Exercise and Mental Health | Does Exercise Really Improve Your Mental Health?
Exercise and Mental Health
Exercise and mental health matters.
Movement matters to our physical health but what about our mental health? Do Exercise and Mental Health go hand in hand?
Your body is a beautifully designed and complex system which is totally your greatest tool towards living a happy and healthy life.
Keeping it strong and able is key in preventing stress, injury, chronic disease and a load of other issues down the road. But does exercise help improve our frame of mind or is it all a bit of a myth?
Physical Health and Mental Health are strongly interlinked
It can be claimed that movement is medicine and this is why exercise and mental health coexists. Your physical health supports and aids your mental health. Many studies have shown that exercise can help:
* Create a happier mood and mind
* Mange and reduce stress, anxiety and depression
* Improve sleep
* Improve motivation, concentration, memory and mood
* Improve your self-esteem, self-confidence, thought processes and build resilience
* Improve your outlook and quality of life
* Motivates healthy eating
Exercise Can Help Create a Happier Mood and Mind
Exercise and Mental Health
So how does exercise and mental health interlink?
Get your body moving and your brain will release Serotonin, Dopamine, Endorphins and Norepinephrine; all of which make you feel rather good as they are neurotransmitters for pleasure and happiness. Exercise can also decrease stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol.
Exercise and mental Health are strongly interlinked. The changes in your brain chemistry will affect how you feel about your self.
Those Endorphins will trigger a positive feeling in your body which can be accompanied by a positive and energising outlook on life. The importance of Exercise and mental health is one not to be over looked.
Let Exercise Help Manage your Stress and Anxiety
According to Mind UK, 1 in 4 people will experience a mental health problem of some kind in England.
Furthermore, 1 in 6 people report experiencing a common mental health problem like anxiety or depression in any given week in England. Those numbers are high.
Physical exercise is often linked to a physical outcome rather than a mental one. So can exercise and metal health affect each other?
Can exercise help reduce mental health problems?
Exercise and mental health are very interlinked.
Exercise can help your brain to release Serotonin, Dopamine and Norepinephrine, all of which have an impact on your outlook on life.
“There’s good epidemiological data to suggest that active people are less depressed than inactive people. And people who were active and stopped tend to be more depressed than those who maintain or initiate an exercise program.”
“Exercise seems not only important for treating depression, but also in preventing relapse” says James Blumenthal, PhD, a clinical psychologist at Duke University.
It can take as little as five minutes to start feeling better from exercise.
Exercise doesn’t need to be intense, nor does it need to be linked to body image.
Low to moderate intensity exercise is good for stress reduction and activities such as walking, running, stretching, yoga are all great exercises.
Have you thought how do you feel after exercising?
Do you feel good, more alert, more focused, have a positive outlook? Do you feel more energised? Do you feel less fatigued? Are you able to concentrate more?
Go do some exercise and notice how you feel before and after.
Do you feel like exercise and mental health affect each other? We certainly believe that exercise and mental health are strongly connected.
Exercise helps to Improve Sleep
Sleep! It is so important to our physical and mental wellbeing. It allows our body to repair and recharge and it is an essential requirement for our body.
A lack of sleep can have a damaging affect on our mental health and can contribute to high blood pressure, heart disease, strokes and bring about type 2 diabetes, to name but a few.
Moderate aerobic exercise increases the amount of slow rate sleep that you get. What is slow wave sleep? Slow wave sleep is a deep sleep where your body and brain have a chance to rejuvenate.
Exercise can help stabilise or enhance your mood so you are also feeling happy and less anxious when you go to sleep.
Exercise is important, but so too is the time of day that you exercise. If you exercise late in the day it can often interfere with your sleep.
Why? Because exercise releases endorphins which can create activity in the brain which can keep you awake. Let the brain wind down and ensure that you exercise a couple hours before going to bed.
Exercise also affects the body’s temperature which can tell your body to wake up. The decline in body temperate helps to facilitate sleepiness which is another reason to not do exercise right before bed.
Exercise Helps to Improve Motivation, Concentration, Memory and Mood
Exercise and Mental Health
Another benefit for exercise and mental health is that exercise helps support the Hippocampus region in your brain. Exercise feed the brain through blood, glucose and oxygen levels staying high and allowing the brain releases endorphins into your body, giving your mood a positive boost.
Aerobic exercise has been shown to change the size of the area of the brain involved with memory and learning. People have often been shown to retain more accurate information than those who don’t exercise.
Exercise can help to improve your self-esteem, self-confidence, thought processes and build resilience.
Exercise isn’t all about body image, but exercise it can certainly help to build up your self-confidence, self-worth and build your self-esteem.
Having the trust to believe in your own abilities, capabilities and judgments will help you to lead a happier and healthier lifestyle.
You will become more confident in your abilities and feel more energised and motivated to take action and achieve the goals that you want. Another benefit of exercise and mental health.
Exercise can improve your outlook and quality of life
Your state of mind is so important to your quality of life.
Exercise can really help create a positive outlook. We have discussed that exercise has the ability to boost your brain function in many ways and this is why it is so important to include it regularly into your weekly routine.
Exercise also Supports and Motivates Healthy Eating
Exercise and Mental Health
Exercising gives you greater motivation about caring what foods you are putting into your body.
The mind and body are great connected through the brain-gut connection. What we eat has a big impact upon how we feel and how we perceive the world. Eating healthy will help support our brain and body’s functional abilities.
Exercise and Mental Health
In summary, exercise supports a healthy lifestyle and has a big impact upon our mental health.
Exercise allows us to be more focused, more aware of ourselves and more energised; whilst at the same time exercise supports self-confidence, self-esteem and self-worth.
Exercising is also a great tool for mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. Exercising on a regular basis is vital to supporting our wellbeing and improving our quality of life.
Wishing you Health + Happiness
