How Exercise Can Affect Your Mental Health
How Exercise Can Affect Your Mental Health
While the benefits of regular exercise and physical activity for health, fitness and physical performance are well known, fewer people are aware of the fact that exercise can also help improve overall mental health and create a more positive outlook. Many of my fitness clients and I struggle with anxiety and depression. I have always encouraged them to find any form of movement/exercise that allows them to occupy their thoughts and bodies in a positive way. Sometimes finding the motivation to be physically active is harder than the activity itself.
Here are six ways exercise can help improve overall mental health and outlook that you can share with your clients or participants:
Exercise increases the production of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a neurotransmitter that can stimulate production of new brain cells. Both cardiorespiratory and muscular training can help elevate levels of BDNF, which means that these forms of exercise not only help you become more physically fit, but they can also boost your brain health.
Exercise improves memory and learning and reduces or slows progressive loss to brain cell structure and function. In addition, exercise improves brain health by enhancing its ability to grow and adapt in response to stimuli (neuroplasticity) by reorganizing its connections, structure and functions. In other words, exercise may remediate some of the inescapable brain-related changes that occur with aging.
Exercise can help boost self-esteem, which may positively affect your mental health. Learning anything new is challenging, however, by hitting your goals - no matter how small - can leave you with the feeling that you can achieve specific tasks that you set out to accomplish.
How awesome do you feel after a good night’s sleep? Sleep is when your body repairs itself after the challenges of the day and is an important component of good mental health. A good night’s sleep is also critical for your brain to recharge and refresh, and regular exercise can enhance your quality of sleep, which can leave you feeling great all day long.
In this non-stop world where you’re constantly being texted, emailed and generally pulled in all directions, having the opportunity to take time out of your day to focus on you may help improve mental health. Time spent exercising is an opportunity to unplug from other people and listen to your favorite music or catch up on your favorite hobby via a podcast. This, in turn, can help you change how you feel and improve your overall outlook.
Taking a group fitness class or simply being at a gym surrounded by other people working toward improving their health can help you connect with others, which is an important component of good mental health. If you’re new to an area or going through a major life change such as a break-up, your workout time can be the best opportunity for meeting new people and making new friends. Many fitness studios and group classes become mini-communities and are an excellent way to improve your real-life social network, which can have an immediate impact on your mental health.
If you are looking for motivation, I hope I provided you with some. You will never regret taking a walk or snowshoeing on a beautiful winter’s day, or finding a set of like-minded people at a local gym to help keep you feeling encouraged to keep showing up. Research strongly suggests that improved mental health is an important and often-overlooked outcome of regular exercise. Know that you have nothing to lose except for the “Winter Blues”.
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Kim Duke is a certified personal trainer and owner of Core Performance Fitness and Training, located at 55 Bristol Lane, Ellicottville, NY. Kim resides in Ellicottville where she raised her two sons, Zach and Nik. For more information about her studio visit her Facebook page, go to www.coreperformancefitness.com or call her directly at 716-698-1198.
