SELF-CARE: The Benefits of Exercise (Part 2/2)

Choosing Your Exercise

The word exercise can often conjure unappealing images of people with pained expressions running endlessly to nowhere on treadmills. This does not have to be the case: it’s vital to choose the exercise that suits your level of fitness, lifestyle and interest. If you choose something that’s sole appeal is that its currently trending on Instagram or that your best friend is doing it, the likelihood of you sustaining it is likely to be low. Here are some options that have been found to have a link with improved mood and reduced anxiety:

Running

Running has been found to help boost neurochemicals linked with low mood, which can help alleviate depression.

Hiking in Nature

Exposure to nature while exercising allows your mind and body to reap dual benefits: those of the natural environment and of the exercise itself. In the links below, you can find further research supporting the use of ‘green exercise’ i.e. exercise done in a natural environment, to aid low mood.

Yoga

Yoga has been repeatedly advocated for anxiety: as it necessitates a focus on breathing and body posture it forces the mind away from attention-seeking anxious thoughts and helps reduce both heart and respiration rates. The latter links back to the point made earlier. Not only the mind but the brain responds to biological cues to rapid breathing and heart rate. This response can include a surge in anxiety producing neuro-function, which yoga helps to counter. Also, it might help to put a little thought in to the type of yoga you elect to do. For example, Sivananda yoga is holistic and includes awareness building not only of the body and breath but also diet and positive thinking- features that can be helpful to aid low mood. On the other hand, Kripalu yoga is very breathing centred, which can help counter anxiety.

Strength Training

This is an anaerobic exercise, in that it elevates heart rate and respiration mildly, but not to the extent of running or jogging. The function is muscular strength building. Strength training involves mental focus on posture and movement that can work to shift focus away from low mood and/or anxiety maintaining thoughts and feelings.

Boxing/Kick Boxing/Martial Arts

Whether you choose boxing or a form of martial art, the benefits, particularly for low mood, are found to be significant. These forms of exercise can combat many of the key features of low mood. The form and function of these exercises directly counter the helplessness and low self-efficacy that can accompany depression and can help develop a sense of empowerment and control. Martial arts are heavily hinged on self-regulation, involving some of the benefits of yoga (such as deep breathing and mindfulness of the body) as well as of strength and cardiovascular training. The stringent focus on the actions involved in these exercises will necessitate a shift in focus away from depressive thought patterns.

Team Sports

Team sports such as rowing, netball, football or basketball all provide the cardiovascular and strength building benefits of other, more isolated forms of exercise, but have additional benefits that can work to alleviate both low mood and anxiety. For one thing, team sports involve focus not only on your own activity, but on that of your team-mates and the opposing team, for a sustained period of time. Having to focus on your physical movements as well as those of others and to plan around them forces you to shift your attention away from the low mood/anxiety maintaining thoughts and feelings. The healthy competitiveness in such sports can also challenge the feelings of helplessness and low self-efficacy that often accompany both low mood and anxiety. The team-work involved in sport also combat the isolation and loneliness that is often a significant feature of low mood as well. Finally, having a group of people who depend on you can reduce the risk of attrition aka ‘dropping out’ and allow the activity to be sustained long enough to reap serious mood boosting benefits.

Exercise: Making it Work for You

Despite the best intentions in the world, lifestyle changes, especially if they are completely new to you, can drop by the wayside. Though it is tempting to beat yourself up about it, try to avoid that, as that can lead to associated exercise with negative thoughts and feelings. Instead, think about choices around exercise that can help make it more sustainable. After all, the exercise is for you-not the other way around. Below are some ideas to keep in mind to help make the choice to exercise a sustainable one:

If It’s Incidental, Keep it Conscious- Often, people substitute physical activity for exercise; feeling that the walk or bike-ride to work is sufficient. And they are not wrong- such an activity, done at a rate and consistency that actually has both strength and cardiovascular benefit does have a cumulative effect on wellbeing. However, the key factor that can set exercise apart is consciousness: if physical activity is undertaken with a consciousness that involves purpose and active engagement in the activity and sustained focus on it, it is more likely to benefit mental health. This is because that consciousness and intent then allows you to a) disengage from anxious or sad thoughts and b) allows you to take control and ownership for actively contributing to your wellbeing.

Exercise to suit your schedule- if you have a very demanding schedule, pick an exercise that you can reasonably accommodate. It would be self-defeating if exercise simply became another time-pressured, stress-triggering item on your already packed agenda!

Be flexible at the outset- create a sort of pick ‘n’ mix bag of exercises that you can include in your week. This can sometimes be more accommodating of a busy schedule as opposed to locking yourself in to a single gym membership. Perhaps yoga at a studio near your office on Mondays, strength training at your gym near your daughter’s school on Wednesday and a game of football and a run Saturday morning. This way you can reap the benefits of the different forms of exercise, avoid monotony and not be tied to a single routine.

Know your body- You might be mentally ready to embark on a new exercise routine, but that does not always mean your body is ready. Know your fitness level and start there, increasing the challenges in your chosen form of exercise as your fitness grows. This will protect you from injury, (which could set you back weeks!) and also prevent you from over-straining (which could then cause you to drop out).

Be patient- Exercise can provide immediate gratification: the burst of adrenalin and endorphins can be immediately rewarding. However, be realistic: it is, after all, exercise and not magic. Like any lifestyle changes, there has to be some consistency of effort before long term benefits are seen.

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