Motivational speaker, author, and holder of the Guinness World Record for the world's longest waterslide, Jimi Hunt says mental illness is an epidemic that we can no longer ignore.
Jimi Hunt has just arrived back in New Zealand from Mexico. Photo: Supplied
Hunt is currently managed isolation having just arrived back in New Zealand after leaving his adopted home in Mexico, as he can no longer travel for work due to Covid-19.
He said the change in routine affects people's mental health.
"For example, we lived in this tourist town where the beach is its main tourist attraction, and they just closed the beaches and so water and the ocean is a big mental health boost for me and I was simply told I wasn't allowed to go into it."
But he has arrived on homesoil with plans to launch his new book Inside Out, which discusses the need to focus on 'mental fitness' rather than 'mental health'.
Asked why he chose that title, Hunt said that modern people look for happiness in everything that is external — be that a relationship, a new car, a new job or a new achievement.
"And we've known for thousands of years the answer is actually opposite to that, we've got to derive it from the inside out."
Hunt said he wants to get away from the binary idea that there only two states of mental health — mentally well or mentally ill — since our lives are not binary.
"What I'm promoting is a move from the term 'mental health', which I think is inextricably broken, towards what I term 'mental fitness' and getting people to understand that everyone has mental fitness. And instead of having those two options, basically, what we have is the mental fitness continuum that can run from very poor to very very good, exactly the same as a physical fitness continuum."
He said people need to use a range of measures to build up their mental fitness over time.
"And that can be a myriad of ways from things like mindfulness and meditation, through to connection and community and everything in-between and so if one thing gets taken away, like my ocean for example, I have a whole bunch of other things to fall back on."
Hunt said everybody is feeling the effects of Covid-19 and taking away things like jobs and financial stability exposes a lot of problems in society and addressing that is now a primary concern for both individuals and society.
And Hunt said improving your mental fitness just one percent every day can add up to substantial gains.
"The goal is to be one percent fitter every day, because you know you can't just go into the gym and start bench pressing 200kg, we have to start just doing all of the things every day over time to get those compound gains."
Hunt said people are very good at collecting knowledge, but then they don't apply it.
"That was one of the things I kept in mind when writing this book, is to make it as practical as possible to get people to implement things to be able to move themselves up the continuum.
"We're just very, very good at overestimating what big things will do for us and underestimating what small continual gains will do for us."
Hunt said by 2025 over 80 percent of people will suffer from a mental health condition in their lifetime and it's an epidemic we can no longer ignore.
