The Connection Between Physical Exercise and Mental Health; Benefits for Managing Depression and Anxiety

Exercising regularly is not always to maintain the physique, to increase the muscle mass, to lose weight or to stay for long. Many people who start regular exercise continue doing it because it makes them feel good. Regular exercise makes us feel more energetic throughout the day, improves the quality of sleep, sharpens the memory, and makes us feel relaxed in handling the day to day work. Physical exercises may be of any form based on individual interest. One may get into running, brisk walking, swimming, cycling, dancing, playing a regular sport or yoga. All these different forms of physical activity on a regular basis is known to improve muscle mass, bone strength, flexibility and improve endurance. Exercising has numerous health benefits, both curative and preventive. It known to improve the blood circulation, combat chronic health issues like maintaining blood sugar levels, maintaining blood pressure, heart health, help in managing arthritis, enhance immunity, improve digestion, reduces cholesterol, reduces the risk of cancer, delay skin aging, improves better sex life, improve thinking skills and above all it provides enormous sense of psychological wellbeing.

 Mental health benefits of Physical exercises: Regular physical exercises can increase the levels of endorphins and serotonin. These are the neurochemicals important for regulating our mood. It is also known to improve the connections between the brain neurons, by pumping more blood to the brain. This helps in improved learning capacity, memory power, increases concentrating ability and alertness. It is also known to provide better sleep because of which one would feel energetic the subsequent day. Provides opportunity to enhance social connections, hence reduces loneliness and isolation. It also helps to let out excess energy and relieves tension. It improves self-esteem, confidence level and reduces pessimistic thoughts.

 Physical exercise and Depression: There have been many studies comparing the efficacy of physical exercises alone with that of conventional antidepressants. Researchers have found that regular exercises help in managing mild to moderate depressive disorders, reduce relapses as well as in reducing the risk of major depression. They have found that these benefits are mostly due to increased brain circulation by physical health which is known to promote active neuronal growth, reduce inflammation, and promote release of the neurochemicals.

Physical exercise and Anxiety: Exercising is known to distress. It relieves tension and physical stress naturally. By mindfulness techniques, it interrupts the chain of negative thoughts and worries. Anxiety is a combination of physical distress and psychological disturbances. That is during anxiety attacks one would experience chest tightness, palpitations, sweating, muscle cramps, abdominal discomfort, or insomnia. This is always associated with pessimism, fear and apprehensive thoughts. There is a persistent disturbance of mind and the body. With exercise this vicious cycle is broken and hence relieves anxiety.

 Overcoming the barriers to start: Despite this list of multitude of benefits people find it hard to take that first step. First and foremost is to make up the time for exercising. In between all the busy work, travel, responsibilities setting up a time aside becomes a hurdle. But, taking up exercise as a primordial part of life, prioritizing ‘you’ for a few minutes in a day, can make you fit this into your busiest schedule. Next, is the baseline fitness. That is if suffering from any chronic illness or being overweight or having any deformity. So, frequent exhaustion, pain or mobility issues might be there. In them, starting with slow, low grade and low impact exercises and gradually taking it forward by increasing the intensity is the key. Seeking medical advice about ways to adopt safe exercises is important.

In case of mental health problems like depression and anxiety, inculcating exercise into your daily routine becomes doubly difficult. Here, due to lack of motivation, loss of interest, mental exhaustion, constant negative thoughts, social anxiety stand as major challenges to stay physically active. So seeking help from a mental health professional in the form of medication and counseling in parallel to planning a daily schedule with simple exercises included in it has to be done. Also choose the exercises which can bring you joy, which gives you a sense of accomplishment, which helps you to drive away your loneliness.

Make exercise a fun part of every day’s life. We have to understand that one need not spend hours in the gym, lift heavy weights or spiral in the loop of monotonous workouts to feel better, look fit and enjoy the benefits of exercises. You don’t have to suffer to get the results. Your exercise has to make you breathe a little heavier and feel a little warmer than your baseline to obtain the benefits.

Dr Krithishree Somanna, Consultant Psychiatrist, KMC Hospital, Dr B R Ambedkar Circle Mangalore