Diet and Exercise and Reducing Stress

Your Health and Well Being

By reducing stress using diet and exercise your health and well being can be markedly improved. This short essay on exercise and escaping the stress of life covers a few of the stress management and exercise theories in an easy to read way.

The Impact of Exercise on Your Psychological Well-Being

Hmmm. Exercise. And Healthy diet! It makes you look good, and it makes you feel good. That little bit of muscle soreness after a good workout is a sign that you did your workout well, that you pushed your muscles a bit to improve themselves. You sleep better when you’re on a regular exercise routine, and your body seems to recover more quickly from illness. There’s no doubt that exercise is great for your body and it makes you look good. But there is something else that exercise does for you – it impacts you psychologically in a very positive way. It improves general mood and eases depression. Exercise can help you feel more relaxed and at ease, it can also help you feel better equipped to tackle life’s problems when they come along. There is growing evidence that regular exercise helps ward off dementia in the elderly. How is this? How can exercise do so much for your health and well being? Let’s take a look.

Several years ago, researchers at Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina found that exercise can be very effective as an anti-depressant. These findings have been echoed by other research conducted the world over. Some recent studies show that exercise increases the activity of the hippocampus and frontal lobes of the brain, but it’s not completely clear how this affects mental well being. It is known that in animals, exercise increases levels of the neurotransmitters serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine, and these are associated with elevated mood. It is thought that anti-depressant medicines work by boosting these chemicals as well. Says, Kristin Vicker-Douglas, Ph.D., a psychologist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, "It's not a magic bullet, but increasing physical activity is a positive and active strategy to help manage depression and anxiety."

Exercise also triggers increases in the levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). BDNF is thought to be connected with improved mood and it seems to be a factor in brain cells living longer lives. This is important in the area of dementia.

In the case of anxiety and tension, regular exercise can help to relieve these conditions by increasing the flow of oxygen through the body and stimulating the nervous system increasing your overall feelings of health. This allows the body to release tension and feel more at ease. The release of endorphins during exercise helps to create a feeling of psychological well being. These feelings tend to have a lasting effect, helping to induce a relaxed state in the body and the mind.

Besides releasing hormones into your body and helping your brain cells live longer, exercise increases self-image by improving the physical state of your body. This seems to help to create an overall feeling of increased self-confidence and accomplishment, in turn elevating the mood and general feelings of well being.

Diet too – changing to a more moderate diet can quickly have a noticeable affect on your body of course, but the more significant outcome is a feeling of well-being. Heavy ‘junk’ foods, lots of fats, sugars and refined carbohydrates make us sluggish, headachy, and unable to sleep well. Fresh vegetables and fruits, and regular mealtimes, with moderate sized servings is a sure-fire pick me-up; a boost to your psychological well being

The effect of diet and exercise on our minds is not yet fully understood, but they can be seen and felt often within just a few short exercise sessions and a few days of healthy eating. You do not need to turn into a rabbit and eat only lettuce. Cakes, cookies and chocolate are not forever denied to you – just not lashings of these every day. There is no need to begin a strenuous program of bodybuilding and marathon running either (although you certainly can). Thirty minutes of walking, swimming, jogging or other exercise three times a week is enough to get both your body in shape and increase your mental well being.

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