The Relationship Between Exercise and Mental Health
Everyone knows how important exercise is for our physical health, however, many underestimate, or simply neglect, the importance of exercise for maintaining a healthy mental state.
For that reason, Studio Pulse Wynnum is here to help you understand the relationship between exercise and mental health.
Those who include exercise in their everyday life, like reformer pilates Wynnum for example, are at a lower risk of suffering from mental illness and report having better emotional wellbeing and mental health.
Surprising but true, research shows that exercise has almost the same effect as psychological treatments, including cognitive behavioral therapy, and antidepressants for those who have mild depression.
But, how does exercise affect us mentally?
The relationship between exercise and mental health can be quite easily explained. Exercise stimulates the production of chemicals in the brain responsible for improving mood. Plus, it pumps blood to the brain which improves your cognitive skills.
Additionally, exercise increases the part of the brain responsible for memory called the hippocampus and improves connections between the brain and nerve cells which helps to boost memory and protects your brain from diseases.
Simply put, exercise makes us feel better, and makes our body happy. Not only will exercise improve your mood, alertness, and concentration, it can also help to increase your motivation levels.
The following is a list of how exercise can positively impact you and your lifestyle:
- Improves Sleep: a good night’s sleep regulates mood.
- Exercise boosts self-esteem, coping abilities, and sense of control.
- When exercising you forget about the negative things in your life and can allow you to gain new perspectives.
- Exercise provides new opportunities to socialise and meet people.
- Exercise changes the levels of serotonin, endorphins, and stress hormones in your brain.
- Your energy levels increase while exercising.
- Exercise is a great form of stress and anger release.
- Exercise makes you feel relaxed by decreasing muscle tension.
How Much Exercise do we Need?
Luckily, to give your mental health a boost, you don’t really have to spend hours in the gym or jump straight into strenuous exercise. According to the Australian Government, around 3 hours of moderate exercise or 2 hours of strenuous exercise per week is what we should aim for. Even if that includes 1 moderate bike ride, 1 reformer pilates class and 1 brisk walk per week… that is more than enough! Especially as a starting point.
Pulse offers a fresh and unique opportunity for those embarking on a quest for greater physical, mental, or spiritual fulfillment.
So, all you need to do to ensure you keep both physically and mentally healthy is to contact Studio Pulse Wynnum and get in touch with the team to find out what class would best suit your needs.