Exercise Can Help With Mental Health?

There’s a side benefit of exercise, besides making you healthier and your body look great, exercise can help with mental health. Besides being fun, kickboxing can lift your mood physiologically. It burns off the hormones of stress and that alone can clear your mind and make you feel better. Stress hormones make changes to your body that prepare you for running or fighting. If you don’t do either, those changes remain, keeping you in a constant state of gut wrenching anxiety.

Many studies show that exercise provide an aid when you have depression or anxiety.

Not only is there interest in the topic of exercise for emotional health, many therapists are using it as an adjunct therapy for people suffering from anxiety or depression. It not only eliminates the stress hormones, it also stimulates the brain to create hormones that make you feel good. Most studies show that for anxiety and depression, getting moderate exercise just a few times a week improves the condition. It can even help eliminate the need for medication.

You’ll sleep better and sounder when you workout regularly.

If you’ve ever had a problem sleeping or burned the candle at both ends, you know how fuzzy brained you feel. Sometimes, the problem isn’t lack of sleep, but lack of quality sleep. Not only does exercise help you go to sleep faster, it also improves the quality of sleep you get. Both of those can interfere with your thought processes. Exercise can help you sleep and quality sleep can improve your mental functioning.

Working out builds brain power in other ways.

Studies show that exercise is good for your mental functioning. It increases cognitive abilities. Some studies are using exercise to help brain disease, such as Alzheimer’s or dementia. It’s one reason daily exercise is so good for you as you age. Several studies show that cardio or endurance training helps with neurogenesis, which is the creation of new brain cells. It strengthens the hippocampus, also and that improves your memory.

• Poor posture makes you look less confident. Try an experiment sometime. First, sit up straight and note how you feel, then slump and do the same. You’ll feel the difference and that difference affects how you act, look and feel.
• Exercise increases your heart rate, which not only improves circulation, also stimulates the production of neurohormones that improve your mood and boosts your cognitive functioning.
• Have you ever watched people waiting at a hospital for the outcome of a serious surgery on a loved one? Many tend to pace. It’s a way to help relieve anxiety. If you’re under stress, try doing exercise or simply running up and down stairs. It can take your mind off the problem and help you feel better.
• Learning new skills can build new neural pathways in the brain and helps the brain work faster. Being social also helps. It’s one reason kickboxing is so good for both the body and the brain.

For more information, contact us today at One Love Fit Club