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We often talk about how this country has a massive Mental Health problem. It does and there’s no argument. This is one of the few things that, you know, Republicans and Democrats and rich and poor and everybody can be like, yeah, we got some Mental Health issues in this country.

The real question is what are some of the solutions and who is going to pay for them? Are there ways of using alternative medicine and regular lifestyle changes to make a significant difference? Well, I believe there are and would change people’s lives for the better.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:17] The problem is, is that while it’s great that we can point it out, I mean, identifying the problem is obviously the very first thing we got to do before we can start solving it well, we don’t say anything about it I don’t know why that is.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:29] So here are the top two things you can do to eradicate depression and mental illness in your life. Exercise and testosterone, exercise actually increases testosterone so that’s why it’s the number one.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:44] When you exercise, what actually happens is all the little joint mechanoreceptors, all the neurology from your body that’s connected to your brain, your muscle spindle, fibers, Golgi, tendon organs, all those things send tremendous amounts of information up through the joints into the spine, from the spine to spinal cord, spinal cord to the brain but it hits the cerebellum. And so all that information that to the cerebellum has to be processed. So it sends it from the cerebellum to the frontal lobe to be an actual process and function, and we make sure everything’s going right.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:12] Here’s the cool thing everybody talks about you only use 10% of your brain that’s not necessarily accurate. What is accurate is the body can only focus energy in one spot or the other for a very long. As you increase function in the frontal lobe, you actually decrease function in the temporal lobe, the temporal lobe houses, the amygdala, the amygdala is your fear, hate, anger, terror, and all the bad stuff so you actually shut that part down.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:39] As you shut that down, the only thing that’s left is a dopaminergic function, which is reward happy, Great all those things. You also get something that shifts what’s called the sympathetic parasympathetic shunt back and forth.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:55] So what ends up happening is you shift out of sympathetic, which is fight-flight, and into parasympathetic, which is resting digesting. This allows the gut to start functioning at a higher level. Well, guess where all of your serotonin is made? It’s made in the gut. So now all of a sudden we have high dopamine function because we’re actually achieving goals that we set for ourselves and we start producing serotonin again, which helps us stay more awake and more alert and feel better so we have both of these things going for us.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:02:23] Now. The other thing is that neurologic drive, your body understands the tissues being damaged, so it increases the delivery and production of testosterone. Now, testosterone is fantastic for the whole body, it’s the healing hormone, we talk about this a lot, it’s hypercritical to actual health.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:02:39] However, what people don’t understand is that the reason testosterone was first made in 1935 was to treat depression. That was it. Not for muscles, not for bones it was specifically to treat depression and it is spectacular at doing that.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:02:56] So if you work out, you get more testosterone, if you recognize the need for testosterone, you supplement with testosterone, everything starts building back, back better. You start producing testosterone, start producing more muscle. Inside those muscles are ATP generators called mitochondria, that ATP keeps the brain functioning and moving. Everything starts building back together when you have testosterone and you actually exercise, all of these things start building themselves back up.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:23] So if we really want to make a push to fix mental health in this country, we would institute exercise. We would take our kids who are we’re decreasing recess, we’re decreasing P.E. we’re not making them exercise, we’re letting them get fat and sit around and stare at screens all the time. If you would take those kids and get up and make them move and exercise a couple of times a day. What we would see in the teenage adolescent era is that anxiety, depression, the mental issues would start radically decreasing.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:56] But that’s not something we want to do for some unknown reason, it’s as if we’re actually trying to foster mental health issues. We need to start exercising more, we need to get out and move. You guys don’t have to, you know, lift weights like I do, you guys don’t have to run marathons just get out and move. Walking around outside is a fantastic option to start with now, the more you do this, the better things get.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:04:20] There is a caveat to this COVID has really increased what ends up happening when we get sick for a long time, we see this with lives, we see this chronic fatigue from ALS or things like that. What ends up happening is what’s called the point of diminishing returns gets a little screwed up.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:04:36] Now, the point of diminishing returns is where you exercise for three units you break yourself down three units, but your body can only heal two. So what ends up happening is you get more tired, more sore, and you feel worse for exercise. This is one of those things where you have to go back through clean up the got increased nutritional function oftentimes have to increase testosterone in the body, usually exogenously.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:05:01] Then once the body heals a little bit, then it will have the ability with nutrition and testosterone and the ability to sleep again, to heal at a greater rate. So now you can break yourself down into three units in the gym and you can rebuild four or five units.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:05:15] Now, that damage you’re doing to the body, the body then has to increase your metabolism, which is the creation of new cells has to create those who cells and actually can. And once it can do that, now we can heal, regenerate and grow better instead of just breaking ourselves down without the ability to heal and we get past that point of diminishing returns we start getting healthier and better as we go along.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:05:37] Again, that is nutrition and that is sleep and that is testosterone, proper hormone balance. So if we can get those things added to exercise, we really start to see a massive change in the way your psychological function happens.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:05:51] So if we really want to take a chance and say we’re going to make a positive change to radically push for positive health, health care, mental health care changes, we’re going to have to start really focusing on physical motion and exercise, as well as testosterone and nutrition. But if we start moving, a lot of people are going to start getting better. So let’s start exercising and start moving if we really do care about our mental health.

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Dr. Matt Chalmers

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