Fighting mental illness stigmas (Part 2 of 4)

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Word Count: 1,287 | Est. Reading Time: 4:41 min | Readability Rating: A

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"Punches and kicks are tools to kill the ego." - Bruce Lee, The Tao of Jeet Kune Do

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Preface

Retired professional U.K.-based kickboxer Andrew Tate recently ranted on Twitter that "depression isn't real," which is how I became part of a minor international tabloid story.

You can read my initial response here, which includes links to a number of articles and scientific studies on American suicide statistics and the physical evidence of depression; my follow-up response on the mental health issues facing the 9/11 first responders here; and finally, my thread on the scientific literature researching the relationship between inflammation and depression here. Here are also some links to the Wikipedia articles on depression and mental illness.

In Part 1 of this series, I also presented global statistics on depression, suicide, and the mental illness stigmas. This is Part 2 of a four-part series.

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Traumatic Brain Injury

Tates rants provoked an understandable outrage, but seeing people wishing traumatic brain injury and depression upon him also left a foul taste in my mouth. Anyone who has ever been knocked out, or suffered a head injury, knows it's not fun. And according to the International Brain Injury Association, brain injury is "the leading cause of death and disability worldwide."

A 2007 study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology found that amateur kickboxers were at significant risk of brain injury, particularly hypopituitarism. According to the Mayo Clinic, hypopituitarism is a rare disorder of the pituitary gland, where it fails to produce one or more hormones necessary to regulate bodily functions.

For further research on the relationship between combat sports and head trauma: click here for the literature indexed on Google Scholar; and also read the links to the studies featured in the "Further Reading" section at the end of this post.

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Martial Arts, Warrior Codes, and Mental Health

Belittling Tate's choice of profession is also completely contrary to the kind of positive energy I want to spread on the Internet, nor does it win any points with me. I earned my black belt in Tae Kwon Do when I was 17 years old. As a teenager, I fought competitively in national tournaments. As an adult, I've trained amateur and professional fighters, and competed at the local levels in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

Combat sports are not only incredibly the difficult, but becoming a world kickboxing champion takes an elite level of discipline and drive. Tate, having achieved an international level of success along this path, genuinely believes his unsolicited advice is what people need to hear if they want to improve their own lives. A devotion to the martial arts requires its practioners to pursue self-mastery.

Physical exercise, including practicing the martial arts, has even been shown to have mental health benefits. Mountains of scientific literature has also been devoted to researching this relationship, as well as the relationship between the study of the martial arts and mental illness.

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Defend the Weak

In competitive martial arts, there is also a tradition of showmanship and theatricality. Trolling is used as a psychological warfare tactic against our opponents - it's part of the game. Just watch any pre-fight video of Muhammad Ali or Conor McGregor. But this is where, despite our common martial arts heritage, I believe Tate and I differ. He revels in trolling his critics on Twitter as an offensive and defensive tactic; I am working to subvert the outrage machine entirely.

The samurai, the Japanese warrior class from which both Tate's and my martial arts traditions descend, believed themselves to be servants. Their name means "to serve." Bushido, their warrior code, embraced respect and shunned cruelty, even towards their enemies. We train in the martial arts to defend and free the weak, not taunt or lord over them. Any material benefit we might derive from our skills are secondary to this.

Tate is not my enemy, and neither are you.

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For lists of international suicide prevention hotlines, you can click here, here, here, and here.

For guides on responsible media reporting about suicide, click here, here, and here.

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Next

In the next section, I address several points Tate made during a recent podcast with Infowars hosts Alex Jones and Paul Joseph Watson.

Thank you for reading,

Josh

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Series Navigation: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

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Further Reading

• Ball, Chad G., and Elijah Dixon. "The consensus statement on mixed martial arts: emotion, not evidence-based." Canadian Journal of Surgery. February 2011. Accessed September 18, 2017. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3038368/.
• Bledsoe, Gregory H., Edbert B. Hsu, Jurek George Grabowski, Justin D. Brill, and Guohua Li. "Incidence of Injury in Professional Mixed Martial Arts Competitions." Journal of Sports Science & Medicine. July 2006. Accessed September 18, 2017. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3863915/.
• Buse, G. J. "No holds barred sport fighting: a 10 year review of mixed martial arts competition." British Journal of Sports Medicine. February 2006. Accessed September 18, 2017. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2492032/.
• Coswig, Victor Silveira, David Hideyoshi Fukuda, Solange De Paula Ramos, and Fabricio Boscolo Del Vecchio. "Biochemical Differences Between Official and Simulated Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) Matches." Asian Journal of Sports Medicine. June 2016. Accessed September 18, 2017. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5003304/.
• Covarrubias, Natalia, Subir Bhatia, Luis F. Campos, Dahn V. Nguyen, and Eric Y. Chang. "The relationship between Taekwondo training habits and injury: a survey of a collegiate Taekwondo population." Open Access Journal of Sports Medicine. April 22, 2015. Accessed September 18, 2017. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4410897/.
• Hosseini, Ario H., and Jonathan Lifshitz. "Brain injury forces of moderate magnitude elicit the fencing response." Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise 41, no. 9 (2009): 1687-1697. Accessed September 18, 2017. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.730.3951&rep=rep1&type=pdf.
• Hutchison, Michael G., David W. Lawrence, Michael D. Cusimano, and Tom A. Schweizer. "Head Trauma in Mixed Martial Arts." The American Journal of Sports Medicine. March 21, 2014. Accessed September 18, 2017. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0363546514526151.
• Jensen, Andrew R., Robert C. Maciel, Frank A. Petrigliano, John P. Rodriguez, and Adam G. Brooks. "Injuries Sustained by the Mixed Martial Arts Athlete." Sports Health. August 20, 2016. Accessed September 18, 2017. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5315252/.
• Kostka, Tomasz, Witold Furgal, Wojciech Gawroński, Andrzej Bugajski, Andrzej Czamara, Krzysztof Klukowski, Hubert Krysztofiak, Romuald Lewicki, Zbigniew Szyguła, Wiesław Tomaszewski, Tadeusz Trzaska, Jerzy Widuchowski, Andrzej Ziemba, and Anna Jegier. "Recommendations of the Polish Society of Sports Medicine on age criteria while qualifying children and youth for participation in various sports." Br J Sports Med. September 01, 2011. Accessed September 18, 2017. http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2011/11/02/bjsports-2011-090043.
• Kreiswirth, Ethan M., Gregory D. Myer, and Mitchell J. Rauh. "Incidence of Injury Among Male Brazilian Jiujitsu Fighters at the World Jiu-Jitsu No-Gi Championship 2009." Journal of Athletic Training. January 2014. Accessed September 18, 2017. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3917302/.
• Lystad, Reidar P., Kobi Gregory, and Juno Wilson. "The Epidemiology of Injuries in Mixed Martial Arts: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis." Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine. January 2014. Accessed September 18, 2017. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4555522/.
• Rainey, Charles E. "Determining the Prevalence and Assessing the Severity of Injuries in Mixed Martial Arts Athletes." North American Journal of Sports Physical Therapy : NAJSPT. November 2009. Accessed September 18, 2017. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2953351/.
• Zuckerman, Scott L., M.D., Andrew Kuhn, Michael C. Dewan, M.D., Peter J. Morone, M.D., Jonathan A. Forbes, M.D., Gary S. Solomon, Ph.D., and Allen K. Sills, M.D. "Structural brain injury in sports-related concussion." Structural brain injury in sports-related concussion | Neurosurgical Focus, Vol 33, No 6. December 2012. Accessed September 18, 2017. http://thejns.org/doi/full/10.3171/2012.10.FOCUS12279.

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Josh Peterson is a 2016 Robert Novak Journalism Program Fellow and a writer living in Denver, CO. Follow Josh on Steemit and Twitter. Keybase for secure chat. PGP Fingerprint: 4507 3000 1A40 2691 DAB8 ED65 A3EA 3629 73FD B7FF

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