I know I should train to feel less anxious but I am too anxious and stressed to train. I know this sounds stupid, but how can one possibly reap the benefits of exercise if the thought of exercise stresses you out more?
Those of us who were (un)fortunate enough to enjoy highly offensive comedy in the pre-woke era will be reminded of Mike Myers’ Fat Bastard who said: “I eat because I am unhappy and I am unhappy because I eat.”
Many of us fall into self-perpetuating cycles of self-sabotage. Bad habits lead to negative thinking, which leads to more bad habits, which fuel more negative thinking, uncontrolled worry and anxiety.
Add in the real world. Toxic work or home environments, general SA aggression, elections (though the Water Cooler thinks the outcome is somewhat less uncertain than commentators would have us believe), money stress and much, much more. As another pre-woke character, Rocky, once told his son: “Life ain’t all sunshine and rainbows.”
Yes, it is terribly difficult to get up and train when our head feels like a traffic jam in Mthatha two days before Christmas, during load-shedding, with a blue-light brigade miraculously spreading the traffic like the Red Sea, except we don’t get to pass, just watch.
In this column, we have often given tips on how to build routines and habits. We have presented evidence about exercise’s proven benefits for mental health. We have quoted a clinical psychologist who prescribes exercise for depression alongside other interventions.
If I am to be honest, I too have gone through phases where I thought: “I just can’t do this.” I overcame these phases through trial and error. It was like I developed something that felt like an entirely new mental circuit. It sounds terribly mystical and pseudo-scientific. This wasn’t about “think positive and the universe will deliver”. Rather I practised changing how I perceived stressors, which affected my reactions. Look, a little ashwagandha helped too.
Curious at my experience, I did a lot of reading and landed on a concept called neuroplasticity, which is, simply, the brain’s ability to adapt and change through experiences.
We don’t stop developing when we become adults; our brains are capable of reorganising our response to various stimuli. In the medical field there are extraordinary studies in recovery from injuries, sickness and trauma related to leveraging our brains’ plasticity. But that wasn’t what I was interested in.
I wanted to learn more about how practising thinking habits and how changing our response to stress and anxiety can “rewire” the brain. Lo and behold, I found an article by science journalist Melissa Hogenboom, published on the BBC website called: “How I rewired my brain in six weeks”. Serendipity? No, an accurate Google search.
She worked closely with a professor of clinical psychology on a six-week mindfulness course that required exercise to go along with it. Her brain was mapped using an MRI at the start and end of the process. While not highly stressed at the start, she gave it a good go because the idea she could enjoy real benefits drove her, and, no doubt, the allure of a good story to tell at the end of it.
When looking at images of her brain before and after the experiment, she wrote this: “There was a result: the structure of my brain had in fact changed. And there were a few measurable changes to be seen. One half of my amygdala ... had reduced in volume on the right side. The change was minute but measurable.
“However, what’s exciting is that this aligns with the scientific literature that shows mindfulness can reduce its size because it buffers stress seen in the amygdala. When we experience increased stress, the amygdala grows ... The other change was to my cingulate cortex, part of the limbic system that is involved in our behavioural and emotional responses ... In my brain, it had slightly increased in size over the six weeks, indicating increased control of that area.”
Like any good skeptic, she conceded that it could all have been a coincidence, in her tiny sample of one. But then again, it may have been an inkling of proof that everything everyone has been saying is true. Mindfulness works. Add in exercise, and magic happens. Measurable magic.
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