Men’s Health Week

14th - 20th June 2021

When connections are made great things happen. Connections let us reach the highest heights and protect us from the lowest lows, in every sphere – think of engineering, sports, business, performance, intellect, and emotion…

It’s likely the first thing we think of with the word ‘connection’ is people. Connections to our families, friends, mates, groups, communities, and culture. The superhuman glue that holds our world together. But important connections start between tiny things in our world and in ourselves.

Connections are a phenomenal thing when you start thinking about brains. The things we do every day are directly connected to our mental and physical well-being. The things we think, feel, say, and do, repeatedly, has the power to change billions of connections in our brain. This is neuroplasticity, this changes how your brain is built and how it works. Every. Single. Day.

When it comes to brain health, and really harnessing neuroplasticity in action, we always want to use our strengths, the things we are really good at, to help ‘lift our game’ in the areas we might be finding tough. Here are some connected tips that might help you to use your strengths to improve:

Use your physical abilities to improve your mood.
Use your hands-on skills to improve your relationships.
Use your wild instincts to improve your stress levels.
Use the way you communicate to improve how we treat men.

Use your physical abilities to improve your mood.

There was an article a few years ago in Scientific American called ‘HEADSTRONG: Why Exercise May Be the Best Fix for Depression’ and it got a lot of attention. Writer, Ferris Jabr, brought to the public research that has proven time and again that exercise can rival medication when it comes to treating mild to moderate depression. Exercise is never just for physical health. Exercise is also an effective treatment for anxiety, can combat stress and chronic diseases.

If you’ve ever got into your running or cycling, or if you can take yourself back to roaming local streets with your mates as a kid, you can probably relate to a certain free feeling during and after a run or ride. Scientists have uncovered some powerful things that happen inside you when you exercise in these ways that explain how it makes you feel so damn good.

Articles with grabbing titles, like ‘The Science of Wheeeee!’, ‘Great Minds Run Alike’ and ‘Faster and Fitter at 50’ breakdown some of the complex science into these exercise facts:

Increased dopamine tightens focus and speeds up muscle reaction times.
Increased endorphins work as natural pain killers.
Increased BDNF improves the brains ability to change in positive ways (neuroplasticity).
Norepinephrine acts as a stimulant calling the brain to attention and action.
Increased oxytocin helps us feel more connected.
Anandamide decreases brain inflammation and gives a blissful feeling.
Brain activity changes in the executive network making it easier to think about complex things differently.
Increased alpha brainwave production helps you feel ‘relaxed and ready’.

These work together to put you in a state of optimal experience, peak performance and natural flow. As highlighted in Headstrong, exercise just might be the strongest, quickest, cheapest, safest, doable, and even enjoyable way to improve your mood.

So, exercise is a legitimately serious treatment for mental and overall brain health.
If doctors could write a prescription for it, they would, and should.
But what prescription would they write?

First they’d want to check out your current health, and steer you in the direction of the right exercise expert to guide your workouts.

The Therapeutic Lifestyle Change Program in the US starts with personal training programs and walking or jogging with a friend. At least 3 times per week, 30-40 minutes, moderate intensity. Aerobic - something that gets you going, heart rate around 120-160 BPM.

Moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise 3-5 times a week is often the recommendation that pops up in studies looking at the greatest impact on depression. Australian research done at CQU recommends: 30-40 minutes; 3-4 times a week; low to moderate intensity; for at least 9 weeks; with some check-in or supervision at least once a week.

Use your hands-on skills to improve your relationships.

The best memories can often be connected to doing something with someone. Powerful moments when we are kids and teenagers are the ones of building something or getting something broken to work again with your Dad, Grandad, or Uncle. Like rebuilding a bike and riding it off into the sunset, happy as a…

But you’re not just building or fixing a thing out there in the shed are you?

What else is going on?

You are sharing knowledge.
You are passing on important skills.
You are working things out together.
You will muck things up and have a laugh about it.
You are losing track of time, getting lost in the moment.
You are accomplishing things, and feeling good about it.
You are relaxing and reconnecting with parts of yourself you love.
You are strengthening your relationships one build, repair or reno at a time.
The doing is taking the pressure off the talking, so the right words might actually come.
How you are using your brain and body is a brilliant combo of the physical and intellectual.

How can you get back into your hands-on life?

Ask a mate for their help with something and see where it takes you.
Pull out an old project you still want to do and get cracking.
Check out your local Men’s Shed, join if it feels right.
Go Volunteer.
Have a look at what people are doing on Meet Up.
Get involved with a club or group that does the things you like, or think you might like.

Whether it’s woodwork, building model railways, flintknapping, fishing, fixing old cars, tree shaping, blacksmithing, making guitars…there are other people in your community interested in the same things you are. Connect with them through doing.

Use your wild instincts to improve your stress levels.

We are really starting to appreciate at a complex scientific level what we know instinctually about the importance of our connection to nature. The deeper we investigate what is going on, the more phenomenal the links we can draw, and the strength of the evidence grows.

We know nature does this to you, at no charge, with no expectation of return:

Deactivates brain activity in regions for negativity, social judgement, and overthinking.
Provides the light you needed to trigger responses that control body clock and mood.
Lower stress levels by putting you in the ‘rest and digest’ or ‘feed and breed’ (parasympathetic) part of your nervous system.
Diversifies your microbiome and improves immunity; inflammation; metabolism; and the function of your central nervous system.
Improves physical development including fitness, balance and coordination.
Triggers neurogenesis (making new brain cells) and improvements in learning and memory.
Reduces neuroinflammation that can reduce depression, anxiety, and pain.

Going camping over 3 days and 2 nights might be just what you need to reset your body clock and your mind-body connection.

Use the way you communicate to improve how we treat men.

Up-to-date stats tell us it is more ‘normal’ to experience mental health challenges in our lifetime than not. The more we all talk about our mental health, the better able we are to identify ourselves when we are not ok. The more we realise that most other people have been in tough places too, now or at some point, the more reassured we feel finding the right places to get help.

Your story, your truth, your radar for being ok - or not ok, are the first and most important things.

A thorough investigation of how your brain is working is next, it is an essential key to understanding brain health and mental health. Analysing someone’s brain scan with a focus on the persons lived experiences and directed by the goals they are setting for themselves, is a way of tackling struggles with both science and care. If we know more about what you have been through, what you are going through, and how you want it to change, we can make sure our services provide what you need, how you need it.

The Perth Brain Centre offers a range of services that can help inform your decision making when you are trying to work out how to change things for the better. Our Team of experienced Health Professionals can help you make the connections and drive the changes you want. You can find out more in any way you are comfortable - watch, read, call or email - any time that feels right.

About the author - Ms. Emily Goss (Occupational Therapist, Senior Clinician, The Perth Brain Centre).

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