[:55] Dr. Bantham introduces her guest, Dr. Kristin Szuhany
Dr. Kristin Szuhany is Assistant Professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.
She is also Assistant Director of the Anxiety, Stress, and Prolonged Grief program at the school.
[1:14] Connecting movement and mental health
“We have lots and lots of studies on how exercise can help improve depression symptoms. A ton of studies on depression. We know very much so that exercise improves depression, even at a similar effect to antidepressant medications, which I think is really cool.”
[3:16] The immediate rewards of exercise
“But we do know that exercise can help us improve our mood in the moment, right? So if we're kind of paying attention to it, then we can notice that we feel better, we feel less stressed or anxious, we feel more energized, and that satisfies that little rat in our brain, and can help motivate people to exercise today, but also tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day, and then get all those great physical benefits down the road as well.”
[6:40] Overcoming barriers to exercise for people with mental health conditions
“But if we start them off slow, even with lower intensity exercise, things like walking or stretching or light yoga or things like this, then they start to, and framing it to pay attention to those mood benefits that they're getting. So now they're kind of getting into exercise. They're practicing just like moving their body and getting that routine going, and they're paying attention to all the positive stuff that comes out of it…”
[10:42] Making movement enjoyable
“What we know is that if you like what you're doing, you're more likely to keep doing what you're doing. And really, the number one predictor on the research side of things for consistent engagement in physical activity is experiencing positive affect during physical activity and enjoying the physical activity that you're doing…”
[13:42] Barriers and facilitators to mental health providers prescribing physical activity
“The second and a really common one is not feeling kind of confident in their ability to prescribe physical activity as mental health providers, kind of feeling like oh that's not in my wheelhouse. I'm not trained in that. Most people don't have formalized training, at least here, in that as well.”
[19:42] Barriers and facilitators to patients following through on physical activity
“I was touching on kind of the perceptions of just what is and what counts, you know, as exercise or proper movement, right? And I think that there is a lot of messaging these days and like social media or from our doctors about like what you have to do to to count as your good physical activity and there is messaging that like HIT is the way to go or you have to like be getting your heart rate up and you have to do 150 minutes and for people especially who aren't engaging in a lot of exercise that already is a big barrier. They're like, well, I can't get 150 minutes in this week, so screw it. I'm gonna do nothing, right?”
[23:46] Messaging the immediate health benefits of movement
“I think that that reframing of paying attention to the mood benefits and like really, that our purpose of engaging in exercise is for these immediate benefits, like for anecdotally, for both my research and clinical patients, I think that has been pretty revolutionary for them.”
[28:35] Cross-sector collaboration to make physical activity a standard of care
“And so, I think if we can, figure out that message that gets people to do the stuff, which my biased opinion is paying attention to the immediate benefits of the thing, then I think we can kind of unite across the board to push for change and offer some of kind of this integration and broader ability to prescribe exercise on the large front.”
Identifying Barriers and Facilitators to Mental Health Providers Prescribing Physical Activity [Podcast Series]
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