3 Proven Ways to Reduce Anxiety and Depression + Boost Your Mood Daily
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Prioritizing mental health is essential for a fulfilling life. It influences our emotions, thoughts, and behaviors, shaping our relationships, work productivity, and overall well-being. That’s why in this episode of the Embrace Your Real Podcast, we will delve into the science behind three underrated tools that can have a profound impact on our mental health and well-being.
What I discuss:
Exercise
Connect with others.
Get enough sleep.
Links mentioned in the episode:
Episode 62 - 10 Things on My Mental Health Checklist
If you want more from me, be sure to check out...
Instagram: @embraceyourreal | @movementwithjulie
Movement With Julie | App: https://sale.movementwithjulie.com/
Macro Counting Made Simple: https://www.macrocountingmadesimple.com/
Website: www.juliealedbetter.com
Free e-book: www.juliealedbetter.com/free-ebook
Amazon Storefront: https://www.amazon.com/shop/influencer-6bda1ca8?ref=cm_sw_em_r_inf_pub_influencer-6bda1ca8_dp_DgsIam9salgfi
Transcript:
[00:00:00] Hey. Hey, beautiful human. Can I steal 5 minutes of your time? I have something super important to share with you, but I promise I'll be really quick. You're listening to my weekly bonus episode of Embrace Your Real with Me, Julie Ledbetter. I'm about to give you a quick tip for building your confidence, honoring your body, and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned. If you're ready to embrace your real. Let's get it. Let's go. [00:00:22][22.7]
[00:00:31] Hello and welcome back to another bonus episode on the Embrace Roll podcast. Three proven ways to reduce anxiety and depression and boost your mood daily. So if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you know that I talk to you straight. Like I oftentimes don't get into the very nitty gritty science. And I know a lot of you guys say, Thank you so much. You make it easy to understand more applicable to daily life. And honestly, the reason that I share the way that I do is because that's how I learn. I do love learning the why behind things, and I think there's a time and place for that. But I also love like simplifying things because sometimes I think if you go so nitty gritty, you lose the overall concept and then you just walk away being like, okay, well I just learned a bunch of like, you know, studies and scientific words and all these things, but I don't really, like, understand the concept. [00:01:20][48.9]
[00:01:21] And so that's why I make it a point to try to make things as simple as possible for you, not only in just kind of the approach that I take on my podcast, but also like in my macro accounting meets simple online academy, like hence simple like we try to make a complicated topic simple and easy and digestible for you. But I also do think that there is a time and place to understand kind of the science behind something and look at the studies that have been done in a particular area. I think that it can be a powerful way to get ourselves to actually execute on something. [00:01:55][33.4]
[00:01:55] And so, I mean, if you think about it like we hear that we need to do the same things over and over again, and it might seem very cliche, but is it actually making a dent in our results or can we take a different approach or something that adds on to what we've been, you know, listening to to help us actually get into action? [00:02:16][21.4]
[00:02:17] And so that's why in today's episode, I really kind of want to explore three very underrated tools that we have available to us every single day that can really make a profound impact on not only our mental health, but I kind of want to share like the science and the studies done to prove it. So my goal to you and today's bonus episode is to just show you how powerful these three simple habits can be and how they can make such a difference in your overall mental health and well-being. [00:02:44][27.4]
[00:02:45] Before we dive in, though, I wanted to share this review. It comes from Nikki of vapes or VIPs. VIPs. She gave a five star review and said, Wow, only a week in and I am hooked. I usually listen to music during my workout and now I don't turn off embrace or ill. This helps me with my self, my business and my family life. Thank you, Julie, for helping my confidence. [00:03:04][19.1]
[00:03:05] I'm so grateful. I'm so thankful that you made the switch from music to podcast. I made that switch a while ago and I can just tell you like, you know, there's definitely some days that I am like, I don't want to listen to a podcast, I just want to listen to my music. But I love when I'm able to move my body and also learn something. It's just there's something about it that's so inspiring to me. So I'm grateful that you found this podcast. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to send this review and it really does help us out so, so much. Okay, so let's dive into the three proven ways to reduce anxiety and depression and boost your mood daily. [00:03:40][34.6]
[00:03:40] Number one exercise, you guys, you are listening to Embrace Your Real podcast. I tell you all the time to honor your body with movement, but I kind of want to share, like even like the nitty gritty. I ready to get a little nerdy with me. [00:03:55][14.8]
[00:03:55] Often times on days or periods of time where we feel anxious, we feel depressed, or just in like a low mood. Exercise really is the last thing that we want to do. But when you exercise, your body releases endorphins, which have mood boosting effects, which means that exercise is exactly what you need when your body is feeling this way. [00:04:15][19.7]
[00:04:15] For those of you who kind of want to understand the science behind this, the nitty gritty on how exercise improves your mood. Okay, so endorphins work by binding to opioid receptors in your brain, which reduce the perception of pain and promote feelings of well-being. There's actually studies done to prove this. [00:04:33][18.0]
[00:04:33] So in one study published in the Mental Health and Physical Activity, researchers found that people who exercise for 30 minutes three times a week for 12 weeks had significantly lower levels of depression and anxiety than those who did not exercise. Another study published in The Lancet Psychiatry found that people who exercise for at least 150 minutes per week had a 31% lower risk of developing depression over the next ten years than those who did not exercise. And lastly, a third study published in the PLOS One found that exercise can be as effective as medication for treating mild to moderate depression. [00:05:16][43.1]
[00:05:17] Now, I want to kind of put a caveat, a note on this. I want to note that I'm not a doctor. I'm not giving you advice to get off your medicine if you're currently on it. But. There are so many studies to back this up. These are just three. I mean, there are countless thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of studies to show the effects that exercise has on our physical bodies. We our bodies that are not meant to be stagnant. We are bodies that are created to move. God created us to have limbs. God created us have lungs. He created all different forms of movement. And it's amazing to see the positive effect that exercise can have on us in so many different ways. But in particular, our mental health is freaking awesome. [00:06:00][43.2]
[00:06:01] So the next time that you're feeling off, you kind of want to skip your workout. Remember these studies and use it as motivation to get yourself to move your body. Remember, movement is exercise. I'm not going to discriminate on movement and you shouldn't either. Even going for a walk, doing some like Pilates, doing some stretching, mild resistance training where you're not even pushing yourself to the max. This is going to be way more beneficial than skipping your workout altogether. [00:06:24][22.6]
[00:06:24] Laying on the couch. Yes, it might give you short term satisfaction, but getting your body moving, that's what's going to be beneficial to you and your long term well-being. [00:06:34][9.5]
[00:06:35] Number two, connect with others. So again, on the days or periods of time where you're just feeling ultralow, making any social interactions can feel like the absolute last thing that you want to do. But again, this is the very thing that you need to do in order to dig yourself out of the hole that you're stuck in. [00:06:51][16.1]
[00:06:51] When we interact with others, we release oxytocin, which is a hormone that has mood boosting effects. So there is actually a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology that found that people who have stronger social ties were less likely to experience depression and anxiety. [00:07:09][17.8]
[00:07:10] So this study looked at the data from over 300,000 people and found that those with the strongest social ties were 50% less likely to develop depression and 30% less likely to develop anxiety over a ten year period. Another study published in the PLOS One found that people who had regular social interactions had lower levels of stress, hormones and inflammation. That's pretty crazy like that in and of itself. I say this all the time just because I'm a faith believer and I believe that God created us for to have community with other people. I mean, like that is the whole point of life is, you know, what's the point if you're just me living it alone? But it's so crazy to see like that these actual fundamental truths that I read about on a daily and weekly basis in the Bible are actually like, they're proven right. [00:08:02][52.2]
[00:08:02] Like, this study is literally showing that people who have regular social interactions have less stress hormones and inflammation, like you have a physiological benefit to being around people. And this study, which looked at data from over 1000 people, found that those who have the most social interactions have lower levels of stress hormone cortisol and lower levels of inflammation. Like, that's so, so crazy. This all goes to show that when we are around people that we care about, when we feel supported, we are less stressed. It fuels our self-esteem. It makes us feel validated, loved, respected, heard, and also it gives us a sense of purpose. When we feel these things, it helps us move past these negative feelings that we've been having and we've been stuck in. And when we spend time with others, we learn about their experiences, we learn about their perspective, which can help us to see the world in a new light. We really zoom out and realize that we're not alone and we're not the only ones with issues or stressors in our life, and we can really lean on our community for that support to get through it. [00:09:07][64.8]
[00:09:07] Plus, it also helps us to look at the bigger picture rather than continuing to hyper focus on the thing that's causing our bad mood, our anxiety or our depression. [00:09:16][8.8]
[00:09:17] And lastly, number three, get enough sleep. I got to put a caveat here. If you're in a season of life where you're a mom and you are, you have an infant, you have a toddler, you have a kid that's not, you know, just struggling with sleep. I mean, give yourself grace. Do what you can with what you have. But I just want to bring this up because it is so important and there are so many studies that have been shown that sleep is directly correlated with anxiety and depression and your mood. And when we're sleep deprived, we're more likely to experience irritability, anxiety, depression, and it makes us more stressed than we would otherwise. And it can make us harder to cope with the stress that we have, like the daily stressors that we go through throughout the day. Like things can be they can blow up to this ridiculous thing that shouldn't be as crazy as it is, but because we're sleep deprived, it blows up into this big thing in our mind. [00:10:12][55.7]
[00:10:13] There's been a number of studies to show that there's a link between sleep and mood and stress and depression. So for example, there a study published in the journal Sleep that found that people who get less than 7 hours of sleep per night. We're more likely to report symptoms of depression than those who got 7 hours of sleep or more per night. [00:10:32][18.9]
[00:10:33] Another study that was published in the psychosomatic medicine found that sleep deprivation can lead to increased levels of stress hormones such as cortisol and cortisol increase too much. Cortisol is known to have negative effects on our mood, which can contribute to the development of depression. And lastly, there was another study that was published in a journal called Depression and Anxiety that found that sleep deprivation can actually worsen symptoms of depression in people who already have the condition. [00:11:01][28.9]
[00:11:02] So if this didn't give you the motivation to get more sleep, I hope that this gives you the motivation now, because all in all, really increasing your mood and reducing your feelings of anxiety and depression. It can really be, I don't want to say cured because all of us are coming at this with so many different backgrounds. And again, I want to mention, I'm not a doctor, so I'm not saying to get off your medicine and just say, Oh, well, you know, I listen to a podcast that just said I need to get more sleep or I need to move. Your doctor knows you base your doctors able to look at all of your labs and all of your history and all those things, but these things can really aid so, so much. And I know that these are common things that we hear, but just having the studies to back it up, I don't know. In my mind, I feel like sometimes that's all I need. I need that confirmation of like, Oh dang, there actually are scientific studies to prove this. Like, people have taken years and months to look at people and to study the ways that people, you know, their lives are and their mental health and how that directly correlates or doesn't correlate with things. [00:12:06][63.9]
[00:12:06] So let me recap what those three things are that I talked about in today's episode. Number one, move your body daily. Make it a habit to just move your body. Think about this. I am going to honor my body with movement. Remember, movement is not just a workout. It can be any form of movement. Number two call a loved one me a friend for coffee, join a book club, go to pilates, join a group at church, do something that puts you in a more social situation. And yes, there are so many groups that you can get involved in online. But I want to encourage you that face to face interaction is so, so crucial. Try to do that daily if you are feeling low and obviously, you know, being around it, being in all these different clubs like that might not be as realistic, but just make it a point to try so hard to be intentional with face time and with scheduling these things. [00:13:00][54.0]
[00:13:01] And lastly, get more sleep. I need you to take your sleep seriously. Find out what changes need to be made in terms of your sleep quality. If this is a season of life that you can focus on that because I'm telling you, when you are able to get an adequate amount of not just sleep but quality sleep, I'm talking REM sleep, deep sleep, really. I've been really nerding out on like sleep. I talked about this in my episode on Monday, but like the ordering, this is not sponsored, by the way, but the offering has really helped give me so much more data in terms of my sleep. Like I knew that I slept most nights I slept enough, but I didn't realize the quality of my sleep. And so just really biohacking that it can give you so much more information. But I need you to take your sleep seriously. [00:13:47][45.9]
[00:13:47] So if that's compromising and only watching one episode versus three episodes of Netflix, I need you to do that for not just your physical health, but your mental health as well. If you want more ways that I personally love to boost my mental health, I need you to check out episode 62, kind of an O.G. episode, but it's a great episode. It's called Ten Things on My Mental Health Checklist. I will link it in the show notes that you can easily go tune into that, but I hope that this helped you. I hope that this gave you, again, just kind of some of that data. I try to simplify things and of course, I'm going to you know, most of my episodes are going to trying to be as simple as possible without simplifying too much that I can give you kind of like the background of things. [00:14:31][43.5]
[00:14:31] But I also think, again, just like I mentioned earlier, having some of those studies and recognizing that people have spent years and decades studying people, it can bring a common thing that we hear so often, such as just get better sleep or just exercise. It can bring it into a new light, which can make it a little bit more real in your life. So I hope that you enjoy today's episode. If you have a friend, a coworker, someone in your life that you feel like would really benefit from this specific episode, access that you share it out with them. You can copy the link, send it to them in a text message. You can also screenshot this in posted up on your story. I love you so much. I mean it and I'll talk to you the next one. [00:15:06][35.0]
[00:15:15] All right, sister. That's all I got for you today. But I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you are not already following me on the gram, be sure to do so. Julie. A Ledbetter. Yes. It's with an A in the middle for that daily post workout real talk, healthy tips and tricks, and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check. The second thing, be sure to subscribe to Apple Podcasts to never miss an episode. Thank you so much for joining me. It means the absolute world. And I'm going to leave you with one last thought. The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface. So go out there and embrace your real because you're worth it. [00:15:15]