Why Exercise is important for Mental Health
Hi, my name is Dustin Purnell. I’m a registered provisional psychologist here at Human Integrated Performance. Some doctors and psychologists have been asked what they think the single most effective intervention for any issue across the board would be. I’ve heard several doctors say that exercise can be one of the most valuable interventions for any health issue.
Personally, I think that one answer to that question for mental health issues would be exercise for mental health problems. So today I’m gonna talk about what the research in psychology says about three ways that exercise can be a benefit to people who have anxiety or depression.
Top 3 Ways Exercise Can Boost Mental Health
So the first of those is that exercise can boost physical performance and any time physical performance improves mental performance is also going to improve.
So some of the things that that can do to benefit people who have anxiety or depression is if you exercise, it can help you come to whatever problems that you have with a clearer head that elevated physical performance can help you think better and deal in a more logical or constructive way with whatever problems you’re facing.
A second way that exercise can be beneficial. Is it wires both your brain and your body to believe that your effort matters. One of the major problems with anxiety or depression can be people we’ll feel like no matter what they do, nothing is going to change. But through exercise, as you work hard and build consistency, I see you can help yourself to feel on a steady, in a steady way that what you do makes a difference.
“it wires both your brain and your body to believe that your effort matters”
And over time that can have emotional impact as well as the physical impact from the improvements that you came from. Exercise. In addition to that, a third way that exercise is beneficial for anxiety and depression is through the physiological mechanisms happened. There’s a voluminous, fascinating body of research literature about the many different mechanisms by which anxiety helps you improve mental health, including in specific additions, like major depressive disorder or generalized anxiety disorder.
Some of those can improve, include improvements in hormones and neurotransmitter balances. It can exercise can help improve the micro flora balance, the bacterial balance in your gut. It can help with things like circulation and improve, things like sleep or rest and wakefulness cycles, which can be some major contributing factors that make anxiety or depression worse.
Need more help?
So that’s just a quick run through a threeway exercise can make a difference for anxiety or depression. An important part of this though, is finding ways to personalize it. Anxiety or depression can make it very difficult for a person to get into a regular group of exercise. That’s part of the reason why consulting in a one-on-one way with a psychologist like myself or somebody else here, Human Integrated Performance can help you to find ways to apply this in so that it’s going to work in your life.
Whatever the obstacle is, it might be from anxiety or depression. So I mean, this sounds of interest to you. Then feel free to contact us here at Human Integrated Performance. And we’ll see if we can find a time where we can sit down to talk more about. How do you make these ideas of applicable in your life as you deal with anxiety or depression or any other mental health problems