Pod Insights Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee BITESIZE | Do This Every Day to Reduce Anxiety and Boost Your Mood, Energy & Focus | Dr Wendy Suzuki #612 About this episode It’s easy to believe that we have to dedicate lots of time and energy to exercise. That, unless we’re pushing ourselves to our limits, it’s not worth doing.
Today’s clip is from episode 325 of the podcast with neuroscientist and Professor of Neural Science and Psychology, Dr Wendy Suzuki.
Every morning Wendy starts her day with 30-minutes of exercise. She knows – from personal experience backed by scientific research – that this makes her more focused, happy, motivated, and even creative. She knows it’ll help her grow new brain cells and neural pathways, long into old age. And she wants you to reap all these benefits too.
In this clip, Wendy shares why you don’t need to exercise for hours to gain benefits and how just 10 minutes of exercise can create changes in the brain that go much further than simply boosting our mood.
This is a practical and inspiring episode that I’m certain will have you taking action immediately.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Rangan Chatterjee? Welcome to Feel Better Live More Bite Size, your weekly dose of positivity and optimism to get you ready for the weekend. Today's clip is from episode 325 of the podcast with neuroscientist and bestselling author, Dr. Wendy Suzuki. Wendy starts her day with 30 minutes of exercise because she knows it makes her more focused, happy and motivated. In this clip, she explains how even just 10 minutes of exercise creates changes in the brain that go much further than simply boosting our moods.
0:42 Rangan Chatterjee? A lot of your research has completely changed the way we understand our brains. So I thought a really great place to start would be around a part of your morning routine, 30 minutes of exercise every single morning. And I believe that that has been informed by your research.
1:02 Speaker 01 Absolutely.
1:03 Rangan Chatterjee? So why do you do that?
1:05 Speaker 01 I do that because I know from not just my research, but the research of all of my colleagues, that every single time you move your body, starting with just walking, but I like to do kind of cardio weights workout for 30 minutes. What that is doing, it is releasing a whole bunch of neurochemicals in your brain. And all your listeners out there have heard of some of these neurochemicals, dopamine, serotonin, noradrenaline, but also growth factors are being released. And I like to say that it's like giving your brain a wonderful bubble bath of neurochemicals. And what do these neurochemicals do? Well, the dopamine and serotonin are making you feel good.
1:49 Speaker 01 They're bringing your energy up. And the other thing that we know that happens with movement, physical activity, is that the functions of your prefrontal cortex, right behind your forehead, get sharper, they get better. And so I do that first thing in the morning and I do that to prepare my brain for work and I want to come into work. I want to be happy. I want to be motivated and I want to be able to focus well. And the reason why I do it every morning, no matter what day it is, is really about habit formation. I was all over the place, you know, I would go for, you know, seven days in a row
2:29 Speaker 01 and then, oh, I'd be too tired. I found that thirty minutes, first thing in the morning, was something that I can do. I could keep doing it every single day. It didn't tire me out the next day and I still felt motivated to come and my muscles weren't too sore. And it just helped with that gradual habit formation. So I do it for my brain and for my brain productivity. And the thirty minutes every morning is really about building that habit that will stick with you and does not go away.
3:03 Rangan Chatterjee? You mentioned a lot of things there that I think we all want. Happiness, motivation, focus, productivity, thinking better. You know, these are things that, no matter who we are, we're all seeking them in our lives. Now, you've found that when you do this as part of your morning routine, you almost set your body and brain up for the day with those emotions and feelings that you want. I think that's really, really powerful. You've obviously found what works for you. You can do thirty minutes in the context of the rest of your life. So you do it, right? And you've experienced the benefits. One thing I've spoken
3:45 Rangan Chatterjee? about on this podcast for many years is that I do a five-minute strength workout every morning, like you seven days a week, because the workout has been created around my coffee consumption. So as my cafetiere brews the coffee for five minutes, in those five minutes, instead of going on YouTube or Instagram or emails, I do a strength workout in my pajamas. And I always say that because the point is I've made it as easy as possible.
4:18 Speaker 01 Yeah.
4:18 Rangan Chatterjee? And I, I wrote a book about five minute interventions, how powerful they can be. Because I think we've been conditioned, Wendy, to think that, oh, there's no point doing it if it's only five minutes. Yet I think I keep in really good shape from a five minute strength workout seven days a week because it's so small that I can do it every day, pretty much.
4:39 Speaker 01 That's the most popular question that people always ask me, you know, really, how little movement do I really need to do to get all that good stuff that you've been talking about? The answer to that is simple. We know that significant decreases in anxiety and depression levels, not clinical anxiety and depression, just, just our overall, you know, anxiety levels can come with just 10 minutes of walking. That comes from the science. That is the kind of minimum amount that has been shown to have an effect. And I love, usually I start with that because 30 minutes can be a little bit daunting and it does not have to be in the morning. That's when, when I do it, I can do it. And so the first thing to say is that anytime you can
5:25 Speaker 01 bring movement into your life is the perfect time to do it. And you don't have to run a marathon. You don't have to go to those scary classes. Walking, starting with walking, has a significant effect, specifically 10 minutes of walking can decrease those negative mood states and increase the positive mood states. Only 10 minutes of walking can have an immediate positive effect on anxiety levels. That is, it will decrease your anxiety levels. And the reason for that is what we talked about, what we started with, that wonderful bubble bath of neurochemicals. By moving your body for 10 minutes, walking, you are releasing serotonin, dopamine, nor adrenaline.
6:10 Speaker 01 By the way, these are the things that are in common antidepressants. You get it for free just by walking inside or outside, up the steps or down the hall. It comes with that.
6:21 Rangan Chatterjee? Yeah, this message that we've been hearing since we were kids, that physical activity is important for our physical health.
6:28 Speaker 01 Wow.
6:29 Rangan Chatterjee? Your research.
6:31 Rangan Chatterjee? It's expanding out our view of physical activity. Go, no, that's not just for your physical health. It makes you a better human, right? It makes you more creative, more productive, makes you happier, more motivation, helps you with memory, all these things. I think it's absolutely fantastic. I remember actually one day, you know, I used to work in a GP practice. Maybe this specific practice, I'm going to guess maybe eight, nine years ago. And no, it was actually longer because it was before I had kids, right? So there was life pre-kids and post-kids, right? Before I had kids, I still loved getting up early, but I'd go to the gym at 6:30 in the morning on the way to my GP surgery.
7:15 Speaker 01 Yeah.
7:16 Rangan Chatterjee? And my colleague asked me, you know, how, how long do you do? I said, well, I don't have much time really. I think I did, I don't know, 15 minutes weights, maybe 15 minutes cardio and then a bit of steam room and then I'd get ready, shave and I'd, I'd turn up to work. And she said to me, yeah, but you know, it's not enough really, is it? You know, I never go and that's I could find time for an hour. And she, for many reasons, was really struggling with various aspects of physical health and mental health. And I, I remember thinking, that's incredible, isn't it? That that person is not going to move because she thinks I have to do an hour or it doesn't count. But as I've just shared and as you just shared, even little bits make a difference.
7:59 Rangan Chatterjee? So 10 minutes can change your mood of walking. Any other research to help people understand that you don't need to do that much?
8:06 Speaker 01 Yeah. I mean, that's my best go-to kind of research because like your colleague, a lot of the researchers look at minimum 30 minutes of, of workout, either for cardio health or, you know, exercise physiology or brain health. And so this is, this is a great one. The, the, the studies that have confirmed that 10 minutes of walking can absolutely change your mood. It's consistent with the whole broad spectrum of, of work that says that, that mood change is one of the most consistent. Strongest effects of physical activity. Now, the hippocampal cells have been studied extensively in animal model systems.
8:49 Speaker 01 And we don't have a, you know, exact, you know, how much a day, for how long do you need to have that? However, the study that I love to highlight is a correlational study done in Swedish women. It was published in 2018 and it was a 44-year follow-up study. So in the 1960s, they went and looked at 300 women in Sweden and characterized them as low-fit, mid-fit, or high-fit. Just what is your physiological level? Again, they were in their 40s. They did no intervention. They came back 44 years later and asked what was their status now that they're in their 80s?
9:28 Speaker 01 And it turns out that relative to the low-fit women, the women that were high-fit in their 40s, 1960, they staved off dementia by an extra nine years. Nine years. So what does that mean? Well, I immediately go to, I know that regular exercise is increasing growth factors, which is increasing the number of hippocampal brain cells. That's not curing dementia, but it's making your hippocampus, as I like to say, big and fat and fluffy. That just takes longer for any disease to come in and damage it. And what does both normal aging and dementia do?
10:11 Speaker 01 It goes in and it attacks the hippocampus, which is why in dementia, that that memory problem comes in early. So let's look at those high-fit women. What's happening? They're staving off dementia by nine years. Now, it was just a correlational study. However, it is consistent with the science, the neuroscience that we understand about what regular, long-term exercise can do, particularly to the hippocampus and your memory function. There are many studies that are in that same direction can suggest that regular exercise, as much as you can do, for as long as you can do during your lifetime, is
10:54 Speaker 01 Helping your brain, particularly two areas that are sensitive to aging.
10:58 Rangan Chatterjee? Yeah.
10:59 Speaker 01 The hippocampus, we just talked about, and the prefrontal cortex stave off those debilitating effects that can come with aging.
11:07 Rangan Chatterjee? Can you, can you rewind to when you didn't do this first thing in the morning? You know, what, how did your day go then compared to how does your day go now? And do you also remember, was there a specific bit of research that when you did it or read it, you thought, wait a minute, I've got to change something?
11:26 Speaker 01 Yes, but yes to both. Okay, so here's how it goes when you don't do that, that movement, don't put that movement in your day. And this was a lived experience. It was, I was going through a really, really stressful part of my career, which is trying to get tenure at an American university. They give you six years and they say, okay, you have six years to make your name. And if you don't do it, we're going to fire you. And if you are going to do it, then, then we will embrace you for the rest of your career and we can't fire you. So, you know, no big deal. And so you have six years to do this. And so what did I do? My wonderful strategy was to only work. I'm just going to work.
12:09 Speaker 01 I'm going to just go into the lab and I'm, I'm going to, you know, relinquish my, my social life and I'm just going to work and I'm going to eat all the wonderful takeout in New York City because that's so fast and efficient and it's delicious with lots of calories. And so I'm going to do that too. And so I, I got stuff done, definitely, but I had no social life. I found myself with much more weight than I was used to because I wasn't moving at all. And mainly I was unhappy. I was, I was just unhappy. I was doing, I was working really hard, but very, very unhappy. And my wake up call came when I gave myself a vacation.
12:52 Speaker 01 I went on a river rafting trip to Peru. So I went by myself on one of these group, you know, river rafting trips. And it was so much fun, so beautiful, walking around, but I realized. I was the weakest one on this whole trip. There were sixty five year old triathletes that were so strong and there were sixteen year olds that came with their father that were also stronger than me. And so I came back saying, okay, I I got a little bit of outdoors. I felt so good after this. I need to go to the gym and get a little bit more movement in my life. And that was my realization when I started going to the gym. And I remember the very first class I took was a hip hop dance class.
13:36 Speaker 01 Oh, my God, I'm really bad at hip hop dancing and but it was very, very, um. It it it really pushed my limits. And I remember coming out of there going, oh, my God, I hope nobody, you know, took any pictures or anything. But really got my aerobic activity up. And I still felt good, even though I felt like a terrible hip hop dancer, I still felt great. And um, that is what made me go back to the literature. When I started feeling so much better after this, so much better than than a month before, when I was only working a hundred percent of the time. That's when I went back and looked at all of the research showing that movement changes your mood.
14:17 Speaker 01 Movement, regular movement can be as effective as some of the most commonly used antidepressants. And while I wasn't depressed, I wasn't happy. I was not a happy person in my life. And I felt myself shifting out of that first with this trip to Peru. But then with that regular bringing movement into my life. So it was kind of a a self realization kind of backed up by the neuroscience that I I was able to go back and and research because I happen to be a neuroscientist.
14:46 Rangan Chatterjee? What's interesting for me is that you went on this vacation from your life. And that inspired you to get moving. You start moving and you feel these kind of emotions that you have never felt before. And that then encourages you, because you're a neuroscientist, to go and study. But presumably, presumably, before you'd experienced that, you were probably aware, I'm guessing, that movement is kind of good for the body. It's kind of good for the mind. But, you know, I guess where I'm getting to with this is that a lot of us know things. We've read it in the media. We've heard it on podcasts, but.
15:27 Rangan Chatterjee? We can no sub, but it doesn't land in our brains. So we take action. And so it's really interesting for me that you had to, even with all your prestigious training and your prestigious position as a professor, you had to feel at first. And that feeling, that experience is what led you to actually do more research.
15:47 Speaker 01 Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's easy to understand. I mean, if we ask, are all M Ds peak health? Are they all exercising and eating to the best, you know, that science tells us? Clearly, with all due respect to my M D colleagues, the answer is no. And certainly the answer is no for neuroscientists. Sometimes it takes a wake up call. And the other wake up call that came in, this was, this was, I don't know, a year and a half in. And I'm feeling good, you know, clearly lots more energy. But the thing that really made me so interested that I actually shifted my research
16:31 Speaker 01 from study of memory, which is how I started my research career, to starting to explicitly study the effects of exercise. Is I'll always remember I was sitting in my office and I was writing a grant. And so all the scientists out there know how, how excruciating it is to write a grant. This is your lifeblood. And I had this thought that came through my mind while I was writing this particular day in my office. And that thought was, gee, writing went well today. I had never had that thought ever in my entire career. It was, and then I thought, well, I'm just having a good day. I'm feeling really good. I did go to the gym that day.
17:10 Speaker 01 But no, I realized that my, my writing had gotten better, like it was flowing better. So that's when I realized that the only thing at this point that I had changed in my life was this exercise. It was a year and a half in, I had gone through, you know, no movement to regular movement. And going back to the literature, I know it helps the functions of the hippocampus, important for memory, which you need when you're writing a grant, all those details of all the papers that you have to put together in your multimillion dollar grant proposal. And focus to write, you need deep, continuous focus. I'm like,
17:51 Speaker 01 Both of those things are better. That, I think, appears to be why my writing is getting better. So that was like, that hit home. That, your lifeblood, you're doing it better, and it seems like all these functions are coming because you're exercising. Wow, that, that is life-changing.
18:10 Rangan Chatterjee? Yeah.
18:11 Speaker 01 That was a life-changing moment.
18:13 Rangan Chatterjee? Yeah, it's so interesting that, you know, it's fascinating to me that just that one change movement, which you now put into your morning routine, is having all these kind of myriad benefits. You've mentioned growth factors a few times. How is it that exercise is giving us these incredible benefits?
18:33 Speaker 01 Yeah. So B D N F is a growth factor that we know quite a bit about. There's only two areas in the human brain where brand-new brain cells grow in adulthood, just two. They're not growing all over the brain. One is the hippocampus, and the other is the olfactory bulb. But the hippocampus is the only place where exercise can stimulate the release of growth factors. Where does that come from? It seems to come from muscles in your body, from liver, release, factors released in the liver that then release B D N F that goes into the brain, that goes straight to your hippocampus, and helps those brand-new brain cells grow. Exercise doesn't do that to the brain cells in the olfactory bulb. So if
19:18 Speaker 01 you want shiny new brain cells in the part of your brain critical for long-term memory, that is your motivation to exercise. That is my personal motivation to exercise. But it turns out that the hippocampus doesn't only help us with memory, but it helps us put information in our memories together in new ways. In other words, it's important for imagination. If there was going to be one area that I could have that has brand-new brain cells, I want it to be my memory area. You know, it's critical to our personal histories. It defines us as people. You don't realize, you know, where would you be without your
20:01 Speaker 01 own personal memories, your likes, your dislikes, the things that make you laugh like there's no tomorrow? All those things are stored in your memory. And that is because of this beautiful structure that we all have, one on the right, one on the left, that is our right and left hippocampi. That is the structure that we get to get brand new brain cells in. And I've just given everybody the secret tool to do that. Move your body.
20:30 Rangan Chatterjee? Hope you enjoyed that bite sized clip. Do spread the love by sharing this episode with your friends and family. And if you want more, why not go back and listen to the original full conversation with my guest. If you enjoyed this episode, I think you will really enjoy my bite sized Friday email. It's called the Friday Five. And each week I share things that I do not share on social media. It contains five short doses of positivity, articles of books that I'm reading, quotes that I'm thinking about, exciting research I've come across and so much more. I really think you're going to love it. The goal is for it to be a small, yet powerful dose of feel good to get you ready for the weekend.
21:12 Rangan Chatterjee? You can sign up for it free of charge at drchattity.com/fridayfive. Hope you have a wonderful weekend. Make sure you have pressed subscribe and I'll be back next week with my long form conversation on Wednesday and the latest episode of Bite Science next Friday.
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