Latest / 🎙️ Rebuild & Fulfill Real conversations on burnout, rebuilding, and becoming stronger than before. / Stop Paddling Upstream: How Brain Chemistry Shapes the Way You Feel | Episode 9
Transcript
- Kelsey Dunbar: Imagine trying to paddle upstream while everyone else is moving with the current. It's not that you're doing less. You're just working against something that they're not. And for a lot of people, that something is their brain chemistry. And if that's the case, you don't need more pressure. You need to learn how to make your brain chemistry work for you instead of against you. Welcome back to Rebuild and Fulfill I'm Kelsey. Marc Rogala: and I'm Marc. So we are actually getting close to the middle of May. It's mental health awareness month. It's been a very busy month for both Kelsey and for myself. I just wanted to remind everybody in the audience, that the whole point of this month. really is to provide awareness, but not necessarily awareness for like what's going on in the community. That's important as well. And the individuals that are struggling out there when it comes to mental health and addiction, but really bring awareness to yourself as well. And I've been doing a lot of speaking in the communities at NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. And I heard a really interesting statistic this past Saturday when I was at the health department. And they actually said that from the time that an individual first exhibit symptoms. of a potential mental health diagnosis, such as like a general anxiety disorder or a panic disorder, a major depressive disorder to the time that they actually get help or seek out help is approximately 12 years. And that is just way too long. And that's why we want to normalize these conversations. We want to bring awareness and we want people to really do an assessment on themselves to see where they're at at this particular time. And if any adjustments could be made prevent you from getting a little bit further down the line and potentially getting into crisis mode. So kind of leads us to our topic that Kelsey is going to introduce today. So Kelsey, why don't you go ahead and talk about what we're going to be discussing. Kelsey Dunbar: Yeah, I mean, and this is something that tell people all the time. Marc kind of introduced me to all this stuff. Honestly, it's not that I haven't heard of brain chemicals, which is our focus today, but was the fact that I didn't know to what extent that actually affects our day to day life. And I've it to the test since Marc started of cluing me in on how much these things really do drive our mood. And by own trying out and swearing by it that he couldn't have had the recovery that he's had without knowing about brain chemicals and how to maximize their efficiency that we just decided we definitely need to have this podcast. So today we're gonna be breaking down brain chemistry, why life can feel harder than it should. Marc Rogala: and why sometimes it feels like you're everything right, but it's still not working. Kelsey Dunbar: Want to explain what you mean there, Marc? Marc Rogala: Well, I mean, sometimes don't have a knowledge as far as like what activities we're doing on a daily basis and how it affects our chemicals in our brain. You know, we put certain foods in our body, not realizing the effect that it can have on your serotonin and dopamine levels. We in extracurricular activities that actually could affect our natural dopamine because we're giving it basically fake dopamine. We the mind is a very, very interesting tool in the sense that organ, should say, in the sense that it's the most studied organ in the body. But the same time, it's the organ that we know the least about, but what we do know, we have enough information to run and it certainly will affect mood. It certainly affect anxious feelings, depressed feelings, feelings panic. And a lot of has to do with the chemistry and our day to day activities ⁓ and, and, and what of food we're putting into our body. Kelsey. Kelsey Dunbar: Yeah, absolutely. And instead of guessing kind of what brain chemical is doing what or what hormone that's affecting your brain function, we are just going to break it all down for you. So we're going to put it into five core chemicals, chemicals slash hormones. They're pretty ⁓ and actually it practical information for you to be able to implement on a daily basis. So we're going to start with dopamine. so dopamine drives, it's the brain chemical that drives what you chase. It's your reward chemical. Some people call it the feel good chemical. It's what pushes you towards something, but it doesn't care if that something's actually good for you. So Marc, don't you give us some examples. Marc Rogala: Well, I mean, the truth is, like you said, this is your chemical in your brain. And mean, again, I hate to this, but ⁓ if you look at the American way and the things that we do as a society, if we want to know why there's a mental health crisis and or an addiction crisis out there, it really starts this. You your brain has a baseline, okay, of dopamine that it makes on a regular basis. but you can actually drive that baseline or you can deplete that baseline with really a lot of the activities that you do on a regular basis. you have something called real dopamine, okay, which is naturally through your brain. And then also have something I call cheap or ⁓ fake dopamine, is gonna you a hit, but then you're gonna a crash. And if you look at fake dopamine is or cheap dopamine is, I mean, it's really, what we do as a society. Online shopping, games, Netflix, been watching, eating junk food, gambling, participating in substances. Drinking alcohol even in moderation is going to affect your dopamine vaping smoking gossiping high sugar diets You're gonna get a surge You're gonna get a crash then once you get a crash Okay, body's gonna respond with another with another hormone that Kelsey's gonna talk about a little bit Which is called cortisol, which is gonna put you in an anxious mode If you it with natural ways to your dopamine levels up so your brain knows how to make it naturally. It's really just living a healthy way. It's being active, it's a proper diet, typically a high protein diet, journaling, a task, spending time in nature, just a much way to live. And that's what I know, when I, ⁓ I shouldn't say preach, what I recommend ⁓ when I work with that are struggling on the mental health and addiction side. Kelsey Dunbar: okay to say preach. ⁓ I think of it that way, I think of like practicing what you preach. I don't think of it in a higher form than that. so yeah. basically, know, doing those things that make us feel in the moment and not thinking about what of crash it's gonna lead to later. And so another one Marc left off, that was a very comprehensive list, but another one that most of us are guilty of on our phones, scrolling, social media, that kind of stuff too. And I think that one of the reasons why people forget that is because like we all do that, right? ⁓ doesn't mean it's good for you. So working towards the, towards a goal, like a long-term goal. I mean, not that it's not okay to just put your best foot forward and try to do something a little bit better. and something's better than nothing, of course. But try to focus more on the long-term goal, and that's just overall mental well-being. you'll probably avoid those little hits of that really don't last. So we want to reduce the cheap dopamine, create the small wins, and build momentum towards what actually matters. Marc Rogala: You know, if I could just say something real quick, it's really interesting because like with the social media, it's the likes and the comments. ⁓ I got a like, I got a comment. Boom, you're a dopamine charge. and then you're getting a crash. You know, with gambling, I mean, it could be something as simple as playing a little scratch lottery ticket at the, the gas station. Well, I a free ticket. Boom, you're getting a dopamine charge. What's interesting about gambling is actually the dopamine is enormous that your brain releases. It's actually more than certain substances like cocaine. And that's why gambling, when it becomes a problem, it's so hard to it's so hard to beat. You know, because what's happening is, is you get a baseline, you get the charge, then you get the crash. And now all of a sudden your brain is not making to even get you back to baseline. Or if you take a drink, you know, or you participate in a mind altering substance, you're going to get the surge. You're going to get the crash. You're going to fall lower and lower. And that's why, like a lot of people that get addicted to alcohol or drugs say that they're not even doing it to get high anymore or to get a buzz anymore. more, they're doing it just to feel normal. And the reason why they're doing it just to feel normal is because their body's trying to quote unquote, fix themselves. And it's just trying to get back to baseline. That deficiency is basically tolerance. That's why somebody might have a beer the very first time and they might feel a buzz the first time. And all of a sudden now they've been drinking casually for 10 years. And all of sudden it takes six or seven beers to get to a little buzz. That's tolerance. That's your brain just reaching the original baseline in dopamine and anything that you put in your body above and beyond that is going to give you a buzz. that's where it becomes dangerous. And that's where it leads addiction. It's the thing with shopping. And the thing that's interesting about shopping is it's online shopping. And the whole reason why it's online shopping because it's the whole thing of the actual box getting delivered to your door and you're actually opening it and you're getting a rush, the excitement of you actually opening it as opposed to going to the store and actually shopping for something. Now that could be dangerous as well, but specifically online shopping that's leading to a lot of shopping addictions that we see out there right now. Kelsey Dunbar: and because of how easy it is to do and how quickly you can shop and go from one dopamine hit to the next, the next, the next. So I think that's a major thing of the online shopping as well. Marc Rogala: And then some of these online shoppings, got little games to get credits and so forth. So now it's a double whammy. because now you're getting the surge, okay, from playing the game. Oh, I just got a $25 credit. Let me go spend that. And now all of sudden that $25 of merchandise gets delivered and now you're getting a dopamine hit again. Very creative how society is, okay, how the Western civilization is, but all this stuff is leading to what we're seeing out there right now with the mental health crisis and addiction crisis that we're seeing. Kelsey Dunbar: Yeah, absolutely. because Marc had just mentioned it previously in his start of the description dopamine, we'll just ahead and go to cortisol next. So cortisol, like we is not a brain chemical. not produced in the brain, but it is a hormone that significantly affects brain function. So it's definitely worth discussing because it definitely affects how we think, how we operate, that sort of thing. So it is basically your system in threat mode. Cortisol is your stress hormone. It's supposed to protect you, but it doesn't always know when to turn off. So why don't you explain a little more about cortisol, Marc Rogala: basically you're to be in a fight or flight. Your body's itself. I mean, not only do you have the cortisol release, but you also have something called an adrenaline release as well. So you could feelings of variability. You can have feelings wanting to argue with everybody. Okay. Because you're trying to protect yourself. You're in fight mode. You know, you can have, you know, feelings of isolation, know, racing thoughts. sleepless nights, mean basically your anxiety levels elevate because of their increase in cortisol and there is a direct correlation as I alluded to earlier in regards to ⁓ fake or unreal dopamine and the crashes because when that dopamine crash occurs your cortisol levels rise. So I use the example because I hear this all the time. A lot people are guilty of this. I was just as guilty of it as well. You know had a day. ⁓ or had a bad week at work, I want to have a couple beers or want to have a couple glasses of wine or whatever it might be. And I tell people all the time, if you're relying on fake dopamine as like alcohol is, you're expecting that to actually decrease your stress level, that's like literally pouring gasoline on a fire ⁓ expecting the gasoline to put out the fire. It's going to create extreme anxiety if this becomes part of your daily habit. And that's the same thing. for substances, that's the same thing for smoking and vaping, it's the same thing for everything else that we put on that, that we talked about earlier. Kelsey Dunbar: That is a great way to sum it up as to what's actually happening there. that was great, great kind of story depiction what we want people to kind of keep in mind and what it's actually doing. So yeah, I mean, you're always feeling on edge. You overthink everything. It's ⁓ like a pressure that never to shut So now your body is reacting like everything is urgent, even when not. So yeah. Marc Rogala: And if I could just take it with stuff rather close, like with me, and I'm using me as an example, but I've seen this repeatedly with other individuals that I work with. They get a medical diagnosis of general anxiety disorder. Okay. It's like, comes first, the chicken or the egg? Okay. I mean, did the anxiety come first? And then all of a sudden we received some bad, we start participating in some bad habits or did the bad habits lead to the general anxiety? Because I will tell you, I was an extremely anxious person, but my life lifestyle was not very healthy. I was getting a lot of cheap dopamine or fake dopamine. the second that I got into recovery and replaced it with natural dopamine and started being cognizant of what I'm putting into my body to try feed that chemistry in a positive manner, I become a pretty chill guy. I mean, do I have anxious feelings every now and then? Yes, I mean, that's being human. But am I high strung as I once was? Do I have sleepless nights? No. at all. Do I still have panic attacks? Again, don't want to jinx this, but I haven't had a panic attack since I've gotten sober. I used to get panic attacks all the time. So there's a correlation there. There's a correlation between what you're putting into your body and how it affects your different chemicals and the cause and effect. And I think that's very important for the audience to understand. Kelsey Dunbar: Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes just try and lower your cortisol. mean, a lot of the things that we recommend with some of the other brain chemicals actually help with the cortisol, like exercise, regular activity, breathing exercises, that type of stuff can help to lower your cortisol while it's also ⁓ helping other brain chemicals as well. So that's why I said so many these are so intertwined, which is why it can get kind of confusing. But generally, if you think of all the things that you should be doing, and I mean, will obviously tell you all these things, but a lot of this you already know is staying active, try and get off the electronics when you can, especially if you're feeling anxious and, more personal connections. Try to go to a little earlier at night so that you get a better night's rest. You know, those are all things that are going to help your cortisol, but also help the other brain chemicals as well. Marc Rogala: Positive affirmations, music, the right music. Kelsey Dunbar: There you go. Marc Rogala: I mean, I say that because I'm an early nineties grunge guy. You know, some of that music isn't necessarily the best lyrics. Okay. Well, it's good music. It's not the best lyrics, you know, so if I'm trying to calm down or if I got to go speak publicly and I'm, and I'm kind of getting in my mode here and I'm doing my coping skills, I'm not necessarily listening to nineties grunge. I'm listening to something that's going to calm me down and release the endorphins and all that good stuff. You know? Kelsey Dunbar: Who are you kidding? We know you're listening to Elvis all the time. He loves Elvis. ⁓ Marc Rogala: I love Elvis. That's a good listen, you know, when you know you're going into a potential stressful situation. Some Elvis or some lighter on the Elvis side. Absolutely. Kelsey Dunbar: just wanted to give an Elvis a little plug there. He loves his Elvis. He knows about Elvis than anybody I've ever met. ⁓ All right, moving forward, next we're gonna jump into serotonin. So serotonin is like your emotional baseline. It's basically your stability brain chemical. And so Marc's gonna us a little more about that. Marc Rogala: Well, I mean, it's mood altering. I mean, this is when you feel good or this is when you feel a little down. I mean, that's basically what it is. again, it's driven by your day-to-day activities and it's heavily driven by your diet. Heavily driven by your diet. So again, my diagnosis was major depressive disorder. Along with that general anxiety disorder, I was getting a panic attack. I look back now I say this kind jokingly, you know, I kind of make light of it, but it is the truth. ⁓ mean, diet, everything I was doing, reeked of depression. It was depleting my serotonin. Right down to the high fast food, high trans fat diet that I was eating, the candy that I was eating on a regular basis, ⁓ the diet pop that I was drinking. I was a big diet Pepsi drinking that aspartame and diet pop will just wreak havoc on your serotonin. A of the foods, know, processed foods will wreak havoc on your serotonin, not to mention your digestive system as well. So, I there was a lot of changes that I made in regards to my diet to really try to get this. one in check and I was on SSRIs, which a form of an antidepressant that is designed to bump up your serotonin levels and I'm longer on them because of the natural activities that I was able to create to make of my daily rituals and my daily life and so forth. Now, it's not to that's going to be the same for everybody on here, but I have seen quite a bit of people come after antidepressants by replacing the bad with the good ⁓ to try to drive serotonin level in a therapeutic way. Kelsey Dunbar: Well, especially because there's very simple, basic nutritional advice that you could give people to help with their serotonin levels. Why don't you give us some examples on some foods that generally will help boost those levels. Marc Rogala: Eggs are the super food. Poultry in general. Chicken, I a lot of chicken. Turkey, ground turkey. Specifically, the tryptophan in chicken and turkey, which is an amino acid found in poultry. It's the Thanksgiving. Chemical that we always talk about this we say it makes us tired. That's a bunch of BS It's the mashed potatoes and the stuffing and everything else that makes us tired because there's more tryptophan and chicken Than there is in Turkey, but that tryptophan is one of the best foods that you can put in your body That's naturally going to elevate your serotonin levels. So a lot of chicken a lot of turkey a lot of eggs Hummus is very good chickpeas very very good There's a variety of different foods. I mean, really, it's a lot of eating clean, you know, but at the same time, I mean, if you really, really struggle on the depression side, you should take a hard look at your diet and also get some omegas in there too. I'm a big whitefish and salmon fan as well. So I don't eat a lot of red meat. I love red meat. I don't think there's anything wrong with eating red meat in moderation. Quite frankly, the reason why I don't eat a lot now is because of what's going on out there economically. You know, so it kind of works hand in hand with me. I mean, it's a lot more economical to bite. tuna or whatever it might be than to buy a steak. Although I wish you could eat more steak. Kelsey Dunbar: absolutely. I'm with you there. all So basically, the things that we want to do that's going to help drive that just in kind of ⁓ just, getting into better get out, get some sunlight, more movement, more consistency with your daily habits, and then some of the proper nutrition stuff that we just discussed there with the, you know, the chicken, the turkey, you know, all the other foods that Marc recommended. There's lots of them that will help drive your serotonin. You just need to know what they are. so next we're going to go ahead and jump into endorphins. All right. So your endorphins is kind of like your release valve. So it's basically what helps you deal with stress and pain. So a lot of times when people talk like getting that runner's high, that that's of the whole endorphins and, Marc has a great way of endorphins from the root word. I'm not going to steal his thunder. So I'm going to let you break that down. Marc Rogala: Do you remember what it is? Okay. the word endorphin is actually made up of two words. The E-N-D-O in endorphin comes from the word endogenous and the R-P-H-I-N comes from the word morphine. Put them together, endogenous morphine. Endogenous means from within, so that means morphine from within. That means your body naturally makes morphine. Your body naturally makes a painkiller. Kelsey Dunbar: I sure do. Marc Rogala: And the best example I can give to you is, you know, I think at one point, even if it was many, many years ago, people have had some experience of working out and they wake up the next day and they're sore and they start moving again and all of a sudden that soreness kind of goes away. That's your natural painkiller kicking in. Well, to remind the audience. My drug of choice was opiates. I got hooked on prescription painkillers. There's an opioid crisis going on out there right now. reason why there's an opioid crisis out there right now ⁓ because painkillers, opiates, really well for physical pain. But the truth is, the reason why there's a crisis is they work even better for emotional pain, the pain of life, things that we're going through. So, you know, when I got active with exercise on in my recovery and the definition of exercise early on in my recovery was walks, walks, walks. It wasn't going to the gym and lifting weights every morning like it is right now. Again, progress. Just the needle a little bit. My thought process was two things. if I can get my natural morphine levels up, it might help me with my urges and craves. It did. But other thing is, is I know that going through life, you're gonna have painful moments. I know ⁓ from my of dealing with prescription opiates, it made painful moments a lot easier to handle. And ⁓ I I rely on a substance anymore. The pain of life is going to happen, so it makes sense for me to get my endorphin levels up or my natural painkillers up. And, um, it's, it's helped quite a bit because even in recovery, there's been a lot of curve balls thrown at me. And I mean, I have had to have a surgery, you know, I've gone through some situations in life and I've been able to handle it in a lot less stressful way, a lot healthier way, avoiding depressive thoughts. But the key is understanding, you know, the activities that you need to do to drive that. And, you know, for, for what it's worth, I know that Kelsey and I, you know, talk about getting the body moving and exercise and so forth. truth is, is exercise is one of the few activities that's actually going to affect all these brain chemicals in a positive manner. And I've spoken with over 50 different speakers. I don't even know what the number is at presentations I've done in the community and everybody's recovery looks different. And some people have a mental health diagnosis. Some people have a dual diagnosis like me with some type of addictive component. Everybody's story is different, but here's the deal. I've never spoken with somebody that did not mention changes in her diet and did not mention some form of exercise. Those are the two consistences. That's the foundation to getting into a solid mental health state, if that makes sense. Kelsey Dunbar: Yeah, and I mean, as far as endorphins goes, okay, so we already talked about cortisol, but when those cortisol levels get really high, you need that endorphin to cause that release. So, you know, from the exercise, so that's one of the best ways to fight the cortisol is to get that ⁓ endorphin release, because otherwise it's just gonna keep stacking. So, and when that happens and those cortisol levels over without you being able to get that release, That's when it affects your mood, like you start snapping at people or just feeling really heavy mentally. So just the best way to combat that, movement, give yourself some kind of a challenge that you can rise to, healthier outlets, and believe it not, even laughing can trigger endorphins. So I mean, if you're kind of in a bad mood or something, don't turn on a serious movie, turn on some kind of comedy that's gonna make you laugh. It'll actually give you an endorphin release, believe it or not. Marc Rogala: I mean, there's a lot of, mean, the right music again will trigger endorphins. Dark chocolate in moderation, not milk chocolate, dark chocolate in moderation will give you an endorphin rush. But again, we're looking for consistent elevated endorphins. The way to do that, in my opinion, is making some form of exercise part of your daily routine. Kelsey Dunbar: Yeah, I mean, not to mention how good it is for everything else. it's, it's something. I mean, and like Marc just said, and I'll, and I'll reiterate is the fact that wherever you are starting from is totally fine. We don't want you to do Marc's workouts. We don't want you to do my workouts. We don't want you to do some professional sports athletes workouts. If you don't do anything right now, if you even got up and took a couple, a walk around the block a couple of times, maybe 10, 15 minutes a day. You know, two, three days a week, then three to five days a week, then maybe increase the time a little bit. The recommended amounts of physical activity in the course of a week should be ideally 150 minutes or more. and that's optimal. You don't have to do that right off the bat, but that's what ⁓ is actually recommended. And I think that we can all build up to that. If it was a half an hour a day, ⁓ that is one 48th of a day. We all can the time for that. So next, I want to jump into oxytocin. And so oxytocin is not a brain chemical, but it's a hormone that makes you feel connected and safe with people. So it's your connection. All right, so why don't you give us a little bit more info about that one more. Marc Rogala: the love hormone basically it's your relationship hormone. So a lot of times when people are going through a breakup or ⁓ or a divorce, you're going to see a depletion in the oxytocin and it's going to potentially have an effect on other chemicals in the brain. But there's ways that you certainly can address that. obviously one ⁓ is in loving relationship. But if that's not an you know, that's where pet therapy comes into play, know, relationship with an animal. Dog, cat doesn't really make a difference. The big one that I always talk to people about is living life of service and doing some volunteer work as well. That's how feel connected to society that makes you feel good about yourself. And I don't what it is, you know, if I'm working with somebody that's struggling, you know, let's say with depression or what have you, I always recommend, you pick something, you know, maybe go volunteer at a food pantry or an animal shelter, you know, or church if that's your thing. With me, I still do this to very day. I mean, I still speak at the hospitals. patients that are in psychiatric care that are in crisis mode. And I speak, I tell them it's just as much for me as it is for them because it's helping me with my brain chemistry as well. That's the way I give back. That's how I choose to give back. But it's very important to understand that, again, specifically if you're going through a tremor, you lose a relative. God forbid a mom or dad, brother or sister, spouse, whatever passes away. You're gonna get a depletion in your oxytocin. and it's going have a trip down effect to some other some other chemicals in your brain as well like your serotonin know so that's why a lot of people once they go past the initial grieving period they trying to get active and they try doing things or they pick up a pet if they lost their spouse or what have you because they're trying to maintain that relationship you know ⁓ or to have a relationship with another creature if you will ⁓ to to get that chemical up and get that chemical rebalanced. Kelsey Dunbar: Yeah, one thing that happens though for a lot of people is, you have a low level of oxytocin because of your lack of connection. And therefore, when you feel like you have to do something to fix yourself, the reason why you're stuck is because most of the people that are in that situation try to fix everything all alone. And that actually goes in the opposite direction. It's more isolation and not opening up and carrying everything internally and all that kind of stuff. Marc Rogala: then. Kelsey Dunbar: You know, definitely, you know, the shift to help give you more oxytocin is just more real conversations, more checking in with relationships. obviously a person after you say, how are you doing? They're gonna ask you how you're doing. Give them the, give them the real answer. Don't say fine. I'm good. I'm okay. Say, you know what? I'm in a good place today. Or you know what? I've been kind of feeling down. I just thought I maybe I'd reach out and we have a conversation and Marc Rogala: Nope. Kelsey Dunbar: I might feel a little better because talking to you always makes me feel better. It's okay to tell people that you really are seeking out that connection. You don't know how many people are seeking that connection from you. Marc Rogala: Kelsey, let's just play this out real quick. And this is just me going rogue again. Okay. But let's look at COVID because we know we're in a mental health crisis that started really around COVID. I mean, we, we struggled as a country the mental health side and addiction side going into COVID, but once COVID happened, everything blew up. What were we doing during COVID? Isolating. So we were isolating. Gyms were closed. Churches were closed. Kelsey Dunbar: isolation. Marc Rogala: Support groups were closed. Grocery stores were open. We got all this time on our hands watching reruns on television because that's all we can do. We're probably not putting the healthiest foods in our body. Chips and all that good stuff, right? That's probably what we're putting in our body, right? Doritos and all that stuff, okay? Because I didn't get sober until July of 2020. It's really cool just with the life that I kind of lived, And then on top of that, liquor stores were still open. So people want people at all the time on our hands and we're about waking up for work the next morning. Maybe I have a glass of wine or a couple of glasses of wine or a couple of beers or whatever it might be. See the ripple effect. Alcohol, the dopamine diet, diet, dopamine, diet, depletion of serotonin, no connection from the outside world. Lack of oxytocin can't go to the gym and work out. There goes your endorphins. You want to know why we're in a mental health crisis right now and addiction crisis. All you gotta do is play that out in your head right there. Seriously. Kelsey Dunbar: Yeah. Now I totally understand and agree. mean, obviously I went through some major transitions during COVID as well. That's when I had to shut down my training studio. mean, it helped my workouts because all my equipment came to my home and now I have a training studio out of my home. That's ⁓ the most incredible gym anyone could possibly have in their home. But I totally get it. Yeah. My studio closed down. That was my ⁓ big was ⁓ to my own gym and it didn't last. So thank you, COVID. you know, like anything else, and we say this all the time with every rough day, there's a lesson, you know, with every rough time you can come back and learn things about yourself, learn things about the world that you can come back stronger. So a lot of times when I tell people, you know, this happened or that happened and they're like, I'm so sorry that you had to go through that. And and Marc's reaction, every time someone says something like that, it says, you know what? I'm stronger for it. So obviously I was meant to go through it, but yeah, definitely COVID made it a very challenging time for a lot of people. And some people still haven't that isolation yet because they got so used to it during that time. So ⁓ definitely, I think, is having major effect on the mental health crisis that we are dealing with every day. Marc Rogala: So the assignment for the audience is again, awareness, not only in the community, but awareness for themselves. I'm sure some of this is gonna resonate with some of the individuals watching this. So ⁓ if you're feeling anxious. Let's look at what your extracurricular activities are and if you can make some adjustments. you're feeling a little down, your is really, what does diet look like? Are you putting the right foods to drive that brain chemistry? If your mood is down and all you're doing is the phone texting and not picking up the phone, calling somebody or not going to go visit a friend, maybe start doing that. Maybe that'll you with your oxytocin. And you know, you're void of physical activity, maybe it's time to get the body moving a little bit. There's so many benefits to exercise. We're talking about the brain, but there's so many organs in the body that obviously it's gonna help besides the brain as well. That's what this podcast is for, is you to do some soul searching from the inside out and say, do I need to make some adjustments to prevent some challenges down the road? Kelsey Dunbar: Absolutely. And so when it comes to these brain chemicals, you know, can stop, fighting yourself, stop swimming paddling upstream. when you adjust your habits, your input, your environment, things will start feeling lighter ⁓ and you some natural momentum going. So that's what this episode's about. So I hope that, you guys got a lot out of it, that you understand how these brain chemicals come into play in your mood and just your overall wellbeing. And, we hope that you definitely have some from this. But as always, if you have any questions or need to reach out to us for some other ideas of how to fit these practices into your daily rituals, you certainly can reach us at suffered a tougher.org. You can hit our contact page to get all this via email that way. Also, our email is a tougher at gmail.com. Easy way to our Facebook page is s two t nation. And you can send us a on Facebook ⁓ and we're always there to help So as we always like to say, you're not broken, you're just overloaded. everyone. Have a good night.