#214 Siim Land Interview Inside Europe Radio

Keith Walker (0:01)

Well, the pandemic is still here and for many people the impact of lockdowns and self-isolation on our mental health may be worse than the effects of catching the coronavirus. The World Health Organization says isolation, loss of income and fear are triggering mental health conditions or worsening existing ones.

How can we adapt to better deal with the effects of the pandemic on our mental health?

Well, Siim Land is a best-selling author and high-performance coach who recently spoke in Helsinki, Finland at the European Biohackers Summit. That's a gathering of people interested in optimal human performance, health and wellbeing. Hello, Siim.

Siim Land (0:41)

Hi, thanks for having me and glad to be here.

Keith Walker (0:43)

Good to have you. So how can we become more resilient so we can better tolerate stress?

Siim Land (0:49)

Yeah, well, I think there's many aspects to this.

So stress has a physical aspect as well as a psychological aspect. When it comes to physical stressors, then just engaging or putting our body through some difficult things like exercise as well as like saunas and the cold, we can increase our body's ability to tolerate physical stressors. And the same can apply to psychological stressors to a certain extent. We can't really avoid stress on a regular basis or like we can't avoid it forever. It's like a part of life and trying to avoid it or trying to desperately reduce our stress all the time or trying to not get stressed out can be just futile because, you know, everyone does experience stress and it's only like a matter of time that it happens. So we have to kind of adopt this sort of a mindset towards stress that it can actually be beneficial towards us and it shouldn't be something that freaks us out.

Keith Walker (1:42)

So what we have at the moment, we have this huge amount of stress that's kind of been forced upon us.

It's more than usual, so it's not just a little bit of stress, it's like it's overwhelming to a lot of people. A lot of people are just being bombarded with information about the coronavirus and the lockdowns and it's just taking a really negative toll on mental health and wellbeing.

Siim Land (2:06)

Yeah, absolutely. And it is a very stressful time for a lot of people.

But it also has to kind of force us to realize that it could have been much worse. These kinds of events are a part of history and humans in the past, we're experiencing all the time different kinds of pandemics, even like war and famine, food shortages and all those things are actually very normal in the history of humanity. And only in the modern society we've created this environment where these things are very rare, and we may get this sense of security that we are everything is supposed to be safe and certain, whereas in reality is that the only certainty is this uncertainty and stressful events.

Keith Walker (2:53)

Now, I know from reading your book, Stronger by Stress, you do have a morning routine and you have daily routines. Can you talk about your daily routines and how they help your mental health?

Siim Land (3:04)

For me, I like to engage in something physical every day, like exercising on a regular basis, as well as doing maybe like some sauna therapy or cold showers.

Those are really good. And I also do like creative work, writing books, articles, researching and everything that. But usually I'll do it like in the morning, where I'm like most fresh and where I'm like focused on those things.

Keith Walker (3:31)

Yeah, I mean, our previous report talked about art and music and writing is really good. But you mentioned saunas.

Now, where I come from, we don't have saunas in our homes. Do you have saunas like routinely in your home in Estonia?

Siim Land (3:45)

Yeah, absolutely. Like the saunas are very a part of the culture here, as well as in Finland.

And yeah, like many households have their own saunas. But when it comes to like the benefits of sauna, then a lot of the benefits come from from elevating your body temperature. And you can also achieve that same effect by exercise. So exercise can mimic some benefits of the sauna.

And even like hot yoga, where you're doing this isometric contractions, those poses can also generate the same heat shock response in the body. So yeah, like not everyone has access to a sauna, but you can still like exercise even when you don't have like access to a gym.

Keith Walker (4:27)

What about cold showers? I mean, how long would you spend in a cold shower? And could you, you know, for example, a lot of people don't have a sauna, so could they have a hot shower, then switch it to cold and then hot again?