The Exercise Happiness Paradox | Chris Wharton | TEDxSevenoaks

[Applause] i want you to imagine a groundbreaking new medicine a single pill that taken once a day would make you live a longer and happier life not only that this pill would make you stronger it would profoundly increase your energy levels your mood your brain function and your concentration in fact this pill would outperform every other known medicine for improving overall markers of health it would be a groundbreaking revelation it would change the face of medicine as we know it sounds pretty good right now luckily for all of us this miracle medicine already exists and it's called exercise and if it were available in the pill it'd be the most prescribed and most valuable medicine on earth but there's a catch see for this pill to keep on working we have to keep taking it i've spent the whole of my career trying to persuade people to do exactly that over the past 15 years i've been on tens of thousands of health and fitness journeys and across all of those ages and demographics i've noticed the worrying and common trend whilst exercise can most certainly help us dramatically improve our lives in many cases i've seen it end up doing the exact opposite i call this the exercise happiness paradox now to unravel the paradox we must first understand a little bit more about what goes on up here you see our mood our happiness and our feelings of mental health are almost entirely controlled by our brain chemistry this complex cocktail of hormones in our head and whilst we have little to no control over external factors like national lock downs or other people's behaviors this brain chemistry can be manipulated by the foods we eat by the amount of sleep we get by how much exercise we take part in we call these lifestyle modifications and we can control them so a sensible hack for improving our happiness then is to attempt to try and manipulate this brain chemistry to try and make us feel optimal anyone who's ever completed a decent workout would have experienced this that that rush that euphoria the high we get when we finish this is down to an increase in the production of endorphins a type of neurotransmitter responsible for relieving pain and stress but exercise also increases serotonin the same hormone targeted by antidepressants as well as dopamine and norepinephrine all of which are responsible for regulating our mood so put very simply exercise can immediately and acutely make us feel happier but if we're being completely honest the way that we feel is very rarely the reason we're compelled to start exercising in the first place i know this because the only question i ever get asked is an iteration of this how do i lose weight how do i get toned arms how do i get a six pack how do i get a thigh gap how long will it take to lose a stone what's the best exercise for fat loss how do i get rid of this notice how none of these questions have anything to do with the way that you feel and everything to do with the way that we look see whilst our brains are wonderful tools for orchestrating happiness they're also prone to self-sabotage and comparison and never has this been more true than when it comes to the way that we look and it's not even our fault we've been led down a skinny little garden path by the multi-billion pound fat loss industry where sex sells and appearance is everything we can't even avoid it every day we're bombarded with messages meant to make us feel guilt and shame about the way that we look all designed to get us to part with our hard-earned cash in return for some revolutionary new diet trend or cutting-edge workout or little fat loss potion sold by a super lean instagram influencer or a celebrity that never seems to age and hearing lies the paradox you see when we embark on our health and fitness journeys we begin to expose ourselves to this world these images these articles and social media highlight reels and our brains can't help but start making comparisons we begin to cherry-pick the best parts of other people's bodies and lives and start comparing them to our worst parts i wish i had arms like his i wish i had legs like hers i wish i could get a way of wearing those shorts psychologists call this upward social comparison and it sets us off on an endless and cyclical pursuit of perfection because the sad truth is that the pictures we see on the covers of magazines in the press and on the social media highlight reels aren't even real they are snapshots in time they are actors who train to peek on a specific scene they are cover models whose photos are edited and airbrushed to appear faultless they are your friends best photos at the best angle with the best lighting this is not reality there is a lot of cheating going on and i know this because i've been there myself more than once in fact i want to show you a quick example this is a picture of me after i took part in a photo shoot a little while back now don't get me wrong i trained hard but i do work in a gym and um i did do a lot of cheating okay i manipulated carbohydrate and water consumption to appear drier and leaner and more toned than i actually was now i'm not showing you this to massage my ego in any way because this is not how i look ever in fact i didn't look like this the day after here's a photo of me less than 24 hours later a huge difference there is always a huge difference between the photos we are shown and reality very few people are walking around like this day to day and for the vast majority of us who work in offices not gyms whose careers aren't dependent on looking a specific way and who don't want to spend all of their time counting calories and tracking their food not only is this unsustainable it's also pretty pointless see our bodies have not evolved to look like this we have not evolved to have skinny thighs or six-pack abs this topic along with nutrition deserves a ted talk of its own but put very simply our body's ability to store fat has helped to survive through millions of years of evolution we've needed it for much of our existence to keep us warm to shield our vital organs to nurture our growing brains and to store energy to survive periods of famine now luckily for everyone in this room and most people in the developed world these are no longer threats that we face there is no famine waiting around the corner we're unlikely to freeze to death in our heated homes and there are no saber-toothed tigers skulking about in our garden hedges waiting for us to go to work but our bodies haven't yet caught up and sadly this um surreptitious and insidious belief that we should all be lean or should all want to be skinny or toned is robbing people of their happiness i've lost count of the amount of times i've been sat in a room with someone crying their eyes out because they don't like what they see in the mirror or they don't look perfect or they hate their stretch marks and it is heartbreaking and i've seen it end tragically more than once now i'm not suggesting that ambitious fat loss goals are unachievable far from it but they aren't they shouldn't be all consuming and they are not all important and we most certainly shouldn't have to miss out on life to achieve them as a society i would love to see us move away from this endless ideal of perfect whatev whatever that even means from the idea that that is even good for us that that will make us happy because in my experience it really won't the biggest lesson i've learned over the past 15 years is this and is a harsh truth no one gives a what you look like seriously no one cares if you've got abs no one cares if you've got skinny thighs or toned arms and neither should you do you know what people do care about that you don't get sick that you are strong and confident and full of energy that you are present that you jump in every photo with your parents do you jump in every pool with your kids that you're strong enough to pick up your grandchildren and carry them on your shoulders and that you're still around to watch them grow up that you capture every moment and take every chance you get to live a happy and fulfilling life see if we're being completely honest with ourselves our goal has never been fat loss or to change shape to begin with our goal is the happiness that we think these things will bring and if we're stuck in this perpetual loop of critiquing the way that we look counting every calorie the calorie that we eat and comparing ourselves to everyone else we will never feel truly happy and it will never end so what's the solution how can we achieve greater levels of health and happiness without falling into the comparison trap how can we take positive steps towards long-term improvements in our physique without feeling miserable how can we take the miracle medicine without the side effects i've got four things i want you to try number one we have to stop being so hard on ourselves social comparison leads to some really toxic self-talk we've all been there i hate my arms i'm too fat i'm too old i'm too poor when you catch yourself using this kind of language i want you to stop and ask yourself would i speak this way to the people that i care about because the answer is a resounding no we have to change the narrative and start practicing gratitude for the things we do have rather than the things we think we lack this may sound cliche but um a really powerful way of doing this is by using a daily gratitude journal this genuinely changed my life it's very hard almost impossible to experience negative emotions when we're feeling feeling grateful for what we have it takes a few minutes each day jot down two or three things about your body that you are grateful for and i guarantee you this positive mindset will begin spilling over into the rest of your life step two find something you enjoy and do more of it people that enjoy exercising keep doing it and those that keep doing it not only reap all of the short-term benefits i mentioned earlier they tend to be the ones that achieve the greatest long-term improvements in health and their physiques so i want you to ignore everything you've ever been told about what type of exercise you should be doing and pick something you enjoy if you like dancing go dancing if you like lifting weights lift weights don't be pigeon holed into doing what everyone else is doing and don't be afraid to mix things up either there's no right or wrong exercise for your age gender body type or ability i've coached 20 year olds that love bowls and 80 year olds that love boxing find something you enjoy and do more of it number three measure performance and not your weight in my humble opinion and this is just my opinion the only place a set of scales belong in your house is deep in the bin using weight as a measure of your progress is a terrible idea for many reasons not least it can ruin your entire mood and mindset in an instant like an evil little roulette wheel i don't want to live in a world where i feel guilty about going for a pint with my dad or eating a bit of cake at my daughter's birthday party without feeling compelled to run home and jump on the scales and assess the damage if we set ourselves small performance goals instead it can be as simple as increasing the number of press-ups we do each week or hitting a higher daily step count learning a new dance move or spending more time gardening these small marginal gains can drastically improve our self-efficacy by providing us with small and regular victories when we keep winning we keep moving forward lastly and most importantly we have to make this time non-negotiable i've seen so many people spend so much of their life worrying for caring for and providing for everyone else in their life and ignoring their own health and i'm sure there's some of you in the room this has to stop it's so counterproductive my challenge for you is to take 20 to 30 minutes to carve out your diary each day as you time not for your partners not for your kids certainly not for your boss and not to lose weight but to focus on your well-being and please don't use the excuse of not having time not only do you deserve this you owe it to yourself and everyone else in your life to become the best possible version of you now this doesn't mean we have to go through some savage gym routine every day it could mean spending 20 minutes going for a long walk to clear your head it might mean sitting in a room in the dark having a stretch whatever you do the important thing is to make this time non-negotiable it's a part of your schedule i guarantee you if you can manage to do this and make it habitual it will pay huge dividends across every dimension of your life be kinder to yourself find something you enjoy set small and regular performance goals and carve out time in your life to do more of it i want to leave you with this i truly believe that exercise is the single greatest happiness hack that has ever existed but to really reap the benefits of this miracle medicine we have to give ourselves permission to fall in love with the way it makes us feel rather than the way it makes us look i know it's difficult but please don't spend one more second of your precious time concerned about not looking perfect because perfect simply does not exist bodies come in all shapes and sizes each one as worthy of happiness as the next so throw away the scales and wear the damn shorts because the only people that care the only people that matter don't care what you look like and don't care how much you weigh they care that you are healthy and strong and happy and so should you thank you [Music] you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 55,907

Rating: 4.9584651 out of 5

Keywords: Body Image, Brain, Diet, English, Health, Motivation, Public health, TEDxTalks, Training

Id: 8so1WZ4j1oQ

Length: 15min 14sec (914 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 30 2021