Before we get started talking about mental health and martial arts, if you’re like me and you’re reading this you probably have two questions.

1. How do martial arts relate to mental health?
2. What makes you think you can talk about mental health?

Well, I’ll start with number two and move onto number one.

Now, if you’re like me then whenever I read any post on mental health I am a little dubious. Who is this person, do they understand this or are they just talking in theory? Do they have anything interesting to say or are they just pushing an agenda? I want to help explain who I am, a little about my story.

Who am I?

So, my name is Kyle. I’m one of the black belts here at MSK School of Martial Arts. I also have rapid cycling bipolar. Welp. Well, what does that mean? Simply put, Bipolar is moving between extreme highs (mania) and extreme (lows). But Kyle, I get mood swings and feel happy and sad all the time, does that mean I’m bipolar? That’s a question I get asked a lot of the time and it’s OKAY! While as a society we are getting better at understanding mental health, we are still learning. There are a lot of reasons for people to have mood swings, stress, sleep, hormones, but bipolar is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. It means you could be telling me that all my wildest dreams have come true, but I’d still be depressed. You could tell me the worst news ever, but I’d still be manic.

I have the rapid cycling kind that means that my mood changes happen much faster and often I get into “mixed states” where I will be either going between the two rapidly or feeling both conflicting states. It can be quite an experience

Now, where was I?

Oh yes, mental health and martial arts. Got it. Now, I’m a logical guy and if I was to write this just free-flowing it would be even longer and even more of a ramble than it is now! So, I’m going to break this down for you into four topics. Fitness and exercise, Friends and community, drive and goals, lastly confidence.

Fitness and Exercise

Let us start here, with fitness and exercise. It’s no secret that exercise makes you feel good. It’s all scientifically proven and everything! That translates into martial arts very well, as of course, we get a little sweaty doing our chosen exercise. When we train, we get the benefits of getting fitter. This means we get slimmer, we get more muscular… vanity aside we have a host of other benefits such as increased cardio capacity (stronger heart), increased lung capacity and better endurance combining the two previously mentioned benefits. Now that we have established that training a martial art will make you fitter and we know it’s an exercise I hear you ask, what does that have to do with mental health? Well, let’s talk about it.

While we might not like to admit it…

Staying fit, healthy and doing regular exercise is really good for us mentally. It allows us to get our blood flowing throughout our body bringing much-needed oxygen to the hard-working muscles. It makes our brain produce serotonin that promotes the feeling of happiness and stabilizes our mood. During the exercise our mind is on the martial art and the task at hand, all of our troubles melt away and we can be at one with the training. Does this mean the problems don’t exist anymore? Unfortunatly not. However, we have got a break from thinking about them, this allows us to look at the issue afresh with a clear head and work out a solution.

As we keep training and we get fitter and healthier, our body rewards us for it. We might feel happier in ourselves, or less insecure in the way we look (although, don’t forget you’re amazing as you are). We have fewer health concerns and are less prone to illness as we are more in shape and have a healthier body.

In short, training our martial art has allowed us to work on our mind and body for the better and can help you feel more relaxed and at ease.

Friendship and community

When you’re depressed you feel alone, isolated and worthless. If you have a mental illness you might feel like everyone is judging you like you don’t have a place in the world. However, before I continue here let me just say you are wrong. It’s easy for me to say (I don’t always listen to myself I will admit), but you are loved, people care for you and pain is temporary, things will get better. To help you with that, the dojo is calling.

I am going to use MSK as my reference and experience for everything I am going to say here and I write this with the hope and desire that this is the same across all clubs. I know the clubs that we work closely with this is certainly the truth, more on that later.

When you join a club, it’s like you’re joining a new family. Everyone wants to see you do well, not just in your martial arts journey but in life. Everyone in the dojo is on the same goal as you for personal development, we might take different paths for different end objectives, but we all want to improve ourselves in one way shape or form. You’re surrounded by people who want to help you grow because the more you can help others grow, the more you grow yourself.

We all share in our successes

I’ve seen people come in and celebrate new jobs and the reaction from the whole of the class in the room was phenomenal. I didn’t get the job and I was excited to start it! We where all so happy for them and pleased that they got the goal they wanted. Likewise, when people have bad news and they share it, everyone will do what they can to help, be it a ear to listen, a cup of tea, to be left well alone or to get punched in the face (strange as it may sound!).

The club becomes your community and your friends. You have new people to talk to. New people who would want to help you. New faces, new smiles and new hugs.

As well as all of your home dojo, we do competitions and work closely with other clubs. Going to tournaments can be really scary and make you extremely anxious. Getting on stage while really rewarding can be a daunting task. Now, I’ve met some amazing people through seminars and tournaments. People who have gone above and beyond to help me and other students feel relaxed and at ease. Why? Well, it’s as we say, we are all one big family.

What does this have to do with mental health?

I’ve met some of my best and closest friends through the dojo, people who have got me through the darkest times in my life and seen me at my worst. They have stood by me and helped me get through it and for that I am ever thankful. I would like to think I have been able to repay the favour to them or been able to help someone in the club get through the day, even if I did not realise it. Having these people to share and build you up makes life that little bit more do able.

We touched on this a little earlier, but when we start doing a martial art, we often have a goal in mind. It might be fitness, confidence, self defence, to win tournaments or get your black belt or anything else! We all have something that can help drive us.

Focus and goals…

If we work hard and train hard, we get rewarded. When you achieve your goals it is one of the most amazing feelings ever. All the hard work you put in, the long hours and the tiredness has all been worth it and you got that goal. Mentally it’s so rewarding to be able to see the end result of the challenge you set yourself. It makes you feel good.

When we understand this, it can help us create goals in our day to day life. Having goals in life gives you little rewards and importantly it gives us focus. When we have focus, we understand how we can get from point A to point B to achieve our goal. If we don’t have focus, then everything that is negative can get us down and we start to forget why we do what we do. When we have goals to achieve and we start to achieve some of them we can use that focus to keep mentally tough and push forwards.

Things go wrong

That brings me on to another great point, strange that. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Let me explain. It might take you longer than expected to get your goal or you might not pass a grading, which can be hard to deal with. However, with your friends to support you we can get over these issues and move on. We learn what we did wrong and how we can make it right. We understand what we are lacking and improve on it.

Not achieving something on the first attempt is not a bad thing. Mistakes happen and mistakes make us better. Using this attitude we have worked on in the dojo, we can apply that to life to help us understand that if something does not go right in life, it’s okay. We just need to step back, maybe consult our friends, work out how we move forward and step forward and crush it. Knowing you can do this is so important for us mentally.

…and routine

When we have a goal, the best way to achieve this is through persistence. Funny enough martial arts are great for that. We have set classes on set days for various styles, be it karate, judo and so on. These are at a set time with a set instructor (bar unforeseen circumstance of course!). When you have a mental health condition, routine is key. It allows us to remain grounded and to understand what is going on with our surroundings and life. Martial arts classes and lessons help us with that, the classes are a set time and date, set length with roughly the same structure of class, warmup, main class, cool down and so on.

Lastly, confidence

All of these points above tie together to wrap this up by me talking about confidence. This might be one of a few things;

• We get the confidence that we look better
• The confidence that you are physically fitter
• The confidence that if you are in an encounter you can defend yourself
• Confidence to meet new people and talk to people
• Confidence to try something new
• The chance to believe in yourself and achieve something new
• And much much more

Everything we do in martial arts can help us become more confident. Now, being more confident allows you to get out of your own head. If you’re constantly belittling yourself, you will struggle mentally and that’s the way it is. When you believe in yourself and your confident you can progress mentally.

To finish on mental health

Our brains are complex, like seriously. We try and do so much to keep them happy, but it’s not easy. Mental health conditions affect us in so many different ways and this is not the same for every one person. I myself have found that my mental health is so much more in control and I feel more stable and happier with training. Why don’t you give it a go and see how you find it.