Richard Jacobs: This is Richard Jacobs with the Finding Genius Podcast now part of the Finding Genius Foundation. Today I have Nita Sweeney. She’s the author of a book called Depression Hates the Moving Target.

Tell me a bit about your background. What led you to writing this book? It’s probably about with depression, yourself or someone you know good.

Nita Sweeney: Yes, I’ve had chronic depression, probably most of my adult life, but it got a lot worse. In 1994, I was practicing law and I ended up leaving my job because of a major depressive episode. I was suicidal, hospitalized, ended up gratefully on medication and then really spent the next couple of decades, cycling on and off meds and trying to write, which is what my dream had been. Eventually in 2010, I saw the social media post of a high school friend, by then I had gained a lot of weight and she was about the same size as I was. She was my same age and she posted “Call me crazy,” but this running is getting to be fun. I thought she surely lost her mind because I just did not think of running as fun, but I kept watching her posts.

There was something about that. I was at a place in my life. I’d had a year where a whole bunch of loved ones died. I was unsuccessful in getting a book published. I’d been through MFA School and I published a few articles and poetry. I’d done some things that were successful, but I just felt like I couldn’t get any traction. My mood was so bad and something about her posts made me think if she can do this. So can I. I started running and the book is about that journey from Bonbon eating overweight woman on sofa, suicidal and very unhappy to the point of not being sure. I wanted to live to someone who still has mental health issues, but regularly lives a very good life. I want to live now, which I wasn’t sure I did then. I got a book published, which doesn’t happen to everybody who runs. I’m not making that promise, but that’s what happened to me. It’s about taking exercise as a tool in the kit and adding that in, which was the big thing that was missing.

Richard Jacobs: What do you think caused you to fall into depression and anxiety? When did it start for you? How far back can you remember? What precipitated that?

Nita Sweeney: I think it’s genetic in my family. My mother was probably undiagnosed bipolar. She was alcoholic, she did die sober, but I grew up in a house where there was never fewer than four cases of long neck Budweiser, either in the refrigerator or in the barn. People just drank, that’s what they did. I think that’s how they medicated their emotions on their mental health issues. Also my mother’s father, I don’t know the history completely, but he had tremors. It might’ve been familial tremors or it could have been alcoholic withdrawal tremors. We don’t know for sure, but he had a Prefrontal Anatomy in the 50’s and died in the State Hospital as a result of that. So there’s this history in my family, especially on my mother’s side of mental health and things going really badly with that.

I also remember as a child, just being sad a lot of the time. I had some joy and fun too, but a lot of low level melancholy and that continued to get worse as I got older. In mid-90’s, I really kind of crashed in, when I was practicing law and it was between the stress and my inability to cope with it. I wasn’t getting any kind of help for my anxiety or my depression. Until I got that help, I just couldn’t manage my life. It was really with me for a very long time and I kind of thought that’s just the way it would always be. As I said, I had some good periods, but it’s really kind of been with me all my life. I still have mental health issues. It’s not like it magically went away, but having a full toolkit, therapy, and meds, also I do meditation and physical activity. I love a community of support, it has made just a huge difference in my life.

Richard Jacobs: You said, you saw posts from a former classmate and the idea of running too. How did you start? What was it like when you first started? How was the first or two day when you tried to?

Nita Sweeney: It was ridiculous. I was scared that my neighbors who weren’t even home were going to laugh at me, if they saw me trying to run at my size. I had these probably giant pink sweatpants and a green top, nothing matched my idea of what a runner should look like. I had big clunky shoes because I didn’t really have exercise shoes. They were tennis shoes, but they were just these giant shoes. So I took our yellow Labrador Retriever, Morgan as a decoy. I walked him from time to time, but I thought, “Okay, they’ll think I’m just going to walk the dog.” I took a digital kitchen timer down into ravine. It’s kind of a hidden area in our neighborhood where the lots are really long and sloped down. So people can’t really see you in that part of this little (quarter mile) stretch of wooded area, where it’s pretty secluded. I had gone onto the “Couch to 5k” website, which is what I found out she was following.

It’s an app, now. At the time you go to a website and you can print off the schedule. This was like I said, in 2010. I saw that it said 60 seconds of jogging. It did not say running. I’m sure it said other things besides 60 seconds of jogging, but something about that seemed completely manageable. I thought, “Okay, I can jog for 60 seconds.” So I took the digital timer and the dog down into the ravine and I stood there for a while until the dog got bored and got up. I realized that this is ridiculous, you got to do this. So I turned on that timer and I jogged for 60 seconds and something about doing that, it just lifted my mood, even in that just little bit of time. There was walk interval and then a little more jogging and then walk interval. The whole workout was maybe 10 to 15 minutes, something like that. It was the most physical activity I had managed in many years and it just shifted something inside me. It took me a while to tell anybody that I was doing it.

The plan is that you work out, like a run-walk interval for three days a week and it’s supposed to be a nine week plan, but it took me much longer. I didn’t tell anybody, even my husband. We had been married, at least 20 years by then. I didn’t even tell him because I had just tried so many different things over the years. I don’t know if we had a treadmill, but we had various pieces of equipment that became closed racks in the basement, the mini trampoline, the gym memberships, and all the things that I had tried at different points. So I didn’t tell him until it felt as if this was going to stick as if I was actually going to continue with this. Eventually, I did tell him.

Richard Jacobs: How long did you took? About a month?

Nita Sweeney: Maybe it took six weeks. It took a while because I just wasn’t sure that I could stick with it. I was just so despondent a lot of the time.

Richard Jacobs: If you talked to him about that time, do you think he was aware of how you’re feeling? When you were doing this, did he notice before you told him or not?

Nita Sweeney: I think he knew that something was a little bit different, but he choose not to say anything because he knows that any kind of pressure, I turn that so harshly onto myself. He was in a job where I think at that time, he was a CFO of a non-profit or might’ve been Director of Finance, but of a nonprofit that was really struggling. So he was trying to turn it around. He was very busy in his own job and very focused on that. But I’m sure he knew something was up, but it wasn’t obvious what it was. I was always trying things, so he kind of knew to wait until I was ready to talk about it. His comment was be an interval runner. He was really afraid that I would just go completely overboard, because that’s the other thing I do, is go completely overboard. I kind of did, but it worked, which is funny because sometimes it does work when you go completely overboard, but he was just hoping that I wouldn’t burn myself out on it. Gratefully, I didn’t and I gradually progressed. I had physical, emotional, anxiety issues, they all comes up in book. It’s not like you can run away from that when you have that. So the book is about me facing all of those things as I continue to run and how that changed my perceptive.

Richard Jacobs: I’m not trying to make this into like a pun, but in a way it may be appropriate where you literally running away from what was bothering you or did you feel like you were running towards what was bothering you? Did that happen at all or you were just running?

Nita Sweeney: It felt to me as if I was running toward health, especially mental health. I knew that I wanted to lose weight. I was a much larger size than I’d ever been in my life. I knew that running burned a ton of calories. So there was that, but emotionally, it felt as if I was running toward some kind of stability, some kind of up mood lifting activity that could sustain me at least for a little while because it really felt as if things were untenable. If something didn’t change, I’m not sure I’d be here. I just was really ready to give up.

Richard Jacobs: The reason I ask you is, I’m supposing that probably made it more likely if you to continue because you are running towards something instead of running away from something.

Nita Sweeney: Yes, I agree. It’s such a common joke, “What are you running from?” People say that all the time and there’s great memes about animals watching people run and saying, “What are they running from?” I mean, you’re sort of running from your troubles in a way, but I think if I had just been running solely to lose weight because I had done that before, when I was much younger and I don’t call it running. I was doing sprinting and it didn’t work at all, and it didn’t last. You’re right, there’s something about going towards something and feeling as if I’m headed in a direction to something as opposed to thinking something’s chasing me and I’ll have to get away from it. At the time I wasn’t that aware of it. It was much more of a feeling thing. I started dreaming and I thought that I was flying, but I realized after it was recurrent dream. I realized after a while that I was actually dreaming that it was running.

Of course I was dreaming that I was running much faster that I actually won, but there was the sensation of floating through space. It was relatively effortless and it dawned on me that I could run slowly. I wouldn’t feel like I was killing myself. You do get out of breath and you do exert yourself. It’s not effortless, but there was something about that floating feeling. Maybe it’s the runner’s high. I’m not sure because I do get that from time to time.

Richard Jacobs: The reason I asked is, a lot of behaviors are characterized as avoidance behaviors, like drinking alcohol, drugs, or whatever other addictions. It seems like universally they’re always described as getting rid or trying to cover over. You said that you’re running towards something positive. How almost like it was different, it wasn’t an avoidance behavior. For some reason it just sticks out at me, the difference.

Nita Sweeney: Yes, I think you’re right. I haven’t thought of it quite that way before, but definitely, there is an addictive quality to it, the way that I do it. I run an ultra-marathon, which is 31 miles. I’ve run 3 foals, 29 and half. So there’s definitely an obsessive quality to it that I enjoy it and want to continue it. I do a lot of races and I do a lot of training, but I don’t think that if I had just tried to not be depressed and not added something that works.

It just like addiction. They talk about how you can’t just stop drinking or stop using. You have to replace it with something that gives you the positive sensations that you got when drinking and drugging used to work. Eventually it stops working, but when it used to work and that’s the way it was with me for depression. All the things that I had tried, including medication, I was still on many medications. In fact, running helped me get off of some of them, but still on one. You can’t just say, “You have to stop being depressed and we’re going to just have nothing.” For me, it was exercise as a replacement. I don’t know what, but that’s somehow it made it a positive as opposed to thinking, “I have to get rid of this other thing.” I’m not sure if I’m making sense there, but it definitely felt like it was more of a positive thing for me and part of it was because I was older.

I already knew that I was never going to win a 5k. I wasn’t qualifying for Boston there. It wasn’t going to happen for me because of some the physical issues I talk about in the book, but that it was going to be about my emotional state. It was going to be the main reason I did it. Maybe it’s my personality too. I didn’t have quite the obsessive tendency that maybe other people have. I’m not sure because seeing people go with running to very unhealthy extremes.

Richard Jacobs: What is your mindset? When you were about to run on a given day. Were you in a bad way or in a good way? What was the cue that got you to run each day? Did you just pick a specific time or was it more like, “I feel this way, I’m going to go run now.”?

Nita Sweeney: It was more of, I feel this way and I’m going to go run now. This way I feel brave enough to go now. Sometimes I didn’t feel brave enough, but I knew if I get started I’ll feel brave. The brain is just so tricky. I’ve run thousands of miles and I have days I’ll get up in the morning and my brain will say to me, “Well, that running was fun, but I think those days are over.” It just totally out of the blue and I’ll go, sit up in bed and laugh, and think where does that even come from? Because I got to get up and run 12 miles or something.

It’s just so crazy, but that’s the mind. The meditation helps with that too, because I can see that I’m not that thought, it is just a rising in consciousness. I can just watch it arise, do this little dance and pass away. I had been meditating for many years, and I think that may have helped. Also, when I would get up in the morning, I has a schedule. I print out the schedule, it was on the end of the bookcase. I would get up in the morning and if it was one of the days I was supposed to run, I usually looked forward to it. Some of it was weather, but as it was time to get closer to run. I might start getting anxious and then have to talk myself into it.

I’d noticed those thoughts, this is going to be too hard, you really shouldn’t be doing this, the neighbors will be home today and they’ll laugh. All of those thoughts. I was kind of able to say, “Those are just the thoughts and let them pass.” I even thank them because that part of the mind thinks it’s trying to save me, it really does. It thinks that whatever I’m going to do is dangerous and scary, and I really shouldn’t be doing it. So it’s a very reptilian or whatever part of the mind. I tried to just notice and let the thought pass. I keep moving and put on my shoes. Sometimes I say that Nita just put on your shoes or just get dressed and go outside. Eventually if you stand there long enough, you realize, maybe the neighbors are looking at you because you’ve been standing here for 10 minutes in your front lawn. It’s like, we’ll just jog down the road and see how it goes.

All these years later, I sometimes still have to talk myself into it. But in those early days, I quickly gained a momentum from having a schedule to follow from continuing to watch my friend. She was by then months ahead of me because I didn’t do it right away. It took me a while to pick up that plan and do it. There was sort of the excitement of something new and the momentum from that pulled me in much more than it does now. All these years later where it’s the same training plan, I might be running in a different state, different race or something like that, but it’s not quite the same newness as it was at the beginning.

Richard Jacobs: You’re describing what’s going on in your head as you’re getting ready to go out. When you were actually starting to run what was the first minute or two of the running like mentally? 

Nita Sweeney: The very first couple of minutes, mentally I realized that I really needed a better running bra. Literally, that was it. I realized, I was wearing a bra that’s probably 10 years old and it isn’t an athletic bra. I hadn’t run in a while, especially at this larger weight. It was almost comical because all the anxiety dropped away and suddenly I was completely in my body, which is very meditative thing to do. I had to laugh and I thought, “Yes, your next trip is to a running store because you need to take care of this.” But then what happened is that ravine ends at the top of a hill. I turn a corner at the top of the hill and suddenly I was out in the neighborhood. I had to choose, “Am I going to go out where they can see me or not?”

I turned around and went back down in the ravine. Also, I have a journal of how far I went on what days. I can tell you, it was March the 23rd, 2010, but I don’t have the log of when I actually left the ravine because at some point, a day came where I got to the top of that hill at the end of the ravine and I thought this is it. Are you going to run in the ravine for the rest of your life? This quarter mile back and forth? So I stepped out into the neighborhood and it seems like such a little thing. You’re just in the ravine and then you’re in a neighborhood. For me, it was huge. It was huge because I had kind of an Agoraphobic thing, but it’s more of maybe social anxiety and self-consciousness about my weight.

Richard Jacobs: Were you ever worried you couldn’t get back home, but you’d have to walk home because you would lose all your reserve?

Nita Sweeney: Yes, but I was less than a quarter mile from my house and I was running in a circle, so I would be headed back toward my house pretty quickly. But I did wonder, I would always, no matter how minimal the distance increase was, I always was convinced that I couldn’t do it. Even if it was something like, today I ran a quarter mile and tomorrow I’m going to run 0.3.5 miles. Even that tiny distance, if it was anything more than what I’d ever done, it just played with my brain. There was always the chance that I would have to walk home. Because I was already in my neighborhood and I did sometimes already walk my dog, I wasn’t as self-conscious about walking the dog home. I would know inside myself that I had felt like I failed, but nobody else would. Whereas, them seeing me try to run or try to jog that’s the thing that I was so self-conscious about.

It the tricky mind playing these games that when I stepped back, it make no logical sense, but that’s the thing about the mind. It’s not playing logically, it’s coming at us from either disordered places, such as cognitive. It’s just a twisted way of thinking or it could be a part that is still about three years old and it kind of in charge all of a sudden. If you follow the family therapy or family dynamics, all those kinds of things. All these things are at work in the mind. So that’s why the meditation really helped us because I can step back and just sort of watch it play its little game and then realize what really it is.

Richard Jacobs: Were you incorporating some meditative elements into the run itself as you ran?

Nita Sweeney: Yes, not intentionally, because I am a meditator and had been meditating already. By then I probably have been meditating for about 15 years. It’s just natural to know that’s the way the mind works. I was able to step back and see what’s going on with my mind. Sometimes in the moment I couldn’t do that. In that moment I would be paralyzed, especially when it came to bridges. I had a thing about bridges at the time. But when I would step back, especially after it was over, I would think, “Oh, that’s what happened.” I was always incorporating meditation, but sometimes I didn’t realize it. It’s just sort of who I am because I’ve been practicing so long.

Richard Jacobs: Did you literally start to feel better or lighter as you ran or when you were finished for that day? Did you feel changed by it? Did you revert to, after an hour or so? What were the feeling before, during and after?

Nita Sweeney: I’m not sure that I was completely conscious of it. What I noticed that was the biggest change is I had always needed to take a nap in the afternoon no matter what. So the first and second day I did take a nap after I ran, but then the third day I got in bed to lie down and I couldn’t sleep. It was like, I’m not really that tired. So I got up. Sometimes I would take nap, but the level of just constantly needing to regroup all day long started to go away. I had more energy and I did notice during the run because I was doing intervals. Especially there was this huge joy from finishing an interval, whether it was 60 seconds, then expands to 90 seconds, and then it was two minutes. You’d finish this run, whatever the tiny interval that increased was. It just very incremental. I’d feel this joy like, “Oh My God, I just did that.” So yes, that was always kind of happening during the run. Afterwards there was just the sense of accomplishment.

The other thing that I did was I had printed off the training schedule, the Capture 5k schedule. I would come home and I’d be able to check off that little workout I had just done and that’s a dopamine hit. So I’d have this positive sensations, these pleasant thoughts of, “I just did a thing and I accomplished it.” I think about it now and it almost seems ridiculous, but I know that you have to keep it in perspective because I was so depressed that I didn’t want to live. So being able to check something off a schedule like that was enough to keep me going for another day. 

Richard Jacobs: Did you ever feel that the running contributed to your depression or anxiety, or it only helped it?

Nita Sweeney: It always helped it. There were a few times, once I started racing where maybe I had really hoped to do better in a race and things just go wrong sometimes. I would be disappointed, but it wasn’t the same as the depression. It always was a mood lifter. It still is. If I want to feel better, I just put on my shoes and go, it really will help. May be it take a mile that first mile might be agony. They always say “The first mile is a liar.” Once I get out there, I’m usually always happy, especially if I can go outside.

Richard Jacobs: What would you do when the weather wasn’t good, or it was cold, hot or there was precipitation?

Nita Sweeney: People ask, “What do runners do when it rains? It’s like we get wet. What do runners do when it’s cold? Where we get cold. What do they do when it’s hot? I pretty much run. I think the coldest I’ve run in that the feels like below 6, probably was about 3° and the hottest I’ve run in is in the 90’s. I don’t think I’ve run over a 100°. I’m in Central Ohio, it gets very hot and humid. I think that feels like might’ve been over a 100°, but you have to be careful with hydration, especially in the summer. You have to make sure you’re getting enough electrolytes, like salt and stuff with the water. I’ve learned from having a running community, how to do all the kind of things that support the running.

Richard Jacobs: Did you run alone or did you get a partner or a group?

Nita Sweeney: I ran alone for a while, then I joined an online group where it was just a discussion. It was the same group that The Couch 5k was in. It was like www.active.com or something like that. So I did that sort of online. I was still running alone, but I had people I was talking to about these things, such as, do you carry water? How do you do that? How long do you go before your waterfall? All those kinds of questions. I was getting all of that stuff answered, then eventually I joined a group called Marathoner and training here in Central Ohio that is sponsored by our local feet’s store because I wanted to run longer distances.

I ran alone for probably about a year and a half. I know tons of people that have ran alone for years. It’s just the way they prefer it. What’s interesting is I like to run in the group, but I don’t like to be in the little pack. So I’ll usually run behind them or in front of them. I’m just sort of an off the scale introvert. I do better when I’m not in the middle of the chatter, especially at 7:00 AM on a Saturday morning, which I call the middle of the night. So I’m with them, we have water stops and if anything happens or if I do want to talk, people are always there. People ask questions because I was a trainer like, a PT person in case something happens and you need to talk to them about how to deal with an injury. So they have a whole lot of support that you get from this group. But a lot of miles I run alone, just me and the dog, that’s what we do. The training really happens, when is just me and the dog on our own.

Richard Jacobs: As you’ve interacted with other people that have gone to exercise to help them with their mental issues. Is it usually running that people do? Is that the number one exercise or are there other ones that, for some reason you just don’t do, but they also work? Does the running work for a lot of people?

Nita Sweeney: I don’t really know. It would be really interesting if there’s been some research on that. I tend to follow running research science. There’s a number of exercise scientists that I follow. Most of them that I follow study running just because that’s what I’m interested in. The things that I have read is about breaking a sweat. It doesn’t have to be a huge sweat, but just raising your heart rate enough that you get out of the regular zone (just sitting in your chair kind of zone). So it could be walking, dancing, lifting weights, or swimming.

I really believe that the most important thing to me is that you find something that you enjoy, so that you’ll continue doing it. It’s not just that I have to do this for my mental health or physical health. I want to do this, I look forward to doing this. For some people that’s community, they need the social aspect. One of my neighbors plays tennis and she loves being with her tennis people. They talk tennis, they played together and then they do things together. For me, it’s the running group. We talk running, but I’m not sure that it’s just running. They joke that running is such a simple sport, which technically you just need a decent pair of shoes and if you’re a woman, you probably need a running bra, but you can do it in t-shirts and shorts. It’s not a big deal. We always joke about that as I have on my very expensive Garmin watch, my tech shirt and shorts, my fancy sunhat, and my wraparound glasses. But you don’t to have all that. You can just go out your door and jog, that’s it.

Richard Jacobs: While you’re running, do you feel a shift or a change at certain period of time or is it after you run that’s when you really feel like the biggest benefits of it? How long does it last?

Nita Sweeney: It takes getting warmed up, which for me is about a mile, then I start to feel better. It also depends, if I’m doing speed work, that’s not necessarily a lot of fun. Once in a while, if you’re trying to train for a particular distance, some of us will do what’s called Speed Work, where you really push yourself. You choose a particular distance and then you run as hard as you can for that distance and then you rest, walk back, and run again, or hill repeats. We do that where you run as hard as you can up the hill and then walk down the hardest you can. You don’t get kind of the same. There’s a pleasure and an accomplishment from it, but it’s not the same as like long slow miles, that’s what I like. A long slow miles, they call it LSD, Long Slow Distance.

About after a mile, I start to feel just sensation. Afterwards there’s definitely a glow for a couple of hours, but I feel good for a couple of days. I’ll just feel better. It is because during a week, if I maybe have a cold or if I’ve tweaked a muscle, and I really shouldn’t run it for a little while. I notice that after a few days when I haven’t run, I definitely noticed that my mood slipping a little bit. It’s not ever been anywhere near what it was when I was running, but it’s definitely does drop a little bit. There’s this whole panic thing, which we have to talk ourselves down from because the tricky mind will say, “Dear, your running days are over or you’re going to weigh 400 pounds in a week because you can’t run for a week.” The mind really does play these crazy games that are ridiculous, but I know that now we kind of joke about it.

Richard Jacobs: When you run, do you catastrophize?

Nita Sweeney: For more than yes. I tore my meniscus, which was a silly thing. I just stepped wrong. It wasn’t even about running. You can tear your meniscus, just standing still practically. What happened, I stepped wrong and it’s not a huge tear. It’s a tiny little tear. Most people have tiny tears meniscus, but it was enough that it caused inflammation. So I had to stay off it for 6 weeks. It really kind of did a number on my mind. I started thinking, “Will I ever be able to run again? This is awful, I’m going to lose all my fitness. I’m going to gain a ton of weight.” None of that happened, I was able to run again. It’s been five years and it’s just fine.

Richard Jacobs: Do you ever tried to meditate like, in the theater of your mind? Picture yourself running and go for a run in your mind, have you ever tried that?

Nita Sweeney: It kind of happens sometimes. I’m not as good at visualization. It’s more of a visualization practice. What works better for me is to just stay completely in the moment and remind myself, you’re not running now, you’re not running yet, or you’re not running today. I just completely stay in the moment because of my catastrophizing mind is in the future. So that I can bring myself back to now that works a lot better. What happens when I visualize is it doesn’t go well, I have trouble visualizing positive scenarios. Some people do that where I think Deena Kastor writes in her book, “Let your mind run, about visualizing, winning, and crossing the finish line.” I started to do that, but then my mind finds a pothole for me to step in and break my leg in four places and then the ambulance is coming. I’m in the hospital every second my mind try to do that.

We’re all different. There’s a guy, I think it was George Sheehan that said,” We are each an experiment of one, so we each have to find what works for us.” For me, I’m better, if I can say, “I’m not running today or now.” It the way I’m not thinking. I’ll never run again, it’s that part that I have to bring it back to now for me. It works for a lot of people too. I know a lot of people that have great success with visualizing themselves, speeding across the finish line and go mile 20 or 21 in a marathon. They call it the wall that tends to be a bad place. So people visualize themselves, being strong through those miles and not having any problem and things like that. My mind just doesn’t work that way.

Richard Jacobs: What prompted you to write this book and how has it been received? What kind of comments have you gotten?

Nita Sweeney: Mostly, I’ve gotten positive comments. Every once in a while, I’ll get a comment from someone who I can tell does not have any mental health issues. So they see the ridiculousness of my mind, but they can’t relate. So those are the only kinds of negative comments I get. Usually I get comments like, you were in my head. It felt like you were in my head, which is exactly what I wanted.

What really prompted me to write the book as I’m just a writer, that’s what I do. It’s what I’ve been doing for years. I have sort of been trying to get various books published over the years. One memoir about my father. Last month my father was live. I tried to publish and wasn’t successful. It was actually what was happening before I started running before I discovered that this was helpful to me. So I was always writing. I was always writing something and I always kept, and I still do keep log, which is almost like a journal. After every run, I record what dogs saw? How it felt? What shoes I wore? How far we went? How fast we went? How slow we went? How many leaves were on the ground? Did I see any deer? All those kinds of things with very sensory detail. Especially I wrote those down because you tend to not be able to remember those later. 

Richard Jacobs: What that did for you, writing it down? Which time did you write?

Nita Sweeney: Yes, that’s what it is. I write it after the run and it’s a way to relive it in, but also to notice. It helps me, while I’m running to notice the sensory details and the things that are out there because I know I’m going to write them down and I just am a journaler and a compiler. It’s what I do. So I wrote all that. I had all that going, then I had started writing about my running experience because after I started telling people about it. People would say, “You just really seem different.” They would ask me things like, “Did you get your haircut or what’s different? Are you seeing a different therapist?” Really, they would say things like that. My close friends and I would say, “The only thing that I’ve really changed is I’ve started running.”

Eventually, I started losing weight. People would notice that. I just felt that there was a story in middle-aged woman who takes up running. As time went on and I started to kind of revising it and looking at it from a different perspective. Especially after they reduced my meds. At one point I was on six meds and I was on four when I started running. Now I’m on one and had been on one for many years. I realized that this was more than just about running. So it started as a book about middle-aged woman runs marathon and she ended up as a suicidal woman decides to live. A woman runs to save her life. It’s more the story that ended up in the book. It’s not necessarily why I wrote it because I just write that kind stuff, but that’s what Mango picked it up (the publisher) because it had that mental health angle. It was a little different than your typical running story. Pretty much everybody who runs has a story. There’s a reason I do this and it’s bigger than just running. Most people have that story, but I was able to articulate it.

Richard Jacobs: Present day, where are you at with the work you’re doing? Do you feel like you’re going to contribute to mental health and understanding? Where do you want to go from here with your work? 

Nita Sweeney: I will always be a mental health advocate. I’ve actually been one for a long time, but I joke that when the book was published. It turned me into an accidental mental health advocate because I hadn’t been as vocal about it. Now that’s all I talk about, but meditation is really been foundational for me, almost 30 years now. So I’m hoping to incorporate that into everything I do. I’m in contract right now for a new book about making movement of any kind into a meditative practice using mindfulness techniques, such as when you are running, when you’re dancing, when you’re lifting weights, when you’re swimming, when you’re doing Zumba, playing tennis, or whatever.

The thing that happens with most people when they’re exercising is, they are already having the level of focus and we call it Equanimity, but it’s a sort of a calm mind state that happens naturally, especially in intense exercise. It can happen in more gentle exercise too, if you’re intentional about it. I want to train people how to do that. I have a contract right now to write a book that’s supposed to come out in the fall. The working title is “Make Every Move a Meditation: Mindful Movement for Mental Health and Wellbeing.” There’s a real strong connection between movement and mental health, and meditation and mental health. I’m combining those two, this is nothing new. These are ancient practices that have been done for thousands of years, but I’m bringing them into the mainstream and taking a lot of the kind of lingo way and making it about walking your dog, going to the park, playing with your children, and things like that.

Richard Jacobs: Your existing book, Depression Hates a Moving Target, where can people get it? What’s another resource or two for them?

Nita Sweeney: The book is available wherever fine books are sold. You can get on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Indy Books. Any place that you like to buy books, you can find it. It’s probably available at your library. It’s just Depression Hates a Moving Target. You can go to my website www.nitasweeney.com. If you go to my website, there’s also another resource called Three Ways to Heal Your Mind, which is a downloadable eBook. It talks about some of the tools that I use to help me stay sane and mentally well.

I have an email list that I got twice a month. I send out an email, that’s just sort of my musings on what’s going on in my life and how that relates to my mental health and hopefully a tip about how it might help other people. It always has something about running, meditation, and the classes I teach. I’m on all the social media channels. I have a couple of Facebook groups. If you go to www.nitasweeney.com, you can find pretty much all that I know on like, the social media channels I’m doing Instagram videos now, the Instagram TV because they’re about two minutes long where I take the dog down into the ravine, that very ravine where I started running and we talk about meditation practice and how I incorporate that into my running and walk.