A Natural Antidepressant
Imagine if there was a natural way to…
boost your energy (improve fatigue)
increase your stamina
help you sleep better (relief from insomnia or light and broken sleep)
improve your emotional resilience
help you to focus
improve your mental health significantly
improve your confidence, self-esteem, and self-worth
boost your mood (a natural antidepressant)
reduce anxiety and stress
and stabilise emotional symptoms
Would you want to know what that was?
If the title of the blog hasn’t already given it away, it is exercise. Can you believe that exercise has all those benefits and more? Exercise is a natural treatment. It helps you cope with, provides relief from, and at times even cures, depression, anxiety, and stress. Exercise improves not only our physical health but our mental health as well. While exercise is not an exclusive cure-all, it has huge pay-offs.
But what comes to mind when you think about exercising? I don’t know about you, but I know I’ve had some of these thoughts before:
“Exercise is hard and too much for me at the moment.”
“I’ve tried exercise and it doesn’t work.”
“Exercise is painful and makes me feel frustrated and hopeless.”
“Exercise is not my thing.”
“Exercise is for mentally healthy people.”
“I don’t feel like doing anything, let alone exercising.”
I get it. Exercise comes with a bunch of expectations, memories, and feelings. And all those things can hold us back from getting those amazing benefits.
I don’t know your story, but what if exercise didn’t have to be hard? What if it was easy and enjoyable? What would that look like for you?
“No pain, no gain” – is not necessarily helpful or true.
Advertising focuses on the physical benefits of exercise. Weight loss, body composition, strength training, stamina, and cardio health, are all common goals. And maybe with those aims, “no pain, no gain” is an appropriate mindset.
But what if you were exercising for your mental health?
Try prioritising the mental health benefits, rather than the physical results. What might be a better mindset for that aim?
Move your body, move your mind.
Movement is medicine.
Movement is an act of self-care.
Try using the word movement rather than exercise. That can help us to break down some of those associated thoughts that have stopped us in the past.
This month I’ll continue to write about movement, exercise, and mental health, so please subscribe or keep an eye out for more posts! And the challenge for this month is a Movement Practice, so check it out for some daily inspiration.
How might you get more movement into your day? Will you choose something enjoyable?
