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The Importance of Exercise for Mental Health
Over 57.8 million individuals living in the States reported symptoms of mental illness in 2021. This number keeps on increasing due to work-life imbalance, indulgence in recreational drugs, and altered social relationships.
If you are experiencing feelings of dissociation, frequent crying bouts, or extreme nervousness, you are at higher risk of developing a mental health disorder. Conservative therapies, including medications and psychotherapy, help you to deal with poor mental health. However, physical exercise plays a pivotal role in treating mental illnesses.
Let's explore the importance of exercise in dealing with various mental disorders and managing high stress levels:
How does Exercise Differentiate from Physical Activity?
Any physical activity you do, such as walking, mopping your floor, or playing a sport, is not considered exercise. In contrast to regular physical activity, exercise is a pre-planned and structured bodily movement performed to target specific muscles promptly. In addition, the exercise regime contains a set of repetitions, breathing control, and cool-down to avoid unnecessary fatigue while building body endurance and strength.
Carry a 300 ml water bottle in your hand. Then, bend your elbow and straighten it 10 times. Taking a 10-second break after performing 5 repetitions is an example of strengthening exercises of forearm muscles.
What Impact Do Exercises Have On Mental Illnesses?
There is much more to exercise and its benefits than increasing muscle mass and aerobic capacity. Surely, exercise enables you to elevate physical health, tone your physique, reduce belly fat, enhance your sexual life, and offer a longer life. But that's not the only reason why you keep on doing exercises once you've started them.
Regular exercise improves overall well-being. It boosts energy levels throughout the day, improves altered sleeping patterns, stimulates better memory, and offers a more positive and relaxed state of mind. This makes exercise a potent therapy for dealing with common mental health disorders.
Regular Exercise and Improved Well-being
Performing regular exercise brings a healing effect on depression, anxiety, and ADHD. It reduces the excess release of the cortisol hormone, which is associated with high stress levels, frequent mood swings, and poor sleep quality.
You don't have to sweat all day in the gym to reap these advantages of exercise. A modest amount of daily physical activity can make a massive difference in your overall well-being.
Regular Exercise and Reduced Depression
A study suggests that regular exercise treats mild to moderate depression as successfully as antidepressant pills. Unlike antidepressant medications, exercise doesn't force you to sacrifice well-being by triggering certain side effects, including upset stomach, altered sleeping schedule, low energy levels, and increased prevalence of body aches.
Another research performed by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health suggests that running for fifteen minutes daily or walking for an hour lowers your chances of getting a major depressive episode by 26%.
Exercise fights against depression by altering your brain chemistry. It stimulates the growth of neural pathways, reduces inflammation, and forms new neural patterns to facilitate a sense of well-being and calmness.
It is also involved in the release of endorphins from the central nervous system, which produce positive and happy emotions. Lastly, exercise helps divert your attention from negative thoughts and depressive cycling by engaging in structured and free-flowing bodily movements.
Regular Exercise and Controlled Anxiety
Performing regular exercises is an effective and holistic method to relieve anxiety without consuming anti-anxiety medications. It enhances your mental aura and physical energy levels to reduce stress and tension. It is also helpful in boosting your endorphin concentration in the bloodstream, increasing your attention span, and lowering the dissociative symptoms of anxiety.
For instance, try to feel the sense of your feet on the ground, the rhythm of breathing, or the movement of leaves when the wind passes through them. These are mindfulness techniques that are the key element of aerobic exercise. Not only does it facilitate relaxation, but it also breaks the vicious cycle of ruminating thoughts, which is common in anxious individuals.
Regular Exercise and ADHD
Doing exercise daily is among the most successful methods to control the symptoms of ADHD. It also aids in improving concentration, boosting memory, and reducing mood swings in people with ADHD.
The structured and planned bodily movements instantly stimulate the release of norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine in the brain, which positively impacts your focus and attention span. That's why working out constantly brings a similar effect to controlling your ADHD as Adderall and Ritalin medications.
Regular Exercise and PTSD
Performing exercises regularly allows your brain to come out of freeze mode, often due to extremely stressful situations faced by people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). When your mind wanders to recall stressful events, divert your attention to moving joints and muscles of your body and focus on the physical sensations to avoid flashbacks associated with traumatic memories.
Walking on sand, swimming, running, dancing, or weight training are beneficial exercises for easing symptoms of PTSD.
Outdoor activities such as sailing, mountain biking, hiking, whitewater rafting, rock climbing, and skiing are effective in dealing with the symptoms of PTSD.
Regular Exercise and High-Stress Levels
Stress causes many negative effects on your body. Individuals with high stress levels tend to get muscle tightness in the face, neck, and shoulders. This results in back or neck pain alongside tension headaches.
You may have chest tightness, increased heartbeat, and muscle cramps due to the overproduction of cortisol hormones associated with increased stress levels. Other common complications of stress include insomnia, ingestion, bloated stomach, diarrhea, or frequent urination.
Exercising is an ideal solution to free your mind from unwanted stress. Structured physical activity aids in relaxing the muscles and relieves tension in the body by releasing endorphins in the brain. Since the body and mind are interconnected when your body feels at ease, so does your mind.
Bottom Line
Having mental health disorders restricts you from living your life to the fullest and damages your interpersonal relationships and professional growth. Practising a well-designed exercise regime enables you to fight against mental illnesses naturally and improves your overall well-being without facing the side effects caused by certain medications.
How Can I Get My Fitness Back?
If you are tired of trying therapies and various exercise regimes to have better fitness levels and improved well-being, then you have come to the right place.
At Natalie's Fitness Elements Garage, you will get complete assistance in designing a master workout protocol to regain optimum fitness and improve overall well-being.
Meet or consult your personal female trainer, Natalie. I’m a certified Master trainer and wellness coach who can structure your training regime to elevate fitness and a healthy lifestyle through in-person or online sessions.
Book an appointment with her to accomplish a well-toned and attractive physique.
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