Sports can stimulate the brain to secrete a substance called endorphins, which can make people feel uplifted and relieve anxiety and tension. In addition, through physical exercise, a fit body and weight control can make people enhance self-confidence and self-esteem. This also indirectly affects one’s mood, relieves stress, promotes appetite and improves sleep quality. But for a person in a depressed mood, exercise is probably the last thing he wants to do. This is why exercise is a crucial “bitter pill to swallow” in the psychotherapy process, and I hope that patients will approach exercise with the same mindset. Often, patients can get immediate results from exercise.
“When it comes to exercise, we seem to think more of these words, that is, we think more of the physiological effects of exercise, but we also know that health has long been more than just physical health, mental health is a modern problem that cannot be ignored in a stressful society. Depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, neurosis are words that are increasingly being mentioned, can exercise have a positive impact on these psychological problems?
There is enough sports psychology research and literature to prove that exercise has a positive effect on relieving anxiety symptoms. It is interesting to note that aerobic exercise is more effective than anaerobic exercise, probably because aerobic exercise is more rhythmic, and rhythmic exercise can suppress the anxious state of the cerebral cortex, and there are not many restrictions on the form of exercise, whether it is running or aerobics, cycling or swimming, all have a certain rhythm, because essentially they are repeating, repeating, repeating. Another reason may be the thermogenesis of the body due to exercise, the lower part of the optic thalamus of the brain perceives the body temperature as high, which then promotes relaxation of the cerebral cortex and acts to reduce muscle tension and the sensitivity of the muscle shuttle to tension, reducing the feedback of the brain’s arousal center to the stimulus, thus causing relaxation. People who have experience in exercise should feel that aerobic exercise at the same intensity than anaerobic exercise on the body’s thermogenic effect is stronger, the direct performance of aerobic exercise is more sweating, the biggest reason is that aerobic exercise is always to maintain the heart rate at a relatively stable level, while anaerobic exercise is the inclusion of numerous “intergroup rest”.
The medical treatment of depression is usually medication, psychiatric (psychological) treatment or even electrotherapy, but compared to these, exercise is a more economical and safer option, and the phrase “no side effects” is enough to explain a lot. These two hormones are suppressed in depressed people, and both are released and increased through exercise, thus relieving depressive symptoms.
In addition, exercise can be a form of relaxation and recreation outside of a busy work and life (don’t mention exercise as having a hard and tiring time). If you want to get away from the noisy environment, you can choose individual sports, such as walking, running, swimming; if you are afraid of loneliness, you can choose group sports, such as group exercises, group cross-country, ball games. Group sports can sometimes be a fun and relaxing way to socialize and thus reduce the stress caused by daily interactions with people.
The impact of exercise on physical and mental health
Many people say that exercise makes people feel better, but why is that? Because sports are always played in a certain social environment, it is always interacting and connecting with people. We see whether the three major ball projects, or tennis, badminton, table tennis small ball sports, or square dance, gymnastics, skating and swimming, etc. are inseparable from the contact with others, it can be said that sports are a good form of interaction between people. Due to the need for sports itself, people in sports not only can break through shyness and bashfulness, increase communication and understanding, can coordinate interpersonal relationships, expand social interaction, and through sports can also find like-minded partners to eliminate psychological loneliness. Ding Zan, a famous professor of medical psychology in China, has also pointed out that the main psychological adaptation of human beings is the adaptation to interpersonal relationships, and exercise has a significant effect on eliminating loneliness and improving interpersonal relationships.
Psychological research has found that extroverts have a stronger need for social connection than introverts, in other words, introverts need to engage in more sports to increase their chances of connecting with others. Introverts should choose more team sports, the more people involved, the more they can enhance their own energy and the spirit of cooperation and win-win, and thus have better interpersonal relationships.
Exercise can reduce psychological stress
Whether in daily life, or in the interpretation of the film and television drama, we have heard such words, “Do not frown, let’s go to the treadmill to sweat, your mood will be better”, “work is so stressful ah, let’s go to a ball game, relaxed “. These descriptions are by no means empty wind, exercise to reduce stress is very effective and no side effects of the “medicine”. In the face of the increasingly fast-paced reality of the world, we all have their own knots, to deal with their own mind, reduce anxiety and stress, can be solved with exercise!
Scientific research has found that exercise itself can promote endocrine changes in the body. The brain produces substances called endorphins after exercise, and a person’s mood is related to the amount of endorphins secreted in the brain. Exercise can stimulate the secretion of endorphins, and when the amount of exercise reaches a certain level, the secretion of endorphins increases, and with the stimulation of endorphins, people’s body and mind are in a relaxed and happy state. Endorphins are also known as “happy hormones”, which can make people feel happy and satisfied, and can help people get rid of stress and unhappiness. Psychologists believe that exercise can reduce the psychological burden brought by excessive mental stress, which is the same as people in anger “knock, smash, skim, drop” has the same release and cathartic effect, but using exercise as a reasonable alternative to achieve the purpose of reducing or eliminating psychological stress. And we encounter psychological pressure, choose a long time meditation, exhaustive thinking will cause physiological discomfort and psychological fatigue, and exercise can make the bad stimulus to change, can make the tension, anxiety, anxiety, emotional state is improved, the psychological capacity to improve, the ability to adapt to be enhanced.