Stress Awareness Month – Episode 43

In this episode of NAMI’s podcast, NAMI CEO Daniel H. Gillison Jr. speaks to mental health advocate and Peloton instructor, Jon Hosking. They will discuss the barriers for men seeking mental health care, stress awareness and the intersection of mental health and physical health.

You can find additional episodes of this NAMI podcast and others at nami.org/podcast.

Transcript

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I feel that exercise and movement is probably the closest thing that we've got to a reset button. I always say to people that if you can do something for free that makes you feel very confident, then you should do it. Going outside, going for a run, turning up for a class, picking up some weights, going for a walk, or whatever is, whatever that movement looks like, you know, it's such a great expression of your self love and your care for yourself. Welcome to Hope Starts With Us, a podcast by NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. My name is Dan Gillison and I’m the CEO. As your host, we started this podcast because we believe that hope starts with us. Hope starts with us talking about mental health. Hope starts with us making information accessible. Hope starts with us providing resources and practical advice. Hope starts with us sharing our stories. Hope starts with us breaking the stigma. If you or a loved one is struggling with a mental health condition and have been looking for hope, we made this podcast for you. Hope starts with all of us. Hope is a collective. We hope that each episode with each conversation brings you into that collective to know you are not alone. Today, I'm joined by Jon Hosking to talk about Stress Awareness Month. We will talk about the importance of stress awareness and the barriers to getting mental health support. Jon is a former model and art student and is currently a Peloton tread instructor. He brings his infectious attitude and fun to the platform to members around the world with his runs, walks, and hikes. Thank you so much, Jon, for being here to talk to me and our audience today about stress and mental and physical health. April is Stress Awareness Month. Everyone experiences stress and sometimes it can help you focus and help you get a task at hand done and done very well. But when stress becomes frequent and intense, it can strain your body and make it impossible to function. One of the leading ways for stress reduction is to exercise daily. Here at NAMI, we know that mental health is physical health and through our Hearts+ Minds program, we help people understand the connection and how to lead a healthy and active life while managing many mental health challenges. Jon and I will also talk about the importance of conversations about stress and mental health and how to combat stigma and help those in your life get help for their mental health challenges. Jon, I'd really like to start by asking you about your mental health advocacy. You did a very intense physical challenge during COVID to raise funds for mental health. Can you tell our audience and me a bit about what you did and why it's important for you to help others who may not seek help for their own mental health challenges? Amazing. Dan, thanks so much for having me. And a wonderful introduction as well. It's great to be here. I feel like what a place to start as well. With the challenge that I did in 2020. I've had a very difficult spell on my life in 2019. It was a really challenging year for me and I feel like lockdown in the situation that, you know, we all got ourself in globally in 2020. It was a great leveler where we were, kind of for a moment at least, all on the same page, and we were all kind of in unison in some form of struggle because it was difficult. There were those were difficult circumstances and I think during my career as a as a model I've leant in to exercise and to running, into training quite a lot for my mental health, but not with real focus and structure. And 2020 was kind of a real turning point for me, where we lived next to a gym that we were members at and I borrowed a rowing machine from the gym and there was a real feeling of helplessness in that time. And I feel that I had this moment where I had the rowing machine in the living room and we hadn't really been using all that much. We hadn't really been sticking to anything. And I said to the boys that I was living with, I said, I need to do something here. And I think looking back now, it was as much for me as it was for anyone else, really, it was about shedding some light on maybe what I'd been through, but also just doing whatever I could really, in trying to break out of that feeling of helplessness. And I took on the challenge to row five marathons in five days, one marathon every day and five days in a row. And honestly, there was no other charity that I was going to raise money for other than a mental health charity. And it was an incredible chapter in my life. It was my way of putting behind me everything that I'd been through, I think. And it was it was also just an expression of kind of vulnerability where I'd put it all out there into the open, and I didn't acknowledge what I'd been through. And it was incredible the feeling that everyone was behind it. And it really felt like I'd brought together a community and it was really something that then set off the dominoes for everything that's happened to me since. It was what got me into the fitness industry because it showed me kind of what I was capable of and the power of community and goodwill and the rest is history, really. It kind of all unraveled from there. So it was a massive, massive thing for me to do. And I still look back on it with real fondness and I never looked at a rowing machine ever the same again. It was-- it was an incredible--it was an incredible period in my life. So, yeah, it was integral to everything that I've done since. It was massive. You know, thank you so much, Jon. And, you know, thank you for your stewardship. Thank you for your advocacy and thank you for your focus. You used some operative words I want to go back to before I ask you the next question. And that's, you mentioned, helplessness. You you mentioned vulnerability. And then you mentioned the power of community and the goodwill that came from it. Thank you for all of that, because that frames kind of what we're talking about in terms of individuals not feeling alone. And we know that when people are feeling helpless, they feel hopeless and we want them to feel hopeful. So that's a big part of why we started this, you know, podcast. Hope starts with us. So, you know what you're saying is so critically important and kudos to you. Five marathons in five days. Oh my goodness, big guy. Oh my goodness. I can't think of a body part that wouldn't hurt. And I'll just leave it there. So now let me go here to our next scripted question, Jon. But thank you so much. Here at NAMI, it's important that we meet people where they are versus where we want them to be. And when we say where they are in their mental health journeys, I noticed that at your “At the Club” classes on the Peloton platform, they can be taken as a jog, a run, or even a walk. Do you notice that there are people in those classes that would be hesitant to take the class specifically called a run? And do you take that approach of meeting people where they are on their fitness journeys intentionally? Absolutely. I feel like you're so right there, and I feel that there's a lot of self-doubt flying around at any given time, especially within fitness. And I feel that people, they find it difficult to really acknowledge what they've potentially deprived themself of in the joy department themself. And they often tell themselves they can't do something before they've even really thought about whether they could. And the classes “At the Club,” they're all about inclusivity. They're all about getting people involved no matter who they are, no matter how they intend on working out, no matter how they intend on training. It's about finding something that we can really enjoy together. No matter where you are. It's a completely open level class. You can walk, jog or run that class, and it brings me so much joy to bring that to the platform and to really feel that we're all involved. And there's no stigma about whether it is that you want to run a jog or walk it. No matter what you bring to the table, we're just celebrating it and we're doing that via movement. And those classes have been--they've been incredible for me. I take that as such a big responsibility as well to bring that to the table on Peloton and to make sure everyone feels involved, like you say, no matter where they are in their journey. And I feel like when you find that enjoyment and then you mix it with a little bit of consistency and you can turn up every day for yourself and celebrate yourself, you really might surprise yourself of what you're capable of because it's amazing to see what members have done and the journeys that they've been on from walking to jogging. And now I find people that are, then, all of a sudden running their first marathon where that seemed completely unfeasible, less than a year previous. So that fills me with a lot of pride and joy. It's amazing. Again, I just want to say that, you know, we talk about a couple of other things here, and I talk about a couple of things particularly when we're talking to leaders. We talk about leadership, we talk about tone and execution. And Peloton is so fortunate to have you because the tone you're setting for so many and your execution is helping so many. So kudos to you and kudos to Peloton for having you there. So, you know, and it's about people. It's about people at the beginning and the end of the day. And what you're doing is for people and thank you for using your platform. So the next question I have for you, here at NAMI, our Hearts + Minds program helps people understand the importance of the relationship between mental and physical health. People who are affected by mental illness often face the additional burden of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. Many people feel that movement is medicine. And Jon, why do you think it's important to move our bodies to take care of not only our physical health but our mental health, the health above our shoulders? I feel that exercise and movement is probably the closest thing that we've got to a reset button. Sometimes we can all get in a rut. Sometimes you can't explain why that's come around and why you might be feeling low or low-spirited and kind of helpless and lost and disconnected with yourself. I always say to people that if you can do something for free that makes you feel very confident, then you should do it. Going outside, going for a run, turning up for a class, picking up some weights, going for a walk, whatever it is, whenever that movement looks like, you know, it's such a great expression of your self love and you care for yourself. I think I've proved to myself over time, and especially since 2019 and the journey that I've been on within fitness, that I'm kind of I feel like for myself, my own embodiment of what movement can do and how it can really turn your life around. And now, when I see people on their journey and starting off and trying to find that consistency, I always want to encourage them to keep going because they never know where it might lead them. It can do really extraordinary things to really turn you around both mentally and physically, but like you're saying, is such a great tool to deal with any sort of mental problems that you might be going through and you might be tackling. It really, really is. And I feel it's wonderful, you really taking the power into your own hands to make that happen as well. You're not relying on anyone else or anything else. You're turning up for yourself and you're making it happen. You're turning around yourself. And that's that's wonderful. Yeah. Thank you. And there's such a connection between the heart and that organ in the mind. And then just from the standpoint of mental wellness, you mentioned self-love and self-care. It's really critical. You know, Jon, I hear that you have the charisma of a litter of puppies with the focus of a jet pilot. I want to get the second part. So, let me repeat that. The charisma of a litter of puppies with the focus of a jet pilot, but it can't always be easy when you need to be on for your members’ classes and put aside your own stressors. I imagine that you must get messages all the time. I know I get texts, I get calls on the weekend and what someone is going through and what their parent-- The parents are reaching out and it's this--it's exhausting and it's real. So you must get messages all the time about others’ mental health challenges and how do you balance that intake and all that it brings with it and take care of your own mental health and the stress that comes your way? Well, first of all, Dana, I'm going to congratulate you on your reading. It's great. You've been reading some good publications recently. And when I read that quote about myself, I was--And for whatever reason I keep saying “fighter jet pilot.” It’s just “jet piot.” Yeah, what a massive compliment that was as well. It was. It's the constant challenge for me. I don't think that’s ever not going to be a challenge, is making sure that I'm making space for myself. I'm getting out of my own way and I'm showing myself that compassion, at the same time ,is trying to bring the best version of myself to the table for my work and for our members. And daily, I think is the constant challenge. I'm kind of always-- I'm always doing my best to make space for myself. It's an interesting one because there are so many occasions where members reach out to me and say, goodness me, you have no idea what this has done for me. You have no idea what the platforms brought to me and what your classes have done. And I think to myself, I really do, because it does the same thing for me. It gives me that purpose and it gives me that space and it really does feel like a safe space when I turn up to work. And there's been so many occasions where I felt I would admit slightly low-spirited when I've turned up at work or I've got some personal challenges going on in my own life outside of Peloton, and it's really my sanctuary to turn up, celebrate our community, celebrate myself and us all coming together and moving as one. It's done wonders for me just to have that space where members do reach out. I get it. I get it. I really do understand what they're going through. Members say, and the question you get asked a lot as an instructor, I know many other instructors asked this sort of question is, how do you stay so positive all the time. That's the question that everyone gets asked. And the truth is you don't. No one can. It's about learning what the signs look like and what the triggers look like for when you might be having a maybe, a slightly lower moment. And it's about, it's about dealing with those. And it's the old adage of what comes up must come down at some point. And sometimes I feel so full of life and so happy and so driven and so motivated, and I feel like it's almost overflowing inside me when I listen to music and when I paint and when I move, I almost get that, sometimes a feeling of guilt, when I feel that happy. I feel-- I think to myself how I really help other people feel this level of exuberance and enthusiasm and hope and optimism that I feel sometimes. And then I think I've just become a lot more aware about knowing when slightly more low moments might occur and just comforting myself, knowing that they're very much temporary, that they're not going to last forever. And to write them out and to really kind of stay on top of things, re-focus, do the simple things right one step at a time, one day at a time. And I take a lot of solace in that, knowing that it's all temporary. And even when I'm having low moments, I can bounce back and tomorrow's a new day. And yeah, that's what I would say. Thank you, Jon. I've got to also say, you know, jet pilots, jet pilots have to be incredibly hopeful but have incredible attention to detail and they have to always be looking up and looking-- they have to almost have bifocal vision. And that's that's what you do. And thank you. You mentioned, you know, you have to create a safe space for yourself. And what I wanted to say is that what I heard through that is that you create judgment-free zones for your classes and the people that take them in. And the other thing you mentioned is getting out of our own way. Thank you for that. And you talked about your sanctuary and appreciate it so very much. So you are about to take on another physical challenge as you're about to run the London Marathon. How has the training been going? Well. Good question. I feel like last year when New York-- when the New York marathon happened, I kind of made the determination that I would run in 2024. I've got a long standing kind of relationship with New York through my modeling career and through having grown up there. And it felt like such a special city to me, feels like such a deep connection and relationship I have with the city. So I made the determination to run New York in November of 2024. And then when the turn of year happened and I announced on the platform that I'd be running New York, Breast Cancer Now, the charity, reached out to me and said, we have a space for London if you’d consider it. And obviously London is is my city and it's a wonderful charity. I'm supporting a friend of mine, another instructor from the platform, Leanne, who has suffered from breast cancer. And when they reached out to me, it was a no-brainer for me to be involved. And it's something I'm really, really proud of and I'm really looking forward to it. It's coming around very, very soon. I'd like to think that I'm probably doing some of the work towards the marathon, live on the platform in my runs, and I'm hoping that they're standing me in good stead. Outdoor runs for me have proved a little bit more tricky. That's a different challenge altogether, putting it into a training program and really trying to adhere to that and stay on top of that and stay disciplined and, you know, do all of that. Running outdoors on top of the work that I'm doing on the platform of Peloton is formed. It's been a challenge. It’s been a challenge, let's say that much. But we're nearly there. And I feel like this one, particularly for me, is going to be more of a celebration run, more of a real celebration run of the charity, of the cause and of my city. So like, I've got very, very high hopes and low expectations of myself for this one in London. And then maybe I'm going to be really putting in a big training block to get myself prepared for New York to maybe put down a marker with regards to a time that London is all going to be about celebration. So I can't wait for it. It's going to be magnificent. You know what? Just in me being the leader of this not-for-profit, and I would share with you that what you're doing for Leanne and for the for the cause and for that organization, thank you. That is sensational. And I know that you don't have enough reps in. I know you don't have enough miles in, but you're not doing it for that. So there's a lot of nobility in what you're doing. And I just wanted to say from my seat, you know, thank you. And I know that it won't feel that way during the race, but thank you for doing it. And I looking forward to your New York race. So let me ask you something, Jon. What do you want those that are training for any race or even just starting their fitness journey to know about any hiccups that come along their way and how to challenge themselves to push through? What would you like to to share with our audience about that? I mean that is a tricky one. That is a tricky one because sometimes when you approach a challenge, it can feel like you’re just never going to break through sometimes. And I feel like you need to just pull yourself back off it, give yourself a little bit of distance from it to be able to see that you can overcome everything. You really, really can. With a little bit of time. Maybe, like I said, again, a little bit of self-care and a little moment to yourself, just to almost re-calibrate and re-focus and have another little look, find some distance from it, because you can look back on all of the challenges you faced in your life, whatever they may be, and realize that through time and a little bit of care you did overcome those things. You survived every bad day that you ever had, and you're here right now, so you've got it in you to go again and to break through this. And the outcome might look slightly different to what it was that you first envisaged, but that's completely fine as well. That's all part of the journey. We’re growing as we're going. So, you know, it really is about progress, being very patient with yourself, not too much about perfection, just keeping it going, keeping it ticking, keeping things moving. I've certainly had to indulge in, of itself, talking about training for this one along those lines. So I'm feeling it. I'm with them and it's been amazing to feel like I'm really a part of this training block with our members for this marathon. And I've definitely overcome a few bits and bobs along the way already. So yeah, I feel like we're keeping it ticking together. And we were--we’re smashing through these barriers one by one, like as a almost as a global team. So that's been amazing to feel that connection with everyone. Yeah, well, this is wonderful. And, you know, kudos to you. And you said we're growing as we're going. And I look at that as well. And I am absolutely somebody that thinks through this from the standpoint of what exercise can do and what tenacity and fortitude can do. And it's important. So, Jon, before we conclude, I'd like to ask you a question that we ask every guest. The world, as we know, can be a difficult place, and sometimes it can be hard to hold on to hope. That's why each episode we dedicate the last couple of minutes of our podcast to a special segment called Hold on to Hope. Jon, could you tell us what helps you hold on to hope? It's a great question, Dan, and I want to say thank you for having me on as well. But this is a great question to close on. I feel like I'm naturally quite a hopeful and optimistic person. I think I referred to this quite recently, but I take a great amount of solace knowing that even when things are really bad, if Tuesday is awful, then at the turn of the day we have Wednesday. We can wake up with fresh impetus and there's no reason to say why Wednesday then can't be the best day of the week, the best day of the month, or even the best day of the year. We can attack it with new energy and new impetus, new feeling, almost re-focusing. But it's important to also know that it's okay to just be okay. I think we can we can dwell on the fact we just feel okay. We don't quite feel great, but even when we feel okay, we can turn up. And even on your okay day, you have the ability, you have the power within you to bring light to a situation, bring light to other people and turn their okay days into great days. I think there's great hope in that, knowing just the power that you have, the power you have in your interactions daily, you know, when you're on the other end of real, genuine, thoughtful kindness, you need to really remind yourself of how that feels. It feels extraordinary. And when you really know how that feels, that has to encourage you to bring that to as many other people as you can and to try and be that light. There's so much hope in that you might be able to give someone else an ounce of that feeling about how that kindness has made you feel and you can really turn someone else's day around. You really have no idea what other people are going through. So I would say that. I would say that gives me great hope knowing that when I'm feeling bad, feeling down just by really interacting with another person and honestly asking them how they are and involving myself in that and making an effort to bring other people up, that's bringing me up as well. And there's great hope in that. We're kind of all in this together in that sense. So that's what I would say. Yeah, thank you. Ask someone else, how are you doing? And then also understanding the reciprocity and kindness. Thank you so much, Jon. And I want to call you “Coach,” but, I have to, you know, I have to earn it. I've got to get on the platform and take your class. Let's go, Dan. Let’s go. You are incredible. And thank you so very much. And I just want to say, as I close out our audience, this has been Hope Starts With Us, a podcast by NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. If you are looking for mental health resources, you are not alone. To connect with the NAMI helpline and find local resources, visit nami.org/help. Text “helpline” to 62640 or dial 800-950-6264. Or if you are experiencing an immediate suicide, substance use, or mental health crisis, please call or text 988 to speak with a trained support specialist or visit 988lifeline.org. I'm Dan Gillison. Thank you for listening and please be well.