Exercising regularly has a range of benefits for your mental health. Not only does the actual act of participating in physical activity release endorphins to your brain which will make you feel happier, calmer and help you to clear your mind, it can also help in a range of other ways.
Exercising regularly can also help to improve your physical appearance as your muscles become stronger and more toned. This can help to give your self-esteem a boost, resulting in increased levels of self-confidence. Increased confidence can have an effect on reducing your stress levels.
Along with everything above, exercise is important for keeping you in good physical health!
Benefits of Exercise for Mental Health
Studies have shown that regular exercise can help to prevent against diseases such as cardiovascular disease, stroke, and even some cancers.
Poor physical health can be one of the biggest causes of feeling stressed or at the very least contribute to increasing anxiety levels in stressful situations. Exercising regularly can improve physical health, giving us less to be stressed about.
Regular exercise can also help with issues such as muscle or joint pain, which in turn can help you to feel better, stronger and healthier overall.
When you feel more able to take on stressful situations, you will be less likely to worry about your own health or discomfort.
Getting Started With Exercise
If your lifestyle has been more on the sedentary side than that of the active recently, there’s nothing to worry about as gentle exercise is often enough to help improve your stress levels.
If you’re taking up exercising regularly for the first time or haven’t done much exercise for some time, it’s important to make sure that you start off slowly and gently in order to make sure that you give your body the time to get used to the increase in activity and gradually improve your strength.
Jumping straight from the sofa to a strenuous exercise routine can actually do more damage than good. So, don’t feel bad if you can only do a little bit of exercise at first – as you continue to practice, you will be able to increase the amount that you do.
Yoga for Stress
Yoga is one of the best exercises which you can do in order to combat feelings of stress and anxiety.
Yoga is designed to not only improve fitness levels, strength and balance, but also clear the mind and help reduce stressful thoughts and feelings.
Taking part in yoga not only allows you to improve your levels of fitness and strength to be healthier overall, but it can also strengthen your mind and help you to feel more at peace with yourself and every-thing around you. Yoga is also often associated with mindfulness meditation, which can be extremely useful for dealing with stress and anxiety.
Also, if you are joining a yoga class, not only will you be able to benefit from the physical and mental health benefits of taking part in yoga, but you will also be able to reap the social benefits of meeting new friends and getting support, something which can be incredibly useful for dealing with stress and anxiety.
