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