#73: Mental Health Struggles Of Athletes: Coping Strategies for Success

You want to improve as an athlete, and that's great, but like, you can't think of your mental health as being this like isolated thing that isn't going to improve your performance. When you start addressing all of the underlying issues in your body, your sport performance is going to go up substantially. If you fix it from the root, you are actually going to see improvements in your sport and your times and your pace is just going to come without technically any extra physical effort.

Hi there, my name is Floris Gierman, host of the Extra Mileage Show, and today we have a very important topic to discuss. On this podcast, we often talk about ways to become a stronger, healthier, and happier athlete, and that happier is easier said than done. There's quite some athletes that are experiencing challenges, frustrations, and just like mental blockages in their training and in their racing, and that's what we're going to have a conversation about today. Today's guest is Jennifer Smith, and she's an athlete mental health coach. Athletes experience kind of a variety of emotions in their training and in their racing. Yes, there's the highs, but then there's the lows as well. And so we're gonna talk about managing our highs and our lows. We discuss common mental challenges, dealing with race day nerves, and that internal dialogue, how we can optimize that. And even for myself, like I think for me to coach other athletes, like we have a running coaching program, the Personal Best Program, It's quite easy for me to tell people to be kind to themselves and like for me to have positive coaching feedback to others. But sometimes internally, I still notice I'm pretty harsh on myself, beat myself up internally. And so this conversation for me was pretty eye-opening as well and was a good reminder to really be kind to ourselves, be patient with ourselves. I really enjoyed this conversation and I hope you enjoyed this as well. This episode was brought to you by LMNT. LMNT is an electrolyte drink mix that has everything that you need and nothing that you don't. So there's plenty of sodium, potassium, and magnesium, and no sugar. I typically start my day drinking a large glass of water of about 500 milliliters, so half a liter, and I add one package of LMNT. It helps me rehydrate, it helps me with my focus and with my physical performance. Increasing my electrolyte intake has made a noticeable difference in my energy levels. No more brain fog and improved quality of sleep. Sometimes after harder or longer workouts, I would get a brain fog or like a headache in the morning, and this no longer happens either. Element has a no BS, no questions asked return policy, so you can try it for an unlimited amount of time, and if you don't like it, you can ask for your money back. You can even keep the box. That's how confident they are that you will love it. Go to drinklmnt.com/flow to get a free sample pack of 8 flavors with any order. This offer can be used multiple times. That is drinklmnt.com/flow. F-L-O. See also the link in the description. Jennifer, welcome to the Extra Mileage Show. I'm excited to have this conversation with you today.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

Definitely. I would like to start out like you're an athlete mental health coach. How did your journey happen to become a coach specifically focused on the mental health for athletes?

It was kind of a long journey. I mean, I think most people that get into coaching come to it from really their own place, but my journey started when I was actually struggling a whole lot with my mental health. It kind of started, I would say, in university. And then once I finished university, I expected with like, I landed the job and I had a great place and all the things, right? The perfect life, so to speak, kind of came together. And I still was feeling really bad. I'm a recreation therapist by trade. And so I realized that I was like, oh man, like, I'm not like practicing what I preach here. And so I started exercising more. Like, I was an athlete growing up. I played basketball pretty competitively and ran, but I had dropped off while I was studying. And then I just like had that moment where I was like, whoa, like, I'm not doing this. I'm telling my clients that they need to move their bodies to feel better. So I started This is back in the days when like the Fitbit and the 10,000 steps was like all the rage. So I was like, start slow, let's do this thing. I was getting my 10,000 steps and like I felt a bit better, but it still wasn't where I wanted to be. So then I just like kept upping the ante basically. It was like, okay, well, if walking's not helping, I'm gonna get back into running. So then I started training for a half marathon and then that wasn't enough. Then I started doing triathlons, which I still do now, but it was just like nothing was helping. And so it was finally one day it was, kind of that realization of like something else is going on here and I need to figure out what that is. And so I started working with a functional medicine physician. I was, I was scared to go on antidepressants and things. So I was like, I got to go somewhere else. I've had historically a lot of benefit from working with that type of a physician with that root cause kind of getting underneath the symptoms approach. And, and I learned so much that mental health mental health doesn't really start in the brain, it actually starts in the body and in the gut and all of these things and with stress and body depletion around sport and all of these different things. Just my whole world opened. And then at the same time, actually, I had started working in psychiatry in a psychiatric hospital and was working with people that were really, really struggling with especially depression and anxiety and started to see that, The things that I was learning and the things that were actually giving me benefits for my own mental health were not being done in the medical system, which scared the crap out of me. It was kind of really the opposite of what I was being told was almost being promoted. And so it was like, I need to do something. It was kind of that values clash. So I started exploring how can I, like, expand on recreation therapy to be able to include all of these other lifestyle habits, which brought me to functional medicine health coaching, which is where I am now. So left, eventually left the medical system and went out on my own so that I can, I feel like I can actually support people and support athletes specifically because I was still struggling as an athlete. I hear it all the time that there is athletes who are struggling and it was like, this is a group that nobody thinks about. So yeah, that's kind of how I got to where I am now.

Thank you for that, for that introduction. And I think just that part that you have gone through it yourself, that, that becomes much more relatable for you to deal deal with athletes who are struggling versus someone who only learned about it in the books and then has to apply it in, in practice. And so the whole mental health challenges or that, that athletes experience, I come across this quite frequently as well, um, in our running coaching program, in conversations with other athletes in person. It is not something that athletes open up so easily about though. And even that part of recognizing that something might be off versus just training more or just putting your head in the sand and like kind of ignoring it. So I think just taking a step back over here, like what are some of the common challenges that you see when you're working with athletes around mental health?

Yeah, I think probably the top thing is that, um, like the recognition piece, like you said, is the beginning. So a lot of athletes, especially I see in endurance sport, just keep increasing the training, whether that's like doing longer races or whether that's just like trying to get faster and stronger. And it's just, it's, um, it's a coping mechanism. Obviously exercise has its benefits for mental health, we can't deny that, the research is there. But it's at, um, when, when I start to see athletes that are, um, really pushing that boundary and wanting to increase, increase, increase, like I would start asking questions because yes, there's also just some aspect of that of like, wow, it would be really fun to see, to push your body to the limits. But why are you doing it? And really start getting honest with yourself, looking at your own life and seeing what's happening at the times, at the same times that you're starting to get these thoughts. And then also just even recognizing too, like, how are you feeling like even before and after training sessions? Is there something around that? Like, are you, are you still getting that, say, runner's high, for example, or are you still just chasing that and thinking that doing more is going to get you there? So there's lots of things that can be kind of happening and things that athletes can be looking for when they want, when they're thinking about, is there a mental health thing going on here or what's happening?

It's, it's interesting. I'm seeing two different approaches sometimes here. One is on the end of what you just described, the part of like adding more training load, adding more longer race distances, putting more pressure on that, almost overracing sometimes. There's also athletes who sign up for back to back to back races. Some people like it a lot. Sometimes I definitely feel there's some overdoing. At the other end of the spectrum, I also come across athletes who feel it's very challenging for them to even get motivated to get out of the door or to even set up systems to get out of the door. And so I'm seeing it in, in both angles over there. Is that something that you come across as well?

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I, I think most of the athletes I work with are in like the head-in-the-sand mode, but then I also do get people that are like, man, I started doing this and I loved it, and now I just don't have that same drive or pleasure or whatever you want to call it from sport, which is, um, you know, one of the, the symptoms of depression that, um, people— that I guess is used in diagnostics is you don't get that same satisfaction or pleasure from the things that you previously enjoyed. So that is definitely a warning sign as well. If you really start feeling that, like, like, I just don't feel like it anymore, or racing isn't fun anymore, or you're just constantly like, it just feels like something's grinding, there could be mental health implications there for sure. So starting to look at like Even things like, is it just sport or is there other things that you're also not feeling motivated to do? You know, how connected are you feeling to your social circles or are you isolating there? You know, how's your energy levels? All these types of things can also be clues as to, you know, things that could be happening or that there could be, I guess, other mental health things going on there for you.

Yeah. And everything is connected there too, right? A lot of our listeners, they're non-elite athletes, they're doing this for fun, to stay in shape because it feels good. Yet most of them have jobs, they have busy family lives, they have all sorts of other stress factors in their life where we want our endurance sport to, to bring us joy, to bring us energy. And if that is not happening, we need to take a look under the hood and see what's going on. Is this a temporary thing? Can we identify it with something, or is there something bigger going on over here? And so What are some of the, some of the ways that you're trying to get to the root cause of someone that you're working with if things might not be going the way they wanted to go?

Yeah, and I appreciate that you bring up like the busy lifestyle and things that most endurance athletes have. Like the majority of us out there don't have the luxury of being pro athletes and having this be our job and our main thing. So we have a million and one things, which actually I think puts us at higher risk of developing issues with mental health. Because when you look at the root causes, a lot of what's happening is that stress, for example, on its own, and we don't have to think about stress and just like the overwhelming feeling of stress, but we can also think about it as just general, you know, having lots on our plate or Busy schedules, busy minds, all these types of things do contribute to a stress response in your body. Your body is basically perceiving you as being under threat, whether you think you are or not. But we have these endurance athletes that aren't pros are more susceptible to these things because of the lifestyles that we lead. So even just something simple as like a time crunch, right? Running from one activity to the next really sets you up. And when we look at the root of that, stress depletes the body in so many ways, you know, thinking from even things like, you know, natural detoxification processes. So like your liver is going to change its function based on how much stress you're exposed to. Specifically to athletes, we get this change in testosterone and estrogen production. And we all— testosterone's the favorite, right? We always think about testosterone and how, its role in muscle building, but estrogen as well plays a role in muscle recovery. So if our body is constantly under stress, we end up favoring cortisol as opposed to— like cortisol and testosterone and estrogen are both made from cholesterol essentially. So there's kind of this split. And when we start favoring the one side, which we go to cortisol, then it's not like we cancel testosterone, we're going to still have it, but we end up having less production, which means we're not recovering well and these types of things. So we have poor performance, which then can circle back, of course, into mental struggles because we're not performing the way we used to. You know, with the estrogen side for female athletes, we start looking at changes in, you know, like PMS issues and having higher anxiety levels around that. You know, stress even depletes B vitamins. And one of the main root causes of people that— anybody that has depression is actually a B9 deficiency. Or folate. So, um, and it actually also decreases your responsiveness to antidepressant medications. So some people that are non-responsive to them actually end up just having something as simple as a B9 deficiency, which supplementing, increasing B9 can make a difference in actually improving your mental health without antidepressants. So, you know, all these things come into play, and it's starting to understand that mental health, and you probably hear me say this if you ever come into my community, but like mental health is not a brain problem, it is a body problem. And so we need to really address all the stuff that's happening on the inside in order to see the effects on our mood and our anxiety on the outside.

So well said. Sometimes we also talk about, all right, let's identify what could be going on in the body that might be off. And sometimes just as simple as doing, um, blood work with a doctor, uh, whether it's like you go to the doctor for a physical checkup and just get your labs run, or you go to something like an insidetracker.com and you actually get like an athlete's panel there. Sometimes we've come across athletes who are seriously deficient in whatever it is, iron, vitamin D, like B vitamin, like whichever one. And all of a sudden, just making some modifications there can get them back on track again. And whether that's done with some supplementation or whether it's done in another natural way, like it's, it's quite fascinating how sometimes we don't even realize these things and how something being off in the body can make such an impact in how we feel and how we show up in the world, in our energy levels, in our athletic performance eventually as well.

Yeah, it's interesting because I actually personally see depression and anxiety not as an illness in and of themselves. I know that society, we talk about that. It's in the diagnostics books and all these things for psychiatry, but I actually see it more of a symptom of something else that's going on because these aren't natural states. So just accepting that, okay, I'm depressed. Okay, and I'm sick. Like, yes, obviously you're having illness problems, but this is a symptom that's showing up because of something else that's happening. And just like, I'm just, I'm so passionate about being able to help people to understand that, yes, there can be genetic connections in these types of things, but there's still, it's still a symptom of something else that's happening. Something has triggered that genetics to go off. Or if you don't have a genetic factor, then you still have something going on underneath that. That's going to lead you to have those types of symptoms.

Then to follow up on that, what are some practical methods that athletes can employ to actually manage their anxiety and to turn this into actual positive force?

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think there's two things to look at when you look at anxiety. I see kind of two sides of it. So one piece, like you said, is the management piece. So whether you're somebody that struggles with anxiety on an ongoing basis or whether you're somebody that just has moments of anxiety, you're going to need to learn how to manage this in the moment, right? It's not like, you know, getting to the root cause of things is one part of it, and you'll definitely see improvements and big changes so you don't have frequent anxiety, but we're still going to have these things come up. We're human. So managing it in the moment is basically just thinking about cueing your body that it's safe. So all anxiety ends up being is basically your body perceiving that you're under threat. So if you look at, like, you know, going back to, like, the caveman days, you know, your whole job was to look for threats in your environment so that you could survive. So when we have an anxiety, a moment of anxiety, dependent, like regardless of the severity, you want to cue yourself that you're safe. So when we look at that, we look at things that are going to stimulate the vagus nerve. So if you haven't heard of the vagus nerve before, it's basically like it's the longest nerve in your body. It travels all through and it actually touches on most of the organs in your body. And so if we want to stimulate it, we actually need to be able to, to do something to the body in order to like trigger it. Which is going to put us out of fight or flight or stress response into that more rest or digest state. So thinking about things like, you know, the standard stuff that you probably hear all over social media, which is all the management stuff, right? Deep breathing, you know, doing some gentle, gentle exercise. So I'm not talking about going for a run because in an anxiety state, running is going to be more threatening feeling to your body because you would run from, like, say, a wild animal if you were under threat. But going for a walk, for example, a lot of A lot of stuff you'll see around about like shaking or dancing, which is super helpful. Yoga or stretching can be really great. Getting outside in nature. All of these things are going to cue to your system that you're safe. Gratitude actually is another really great one as well. So gratitude is basically the— you can call it like the antidote, I guess, to anxiety. So it basically pulls you out of a state where you're so focused in on the threat and expands your vision essentially. To be able to see things outside of the immediate threat. So there's that side of it where you want to manage the actual anxiety in the moment. And then there's the other side of it that if you are somebody that struggles with anxiety on a regular basis, you actually— it's like I said earlier, it's a cue that there's something else happening in the body, that there's some sort of like a communication error, I guess I'll call it, that needs to be addressed. So We need to start looking at things like your gut health, for example, you know, getting your microbiome in balance. We need to get your nervous system regulated. So a lot of people just kind of constantly live in that fight-or-flight mode. And so even if you're not experiencing anxiety, we need to start doing things that are going to actually, on a regular basis, on a daily basis, that are going to calm this nervous system and just cue it that it's safe all the time, which is then going to prevent those anxiety attacks, for example, happening in the future. Inflammation is a huge one here. Inflammation in the brain is another one of those kind of root cause things for something like anxiety. So, you know, you can get inflammation from lack of sleep, you know, having high stress levels, which I've talked a lot about, environmental toxins. So, a lot of my athletes look at me like I have 6 heads when I ask them like, what shampoo they're using or what they're using to clean their sink. You know, these types of things actually do have a significant effect on the inflammation in the body, which ends up having inflammation of the brain, which can lead to depression and anxiety. So there's so many things that are happening here. Like, you have to look at those kind of two pieces in the moment, but also like the long-term preventative for some people. But it's almost like long-term maintenance for those people that do experience anxiety kind of on a regular basis.

Yeah, yeah, there's, there's so many pieces to the puzzle over here indeed. And I think we, we sometimes by default go to the, to the main ones. A lot of people are indeed aware of like the connection between your body and brain through breathwork. You mentioned earlier like whether it's deep breathing or box breathing or there's, there's, there's a lot of different breathing techniques out there right now. But then even going back to the smaller details indeed of, yeah, like you were saying, the shampoo that you're using, the oils that you're baking in, the foods that you're consuming, everything over there, like it goes into the body in one way or another, the sunscreen you're using. And I think for many years, like people weren't that much aware of it or thinking about it. And it seems that there's becoming more and more awareness to some of those other factors over there as well. It just sometimes becomes quite overwhelming. The amount of different things that are going on over there that sometimes even just going back to the basis of at least let's cover the basis first and from there on, let's start looking at some of these other things there.

Yeah. Yeah. And when you come to the basics, like I, over the years that I've been working now, like I've kind of developed, I guess, my own model of how to work through these things because you have to start like what most people start with. Like, like I mentioned in the moment, if you're having anxiety, you need to do something now. But when we're looking at that long-term strategy, A lot of people start with the stuff that they see on social media, which is like, I call intentional activity, right? So meditation and all these types of things, which are fantastic and they have effects on your body. But if we don't fix the root of it, then this is just gonna like keep spinning itself. So looking at things like creating spaces in your home or your office or whatever that looks like that are safe and that cue safety in your body. Inflammation is really, really at the root. So addressing that before you actually move to doing all of the fancy stuff, right? And it's the same with sport, right? We always talk about the real basic things first. Nail the basics before you start using the pneumatic boots and all the things.

Totally, totally. I want to share an example of what happened on a run this morning, and I would like to hear your thoughts on this because I've seen your Instagram and you talk about sun exposure, you talk about cold exposure and all sorts of different things. So Last several months and weeks have been quite busy from my end. I've been going, I've been training more and more. Like, I have a Berlin marathon coming up in, in a little bit over here. It's right around the corner. So I'm in peak training right now. On top of that, busy with work, with the family. Like, we had family in town, there was travel. There's just a lot going on. Just like other non-elite athletes, it's, it's a busy life sometimes to combine it all. And so the stress levels have been relatively high, yet sometimes still finding ways to indeed not do more, but just do what feels right in the moment. And this morning I truly felt like, ah, it's sunrise, like the sun is about to come up. I really want to just get a nice mellow morning trail run in. And it's funny because I've been go, go, go. And eventually I was on the trail, I was running, and it was about 2 miles in and the sun started coming up and it was just like quite magical on the trail. And all of a sudden I was, I was kind of in my thoughts. There was like a coyote right in front of me, like a beautiful coyote. And instead of me grabbing my phone and trying to take a photo, I was truly just looking at this coyote and we just had this moment and it was, it was, I got emotional and it was, it was, it was like I got teary-eyed. I was, I've kind of noticed that sometimes that when I'm really busy and all of a sudden I have these moments of presentness that I'm really in the moment, that some of these emotions just come up. And I sometimes come across athletes too, who get emotional either in certain stages of that race or after a race. So I'm just curious to hear a situation like this. Do you come across this sometimes from your end as well? And what, what do you feel like is going on at a moment like that?

Yeah, that's a— wow, that's a beautiful experience. First of all, it sounds like an awesome morning.

Yeah, because it wasn't that I was feeling sad or anything, it was actually like happiness kind of thing.

So yeah, yeah, I think sometimes like when— like being present and being mindful and in the moment is something we don't experience that often. And so I guess without being intentional about it, um, most people just kind of end up being, you know, busy in their minds and and running around doing their thing. So when we have those moments, I think— and this is— there's no research to this, this is just my hunch. But I think what happens is we, we're actually finally connected to ourselves and our body has almost been just like screaming for that. And so emotion just comes forward because like we're emotional beings and being on the go, go, go all the time, we have— we basically have to suppress that. So when our body has the opportunity to actually like experience emotion and experience presence, it just like, it's like, thank you, you know, thank you for this. Like, it's like the cue that like this needs to happen more, which is funny because we often like, most people are so scared of their emotions that like if somebody got teary-eyed about a coyote, most people would be like, oh my God, no, no more, we don't do that. And so you shy away from it when it's actually your body probably really screaming for more of that kind of experience.

Yeah, no, it's, it's an interesting one. And once again, I think like we were saying earlier in the conversation too, I think a lot of athletes don't talk about their emotions or indeed want to keep it inside and not even show anyone else because it's weakness or anything else. But I think actually opening up or even sometimes talking with someone else about this, it might actually like make you understand yourself. And then you realize that it's actually quite common among other athletes too. Like sometimes when I talk with other parents about some challenges or some struggles, all of a sudden I'm realizing like, oh, the other person has the same thing that I have. Like, I'm not the only one over here. And I think that's, that's pretty eye-opening sometimes.

Yeah, it is wild to think about. Like, it's funny when I talk to people, you know, people ask you the standard question like, what do you do for work? And I tell people what I do. The community I live in is like super, super active, um, mountain town kind of a thing. And, uh, most people kind of chuckle and say like, I say like, oh, I work with anxious and depressed athletes. And they're like, isn't that Everybody. And I'm like, yeah, you know, it kind of is. And then I'll start to, you know, kind of probe a little bit, be like, you know, I've struggled my own journey. Like, have you ever experienced any struggles with your mental health? And people clam up. Like, they don't want to talk about it because, like you said, it's a sign of weakness or something. And they're still really in that mode where they're, they're using their sport to hide, right? They're hiding behind sport, which is, is so, so common. So it's it's good to be able to talk about it and challenge yourself. Like, if you're listening to this, like, really think about it for a second. Like, are you using your sport to hide, or are you using it because it actually is serving you more than just mental health support?

Totally, totally. Let's talk a little bit more about cold exposure because I've seen you— you live in Canada— many photos on your Instagram in the cold water, and I love seeing that because I'm a huge fan of cold exposure too. So talk to me a little bit more about the reasons, some of the things that you have noticed from your end, but also from some of the athletes that you have worked with.

Yeah, cold exposure is huge. So when I was talking earlier about those vagus nerve stimulating techniques, cold exposure is one of those things that really brings you back like snap. So it can be used in the moment that you're experiencing, you know, a depression or anxiety or whatever that looks like. But it also is one of those things that actually helps to build resilience in the nervous system long-term. So, you know, we can see like, you know, our instincts, I guess, tell us that cold is important because, you know, when you're upset, I don't know about the guy side of things, but if I was like a young girl and I was crying at school or something, somebody said, go in the bathroom and splash some cold water on your face. So we know this. We know that it does something. Now, luckily, the research is there to back it so we can actually use it from both sides. For myself personally, when I'm using it regularly, and I'm lucky enough to live literally a 3-minute walk from a glacier-fed river, so I'm in there all the time. I know, it's great. It's so cold. But I can do this often and I just feel so much different. My whole energy changes. Like, I'm just calm because it's increasing your vagal tone, right? It's flexing that, that rest or digest. But I even have— I'm just finishing working with a client right now who— she's a female athlete, mostly CrossFit athlete. She has a ton of pain issues and a lot of just like general swelling all the time, which is really impacting her performance. So like her, she always talks about, you know, like her face is puffy or these types of things. And she started doing cold plunges Oh, it's probably only been maybe 3 weeks, 3 or 4 weeks now. And she's like, "People ask me what I've been doing to lose weight," because she's just been carrying around all of this swelling for so long. And I just saw her in person the other day. I don't see a lot of my clients in person, but I saw her and I was like, "Whoa." She looks like she's dropped 15, 20 pounds just from doing that. So, the inflammation in her body has come down so much. Her pain, she had all of these specialist appointments scheduled for pelvic pain and things, and they're coming up, I think, in the next couple of months. And she's like, I'm kind of scared to go because I'm not feeling it anymore. I don't have that. Which is basically like your nervous system is just like, comes way down and it doesn't need to respond to the pain. The inflammation that's causing the pain has come down so much that it's not there. It's not to say that there's not still something going on and She needs to still go to her specialist, but their body is not so like, blah, in attack mode all the time and it just can bring everything down. So big changes.

To anyone listening who might not have access to an ice bath or a glacier in their backyard, the whole part of cold showers can have many benefits as well over there. Do you see benefits with that Do you see that from your athletes as well?

Yeah. Yep. So, the research shows basically that in order for something to be considered cold exposure, it needs to be less than 15 Celsius. I don't know what that is in Fahrenheit. We might have to convert that. But yeah, so that's the kind of temperature limit. And all a person needs really is 11 minutes a week. So, it's like this super, super small amount. So even like most person's bathtub water, if you run it on full cold, will actually be enough, or cold shower, whatever that looks like. So when you see people in like their fancy metal bath with ice everywhere, like yes, that's a cold plunge, but also your bathtub water is probably good enough, or your shower.

So for you Canadians, that's easy to say. I live in Southern California where the bath is about 80 Fahrenheit, which is whatever, 30 Celsius or something. I just looked, 15 Celsius is 59 Fahrenheit. So yeah, there's that. But no, like especially in the colder, like the fall or the winter months for sure. And that's the other part. Sometimes it's not even that you have to right away go to experience some of these feelings, some of these benefits. Even you starting out with a warm shower and finishing the last 15 seconds on medium, and then the next day you do a warm shower and then 20 seconds and you go a little bit colder. And within like the next one, it's 30 seconds cold and you can build that up. So within 10 days you're able to take a cold shower and actually experience some of these feelings. And at the beginning your body might fight it. I think focusing on your breath is quite important over there to have calm controlled breathing versus like panic breathing. And once you can surrender to that and you find the joy in cold exposure, it can change your life. It really can. And yeah, I had a conversation with Wim Hof on the podcast several years ago, and we talked about cold exposure, several different benefits that he had noticed from his end and different clients that he had worked with. But even the part of when Initially, how he found out, and this was way before all of the science, was he was very depressed. His wife had committed suicide. He had several children. And at that time, the only thing that would bring him some sort of sense of calm was going into an ice-cold water and doing that on a daily basis. And so for him, he purely did it from a feeling perspective first, before any of the science was really out there. And, and I started cold exposure probably— I'm Dutch myself, so I grew up knowing about Wim Hof already, but I've been doing cold exposure for quite a while. And even right now, if I'm— I have a cold or an ice bath over here in the, in the garage. If I take an ice bath, it almost makes me feel happier afterwards. It's a hard feeling to describe, but it's almost like a runner's high that you can get to through cold exposure. Yeah. So yeah, you don't need an ice bath for that. Indeed. There are other ways, for example, the cold shower over there. So I just, just kind of want to bring that perspective up too.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. It has so many benefits that like everybody should do it. Prescriptions from Jennifer.

Everybody should do cold exposure except for pregnant women and those with high blood pressure. There's a few there that we do have to put disclaimers. Don't, don't kill yourself in an ice bath. Make sure you don't do any breathing before an ice bath. And yeah, there's a few disclaimers. But yeah, generally speaking, and I think once again over here, one part with both cold exposure and heat exposure and a lot of these things is we have to follow our own intuition to some extent. Like I see some people like pushing themselves so crazy with some of these, whether it's running really far, rolling really long or sitting in an ice bath for way too long. It's— these things are dangerous and they can really hurt you. So it's like, follow your intuition and ease into some of these things first a little bit and gradually increase that over time.

So exactly. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Here's, here's one interesting one I read on your Instagram about not just sunlight, but even as we are going into the fall and the days are getting shorter in many parts of the world here, You talk about some lights that can help with your mood as well. Talk to me about that.

Yeah, ooh, this is a great topic. Yeah, so lighting in general, like sunlight, especially in the morning, is really, really key for so many things. When we look at, you know, our circadian rhythms are essentially run almost primarily off of light exposure. So when we know, you know, sleep is so, so important for mental health, it, you know, reduces inflammation and all these types of things. We really, really need to sleep. So starting first thing in the morning, like usually we're not thinking about sleep from the second we get up except for the fact maybe we'd like to go back to sleep. But being able to actually start the process of setting ourselves up for a good sleep at night starts from basically the moment you open your eyes. So being able to get sunlight in the morning, of course, in the summer is fantastic. But when we start to look at the winter, when most places You know, even here now, I don't know what it's like in California, but I get up around like 5:45 and it's pitch black until, you know, probably 10 after 6 or so now. So using a special type of lamp, you'll see them called either sunlight lamps or SAD lamps as well. So seasonal affective disorder lamps, they basically— the light that's in, that's used in the bulb mimics sunlight. So, for example, like the lights that are just in your house, like the standard light, doesn't have enough intensity to actually mimic sunlight. So, you have things like the lights in your house might be white light, so they might have a similar wavelength, but the intensity is not enough. So, I guess I'll come back to that in a second. But when you look at something like a SAD lamp, basically it has enough intensity, and these things are darn bright. To actually be able to be like, this is sunlight, this— your body doesn't know the difference. And so now it starts like the hormonal processes, like reducing melatonin, for example, you know, putting your cortisol up, which a lot of people don't realize that cortisol, yes, it's a stress hormone, but it also plays a really important role in waking up in the morning. So we need to actually increase our cortisol slightly when we wake up, which is sidebar why a lot of people experience anxiety in the mornings. Your cortisol goes up a little bit. And these types of things happen, but we don't get those— that the only thing that triggers that is light. So if you're waking up in the winter, it's dark, and you're experiencing feeling groggy, your energy levels are low, you have a really hard time getting going, you know, your mood might be just declining over time. Looking at getting something like a SAD lamp is really important. So like specs, I guess, if you want to look at that, there's so many of them out there now, like the beauty and the The beauty and the bad side, I guess, of things like Amazon is that there's so many products available, but you need to just watch and make sure you're getting something that's actually going to work. So 10,000 lux, L-U-X, is kind of the, the intensity or the measure of intensity that you need to look for. So 10,000 lux. And then also looking at the distance prescription that the product, you know, product guidelines should have. If they don't have a distance description like it I wouldn't get it just because the lux is one thing, but also the surface area that the light is covering is also going to make a difference. So you can get— like, the lamp I have is so ugly, so ugly, but it has a really big surface area. And so I can get 18 inches away from it and get benefits within that for the half-hour prescription. Whereas most lamps, like some of the little cutesy ones, there's some really nice ones out there. They will be within 12 inches, which 12 inches, a foot, is very, very close to your face. And that's for your half-hour exposure. So most people, like, it's not even realistic to sit with it within 12 inches of their face. So you really need to look at like what the recommendations are based on the surface area and all that kind of stuff.

Good. And what we can do is we can make sure to link to some of them in the show notes over here as well.

For sure.

Wanna move over to the topic of injuries for a little bit because quite some runners get injured, even those who are training at low intensity or those who are, like, just getting into it or those who have quite a bit of experience. Like, injuries are still quite common. So how can athletes deal with injuries without getting depressed? Basically, how, how, like, it is so common that I see athletes are in this routine. All of a sudden they get injured and they almost lose their identity and they kind of get lost. How do you deal with athletes around that?

Yeah, I think the piece you brought up there around identity is super, super important. So one of the things I work on like as a recreation therapist is, you know, starting to understand that like as much as sport is so much of who we are and part of our identity, and it can still be a part of your identity it's starting to understand that we can't solely lean on sport. And when I say sport, I don't just mean your sport. I'm talking about like, you know, if you love— if you love running, but you also like to go and play tennis or golf once in a while, that's great. And I love that. But like, if you're injured, you might not be able to do literally anything. So I start to challenge athletes to really think about partially not tying their whole identity to sport, but also expanding their recreation interests. So, you know, a lot of people really don't like hearing this, but like start exploring, you know, making art, start exploring music, start exploring writing. Like there's, of course, all these are creative things that are coming to my head at the moment. There's so many more recreation pursuits, but, you know, there's so many things that a person can do in their free time. And endurance athletes, right, like you said, we talked about earlier, we have busy schedules, we have our training routines just because it's endurance, we need to train a lot. But even finding a couple hours a week, an hour a week just to do something that isn't sport related, I don't care if you're good at it, but just even something like reading, you can take that and when you're injured, now you actually have something to do. It's not going to be frustrating because what I do see a lot of as well as somebody will come to me when they're injured and I'll say, well, What other things have you enjoyed in the past that you like to do? And they're like, oh, well, I used to really enjoy woodworking, for example, but they haven't done it in 20 years and now they suck at it and they get out there and they're so frustrated because they can't do it in the way that they want to. And then they just throw it all away and it ends up putting them in a worse place. So it's not just like having interests, it's actually like pursuing other interests outside of sports, even if it's just a little bit so that you're not going into that— you're going into it with a little bit of skill and a little bit of positive energy so that I can actually support you as opposed to pull you back. So yeah, my recommendation there is just like really, really think about what other things you like to do outside of sport. That's a big one.

Yeah, for sure. Earlier you briefly mentioned journaling. What are your thoughts on journaling? Not just for injured athletes, but just in general for athletes as part of their training journey?

Yeah, journaling's huge. There's so many different styles out there. There's like a million and one styles. So, it's hard to talk about like, you know, really specific stuff. But what I find for most athletes and most, like even when I just worked in psychiatry, one of the best styles of journaling that I see results in is just, is like, I'm blanking on the name of it right now, stream of consciousness. Stream of consciousness writing. So basically just sitting down and even if you have nothing to write, just writing, I don't know what to write, I don't know what to write, I don't know what to write until something comes out of your pen. What happens here is that we actually surpass the conscious mind and get into our subconscious so we can start to actually problem solve from a better place. We start to see different perspectives and we can actually start to challenge ourselves because what often happens for people when they do start journaling is it's kind of like, "Dear diary," and they just write out all of the things that they already are thinking about, which is great because you put it on paper and sometimes that helps to close the book, but you're just repeating the same cycle for yourself over and over and over again and you're not actually getting anywhere. So stream of consciousness really helps you to just get beyond all the stuff you've already thought about and really get into that And I think specifically for athletes, like, you know, a lot of times our sport is the time, or like when we're out training, for example, is when we start, like we, we kind of are able to access some of these moments of clarity for ourselves. Like, I mean, when I'm in the swimming pool, for whatever reason, I have these moments of like, you know, the light comes on. And so many athletes have this, but we don't have like in that moment, it's kind of a fleeting thought. So we can use journaling just to help, and that especially that stream of consciousness to help dive deeper into those little bits and pieces. So like, I actually have one of those, they're like waterproof notebooks, like geologists and things use them out in the field. But I keep one on the pool deck because I have these moments where I need to just like scribble something down quick and then keep going. And then I can come back to that with journaling. So Athletes, journaling is huge. But even so, there's that side of it. Then there's also things like gratitude journaling, for example. We talked about gratitude being like the antidote for anxiety. It's not going to be helpful if you don't practice it. It's just like your sport. If you never ran and then you signed up for an ultra, good luck. If we don't practice things like journaling or any of the stuff I've talked about today, then you know, it's not gonna be helpful for you. It's not gonna actually make, you're not gonna adapt to it. You're not gonna change to it. It's all just like training. So practicing gratitude through journaling is a big one too.

Spot on. I'm a big fan of journaling myself too. And I would almost describe it as a therapy session with yourself where you really indeed find ways to get it out of your head. Put it on the paper. I literally sat down this morning for 45 minutes. I do it every Monday morning. It's like a standard non-negotiable, and it's a great way to, to kind of start the week fresh. What happened last week? What went well? What can be improved? What are we doing this week? And yeah, one of the things you wrote on your— once again, going back to your Instagram, because you like— and I'll make sure to link to this too. But you had several great posts that I fully agree with. And one of them over here, you wrote about the importance of laughter. And laughter is quite underutilized in mental health treatment. Talk to me a little bit more about that part.

Yeah, it's— I find it so funny that you're on my Instagram because like the secret is, is I hate it and I wish I didn't have to have it. There's so much resistance And so, I'm glad people like you are finding value in what's going there. Laughter is so huge. So, coming back to the vagus nerve again, so your diaphragm or the muscle that's at the bottom of your lungs is one of the places that your vagus nerve crosses. So, in order to stimulate it, we can actually— to stimulate the vagus nerve, we can activate the diaphragm, which is going to help to put us into that rest or digest state. So, that's why deep breathing is huge, right? Because the diaphragm moves up and down. Also is something that gets the diaphragm really pumping and can stimulate the vagus nerve. So that's why it feels so good, is that we start— we actually like switch into rest or digest and come out of that stress response. So yeah, laughter is like, I think, maybe one of the most underutilized things because it's simple, but it's also really hard because I think especially as adults, we forget like kids just laugh, like kids play and giggle and do all this stuff like all the time. And we become so serious at some point in our lives where laughter just isn't really part of it anymore. And you need something very specific, like you need to watch a funny movie or you need to be with friends and like even around people, like I don't know if anybody else is like this, but if I watch a funny movie by myself, like it takes a lot to actually make me laugh out loud. So just even being aware of that and like, and including intentional things in your days where like watch stupid cat videos and actually be like, okay, I'm going to watch this and I'm going to laugh out loud. I'm not just going to be like, huh, and keep going because that's not helpful. So yeah, yeah, I'm all about the cat videos.

There you go. Yeah. And I think whatever, whatever works for you over there, right? And I feel last, last Tuesday night I went to run with a friend and we, it was just the two of us and we both had had a busy day. It was the end of the day and we started having a conversation about non-traditional running advice that we would just randomly come up with. And it went like from, it started all mellow and then it started including bananas and pickle juice and snorting this and it went like down this whole rabbit hole. And at some point We were laughing so hard that we literally had to stop running. I could not run anymore because I was literally like both hands on my knees just cracking up. And so I think it is sometimes those things. I see running with a friend as a very important component of the whole running journey. It's like some run solo, some runs with a friend, sometimes with a group, some road, some trail. I think that variety of different things is so important over there. And indeed, not taking it so serious. I see that part too with myself and with other people too sometimes of taking it so freaking serious, but a good laugh just makes you feel like a whole new human again. And it's, it's not even that you're going, it doesn't feel like you're going for a run at that point. You're just catching up with a friend and you're getting some miles in in the process, which, which is a nice way of going about it, I think.

So, yeah, totally. And like sometimes when people are really struggling like that, like it doesn't feel like anything is fun or like, and we talked about that earlier, like that lack of enjoyment and these types of things. And it sounds ridiculous, but your body doesn't know the difference between a real laugh and a fake laugh. So laughter yoga, it's so weird, but it's real. Even if you watch something, watch something that you do, you in the past have found funny and force yourself to laugh, even if it's literally just the ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, do it. Because all of a sudden your body's going to respond and you may actually start laughing. I used to have to teach laughter yoga and I hated doing it because I felt so ridiculous.

But like, no way, you actually taught it?

Yeah.

Oh man, how was that experience? That's freaking classic.

I taught it when I worked in psychiatry. It was such a weird, um, like there was just—

so tell me, how did— how does it— how does a session like that go? Because I've seen some videos like online, but how do you start a session? Are you the one starting the, the full-on belly laugh and from there on other people join you, or how does that go?

But you literally start with like stupid laughter sounds. So like, I imagine it like if you're reading a book or reading a text message and like somebody says hahaha, like, you know, they're laughing, or like ho ho ho, these types of things. So you literally just start by like making those sounds, and it usually just progresses into full-on laughter because people feel so silly. So a lot of it is like the energy behind it as well, like I think in some ways I have a unique enough personality that I can do it because I can sit in front of people shamelessly and be like, ha ha ha, you know, like, and then somebody repeats. So you basically like repeat back and forth until the whole room is laughing. Basically, it's just, it's the stupidest thing to teach. It's the coolest thing to see people responding to.

But the energy you walk out of that session, probably it's it's way different than how you walked in.

So yeah, yeah. Even if it's like one, one mark on the scale improvement like that, that's huge for a lot of clients because a lot of my clients never felt better ever.

Totally, totally. Can you share with me, because I want to be respectful of your time over here, can you share with me one story from, from someone that you have worked with? And you don't have to mention a name or anything, but I'm just curious about some transformation journeys that you have seen from athletes that were struggling to athletes coming out the other end? Like, how did that journey go and in what sort of way did you play a role in that?

Sure. Yeah, I think, I think the common thing that I see is, you know, people come in, I mean, the simplistic form of it is people come in and they're like, you know, feeling really low, they're feeling really anxious, or they've just started to notice, like a lot of people come to me and say like, I don't really know if I'm depressed or anxious, but like, My training is not going well and I'm really frustrated and I just don't feel like myself. And that's something I hear a lot, so that I don't feel like myself bit. And so basically I'll end up working with them and I think I touched on this briefly earlier, but just moving them through the method, right? So I ask them initially about consistency is the very start of the puzzle and how you have to— it's just like in your sport, consistency is king, right? Do you actually have the capacity to commit to this? And it's not a large amount of time. It can take some effort up front, but like basically at the end we come up with a routine that fits somebody's life that may be as little as 10 to 15 minutes a day. It might be an hour a day, but it brings in all of these little bits and pieces. But where— so like the committing to consistency is important and then setting themselves up with like Basically, like, and I think I briefly touched on this earlier too, that like creating spaces that are safe, creating a mental space that's safe, you know, clearing your commitments and looking at like shifting your time and getting rid of the busy, right? Because this is going to include your body that you're unsafe. So like creating safety is a really big part of it. A lot of people will see some change even at that early stage of creating safety. Like they'll just start to feel a little bit calmer. Maybe slightly more positive. But where I really see people change is when we start talking about inflammation. And so I work with people through basically like step by step, all of the areas in your life that can lead to inflammation and we start looking at reducing them. So everybody's going to be a little bit different, but kind of the standard stuff, you know, we look at getting good quality sleep, we look at starting to, you know, doing things like cold exposure and this type of stuff. And I think when I, like, one of the biggest changes I think I've seen is in the client I mentioned earlier with cold exposure. But like, when my clients start to bring inflammation down, it's just like something unlocks. The most common thing I hear is like, man, I woke up this morning and I had energy. I'm like, you know, like so many people get up in the morning and it's like drag yourself to the cup of coffee. And they're like, I didn't have to have coffee today. And I'm like, I'm cruising, it's 4 o'clock and I'm still, I'm still going. And that's, I find in the inflammation stage is where we really start to see that. Um, and, or I guess inflammation reduction stage. And just like this, just with my, like a couple clients, you know, food is a really big one. Um, when people start to feel confidence around actually eating a diet that tastes good. I think that's a big fear is that we're going to have to eat— now we're going to eat all this bland, nasty stuff. And when they— the excitement and things that I see and for somebody that's depressed, having somebody see— for me to see excitement in somebody around anything, let alone eating healthy food, is a huge change. Huge, huge change. You know, being able to actually stick to something and follow through on something that isn't training is another thing that like a lot of my clients will start to see when they start to, you know, when that inflammation drops and their energy levels start to come back. So there's just a lot like a lot of things that people that feeling like themselves, that feeling energized, feeling like vibrant again is probably like it doesn't seem like a thing that that you would expect per se, like right away, but it's something that my clients really do have a big, a big change, I think, relatively quickly, which is pretty cool once you just start like tweaking the pieces.

Spot on. And I think, I think to add to that, it really is, if you want to improve as an athlete and you're unhealthy, it is fix your health first, fix your your, your getting the right mindset, get the, get the body right. And from there, the running performance eventually will follow. Too many athletes indeed try to fast-track and just focus on the running performance. Yet it's only going to decline more and more in the short term when you focus on it and you train more and harder. Like, yeah, you might see a short-term improvement, but that's short-term. What we care about is setting yourself up for long-term success as an athlete, like longevity in the sport, having joy in it, not burning out. And that starts indeed with getting your body and mind in the right place there.

So yeah, yeah. And I think the cool thing too, like when I very first started health coaching, like I wanted to work with athletes, so I started doing sport performance initially. I think I was personally, I think, too burnt out from working in psychiatry to even consider taking on mental health again, even though I love it. Now I'm back. But almost all of the stuff I did when I worked on sport performance from this body perspective is almost identical to the stuff that I worked on, I work on now with athletes and mental health, like inflammation and sport performance. So, the cool thing is that it's kind of like you get two things at once. You want to improve as an athlete and that's great, but you can't think of your mental health as being this isolated thing that isn't going to improve your performance because when you start addressing all of the underlying issues in your body, your sport performance is going to go up substantially. So, it's cool because you get kind of like— and sometimes that's how we have to talk athletes into looking at their mental health is that if you fix it from the root, you are actually going to see improvements in your sport and your times and your paces and all this kind of stuff is just going to come without any technically any extra physical effort.

Totally. Sometimes we come across athletes who feel excited to race. They have their race and afterwards they feel down. They feel whether it's depressed, they just feel kind of lost. Do you have any advice for those types of athletes?

Yeah. So basically when we're training for a race, we're getting a lot of dopamine hits. This is something that's being talked about a lot lately just in the kind of the general health health world. But we're getting it like every day. When you have a goal and you do something that goes towards that goal, you get stronger, you get faster, and then you race, you're getting all these dopamine hits. So when you pull that, that goal away, now there's nothing left for you to get dopamine hits off of. So the recommendation around that is to start to do things that actually give you dopamine naturally, right? So, you know, looking at things like we talked about, getting outside in the morning, that's huge. Getting out in nature is another really big one. All of those vagus nerve stimulation techniques come back here again. And even just doing things like looking at reducing your stress, like finding another goal for yourself. It might not be sport related, but anything that gives you a goal. So for example, stress, like learning how to manage your stress can give you kind of these tangible things that you're working towards. So it's finding it's finding other things that are actually going to give you that same dopamine hit that you're looking for, which is why you often fall into that kind of post-race blues, but not in a sport way. So yeah, have other goals in life too.

It really is. I'm glad you bring that up because as exciting as your endurance journey is, there's, there's a lot of other things we can get joy out of too. Sometimes it is tricky because we only have so many hours in the day. Mm-hmm. But even, yeah, even having a few other things going on that you can spend time and energy on is, is definitely helpful there.

Yeah.

Or you just sign up for another race or is that a good thing?

Yeah, that too. Start, just keep going. Just keep going. Yeah, well, and even like you— yeah, like finding that little bits of joy, like it doesn't have to take extra time. Like even your experience you experienced this morning, like find those moments in your day. Like there's joy around us all the time. Just like open your eyes and be aware of it. And that in itself is going to give you a dopamine hit too.

Totally. Sometimes just slowing down and smelling the flowers, there's a lot to it for sure.

Literally.

Two last questions over here. Where can people find out more about you and about some of the coaching that you offer?

Yeah, the best place probably is my website or my Instagram. So my website is IgniteMyHealth.ca and my social media or my Instagram handle is Ignite Health Coaching, @IgniteHealthCoaching. So I do post there. I also probably my most frequent, like if you're looking for more information delivery, I guess. I do have a weekly newsletter that I put out, and I actually, like, I really try to keep that information, like, as much of my information as I can to that community, as opposed to posting it into social media and stuff. So, you can connect to that if you actually go to my social media, into my link in bio. Yes, exactly. Go to my Linktree, and there is a freebie there that is a mental morning mental health routine. If you check that out, then that'll put you into my email list and you'll get all kinds of stuff every week with mental health and sport performance tips.

Great. And I'll make sure to link to that as well. Do you have any closing thoughts for athletes? Like, we, we have discovered and discussed a lot already over here, but do you have any closing thoughts with advice for athletes not only looking to become stronger, healthier, but also happier? Athlete?

Yeah, I think start to just really see your mental health as part of the whole puzzle. Like, it's, it's one and all with all of your goals in life, whether that's sport-related goals, life-related goals. And like, taking care of that is going to pay off immensely. So, you know, it's, it's going to contribute to everything that you want to achieve in your life. So taking care of it now instead of addressing it, you know, when it when it's, when you're like deep in the hole, or maybe you are deep there already, you know, taking care of it now is gonna, is gonna get you way farther than just staying where you're at. So take it seriously, but don't be too serious.

Exactly. And if you need to, just go for a good, good laughing session indeed. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Jennifer, thank you so much. Really appreciate it and wish you all all the best on your athletic journey and on your mental health work-related journey here as well. This is really an exciting conversation. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

Thanks so much for listening. I think that was a very important conversation to have, and I didn't want to make it too light because it was definitely important. But I also feel sometimes humor plays an important role over there. But if you are experiencing significant mental challenges and struggles, I highly urge you to seek out help either from a friend, a family member, or professional help as well. Know that you're loved. Know that you— there are people there for you. And I just want to make that clear in this outro as well. I would love to hear from you. What was your favorite lesson, takeaway, or quote from this episode? Please let me know in the comments on YouTube. And we're going to give away a few different prizes for those commenting in there. If you would like to find out more about my running coaching program, the Personal Best Program, check out pbprogram.com. This is for runners of all levels, from 5K to the marathon and ultramarathon, from beginners to advanced, and just those who are looking for some additional guidance. We have different training schedules over there. We have a supportive group of community members of all different levels. We have other personal best coaches. I'm available in that group daily to answer questions too. So yeah, if you would like some additional guidance and really feel confident about your training and racing, check out pbprogram.com. I'm off to Europe soon for the Berlin Marathon and visiting family in Amsterdam. Um, might see some of you at the Shakeout Run in Berlin the day before the marathon. Or maybe otherwise on the side of the course or on the course. Anyways, have fun out there on your runs, and we'll be back soon for many more additional episodes. Have a good one, bye now!