Unlocking the Mental Benefits of Exercise: Boost Your Mood, Energy, and Emotional Well-being
How Physical Activity Enhances Mental Clarity, Reduces Stress, and Promotes Emotional Health
Have you ever wondered why hitting the gym or going for a jog leaves you feeling not just physically invigorated but mentally refreshed too? It can feel a bit contradictory sometimes where exercise, commonly thought to tire you out, can often have the opposite impact. Exercise can enhance your focus and make you feel more prepared to tackle the day. While the visible gains from exercise are usually celebrated, the profound impact it has on the brain is equally important. Exercise boosts your energy, improves your mood, and provides space for emotional processing. Whether you're a fitness enthusiast or someone seeking peace amidst life's challenges, exercise might just be something that you’re looking for!
Boosting Energy and Mood with Exercise:
When discussing mental health, most people are seeking happiness which is a powerful goal, but often seeking that inner peace and control over your mind to have happy thoughts, is the power that we are seeking to have over our mind. Exercise can be a source of that power and control over your mood. The main reason for this is the body’s reward system, when you do a task that your body deems reward-worthy, it gives you an influx of endorphins. These endorphins are a type of transmitter in your brain that signals your brain to reduce pain, reduce stress, and improve your mood. As you can imagine already based on that, if you had reduced pain and reduced stress that opens up a whole lot of brain real estate for things that you want to think about. The other big boost that comes with these releases of endorphins is the fact that blood flow also increases, increasing the aerobic abilities of your body, and then the decreased feeling of pain enables you to participate in more movement.
There also happens to be a great crossover with all the reward systems within exercise itself, not only does it release endorphins for your body to have all those fantastic effects from above, but that is also attenuated with dopamine and serotonin release from exercise to help not only increase the mood but also smooth out that mood increase, so you’re not only having the lack of stress, reduced pain, elevated mood, but you’re also getting a smoothed increased mood prolonging that effect, so there are only benefits that get dumped in on your reward system when you give your body the movement that is so strongly desires. The other big part that is something to think about regarding the energy levels from exercise is that an object in motion tends to stay in motion, if you get your activity high, your body burns the energy that it needs and wants to keep that energy moving. Do not underestimate the power of this mental boost! This hormonal release together is what is commonly known as the “Runner’s High” but it doesn’t need to be just from running! It comes from any exertion event!
The Role of Exercise in Emotional Processing:
Now that the effects of that exercise are a bit more understood on how that can boost your mood and emotional regulation temporarily. I want to talk about a piece that is a bit less tangible than the hormones. Just the idea that I don’t think is currently tackled enough in our society which is something that humans used to have. With our constant need for stimulation, we leave little time for our brain to be bored and unstimulated to go through the process of emotional processing. When humans were adapting we used to have plenty of mundane tasks that our minds could wander with, nowadays almost all of that time is actively stripped from you in favor of scrolling, researching something right at your fingertips, watching a movie or a show that is either immediately holding your attention or background noise limiting your mind’s ability to wander. Exercise provides a unique outlet for that to occur, as it can be a boring mundane task, that brings your focus back into something a bit more central, you need to pay attention to how your body feels, how hard you can push, how long you can run for, all of these are very related to the ability of the mind and how focused in you need to be. Being present and focused on yourself and your feelings there gives your body more of the space needed to go through that emotional processing period. Even times when we may have distractions like music in our ears, oftentimes if we are locked in and pushing hard, there isn’t a single sound that gets through as you’re fully focused in, that gives your brain at least some of that space that it needs to begin processing those emotions. A space that it used to have previously but has been stripped away by many conveniences of the society that we have developed. This space can be further enhanced by stripping away those distractions even a bit further as your brain needs that space, pairing it with exertion and getting that endorphin boost makes it all that much easier to overcome. This emotional processing piece is a core fundamental piece to how your brain copes with its emotions as opposed to the suppression via distraction that we have been doing for so long. It can be very scary to face these areas head-on, and exercise gives us that space and makes it all that much easier. Many runners use their runs as a time to process some real problems that they’re having and they come back feeling mentally stronger and ready to handle whatever situation it may be that is bothering them. I recommend keeping this in your mind!
Practical Applications: How to Harness the Mental Benefits of Exercise:
Now as always, I want to go from talking about the ideas that I want to get through to a place where we can apply them. With the understanding that your endorphins, dopamine, and serotonin, are all released during exercise, understanding critical factors that they play in mood regulation, pain reduction, stress reduction, and keeping you in motion, it is easy to see how that is very beneficial. It is the next step of applying this understanding, in which we can go a few different paths with this. Your body wants to reward you for moving as that is what it has done for years, but the release is never as strong as some of the other dopamine rewards that we have had overwhelming us for years now. Getting more in touch with that is going to take some time to get the reward system to get back in touch with you in a stronger sense. This application is going to be much more of a challenge than anything. I want you to be conscious of how you are feeling and all your day-to-day distractions. How many times are you picking up your phone to fill a space in a day, how many times are you putting on a distraction while doing a mundane task, and how many times are you not giving your body the space that it may need to process emotions? If you are already giving your brain some space to do it and you don’t have anything latent that is there then fantastic! However, we are very bad at finding that space and giving your brain that time, so if you are finding that you’re picking up your phone and distracting yourself often during periods of downtime, this is where the real challenge is going to come in. At least once a week, try to do your workout without your phone, free from distractions, and give that half hour or so for your brain to just focus in on itself and have that space for processing. It won’t be easy to do at first but it will be an incredible change as it becomes easier and easier to do.
In conclusion, exercise offers far more than just physical benefits, it profoundly impacts mental and emotional well-being. Engaging in physical activity releases endorphins, dopamine, and serotonin, which collectively boost mood, reduce pain, and alleviate stress. This hormonal package not only enhances our sense of well-being but also encourages sustained energy and movement. Additionally, exercise provides a unique opportunity for emotional processing, allowing us to disconnect from constant distractions and focus inwardly. By incorporating some regular, distraction-free workouts into our routine, or even just a time away from distractions for our minds to do what they need, we can harness these benefits to achieve greater mental clarity, emotional resilience, and overall happiness. Remember, the journey to better mental health through exercise is a gradual process, but its rewards can be deeply transformative.
I am excited to begin building a community to connect people with similar interests, making the fitness journey easier and more enjoyable for everyone. If you're interested, have any questions, or need personalized guidance, don't hesitate to reach out to me at sidneyabartlett@gmail.com.
I encourage you to share this message with someone who might find it valuable. Together, we can expand our community and empower more individuals to achieve their fitness goals.
Until next time, let's keep pushing toward our goals together!
Sidney Bartlett, CSCS