The science of pain is fascinating, and our understanding of the connection between mind and body has changed a lot over the years as we’ve studied it more. That’s why I was so excited to hear from today’s guest.
Louise Taylor has been a physiotherapist for the last 30 years, and during this time she has witnessed how what people believe is happening to them can shape the way they feel. Our brains can actually manufacture a pain that isn’t there, due to our past experiences and expectations. Louise joins me today to explain how mindset can impact our physical health, as well as techniques we can use to break through the mind blocks we experience.
We also discuss the importance of being able to assess what we are experiencing before we react so that we can better control how much pain we sustain. Tune in!
About Louise Taylor:
Louise Taylor is passionate about being a physiotherapist, committed to lifelong learning and pleased to help people achieve their movement goals. She believes that being able to move well without pain is such an important factor for enjoying a healthy and active life. Her professional interests are in managing acute injuries, repetitive strain disorders, persistent pain conditions as well as helping anyone at any age meet their fitness and movement objectives.
Being co-owner of Movement Sports Clinic in downtown Calgary has allowed her to create the best environment for optimum rehabilitation. She loves endurance events like running and triathlon, solidly embracing ‘type two fun’; the kind of activities that are singularly tough and challenging at the time yet totally satisfying later.
To learn more about Louise, you can visit her website and connect with her on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Mentioned In This Episode:
Transcription:
Lindsay Recknell 0:03
Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Hope Motivates Action podcast. I’m your host Lindsay Recknell. I met this week’s guest when I was speaking at a retreat for women business owners and I connected with her right away. We spent a big part of the weekend talking about pain in brain science and the capacities and limitations of our bodies, which is super fascinated and sparked my interest to have her on the show.
Lindsay Recknell 0:26
This week’s guest Louise Taylor is passionate about being a physiotherapist. She’s committed to lifelong learning and pleased to help people achieve their movement goals. She believes that being able to move well without pain is such an important factor for enjoying a healthy and active life. Her professional interests are in managing acute injuries, repetitive strain disorders, persistent pain conditions, as well as helping anyone at any age meet their fitness and movement objectives.
Lindsay Recknell 0:53
Being the co-owner of movement Sports Clinic in downtown Calgary has allowed her to create the best environment for optimum rehabilitation. She loves endurance events like running and triathlon, solidly embracing type two fun, the kinds of activities that are singularly tough and challenging, yet totally satisfying later. As a reminder, if you’re interested in any of the books, resources and tools I mentioned in this episode, all the links you’ll need can be found in the show notes of your favorite podcast player, or head to the blog and pod page of my website, www.expertinhope.com and you’ll find them all there too. I truly believe that the future will be better than today. By taking action over the things we can control conversations like this really reinforced that hope. So without any more delay, let’s get to it.
Lindsay Recknell 1:41
Hello, Louise, it is so great to have you on the show. Welcome.
Louise Taylor 1:46
Well, thank you, Lindsay. It’s really great to be here. And I’m looking forward to a great discussion with you.
Lindsay Recknell 1:50
I think it’s gonna be really, really great. You know, I had opportunity to meet you just last week. And we got into this totally fascinating conversation about the pain actually the signs of pain and how it relates to physiotherapy and hope and how it all works in our body. And I think you have so much wisdom to share in this space. And I’d love for people to hear more about it. So I’m really happy to have you here.
Louise Taylor 2:16
That’s great.
Lindsay Recknell 2:17
I would you know, we start all of these shows, by having you share with us a little bit about your story and how you use hope to motivate action in your life.
Louise Taylor 2:28
Right. Well, I think I’m a pretty hopeful person, because I think I activate hope every day. I’m a physiotherapist. So I work with people who are recovering from injuries who are going through all kinds of turmoil, some bits of acute issue, and sometimes it’s a long term kind of issue. So people are at very different places.
Louise Taylor 2:46
But as we, as we chatted about before, that being in pain can really be it takes hope away. And when you take hope away, you’re fearing for the future, you don’t really know what’s going to happen, then it can kind of paralyze people and they really don’t know what to do. And with your podcast who motivates action, it really, really inspired me because I feel like that’s what I try and do with people every day when I’m working with them. And I think I almost flip it around to say that action motivates hope.
Louise Taylor 3:16
So when people are into that kind of grounded place where they’re stuck, and they just don’t know how to how to get going, that even just starting starting conversations, starting some movements, just getting some stepping stones to move forward, and realizing that they don’t have to be so stuck can really provide that hope that creates the motivation to keep moving moving forward.
Lindsay Recknell 3:37
I love that perspective. I love that perspective.
Louise Taylor 3:41
I think my personal values include Lifelong Learning being a better human over time. And I think with that expectation, I look for the opportunities personally to grow and learn to be kind help others. And rather than being really overwhelmed with like the tragedies that are around us in the world right now the human rights abuse, climate change pandemic I try to focus on in my own world kind of smaller ways to make a mark. Louise Taylor 4:05 And I think that’s something we need to do when we’re working in an injury rehabilitation type of process to kind of get overwhelmed by the big picture in our loss and like what’s happening relationships change when sometimes you’re not able to do things you want to do because of a condition or a problem. So we have to kind of dial it back start to understand what’s going on take away fear, which is a really big one for people getting stuck and I’m sure that in the psychological world as well as the physical world and that and that really starts to mesh because we know that the mind body connection is really is really huge. Louise Taylor 4:39 And when I started in as a physiotherapist 30 years ago, we were kind of just starting to figure that out a bit more like applying it into practice. It was more you know pain you step on a nail your foot store, your brain says Okay, step off, step off the nail. And we’re now we recognize that you might step on something feel pain but based on prior experience or that is sharp, I should move my foot or no, that’s just the rock. And if I just adjust my foot or move, like we, there’s many down flowing thoughts from our brain that change how we move. And a lot of that can be integrated into how we can get ourselves to move forward when we get stuck. Lindsay Recknell 5:18 Just so fascinating. I mean, like, even when you were just describing how the science has, the science of pain has changed at you know, over the years, and with all the research and the evidence to support that. And you know, we were talking about a chiropractor friend that I know who was talking about chronic pain and someone’s knee, and he used mirror therapy, because it was it was therapy he was doing in the brain to affect how that pain was translating to his knee. Fascinating. Lindsay Recknell 5:51 Um, one of the things that you mentioned in your intro there was about not only using that action to motivate hope, but getting people to even see that hopeful future. How do you help them to change their perspective? When it probably hurts? Any action? You’re asking them to even take? Louise Taylor 6:16 Yeah, I think the number one thing is trying to meet people where they’re at at the time and seeing like, what do they believe in? But what’s going on with them? If they’re having back pain? What are they things happening, what’s stalling them, they’ve been told they have a bulging disc, and a scary word like a disc bulge is kind of paralyzing them, and like, oh, I don’t want to affect my bulging disc. And it stopped them from trying to do movements, because maybe when they started, it gets a bit sore. Louise Taylor 6:40 So we have to kind of figure out like, where are you in this healing process? Or how long have you had this problem? What are some of your, what did you learn about it? What are your What are you thinking right now? And do we have to change some of that thought pattern that, you know, people do have bulging discs, and they do recover? Not everyone needs surgery, you’ve seen your doctor, it’s been ruled out. This is not surgical. We’re just managing, working through this process to get your movement back. And we do this all the time. Louise Taylor 7:07 So it’s really so one that is possible that we can make a change, it doesn’t have to be surgery, it doesn’t have to be injections, if you know depending where they’re at, and how we can we move forward from that spot. So you got to find the starting place. And see do we do need to deconstruct some of the thoughts people are having around the injury or what’s stopping them. So sometimes it’s so much more talking about what’s going on. Louise Taylor 7:29 And that movement is there’s always somewhere you can start some gentle movement, just starting to work into an area, maybe you’re not working on the back, you’re working on the legs, sometimes manual therapy, just hands on touch, which can be really calming for people are different modalities of using heat or an Epsom salt bath are thinking about breathing. So just bringing other aspects in that may not be as scary to start with so that we can just start somewhere and realize that how we’re thinking about things can really change. Louise Taylor 7:57 There’s recent research that shows if you talk to someone about their pain, help them understand it, decrease some of the fear factor, even in a 2030 minute conversation that pain readings will go down, people will move better, because they have they suddenly feel a little bit more confident, even if you didn’t even touch them. So you can assess someone, can you touch your toes, no, I can barely move, then you might sit down and have a little bit more conversation or do a little bit of breathing work and stand up and get them to move. And invariably people do start to move better. Louise Taylor 8:28 So I think we probably do it internalize a lot of the fear, the muscle tension kind of all gets wound up together. And we have to figure out how do we start breaking through that? Is it more into the brain and how we’re perceiving what’s going on? Is it more through the body that we can build a bit of confidence that you can move? And then that builds more? Oh, maybe I can do this. And oh, and if I start a little bit of this, maybe I can do that. And you can start to see the stepping stones of from walking, you know, down my stairs to walking around my blog to be able to walk to the store to have a maybe I can start jogging. Yeah, maybe I’ll start to walk run. Louise Taylor 9:02 So that kind of graded exposure to getting back. I think when we can have those little steps. It’s much bigger than seeing that big picture. Oh, right now I can’t touch my toes. But in six months, yeah, maybe I’ll be able to be running again. Lindsay Recknell 9:15 That mindset, everything comes back to mindset. Who knew that physiotherapy would also come back to mindset. Like for somebody who four years ago, did not talk about this stuff out loud. The word mindset was a dirty word that I never, you know, thought about. I was a very shallow individual. Honestly, this is the beauty of having these conversations with people like you who are experts in your field as you is. Lindsay Recknell 9:45 There’s so much cool stuff out there when we have these kinds of conversations and when we can help ourselves to overcome a lot of the physical challenges by just changing our perspective on the mental challenges. are experiencing and how they’re all relating together. How powerful is that? Louise Taylor 10:05 Yeah, it’s so powerful. And I think the words part of it is really big. Like the words we use really matter with people. Because when I mentioned like that bulging disk or disk or my knees degenerating, or I have a torn rotator cuff, like, being told you have those things is kind of paralyzing and you in itself, so if you’re suddenly going, Oh my God, and only by terror worse, I don’t make my bowls bowls more that it can it can really stop people in their tracks. And then the other piece, I think it’s huge. Coming from what you just said is that hurt versus harm concept. Louise Taylor 10:35 So when we’re in pain, we often equate that to tissue damage. And if I’m hurting, I must be damaging my body more. And we know that’s not always the case that anytime we feel pain isn’t necessarily because of tissue damage. Like for sure you step on the nail your foot sore, you know, maybe you get a slight little infection, it’s a bit achy, it’s a bit read, and naturally, it will heal over time in most cases. And if it’s bad, your body will let you know it’ll get read angry, maybe I need an antibiotic. So our pain is really telling us to act early on. It’s like, okay, I wrote sprained my ankle, maybe I do need to rest, I should start playing soccer right now. Louise Taylor 11:09 And to put my foot up, I’m going to rest. And if you haven’t done much major damage within a couple of weeks, so I’m walking better things are getting better. Sometimes when you roll an ankle, there’s a little bit of a nerve tag as well. And that can create a bit more swelling things last a little bit longer. Or maybe there has been a little bit more tissue damage. But eventually that’s going to heal in most cases. But sometimes pain lingers. And so we have to figure out why is that going on? Why is pain continuing? Is it part of that? What’s going on in your brain, because actually, we don’t have pain receptors in our body. Louise Taylor 11:44 In our we have mechanical receptors, they pick up on pressure, and sharpen Dell, and we have temperature receptors that you know, put your hand close to the stove or get my hand off the stove. And we have chemical receptors that recognize what’s happening in our nervous system and neurotransmitters and hormones. So we have a super complicated nervous system. Louise Taylor 12:02 But we actually don’t have pain receptors. The pain is what you’re experiencing up in your brain, how your body’s putting it all together. Is this a threat for me, I roll my ankle. But this is the biggest play of the game, it’s the end of the year, maybe I didn’t even notice I roll my ankle, I’m going to keep playing. Like there’s things that can happen. And we realize that when the stress of the moment is over and later, it’ll be like little later that night, my ankle was swollen, I don’t even remember spraining it. So we can have these things that happen. Louise Taylor 12:32 But in the time, it’s depends what’s going on your perception can be really can be really shifted around. So in that case, you injured yourself, maybe you even feel pain until later, when sometimes we almost manufacture pain in a way because of our past experience. So there’s a story of a person who is a construction worker who stepped on a nail. And immediately he stepped on the now he was in pain, he couldn’t stand on his foot had to hobble down had to get his workers to help him. Louise Taylor 13:05 You know, everyone’s like, Oh, we can see the nail and see the nail, take him to the hospital, this is going to be terrible. And they actually take his boot off and the nail was actually between his toes. It did not actually go into his foot. But because the expectation of oh my god step on a nail, I’ve done that before it hurt me. I can’t work, what’s going to happen it make an effect, like all these things are going on. And suddenly we have like a pain experience, where actually there actually wasn’t even a stimulus. It was kind of what the brain did. And these stories are so fascinating. Lindsay Recknell 13:37 So fascinating. It brings to mind that I the adrenaline when you know, mom can lift the car off a baby, you know. It also brings it makes me think of this story I heard in, in my hope research where some scientists went on I think it was Good Morning America. And I’m going to find the clip and we’re going to link to it in the show notes if I can find it. Lindsay Recknell 14:00 But I think it was Good Morning America. And they did a test where they had three of the hosts take a hope quiz. So Dr. Rick Snyder is a hope scientist and he created this hope quiz that levels your or measures your level of hope. So they had these. They had these TV personalities take a hope quiz measured their levels of hope it didn’t tell them what the results were or where they compared to their other partners. And then on national TV, they put their hands in a bucket of ice water. And the deal was to see who could stay in the ice water the longest. Lindsay Recknell 14:40 And I don’t know if you’ve ever put your hand and ice water or dumped in a frozen lake or something equally awful. But it starts to hurt like nobody’s business. And so they did this experiment. Eventually they all gave up and then they compared who stayed in the longest to who had the highest level of hope. And the person who stayed in the longest was the person who scored the highest on the hope scale. That was absolutely fascinating to me. Lindsay Recknell 15:08 But it’s yet another example of how pain exists in our mind. When we think about hopeful people, those are people looking towards the future better than today, they are looking for, you know, what they can do to take control over some of the things they can control. And what they feel like they can control in this case is how much pain they can sustain. Because, as you said, pain is in our mind. That’s where the receptors are fascinating. Louise Taylor 15:35 I think that probably leads into like the neurochemistry of pain as well, or in pain relief. Like we have so many natural pain relievers in our body, like natural opiates, the cannabidiol, aids the our endorphins, or serotonin and dopamine, like all these receptor, we’ve got a lot of happy chemicals in our body. And if you are a hopeful positive person, which, which generally means you’re probably not as high as just like, you’re going to have more of those floating around, which is probably going to make you feel better and manage stressful situations better. Louise Taylor 16:06 And acute, like a pain situation like that temperature being so cold, your brains going like this is bad, you should probably stick your hand on at some points. But you know, if you’re highly motivated, it’s amazing what we can do. When we’re the flip side of that, if someone’s like stressed, anxious, there’s depression, then those chemicals are not going to be as strong in the body, and you’re gonna have more cortisol, which will make your muscles more tense, which will make you more sensitive to things like stress, temperature, temperature change, immune system. Louise Taylor 16:37 So yeah, the chemistry part is amazing. And isn’t it like positive thoughts can change our chemistry, which can change our pain perception? So yeah, super cool. Lindsay Recknell 16:49 Yeah, super cool. We could nerd out on this forever. I feel like I think we could have a, you know, two hour conversation. Don’t worry, people, we won’t, um, is this also why? So in a lot of my work, I talk about burnout and stuff in the slide into burnout. Lindsay Recknell 17:08 And we talked about how when you’re recognizing, when you are feeling overwhelmed, when you’re when those stress chemicals in your body have been elevated for an too long, you know, we our body can handle stress, chemical elevation, for a short period of time we’re designed for it, it’s that elevated over, you know, over frequently or over a really long period of time where it gets really dangerous for us. Lindsay Recknell 17:35 And the symptoms start showing up for us physically, the the mental health symptoms show up in, you know, with feeling withdrawn or irritated and those kinds of things, but it also shows up physically in our stomach, in our pain in our back. Is that something you also experienced at your clinic where people come in and they’re, they’re suffering from something physically and you kind of narrow it down to too much going on in their mental health? Louise Taylor 18:04 Yes, and I would certainly say through the pandemic, it has been a big one. Anytime, like living in Calgary, there’s the ups and downs of the economy. And whenever things are a little bit heavier with the economy, people are coming in with a bit more neck pain, back pain, like, you know, if you’re working is like, Okay, I’m glad I have a job, but my friend just lost his job. And if you’re not working, you’re looking for it. Louise Taylor 18:24 So there’s those kinds of stresses and the pandemic has had all that instability and unpredictability that has just elevated people’s level of stress. Like even if you’re that super happy person, it’s good thing you are because for those that are not and have experienced social isolation, you know, maybe job changes working at home by themselves, not people are not leaving, we’re leaving their houses so they weren’t getting step count. They weren’t walking to the watercooler they weren’t moving as much. Louise Taylor 18:50 So I think you combine all that and it had a huge impact on people’s Of course, the emotional and mental health, but also their physical health which led to no muscle aches and pains, neck pain, headache, back pain, hip pain, you name it, and there was a lot there was pain related. And we do know like following along with that sort of fight or flight, endorphin release, when we get in that sudden, you know, a lion burst in the room and you’re oh my god, I know, a lot of things happen your digestion shuts down your, your fight or flight muscles fire up and, and then then then the lion leaves or or the zookeeper calm and takes the line away. Louise Taylor 19:26 And suddenly, whoa, Geez, that was, that’s all settled down. But when the lion never leaves the room and you’re having to live with that lion there all the time, and you don’t know what the lions gonna do. That’s happening consistently. So more muscle tension, certain muscles in our body will clench more we know our jaw muscles will clench so people might clench more at night, which leads to maybe headache and neck pain, or people will clench their tighten their glutes or their or their pelvic floor muscles, the muscles kind of lower down that that when they’re tight that can lead to some achy pains in the hip and in the back muscles, so certain muscles We’ll definitely be fired up in situations of longer term stress. And then that becomes a pain and muscles get bendy and tight. Louise Taylor 20:08 So what can we do about it? We can because we can always get rid of the lion in the room, we can try to reduce it into the kitten, but sometimes it’s going to stay a while. So what do we do, we can, we can use things like breathing techniques, we can use exercise exercises like the biggest analgesic. The there’s research that shows like a, it only takes about 10 minutes of activity, moderate activity to increase these natural chemicals in our body that will keep clean analgesia 10 minutes of a moderate walk or moderate is enough to make a difference. Louise Taylor 20:41 And something like a six mile jog can put enough chemistry into us like a 10 milligram injection or morphine. So like exercise is not a drug. But it can just create a lot of this chemistry that is really positive for body. Lindsay Recknell 20:58 A lot of positive, a lot of positive chemical. I really liked what you said about it doesn’t take much right 10 minutes. You know, walking, parking at the far end of the parking lot, taking the stairs, we know all of this stuff. But why? Why do we not do it? You know, I’m sure that you’re coaching and advising your clients when they come in the door? Why don’t we do these things? Louise Taylor 21:23 Yes, it is definitely a million dollar question of how to motivate people to do things that are like on papers like this doesn’t seem like much but how do I get it done? Even if they’re very convinced it’s yes, I know. I want to do it. I saw my list. I want to be able to get it done. How do you fit it in? Is I think it’s kind of finding what is going to motivate you like thinking bigger than alright. We know the short term exercise will make you feel better for a little bit, but it’s a stepping stone to be able to what are your bigger goals? Louise Taylor 21:52 So if we can link it to something bigger, like, Okay, right now, you’re not able to lift 10 pounds or carry your groceries. But maybe you want to, you know you’ve got your gardening plans this summer, and you need to or you need to shovel the snow and you need like how are you going to get this done. So if we can link it to something that people have, like a goal objective, then that can help. And then also just deconstructing it again into the little bit like a little goes a long way. Louise Taylor 22:20 And you don’t have to do that much. And can you plan it? Can you put it in your calendar? What time of day? Can you get it done? Is it going to be a morning thing? Is it something you can do after lunch? Is it something you do before bed? When in people’s busy lives it is it is tough. In a way having people at home working at home has been a bit of an opportunity because people are maybe in their sweats and they can, it’s more easy to lay on a mat and do a few stretches or to go for a walk. Louise Taylor 22:45 I had a couple patients early on in the pandemic that were used to biking to work. And they stopped biking because they were at home. And they just realized, you know, my body feels terrible. I’m not getting that exercise I had every day is like well, why don’t you start doing a bike ride in the morning. Just do it anyway. And people did and it became part of their routines again. So I think it’s finding the importance trying to connect it to maybe something that will change quickly, usually due next to something into the future. Lindsay Recknell 23:10 Isn’t it funny how it feels common sense once you’ve said it out loud? Or once you’ve heard it out loud? Well, of course, I can still ride my bike. I just don’t have to ride it to the office. Well, duh, no, but sometimes I just need these things to be said out loud for us to realize that. Of course we’re being ridiculous. And it’s also about that habit and routine. I talk a lot about this on the show. Lindsay Recknell 23:32 I live my life by routine because I’m so structured, I have so much going on, the only way I could possibly do it is to find things that become habitual, so I don’t have to think about them. I exercise in the morning, the disruption of the pandemic and having I was already at home but had I had that disruption of my routine, it would have hugely affected me, I can absolutely see how it would be effective. Lindsay Recknell 23:59 So I really like your advice to anyone out there that’s listening, find what either was used to be your routine that you’ve noticed a change. So if you’re not feeling awesome, what has changed in your routines and try to get back into that. And then just me all also just think about the things that are common sense where you can fit them in wherever that might be and whatever works for you. Try it. If it doesn’t work, try something different. Louise Taylor 24:29 Yeah, and if you if obviously that person liked cycling, and it was a huge, like whether it was an environmental thing, I don’t want to drive my car to work, I want to ride my bike or I just like that exercise hit in the morning, whatever it is like they were enjoying it and it was part of their routine and took it away and they suffered. i also saw it in patients, a few patients that were swimmers and took the pool away because the pools were closed for a long time and didn’t swim. Louise Taylor 24:53 And these are people that started to feel shoulder problems and neck pain things they never had before because they’re so used to all that upper body motion. And now they’re sitting at their desk not having this swimming. And they’re like, I don’t know why my shoulder hurts like, say, Okay, well, probably because you’re not moving your shoulder. And then, okay, well, how can we work to create a little weight routine or some resistant bands, like their swim bands out there that can duplicate swimming? Louise Taylor 25:16 So yeah, it’s just problem solving. And if you draw a blank, like come talk to someone, because we have ideas. Lindsay Recknell 25:23 And that’s so true. And I really liked what you said about connecting, connecting to some sort of future goal. So, you know, it’s not just enough to say we all need to exercise. We know that, by the way, this is not new information. But by personalizing it in some way, like, are you going to be able to carry your groceries or grandparents are you going to be able to carry your grandbabies?
Lindsay Recknell 25:47
You know, and giving those kinds of incentives that really matter that are really internal, I can see how that would absolutely be motivating for people and fine, like, if you don’t have those motivators that are personal to somebody, it would probably be demotivated. demotivating in fact, Louise Taylor 26:08 yeah, I think another piece we haven’t quite touched on is, is when you are in pain, and you just don’t want to exercise because you’re afraid that you know, it’s gonna hurt me more. And so we know going back to that no hurt versus harm, like no no pain is that we, you know, we can get an ice cream headache is painful, was actually not a bad thing. And when we exercise, we can have a little bit of pain. And that’s not a bad thing. It can be sore, but it can also be safe. It’s good to use our muscles will feel them when we haven’t worked them.
Louise Taylor 26:37 So sometimes it’s understanding we’ve got to get through that phase, like the getting started is hard. And sometimes the getting going in the middle is also a bit hard. But the reward, like once you get that habit, but when you’ve done it regularly, your body’s adapted, then it just feels good. And then we should not stop.
Lindsay Recknell 26:57 Is there? Like is our body smart enough? To tell us when it’s too much? You know, you say that a little bit of pain is it might be okay. But the when does it get too much? When is it actually damaging? When are you pushing it too far? And is your body smart enough to tell you? Whether you listen or not? Who’s to say but is your body smart enough to tell you?
Louise Taylor 27:21 Yeah, I don’t know if it always is. So that’s where we have to be a little bit more intellectual and have a bit of a plan of like, what’s your body used to doing is kind of like your body’s only good at what you’ve done lately. So if you’re like, Okay, I’m trying to, I’m going to go hike a mountain tomorrow and you haven’t really been walking around the block. Like, that’s probably going to cause some problems.
Louise Taylor 27:42 But if you’re like, I’m going to hike that mountain in two months, I’m going to start walking, I’m gonna start to do some stairs, I’m going to get a buddy an accountability partner to get out and go with me that we do graded amounts, and maybe you haven’t done enough to like, Okay, I haven’t climbed the mountain. But you’ve done enough that your body’s used to some exercise, so that it’s safer so that you can go you’ll probably be a step after like, who hasn’t hiked in the mountains, the first time in the year in your quads are killing, it doesn’t matter how fit you are, if you haven’t done it lately, it’s going to be tough.
Louise Taylor 28:11 But if you’ve toughened up your body a bit used to walking, doing some stairs, doing some squats, getting your tissues, at least a little more used to it, then the pain you might feel afterwards, or the soreness is is not going to be as threatening, but but your body. Like if you’re not, if you haven’t done an exercise lately, you probably won’t feel the effects sometimes.
Louise Taylor 28:31 So the next day, so we don’t get that warning to say like you should stop is but but if you think about it, if you haven’t done it lately, and it’s a pretty physical holding, then there’s probably going to be a cost. And if you’re not fit, if you’re not used to doing exercise in general, maybe age can be a variable to then you need to take, you know, some baby steps.
Lindsay Recknell 28:54 And what I’m hearing is y’all need to call Louise because she will help you with the plan. She will give you all the science, she will help you to take those action steps, you know, or the local physiotherapist in your region, obviously, but definitely to call a professional and get that supported. Help you guys uh, yeah, I mean, you’re the experts in this space, you know, much more than we do. And, and you can see the things we can’t see.
Lindsay Recknell 29:18 And that’s been a beauty of this conversation is so much I just don’t know about that mind body connection. And it’s been just awesome. Awesome to hear your wisdom. I can’t even believe we’re getting to the end of our show. And I asked the same question of all my Yes. And that is Louise, what gives you hope?
Louise Taylor 29:39 Great. Well, I think what gives me a hopeful outlook is really an internalized compass for staying positive and trying to navigate the turmoil and actually finding supporters. So when I’m not feeling as hopeful I know that I can re energize through exercise is a big one for me. I think it’s maybe because of all those happy chemicals and getting into that physical zone of calm gymnast that I can find with exercise, that getting out in nature is such a huge one.
Louise Taylor 30:04 And we know that’s really reinforced through a lot of the research just being in nature, so helpful for us for being positive, you know, being with someone you love and care about, and can really make a difference to a hopeful Outlook. So I think when people are more socially isolated, which many people have been in this last while that we do need the social connections, whether it is something like a zoom connection, or a phone call, or we’re going for a walk with someone.
Louise Taylor 30:27 And I think finally if there is, if there’s love, there’s going to be hope, like whether it’s love for yourself, loving others, or just the loving have the life experience that we can keep that positivity and again, linking back to that chemistry. If you’ve got those positive thoughts like it, it’s sort of it’s it’s self growing,
Lindsay Recknell 30:46 loving the life experience. That is brilliant. Thank you so so much. Can you share with people here in Calgary, at least where they can come and see you and the rest of your fabulous team?
Louise Taylor 30:58 Right So I’m a co owner movements Sports Clinic. We’re a downtown location, right in the Calgary tower complex. And I have a business partner, Tyson Paluszek. And we have to agree physiotherapists, a couple of massage therapists in a sport medicine physician as part of our team. And this is really our or ethos is really getting people back to doing what they want to do. Yeah, we’d be happy to meet you.
Lindsay Recknell 31:20 Amazing, fully integrative approach. It’s just feels like magic. Louise, this has been so so awesome. Thank you so much for spending your time with us. I have learned a ton and the desire to learn a whole bunch more. And you just opened the door to a whole new area of study for me. So thank you, I think.
Louise Taylor 31:40 Well, my pleasure is such a joy to talk to you too. And the topic of hope, how Can things go wrong,
Lindsay Recknell 31:45 right. I know. It’s beautiful. I look forward to talking to you again really soon.
Louise Taylor 31:49 Take care.
Lindsay Recknell 31:50 Take care.
Lindsay Recknell 31:53 I hope you enjoyed this latest episode of The Hope motivates Action podcast. These episodes are a labor of love inspiring conversations with hopeful people make my heart happy. If you also love this episode, it would be amazing if you could go to Apple podcasts and leave a review five stars if you’re into it. It’s these reviews that encouraged Apple to promote this podcast to their network and the more people that listen, the more hope we can spread into the world.
Lindsay Recknell 32:17 Don’t forget to check out the show notes of this episode to find all the links to my guests books and other resources referenced in this episode. You’ll also find the link back to my website where you will find additional support and resources for you, your team and your community. I truly believe that the future will be better than today.
Lindsay Recknell 32:33 By taking action over the things we can control and hearing from these guests on these episodes. I know that even more hopeful future is totally possible. I’m always looking for inspirational guests so if you or anyone you know would like to be a guest on the show please reach out you can find me on the contact form of my website at expertinhope.com or by email at Lindsay@expertinhope.com.
Lindsay Recknell 32:57 When I was a teenager, my sisters were leaving the house to go out for the night. I always made it a point to remind them to call me if they need me. It was my way to tell them that I cared and would always be there for them. I’d love you to know the same so all of you listening out there Call me if you need me.
Lindsay Recknell 33:11 Again. Thank you for your love and support of this podcast, my work and hope and your intentional focus on making your future better than today. After all, hope without action is just a wish
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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