I believe the mind-body connection is the most under-rated tool in mental health. The question is – how do we show this to young people in a compelling way?
I’ve found that when we frame it in a way that matters to them, it can make all the difference. Picture this. 1999. PDHPE class, year nine, one of the highest achieving academic schools in NSW. The teacher asks the room to raise a hand if they do any cardiovascular exercise on a daily basis outside of school. In a room of 30, one hand goes up. Considering the high performance, high expectation culture, where every minute is managed in a way that favours grades, no one is surprised. This is a true story from my own high school (and no, I wasn’t the active one). So how can we make movement and other mental health tools more appealing for youth? Show them what’s in it for them. Here are some examples:
To be fair, neither the students nor the teacher at the time could have seen what New York University professor Wendy Suzuki’s lab has since shown us – that cardiovascular exercise is a powerful cognitive enhancer (Suzuki, 2018). A single workout has been shown to improve focus and attentional switching for at least two hours afterwards, while increasing the neurotransmitters mentioned before which are crucial for academic performance (Zomodori, 2023). On top of this, regular movement over time actually increases the size of both the hippocampus and pre-frontal cortex – responsible for memory and executive function (Suzuki, 2018). If all this sounds complicated, just remind them – you are increasing blood flow to the brain!
We’ve all heard that regular movement helps us live longer, lower blood pressure, stave off cancer, and so on, but for the average child or teenager, this belongs in the realm of “far-off dates” – too far into the future to matter at all to them. For the impulsive ADHD-type (like my teenage self), anything past today hardly even exists. Instead, focus instead on the short- and medium-term.
A single bout of exercise increases serotonin, dopamine, endorphin and endocannabinoids, which are responsible for mood, motivation, and relaxation – improving short-term mental and emotional “states” (and also reducing ADHD symptoms [Preiato, 2021]). Meanwhile, exercising regularly for a couple of months has shown improved performance at baseline on both focused attention and recognition memory, along with overall mood – more lasting effects, thereby improving baseline “traits”. Aim for the here-and-now – it’s where most of us live, especially kids and teens.
Thinking your way out of negative thoughts is like eating your way out of a
food coma. All noise, no signal. Anxiety disorder now tops the list for the most common mental health condition, and “mental health” is consistently rated as one of the top three concerns in Mission Australia’s Annual Youth Survey Report (McHale et al., 2023). While the first-line treatment is usually cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) – challenging unhelpful thoughts – is very effective over time, in the moment it can be tricky. Instead, I like to remind young people that the quickest way to get out of your head is get into your body.
A simple way to teach this is through the “three Es”: exhaling (make the exhale longer than the inhale – check out Andrew Huberman’s “breathing techniques” in the references below); earthing (shoes off, feet on the earth – though the evidence base is in its infancy); and exercising (ten minutes of fast walking has been shown to decrease levels of both anxiety and depression in the moment, while 30 minutes done three times per week for a few months has been shown to outperform anti-depressants in clinical trials [Singh, et al., 2023]).
What about those who are already physically active? There’s a good chance they spend plenty of time warming up the body to compete, yet zero time warming up the organ that matters the most. A 2016 study showed that 6% of school time invested in a mindfulness practice was associated with a 16% increase in mental health and performance (Gouda et al., 2016).
However, “mindfulness” is a word that everyone’s heard, few understand, and even less practice. It’s also used so loosely that many people, especially teenagers, switch off when they hear it, and the benefits may be limited to those who can see its potential (Henebery, 2023).
I’ve found it effective to show them high performance athletes who both practice and proclaim it – young men in the audience almost always perk up when I show them a photo of NBA’s all-time leading scorer, Lebron James, meditating on the bench with one minute left in the game (other notable examples are Novak Djokovic and Megan Rapinoe).
A mentor of mine often says “the essence of influence is viewing through the lens of the listener”. For the high-achieving academics, movement improves focus, memory and cognition. For the impulsive here-and-now types, teach them about “states” and “traits”. For those struggling with mood and mental health, show them how the “hardware” of the body can ease the “software” of the mind. And for those already physically active, flip the script and show them that mastery over the body begins with mastery of the mind. Next time you’re aiming to get young people interested and motivated to try something new, ask yourself – what’s in it for them?
1. Gouda, S., Luong, M. T., Schmidt, S., & Bauer, J. (2016). Students and teachers benefit from Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction in a school- embedded pilot study. Frontiers in psychology, 7.
2. Henebery, B. (2023). How is your school tackling the youth mental health crisis? The Educator Online, 25th January. https://www.theeducatoronline.com/k12/news/how-is-your-school-tackling-the- youth-mental-health-crisis/281567
3. Huberman, A. (2021). Breathing techniques to reduce stress and anxiety. The Tim Ferriss Show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSZKIupBUuc 4. McHale, R., Brennan, N., Freeburn, T., Rossetto, A., Richardson, E., Boon, B., & Christie, R. (2023). Youth Survey Report 2023. Sydney, NSW: Mission Australia.
5. Preiato, D. (2021). Exploring the link between ADHD and exercise. Healthline. 19 th October. https://www.healthline.com/health/fitness/adhd-and-exercise
6. Singh, B., Olds, T., Curtis, R. et al. (2023). Effectiveness of physical activity minterventions for improving depression, anxiety and distress: an overview of systematic reviews. British Journal of Medicine, 57, 1203-1209.
7. Suzuki, W. (2018). The life-changing benefits of exercise. TED talk. https://www.ted.com/talks/wendy_suzuki_the_brain_changing_benefits_of_exerci
se?subtitle=en
8. Zomodori, M. (2023). Do your brain a favour – move your body. TED Radio
hour.
https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1148805673#:~:text=But%20really%2C%20th e%20most%20transformative,hippocampus%20and%20prefrontal%20cortex %20gets.
