How Does Exercise Improve Your Mental State?

Many of the guides that try to improve our physical health and mental state of mind recommend some important keys. These are strategies and ideas that are easy to explain and defend. However, it is not so easy to incorporate them into your daily life. They require you to change your routines. In particular the routines that you usually develop out of laziness. The routines that you have developed on your own and that have become completely fixed by means of a lot of repetition.

Of course it is wise to exercise. But what can exercise do for your mental state? Why is it worth making time for it in your daily schedule? What’s the point of coming home and, instead of tidying up a bit, making food, resting or learning a language, go for a workout? You don’t feel like it at all. It’s rainy and windy outside. There are too many people in the gym. And it’s too hot there.

Exercise keeps body cells in good condition

Okay, so your mind seems a little abstract. He is the conductor of the orchestra that for many of us seems to be separate from our bodies. As if it’s not really part of the same biological system. People also talk about physical and mental fatigue, as if they are two completely different things. But that’s just not true.

When you exercise, however, something very strange happens: the cells in your body are supplied with oxygen. When you move, it’s like letting your body air out, just like you sometimes do with your house. This is of course easy during the summer. But in winter it is unfortunately very different. You don’t really enjoy it when a cold wind blows through your living room and bedrooms. But how do you feel afterwards? Much better, right?

There are days when your body seems to love that feeling when you start your engine and other days when it seems very lazy. But how do you feel after exercise? Much better, right?

Exercise connects body and mind

The cells in your nervous system are grateful when you move your body and rid it of calories by running, jumping, cycling or walking. But exercise offers another great benefit in that mind-body unity. It has to do with communication. If you ask someone who used to exercise regularly but now can’t because of an injury what he misses most, it will likely be communication with his body.

If such a person cannot move for a week or two, he probably feels that his body is no longer communicating with him. Or it only communicates in the language of pain. The quality of the information he receives from his body has deteriorated. So one thing you can achieve with exercise is to improve communication with your body. It doesn’t take pain to realize that you have more or less energy. It is also not easy to explain this to people who have not exercised for years. They don’t remember what it feels like to interact with their bodies that way, so they don’t miss it either.

But enriching this communication is more than worth it…

It improves your mental state of mind and therefore your social life

The positive influence that exercise has on your mental state has two aspects. One of them is the social aspect. Whether it’s individual training or a sport, it’s a very easy way to meet people who do similar things to you. Real people of flesh and tide, who are not behind a screen. People who can motivate you through sports or other life goals. People who will definitely expand your social circle.

The second aspect, however, is that by exercising you also get more time for yourself. Time in which you can think or just forget about your worries for a while. While you’re moving, you won’t think about being on time, how your body is going to burn the food you consume, or whether something you do could make someone angry or hurt your image. Exercise is like an act of freedom, an update to your mental capacity and an encounter with yourself.

It is unlikely that you will experience mental discomfort while exercising. As you train, you feel a connection between who you are (or want to be) and what you do. There are no threats, only challenges. The challenge to score or run just a little faster than last time. Things get simpler and your mind thanks you for that freedom.

Exercise, discipline, faith and emotions

An indirect benefit of exercise is order and discipline. Exercising regularly gives you a sense of consistency, which makes you feel good about yourself again. It’s like saying to yourself, “Hey, wait, I can achieve this goal I set for myself.” These kinds of messages will boost your confidence and help you achieve other goals as well.

You can see it in many people who have given up. You can hear it in their words. They don’t make plans because they don’t believe they will fulfill them. So they live in a kind of anarchy full of negative self-talk. This is because the decisions they make are arbitrary and the balance they build is very shaky. In those cases, there are few activities like exercise that can regain your confidence.

How many benefits can there be? We’re still not quite done. And now it’s worth mentioning one of the most important benefits for your mental state of mind: emotional regulation. Exercise is a positive way to expend the extra energy that almost everyone has. This is because almost all of us consume more calories than we can actually burn. So if your body doesn’t need as much activity, you have more room to work on your emotions.

Exercise lowers your heart rate and reduces tension, so it will take a lot more to get your body going than before. This gives you much more room to trade. Allowing you to intelligently use the information you receive from the emotion you feel. Then you can let the emotion fade away without the energy causing you to do something that you will later regret. And even in children, exercise improves their self-control. And when they stick to a regular schedule, it can even help regulate their sleep.

All these benefits to your mental state will surely make you want to give it a try, won’t they?