PNTV: The Joy of Movement by Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D. (#400)

You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson. More wisdom in less time.

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to Philosopher's Notes tv. Today we've got another great book. I wish I could hold this one up. It's one of my absolute favorite books of all time. My new number one is as it relates to movement and exercise. The Joy of movement by Kelly McGonigal. The joy of Movement. How exercise helps us find happiness, hope, connection and courage. Philosopher's note distilling it. This is the number one book I now recommend on the science of movement and exercise. It's awesome. Kelly McGonigal is one of my favorite writers and teachers. We featured two of her other books called one called the Willpower Instinct and then another called the Upside of Stress, both of which are great kind of adaptations of the positive psychology, the science of flourishing, in a really well written, well told, practical manner. So when I heard about this book, I think Alexandra got it for me. And the reason why I don't have the book to hold up is that we're still recreating our library. So I've got a ton of books still in dozens of boxes. I went through. I'm looking for them and I think Alexander took this one. Then it wound up in some weird box. But this book, I knew it would be good, but I didn't know it would be this good. If you want to understand the science of why exercise is so powerful, check it out. We usually recommend, like one of the best books in each of our fundamentals for our optimized coaches. Right. So Eating, moving, sleeping, breathing, focusing, celebrating, prospering. We recommend one book for each of those, why We Sleep for Sleeping, Food Fix, Mark Hyman's great new book for eating. This book for moving. Now we'll talk about a bit more, but we'll go straight in. That's the prelude. Thank you, Kelly, for another great book. All right. Hope Molecules. Well, first I want to make this point. This is what I was going to say. When we think about moving our bodies, you want to know, this book is not called the Joy of Exercise. It's called the Joy of Movement. So Katie Bowman, another great teacher in the movement kind of world, says, look, you got to draw two circles. That circle is movement, that circle is exercise. So movement transcends and includes exercise. It's an important distinction because exercise, although it's very important we're going to talk about it, is not what this book is about per se. It's moving your body more and more often throughout the day. In whatever means give you the most joy, whether that's dancing or traditional running or walking is a huge way to boost your well being, etc. So with that said, get this Hope Molecules. I'm going to read you a passage from the book in a moment. But first I often like to quote John Ratey, who wrote a great book called Spark. Now, John is a psychiatrist out of Dr. Rady, I should say, is a psychiatrist out of Harvard. We've interviewed him a couple times and featured Spark and Go Wild. Now, he says that exercise, when you exercise, it's like taking a little bit of Ritalin and a little bit of Prozac. It focuses your mind and it boosts your mood. It's powerful. I'm always trying to sell virtuous living and fundamentals, et cetera. That's a powerful thing to think about. Talban Chauhar, another guy out of Harvard who taught two of the largest classes in Harvard's history on positive psychology and leadership, who also is part of our guest faculty luminary for the Optimized Coach program. One of my favorite people and a new friend. Amazing human. He says not exercising is like taking a depressant. Imagine that today I'm not going to exercise, so I'm going to pop open a can of depressants and I'm going to take a pill or a bottle of depressants. I'm going to take a depressing pill. That's how powerful it is. And that's how he's framed it. Now Kelly connects that to some deep, rigorous science. And she says this. She says physical activity. Well, let me start at the beginning of this quote. This is the first idea I cover in the note. She says, one of the first things I discovered is that the most common explanation of why exercise makes us happy is far too simplistic. The psychological effects of movement cannot be reduced to an endorphin rush. Physical activity influences many other brain chemicals, including those that give you energy, alleviate worry and help you bond with others. It reduces inflammation in the brain, which over time can protect against depression, anxiety and loneliness. Regular exercise also does a ton of other things. And she says the mind altering effects of exercise are even embedded in your musculature. During physical activity, muscles secrete hormones into your bloodstream that make your brain more resilient to stress. And finally, she says, scientists call those molecules hope molecules. Isn't that awesome? Scientists have actually called the molecules that are released when you exercise and move your body moderately to vigorously hope molecules. It's just amazing. It Made me think of the chat we had regarding another fundamental. If you recall, we said that sleep is like a bridge between despair and hope. A good night of sleep is like walking over a bridge from despair to hope. And it goes both ways. You get a bad night of sleep, you go the wrong direction. So as I was reflecting on this and preparing for this, I thought, you know what? We need to run over that bridge. We need to run over the bridge, give ourselves the hope molecules from a good night of sleep and moving our bodies. Then she says, looking at the evidence, it's hard not to conclude that our entire physiology was engineered to reward us for moving. And she talks about all the reasons why. Then she says, quoting a neuroscientist named Daniel Wolpert, the entire purpose of the human brain is to produce movement. It's a powerful statement. Movement is the only way we have of interacting with the world. Then Kelly says, this is why our biology includes so many ways to reward moving. At the most fundamental fundamental level, rewarding movement is how your brain and body encourage you to participate in life. If you are willing to move, your muscles will give you hope. You, your brain will orchestrate pleasure, and your entire physiology will adjust to help you find the energy, purpose and courage to keep going. End quote. Awesome. All right. Hope molecules are pretty awesome. Ritalin, Prozac. It's as effective as Zoloft in reducing depression in many studies. And this is why. Energy. To draw another thing up here. Energy. Where zest makes its way onto our virtue compass. We've talked about the four cardinal virtues. Wisdom, self mastery, courage, and love. Check out our prior episodes for more on that. Then we talk about hope, gratitude, curiosity, and then zest. This is the little virtue compass that we have. You can check out a plus one we'll link to for more on this as well. But zest is actually. Energy is actually the number one virtue most highly correlated with your flourishing. And it's so exciting to see the connection. Hope is kind of tied for second as one of the top three virtues science says are most highly correlated with you rocking it and feeling good. Energy or zest, Hope and gratitude. That's kind of our top three. As it turns out, we're going to feature Gratitude works in two days. So check that one out By Robert Emmons. That's our first long idea. Run over the bridge. 5649. Can you guess what that's related to? What do you think? If you've read the note, you know the answer. Or if you've read the Book, you know the answer. 5649. Researchers have discovered that that's the threshold for a step count, below which you're at a greater risk for anxiety and depression. Think about that for a moment. If you get less than 5,640. 49. I love the precision steps a day. You are more vulnerable to anxiety and depression. Of course, it's a sliding spectrum, but that's kind of the number they pegged. And guess how many steps the average American gets. An average international person. You're not much better. The Average American gets 4,774. Now, my math tells me that that's less than the number required to put ourselves in a position to avoid getting anxiety and depression. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why so many of us are anxious and depressed. We're simply not moving our bodies enough in a simple way. Walking. We're not talking about hitting the gym like a hardcore maniac for an hour or two a day. Simply getting over 5,649 steps is a huge practice, which is why our coaches in our program, if they want to get certified, then they need to walk 10,000 steps a day. 10,000 steps a day. Or move their bodies for 30 minutes kind of continuously. Now I have fun going a little bit harder. I do 4,250 steps plus a day, which over seven days leads to about 100,000 steps a week. That's kind of my fun game. Let me look right now.

I'll see what my average is over the last.

Give me a moment. My soon toe watch will tell us. I've walked 9,222 steps so far. It's 11:20am See the average so far? Well, the average over the last seven days is 17,162 steps. Nice. Little higher than normal. I've had some good 20,000 steps days. But back to you. How many steps are you walking per day? Couple things to know. One, do you want to be over this threshold? Are you? And two, simply measuring it. And I encourage you to get a Fitbit or a pedometer or something other than your smartphone. We don't want to be tethered to our smartphone all day, every day. Now, of course, the Android makers and the iPhone makers want you to be tethered so they've got all the apps to do everything. But we want you to find ways to disconnect from technology while moving is a good way. Typically, unless you're going to listen to a podcast, awesome. Go crush it. But by simply measuring your number of steps. Research shows you'll walk at least a mile more around a mile more. What you measure improves. When you shine the spotlight of your attention on something, you tend to optimize it. So pay attention to your steps. Make sure you're over that threshold. The third idea here is an awesome one. Collective effervescence, she calls it. She talks about euphoric self transcendence. Effervescence is such a cool word. Isn't that effervescence bubbling up? There's just this joy that happens when we move together. And Kelly, this book, she talks about how often she was brought to tears as she interviewed different people. And I was brought to tears so many times reading the inspirational stories. And as it turns out, I read this book right after we had our optimized coach Class one graduation. Now, at that graduation weekend. Friday, Saturday, Sunday. On Saturday, we all did a Spartan race together. And I've mentioned this in different contexts, but over 500 of us did a Spartan race together. And I'm reading this book and I'm thinking, I know exactly what she means by this idea of collective effervescence. When you come together and you move together, you feel this transcendent, euphoric sense of connection. So we're going to take a rare break here. I Never edit these PNTVs. If you notice every single one of them, we're approaching 400 of them is one take. I think I may have had one edit before one take. So I just don't edit it. Part of it is just let me give you the best I got and that's it. Boom. Let's go. But here we're going to take a break, and I'm going to have our film team put in the starting line of our team Optimized Spartan Race, because you will feel the collective effervescence in just a few seconds. But check it out, then we'll come back.

I'm excited about the Spartan Race with this awesome, optimized team.

I'm excited. Bring it up. How awesome was that? You can feel it. I just want to dance every single time I watch that little video. That's collective effervescence. Now that's the starting line, and we've got another video I'll share with you from the finish line and throughout at the end of this session. But collective effervescence, if you can move with others, get on it. I'm filming this during COVID which makes it even more challenging to connect with one another, et cetera. But find ways to get your bubbly nature on. And if you're feeling it, come join us at our next team optimized Spartan race. We will have over 1,000 people is the goal. Now I'm pretty excited about hammering that when Covid permits the largest team in Spartan history. I'm telling you, it's so fun to have a sea of blue T shirts of people all supporting one another and giving their best. Which leads us to the next idea. How we endure. How we endure. So Kelly is a great combination of Stanford based scientist and academic and kind of professor and teacher and all that, and a great storyteller and a yoga teacher and meditation teacher, et cetera. But she tells the great story of Derek Redmond and we'll link to that as well. You can watch this and I highly recommend you do. One of the greatest moments in Olympic History, 1992. Derek Redmond is one of the elite sprinters in the world. In 1988, he got injured and he couldn't participate in the Olympics. So now Here he is, 1992. It's his big chance. He's favored to do really, really well. Shows up at the starting line, he. He bursts off. He's doing great. And something like 18 or 15 seconds into the race, bah. You see him just crippled and fall to the ground. And he says later that it felt like he got shot in the back of the leg. His hamstring literally nearly detached, or if it did, may have actually detached and just pop. Hamstring's gone. He's on the ground. And then Kelly tells the story. And you can watch this happen. He sits there and you can just tell he's in unbelievable pain. You can tell he's in unbelievable physical pain and psychological pain that he just, he just trained for four years, got injured, trained for another four years. He's finally ready. He's there and he can't finish the race. You can just feel the unbelievable pain, right? He gets up and he starts hobbling on one leg, right? And he's just wearing it. And then all of a sudden, you see from the stands, a man runs down, breaks through the security to run onto the track. I get emotional just thinking about that. And you see the security guards trying to stop him. He brushes him off and you can see that he's yelling, I'm his father. Oh, jeez. And Derek Redmond's dad comes onto the track, puts his arm around his son who balls into his chest, and he carries him over the finish line with his son, telling him to be proud and to stand up tall and Kelly tells us that's how we endure. We endure together. We need to come together and support one another in context like this, in events like what we did together in our day to day lives. That is how we endure. When we did the Spartan race together, you know, there were a very broad range of skill sets. We had one guy who would have won the whole race if he hadn't stopped to help a bunch of people. He got second place by like a few seconds. He's like, well, shoot, if I would have known, I would have won. I might have gone just a little bit harder. Right? So very elite. We have people that won, their age groups, et cetera. And then we had people that literally we had the last finisher, we had the person that finished last with a group of optimizers. But we went through it together as a team because we endured together. And we had a mantra of teamwork makes the dream work. And if you needed help over an obstacle, you got help going over an obstacle. You had to do some burpees. We all chipped in.

We did it together.

Gives me tears again. So collective effervescence, how we endure via the joy of movement leads us to one of the chapters. One of the final chapters in the book was called Overcoming Obstacles. And I couldn't believe it that Kelly used obstacle course racing as a case study in all the ideas from her book. Now, that's remarkable for a number of reasons. Of course, I'm all in. What I do these days is Spartan races. That's kind of my thing, right? And we have our coaches. They've got to do a Spartan race to graduate. And I actually, before I read this book, used the Spartan race as the perfect metaphor in my little lecture prep talk where I talked about the fact that an obstacle course race is literally the perfect demonstration of how to cultivate the top two virtues that science says are what it's all about. So zest, of course, energy and hope. So I'm going to quickly walk you through that. Let's see if we can find some room on this board. So an important thing to know, we're going to talk a lot about the science of hope in these sessions. It's hope molecules. It is one of the top virtues that we need to cultivate and you can learn it. And science says there are three aspects to hope. One, you basically need to have a target or a goal, right? Goal would actually be more appropriate there, but we'll say target, right? And then you need to have a sense of agency. So you need to believe Your future is going to be better than your present. You have a goal and you need to believe you have the agency or the self efficacy to make it happen or the personal power, whatever you want to call it, then you need to have a plan to get it. And you need to be willing to take multiple pathways. They call that pathways. So goal, agency, Pathways. Right. One, two, three. Now, what's amazing is you can break down the Spartan race via this exact model. So the Spartan race has a finish line. You have a very, very clear target, which is the finish line. But most people, the reason why they don't get to the finish line is because they don't get to the starting line. They don't have agency. They have a story in their heads about why they can't do something. Let me, where do I need to go here? They have a story in their heads about why they can't do something. So the number one obstacle in a Spartan race is actually getting to the starting line and getting over the obstacle of the story you're telling yourself about why you can't do something. And we've had so many of our coaches say, I almost didn't sign up for your program because of that requirement. And we put an asterisk by it and say, look, if this truly isn't your thing, then do something else that's similar to it. But those who pushed through it said their life completely changed. And Joe Decenta, the founder of Spartan race, says in his tagline for Spartan you'll know at the finish line. That's their tagline. You'll know at the finish line. What will you know? You'll know that there are a lot of other things in your life that weren't as hard as you thought or that you could have done if you had simply showed up and got to the starting line. So starting line requires agency to get to the finish line and then pathways. I mean, a Spartan race, you're paying to go through obstacles. So hope requires a goal, agency, and the willingness to go through obstacles. So it is literally the Spartan race, the perfect metaphor to bring all of our wisdom home. And then again, remember, zest and hope are two of our most important virtues. And there's no more powerful way to combine those two than to go crush a Spartan race. So that's my sales pitch for Spartan races, The science of Spartans and why they're awesome. And for this book, the joy of movement. Again, Kelly McGonigal is fantastic. Check out this book. Check out the willpower, instinct. Check out the upside of Stress. We have interviews and PNTVs on the first two. Looking to interview Kelly for this one as well soon. Thank you again, Kelly. And there you go. What's one idea from this that you can take and apply to your life today? Moving from theory to practice to mastery, which is what our work together is all about. So we can go from Optimize. Remember, it means Latin. Optimus equals the best version of you expressed today heroically. So. So before we go, we're going to have one more video at the end here. And this video is a little compilation of stories that our film genius and creative director Ben put together celebrating the Spartan race we did together. So we kind of had the first collective effervescence. Check out the second one. And then again, you can check out all we're doing at Optimize Me. We've got free stuff, we've got a free two week trial, 600 philosopher's notes, including dozens and dozens on the science of positive psychology, energy, work, love, everything else. And then of course, Optymyze Coach at Optimize Me Coach. But enjoy this video and more importantly, enjoy today. Make today awesome. See you tomorrow.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Optimize with Brian Johnson. To find out more, go to Optimize Me.

Hey guys, this is Bry.

Hope you enjoyed that video. We have a lot of people ask us what Optymyze is all about. So I just wanted to give you a super quick tour of our site, tell you what we do. We do two primary things. We have an Optimize core membership and we have an Optimize Coach certification program for people that want to go from theory to practice to mastery. So the core membership is basically 10 bucks a month depending on whether you do monthly or annual. And you get instant access to over 500, 200 philosopher's notes, the six page PDF, you know, 25 minute or so MP3 recordings of these great books. And then you get over a thousand optimized plus ones, 50 optimal living 101 masterclasses, etc. And we have a free trial the team set up, get it, you know, free for 14 days and then go from there if you like it. So we're blessed to have a lot of people who subscribe to this, including some of my friends who happen to be some world class peak performance gurus like Talban Shahar, who taught the two of the largest classes in Harvard's history. Starts every day with Optimize. Ben Greenfield friend and coach Optimizes, bar none. My go to source for taking A deep, efficient dive into some of the world's best books via the philosopher's notes. It's an indispensable resource.

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