so that I have more awareness. And I remember when you and I are talking last spring about the idea of intention behind what we're trying to accomplish. And so I have a lot more intention, which we know from the literature also increases benefits.
That's awesome. I love it. I was just thinking for listeners who don't have a Fitbit or don't have the Apple Watch. If you do have a cell phone and you have it in your pocket or your fanny pack or your purse, it will if you turn on the health portion of your phone app, it will track your steps. So just remember that there's lots of different ways to track your steps. You can also get an old school. Is it a pedometer? Is that what it's called? Yep. Where it tracks your steps. Yeah, I've seen them there. They're not very expensive. So
they are not usually under $20. I remember using pedometers in the 90s before we had smartphones.
Exactly. Yeah. So awesome. Good job, Lena. Yes.
Thank you. Okay, so
let's dive in. So the brain, I love the brain so much. And Lena is so well versed on the brain. And so I'm actually really excited about this episode. How does movement heal our brain movement
heals our brain in a couple of different ways. So one way is, as we mentioned in an earlier episode is it increases blood flow to all the parts of your brain. And what we are particularly interested in in our work is increasing blood flow to the prefrontal cortex, because that is where your wisdom, your logic, your accurate perception, all the higher functioning that we have comes from our prefrontal cortex. So moving your body and increasing blood flow benefits your whole brain but also your prefrontal cortex. One of the articles I was looking at the other day talked about how if you have anxiety, being able to get into an aerobic state on a consistent basis, MIT can mimic some of the symptoms of anxiety, including the increased heart rate and the increased or more rapid breathing. And the idea in this article was that if you have anxiety, then moving your body to an aerobic state can actually help desensitize your body to those symptoms. I thought that was really powerful and very wise. Another way that movement helps is it gets us more motivated, actually. So I remember listening to a podcast earlier this year that you had suggested, and the podcasts present are talked about how the best thing to do for motivation is just to move. And it doesn't really matter how you move, but just to move because as soon as you are stepping into any kind of movement, your dopamine starts being cutting activated, and the motivation oftentimes will follow the movement. And that's a little backwards than what we've thought for centuries. So we usually think that we have to be motivated to move in order to move. And that research shows that moving can increase motivation. So there's a there's a lot of positive benefits.
Thank you. I was also struck by the research as we were preparing for this episode, that talked about myelination, and we talked about myelination in our last episode, it's kind of the way the brain wraps those neural pathways in fat to create a shortcut. So not only do does movement, help with hormones, and so forth, but it actually makes our myelination process faster and more efficient. Yes. So even if we're working on a different habit, like reducing the amount of time we're online, or reducing drinking or reducing yelling, right, for those of us who are in families, and might feel triggered by different parenting moments, we can actually form all of our habits quicker when we have movement in our life because that myelination process, it's not just myelinating the movement, neural pathways for us, it's myelinating, a lot of different behaviors for us in a more efficient way,
isn't so powerful it is, I find that the more I understand the brain, the better I am at using it in a way that works for me. And it's so rewarding to understand the whys for these different things. Because when I understand the why, and I understand the benefit of micro habits, I can be on my way to changing things.
Absolutely. There's also really interesting research, linking a reduction in some disease, and some especially motor diseases and illnesses that affect our motor skills, reducing some of the symptoms of that. And so since some of those diseases or ailments are originating in the brain moving will absolutely help reduce symptoms of any illness that is in the brain, obviously. So there it's really inseparable movement and the brain.
I was just thinking about a client of mine from maybe six or seven years ago, who has a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis Ms. And I ran into her at the grocery store about four years after we completed our work together. And she, when I asked how she was doing, she said great, she actually started running five K's. And so in order to maintain she liked to do it regularly, so in order to maintain her training, she was moving her body every day. And I know that this is not the case for all people with autoimmune diseases, I do know this, but for her the moving of the body on a consistent basis helped to reduce the symptoms of Ms. And I really thought that was such a miracle and so powerful.
That is I'm also aware of course because we have children and we are constantly trying to come up with ways that we can improve our parenting and of course improve one generation to the next right. And the research on daily exercise and children is super interesting because it shows that it increases gray matter in the brain and gray matter is where the information travels in the brain. So it also is improved improving their cognitive and motor functioning. And so, you know, we've we've all seen Anna Totally people who grew up exercising from a small age, they tend to be more coordinated, they tend to be able to move their body and use their motor skills in a very impressive way. But the cognitive benefits are really amazing. And so if you're concerned about your own or your children's cognitive abilities, moving your body is one of the best gifts you can give to yourself.
Wow, it was wonderful. I'm thinking of when, when one of your kids would get dysregulated, you and Kevin, were really pulling your hair out trying to figure out how the hell and so you started having him run, you lived in the gated community at the time, so it's safe. But you started having them run down the street to three houses down, and then run back to the house. And it's it was fascinating to me at the time to see how much that helps us regulation.
Yeah, that's funny, I forgot about that. Thanks for reminding me about that. Well, it's interesting, too, because we've been going to family therapy the last few months to try and reduce sibling arguments and to kind of find ways that we can be closer as a family. And one of the things that we agreed on as a family, including the children, is that the consequence for maladaptive behaviors where you would maybe yell at your sibling or push your sibling is sit ups and push ups. And while that's not aerobic, it seems to be really helpful because it is expending energy. And, and plus, it helps Kevin and I, where we don't need to yell, we have a set consequence. It's all typed up, and it's on the refrigerator so that we don't forget what the the agreed upon consequence is of that, that breach within the family.
And I've noticed, when I have spent when my help has allowed me to spend more time at your house in the last six months, that there is a really a lot more emotion regulation in all of your kids. And it's really great to see because some of your kids have physical disabilities, that just on their own contribute to emotional dysregulation. And it's been really fun to watch your teenagers become more cooperative and more adaptive in their exchanges with each other. I've loved it.
Thank you, I have noticed that as well. I'm really proud of them. And I'm proud of us for seeking another set of tools for our tool belt as a family. And there was a lot of resistance to it from some of the family members, but it's been really helpful. And again, those micro steps, let's just go to the appointment and see what happens. And if it's just a total loss, then we can decide it's not worth it. Right. So that was a micro step to get us into the appointment. But ultimately, coming back to moving our bodies and how it heals the brain. I think it's super instructive that the therapists that we see, encouraged us to choose movement as a consequence, and not as a punishment. But as a natural, hey, you have all this extra energy, you have enough energy to try and push someone because you're activated. Let's put that energy into push ups or sit ups. And not because push ups and sit ups are bad. And we want a negative association, but because it will expel that extra energy and and help kind of reregulate us.
Yes, and I've seen you and Kevin in action. So if somebody is dysregulated, and says something that's not kind, you to just very matter of factly say that that'll be 10 Push Ups. And because you guys have been consistent on that, and you talked about putting it on your your fridge. There's not any arguing basically anymore against the push ups. And in terms of how we can use that information as adults that ties in with how our brain will argue with us because the brain is resistant to change. And that again, your best bet for encouraging new habits is to start small and then just do that small thing over and over and over again for several weeks. And I love that our brain has neuroplasticity and that we can heal our brains and that we can change the way our brain is wired. It's just miraculous to me. It is.
And I love that you brought up neuroplasticity because that is a term we've we've talked about before, but I think it needs highlighting once again. And that term implies that we can heal our brain, we can change our brain. Our brain is not static as was thought for hundreds of years. It is changeable, malleable, and we can direct those changes through something as simple as moving our body. Very encouraging. Okay, well, thank you so much for joining us. And please tag us and let us know how you're doing on the 30 day challenge. We're so excited about this. And I'm going to be more consistent this week, so I can give a great report for our next episode. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you want to go deeper on this subject or any other subjects we've covered in the podcast. We are so excited to be launching our signature membership program at mending trauma.com This is a trauma informed mental health membership where we combine clinically effective practices courses and mentoring while putting you in the driver's seat. We teach you how to heal your trauma with the latest research combining mind body and spirit we want to walk you through a healing journey while also empowering you if you have felt this episode is helpful. We would absolutely love if you would go to Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your pods and give us a review. We'd also love it if you would share it with someone you think it might help tag us on social media at mending trauma.com Or at Amy Hoyt PhD, we would love to reshare and also if there's anything we can do to help we would love to hear from you email info at mending trauma.com Give us your suggestions or topics you want to hear about. We would absolutely love to be of more service to you. We're so excited because we have so many good episodes coming up in season two, and we can't wait to go on this journey with you
