Moving Towards Mental Wellness: How Exercise Can Affect Your Mental Health

The mind-body connection is the link between how our thoughts can affect how we feel physically, and how our physical health can impact our thoughts. The theory is that if we have positive and well-balanced thoughts, our body will function well. In turn, if our physical health is poor, we won’t be able to think or feel our best.

Stress can affect our brain with its many nerve connections and our body can often feel the impact of that stress. When we experience stress, our body reacts as if it’s under attack. It releases hormones that speed up our heart, increases our blood pressure, and can make our muscles tense. If you’re experiencing chronic stress, your body can stay activated in this response. This physiological response will often make people feel moody, irritable, anxious, or even depressed. In turn, when you are experiencing conditions such as chronic pain or heart disease, your thoughts and emotions can be affected. You may notice that you start to have many worry thoughts and experience anxiety, or have thoughts related to hopelessness, and therefore start to feel low or even depressed. This illustrates just how powerful the mind-body connection can be.

With the mind-body connection, the theory suggests that when your body feels better so does your mind. Exercise produces chemicals in your body called endorphins. Endorphins act as natural pain killers which, in turn, can reduce stress and increase mood. Research also shows that exercise can actually increase your energy levels and reduce fatigue, can improve sleep, and of course, improve cardiovascular fitness.

Physical activity is now becoming a regular prescription in the treatment of anxiety and depression. Research has shown that regular physical activity can be equally as effective in the treatment of mild to moderate anxiety and depression when compared with evidenced-based treatments such as cognitive behavioural therapy or medication. While one exercise session can help to alleviate some symptoms for a few hours, research shows that a regular exercise schedule can help to reduce symptoms and provide more long lasting effects over time.

It’s important to highlight that other key components that contribute to mental wellness also include prioritizing sleep, eating healthy, as well as engaging in rewarding activities. If people try exercising without proper nutrition or getting enough sleep, they will feel depleted.

Depression, in particular, can have many consequences on our physical health such as disturbing sleep, reducing energy, appetite changes, and increased pain perception. Unsurprisingly, this typically results in decreased motivation to exercise. However, just getting up and moving a bit each day can help to create a positive difference. What we do know about depression is that getting behaviourally activated is a key part of many treatment protocols for depression. When trying to become more behaviourally activated through exercise, starting small is key! Start with five minutes per day of an activity that you enjoy, then try to increase it to 10 minutes, then 15, and so forth. Of course, this isn’t to say that exercise can cure anxiety or depression. However, physical activity can have positive impact by alleviating and easing some of the symptoms or reducing your vulnerability to these emotions. Exercise can also be a great adjunct treatment to psychotherapy or medication as well!

Whether it’s spin class, walking the dog, dancing while doing chores, or running, give physical activity a try. If you’re looking to see how much of a difference it can make, try tracking your mood on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the best mood and 1 being the worst mood. Track your mood before the exercise and then track your mood again after. Try doing this for the first few times you exercise and see what kind of an impact it has for you. You might just find that a positive mental health result will follow!

Tips on Getting Started:

1. Start small! Set goals that are realistic and achievable to help keep you motivated to turn it into a regular part of your week. Even starting with 5 minutes of activity a day is wonderful! Over time, you can keep trying to work on building up that time.

2. Choose activities that you enjoy. If you don’t enjoy running, that’s ok! Try swimming, hiking, walking the dog, or other activities to see what will help keep you engaged and enjoying what you do.

3. Schedule your work out time like you would an appointment. This will help to try and keep you accountable. Also, try to pick a time when you feel you have the most energy throughout the day.

4. Make exercise a social activity. Sometimes going to an exercise class, exercising with a friend or family member, or joining a team can help make exercising more fun and enjoyable.

5. Reward yourself. This could mean rewarding yourself with your favourite hot beverage from Tim Horton’s or Starbucks, or watching an episode or two of your favourite show that night after you successfully meet your goal for the day.