Why mental fitness is more important than physical fitness

mental health

is the number one driver of disability

worldwide in england alone

one in four people will experience some

kind of mental health issue

this year

my name’s tor and my idea worth

spreading is why your mental fitness

is even more important than your

physical fitness

because you’d have a physical exercise

routine for your body

so why would you not have an exercise

routine for your mind

now i was diagnosed with social anxiety

at just the age of 16

and what that meant was i didn’t enjoy

social situations

i could never dream of public speaking

and i just the thought of being around a

lot of people a big group of people made

me very uncomfortable very anxious

nervous so i did what i was told which

is to go to have counselling where you

sit down one-on-one

with somebody to discuss the issues that

you’re facing

but for me it wasn’t really working i

wasn’t really feeling it

so i took it upon myself to understand

different techniques that people had

used from around the world

to improve their mindset and their

mental well-being

and i started to apply some techniques

and then i kept applying them and kept

applying them

and i didn’t see a change in the first

week or even the first month or the

first year

but over time it began to compound

and if you fast forward to present day

10 years later

i have spoken at some of the world’s

largest institutions such as oxford and

cambridge university

and i’ve worked at some of the world’s

largest companies such as google

and all of that was down to mental

fitness

the first thing i had to understand was

about the subconscious mind

this is the unconscious part of your

brain that accounts for

90 to 95 of your experience of this

reality

it takes in information from the world

around you

everything that’s happening for your

five senses touch taste sound sight and

smell and it uses that information to

determine how you should respond to

things in your environment

that’s why if ever you were to reach

your hand out to fire

you’ll pull it back out fear of being

burned

because your subconscious mind kicks in

to say fire is danger

now on the surface this is a very good

thing because it gives you a survival

instinct

something to use so that you know how to

keep safe but your subconscious mind

runs on autopilot 24 7 365.

which means that if you’re not the

person in control of your subconscious

mind and what’s taking in

then somebody else will be controlling

it for you

so in the same way that you’d have a

physical diet that can consist of

junk food that’s damaging for your body

in the long run or healthy food that is

nutritious for your body in the long run

you’d also have a mental diet that can

consist of

the things that you watch listen to

people you hang around and that could be

junk information that’s damaging your

mental state in the long run

or uplifting information that’s boosting

your mental state in the long run

now i’m not saying you have to read a

dictionary every day or anything like

that that sounds more like mental

torture to be honest the mental health

but you get the gist you want to be

doing things that’s going to proactively

uplift your mental state rather than

lower it

now in the same vein if you want to

build your physical strength

you’d build muscle by putting your body

under more resistance by lifting more

weights for example

but if you wanted to build mental

strength you’d put your mind under more

resistance

and the way that you lift more weights

mentally is by doing

more and more challenging mental

exercises that are going to stretch your

mental capacity

now that’s exactly what i spent the past

10 years doing and what i’m about to do

now is walk you through some of the

mental

exercises that i’ve taken on the science

behind them

how they’ve benefited me and how you

could incorporate them into your own

fitness routine

starting with something very simple

meditation

about 200 to 500 million people are

estimated to meditate worldwide

and there’s a lot of misconception about

what meditation actually is

but from my perspective it’s merely

the practice of observing your thoughts

without any judgment

you don’t need to go anywhere to

meditate you don’t need to lighten

candles you do not need to

make any charting noises you don’t need

to do any of that you just need to

practice

breathing in breathing out

and that would be you meditating

simple

now meditation is a very easy thing to

get started but there’s some science

behind it

studies have shown that meditation has

both psychological and cardiovascular

benefits

for adults with mild to moderate anxiety

that’s why it was one of the first

things that helped

me dealing with social anxiety back when

i started doing meditation

but also meditation has been found to

increase

telomerase which can help delay onset of

diseases like alzheimer’s

about to 43 now what that means is that

meditation

can not only just cure any anxious

feelings you may be getting in one

instance but it can also prevent

future diseases from arising in your

mental

now meditation is a very easy thing to

get started you could practice for 5

minutes 10 minutes

15 minutes 20 minutes max a day to get

started

and you can incorporate it into your

daily routine fairly easily

i believe it’s a beginner level mental

fitness exercise and that every single

person who wants to understand mental

fitness

needs to start from here because

understanding how to control your breath

and breath work in general is going to

be the foundation for

all mental fitness activities going

forwards meditation is the perfect way

to start that

once you’ve got a good grasp of how to

meditate then you can move on to other

things

like affirmations now affirmations are

the practice of

positive reinforcing statements that

will replace any negative

statements that you have going on in

your subconscious mind

for example you want your mind to be

saying things like i am happy

i am healthy i am strong i am

well i am aware i am confident

all of these kind of things you want it

to be doing rather than thinking of

negative statements

all the time now you got to get it in

the habit of repeating those statements

the same way in the gym you get in the

habit of repeating lifting a weight

the repetitions are what’s going to

leave an imprint in your mind over time

but again there’s a science to it epton

and harris did a study in 2008 that

showed that

by giving their test subjects

affirmations to work through

they were able to encourage them to

improve their diet by eating more fruit

and vegetables

and affirmations have also been shown to

help

us perceive threatening messages with

less resistance

for example some people may see

something like going to start a business

as a threat or as a risk

because it pushes you out of your

comfort zone it moves you away from your

daily routine what you know what your

mind is familiar with

so your mind perceives that as a threat

to our survival

however if you can reframe your mindset

and your way of thinking about it

you can start to see starting your

business as a positive thing and

affirmations can go a long way towards

doing that by helping you think

and rewire your brain in that way

now again affirmations are super easy to

get started on

i would give this a two star rating on a

difficulty scale

and say that anyone who wants to get a

little bit better at the idea of mental

exercise

this is where you need to go for me i

used to do audio affirmations which is

where i would speak

i am happy i am healthy i am wise into

a phone record it and then play it back

to myself on headphones later on

while i’m meditating so i would kill two

birds with one stone by combining

meditation and affirmation in one

something that’s not so easy as a mental

fitness exercise it’s having a cold

shower

and it’s especially not easy if you pour

the water directly on your face and

go in fully dressed that much is for

certain would never recommend that

but having a shower in water temperature

below 70 degrees fahrenheit or 21

degrees centigrade

is extremely mentally challenging

some people may see it as a physical

challenge and it does have physical

benefits

such as having a cold shower for five

minutes two to three times a

week can help relieve the symptoms of

depression but also

the effects of cold water on the

bloodstream can actually help

fight infection there was a study done

in the netherlands in 2016 which showed

that people who took cold showers called

out of work less than people who didn’t

all that being said a cold shower is a

fantastic mental challenge because the

biggest

challenge and the biggest obstacle comes

before you get in the shower

your mind is going to play so many

tricks on you before you get in that

shower every single time

it’s going to convince you that we can

just turn the water down nobody will

know it will just be our secret

nobody will know if we have a hot shower

instead of a cold one let’s just do it

let’s just keep warm

because your mind seeks comfort

but your goal for mental fitness and

mental exercise is to put your mind on

the resistance to seek out discomfort

because that’s how you’re going to build

a stronger mental state so you need to

fight that self-talk every single time

because that same self-talk that your

mind gives you before getting in a cold

shower

is the same self-talk it’s going to give

you before you start a business before

you start a new hobby

before you start doing something you’ve

never done before that’s the self-talk

that your mind gives to try and get you

out of changing routine

you need to get your mind used to

changing routine and putting yourself

through it

now that being said i would still give a

cold shower a

four star difficulty rating

this is one of the most challenging

mental exercises you can do

i have them about three or four times a

week and i can tell you that the cold

never gets any less cold

now much it was certain so it’s

definitely a challenge that you can push

yourself through

and get used to the idea of doing a cold

shower another one

that’s a good physical exercise as well

as a mental exercise

is fasting this is going a prolonged

period about food

in some cases food or water so you can

have an intermittent fast

which is at least 14 hours

without any food or you can have a water

fast

which is 24 hours without any food

or a dry fast which is 24 hours without

any food

or water

now with this kind of exercise again

there’s scientific benefits

there was a study of 4 000 plus people

which showed that

fasting can help reduce coronary artery

disease

as well as have a significantly lower

risk of diabetes

plus another study done in 11 healthy

adults showed that it can help promote

human growth hormone which can also help

with muscle growth

but generally speaking the idea of

fasting is pushing your mind through

that barrier of when you start to get

hunger pains

you don’t actually need to go any fixed

time period without food some people

could fast for seven days 14 days some

people fasted longer than that

so doing a 24 hour fast is no big

challenge

but your body will convince you that it

is your body will tell you again and

again

we are hungry let’s eat we need to eat

we need to eat

and yes it is very difficult to fast on

a day when you’ve got a lot of

activities going on

i tend to do fast on days when i’ve got

nothing going on so i’m relaxed i’m not

burning too much too much energy or too

many calories

the most i’ve done is a 36 hour water

fast myself

but that being said it’s something that

your mind will always try and pull you

back to try and eat even if you’re doing

it for a shorter period than that

my mind is so used to the idea of

fasting that it gets used to the idea

that torah is going to push through

tor is going to find a way to go without

eating so it starts to work with me

rather than against me

and that is exactly where you want to

get your mind to the point where it

works with you

to get through the mental challenge

rather than against you because again

that will apply to other areas of your

life

now fasting i would give a four star

again i’d say it’s a difficult challenge

when you first do it over time it gets a

bit easier i’d say it’s about a three

star difficulty for me now

but someone just starting out it will be

one of the most challenging things

you’ve ever done

but the most challenging thing that i’ve

ever done in terms of my mental fitness

was a dopamine detox

this is ceasing all activity that can

cause a spike in dopamine for a fixed

time period usually 24 hours

but what’s dopamine well dopamine is

known as the reward hormone or the

feel-good hormone

this is the thing that makes you feel

good when you do some kind of activity

that you like

like eating chocolate watching your

favorite tv show

playing sports speaking to friends

exercising

that feel good feeling you get is called

dopamine

so in order to detox from that you would

deny yourself from any technology

any food any exercise any socializing

any reading books any listening to music

anything you deprive yourself of

anything

you will just have you and your thoughts

all alone

scary

now there is no scientific benefit to

doing this exercise

this is purely a mental challenge to see

how long you can go

just you and your thoughts how long

could you last just you and your

thoughts

and nothing else

when jfk was asked why the us chose to

go to the moon

he said we choose to go to the moon not

because it’s easy

but because it is hard that is the exact

reason why you do this kind of mental

exercise and that’s the exact reason why

you do any mental exercise

because it is hard because it is a

challenge because you want to push

yourself

not because you want ease and

convenience you want to push your mind

to get to the next level and keep

growing and developing over time

now that being said i managed to last

just five hours doing a dopamine detox

before i nearly lost my mind

so it’s really challenging but i became

a lot more aware of my distractions

and i was just really grateful to be

able to do things the thought of being

able to read or just

listen to music felt so much better

knowing what it’s like to not have those

things

so i would say that this is the most

challenging thing that most people are

ever going to do

in their lifetime in terms of mental

challenges this is a five-star

difficulty

i would not recommend you start with

this it’s a veteran level exercise and

you have to work your way up to it over

time

if you are looking to start out with

mental fitness and start with challenges

what i would recommend for you is to

take one mental fitness activity

that you’re going to do within the next

30 days if it’s something like a cold

shower you want to try and do it as many

times within the 30 days as you can

or if it’s a fast or dopamine detox type

thing you want to do that once within a

30-day period and make sure you do your

research to make sure there’s no health

risks associated for you

because everybody is different once

you’ve done your

mental fitness activity i want you to

share in the comments how it’s gone for

you

and it doesn’t have to be one that i’ve

shown it can be any activity that you

want to push yourself to

because i’m looking to incorporate

mental fitness into the education system

in the coming years

and in order to do that we need as many

cases as possible

benefits from around the world that

people have seen so if you’ve done it

please share it and on that note i’d

like to say thank you

for coming to my talk