Exercising for Mental Health Benefits [Podcast Series]

• [:56] Dr. Bantham introduces her guest, Dr. Simon Rosenbaum

  • Dr. Rosenbaum is an Associate Professor in the School of Psychiatry, UNSW Sydney.  

  • He is also an exercise physiologist.  

• [1:12] Connecting mental health and exercise

  • “And just from spending hours and hours in the gym with them, and hearing stories about how quite literally, they would say that exercise keeps them alive or it… And we know that, of course, it's not the cure for everyone. But it can be such an important part of treatment.”

• [3:39] Training fitness professionals in mental health

  • “And if I think about when I started and what's happening today, and where the health and exercise and fitness industry is, I think we've come a really long way. We have programs now like Mental Health First Aid. And here in Australia, we know that all exercise professionals have to do a first aid certificate and cover things like CPR.  There is this fantastic curriculum that is Mental Health First Aid that gives people those practical skills to identify a crisis, manage it, refer, get people to help, ensure that everyone is safe.”

• [5:17] Exercise as a right

  • “It's almost nothing new.  Humans inherently know, when we move we feel good. The challenge is how do we actually support people, particularly those that are the most vulnerable, and therefore the least likely to have the luxury or the privilege to engage in exercise? I think we too often forget that it is a privilege.”

• [8:19] Training mental health professionals in exercise

  • “We do need to train exercise and fitness professionals, absolutely, in mental health. But likewise, we can't ignore the training that's needed for the mental health professionals around their knowledge of how to integrate exercise as part of their practice. We can't assume.”

• [8:52] The importance of integrating into a mental health team

  • “There’s no point doing this in isolation.  There's no point in the exercise world going ‘we need to train ourselves in mental health’ and the mental health world going ‘we need to train ourselves in exercise.’  I mean, that’s just, it makes no sense.”

• [11:43] Addressing the trust gap

  • “But what we do need to do is find a way that there's genuine connection between these services. And even if that means, instead of just asking for referrals, actually offering your service to the mental health professionals.  Train the staff, let them come and experience what your, what your services are, and what you're offering, keeping in mind that there is going to be probably a level of maybe skepticism or concern about referring their clients to your service. So it's really important that we take the time to build that relationship, as you said, and overcome that, that trust gap, as you as you put it.” 

• [15:38] The role for students

  • “Another thing that's been really successful for us is the use of students on clinical placement as a way of building capacity and staffing services.”

• [17:02] Advice for exercise physiologists

  • “So just jump in, really, and if people have the motivation and the energy and the desire, then there's going to be people around to support and help and encourage along the way.”

•  [18:41] Exercise as part of treatment and recovery

  • “It's actually saying, acknowledging the challenges, acknowledging how hard it is, acknowledging that this isn't going to be a cure, but it can be part of people's recovery.  There are ongoing challenges. And our job as that workforce is saying how do we help those people at that point in time with what they need in order to engage in some form of activity.”

• [21:07] Exercising for mental health benefits

  • “And so we've got to be really careful about that, and really focus on the idea, we're exercising for the mental health benefits, not for the aesthetics, not for our waistline.”

• [22:41] Scope of practice

  • “Yep, just thinking the exact same thing.  Yep, and know when and how to refer. Just like we would want the mental health professionals to know when and how to refer to the exercise, we need our exercise professionals to absolutely know when and how to refer and how that happens.”

• [23:57] Diversifying voices in the health and fitness industry

  • “I mean, it's nothing new, it's just the idea about meaningful engagement. But I think that, to me, is the most important thing going forward. And it's where the exercise industry is likely to learn, develop and change, is if we actually diversify our voice, diversify who we are listening to, sorry, diversify the voices that we are listening to. I think that's the most important part, and ensure that actually it's accessible and safe for everyone.”

• [27:03] Opportunity for the health and fitness industry

  • “There is an absolute opportunity to engage a different demographic and to actually ensure that that right—if we think about exercise as a right—that we actually ensure that there's opportunities for people to have that right met. So that's where I think we're dropping the ball. You know, exercise shouldn't be a privilege.”