As a kid, I exercised all the time. It was almost a cultural thing we grew up in. If you wanted to have fun, 50% of that fun would be found outside and 100% of what you did outside would involve physical exercise. And I believe this was a big help in developing my mental health.
Let me explain:
If I wasn’t running, jumping, and climbing, I was fighting other kids for fun or seeing who could do the most pull-ups or pushups. I was sneaking around being a little punk, lifting boxes for adults, or swimming (I swam as much as I possibly could as a kid).
When I grew older and moved away from my hometown, I realized that most of the US didn’t do that. Most kids in the US were “inside kids”, and unless you went to a gym, that didn’t really change as you got older.
Everyone in the rest of the country went to coffee shops, arcades, the movies (at least, more often than I went to the movies). It was all about entertainment of the mind and eyes and tongue, not of the body. The general message was “Why should I put myself through physical strain? That would make me tired”.
What Are The Effects Of Physical Exercise On Mental Health?
Studies have shown that when we exercise, we exhaust our adrenalin, depression, and stress hormones. With lower levels of these hormones, our bodies already begin to relax and not carry around so much of a “dark cloud” to our minds.
But that’s not all!
Excuse me for sounding like an infomercial, but it is, in fact, true: there is more.
Not only does your body get rid of the – let’s call them negative hormones, it also produces more positive ones for us!
It stimulates the production of endorphins, chemicals in the brain that are the body’s natural painkillers and mood elevators.
Our body’s are wonderful things! The more we take care of ourselves, the more our body’s do to take care of us! Truly such a blessing, the human body is!
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