The majority of people think that exercise is just about aerobic capacity and muscle size. It can improve physical abilities like flexibility, balance, strength, power, enhance physical health, trim waistline, improve sex life, and even add years to human life. Yes, it can offer you all these physical advantages but there are also some mental health benefits that you can attain while exercising regularly in your workout clothes. Regular exercise can boost your mood, improve your sleep, and help you deal with depression, anxiety, stress, and more.
Exercise is Indeed Excellent for our Physical Health and Mental Health
Daily workouts give people an enormous sense of well-being. Exercise stimulates chemicals that improve your mood, activates parts of the brain responsible for memory and learning, energizes you throughout the day, helps you sleep better at night, feel more relaxed and positive about yourself and your lives. Read on this pocket guide to learn about some positive impacts that physical activity can have on your mental wellbeing and some exercises to boost your cognition.
Exercise is indeed excellent not just for our physical health, but for our mental health too. But, are some physical activities better and more effective than others in this regard? Recent research has found that those practicing team sports, e.g. cricket, soccer, hockey, baseball, had the fewest days of poor mental health. Presumably, this is partly due to the core social element of such sports: being around others and forging relationships which proved that different physical activities have different levels of outcomes for us. Here are some of the best physical activities to ameliorate your mental health.
Running/ Walking/ Jogging:
Many studies revealed that outdoor physical activity or eco-therapy can be particularly beneficial and can be as effective as antidepressants in treating mild to moderate depression. Outdoor exercise like running or jogging can benefit your mental health more than walking on a treadmill, so for best results avoid the treadmill. Running can calm your desperate mind. It is a very common phenomenon that your brain starts producing pretty dark thoughts and while running you get a chance to think things over, analyze, understand, and process. You will feel much more relaxed after analyzing the reason for your worrisome feelings.
Swimming:
Living an active lifestyle can enhance your mood, increase your self-esteem, lower your risk of depression, slower your cognitive decline, improving sleep, and controlling stress. And swimming as a form of physical exercise is very hard to beat. There is always something mentally therapeutic about being near or in water that’s much harder to put your finger on. As a swimmer, you must have experienced this.
Boxing:
When you are stressed, boxing is the best physical activity to release your stress. Hitting a punching bag transfers your mental stress to the bag. Also, training in such an intense physical activity can release endorphins that will boost your mind and help you control your anger. Furthermore, the physical abilities and health that you gain through this full-body workout boost your self-confidence and self-esteem.
Yoga:
It is a well-known reality that yoga reduces stress, improves flexibility and concentration, and promotes a sense of peace, to name just a few of its possible positive outcomes. Yoga practitioners experience the strangely relaxing feeling like you are grounded in your body, calm, connected, clear, and centered. Many studies show that yoga can be an effective “prescription” for a myriad of the most common reasons why people seek psychotherapy. Furthermore, practicing yoga when outfitted in comfy workout clothes will save you from the side effects of using antidepressants and other medications to boost your mental health.
Resistance training:
Most of us know that strength training is beneficial for our physical health and very few consider the mental health perks endurance activities offer to us. Resistance activities, such as cycling, are well-touted among the fitness experts for their mental health benefits, both in the scientific literature and anecdotally. This training help people cope with depressive illness.
