Why Does Fitness Help to Promote Better Mental Health?
We all know that exercising your body will make you fitter, but not so many of us understand that it can also play a pivotal role in improving overall mental health.
Taking in regular exercise of any type can help boost your mood, improve the quality of your sleep and can be really effective in combatting stress, anxiety and depression.
The reason for this is that when you exercise, you don’t just condition your bones, muscles and your aerobic capacity. You also create mood-boosting endorphins like serotonin and you get to feel pretty good about yourself. In this blog, we take a look at why that happens.
Exercise Combats Depression
Depression is on the rise, especially during Covid-19 times and exercise can be just effective at fighting it as anti-depressant medication according to studies.
Exercising even a small amount can significantly reduce the symptoms of depression, as it causes all kinds of positive chemical changes in the brain.
As well as reducing inflammation and promoting neural growth, exercise creates endorphins that help you to feel calm and happy.
Regular exercise also provides time to order your thoughts and avoid those that lead to and feed into depression.
Exercise Combats Anxiety
When it comes to fighting anxiety, there is perhaps no better treatment than exercise. It’s a great stress reliever and it provides positive mental and physical energy.
However you get your exercise is up to you, but whatever you can do will help and when you become more mindful, you’ll focus on how good it feels like to exercise.
As well as improving your physical condition, you get distracted from the worries that caused the anxiety in the first place, perhaps even making the problems seem smaller than they did beforehand.
Exercise Combats Stress
Stress remains the number one killer on the planet and it’s associated with all of the major illnesses that people suffer from. If you’ve ever paid attention to what happens when you’re stressed, you may have noticed that your muscles are tense around your neck, shoulders and face and it can lead to painful headaches.
You may also have found that your heart beats faster or your chest tightens. In fact, the body has many stress responses and most are undesirable and this can even add to what is a horrible vicious circle.
Exercise relaxes your muscles and allows you to break the cycle and with the mind and body working so closely, you get to feel better too.
Martial Arts – One of the Best Forms of Exercise There Is
As you can see, there are many physical and mental benefits associated with regular exercise and we’ve only just scratched the surface here. With all this in mind, one of the best forms of exercise you can take comes in the form of martial arts and as they also teach you about self-discipline, control and awareness, all these factors feed into students being happy, calm and balanced people.
Martial arts classes are also great fun too and great places to make lifelong friendships, which also builds self-esteem and respect for others.
That said, however you choose to get your regular exercise is up to you, with the important part being that you exercise, rather than choosing not to.
Human beings are like any other animal in that we need a certain amount of exercise to be healthy both in mind and body. Go for a walk, play a game of tennis or join a martial arts club.
Just choose something that works for you and you’ll get the mental health benefits that exercise offers.
Find out more about how our martial arts classes will help you to get fit by visiting our website or call 01442 795001.
