Reducing the unpleasant feeling of anxiety is often a sub-goal of martial arts students who are looking to get fit, have fun and learn self-defence… But this sport can help students with how to reduce anxiety directly in a few different ways. Let’s get into them.
How to Reduce Anxiety with Martial Arts
Martial arts classes can be really helpful for adults (and kids!) who may struggle with how to reduce anxiety. Not only is it a highly physical sport (which means you’re doing something with all the adrenaline that the anxiety produces), but it’s also a unique tool we can use to combat symptoms of anxiety.
A common symptom of anxiety is racing thoughts. If you’re battling anxiety, you may feel like you’re just your thoughts, not feeling present or even feeling your body at all. Martial arts can be a great solution for this. First of all, the excess of adrenaline that your brain can pump through you when you’re feeling anxious needs to go somewhere, or else you’re stuck in fight-or-flight mode for too long. Kicking, punching and channelling that energy effectively is a superb way to combat the adrenaline pump and can even be necessary for your body, as it’s getting the adrenaline and anxiety out in a focused way.
Secondly, the full-body workout you get when joining adult karate classes, in general, is going to melt that stress away and help you get all of those feelings out. Stress from work, stress with your kids, your partner, your life… All the things you’re way overthinking come out on the mat. You channel it all into movement and it makes you a focused, clear-headed person off the mat and an excellent martial artist on the mat, with real power and energy behind your moves.
Concentration and Motivation through Martial Arts
It’s no surprise that racing thoughts can lead to difficulty concentrating, another symptom of anxiety. Sometimes you feel hyper-alert and hyperactive, other times you’re pretty sluggish and don’t want to do anything. You’re either frozen in panic or spinning your wheels with stress. If this sounds like you, show up to class. That’s all we ask you to do.
The only time we can help you, beyond the words of a blog post, is when you’re standing right in front of us, ready for class. Our world-class instructors (who have probably experienced something very similar) will show you how to reduce anxiety and channel those “help, my shoulders are stuck to my ears” feelings into your moves. You concentrate on one minute of each class at a time and soon you’re having a lot of fun and the time is flying by. For this one martial arts class, you don’t have to be anything other than exactly who you are, anxiety or not, doing what you’re doing, exporting your thought process to your instructor and getting it all out through physical movement.
Martial arts cannot cure nor get rid of anxiety. Only a medical professional can show you how to do that. However, moving your body, getting into a community and engaging in positive social interactions, learning about mindset and looking forward to new goals and challenges; these are all huge pieces of your whole mental health picture that martial arts can help with.
Creating a Better Mindset through Martial Arts
We say it all the time, but it’s true – martial arts is about so much more than just punches and kicks. Martial arts is an amazing tool that people have been using for centuries to achieve real success and change their lives. How to reduce anxiety? With the help of martial arts classes and the martial arts philosophy, you build confidence and physical and mental strength. You develop perseverance while achieving your goals and getting your belts. And you learn so much about how strong your mind is from such a physically demanding sport.
Listen, martial arts is a hard and difficult sport. There’s a lot of coordination, muscle memory, focus and discipline required to be a successful martial artist. Our classes aren’t peaches and roses and neither is life, especially life with anxiety. So let us help you get through it. Whether it’s just anxious feelings or full-on generalised anxiety disorder, we know the difficulty of life with mental health issues cannot be understated. We also know it can be helped through the power of martial arts classes and the development of your mindset.
How to Reduce Anxiety with the Right Mindset
Mindset is so important to us here at Tring Martial Arts Academy because we’ve seen it work time and time again, on and off the mat. One of our favourite quotes is “A black belt is a white belt who never gave up.” It’s true, that’s the only difference! And it’s the difference between perseverance and giving up, even (especially) when times are tough. When you’re by yourself in a gym, for example; it’s you, the machinery or weights and your brain telling you what to do.
Sometimes, when you’re anxious, your brain is not your most reliable workout buddy. It gets distracted, it can say some pretty mean things to you and hype you up for “emergencies” (which are non-threats) in the worst way possible. When you’re in our martial arts classes, it’s not your brain telling you what to do (not yet, anyway), it’s our instructors. And our instructors have been right where you stand. Many of them have struggled with their own mental health issues and have turned to the mat time and time again for support from their instructors, their peers and this family here. How to reduce anxiety with Taekwondo? Martial arts is an individual sport in a group setting, which means that you’re never alone and that fact alone can be hugely comforting and helpful in reducing anxiety.
Martial Arts and Mental Health
The benefits of martial arts for mental health, in general, are endless. For anxiety specifically, staying active, focusing those racing thoughts into something useful through kicks and punches and mindset/community support are martial arts benefits that are critical to staying well. With martial arts classes, your mood and health can improve tremendously right alongside your mindset, which can help give you the proper tools to reduce anxiety and push through those tough times. Ready to see how to reduce anxiety with karate? Give Tring Martial Arts Academy a try with our risk-free trial (yes, risk-free!) adult martial arts classes and see for yourself how it can change your life. You’ll love it!
