How Working Out Boosts Your Mental Health
“Exercise keeps me occupied which is good for my mental health” – Gail Porter
Ancient Greek philosophers like Socrates and Plato were the first ones to highlight the importance of exercise for mental health. They have observed that an increase in physical activity led to overall better cognitive functions, including improved memory and attention. Over the years, many long-term studies have been conducted on this phenomenon, all of them pointing towards the same thing: working out does boost your cognition.
In general, people engage in exercise for the sake of enhancing their physical health. Not only can they keep their weight in check, but also prevent major diseases from attacking their systems. Yet, unwittingly they end up with better mental health as well.
After all, good mental health is one of the cornerstones of overall good quality of life. In addition, feeling good about yourself and about life in general is important to stay healthy and happy.
Keeping this point in mind, here are the ways in which working out will boost your mental health.
1. Improve Your Mood
Exercising enables your body to release certain hormones, such as endorphins, that not only improve your brain’s function, but also your mood. Endorphins put you in a state known as ‘Runner’s High’, in which you feel euphoric and your feelings of pain are reduced. For a long time now, there is a ‘feel good’ tag attached to working out and that has been proven true over the years.
Once you get in the habit of working out regularly, you will start feeling good and your mood will improve automatically. If you are feeling down in the dumps and nothing seems to make you feel better, starting a light exercise regimen might be the ideal solution.
2. Better Emotional Wellbeing
As your mood improves, your emotional wellbeing is bound to experience a boost as well. If you aren’t feeling good, there is no way you can keep your negative emotions in check or emote positively. Though it is believed that emotions stem from the heart, it is the mind that controls how you feel at any given moment. Improving your cognition is a surefire way to enhance your emotional wellbeing.
3. Enhance Your Self-Esteem
There is a marked change in your self-esteem when your perception of your own self changes. According to experts in the field, as your physical appearance and well-being improves, you start feeling good about yourself.
As a result, your confidence is enhanced and you no longer feel coy about your appearance or personality. All of this contributes towards enhancing your self-esteem. To put it clearly, there is no way you can enhance your self-esteem without improving your mental health.
4. Sleep Well
Some reports state that over 30% of the adult population suffer from sleeping disorders of some kind. Even when they do, they wake up tired and fatigued. This ultimately causes confusion and they start relying on sleeping pills and other substances to get the sleep they desire. As you know, getting proper sleep is important for your mental health. A tired brain cannot function effectively, try as you may.
This is where exercise can help you out. Tests have been conducted that show that working out outdoors has a direct impact on the number of hours a person sleeps. Also, the quality of sleep improves, ensuring that you wake up fresh after a good night’s sleep. Your cognition will get a boost from this for sure.
5. Release Stress
In this day and age, stress is considered to be the Number One cause of many health problems. Dealing with stress and finding a way to release it is quite important for your overall wellbeing. Stress not only manifests physically, but it mars your cognition as well. Therefore, you are unable to think straight and your mind feels tired all the time.
Exercising has been labeled as one of the best ways to deal with stress. Your level of physical wellbeing determines how well you cope with a stressful situation; and since your physical condition improves through working out, your ability to deal with stress improves as well.
6. Deal with Anxiety
Stress and anxiety are often interrelated and one may lead to another. Like stress, anxiety can also cause mental health problems. The typical response of an anxious person is to consume alcohol or start smoking. While that does help them control the anxiety, it wreaks havoc on their health.
Finding a healthy way to deal with anxiety is what you need to be doing. Working out will help you deal with it. So, if you are facing both stress and anxiety, exercise can assist in managing both.
7. Avoid/Fight Depression
Depression is considered to be the most common of all mental health problems. Though it can range in intensity from mild to severe, any level of depression is dangerous for your mental and physical health.
The most common solution people seek is psychotherapy, but that is expensive and can have certain side effects. On the other hand, you can work out for free and enjoy no side effects. Moreover, if you can sustain your habit of working out for over a year, the risk of long-term depression disappears for good.
These are the ways in which regular exercise will improve your mental health and boost your cognition. Exercise also enhances your memory and focus, enabling you to think with a clear mind and make better decisions overall.
Besides, since there are no side effects of exercise on your mental or physical health, it is a win-win situation. One thing you do need to know is how much exercise is required to enable you to enjoy the mental health benefits of working out.
There are certain studies that show contradicting results regarding the time you need to spend working out. As far as the intensity of the workout regimen is considered, you can opt for anything as light as jogging for 15 minutes to bench pressing for an hour. On average, it is considered that two hours of exercise in a week is sufficient for you.
One study in particular, published in Preventive Medicine, states that working out for more than 7.5 hours in a week will not deliver the results you are looking for and the mental health benefits you just discovered may evade you. So, around two hours of exercise per week will help you enhance your cognition and boost your mental health.
Thanks Andra !
Helpful article.