The Importance Of Exercise For Mental Health

Exercise is an important aspect of a lot of our daily lives for a number of reasons from an athlete training for the Olympics, to the guy training with his friends at his local gym or just a regular person going for a long walk to get some fresh air and clear their mind.

Most people who don’t like to exercise might only think that the whole point of it is to just improve your physical health and appearance but it truly is so much more than that. They say that the holy trinity is mind, body and spirit and luckily for us, exercise can help with 2/3 of those. The great thing about exercise is that it’s blind; it doesn’t see age or ability or anyone’s physical limitations. People might be better than others, but that’s ok. It doesn’t judge you and you just need to make yourself do a little bit of it daily to improve your lifestyle in many different ways.

Apart from the physical benefits why exercise at all?

You may already be familiar with this fact but let us remind you. When you exercise, your body releases chemicals called endorphins. These endorphins interact with the receptors in your brain that reduce your perception of pain. Endorphins also trigger a positive feeling in the body, similar to that of morphine.

Exercise is a significant factor on your mental health. Some of the many benefits include:

• reducing stress
• reducing depression
• reducing anxiety
• reducing negative mood
• improving self-esteem
• improving cognitive function

Exercise has also been found to alleviate symptoms such as low self-esteem and social withdrawal. It’s no surprise that exercise is responsible for a lot of these aspects of our daily mental health. Whether it’s just going for a long walk or getting in a hard workout at your local gym, it all counts and it all has a positive and vital impact on your mental wellbeing.

That was one of the main arguments by people worldwide who wanted to keep gyms open during the lockdowns. Whilst both sides may have good arguments, the benefits of exercise are clear to see on the mental health of people who exercise regularly.

With hopefully the end of all lockdowns in sight, people will have more options available to them to make sure they get their preferred choice of daily exercise. So whether you’re a regular gym-goer or someone who prefers other forms of exercise and environments in which to train, just make sure you make a conscious effort to do something daily, even if it’s a non-training day and it’s just a long walk, as chances are, it’s exactly what your mind needs.