On Muscle and Mind: How Strength Training Changes Your Brain, Improves Your Mental Health, and Lengthens Your Life | Bonnie Tsui

This is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello everybody, how are we doing today? Normally I spend a lot of time laboring over a clever framing to these episodes, but my guest today says it way better than I ever could.

So I'm just going to kick off this episode by reading a few key lines from said guest's new book. Here they are. Muscles deserve more consideration than we give them. We often think about muscle as existing separately from intellect and maybe even oppositional to it, one taking resources from the other. The truth is that our brain and muscles are in constant conversation with each other, sending electrochemical signals back and forth.

Our long term brain health depends on muscles and moving them, especially when it comes to aging bodies. I'll just note that everybody's body is aging, so this is true for everybody, this connection between mind and muscle. My guest today, whose lines I just read, her name is Bonnie Choi, She's a former competitive swimmer, a current journalist, and award-winning author. Her new book is called On Muscle, The Stuff That Moves Us and Why It Matters.

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