Not one, but hundreds of studies confirm the remarkable influence of physical exercise on our mood. Regular physical activity has been shown to have a preventive effect on anxiety and depression.
We often forget that the body and mind are an inseparable unit, what happens in your body affects your mind and vice versa, in fact, there are important reasons to establish that the mind primarily determines the proper functioning of the body. increases the risk of contracting a virus, migraine or stomach problems.
- The reason is simple: what’s his name? The spirit?It lives in a physical place.
- Which is the brain.
- This organ determines the functioning of the whole body and affects each of the other organs.
An emotional state, such as depression, is expressed organically in different ways, one is the appearance of certain chemical changes in brain function, such as a decrease in the production of endorphins and other components, this causes your emotions to change the way you see and perceive the world.
Science’s response to these phenomena has been the prescription of drugs to restore lost balance, the problem is that their action is not permanent, but ephemeral, so a dynamic can arise exactly like that of an addict: it is necessary to use drugs relatively often to feel better.
In addition, psychiatric drugs have important side effects that affect both physical and mental health. Some people experience tremors, difficulty sleeping, or nausea when taking these types of medications. Many have reported an increase in depression or anxiety after taking regular medications for a few years. .
For many specialists these treatments do not solve the problem, they simply mask it, ideally treat depression through conversation and speech in therapy, however, not everyone is attracted to this possibility nor finds relief from their short-term pain even after consulting a professional.
It is at this stage that physical exercise appears as a cheap, playful and very effective alternative to treating such symptoms, this also has a chemical explanation.
In a survey conducted at Duke University, a group of adults with depression were compared who were on a regular exercise program with another group in which the problem was treated with the help of “sertraline,” a cure for depression. In both cases, there was an improvement in the same proportion.
This study and many others suggest that the hypothesis that exercise produces chemical changes in the brain, comparable to those produced by a drug, is valid; in fact, some researchers at the University of Georgia claim that it is capable of altering certain genes, which would have effects on our mood.
Exercise is also said to increase alpha waves in the brain, having a similar effect to that of a tranquilizer and there appears to be a close relationship between exercise and self-esteem, which tends to increase if we follow a regular physical activity program.
Sedentary lifestyle, in turn, has the opposite effect. The more passive a person is physically, the greater their tendency to develop episodes of anxiety and depression.
The effect of physical activity is felt almost immediately, but the significant change appears when it is practiced regularly. Spending fifteen or twenty minutes a day exercising can increase your sense of well-being much more than you might imagine. You are excited?
Photo courtesy of Elena Schweitzer