Joe Rogan, 55, Credits "Brutal Physical Exercise" As The Key To Mitigating The Stress Of Being a Public Figure

Joe Rogan's podcast, "The Joe Rogan Experience" has quickly become one of the largest media outlets in the world.

Episode #1905 of The Joe Rogan Experience.Photo byThe Joe Rogan Experience / Spotify

According to hollywoodreporter.com, the Boston native, ex-actor/television host, stand-up comedian, and UFC color commentator averages 11 million listeners per episode. That's more than Fox News averages in an entire week of television programming.

But, the modern-day renaissance man doesn't live without controversy. Most recently coming under fire for allegedly spreading healthcare misinformation. On a recent episode of his podcast, Joe shares that intense exercise and recovery help him deal with the stress of being a public figure.

"For someone like me who deals with a lot of pressure and stress and anxiety from, you know, just being in the public eye and all that stuff, I firmly believe that you need something way worse to counter that, that you voluntarily subject yourself to."

Rogan is 55 years old, and has been in the public eye since his late twenties. Getting his first taste of fame in 1994 on the television show "Hardball", Rogan then became a cast member on "News Radio" before, most notably, hosting the hit NBC series "Fear Factor".

Rogan on the set of Fear Factor (image licensed under CC BY 2.0)Photo byFear Factor / imdb.com

From there, his spotlight spread from acting/hosting to his UFC commentary work, standup comedy, and ultimately what would catapult him into the public eye, his podcast.

When asked how he manages to handle the scrutiny and pressure that comes along with fame, he describes his slow rise to stardom as helping him build up a tolerance, comparing it to snake venom:

"I've had a trickle of stardom. It slowly ramped up... it's almost like snake venom. Like I've gotten bitten enough so I can tolerate it."

He went on to describe seeing young people getting famous too quickly, and how it wreaks havoc on their mental health.

"They don't know how to manage the input... so they're like reading comments about them...They're Tweeting and then responding to Tweets... and going back and forth with people on Instagram comments."

Joe has long-stood had the opinion that ignoring comments is the only way to stay sane as a public figure.

"I post stuff and I keep going. And I think that's very important because you're dealing with, you know in my case, on my Instagram, I think it's like 15 million people. That's a lot of f*cking people, man. That's too many people. There's no way that's manageable."

With Rogan's podcast reaching more viewers than any single media outlet in the world, every word he utters is potential news -- often controversial news.

He finds maintaining perspective (why news articles are written about him, who it's coming from, etc.) to be incredibly important. And one of his favourite ways to mitigate negativity is by doing challenging things -- namely, intense exercise and recovery.

Viral image of Joe Rogan sitting in his ice bath for 20 minutes straight.Photo by@joerogan / Instagram

On the same podcast episode, Rogan shared,

"One of the best things is really brutal exercise. Brutal physical exercise and then sauna and cold plunge... in my opinion are the very best things to mitigate the effects of that. Because they're so hard to do, it's like, 'So someone said something mean about you'. Eh, whatever."

We live in a unique time, and being in the public eye brings on unique challenges. As more of our lives are spent on the internet, and we're exposed to more virtual input, it's more important than ever to learn how to navigate this information overload.

Hey, I'm Hudson! I write about social media, marketing, and modern entrepreneurship. Hit follow for more stories like this one.