We often think of exercise first and foremost as a way to keep our bodies physically fit. Indeed, taking the time to engage in physical activity each day is vital for losing weight, building toned muscles, maintaining cardiovascular health, or simply keeping the body feeling good. But physical fitness is not the only benefit of daily exercise. On the contrary, exercise can be as vital for the mind as it is for the body. Indeed, exercising can impact your work performance and productivity, your relationships, and even your enjoyment of life in general. How does all of this work? Read on to learn some of the specifics of how exercising can benefit your mental health.There are five key areas of these benefits we are going to explore within this article:
- Stress Reduction
- Maintains a Focused Brain
- Boosts Your Mood
- Increased Productivity
- Improves Your Sleep
Exercising Reduces Stress
If you've ever hit the gym after a hard day at work or headed out the door for a long run after finalizing your bills for the month, you aren't the only one. Many people use exercise as a way to get away from the pressures and stressors of day-to-day life and clear their minds. Working up a sweat?regardless of how you do it?can be a great way to channel your frustrations and get rid of your stress in a healthy way. In turn, ridding yourself of stress is something that can help you in almost every facet of your life. High stress can lead to any number of consequences depending on who you are?almost none of them good.
Some people handle stress by lashing out at friends or family; these angry outbursts can harm your relationships and only hurt your mood further. Others might turn to drugs or alcohol, or go into social withdrawal. Stress can also cause headaches, tension throughout the body, or insomnia, and can be a contributing factor in high blood pressure, heart disease, and other serious ongoing health problems.
In addition to serving as a physical outlet for stress, exercise can also help make your body better at dealing with stress in the first place. Exercise leads to an increase in the levels of norepinephrine in your body. Norepinephrine is an organic chemical that basically functions to help your brain cope with stress. In other words, exercising will reduce the likelihood of stress impacting your health or other parts of your life.
Exercising Keeps Your Brain Sharp
When medical professionals encourage older adults to stay active, they are promoting mental fitness just as much as they are pushing physical fitness?if not more. Above, we discussed how exercise can help the brain cope with stress. That benefit is just one of the many, many good things that exercise can do for your brain.
Indeed, as you grow older, you can stave off mental decline by maintaining a regular exercise routine.Studies have shown that exercise fortifies the brain against decline, protects the hippocampus (the brain's center for learning), and even generates new brain cells. While all of these benefits are obviously very important for older adults to take advantage of, they can frankly be advantageous for people of any ages.
If you've ever wondered why you should encourage your kids to exercise, consider that simply running around every day can boost a child's ability to learn and retain knowledge. And once you're all grown-up, exercise can make you more adept at taking on difficult mental challenges, making tough decisions, and clearing other cognitive hurdles. Bottom line, exercising keeps you smarter for longer. What benefit could be more universal?
Exercising Keeps You Happy
Feeling down about your job, your relationships, or any other facet of your life? Exercise might be the answer to cheer you up again. Exercise releases endorphins, chemicals produced by the central nervous system that create feelings of euphoria and happiness in the body. As a result, exercise is an outstanding pick-me-up?so outstanding that doctors often encourage patients struggling with depression to head to the gym, go for a run, or get involved in a sporting league.
Exercise can be an even more effective mood booster if you do it outside on a sunny day. As is commonly known, sunlight boosts the levels of Vitamin D in the body. Vitamin D, like exercise, increases the concentration of endorphins in the body. As a result, going for a long run on a sunny day is like a one-two punch to restore your mood. Needless to say, it's tough to be against something that can so easily make your life happier.
Exercising Makes You More Productive at Work
There are two problems with the sedentary lifestyle promoted by modern workplaces. The average office is laid out with cubicles and desks and many people spend their entire day sitting in front of a computer. Sitting all day is bad for your health and can heighten your risk of obesity, heart disease, and other serious conditions. Not as dire but still frustrating is the fact that sitting in front of a computer screen all day is also, quite frankly, terrible for motivation and productivity.
If you can, take opportunities to exercise in the middle of your work day, whether that means using your lunch break to work out or simply finding opportunities throughout the day to go for short walks. Even small amounts of exercise will get your blood pumping, improve your mood, and recharge your energy levels?thereby giving you the fuel you need to be productive, creative and passionate in your job.
Studies have even shown the positive effects that exercise can have on creativity! Your boss can hardly object to you fitting in some exercise time if it means you are going to come back and contribute better and more valuable ideas to the company.
Exercising Helps You Wind Down
Have you been having trouble sleeping lately, whether because of stress, restlessness, or some other insomnia-causing reason? You could try sleeping pills, but exercise is the more natural and healthy option. Working off your excess energy during the day helps you tire out your body and brain so that, come bedtime, they are ready to go into hibernation for a bit. More scientifically speaking, exercise raises your core body temperature. In most cases, your body takes about six hours to adjust back to its regular temperature. Once the body hits the standard temp, it decides that it's time for sleep. This phenomenon explains why, if you exercise in the morning, you might feel a lull of energy in the afternoon.
If you struggle with sleeping, try to fit your workout in after work, five or six hours before you normally hit the hay. Your core body temperature should be returning to the normal level right around bedtime. As a result, you'll probably find that you have an easier time getting to sleep. This same basic premise can be applied to evening relaxation. Having some time in the evening where you can relax?after work but before bed?is important for keeping stress levels low and maintaining overall mental health. Exercising hard and then riding the wave of body temperature fluctuations to sleep can give you a great period of relaxation in the evening before bedtime.
Conclusion
Exercise can't fix every problem in your life. At some point, you will run into stressors or emotional hurdles that you can't avoid or run away from?even if going for a run is the way you tend to deal with such problems. However, exercise can make you better at coping with those stressors and emotional hurdles, and it can do so while also making your brain and body healthier in virtually every way. From mood to decision making, from work to sleep, there is almost no part of your life where you won't be able to feel the benefits of exercise. Many people start exercising on a regular basis because they want to lose weight or otherwise improve their bodies. Over time, though, it's entirely possible that the main benefits you will reap from exercise will have far more to do with the mind than with the body. Even if you don't hit your weight loss goals or get a six pack as quickly as you want, you should notice the positive effects on your mental health almost immediately. There might not be a single better reason to start exercising on a daily basis.
