As mental health awareness campaigns become more and more well-received around the globe, the mental health benefits of exercise are becoming more widely understood. 

While many people understand that exercise releases endorphins and ‘happy hormones’ that elevate the mood, not everyone is aware of some of the other mental health benefits of exercise, for example that exercise encourages neural growth in the brain.

The mental health benefits of exercise are truly astounding. While your physique and physical health stand to benefit a great deal from regular exercise, your mood and mental health will improve as well.

A person who consistently attends scheduled personal training sessions and regularly goes for walks or hikes will naturally feel more emotionally regulated and less moody, stressed or depressed. 

Your mental health includes your emotional well-being, psychological state, and social well-being.

Mental Health Benefits of Exercise and Your Overall Wellness

Good mental health improves our ability to have healthy relationships with others, a healthy amount of self-love and self-worth, the ability to regulate our emotions, enjoy activities, summon motivation when we need to be productive, thrive in our careers, and have the resilience required to cope with life’s challenges. 

Mental health, when improved, can also reduce irritability, enhance our capacity to give and receive love, reduce anxious or intrusive thoughts, and expand our ability to have self-confidence.

Natural ways to improve our mood and mental health (such as exercise) are important tools to have access to, since there are many unhealthy ways of coping with stress, anxiety or depression.

Many scientific studies have found plenty of evidence of the mental health benefits of exercise, including the way exercising can combat symptoms of depression, anxiety, ADHD, PTSD, and more.

How Exercise Reduces Anxiety

One of the top mental health benefits of exercise is its ability to reduce feelings of anxiety. Anxiety disorders are one of the most common mental health problems experienced by people, and anxiety is never a good feeling.

Exercising regularly can keep anxiety at bay for many different reasons. For one thing, expending energy when you get a good workout can help you release a lot of that pent up, anxious energy. 

Exercise can help calm and regulate the nervous system, which is great news for people who struggle with anxiety and a dysregulated nervous system.

Furthermore, exercising is a great way to connect with your body and make you feel mindful and grounded, while anxiety can do the opposite as anxious thoughts can make people dissociate. 

Research studies on exercise and its impact on anxiety have found that exercising is a cognitive distraction technique and can distract people from whatever they’re anxious about, while also releasing endorphins in the brain and helping them shift their mood to a more positive place.

Exercise Combats Depression

Scientific research studies have found evidence that exercising regularly can reduce the frequency of depressive episodes, and many people have found that exercise can help pull them out of depression.

It’s always important to speak to a registered clinical counselor if you have symptoms of depression, as well as notifying your family doctor. Often, medication is prescribed along with natural mood elevators (like exercise. Sometimes, natural remedies for depression can be all that’s needed depending on how mild or severe one’s depression is. 

Exercise helps combat feelings of sadness, loneliness or depression by releasing  endorphins in the brain, which are powerful natural brain chemicals that help you feel good. These ‘happy hormones’ boost your mood, and that’s the primary reason why exercise has helped so many people with depression.

ADHD, Productivity, and Exercise’s Ability to Improve Mental Focus

ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) is another mental health condition that exercise can help with. 

Scientific evidence suggests that the mental health benefits of exercise include helping people manage their symptoms of ADHD. Exercise has been shown to help reduce impulsivity and hyperactivity, improve attention span, and improve executive functioning. Improved symptoms of ADHD could be noticed after exercising, when mental focus could be greater and executive functioning skills (and other cognitive skills) could become noticeably better.

Feelings of restlessness or an inability to sit still and focus on a task could be remedied by a powerful workout session.

A healthy release of energy (through exercise) can help people think more clearly and become more mentally focused and productive – whether they have ADHD or not.

Exercise and Self-Esteem

It’s not just a potential improvement in your physical looks that causes one’s self-esteem to be improved by exercise. 

The sense of accomplishment after exercising can be enough, in itself, to boost one’s self-esteem for the rest of the day.

For example, a great session with your personal trainer can leave you feeling productive, accomplished, and triggers that attitude of, “I did something healthy today!”

Furthermore, when you start to see results from personal training sessions and exercising regularly, you’ll notice a natural boost in your overall happiness and mood, since taking steps to reach one’s goals always feels great.

In Conclusion

By exercising regularly, you’re taking care of yourself, both mentally and physically. This type of self-care, and healthy habits like these, are an expression of self-love. 

Natural remedies for mental health issues such as anxiety or depression are worth trying out before resorting to prescription medication. Since prescription medications often have a long list of negative side-effects, and anti-anxiety medication in particular can be dangerously habit-forming, it’s best to see if an exercise routine helps you before you start taking pills.

Always seek the advice of a doctor and registered clinical counselor if you’re struggling with your mental health, but note that an exercise routine is a healthy decision no matter what. Exercise can improve your mental health greatly.

Why not try a couple months of personal training and see if you start feeling better? Your doctor will agree that regular exercise is a good idea, as it can dramatically improve your mental health.

It’s undeniable that at the very least, exercise is a fantastic component of a mental health management routine for improved mental and emotional well-being.