As mental health workers, we are so used to giving to others that our own needs can be neglected, especially our physical health. In this episode, exercise physiologist Jamie tells us about how to keep physically healthy, including 👉 myths around 'correct' posture 👉🏿 the role of incidental exercise 👉🏽 integrating movement into a busy workday 👉🏼 and BONUS! Jamie chats about the positives and challenges of running a psychology practice from a non-psychologist's perspective. Thanks so much for this informative chat, Jamie, I learned a lot and my back is happier for it!
Guest: Jamie Hart, Exercise Physiologist and Business Development Manager at Succoris Psychology
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Hey mental workers, you're listening to the Mental Work podcast, your companion to early career psychology, and I'm your host, Dr. Bronwyn Milkins, and today we are talking about how to maintain good physical health when you're a mental health worker.
[00:00:18] Bronwyn: As psychologists, we diligently prioritize the health of our clients, but what about our own? Today, we're going to explore the connection between physical and mental health and discuss some strategies to implement into your workday to help you stay fit. Our guest is also a non psychologist, so we're going to get a bit of his perspectives on what it's like to work with psychologists.
Here to help us discuss our topic is our guest today, Jamie Hart. Hi, Jamie.
[00:00:44] Jamie: Hi, Bronwyn.
[00:00:45] Bronwyn: It's so nice to have you on the podcast. Thank you for coming on.
[00:00:49] Jamie: No, thank you very much for having me. It's, uh, it's going to be quite an interesting conversation, I think.
[00:00:53] Bronwyn: You know, I must admit, from, it's always interesting, like, hearing people's voices when you look at their photos, I didn't expect you to have such a strong British accent.
[00:01:01] Jamie: Oh, really?
[00:01:03] Bronwyn: Yeah!
[00:01:03] Jamie: Yeah! I get that a lot, but then there's quite a lot of people I've got, all the, all my English friends think I've got quite a strong Australian accent, so go figure.
[00:01:12] Bronwyn: Really? Oh, that's so interesting. Whereabouts in Britain are you from?
[00:01:16] Jamie: Uh, smack in the middle, so if you put a pin in the middle of England, you'd probably hit my house. As far from the sea as you can get.
[00:01:23] Bronwyn: Wow, that's so interesting. Is there lots of green pastures and cows where you we're living.
[00:01:28] Jamie: Yeah, yeah, so I was brought up around lots of green pastures and cows. Yeah, it was quite a rural area where we grew up and yeah, it was quite, I had a really great upbringing. My parents were, my parents are all really great and, um, they gave me everything that they could, so I was very lucky in that respect .
[00:01:46] Bronwyn: Ah, so lovely. Well, listeners, I'll introduce you to Jamie, or Jamie can introduce himself. So, Jamie, could you please tell listeners who you are and what your non work passion is?
[00:01:58] Jamie: Yeah, okay, so all through school it sort of pertains to what my non work passion is anyway. I was really sporty, so I was the person that did everything. And I was reasonable at most things, so I managed to get myself into most teams. And that's where my passion probably still lies.
Being a father of two young kids doesn't allow me a huge amount of time to be competitive anymore, but I think my passion still lies there. I still love watching sport. I still love participating in sport when I can, but obviously being 45, your sort of body starts to tell you that you can do some things and you can't do others. So that's where my passion lies.
More professionally, um, I started out with sports science at university and then, um, moved over to Australia 13 years ago, where I got recognition prior learning to become an exercise physiologist here. So now, uh, for the first sort of 10 years in Australia, I was prescribing exercise for chronic disease, and using exercise as a medicine.
And then four years ago to five years ago, we also, my partner and I, who's Dr. Catherine Hart launched our own psychology business of which now we've got four clinics, spanning New South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria. Um, so. It's quite an interesting topic for me because being part of this podcast specifically on exercise prescription gives me a unique sort of overview of all of that.
[00:03:24] Bronwyn: Yeah, it really does. Thank you for introducing your professional self. And I feel like this episode is quite relevant, actually, because I'll tell you this little story. I went to go get a massage last week, and my massage therapist, they usually never comment on my body. But last week, they were like, why are your shoulders and calves so tight? And I was like, well, I sit down all the time as a psychologist. And they're like, Oh, that makes sense. I've seen you guys before. And I was like, okay, so it's not just me.
Um, so maybe we can start there, which is that a lot of psychologists, they sit down a lot. So unless you're working in a hospital and maybe, I don't know, even driving around, you sit down a lot and you don't really get up in between. So could you just share with us, like, what are some of the consequences of sitting down a lot on physical health?
[00:04:09] Jamie: Yeah, it's interesting that I think the idea of sitting specifically it's probably changed quite a lot over the last decade to be honest and I think we can all get caught up in the idea of sitting as being a problem, but actual fact it's inactivity that's the problem.
[00:04:24] Bronwyn: Oh, okay.
[00:04:26] Jamie: Yeah, so it's, you know, the human body is made to move and without that sort of movement in it on a regular basis, then it sort of compromises all of the efficiencies of the human body, really, and everything that's been adapted to do.
And strangely enough, to compound those ideas as well, we've actually created chairs to sit on that are probably not the greatest position for our bodies to be in, even when they are not moving. You know, it's probably, it's probably, it's probably better to say that we should be in the most comfortable position that we can be, and that bolt upright, sitting really up straight, is probably not as valuable as we used to think it was.
But going back to the original point, it's probably more about inactivity than it is specifically about sitting. Having said that, there is quite a lot of evidence now that directly correlates sitting to ongoing health concerns, but I'm not necessarily convinced that that's a causational relationship. It's more to do with the fact that people that sit for a long time, more often are sedentary as well and inactive and that's probably the bigger problem that needs to be resolved.
[00:05:42] Bronwyn: Okay, so you've just shattered everything I thought I knew, which is awesome, which I'm so glad about. So let's talk about inactivity and I wanted to raise with you as well like the chairs because actually I'll talk with you about chairs first. Is that okay? Um, so psychologists, they post on social media and they're like what's the best chair you have found and then they recommend these specific brands of chairs and they're usually very, uh, I would just say comfy ones but you kind of sink into them.
Do you have a perspective on chairs? Like 50 minute sessions if you're doing six of those a day?
[00:06:16] Jamie: Yes, that's quite an interesting question as well. And I went through quite a lot of my professional career looking into ergonomic design in in the workplace. And um, probably my, my take on it is that we should be looking to try and find a piece of furniture that suits us. If you're going to be sitting in it for a long period of time, the number one thing is you have to be comfortable. But having said that, sitting in the same position in any chair for an extended period of time is probably going to cause some kind of problems. So my, my simple answer is there's no such thing as the correct chair.
[00:06:59] Bronwyn: Oh?
[00:06:59] Jamie: You've got to try and figure it out for yourself and I think that's the way that a lot of movement science is going. It's about teaching people to listen to their own bodies, understand that they're maybe not in as much danger for a start as they think they possibly are, and to actually focus on changing positions rather than the right piece of external hardware that you can get to try and affect your experience of your days.
[00:07:26] Bronwyn: Okay. It does make sense. So there's no best like quote unquote chair. It's what works for your body. Because I have seen that there's just always this new bright and shiny chairs that always been advertised. The latest one that I've seen is that you sit up straight and then you put like your knees behind you. It's kind of like a horse saddle in a way. Have you seen those ones?
[00:07:46] Jamie: Yeah, and, and just to give a little bit of clarity around that, that's probably in order to shorten your sciatic nerves. So when you bend your knees towards your bottom, you've actually shortening your sciatic nerve. So the probably the whole idea of those sort of sitting positions is to take a little bit of extension pressure off that sciatic nerve. And a lot of the time when people experience musculoskeletal pain is that's a neurological... coming from the neurological system rather than the muscular system, and so if we can take pressure off that neurological system, that's what leads to those kind of designs in chairs.
[00:08:24] Bronwyn: Okay, um, so unless we need tension taken off our sciatic nerve, then we don't necessarily need that sort of chair?
[00:08:34] Jamie: No, definitely not, but I must make sure that I'm clear that sitting on one of those is not a bad thing either. Probably in my mind, the perfect situation would be to have five or six different chairs in your office.
[00:08:47] Bronwyn: Oh crap.
[00:08:49] Jamie: And change and change the chair. But practically that's not necessarily that easy to do. So, so, you know, it's having the idea that you should be trying to change posture. That would be the main thing.
So, you know, famously in exercise physiology circles, in more recent, times, probably in the last decade, there's the, uh, the idea was changed to saying that there's no such thing as a poor posture. Every posture is poor if you stay in it for too long. So the modern idea is the best posture is your next posture, which promotes the idea of changing the position that you're in.
So, if you can think of a really sort of modern psychology room, it might have five different places to sit with five different postures, a sit to stand desk so you can write your notes while standing, sitting, or even one that goes right down to the floor so that you can lie and type your
[00:09:49] Bronwyn: Oh, that'd be nice.
[00:09:50] Jamie: So all of these opportunities give you the opportunity within your day to change the posture that you're in. And there is a certain amount of evidence to suggest that if you stay in the same posture for more than about an hour, you probably want to be moving.
[00:10:04] Bronwyn: Okay, so it comes back to the inactivity, doesn't it?
[00:10:08] Jamie: It does.
[00:10:09] Bronwyn: Yeah, and okay, let's talk about posture, because I'll tell you what my posture is in, I feel like I'm doing everything wrong. My posture is cross, is cross legged, but not like, um, like you're sitting on the floor cross legged, but one leg crossed over the others and kind of ankles crossed. I think I do that for the majority of the day. And the only posture I change between is that and like uncrossing my legs.
And then I also lean forward and like as psychologists we're taught to lean forward because it shows interest in like the client and I've literally had to not do that as much anymore because it was hurting my back. But I guess I'm saying this because I don't think that I'm out of the norm. I reckon like all of us will do this cross legged uncross and then lean forward a bit. So if I switch between those postures is that, does that count as switching postures or is that bad?
[00:10:56] Jamie: No, no, that's exactly right. So all those different postures are valuable in terms of moving between the three. And like, even if you're in the same session, moving between the three postures might be really helpful. But I think probably as well, one of the big things to remember is that you, if you listen ,your body will tell you what to do. And that's one of the modern ways of doing exercise prescription. It's about being able to educate people, to listen to their body and allow it to do what it needs to do. And we probably try, we probably spend a lot of time thinking about what's correct and not actually thinking about what's correct for us.
And so if that's your normal way of doing it, and actually that gives you a little bit of respite from the muscular aches or the sort of inactive type feelings that you get, then that's great. If it's prescribed to you, you have to be a little bit more wary because a prescription for you might be different than a prescription for somebody else.
So if I prescribe a certain number of movements for you to do within an hour's long session, it might be really good for you and it might take away those aches and pains, but then for the next person it might exacerbate them. So they might need to move in slightly different ways. But it's about getting people to move and finding their, finding their good, pain free, comfortable postures.
[00:12:21] Bronwyn: Hmm. I, I hear what you're saying yet I still find myself looking for guidance on what is right and wrong. It's-
[00:12:27] Jamie: Yeah, and don't forget as well that that's what people do, right? So this is one of the big things about trying to prescribe exercise to people now in a modern prescription model. We know full well that if we prescribe exercises, generally people don't do them or they'll do them for a short period of time. But if we educate people on what they're trying to achieve from doing the movements, then we hope that they will find their own, knowing that what is the main goal. of you within your sessions. Why are you trying to move? And more often than not, it's just to make yourself more comfortable. And nobody knows your comfort better than you do. So I can tell you to stand on your head because it's the best thing that research tells us to do, but actually you might not be able to stand on your head. So it's pretty irrelevant, isn't it?
[00:13:15] Bronwyn: No, it's all true. So it'd really use listening to your body and also making sure that you're not in the one position for too long.
[00:13:22] Jamie: Yeah, that's right. And allowing yourself to do it as well. So, you know, this quite, you know, when I'm presuming I haven't done a huge amount of media training, but when you see people that are very good at media and very good at being on camera, they sit very still.
[00:13:37] Bronwyn: Yeah.
[00:13:39] Jamie: And that's terrible.
[00:13:40] Bronwyn: Oh, is it?
[00:13:41] Jamie: And so, yeah, yeah, because we're inactive, and actually we, so there's quite a lot of environments when we promote the idea of sitting still, so we look better.
[00:13:51] Bronwyn: Yeah.
[00:13:52] Jamie: That's not the best thing to do. We need to be moving, so we also need to allow ourselves to move, like for example, how many psychologists are willing to have a conversation with their clients to say, you are okay to move around this room.
[00:14:06] Bronwyn: Yeah.
[00:14:07] Jamie: And they need to move around the room too. We can still have a productive therapy session, possibly. I'm playing devil's advocate a bit here.
[00:14:15] Bronwyn: Good.
[00:14:16] Jamie: Quite out of the norm, but how would it be for the therapist and client to be moving around the room within the hour session?
[00:14:23] Bronwyn: Yeah. I, I love your devil's advocate. And for me, I would be comfortable, I've being comfortable with, uh, with clients moving around the room. And I've said that to them, like, I've got, um, floor cushions as well. So I'm like, if you want to sit on the floor, like go for it. If you want to move around, please do. But never would I allow that to myself. I-
[00:14:41] Jamie: That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. So allowing yourself to go, actually you can go and sit down on the floor if you want to. Is it okay with you if I go and sit down on the floor if I feel I need to? But that's it. That's the bit of exercise prescription that we need to get people to understand and open the door to being able to do. Because I'm pretty sure, I mean this is quite a way away, but if we started doing that then we would have a lot better musculoskeletal experience at work as psychologists and ex psychologists for that matter.
[00:15:16] Bronwyn: Yeah, totally. No, that would be really helpful because I do find myself, like you say, that kind of media posture of do sitting, sitting still . I think like it's associated with a certain level of professionalism for me, like it would be unprofessional to kind of move around. But you're right, for health, it's very important.
[00:15:35] Jamie: 100%. Yeah. I couldn't agree more with what you've just said. Yeah. It's that maybe we do think that we're unprofessional about it. And, and that's, you know, I put a few notes down around this podcast and one of the big, big things that I was going to bring up was this cultural expectation around movement and cultural expectation about being busy and, and being this person that our culture and society want us to be when actually it's a conflict with health goals.
[00:16:03] Bronwyn: Yeah. Could you speak a bit more to that if you had anything else?
[00:16:06] Jamie: Um, in regards to the culture, yeah, so, uh, so in regards to, like, one of the questions that we sort of earmarked was this idea of around, um, people being too busy for work, too busy for exercise at work. Actually, research behind exercise and its value is pretty much unequivocal. It's some of the best research done on the planet. It's done over hundreds of thousands of people and research articles and it's pretty much unequivocally now known that if a human being in the western world does not do at least half an hour of moderate to intense activity per day, they will increase their risk of preventable disease.
So when people come and say to me I'm too busy It's like, well, okay, but what we need to try and promote is your busy day to include the activity. And so we need to work with people in order to get around that. But of course our culture says that we should be busy on a society says that as parents, we should be running around for our children. But the reality of it is that if you don't do those 30 minutes of exercise or be active, then it actually compromises yourselves. And you actually then become worse at the other stuff that you've got to do anyway.
[00:17:34] Bronwyn: Yeah. And I think psychologists would be familiar with that last part as well because it's something we always tell our clients to help them take care of themselves. We're like, you know, um, you can't pour from an empty cup and so it is, we are very familiar with like, you do need to take care of yourself in order to take care of other people, but it is at odds with the culture, which is measured in terms of our productivity and output.
[00:17:57] Jamie: Yeah. And, and ironically, exercise has been proven to increase productivity.
[00:18:03] Bronwyn: Oh, really? Oh, that's nice.
[00:18:05] Jamie: Yeah. Yeah. And cognition...
[00:18:09] Bronwyn: I knew about the cognition.
[00:18:10] Jamie: Yeah, yeah. And attention and reaction time. Like there's a really great website that I actually put down as a note to make sure that your listeners visit if they want to. And it's called exerciseismedicine.org. It's from Exercise and Sports Science Australia, the governing body of exercise physiologists, because exercise physiologists are aren't governed by AHPRA like other health professionals are, but Exercise and Support Science Australia is still a great governing body and they have really great resources, really simplified resources on that website. And that's the kind of place that you need to be able to go to be able to, to look at what's in front of you.
[00:18:52] Bronwyn: No, I'll definitely add those to the show notes. Thank you so much for letting us know. Um, so we've talked about how like, okay, we, there might be a misconception that exercise is unachievable for us as psychologists. We live busy lives, but your perspective is that, look, we need to make time for this because it helps our health.
[00:19:11] Jamie: Yeah, it's, yeah. And that in itself is an interesting concept, isn't it? Because, because I think, you know, we're also moving as, uh, particularly with exercise and health prescription to, uh, an environment that makes it a little bit more self efficacious for the client and they should be involved with their own care.
So exercise physiologists have 20 years ago were very prescriptive. They were like, this is what you have to do. This is how you do it. And this is the pathway that you take in order to achieve that goal. And it's very prescriptive. But now we know that people are a lot more flexible than that, and they need a little bit more control over what they're trying to achieve. So we have to try and make sure that we promote that in exercise prescriptions.
So the big question about what you've just asked is how do people want to live their lives? And So more often than not, the consequences of inactivity arise later in life. So what you do now is go, is going to determine your quality of life as you age. And it's really about, it's really about that question. What sort of 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 year old do you want to be? And that's a really difficult concept to get into young professionals minds.
[00:20:35] Bronwyn: Oh, totally. Yeah. We're not, we're not great at that future focus and being like, ah, you know, it's always like, I'll deal with it later.
[00:20:42] Jamie: Yeah, that's right. And, and, and arguably there is a little bit of room for that as well, actually, Bronwyn. So there is some research to say that you can sort of grab a bit back as you get older. So it's not catastrophic like the, you know, when we talk to people about inactivity, like the numbers around inactivity are quite extraordinary, actually. I mean, the Australian Institute of Health and Wellness and the Australian Bureau of Statistics both record that only 50 percent of adults in Australia are active enough.
[00:21:17] Bronwyn: Wow.
[00:21:18] Jamie: and it's 70 percent of children.
[00:21:21] Bronwyn: Oh, oh, that surprises me. I, I, you know, you just associate children with being like, active and, you know, running around and stuff.
[00:21:29] Jamie: Now, in the Western world, it's a really, really big problem, and it's cultural, going back to what we said a couple of points ago, um, to the point that surprisingly enough, in Australia, Indigenous children tend to be more active than non Indigenous children.
So, it is a cul... there is a cultural component within the Western world that doesn't, maybe, I don't know, doesn't allow us to exercise, doesn't tell us that enough, or, I don't know, people, I don't know that, what the answer to those questions are, but I know that because of that, because so many people have a problem with it, it's not, we can't, we can't, we can't use it as a stick. So we can't say you've got to exercise or you're going to have these big problems. Cause the research just says that you increase the risk. It doesn't say that you're definitely going to have problems.
So it's about leaning towards a more active lifestyle. And from an , an exercise science perspective, it's about moving people to be more generally active. So having really easy to understand guidelines of the 30 minutes a day or the 150 minutes a week to 300 minutes a week is the standard prescription. Um, but also having the ability to be able to choose incidental exercise over no exercise. And when I say incidental exercise for your viewers, that means taking the steps instead of a lift. Those kind of, those kind of opportunities that you have on a daily basis.
Like, I don't know, you might have stairs at your house and you might choose not to go up the stairs because it's too hard and you'll just do it later. And you can actually just make the... make the decision to go up the stairs now, which means you will still have to go up the stairs later. And just being able to opt into things like that actually are really valuable as well. Making sure you go for a walk, go for a walk with your children, be active at the weekends, incidental exercise that's not formal can have a really big impact as well.
[00:23:33] Bronwyn: Is that how you sell it to maybe, uh, cause we do have, uh, parents who listen to this podcast who are psychologists, mental health professionals, and yeah, they're parents of young kids and it's, it's hard being a full time parent and you're very busy. How would you help someone who is a parent with small kids integrate exercise or incidental activity into their work day?
[00:23:54] Jamie: Yeah, thanks for that question. It's, it's actually quite a challenge.
[00:23:58] Bronwyn: Yeah.
[00:23:59] Jamie: However, however, you know what? The easiest way to do it is to do stuff with your kids. That's the easiest way of doing it. Like you go, right, do you want to go to the park? If the child says yes, you're winning because you can create quite substantial amounts of incidental exercise at a park. You know, the old way of thinking, Oh, let's set up a, uh, a relay race around the, but before you know it, you're out of breath and half an hour's gone and that's your half an hour for the day. And an incidental exercise, if you do that, can really easily change into the formal 30 minutes, right? So that's the other thing.
Incidental versus formal exercise is on quite a substantial sort of continuum. Like, in order to change an incidental piece of exercise to a formal piece of exercise is just how quickly you do it. So you can actually start to become quite inventive about how to keep those health, um, um, goals that you might set with an exercise physiologist or on your own. And actually it starts to become a bit more achievable as you actually investigate it more.
[00:25:07] Bronwyn: That sounds good. And what would you say to psychologists? Okay. I think my question here is, should we be doing 10 push ups between sessions? That sort of thing. Is that something that you'd recommend?
Okay.
[00:25:23] Jamie: that, would be in line with the current way of getting people to change their habits around. The likelihood of, if I said to all of your listeners, you've got to do 10 pushups between each session or in excess, well, it would lower than 1 percent that could do that for more than a week. Not because they couldn't, it's just not practical.
[00:25:43] Bronwyn: Yeah.
[00:25:45] Jamie: It's about being able to say, okay, what can you do between your sessions? How many minutes do you have between your sessions? No minute, and then the answer might be, I don't have any minutes. I don't have any time between my sessions. And my answer would be, okay, well, if there's no time between your sessions, we need to find time elsewhere. And they have to, they're going to have to come up with the idea of the change, and they're going to have to drive the change based on knowing what they're trying to achieve.
[00:26:19] Bronwyn: So it really is client driven is what I'm hearing.
[00:26:22] Jamie: Yeah, 100%. You know, like it's got to be, the person's got to come up with the idea, they have to have that control over their, over their health pathway, because evidence is showing that if they don't, they pass that health over, they pass that concern over to somebody else, and then it becomes costly, time, money, um, impact on your life. Whereas if you can make the decisions yourself, you're much more likely to stick to them, and they're going to be a lot more practical for you to stick with ongoing.
[00:26:53] Bronwyn: That makes perfect sense. And yeah, I think as, as again, psychologists would be really familiar with that. We can't tell people to do things. We often work in ways that help people recognize what it is is needed in their life and what they would like to do and what their values are and how that could integrate with their values. And so it sounds very similar.
[00:27:12] Jamie: Yeah, and it's great that you say that as well, so thanks again, because it's really, um, psychologists strangely will know how to do this. They tell people how to do it. So once again, and, and, you know, I jotted down some notes around, um, sort of psychologists, um, specifically and what I've learned from psychologists. And I'm a really, really big believer in psychology as an education. And well, I mean, I, I own four psychology clinics.
[00:27:43] Bronwyn: It would be, it would be unusual if you were like, no, psychology is rubbish, I hate it. Yeah.
[00:27:48] Jamie: And you just said, and that's why it was a good sort of adjunct, because you've just said the reason why, like, if you want to get, if you want to change somebody's behaviors, the professional that lives on our planet, that's educated the best to do that are psychologists. And because all health concerns are around behavioral change, the math is that psychologists are the people that come out of university with the best skill set to be able to do that.
[00:28:16] Bronwyn: Totally.
[00:28:17] Jamie: And just not to mention that exercise physiologists use behavioral change and basic CBT. But you know, like if you're a psychologist, you know it's a lot more complicated than that.
[00:28:26] Bronwyn: Absolutely. Absolutely. It's, uh, and it's also, it can be very slow as well. Like I think a lot of people expect that like in one session, you're going to be able to radically change somebody's point of view. But when somebody is trying to work out what is, what is it? How do I want to live my life? And what activities do I want to be included in that life? What kind of person do I want to be? How do I want to treat other people? It can be quite a slow process for them to, to gather, um, that information for themselves and then decide what behavior goes along with that and then to implement it. So, it sounds like that's what exercise physiologists see in action as well.
[00:29:00] Jamie: Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, and, and strangely, the exercise prescription, um, sort of industry has got to move more towards integrating mental health and psychology, psychology type skills. We can't become psychologists as exercise physiologists, of course. But we have to, as an industry, try and accept that the research that's coming from psychology is probably as valuable to the research that's coming out of exercise prescription in terms of getting people to exercise, strangely.
[00:29:41] Bronwyn: Yeah. And I think psychology could benefit from exercise physiology stuff a bit more as well, because like, I do try and I know how valuable exercises and I don't, it depends on what the client's goals are. But if I can get a bit of like, exercise or like movement, I usually say movement. Um, movement might be good. Anything you find fun, anything you are drawn to is good. Um, and that's how I usually put it to clients when they're looking to make exercise part of their life. But yeah, it'd be good to learn a few more exercise physiology things to help me out with that.
[00:30:14] Jamie: Yeah, yeah. And it's, and it's, and like I say, that website, "Exercise is Medicine", is a really great resource. I mean, like, it's a really great place to go for anybody that's, anybody from professionals to, to lay individuals to read, because that's really, there's really quite a lot of clarity around what's, what's right and what's not right.
Um, and you know, exercise prescription goes all the way from general population and pretty easy stuff to sports performance, um, specific prescriptions for specific health concerns, which we don't need to go into in this podcast. I don't think, but the reality of it is that exercise physiologists do hold that skill set to be able to explore specific prescriptions to treat specific ailments, which can be done as well. And I think that's probably the compartmentalization between, just saying to somebody, just go find something that you enjoy doing and moving versus having something to specifically treat.
So if somebody comes in and goes, I can't do exercise because I've got osteoarthritis, then, then obviously then it would be, okay, well there are specific things that you can do and there's specific prescriptions that have been proven to have really great results with osteoarthritis. It's just about general health, particularly mental health, it's about moving.
[00:31:31] Bronwyn: Yeah, awesome. Okay, I have some questions. I have actually two more main questions. The first one is, I don't think many psychologists need convincing on the value of exercise or to exercise. Like, every second psychologist is a yoga teacher, so like, many of us like, like, do exercise. Um, I guess my question is, and maybe this might be a research question, is like, I'll give you like my personal story, which is like, I love exercise. I've been exercising forever. Um, you know, do Pilates, go for runs, go for walks. Love it. Great part of my self care routine.
Is that, I, I just feel like it's not enough to like counter all the sitting, but maybe it comes back to the inactivity. So like, maybe what would you say to psychologists like me, who, who are already into the exercise, but it's like, we also sit down so much that it's like, do I need to do like an hour a day? I don't know.
[00:32:25] Jamie: No, so the evidence is pretty unequivocal. It's, it's, it's between half an hour and an hour of moderate to intense, I guess is the right word, moderate to intense physical exercise a day. So one of the big things that we come across is that people exercise and they're not getting the formalized value of it because they're not slightly out of breath.
[00:32:48] Bronwyn: Okay. Sure.
[00:32:49] Jamie: So the idea is, is that you spend 30 minutes to an hour slightly out of breath a day. And even to the point that that can be broken down into every other day, for an hour to two hours, or every three days for two and a half hours. Like there even was some research done into what they termed weekend warriors, and they suggested that they still got health value out of just exercising at the weekends.
[00:33:13] Bronwyn: Wow. That's cool.
[00:33:15] Jamie: Yeah, so, so we don't, like I say, I think probably one of the big things that I wanted to get over on this podcast is that it's not catastrophic if you don't, but it is really valuable if you do. So whatever you can end up doing is going to have value. Evidence suggests that it will all. Now, going back to the idea of sitting, I think probably for all of your, your listeners, it would be really great to hear that that's not catastrophic either.
[00:33:43] Bronwyn: Okay. Gotcha. Yep.
[00:33:44] Jamie: Key thing is it will be really. negative for you as a clinician if you start to get aches and pains because you're sitting too much. Now the aches and pains landscape has changed inexplicably over the last 10 to 15 years, and psychologists have been right at the forefront of that change, strangely, with the idea that when we feel pain, it's our brain responding to a stimulus, not something hurting. So if my knee hurts, it may not have anything to do with my knee.
And so with that idea, and obviously the research in psychology has brought this to the fore, um, with that idea in mind, you want to be trying to promote a day without musculoskeletal pain and that comes with movement. Sitting can promote that musculoskeletal pain. We've all felt it before, but movement can turn that off as well.
[00:34:43] Bronwyn: Hmm. Okay. I'm going to ask the second question, but I feel like given our conversation, it's a bit of an ignorant question, but I'm going to ask it because I bet listeners want to know is that should I be stretching during the day?
[00:34:55] Jamie: Well, that's a great question and really loaded as well. So thanks again, bronwyn. Yeah. The evidence around stretching is really interesting actually, but yeah, well, it goes, it goes back 50 years, but more actually loads more, a hundred years. And the reality of it is that I think the modern thought process is around that stretching is one of those things that if it makes you feel better, you should 100 percent do it.
[00:35:20] Bronwyn: Okay.
[00:35:21] Jamie: But the evidence to suggest that it's specifically valuable and has a causational value is questionable.
[00:35:28] Bronwyn: Oh.
[00:35:29] Jamie: So you won't straight away have better health outcomes if you stretch.
[00:35:35] Bronwyn: Okay.
[00:35:36] Jamie: but if it makes you feel better, you should definitely do it.
[00:35:41] Bronwyn: Okay. It makes you feel better. Go for gold, but don't expect it to have like miraculous health outcomes.
[00:35:47] Jamie: Correct. Yes. And, and that's, that's the message with stretching. I think that's, it would probably be a modern day message for stretching.
[00:35:54] Bronwyn: Yeah. Okay. Cool. Thank you. Uh, it's, it's been really interesting talking with you about this because yeah, as a person who, like I really enjoy exercising and it's like, I know a little bit about exercise enough so that I can enjoy it and like push myself and like have fun, but it's really interesting talking to you about the research perspective because I feel like I've been conditioned by society to be like stretch daily, like don't sit, like all these kinds of cultural messages and stuff. So yeah, thank you.
[00:36:21] Jamie: No worries.
[00:36:23] Bronwyn: Is there anything else you wanted to say on the exercise side of things or the physical health side of things before we get into, I guess, you as running a psychology clinic?
[00:36:32] Jamie: No, I don't think so. I think I'd just reiterate to all your listeners to not, to not fear the idea of, of inactivity for one. It's not a scary thing and it's not bad, but I would also implore them to understand that exercise is a medicine. It's the cheapest one on the market.
[00:36:54] Bronwyn: Yep.
[00:36:54] Jamie: It's the most efficacious, so it actually works better than most other medicines. So open the door for yourselves to be as active as you can, both incidentally and formally. And the best way to do that is to find something that you enjoy doing.
[00:37:10] Bronwyn: Yep. Just tell me if this is accurate or not, because sometimes I do say it to clients when it's when it's the right moment, but I do say like, if exercise was a pill, everybody would be on it.
[00:37:20] Jamie: Pretty much.
[00:37:21] Bronwyn: Okay, cool. Thank you.
[00:37:23] Jamie: Pretty much.
[00:37:24] Bronwyn: Nice. Okay. Well, let's move on then to running a psychology franchise. So, you run a psychology practice called Succoris Psychology with your wife, Dr. Catherine Hart, who has been on the podcast several times. And I'll pop Catherine's links to her episodes in the notes if you want to go back and listen. She's absolutely wonderful. You've opened up multiple clinical sites with her. Could you just tell us, like, what drew you to starting a psychology business as an exercise physiologist?
[00:37:53] Jamie: Um, yeah, so I've, I've sort of almost answered that question in that I, I have quite a high regard for psychologist's education. And I've been exercise, I've been doing exercise prescription for 25 years. And all of the bits, I always went through my life and questioned how efficacious exercise was, and I always came up against problems in that math, and the problem now is starting to be solved by mental health research.
[00:38:32] Bronwyn: Interesting.
[00:38:34] Jamie: And so the bits that were missing in musculoskeletal rehabilitation and prescription are being answered in mental health research. And that's one of the big things that draws me to, uh, to psychology. And of course, I've been around psychology for 20, 20 plus years as well. And I, I, I always had an idea that it was, that it was going to be the go to allied health. You would have to have psychologists involved with people's care because there wasn't anybody else with a round enough skill set to be able to deliver behavioural change in people of all levels. So from general population to people with a sort of low level, um, stress, depression, anxiety, all the way up to really challenging mental health conditions. Everybody still needs to do those health behaviours if they can, but psychologists are the best placed professionals to be able to action that change.
Um, and that's just in the musculoskeletal field. Then you've got the idea of the workforce, uh, human resource, resource management, leadership, and it's all based around emotional regulation, building connection, um, and everything that psychologists do every hour of their day.
So you can see that I'm quite passionate around psychology anyway, and, and because of that, it was a no brainer to think that that's the way that our industry was going, and it was the best sort of business to get into as somebody with an entrepreneurial mind, I guess.
[00:40:09] Bronwyn: Totally. Off the cuff question, have you ever thought of bringing exercise physiologists into Succoris Psychology and kind of like branching out that way?
[00:40:17] Jamie: Yeah, I, I have. I have. Um, it's, It's not, it's not as easy to do. And I kind of think that we, it's, there's not something, it doesn't, it doesn't fit with the same model, Bronwyn. So finances and sustainability around exercise physiology is not the same as around mental health in, in Australia. So it, it's, I kind of, I kind of probably think that the answer is somewhere in the realms of be really good at what you do...
[00:40:50] Bronwyn: Yeah.
[00:40:50] Jamie: ...first, um, but who's to say that we won't have multidisciplinary centres in the future maybe?
[00:40:59] Bronwyn: I mean, it'd be a great niche. It should be super cool.
[00:41:01] Jamie: There are places that do it now, so there are places that do psychology and prescribed exercise, and actually do exercise in the same sessions to help out with the mental health. Yeah, I can't remember the name of the company off the top of my head, but there is a company that specifically does it, and they basically have their clinic room set up as weight training facilities. Thanks. Yeah, so it does happen. It does happen.
[00:41:25] Bronwyn: Okay. And what's it like to work as a director of psychologists when you're trained in a different allied health field? Because it's, I've heard you say that you've been really passionate about psychologists, um, psychology for like decades now. So maybe it's, maybe it's not so hard, but, um, have you, have you encountered any difficulties? I guess where this question is coming from is that sometimes psychologists I've heard through the grapevine, they're like, I'm being managed by a non psychologist and I don't really get what I'm doing. Have you come across that?
[00:41:53] Jamie: Yeah, I think, um, it's an interesting question. So thank you again. The, the, in order to, in order to have a sustainable business in any industry, um, you need to make sure that you think about it from as many angles as you can. And thankfully, I've got Dr. Hart who drives the clinical governance of our business anyway. So I don't tend to tend to be involved with that too much.
However, what I am in a relatively unique position to do is to understand a little bit of the clinical governance through being an EP. But also my job is to bring the clinical governance into a sustainable place because those two things don't always align. So I would say to your listeners that if you do have somebody that's not a psychologist, that's in the leadership team of the place that you work... um, I would probably try and extend a little bit of curiosity around why they're doing and why they're saying what they, what they're trying to say, um, and trying to think, actually, there's a congruency here that needs to happen, particularly in the private sector, Bronwyn, actually. I mean, the public sector is slightly different because the financial modeling is different, but in the private sector, definitely. The people that are in the leadership teams have to try and run a sustainable service. And the sustainability service may sometimes be at odds with clinical governance. And that's the great thing about opening a psychology practice. And the real, the thing that drives me actually is getting that really great alignment between clinical governance and corporate governance, and being able to create something that actually does both really well, which allows sustainable growth and sustainable service provision.
[00:43:42] Bronwyn: Yeah, absolutely. And that can be, like, I'm not, I'm not a director of massive, like, four practices and stuff, but I've heard that it is a bit of a difficult landscape right now to be sustainable and that people are having to be quite agile and do different things in order to be sustainable.
[00:43:59] Jamie: Yeah, and I suppose, yeah, and to be perfectly honest without going into, I mean, I'll go into it as much as you want because I love it, but the landscape's changing for private practice psychology in Australia and with the closing the loop whole laws that came into effect from April it's going to be quite, it possibly may be quite a challenging time for for private psychology business owners and psychologists actually, because it's going to change the way that contracts are written, and it's going to change the agreements that people have, and it might change the education that needs to be given, and the understanding of new graduate psychologists coming out of university. But first and foremost it's going to change, or it should be changing, the financial pathways of clinics.
[00:44:51] Bronwyn: Mm.
[00:44:52] Jamie: And so it's going to be a challenging, challenging bit of time, but I, I, I really do think that there's sustainability in, in psychology practices, but I hope that it's something that we can make sure that everybody knows what it is and educate more and more people about how to make them sustainable.
[00:45:10] Bronwyn: Yeah.
[00:45:12] Jamie: And one of the big things that were big problems and challenges that we're coming across is sort of based on our, based on our business aims that have been in place for four or five years, one of the main ones was to create deep connections and one, and that's been quite a challenging thing for, for us and other business owners that we know, because, um, our society still has a little bit of, um, uncertainty around psychology, like it's still not mainstream.
Dr. Hart and I's goals was to bring psychology to the mainstream, and it's still difficult. Like it's, there's a, there's this sort of idea of what psychology should be, and then obviously you've got psychologists themselves that are rightly told to to set really great boundaries, particularly with clients. And, you know, sometimes that can muddy into no relationship at all. Does that make sense?
And even in some places where into some instances where psychologists perhaps aren't particularly programmed to create really meaningful relationships in their workplaces, um, and potentially are fearful of doing that. And that's been a real challenge in running the businesses actually, particularly as it was one of our main goals to do and we carry on to try and do it.
[00:46:30] Bronwyn: No, it does sound very difficult. Um, yeah, and you do sound very passionate about the area. I'm glad that, yeah, you're in charge of that area. It sounds like it's really flourishing under your care.
So, I think something that listeners might be interested in hearing from you is, what do you wish that psychologists knew better about psychology practices? Because I think that there can be some tension from psychologists.
We don't really have, unless we are running a practice, we don't really have a good understanding of what goes into running a practice. And I think that can lead to some practice owners understandably feeling underappreciated or misunderstood, understandably. Um, but yeah, I, I think one of the aims of, of this podcast is to help facilitate understanding between psychologists and practice owners. So I'm just curious about your perspective about what you would wish that they knew or had a better understanding of.
[00:47:26] Jamie: Yeah, I mean, if it was me, Bronwyn, I'd wish they knew everything. Like, we really pride ourselves at Sucorris as being as, as open as we can be and as transparent with our operations as we can be. And, um, that does come at some cost sometimes, but I think over, over the course, I think it is better to be transparent.
However, we have to really understand as well that psychologists don't come out of university with business degrees. The reality of it is that I would say to all the business owners out there be transparent and to all the psychologists out there is accept education
[00:48:04] Bronwyn: Mm.
[00:48:05] Jamie: and both parties just need to be kind to one another because one can't exist without the other and it's, it's an integrated relationship and one that needs to be governed by really great cultural awareness. Um, and If we can get really great cultural awareness, it opens the door to having conversations about the sustainability of businesses.
But, you know, one of the big things that... I found it's not so much of a big issue in our clinics, but we do hear, we do hear it from other clinic owners is, is the idea of when you run in a workforce, it's a, it's a them versus us mentality.
[00:48:39] Bronwyn: Yeah.
[00:48:41] Jamie: The reality of it is that if the business is set up, it can only be sustainable- there's only a certain number of factors that can make a business sustainable. And everybody really should know what those three or four factors are. And if they understand those four factors and where they fit to the variability that can come in those factors, then I think it would be a lot better place for people to work. I really believe that it's the best place to work. Like the private practice, being a private practice psychologist should be an extraordinary experience of a professional life.
[00:49:21] Bronwyn: Yeah, totally.
[00:49:22] Jamie: Flexibility that can come with it, the salary potential, the earning potential, um, the work life balance can really be extraordinary. And if you understand those few variables that make a role and a clinic sustainable, then you're going to be able to achieve that.
[00:49:41] Bronwyn: Mm. Yeah, no, I really like the way that you're putting it. Practices, yeah, they can't survive just in isolation, like they, we both need each other. Psychologists need the practice owners and people who run the business and the business owners need psychologists. So it's good for us to understand each other and for psychologists to accept that education and for practice owners to, I guess, like, be transparent if we, you know, if we do ask about what's happening here, because usually I think almost all of us, we really just want to understand. I know when I ask questions is to understand, not to criticize. uh, but you know, we've all heard stories of where that hasn't gone down like that. Um, so yeah, it's nice that you're modeling that kindness towards each other.
[00:50:21] Jamie: Yeah.
And we try, we do try to, you know, and, and to be perfectly honest, it doesn't always work out because, you know, not everybody wants to hear... Sometimes the sustainability of a practice isn't in line with what people want.
[00:50:35] Bronwyn: Yeah, no, absolutely.
[00:50:37] Jamie: And then there's an absolutely nothing anybody can do about that. But I think it's a really strong outcome to a situation like that when both people, both parties understand that, it can't, can't be. Does that make sense?
And, and, and have acceptance in that. And I think that's something that's really, there's something really nice and transparent about understanding when that's, when it's got to that place. However, I, I do believe as well that it's very rarely going to get to that position. And one of the big problems that we have is getting people to try and, um, compare roles in the private sector with the public sector, for example, and they're really two different jobs, right? And it's about the person knowing which one they want and what comes with each one. And, you know, I think sometimes people have to actually do it themselves to experience it. Um, people really thrive in one of, one or both, or just one or both of the, environments.
But I do, I still believe as a private practice owner that it's the best place for psychologists to be working. However, you know, with the incidence of pricing as well at the moment, it doesn't necessarily come with accessibility for, for general public, which means that the public sector services have to remain, you know?
[00:51:56] Bronwyn: Yes, exactly. No, thank you again. And I guess this is my last batch of questions, which is where do you see Succoris's heading in the future? And where do you see the psychology industry going in the future?
[00:52:08] Jamie: I can't see anything other than growth, like it, this, and I, and I don't, I mean that for Succoris as well, like, Succoris has so many different avenues that it can go down based on the sort of base that we've given it to date. Um, and we're just in the process of investigating opening a fifth clinic as well.
[00:52:31] Bronwyn: Wow.
[00:52:32] Jamie: Yeah. And with, we continue to investigate the opportunities within the corporate sector in terms of leadership, education, cultural education, emotional regulation within the workforce. The opportunities are endless, really.
Although we can, um, although we put strategic plans in place at the start of each year and we try and stick to those, like it can go in a lot of different ways, Bronwyn. And I think all the psychologists, all your listeners need to understand that the opportunities out there are pretty substantial. They're only really, it's really only limited by people's imagination, because like I said through the podcast, psychologists have a really unique skill set. They come out of adversity with one of the best skill sets to succeed in our life. Um, and it's, but it's up to each individual people to figure out how, how to do that and what best suits that really.
So I think that the short answer is growth in the industry and for Succoris I think. It's just about, um, from our perspective, it's about trying to have that sustainable growth, making sure that we abide by our, our business goals of accessibility, fairness, and bringing psychology to the mainstream and developing deep connections. There are four sort of goals, and if we have a growth opportunity that sits with those goals, then we'll action it to the best of our ability, yeah.
[00:54:03] Bronwyn: Awesome. Well, Jamie, we're coming to the end of our conversation and so is there anything that you hope listeners will take away from our conversation today? Anything you want to emphasize in particular?
[00:54:14] Jamie: No, I don't think so. I said, um, I emphasised the bits at the end of the exercise component and, uh, the psychology component, I suppose, off the back of what we spoke about. Make sure that you communicate with, with your, with your business owners and the clinical leads, even in the public sector, you know, we're living in a, we're living in a work culture specifically that should be open to taking feedback in it's, all it's joyous ways.
[00:54:42] Bronwyn: Absolutely.
[00:54:44] Jamie: And be thankful for it as well, so business owners be thankful for the feedback.
[00:54:48] Bronwyn: I know when, I mean, just to speak to that, like, if I give feedback to somebody, it means that I feel safe with that person because I don't give feedback to people who I don't feel safe with. And so I actually do think that people should be really grateful for feedback. I don't think I'm alone in only giving feedback when I feel safe because it means that I really want to support your growth. Um, and I genuinely want to have a discussion with you.
[00:55:11] Jamie: Yeah. And that's, that's the thing. And we try every day to have that genuine connection and that genuine want to be open and transparent about what we're trying to achieve. And I think, I think it's the right pathway, Bronwyn.
Knowing that we're speaking to a lot of people on a podcast, I think it's important to realize that we should all be opening the door to more feedback, creating trust as a clinic lead or manager to allow people to give the feedback that they need to have really.
[00:55:44] Bronwyn: Wonderful. Well, Jamie, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you for your time. I know you're a very busy person and I really appreciate it. And thank you for your insights about exercise and about Succoris and psychology in general. It's been so valuable and listeners, I hope you got a lot out of it.
[00:56:00] Jamie: No worries, thank you very much Bronwyn. It was a great experience and I hope some people got something from it.
[00:56:06] Bronwyn: And if listeners want to learn more about you or get in touch, where can they find you?
[00:56:10] Jamie: Succoris, succoris.com.au. You can leave some, leave a message through the website.
[00:56:17] Bronwyn: Yep.
[00:56:18] Jamie: It will filter its way down to me.
[00:56:20] Bronwyn: Excellent.
And listeners, I'll pop that link in the show notes as well as all the other links mentioned today.
And if you enjoyed this episode or any of our previous ones, do leave us a five star review on iTunes, Spotify, and in your podcast app. It really does help the podcast get into more ears. And that's a wrap. Thanks for listening to Mental Work. Have a good one and catch you next time. Bye.