The Body

00;00;03;25 - 00;00;33;27
Daniel Anderson
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Words of Wellness, the podcast where we consider the ways people think, speak and write about wellness. I'm Daniel Anderson and we're coming to you from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Today, we're going to be talking about wellness and the body. And I have four guests with me. I'm going to go ahead and let them introduce themselves now.

00;00;35;12 - 00;00;36;01
Tehya
I'm Tehya.

00;00;36;17 - 00;00;37;06
Yash
I'm Yash.

00;00;37;21 - 00;00;37;28
Pranav
I'm Pranav.

00;00;37;29 - 00;00;38;28
Jake
I'm Jake.

00;00;40;00 - 00;00;59;20
Daniel Anderson
Fantastic. So the body is a very large topic. One thing we could start with, when we think of our body, we think of the movements that we go through, the kind of physicality of our body. And you have been studying this topic. What have you learned about that physical element of the body? What should listeners take away from your research?

00;01;00;05 - 00;01;27;17
Yash
Yeah, I think definitely the physical element of the body is heavily affected by what you do outside, and that physical element definitely affects a lot of aspects other than just, like, the physical element itself that, if makes sense. It affects your mental and affects your spiritual self. And I know I grew up doing a lot of sports through school, through clubs, etc., and here at UNC. And like, I was wondering, like if anybody else has kind of had that experience, like playing sports and how it's affected you?

00;01;28;14 - 00;01;51;17
Pranav
Yeah, I'd say I shared a pretty similar experience. I felt that, I grew up swimming actually, so I feel like that helped me a lot growing up. It made me stay calm and focus. And kind of as a counterpoint, I remember during the COVID 19 pandemic I couldn't actually swim regularly because of COVID, and I remember how drastically that affected my mental health. So do any of you guys have similar experiences during COVID?

00;01;52;17 - 00;02;08;17
Tehya
Yeah, I would say so. It was harder to like, get to an exercise routine just because, like my routine that I did have was so interrupted. But eventually I did find my pace. But I felt like when I didn't have that set routine, like it definitely negatively affected my mental health.

00;02;09;06 - 00;02;46;25
Yash
Yeah, and like over COVID, like I got lucky. I was able to exercise outside with my friends. A lot of them lived in my neighborhood, so we were able to play games like spike ball or football, like with tag, where it was like not too heavy contact and you're able to play it. And we just like wore masks and such. So it was not the worst. And I was able to get my exercise out, but definitely I was limited, like I couldn't play organized soccer matches. I couldn’t play like a lot of other sports and school sports were canceled or we had to wear masks, which is obviously very painful to wear a mask while exercising. You feel, like, terrible and you can barely breathe. So yeah, I definitely agree with you. The circumstances behind COVID sports were rough.

00;02;47;11 - 00;03;08;00
Pranav
Mm hmm. And do you think that the COVID pandemic affected other parts of mental health, physical health, those kinds of things as well? Because I know exercise was kind of the first thing that went away from me. But past that, I kind of lost my sleep and eating patterns and that affected my academic performance and just overall wellbeing.

00;03;08;22 - 00;03;25;28
Jake
Yeah, for sure. I think just like not having the chance to like, go outside, like meet friends and you're just kind of forced to stay at home all the time and only see your family and just really like takes a toll on your mental health and honestly, like, even like your social skills, that aspect.

00;03;26;17 - 00;03;55;24
Daniel Anderson
So this connection between the body and these other aspects of wellness I find interesting. I feel like there's a way in which people encapsulate the body and think of it as a container: self-contained. What I'm hearing is that it's deeply connected to communal aspects of your life, to mental aspects and spiritual to all of these other aspects. What is it about the body that makes it so linked in with all these other components?

00;03;56;07 - 00;05;01;25
Yash
I feel like it's just like the set, like everything is in relation to the body, like the body contains, like, physical, mental and spiritual properties. So everything's, like, interconnected. Anything you do is going to affect your body in some sort of way, shape or form. So like going back to, like, Pranav’s point about like COVID, I know he mentioned sleep and eating schedules and I can heavily relate to that. Because online classes were a joke in simple terms, and especially in high school, so I was able to multitask. So like while I was in class, I was actually watching a video or something or I was paying attention to something else. So I was like, and then I'd stay up late because I could sleep through like a class, or I could sleep till like 2 minutes before the class. So I was staying up way later than I should have. My sleep schedule was all over the place, depending on what days I had classes, what days I didn't. So I know that heavily affected, like, whether I felt like doing stuff, whether I was motivated to go out and do stuff, motivated to do homework and like, it's kind of interesting to see how just being locked at home and having online classes switch it up that much. So I don't know if anyone else had that sort of experience.

00;05;02;22 - 00;05;20;08
Tehya
Yeah, I was going to say like, if you're not taking care of your body, then you can't even accomplish the other tasks that you have in your life. Like, if you're getting to the point where you don't get enough sleep or you're not feeding yourself well enough where you're sick, like you can't be around other people and you can't do what gives you joy.

00;05;21;09 - 00;05;50;21
Daniel Anderson
Yeah, I could see how it holds you back. If your body is not there with you, it's going to cause problems as you go forward. Absolutely. This might seem like kind of a strange question or a way of phrasing it. I feel like people often separate the mind and the body and in philosophy, there's a split between the mind and the body. I wonder about that because, let me just phrase it in kind of a question for you: is the brain part of the body?

00;05;51;21 - 00;06;14;29
Pranav
To me, I would say that the brain is part of the mind, and the body is kind of everything else that you have. Because whenever I think of the mind itself specifically, it would be like consciousness, thoughts, all your behaviors, and all of that originates in the brain. And in my mind, I would think that the body is basically everything that makes you function physically. So I think that's where I would draw the line.

00;06;15;17 - 00;06;56;20
Yash
I would actually like to disagree with that. I believe that it's more connected to the body than, like, how you described it. I believe because it controls all your body's motions and controls what you do. Anyway your mind is affected, you're going to feel your body is going to be affected by it. So, like, if I feel very tired mentally, like after I take, like, a midterm or something, I want to go home and just crash. And if I didn't get much sleep the night before, like I didn't get much sleep last night, actually, I felt like I literally want to go home after my classes and just go to sleep. But I know I have to do other things and like I have to motivate myself. So, like, I'm pushing myself, but like, all that is like, affecting my physical well-being right now. But it was all mental changes.

00;06;56;20 - 00;07;10;14
Jake
Yeah, I think it would be classified as physical, like you said, because it's definitely like an organ, you know. And, like, you can damage it and you have to, like, take care of it. And you can, like, eat certain foods and nutrients that are supplemental and, like, make it stronger.

00;07;10;20 - 00;07;35;15
Daniel Anderson
Maybe it's not a stark boundary. Yeah, it's a little bit of back and forth between these elements. I really am curious about this food. You all keep mentioning food and it sounds like that's sustenance. You need to have nourishment if your body is going to function well. Is that what you mean? Just, you know, I need calories to have a healthy body? Or is there more to this food topic?

00;07;36;11 - 00;08;40;06
Yash
Yeah. So, I mean, I grew up and I've had acid reflux almost my entire life, especially when I was younger. So I've had to manage what I eat, how much I eat and all that sort of stuff, like what times I eat very well compared to the normal person I’d say. And especially, I also did track in high school, which is very dependent on what you eat. Like I know, I'll eat something wrong before one meet and I would be on the side of the track throwing up if I ran a race. But, like, the next meal I'd eat well and I'd be fine walking it off right after. So, like, I know food definitely affects heavily how your body performs and I know, like, for people who work out in the gym, food is very important for physique, not only physique alone, but also like being able to like, I don't know how to describe, being able to go back to the gym. Being able to be at the gym is heavily reliant on what you eat outside the gym because if you don't eat well and you don't have enough calories to sustain your energy, you're going to be out of it. You're going to not hit your PR’s and you're not going to be able to work out. You will feel really tired. You'll get a lot more sore a lot quicker.

00;08;41;27 - 00;08;56;13
Tehya
Yeah, I definitely agree. It's not just about getting enough calories. It's where the calories are coming from. Like, you need all elements. You need the protein, vegetables, and fruit in order for your mind and body to both function correctly.

00;08;57;16 - 00;09;57;17
Pranav
Yeah. And I think if we go back in history, the reason why these are kind of modern problems and not problems that humanity itself has faced in the past is because now we have such a variety of foods, whereas say before when we were hunter-gatherers or maybe even at the beginning of civilization, we were kind of forced to have a balanced diet because that's really all that we had. And I think that's just how humans have evolved. As shown in the book “Exercise” by Dr. Lieberman, he kind of talked about how humans never evolved to exercise, and we never evolved to eat such high amounts of sugars or carbohydrates like we eat now. And I found that to be very interesting. Our bodies are kind of stuck in the past where there were really super balanced diets and we were forced to exercise just based off of work. But now it's kind of all changed. We have so many more options. We're not forced to remain active if we don't want to. And I think that has introduced a lot of problems, but it's made life a lot easier.

00;09;58;15 - 00;10;19;02
Daniel Anderson
Yeah, and I guess if we push on this link between body, brain, mind as those all kind of in a continuum informing one another, then you can see how what you eat eventually can have a ripple effect on how you feel physically, which probably then translates into your sense of well-being, I would imagine. Yeah.

00;10;19;12 - 00;11;02;26
Yash
I know that feeling. Like, I mean, I know everybody has felt this feeling before, the feeling of, like, going to a good place to eat, overeating and feeling stuffed and either going to food coma, just like feeling miserable afterwards because you have way too much. And then you're lying on your bed or, like, lying down in the car and you're just, like, dead tired. You know, you eat way too much and you're just questioning it by yourself. Like, I don't know what point I'm trying to get at for that. But you feel good, I guess for then, like afterwards, you're like, Oh, shoot. It's like, not necessarily bad for your body, as you're saying. Like, it's not necessarily a bad thing, but its effects are interesting. Like when you have too much, your body responds accordingly, even if it's like too much of a good thing.

00;11;03;11 - 00;11;18;05
Jake
Yeah, I think especially I get that when I get a lot of fast food, you know, like all these greasy foods. And after, like, it might taste good in the moment, right? But then after you eat so much, you just kind of feel, like, clunky and sometimes I get a headache from eating too much.

00;11;18;22 - 00;11;50;26
Daniel Anderson
Some of the practices that are being put forward now, I don't want to say they're extreme, but they're definitely people paying attention and taking extra steps, nutrition and health wise, to create a sense of well-being. I think it's physical but also mental. So they do things like fasting. It's important to go hungry for a little while or worry about their gut and their microbiome. And, you know, I have to eat a bunch of sauerkraut, those sorts of really deliberate moves to work on your physical, mental well-being.

00;11;52;00 - 00;12;20;06
Tehya
You know, I think those tend to be most beneficial when it comes from a place where you want to be healthy rather than you want to change your body in a certain way where you think it will make others view you better. Like, I feel like when you take extreme steps like those, you need to make sure you're coming from a place where it's for you and only for you, and that you're listening to your body and that if it's not working, that something needs to change.

00;12;20;26 - 00;12;52;12
Daniel Anderson
Yeah, that makes really good sense. And I think by the same token, if we beat ourselves up because we stop for some fast food or we ate a little too much with our family, you've got to really balance the self-reflection and the feelings of yourself with these habits that you participate in. And of course, body image eating disorders, there's so many problematic concerns linked up with the body and food for which you really need to pay attention and potentially get professional help if you're really struggling with one of those issues. So that's pretty complex.

00;12;52;21 - 00;14;15;12
Yash
Yeah, and back to Tehya’s point, I actually kind of disagree with, I mean, obviously there's professional research behind it, but for me with all the fasting and trying to overload certain foods and going on all these diets and the calories surplus plus. I know that has research behind it. But, like, I've always done, this is kind of what my parents stick by, it's like, eat what you want, just make sure you balance it well. So I don't eat breakfast. Just because of my stomach acid reflux, it's hard for me to eat in the morning. But I'll eat a lighter lunch. So maybe like 700 calories. And then dinner I like to load up a lot more, but like, it lets me have freedom to do whatever I want and I'm free. Like I eat, I'll eat fast foods. I'll just exercise afterwards or I'll eat whatever I want, whatever my parents make throughout the day, but I can eat however much I want. I just like eating balanced portions as I make sure like I get a tiny bit of everything, but I don't like go to the extremes like, oh, I'm going to fast for like two days straight and not eat to expunge my body of all this stuff, or I'm going to eat only veggies and fruits and protein-heavy diets. I'm like, you're not going to enjoy it. The people who work at the gym eat just chicken, rice and broccoli. They're not enjoying what they eat. I'd rather enjoy what I eat, have maybe a little bit less of a good looking body and be able to enjoy it at least.

00;14;15;12 - 00;14;51;05
Pranav
I'd say I agree with you as well, Yash. I know, back to the fasting point. Culturally, my family actually does this thing where every month they do a 24 hour fast or sometimes even more. And, I know, say for my grandparents, that worked really well for them and it made them feel great. And it actually enhanced their productivity. But now whenever I try that, I know that it ends up doing more harm than good. So I think there's kind of merit to both sides of the coin. It can work to fast or calorie count or those sorts of things. But if you just focus on having a healthy lifestyle, it can succeed that way as well.

00;14;51;24 - 00;16;25;12
Daniel Anderson
Yeah, that makes sense. You can micromanage a little too much, I think getting your blood chemistry analyzed every week and adjusting intakes, all of that can. If that's what makes you feel good and it helps you feel connected to your mind and your body, then that probably makes a lot of sense. But I also see where you're going with this. And the point about the pleasure of food, I think, is worth paying attention to as well. That's probably good for you as well to enjoy a meal. Often it's with people you're connected with. So that aspect of food I think shouldn't be overlooked. So let's switch gears a little bit. We've been talking about food and then we've been talking about the body and how the body suffers. In some ways, if you're not able to exercise, if you don't have your food intake quite optimized, your body has some challenges. I wanted to come at things from the other direction. I think there's a tendency to look at the body as this receptacle or this recipient of negative things. Something happens and your body suffers because of it. But I think there's also possibilities for using the body in a positive way that improves your wellbeing or that gives you wellness benefits in some ways. I thought I'd play a clip and see if we can maybe have some thoughts on this. So this is Bessel van der Walt. He's a doctor who studies responses to trauma, and this is him talking about some experiments that they've done.

00;16;26;13 - 00;16;58;09
Quote by Bessel Van der Kolk
And then we study yoga. Maybe if you do yoga, you can open up your relationship to your body. You learn how to breathe calmly. You learn to pay attention to yourself. You get to see how different movements are. Different postures affect you, and so you form a deep relationships, your internal sensory system. Yoga at the end was a more effective treatment for PTSD than any of the drugs we had studied.

00;16;59;12 - 00;17;16;19
Daniel Anderson
So I thought that was interesting, that yoga and they did scientific experiments was having an equivalent effect to pharmaceuticals for people working through PTSD. Have you all had similar experiences or in your research did you encounter claims along those lines?

00;17;17;08 - 00;17;55;04
Tehya
Yeah, I feel like in burnout, like my book by Emily and Amelia Nagorski, they talked about how like being thankful for your body can improve your mental health like and because it talked a lot about like body positivity. So I feel like that kind of ties in where like they're saying even when you're just walking to class, if you can be like, I'm thankful that my legs can get me there instead of complaining that your legs hurt or something like that, like you're more likely to have a positive attitude about things. And I feel like when we are able to move our bodies and like in ways such as yoga, like if we can spin that in a positive light that it can be really helpful.

00;17;56;14 - 00;19;00;22
Yash
Yeah, I know for I had surgery on my right knee for torn ACL and I know after I did all the like exercises I need to do like during surgery and like, but posts like the nine month year long recovery of it, I actually asked my surgeon and he was like, things that you should continue doing. The biggest thing that will help and unfortunately I haven't followed this really is actually doing yoga and doing yoga exercises actually helps the most in recovery. It makes you more flexible. It relieves stress on your joints. Just overall is going to have really good effects in the future. So you're less likely to have back pains, elbow joint pains, all that sort of stuff. And I don't know if he said this, but he might have said something about like being able to lay off like knee replacement surgeries and stuff like that. So obviously those are big impacts and like, people don't realize that, but this is like a certified, like knee shoulder elbow surgeon who is like saying these are all really helpful. And it's pretty cool to see like how 10 minutes of yoga day could greatly affect you like 50 years in the future.

00;19;01;13 - 00;19;28;24
Jake
You know, this mental aspect of physical exercise is really related to my book. It was called an Exercise for Me and inspired by my go to the auto. And basically and the two authors there, they're really harping on the point that once you complete a physical activity exercise, you get like immediate mood benefits. And they were like trying to convince the reader that and they were trying to like have the reader develop a plan to continue exercising based on that principle.

00;19;29;26 - 00;20;03;02
Pranav
The whole mental aspect of exercise, I'd say, tying into what Yash said as well with the yoga, I think that I personally found the better benefits of yoga. I know towards the end of the COVID 19 pandemic where I was having some physical and mental struggles, I got the advice to go start doing some yoga. And I remember that pretty much instantly. I felt a mental boost. I felt a lot more energetic and the benefits were actually there. So I would advise anyone, any listeners, to actually go out and try yoga.

00;20;03;21 - 00;20;29;06
Daniel Anderson
I've done yoga and I enjoyed it. I, I didn't stick with it, but the few times I did it, I totally could see the benefits of it. And it is not just physical, it's slowing down, pausing a little bit and taking that time. I don't know if you had the same experience that it wasn't just about your body, your mind was able to open up or the breathing. All these other aspects were important as well.

00;20;29;19 - 00;21;38;14
Yash
Yeah, and I think it's important to have those structured sort of activities. Those are like important. Like even if you can't, if you don't feel like doing yoga, you enjoy the most. Like I know you mentioned you enjoyed yoga and like what it gave you, like the feelings that gave you. But I think like outside, it doesn't just have to be yoga. It can't be limited to that. It can be like, I know, like I want to eventually, like, pick a boxing of some sort. I know like with school sports, I like the structure that was involved in the sports. Like I even joined club sports here at UNC and I think it's really nice. It gives me some sort of structure of the day. It's like, okay, I have one half hour, two hour timeslot where I have to do some sort of exercise. It calms me down. Any stress I have, I can like, I will literally walk in to my walk to, let's say, club squash and I'm stressed out like about something or the other. And I walk in the entire one half hour practice. I completely forgot what was going on. And for the next hour afterwards, I completely forgotten it. Something like Think back on what I just did. And I think that sort of structure really helps. It helps me a lot, and I think it is definitely beneficial to a lot of people, gets people out, it gives them some reason, like kind of forget about what's going on outside of that.

00;21;39;03 - 00;21;56;28
Jake
Yeah, I was a swimmer as well for most of my life and I remember like one of my older teammates though, like I was really young when I heard this. So one of my older teammates was like, I just really like, come on, effect it because it's just like a two hour block every day where I just don't have to think about anything and I can just like hang out with friends and just like a workout, you know?

00;21;58;05 - 00;22;46;20
Daniel Anderson
So taking time to reflect on life, that kind of therapeutic aspect of some of these sports, does that get us to some of the connections between the spiritual and the physical that come up in the body? And I'm asking that because we did research. You all looked at books related to the body, others looked at books related to Spirit. And then when we correlated those using some computation, those were two of the areas that came up. We had a scatterplot and it had these clusters of books that we read that had topics that overlapped. And the biggest overlap was with books related to Spirit and the Body. So how can you explain that? What is this link between the body and spirituality?

00;22;47;10 - 00;23;25;11
Tehya
Yeah, I feel like this is what we talked about before, like how all domains of life are connected. Like this is like emotional, social, physical and then spiritual. And I feel like when you have like that physical domain, it's like it ties into spirituality because, like, spirituality is feeling connected to the world around you. And I feel like this is like a great example of yoga because like yoga requires you to breathe and to think and process and like, you have to have control over your body. And I feel like spirituality, it's not just like religion, it's like it's just being having awareness of like what's going on around you.

00;23;26;09 - 00;23;44;19
Daniel Anderson
Some of the words in the dictionary that you use to help identify these books related to the body. Some are pretty specific things like serotonin muscle that you can definitely link to the body. Which words do you think were the ones that created that overlap with spirituality?

00;23;45;13 - 00;24;21;29
Pranav
I know one that kind of jumps out to me personally. It would be like mindfulness. I know that's something which is emphasized a lot when you're talking about the body and exercise and when you're talking about spirituality. I think that connection just exists because, say you're thinking about, you know, whatever religion you practice, being mindful about what you're say, praying for or thinking about is really important. And on the converse, when you're talking about exercise, it's also really important to be mindful of how you're treating your body, about how you're eating, about how you're thinking mentally. So I think that's where some of the overlap is.

00;24;22;21 - 00;24;22;26
Tehya
Yeah.

00;24;23;26 - 00;24;24;26
Yash
Oh,sorry

00;24;25;00 - 00;24;56;03
Teyha
As you say. I have the dictionary pulled up and I feel like a lot of the words that I'm finding are like time, stress, life, mood, like words like that that aren't so, like scientific like and motivation. Breath is a big one. I feel like when you think about the body and exercise, it's not all about like the science behind it necessarily. Or like the fact that you're growing muscle if that's what you're going there for. Like it's to feel connected to your body.

00;24;56;17 - 00;25;39;07
Yash
Yeah. And kind of another word that I guess we probably didn't list may not have been in the book, but I just thought of it was fulfillment would probably be a good connection between the two because when you hit that like PR, you hit that top time you complete, you go through that circuit that had been trying to go through when whenever you complete like any of these task oriented things involved with like any sort of exercise or sports, you really feel like accomplished and you feel like fulfilled. You feel like a lot happier. And the definitely affects your spiritual self as well. Your spirit is just going to be like, you're going to be in high spirits, so to say. And overall, like sports are going to have that. You're going to have those highs and lows. But I feel like the highs definitely bring you up a lot more than the lows bring you down.

00;25;40;10 - 00;25;58;02
Jake
And I think that activity in a lot of like meditation, like really connected is true because like you're like slowing down your heart rate, slowing down like everything in your body to turn out like a focus on like one thing in your mind. And I think that like probably many spirituality books have the idea of meditation within it.

00;25;58;26 - 00;26;09;25
Daniel Anderson
Yeah, I feel like that meditation, mindfulness, fulfillment, all of those seem to be very spiritual components, but you can get to them through the body in some ways.

00;26;10;21 - 00;27;17;29
Yash
Yeah, And I don't know, I just thought of something. I don't know how well these are related. It was just a thought that kind of popped into my mind. But like with, like monks and bell temples, like I would and like Asia more east, eastern, South, eastern Asia. A lot like monks are practicing some sort of martial arts, which I realize I think that probably has some sort of spiritual connection with like the physical body to the spiritual self, because monks obviously are probably the highest form of spiritual. I don't know how I describe embodiment and like you can think of out of humans or in like human society and like to think that they do their focus. Is that like meditating, yoga and all that, plus the swarm martial arts, martial arts, which is a physical exercise. And I've heard like a lot of times, like martial arts originally from like mimicking like legends of, like gods and other sort of activities are like and then you see like a lot in shows or movies where they say, like certain moves in martial arts resemble like nature, like flowing of water. I think that all seems to be interconnected, like spiritual self.

00;27;18;26 - 00;27;57;01
Daniel Anderson
I like that this is going to seem like an adjacent topic, but the you mentioned acting and sort of trying to occupy or embody certain positions. And it's making me think of another clip that I have from the same researcher and it talks about our bodies are not a set thing or in some ways we can occupy different types of identity through our bodies, which seems strange because you think your body is a static physical collection of of attributes in some ways. I'm going to play this clip and see if it sparks any conversation for us.

00;27;58;02 - 00;28;38;20
Quote by Bessel Van der Kolk
So I live in the Berkshires and we have a great program here called Shakespeare in the Courts, where if you're a juvenile delinquent in this county, you have a 50% chance that a judge will condemn you to become a Shakespearean actor. That civilization of the Shakespeare program is enormously helpful because it helps people to feel their bodies and to feel what it feels like to be a king. What it feels like to be a warrior. You get to really have a deep experience of yourself in different possibilities.

00;28;38;20 - 00;28;52;15
Daniel Anderson
So, Yash, I don't know if that overlaps with what you were thinking, but to me it seemed intriguing, this idea that you can act and it's connected to your body, but it's also something a little bit different, it seems like.

00;28;53;20 - 00;29;19;24
Tehya
Yeah, I feel like this really plays into it because in order to act like you have to have awareness of like everything that you're doing, like if you're going to play a different person, it's not just the way that they speak or what they say. It's like the way that they move, the way that they think, and you kind of develop that kind of identity. So I feel like you kind of have to have a deep awareness of yourself in order to realize that, like playing another person is a different experience.

00;29;20;11 - 00;30;28;19
Yash
Yeah, And sometimes that can be like hard to adapt for someone. Like easier, like, you know, the best actors are able to easily dovetailing role like, I know like Leonardo DiCaprio is a famous actor that everybody like knows and he's able to adapt to like many different roles pretty easily. Whereas like other characters, like Ryan Reynolds is a very good actor, but like he sort of like has a image of himself that he maintains throughout all of his movies. And like people. Ryan Reynolds in like every single movie is Ryan Reynolds. He's not like the Joker. He's not the Batman. He sounds like he's Ryan Reynolds. And I also, like, want taken to an example like how it can be hard for like actors skin to role but like they mention do it anyway just like with Heath Ledger. I know before the Joker movie, he locked himself up in a hotel room for I think it was like a month straight, and he acted like the character the entire time. Like he would. It was like to this point, like insanity, where he was like, just mimicking the character's voice. He was laughing to himself. He just locked herself up in there, didn't talk to anybody, just had a board room service. It was like another level of insane in commitment, but like he was able to, like, push himself to, like, fit into that role.

00;30;29;20 - 00;30;46;02
Tehya
Yeah, I think this gets into, like, the conversation, like it's important not to lose yourself and this can get in like, any aspect of this body category they were talking about. Like in terms of your eating, our exercise, like you have to stay true to like what you believe in.

00;30;47;01 - 00;31;21;10
Daniel Anderson
So this identity is actually connected to the body as well. I don't know if any of you in your daily lives practice any of this, but it seems like it would be an interesting thought exercise to take this acting to heart a little bit and maybe one particular day say, well, I think I'll be the happy go lucky Dan today. And hopefully you don't choose to be the sad or but you could act that out if you wanted, I guess. Where does that line stop? Like where our identities play out every day in terms of our bodies and the way we appear to people?

00;31;22;01 - 00;31;58;13
Pranav
And I think our identity and how we express ourselves every day does tie into our body and our mental health specifically because if our body is suffering or if we're having poor mental health, then that directly impacts our identity and how we portray self, you know, in an outward sense. Yeah. And I think that goes back to when I mentioned like or one of us mentioned back at the beginning. So like when you're in those like down moods and when you're not feeling great, you think you just bombed a midterm, you got to like kind of put yourself in different roles. You're saying like, be happy, go lucky, like try to shake it off.

00;31;58;29 - 00;32;20;18
Yash
There's no point. You can't change anything. Now you got to just like think in the present, don't think in the past, just like have a positive outlook. Be like, okay, I'm not going to drag me down for the day and go out there. I'm going to hang out, my friends, I'm going to go play some sports, do something, bring out my body. Just try to not ignore the problem, but like, you know, nothing can be done about it. So try to go on with your day.

00;32;21;14 - 00;32;27;10
Daniel Anderson
Well, is there anything else that listeners should know from from your research? What's a final point that people could take away.

00;32;28;07 - 00;32;55;17
Yash
From this discussion? I think you brought this up recently. Most discussion is just do whatever makes you feel best, but don't take it to any extremes. Like make sure that whatever you're doing, you actually enjoy. If it isn't more extreme, make sure you really do enjoy it. And because like anything to an extreme is not going to be great for yourself, but in moderation, everything is great. So just like do what you enjoy. Make sure it's good for your body. In turn, your body will respond most likely positively.

00;32;55;26 - 00;33;25;04
Pranav
I think piggybacking off of that, I would say don't hyper focus on any one aspect of health or what you do daily. I would say it's important to give some time to basically everything that you do for your exercise, for your work, for sleep, eating. Everything is important and everything affects your mental and physical health.

00;33;25;15 - 00;33;34;21
Jake
And yeah, I think just to make sure you can give your time to take a break sometimes because it can be really hard to hold a habit for like months and months. So like having that break period can help you extend that habit for like even longer without, like, burning out completely.

00;33;34;21 - 00;34;22;25
Daniel Anderson
Well, this has been a really enjoyable conversation. I've learned a lot. I think for listeners, I would reiterate that it's complicated. The body, the brain, the mind. There seems to be so many connections and there's also a lot of overlap with our spirituality and elements of our identity. But amid all that complication, if you think through a few simple strategies as as our researchers were saying, take a break, keep things in moderation and try to find balance. Don't worry about every nuance of all of these moving pieces and you'll probably be able to enjoy your body, use your body to help with your wellness. And so let me thank Jake, Pranav, Yash, Tehya and tune in next time for another episode.