Mindful Asanas: Uniting Mental Health and Yoga with Dr. Brendan

0:00 Hey there, Before we get started on this week's episode, I would love to ask for your support by reviewing this podcast. We want to share yoga with as many people as possible and this free resource. This podcast is one of the ways that we can do that. And the best way that you can help support us is by giving us a review.

0:16 So if you go to Apple Podcasts or Spotify or whatever podcast platform you use, Scroll down until you find that star review and then give us some love. Thank you so much, and let's get started with this week's episode. Animals will run off their stress immediately like they move. It's like or if you see a dog walk in the room and it gets a bit stressed and it shakes it off, you know, they just get rid of that stress immediately.

0:40 And humans typically don't do that. We might be sitting in front of a computer or sitting down talking. We're not moving. And Arsena or some sort of practice that allows you to, that's a bit challenging, actually helps you use that cortisol and move through that stress.

0:59 Additionally, yoga is great because it it helps you continually retrain your breath as well, and that that puts you into more of a a relaxed, parasympathetic state. And that's another reason why it's so good. Welcome to the Going Pro Yoga Podcast.

1:17 If you love yoga as much as I do, then this podcast is for you. We talk all things yoga related for teachers in order to supplement and complement and even support after a 200 hour Yoga teacher training. Or if you've never done a training before, this podcast is all about just learning more about yoga in an authentic way.

1:35 Together with Paul Tioto and Byron De Marseille, we put together this podcast to provide you with a free resource to learn more about yoga. Whether you want to share yoga or teach yoga or just practice yoga, this podcast is talking all things yoga related. And we're trying to talk from the teacher's perspective and also the student's perspective to make sure we get a full 360° angle on what yoga is all about and how it's evolved in the modern world.

1:58 Welcome to our podcast. Hello. And welcome to this week's episode where I am interviewing Brendan Dougherty, who is a clinical psychiatrist who's been on the podcast before actually. So episode 113 where we talk about how to change your mind, ultimately the mind and how it changes how we can actually change your mind in moment to moment. So there's that episode where you can TuneIn. Otherwise, for this episode we're actually going to be introducing a four part series

2:28 where we dive into the aspects of mental health and the integration with yoga, yoga, teacher trainings and the practice overall. So this will be a four part series in today's episode is going to be focusing on the foundations or the basics of mental health and yoga.

2:44 So I'm excited to have Brandon join us and talk over the next four weeks. And yeah, without further ado, let's jump right into the conversation with Doctor Brandon Dougherty. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Depending on where you are in the world listening to this podcast, I have Brendan in the house. Doctor Brendan Dog.

3:08 Doctor Brendog. Doctor Brendog. That's actually his name. I'm not just making jokes. I am making jokes. But it's also his name. So, Brendan, welcome to the podcast. Excited to have you here with us today. Thanks, Michael. And maybe I'll welcome you to the podcast as well. Yeah, Michael Henry.

3:25 That's right. The amazing podcaster Physio Yogi man, thank you. Welcome to the podcast. Of course. So I'm glad that we're we're both welcome. That's a good start. So yeah, we're going to have this episode as a, let's just say an opening to multiple series over the next few weeks to highlight the conversation of mental health and yoga.

3:46 So talking about mental health as a as a whole as a separate thing and then also integrating or at least talking about how they integrate together in the yoga space. So yeah, basically the next few episodes will be centered around that. The topics will be unfolded as the episodes go. Today, mostly we're going to be focusing on defining mental health and the integration of it into yoga. So as I previously said, but perhaps just for the audience, we can just do a quick little

4:15 brief bio both ways just to kind of make sure that people understand who's the people behind the mic so that there's some support there. So why don't I start? Yeah, cool. So my name is Michael Henry and I am a trained physical therapist and studied basically a lot of the sciences from bio mechanics, physics, chemistry, biology, all that fun stuff and worked in the industry for quite some time. So I understand the body quite well from a physical perspective.

4:48 Eventually moving into the yoga space years ago and becoming a yoga teacher. And now being a part of teaching and facilitating for other yoga teachers to learn more about the body, how to actually create a safe container physically so that the individuals that get to practice get to also learn how to open and create more space in their body, become more aware of their body in a Safeway where injury is prevented at all as many ways as possible. And that's ultimately where I'm

5:21 coming from. So I'm, you know, to summarize that I'm basically an anatomy teacher and I come at things from an anatomy perspective, but I'm I'm so much more than that. So that's kind of who I am. And Doctor Brendan, who are you?

5:34 That's a big question. But for the purposes of this, thank you. And I'll also add that Michael is an, you know, anatomy teacher with a difference, a big difference. He teaches all over Bali and does an incredible job bridging that gap between yoga and the physical body. But he's going further into that, into the brain and all sorts of things.

5:54 So just wanted to add that in there to make sure that people know that. Thank you. And I am Brendan Doherty. I am a psychiatrist and a medical doctor and yeah, originated New Zealand, trained in Australia, and a bit over a year ago decided to do a yoga teacher training. And that's where I met Michael and a few other dudes in the the yoga space.

6:22 I'm technically a yoga teacher, but I don't really teach yoga, but I'm really interested in bridging the gap between the body and mind and the edges. Like there's so much that people that people can do for themselves that some of it's proven, some of it isn't. But obviously this stuff works for some people. It also has risks and I'm really fascinated in that space and being in Ubud and Bali, there's a lot of different sort of complementary alternative type

6:53 therapies. People would say yoga is very mainstream, just like meditation these days, but it's still kind of gaining traction in the scientific community. So I'm really interested in that space and but I guess what do I do on a day-to-day level? I still practice as a clinical psychiatrist. I work with people of all ages.

7:15 You know I I Co own a telehealth business in Australia run that I do a bit of coaching on the side and run a podcast of course. So just working on that and feeling into what's next and this is part of it, This is a a thing that's on both our minds and it's an exciting topic. So really excited to talk about it. Yeah, great.

7:41 Awesome. So we're kind of both hosting, I guess, at the same time. So we'll be going back and forth with questions, but ultimately just centered around this topic. So we'll see how this goes. Yeah, should be fun, but I think for today, yeah, let's just jump in.

7:54 So I'll start, start us off by defining like what is mental health, right. Why don't we just start with that? Yeah. You going to do it? No. I'm going to ask you. You're the psychiatrist. I'm just the yoga teacher over here.

8:08 Nice. And everyone's probably got a different version. But in order to know what mental health is, mental health is really the culmination of a whole bunch of things. And mental health is just really, it's health. It's not.

8:27 It's not mental health. It's health. It's a state of complete well-being and it's not just the absence of disease or illness, right? And so it doesn't mean that we don't have negative emotions, it doesn't mean that we don't suffer, but it means that we're resilient and we're functional and we can get through the challenges of day-to-day life and have an abundance of positive emotion amongst all the difficult things.

8:54 And it relates to everything. So it means that we have a good physical health or actually I would say it's kind of like preconditions typically to be mentally healthy we need to be physically healthy, we need to have good mental habits, we need to have good relational habits. And then it also comes down to just sort of what you do with your resources and the things around you as well. So you got to be really good relationally, financially, you know all these things kind of

9:21 come they they provide the foundation for what is well-being or complete mental health. So that's what I would say. And the great thing about yoga is that it combines a lot of these, you know, it's the interaction of body and mind, the physical presence.

9:38 You know, one of the first things I learned in yoga was that asanas or the the poses are not there just to look cool or stretch. They're there to get ready for a meditation. And a meditation is really one of those things where you're being in your true essence.

9:56 You're sitting there, you're being who you authentically are, and you're sitting with that, and that actually creates a lot of well-being and goodness in our lives. How does that sit with you? Yeah, it's really good. I'm wondering what other people think mental health is, 'cause that was a very in depth version of it and I I think it's great spot on. So what do you think most people think that mental health is? Yeah, yeah.

10:20 Sitting on a mountain somewhere, meditating. Or what would be the lack of mental health if someone's struggling with, you know, if I said I'm struggling with my mental health. Yeah, for example, you know, I mean, it's hard to obviously have a perspective of what we think other people think. But I would imagine that it's something along the lines of like my my mind is not well, like I'm I'm overthinking a lot of things.

10:43 I'm not making good decisions. I'm making a lot of quote UN quote mistakes. I'm feeling a lot of feelings around all the behaviors that I'm doing and it's something just doesn't seem right. So, and I think nowadays because of just the, I mean you can blame it on a lot of things, social media or just technology or lack of being in nature or community, who knows what it is. It seems to be more of a conversation piece now that mental health is a thing.

11:12 Like, you know, 20-30 fifty years ago, like we're really talking about mental health, right? It wasn't really a thing. It was just like you're healthy, you're not healthy. So now mental health is like it's it's a buzzword almost to some degree.

11:23 So I think, yeah, defining it to some level is really important. But I basically what I'm hearing you say is it's a culmination of your overall well-being. It's not just your thoughts and these types of things and like what's going on in your head, right, Because what goes on in your body affects your head, right. So integrating the yoga piece is that you're connecting a little bit of that mind and body together, which is part of this well-being or the mental health

11:47 aspect, right? Yeah, it's an excellent tool for mental well-being when used appropriately. I'll answer your question from 22 angles. One is what? What's the purpose of mental health? Like, why do we strive to do this? People just want to be mental health. Is it to always be happy?

12:06 Some people are going to say that that's probably what people think. It's like they're going to sit there, you know, You see pictures on Instagram, people smiling, talking, going for a walk, whatever, they look happy, like that's the people's picture of mental health, like.

12:20 But I disagree. Like, that's an aspect that's a really lovely aspect of mental health, like good mental health. But it's much more than that because we're all going to suffer. We're all going to have difficult times. Can I come to this?

12:34 I'm going to come to back to that in a second. But mental health allows us to do something. And when we are mentally healthy, we're going to reach our potential. We are empowered. We have the most ability to enact our fullest life.

12:53 So finding what it is that you really want to do in this world and doing that along with a balance. You know other things like good relationships, but what mental health allows you to do is to reach your potential or to so-called live your best life mental like or people use different words ill health or lack of mental health or however you want to put it. But not having mental health, you mentioned all these things like having too many types of thoughts or getting too anxious or feeling depressed or not.

13:29 You know the inner workings of the mind not really working very well. Again, that all happens in people who are mentally healthy. But what happens when you have too much of one of those things? That's when you step into a picture of mental ill health and really the line between what is normal and what is not. When it starts to be called like a condition or a disease, it relates to whether you can function in daily life. So we can feel like I'm going to

14:01 feel probably, you know, feelings of feeling sad or frustrated or jealous or whatever it is in the next few days. But I still, I'm still going to function like I'm still going to get on with it. I'm going to accept that feeling and I'm going to move forward.

14:18 I'm going to learn from that feeling. I'm going to understand it. I'm going to feel it, truly. But then if I can't get myself out of that and I keep feeling those feelings and there's no reason for it, and it happens for days, on days, weeks, on weeks, then there's an issue like it might just be grief or something I need to work through, but it also might be something that really impacts my well-being. And that's when we're looking at like a mental illness, so mental health, there's a picture of it.

14:47 I think it's often wrong. We need to accept that life is actually really hard. But the key difference is when we have a number of experiences that add up that make us not function in daily life. Like we're not able to care for ourselves, care for our others, do a job, do the things that we want to do. The other thing I'll add is that these days people don't just want that.

15:17 Being able to function at a basic level, it's kind of not good enough. We're all optimizers. It's basic. It's basic, yeah. Who wants to be basic? Yeah, we want to, We want to dominate this life, right? We want. And that's why people are getting in ice baths.

15:36 That's why people are taking supplements. That's why they're going to Bali and doing yoga teacher trainings, because they know that there's more. They want to level up. I don't want to be basic, they want to be level two or three or advanced, yeah.

15:48 Human two point O. It's like a video game. Life. That's the way I treat it sometimes, Yeah. It's like, how can I how can I? I mean, I play a lot of or. I used to play a lot of video games when I was younger, and sometimes I compare life to that where it's just like, I don't know if the audience plays video games. You can relate.

16:03 If you can't, then maybe just shut your brain off for the next like, minute. But basically in games you're progressing through the game and usually you're increasing or developing your attributes as a as a character. So to me, I'm like, how is that any different from life?

16:17 Like you're just improving your characteristic or not your characteristics but your attributes, right? Whether it be like physical, like strength and going to the gym and lifting weights, you know, it's like strength plus one, right? Or intelligence Or emotional intelligence or mental health or whatever you want to call it, you know? And maybe like when you meditate in the game and you sit in stillness and you allow yourself to feel, you actually increase your energy level and you get a

16:42 + 1 for intelligence or emotional intelligence. So I know that sounds super nerdy, but sometimes I think about that like how can I continue to improve myself? And I think that's generally what people are doing is they're trying to level up, right? I want to level up my well-being. I want to level up my physical health. I want to level up my efficiency at work. I want to be productive and I want to be. Some people hopefully want to be balanced in that productivity. But really, it's just, you know,

17:07 it's a measurement of going from a baseline or a basic level to something else. And I like what you said, is that people are striving for more. They're striving for excellence. They're striving for, yeah, a higher level. Yeah, I mean, I love Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I I see it as being Maslow's hierarchy of empowerment. But 40 years ago, like in Western society anyway, we're kind of moving our way up that pyramid. Like in some ways we're aggressing in some ways, but we have basic security.

17:39 Like we have houses. Most places crime's not so much of an issue. We have accessible food, We have education. We have basic needs taken care of these days. And so, you know, humans are designed to want more. That's just the way it works.

17:59 So the next level up is you know, things like love and community and ultimately it's about self actualization. And so you know, if we want to go to self actualization that links pretty nicely with yoga because in my opinion self actualization is really about finding your deepest, truest self and finding what it is that really lights you up and doing that. Yeah, I've heard it's called realization. It's realizing that you are realizing that you already have what you're seeking, these types

18:36 of things. Nice. Nice. So just in case about. What you seek, right? Yeah, through me. Exactly. So with regards to the Mavs law of hierarchy of needs, just in case people are like what is that? I don't know what you just said, we're just it's basically a pyramid.

18:51 You can Google it if you don't know, but it's basically a pyramid talking about certain levels of, you can call it needs or desires, right. Whereas the base of the, the base of the pyramid is those basic needs, right. So we talk about basic, but basic needs as in like shelter, food, water, safety, security, right, Which most of us, if you're listening to this podcast, you're probably listening to it on an iPhone or an Android or something like that, you know, which means, you know, you're probably most of

19:18 your basic needs are taken care of. It's an assumption, but you know, it's probably somewhat accurate to some degree, which means you have the ability to get to the next level of the pyramid. So that's kind of what Brendan was saying.

19:31 And then at the top of the pyramid, the apex of the pyramid is what we would call self actualization or realization, which is like the higher level, highest level of desire and connection to self ultimately. But you can't achieve that if you don't have the basics taken care of to some degree, yeah.

19:47 Yeah, exactly. Cool. I'll put. So, OK, so we have a little bit of an idea of what mental health is, which is overall really just combining your overall well-being, right, if you're. You know, physical health is not in good shape.

20:02 It's going to affect your mental health. And maybe we can just simply go there. I mean, if someone's really struggling with, quote UN quote, their mental health, their thoughts, their emotions, and they're just like not really sure what to do, and they're just sitting and meditating and they're journaling and they're trying to process and think their way out of it.

20:20 I'm, I know you're going to agree with me, but that's not the best way to go. Sometimes it's better to actually get into your body, move your body, allow that energy or tension. If you want to use another word to flow, move, change, shift and movement is one of the best ways, I think to facilitate that change, which can then, you know, mix things up for quote, UN quote the mental health, and then more or I should say, new possibilities become available.

20:51 Yeah, there are a number of things or habits that humans just need to do to fuel to feel better. And just quickly on that note, like, I, I don't know what's the meme or it's just the truth as well. Before you say that you're depressed or really unwell, just move for an hour a day, every day.

21:13 Like whether it's yoga running, I don't care what you know, just like a long walk. Go for a walk. Yeah. And if you're still not feeling great after doing that like I I challenge you because I think four out of five people, if they did that probably would have some increase in their symptoms. And it's certainly a a basic treatment for depression and it helps, can help a lot of other things like anxiety. But we're talking about yoga.

21:43 So sorry, did I lose track of the question I. Didn't really ask you a question, but just just so that we're clear he meant decreased symptoms, he said Increase, but. Yeah. Thank you. Decrease the symptoms. So an actual improvement in your overall well-being which would affect your mental health.

21:57 So I didn't ask a question, but let's like you know, let's steer it back to yoga a little bit more and how we can intersect this overall, well-being the physical practice, the asanas. And not to go too too much into the philosophy because that's more of our our philosophy teacher, Vijeth's domain and then we have a few other teachers as well.

22:14 But ultimately, you know the 8 limbs of yoga, asana, the physical is one of them, one of the 8, and it's an important one. But like you said at the beginning of this podcast, it's leading to or preparing you for that meditative practice, which should be, you know, a little bit further down the line, so to speak.

22:34 So skipping the step in the sense of, like I was saying before, if you're not feeling well because of a lot of thoughts and these things and you're just trying to meditate like the yogi's perspective is, you need to move your body first. You need to get your body moving. You need to get the the, the, the prana, which is energy, life force, the chi, whatever you want to call it to be moving, the circulation.

22:56 If you just want some science, right, your blood flow to be pumping to all the areas of your body so that when you do sit in stillness you'll you'll be tapping into your intelligence more your intuitive intelligence, your body's intelligence, whatever it is, your subconscious, whatever, whatever words relate with you. So in the yoga practice, that's kind of what you're getting, right?

23:17 You're getting a little bit of physical and you're also getting some, you know, conversational philosophical insights as well. Yeah. And I think a lot of people, when they actually get into yoga, they do it for the physical reasons. At least that's my story, is it's like, oh, I want to get, you know, I want to stretch more. I want to be more limber and stuff like that. And then other people, they do it because they need an outlet and they'll start practicing

23:44 yoga and they'll notice that there's changes happening and they might not be able to explain. They might not realize that their mental health is improving, but they just feel better. So then it becomes almost like their church, or it becomes their their ritual that saves them in moments when they might be in environments or situations that are challenging or stressful, and it becomes their safe haven.

24:07 Yeah, my brain just went in like 5 different directions because there are so many individual benefits to yoga in that sense. But I'll just, I'll just tell you a story. The first thing when I first got into yoga was actually I think it was my when I was an intern on my first year as a clinical Dr., someone said to me, try this hot yoga class.

24:32 You know, it'll make you feel good'll be really interesting. And, you know, it's pretty well known being an intern's hard work, be in a medical school and then you get dumped in the hospital and then you're, you know, running around the hospital doing all sorts of jobs.

24:44 And it's a new thing. Like it's, it's exciting, but it's long hours, it's you're under pressure because you've got senior doctors barking orders at you. Probably similar to many other, like internships. But it's, you know, involves people's lives.

24:56 And so there's that element of stress, extra stress. And someone said go to this hot yoga class. And I did it and it was, it was so challenging. Like the room was, I don't know, 35° or something. It was an an hour and a half of yoga.

25:11 I was an inflexible soccer player and sweating buckets. It was a pain. But the minute I finished that and the whole next day, I just remember like the utter pace at work. I was like people were. I wasn't fazed by anything. I had a sense of calmness.

25:33 I felt great. It was really kind of life changing. So then I really got quite addicted to it at the time. I've gone in and out of a regular practice over the years, but it really settled, you know that that movement and that challenge, it really settled my mind. One of the things, a book that I quote quite regularly is, well, sorry, one of the one of the reasons movement itself, and particularly in yoga practices, is really useful is it reduces or it expands cortisol.

26:05 And one of the things that we're trying to do is to get into a relaxed state. Like for those that know the the lingo, it's like the parasympathetic the rest in digest mode as opposed to the sympathetic, like fight or flight mode. Basically, when you're most relaxed, you're accessing the better parts of your brain and you're acting out of like you're you're able to think more deeply, you're able to access your feelings, you're in touch with yourself more. And so yoga really does this,

26:38 but over one of the reasons it's good is because, So I'm getting slightly sidetracked again. The book that I was that I was going to refer to is called Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers and. Why zebras don't get ulcers? Why zebras don't get ulcers and it's by it's by a it's all set in the title, but it's by an an endo. I think an endocrinologist, Robert Sapolsky, who's at Harvard who talks about essentially animals will run off their stress immediately like

27:14 they move. It's like or if you see a dog walk in the room and it gets a bit stressed and it shakes it off, you know, they just get rid of that stress immediately. And humans typically don't do that. We might be sitting in front of a computer or sitting down talking, we're not moving and arsenal or some sort of practice that allows you to, that's a bit challenging, actually helps you use that cortisol and move through that stress.

27:41 Additionally, yoga is great because it it helps you continually retrain your breath as well and that that puts you into more of a a sorry, a relaxed, parasympathetic state and that's another reason why it's so good anyway.

27:56 There's there's yeah, there's so many reasons why it's it's so good. I feel like I'm, I'm mixing up. That's OK. It's all good stuff so far. I mean, you made me, you made me think of something funny when you said, like, doing the hot yoga and the next day you just felt like everything was, like, lighter and and I was like, oh, it's kind of like what happens if you haven't had sex for a while and then you have sex and the next day you're just like, I

28:17 don't really care about it. That stuff doesn't bother me anymore. You're not as irritable. But, I mean, you know, sex is also active, at least for at least one person, depending on who's doing the work. But yeah, I don't know if there's any intersection there.

28:34 We're kind of getting a little away from the the yoga when I say that. But I just thought I'd share it, 'cause it was a thought that I thought was funny. That release of, it's a big release of dopamine, I reckon. I don't know if it was a human man or someone like that talking about the different amounts of dopamine, that different things release. But when you haven't had sex in a while, it's like it's pretty, it's a pretty solid release and you feel, yeah, you feel on top of the world.

28:58 Yeah, yeah, that's great. OK, so let's you said you had like 5 things that spurred into your brain. Is there anything else before I steer the ship another way but just intersecting? It'll come up. It's just really, you know, if we're we're directly looking at the reasons for why yoga is good for your mental health, You know, relaxation, movement, training, our thoughts, being present while in pain. A lot of people that's one might might not think about so much. So there's things that are

29:40 stressing us all the time. And when you're in yoga, people often talk about the edge, right? So you might be holding a difficult pose, but you still got to be present and feeling into it. In life, we get a negative emotion that comes up.

29:53 We want to run away from it or we blame someone else. We do something, we act it out. Yoga really trains you to to be in that difficult state and continue. And that's really key life skill, yeah. So instead of resisting or you said avoiding or running away from, I saw my naturopathic Dr. this morning and we're talking about different things. And basically the conversation can be summarized in the sentence What you resist persists. So that's kind of what made me

30:27 think of that as if you resist the pain or you void or you avoid the feeling of the emotion, then it will continue to persist if not grow and fester because and possibly become larger. So in the yoga practice, ideally the practice is meant to create more centered awareness of self and feeling. So when you're physically challenging yourself, especially, you know, there's so many different styles of yoga, asana, right.

30:54 But I'd say most people are pretty interested in the vinyasa or some sort of actual Yang practice for the most part. And I think that just to kind of clarify, that's kind of what we're mostly speaking to, like yin yoga is great, but I wouldn't say that's going to move your energy in the exact same way as like a strong power yoga class or vinyasa class or even an ashtanga class. So there's a lot more physical challenge that's involved there, which could be pain and

31:16 discomfort from activating muscles you haven't activated stretching beyond your usual limits. So now you're approaching these pain thresholds that are not necessarily harmful, but they don't feel great either. And then the practice itself with connecting to the breath allows us to become more centered and focused on that discomfort. And then possibly even just mechanically making little twitches to when I say twitches, I mean like like switches in the body to like activate and

31:43 support and like breathe and like actually push through my foot a little bit more and like pull my core back in a little bit because that's going to help me in this pose. So, you know, I don't hurt my my leg or I don't hurt my back or whatever. So creating more of that presence with within the state of being challenged or stressed or when there's tension present and you kind of relate it back to in life instead of seeing these stresses, challenges,

32:06 tensions and all these things. It's pretty natural for a lot of us to just to move away from and avoid it or or ignore it because we don't want more stress and more drama in our life. I don't think most people do anyway.

32:23 But yoga, it's like you have, you don't have to face it, but it's it's there for the facing kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Also, I was just thinking like a a beautiful little metaphor of what you're describing there.

32:36 Is that yoga you you were saying like you're you're switching on different parts of your body. Let's say you're holding a a pose. You really need to engage your core or something. It hurts. You need to go in there. But you know that if you go in there with a few skills, a bit of extra like stability, you can get through that. And you learn to do that progressively as you practice more and more and more that if you switch on, you know different parts of your body,

33:07 you have more strength. So it's not about, it's like if you go into a difficult conversation or a difficult meeting and if you go in there and just expect to feel pain, you're probably going to feel pain and you might not get anything good out of it. But if you go in there and are open, but also use some of the skills that you have and you develop over time, like expressing yourself or holding boundaries or something like that, you can be present, but

33:37 also you can do it with skill. And and I just think that that's a really nice metaphor in in yoga where you're going in there and you are, you're not just like enduring pain, but you're doing, you're doing things to support your body and to do it skillfully. So then why do you think so?

33:59 I mean people don't. Some people probably know, but like why do you think people do teacher trainings? Why do you, Why do you cause like practicing yoga? You know, you get into it and you go on, you know YouTube and you watch yoga with Adrian or yoga with whoever or you join, you know one of the many platforms that exists so that you can you know do some practice some classes.

34:19 And you know that might be it for some people that are just like I like the practice but then some people are drawn to wanted to go do a teacher training. So do you have any thoughts on why you think that is and what might be pulling them there and? Yeah, I reckon there's all sorts of reasons why people do yoga teacher trainings sometimes.

34:40 So I can. I can speak personally. I just wanted to do something different and learn a new skill. I didn't necessarily know know that I wanted to be the yoga teacher. I I think people more and more are looking for holidays where they're doing something.

34:55 I made a good group of people and yoga teachers, teacher trainings are great because like especially the one that Paul and Byron are in the these teachers at the yoga bond that we associate with you, you know, on your on your platform etcetera.

35:10 They bring in great people from around the world. And you meet, in fact there's someone here visiting this week that I met one year ago who's an excellent, excellent human. And so I think that's one reason, of course people want to be yoga teachers. There are people that know from a pretty early age that yoga's awesome.

35:32 That's what they want to do. They want to be yoga teachers awesome. And there are people that want to just have like, you know, further their yoga skills. But as well as that what you really notice. And I want to ask you this question because you've seen thousands of people in yoga teacher trainings.

35:50 It seems like people want to come for a transformative experience of some sort. They don't even know what it is, but they know they want to do it. Possibly, yeah. Transformation. Sometimes that word in itself can steer people away.

36:06 It was like, I don't want to transform that 'cause that's like, that's like change, but like on steroids. And some people have a hard time with change as it is. I would say that I agree with you. Obviously there's the the perspective of like, yeah, some people who want to do more yoga, they want to improve their practice. They want to like learn more about the asanas and all this stuff.

36:23 Some of them, like, I want to teach. Others, I feel who are not really quite sure they're just called to it or they just for some reason they're just like, I I just feel like I need to do it right. I hear that so many times from different students, like, why you take, why did you take the training or like, why are you here? And it's like, I don't know, I just felt like I wanted to. I just felt like it feel like I should do this right? So it's.

36:44 An intuition that they exactly they want to do it, yeah. Yeah, there's some sort of underlying reasoning that they might not actually cognitively understand that this is probably not going to be bad for me. This is probably going to be something that is investing in me, which I don't really know fully what it is. Maybe I do, maybe I don't.

37:03 But there's something that intuitively is telling me like, Oh yeah, if I do this, I'm going to get something out of it. I don't know what exactly. Maybe it's the yoga, maybe it's not. And I would say that's the same for the other two people as well.

37:14 The other two archetypes, the person that is wants to teach yoga, they already kind of know that, probably more logically. And then the person who just wants to improve their practice, the reason why they're practicing is because they're like, I love yoga and I want to improve my yoga.

37:28 I want to continue to learn. So it's like there's an interest there. They're already intuitively been sold by being aware of what the practice has done for them or the skills that they have already learned prior to taking a training. I think that's kind of where most people kind of get into the door.

37:46 There is that there's there's no harm in doing it. In fact, when I did my teacher training, I mean I was doing it for different reasons, to actually learn more about what it's like for a yoga teacher to go through the process of becoming a teacher so that I could be in a better position to actually serve and teach in a way to support them.

38:05 So that was my original intention. So I would interview and talk to a lot of yoga teachers and try to like figure out like, you know, those types of pieces of information for me. And then when I spoke to one, he's just like, he's like everybody should do a yoga teacher training at least once in their life.

38:22 And I was just like, huh, interesting statement. And he's like not because they want to teach yoga and not because they want to practice yoga. He's like just because of the possibilities that can happen from joining a teacher training. And while all teacher trainings are different, he's like there's always going to be some good that comes from it because it's it's like a pressure cooker, right? It's like going back to school in this immersion. But you're you're being

38:45 surrounded by I don't want to say better teachings but teachings that have a have a an ancient history of backing and support which is now being caught up with science support and evidence of how these practices like meditation and all this stuff is really helpful for the body and and the mind and all these things. So I thought that was really interesting. Then he he had that belief and I also have that belief as well. Like if everyone has the possibility to take a teacher training, I think they should.

39:14 Right. If it's you know their financial needs and their basic needs are taken care of and they can fork out a couple grand, then absolutely. And I think most of the people that are listening to this podcast have already done a teacher training.

39:24 So they they know what we're talking about. But just speaking for the people outside of this, I think the possibilities that exist for them, it doesn't need to be. You need to have a super strong yoga practice and then that means you can do a teacher training.

39:35 I don't think it's about that. Same people with very, very basic yoga practice. Exactly. Do it. On that note. What have you noticed to be the like? The mental health benefits of a yoga teacher training. So similar to the physical stresses that you undergo when you go through a practice of 90 minutes or 60 minutes or whatever, I would say that the the challenge and the stresses.

40:03 On the body as a whole, not just physically, but the physical, that which affects your mental and your focus and your ability to show up for yourself in challenging times, 'cause, I mean, especially now a yoga teacher training is, well, not now. But like, you know, before it used to be like you studied A Nosram for years and you would serve and do all these things and now it's like 3 weeks and you're a yoga teacher, right? So the in those three weeks,

40:28 it's intense, right? It's intense. It's a lot of learning. You're sitting down a lot. You're in school basically 8 to 10 hours a day. You're practicing physically, right? It's literally like going back to high school where you're just you're you're in the, you're in the wheel, right.

40:42 So there's a lot of stress on the body. You usually don't get that many breaks and that much time off. You know, it's usually like read this study this, review this, practice, this. There's an exam coming in a couple weeks, physical exam and then also written exam.

40:54 So there's a lot of not just the physical stress, but the mental stress that comes with it. Like, how am I going to handle this? How's my nervous system managing all this pressure, time pressure, You know, perfectionist. Like how am I doing?

41:06 How are people perceiving me as I'm doing this? So you're just under this pressure cooker, I feel. And because of that reason, people will either, well, people will go in different ways. I was going to say they can either break or they can continue to persist and resist where they might just push away. And you know everyone, I would say that everyone has a milestone to some level when they join a training. Some steps might be small, some steps might be large. The large steps you could call a

41:32 transformation. But I think either way you're getting some sort of shift, assuming that you see through the actual training. I've seen, you know, some people who quit early very rarely, but occasionally because it's not what they were expecting, they thought it was going to be like a retreat and it was going to be easy and like no challenges.

41:50 But I think everyone understands that the training is an intensive. You go through the process and then you you either figure out how to support yourself or you realize that you have this community around you of other people who are going through the same thing with hopefully facilitators that also know how to support that process or those changes. So it's it's yeah, it's an environment for improving the mental health I would say.

42:16 Yeah, and we also know that, like learning, new skills are really good for our brain health. Like if you sit, you know, if you're talking, if you sit, sit at a desk all day, it will suddenly need to use your body in certain ways. That's going to create a certain form of neurogenesis, like neuroplasticity.

42:36 And it's it's it's extremely useful for someone in a like a corporate job to just get out of that for a while and get their brain into a different space and move their body in ways like challenge their body in ways that they haven't been able to before. And also yeah just that element of go back to school for those of us that have been out of school for a while it's it's funny like it it does like it felt like that you get into the groups at times you you know

43:01 you're studying for an exam. It's it's plenty of younger people that go as well. I'm I'm I'm young but I've been out of been out of uni for I don't know a while shall we say but and just also the community like you kind of touched on it but the community of people that are interested in something that's furthering their their their life their health their you know potentially actualization.

43:33 It's really inspiring to see these people from around the world do that and it has to be good, good for your health. You know, they say you're going to turn to the people that you hang, hang around the most, but yeah, that's really, that's really great for your health to be around people that have a have a positive outlook and want to stay healthy and learn new things. Also, you just eat really well on some yoga teacher trainings. Sometimes it's a little bit

44:03 overdone with the the vegan foods for those of us that aren't that way inclined, but at a place like Urban, you can go out and get great food every night anyway. Yeah. So that's that's that's another benefit. Well, in some places, I mean, there's teacher trainings in, you know, major cities that, I mean this might have still have good food.

44:19 But yeah, there's definitely something unique about Bali and the availability of delicious food. Yeah. So if you do do teacher training or sorry if you haven't done a teacher training and you do want to do one, come to Bali. Highly recommended.

44:33 Yeah, yeah. OK, cool. So I definitely feel like we've defined mental health. We've integrated it into the yoga realm to some degree. Is there anything else that we might be missing as a touch point as to start this series? Like, this is episode one of where we're going to continue this conversation, but is there anything that comes up for you with regards to mental health and integration with yoga? Yeah it's it's a caveat I I I was thinking about this as I as I said it I use the word

45:11 financial health right to is important it is. But also the the caveat is that when we in app particularly in Western culture, we're always striving for something and that's good up to a point but sometimes striving means actually taking away things and not wanting more to accept where we are and what we have. And it's no, it's no more obvious that when you go to many third world countries, people appear a lot happier than in first world countries.

45:52 And that's because they don't want as as much they accept what they have. I think in Bali, it's a little bit related to the culture as well, which is very a culture of gratitude. But I relate this to yoga because one of the practices of yoga is like really finding who your true self is to accepting, accepting what is and just just being like not wanting more. And I think that's a really great thing about yoga and that that is going to help your mental health. So mental health does involve,

46:31 you know, you need a foundation like building the the soil of a plant or this foundation of a house before you can really flourish. But ultimately all you're doing is finding what your true essence or being is. And if you can already do that with all these, without these things, then great. But it's just that when you have your bodily health, when you have good relational patterns, when you have good boundaries, when you have a bit of money to be free and do what you want, then your chances of being able

47:00 to attain mental health is going to be higher. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Yeah, that's really good. OK, cool. So I think that's pretty good for today. Sure. Yeah. Maybe Next up. Yeah, I feel pretty good. I I do want to jump into other topics, but I think we can do that for, for the next episode, jump into it a little bit more or we can maybe integrate a little bit more of the philosophy of yoga or different philosophies of yoga and bring it back to the the mental health lens.

47:30 Yeah. The the more of the, let's just say, the Western left brain logical science perspective. Yeah, I think that's where we should go. Yeah. What do you think? I think keep it punchy, yeah. Keep it punchy. Cool. All right.

47:43 Well, thank you everyone for listening and tuning in. It's been a pleasure. Brandon, we'll continue this conversation and then if you enjoy this conversation, you want to ask questions, I mean, we'll put the information in the show notes to connect with either of us to ask specific questions about this particular podcast.

48:02 And then also, yeah, I think that's basically it. I had a bit of a brain fart there. I can't really remember where I was going to go. But ultimately, I'm just saying thank you. Yeah, thanks a lot for tuning in. We'll we'll continue the the topic.

48:15 We'll talk about some some edgy things, good and bad in the world of yoga and just expand on what we've started. There you go. All right. Thank you so much. And we'll speak to you next week. All right. Before you go, let me just tell you about the going proyoga.com platform. So right now you can go to goingproyoga.com and check it out for free for seven days where you can actually learn more about yoga in the ways of alignment, queuing, sequencing, yoga, anatomy.

48:42 So that if you've done a 200 hour teacher training and you want to continue to learn, practice and grow, this platform is definitely for you. So I definitely suggest checking it out goingroyogacom right now. You can try it out for free for seven days.