No doubt you have already heard countless times that exercising improves your mental health. It's one of the first things you learn about exercise either from a trainer, a teacher or through word-of-mouth, yet, so many of us still struggle to get enough exercise.
Our mental state plays a big role in our relationship with exercise. How can we motivate ourselves to move when struggling with low-motivational mental states, such as anxiety and depression? And, how much exercise do we really need to see improvements in our quality of life?
If you're interested in repairing your relationship with exercise to better your outlook on life, read on for more information and fail-proof tips to make exercise a part of your daily life!
Exercise Enables Mood Enhancement
You've probably experienced a lighter mood after a good workout before. Or, perhaps this scenario rings a bell: You're experiencing frustration from work or studying and decide to take a brisk walk. Upon returning, you realize that your mind feels clearer and you feel more capable of carrying out tasks than before. This is because it just takes about five minutes of moderate exercise to experience mood enhancement.
By now you've most likely heard that exercising releases endorphins, but what exactly do endorphins do for us? Endorphins give us a positive feeling similar to that of morphine which is why a jog is often accompanied by a feeling of increased energy and positive outlook on life. Endorphins decrease our perception of pain and, lucky for us, this includes psychological duress. This means we have the elixir for good vibes flowing through our nervous system, we just need to unleash it!
Need more proof?
A study conducted by James Blumenthall Ph.D, clinical psychologist at Duke University, assigned sedentary adults with major depressive disorder to one of four groups: home based exercise, supervised exercise, antidepressant therapy and placebo pill. After a four month period, the study saw the most amount of remissions in the exercise and antidepressant groups concluding that exercise generally worked just as well as antidepressants (Psychosomatic Medicine, 2007).
After the one year follow up, certain participants relapsed, but they found that the participants that reported maintaining regular exercise had lower depression scores than their inactive counterparts. This means that you can't just exercise your way out of major depression, but it definitely helps to make it a regular part of your lifestyle.
How to Actually Motivate Yourself to Exercise
Now that we know how exercise improves our mental health, it's time to tackle the hardest part. Overcoming those mental obstacles and putting in the work. Here's our advice:
Don't wait to feel Motivated
If you're waiting for inspiration to strike when it comes to implementing exercise into your routine, you're going to be waiting a long time. For most Americans, exercise feels more like a chore than a great way to pass the time. Only 1 in 3, get the recommended amount of weekly exercise which is 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise a week.
Try using the 5 Second Rule instead. When you have time to get a workout in countdown from 5 and make the conscious decision that when you reach 1, you have no other choice but to accomplish that task. This eliminates the self doubt, excuses, perpetuated by the "I'll just do it tomorrow" demon. Psychologists explain these patterns of thought as our natural inclination to avoid being uncomfortable. Simply not giving yourself time to come up with those avoidance tactics can help make getting yourself to the gym a lot easier.
Find out your "Why"
If you want to implement exercise into your life for better mental health, that's already a really good "why" to push you toward your goal. If that's not enough, you need to dig a little deeper. Our "why" is the driving force behind our actions, but it's especially important for motivating us to do the things we want to do, but are challenging for us.
Ask yourself why exercising is so important to you or, more specifically, why exercising to better your mental health is so important to you. Maybe it's to be able to keep up with your kids on the playground. Maybe it's to generate those endorphins to better your outlook on life, or so you can have a better attitude to tackle the other things weighing you down.
Whatever it is that sets that fire under you to get moving, write it down and display it on your bathroom mirror and refrigerator to remind yourself every time you want to just lie in bed and call it a day.
2. Start (very) small
When dealing with symptoms of depression and anxiety, baby steps are the way to go. If you've ever heard the expression: slow and steady wins the race, you can probably picture that exhausted hare burning out before reaching the finish line.
We want to avoid that. In order for exercise to make concrete improvements in your life, it needs to become a natural part of your lifestyle. Kind of like how we all unconsciously brush our teeth every morning, it's just something you do!
In order to get there, you need to give yourself a small achievable goal like walking around the block once a day or even just once a week. This will activate a feeling of accomplishment and reward early on in the process. No one likes to feel like they're already failing at the start. If you manage to accomplish that smaller goal, feel free to reward yourself with a protein smoothie from your favorite smoothie shop. You've totally earned it!
3.Exercise with a Partner or Join a Community
Doing difficult things isn't always fun, but sometimes the people we're surrounded by can make all the difference. Consider joining your gym-rat friend or partner for a couple sessions a week or simply join a local class with an overly enthusiastic instructor (they are the BEST motivators).
There are tons of activity based classes to choose from: Zumba, Aerial Yoga, Pole Dancing, Cycling etc. Find one that makes moving fun for you and commit to attending it at least once a week. This will help you to accomplish half of your recommended 150 minutes.
4. Be Kind to Yourself
Leave that self-defeatist attitude at the door! Far too many of us listen to that bully in our brains when tackling challenging things. Healing and maintaining good health is not always comfortable. And, when we trek through difficult territories we reap some of the best rewards.
Remind yourself that the more you do it, the less challenging exercising will feel. It takes an average of 66 days for a behavior to become automatic, but sometimes habits can form as early as 18!
Whenever you hear the voice telling you to stay on the couch, think about your why and in 5,4,3,2,1 get moving! Journal how it affected your mood after the process and notice the little improvements in your stamina and form. You've got this!
Conclusion
Adding something challenging to your daily regimen is never easy, especially when functioning in low-motivational states. Exercise has benefits for all ages and when it comes to maintaining good physical and emotional health, so it's recommended to get your 150 minutes in each week.
We hope that our tips help you to include daily exercise into your regimen, but we know it's not a fix-all solution for people struggling with major depressive disorder. If depression and anxiety or other mental struggles are weighing you down and you’re interested in seeking help don’t wait to talk to someone! Contact Weston Family Psychology at (954)-384-1117 or click here to be sent to our contact page. We have a mental health professional ready to help you on your journey today.
