Movement & Mental Health

It's something we all pretty much know by now. You should eat your veggies and exercise regularly. Although it's not groundbreaking that healthy choices like exercising consistently improve the health of our bodies, it's important for us to remember that exercising is so important for the health of your brain and general emotional health too!

Photo by "Fit Approach" used with CC License 2.0

Stress Relief & Self-Care

Exercise is one of the top recommendations I make for my clients to include in their self-care routine. Yes, bubble baths are nice and relaxing, but ramping up your heart rate in a sweaty workout actually has more benefits for dealing with stress. 

When you exercise, the concentrations of norepinephrine in your brain increase. Norepinephrine is a hormone and neurotransmitter secreted during times of stress. According to this article by the American Psychological Association, it is posited that increasing the norepinephrine in your brain through regular exercise allows your body to practice handling stress and therefore improves its ability to do so. When we become less active, our body becomes less efficient at responding to stress.

Anxiety & Depression

When we exercise, our bodies release endorphins, which are responsible for what is referred to as exercise-induced euphoria. Having this kind of experience daily as a result of exercise can enhance our general sense of well-being. That paired with the enhanced ability to cope with stress can help provide relief from symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Exercising also puts you in a state where you are more focused on what you need to make your body do rather than the million thoughts that run through your mind all the time. In short, exercising forces you into a state where you are more mindful of the present moment (check out my other articles to learn more about the benefits of mindfulness).

Brain Performance & Health

Many studies support that cardiovascular exercise can help generate new brain cells, a process called neurogenesis, which improves the brain's functions of learning and memory. Exercise-inducted neurogenesis has also been supported as helpful in preventing or reducing the impacts of neurological disorders related to cognitive decline, such as Alzheimer's disease.

On top of this, physical exercise has long been linked with improvement in your brain's ability to focus, as well as learn and remember. As such, physical exercise is often encouraged as a part of treatment for individuals diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). It's also just helpful in performing better in school, work, and everyday interactions!

Socializing & Confidence

Socializing with others is an important aspect of living an emotionally healthy life and exercising is a great way to meet new people. Whether you're a regular in fitness classes (CrossFit, Barre, spin class, Zumba, yoga, etc.), using equipment at your local gym, or going for walk around your neighborhood, engaging in exercise increases your chance of seeing other people and maybe even exchanging a smile, boosting your mood. Working out with others quickly builds a sense of camaraderie and community, decreasing inhibitions we may experience in other kinds of social interactions.

Improved senses of self-confidence and self-esteem are well-supported benefits of exercise. When you exercise, regardless of the activity, your age, or your weight, you start setting goals for yourself. If you stick with it, you'll undoubtedly start to watch yourself achieve them, set bigger ones, and feel more accomplished and capable in general.

Exercise isn't just helpful at making your clothes fit better and the number on the scale go down. It's a vital part of maintaining your mental health, too. So if you're starting to feel yourself slide on any fitness or health-related goals set at the beginning of the year, try not to worry or give up. Just get back in those stretchy pants and move your body! 

The Problem with Mindfulness

In recent years, Mindfulness Practice has gotten a lot of attention. It is part of recommended treatments for everything: from anxiety and depression (see archived articles on this blog) to cancer and pain management. There are numerous physical and mental health benefits from mindfulness meditation, and it is practically risk-free, so what could be the problem?

Despite my obvious affection for it, I do take issue with how mindfulness meditation is sometimes approached, particularly considering its growing popularity. People hear how effectively it helps high stress--and other conditions--so they download apps or stream videos on YouTube and give it a whirl! Though these resources house fantastic guided mindfulness practices, this is often where the problem begins.

Mindfulness is defined by Jon Kabat-Zinn as, “paying attention in a particular way; on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally”. When mindfulness meditation is practiced with the focus on relieving stress, it can frequently have the opposite effect. We start setting expectations for ourselves and for mindfulness, like:

• “I should be able to do this, it’s so simple”
• “This is supposed to be relaxing. Why don’t I feel relaxed?”
• “This isn’t working. There must be something wrong with me”
• “I’ve done this a few times now and I’m still depressed/anxious/stressed. I knew this wouldn’t work.”

When this happens, we lose sight of the fact that mindfulness is meant to be practiced with the sole expectation of being present in that moment, nonjudgmentally. That’s the goal. All the other things are wonderful, helpful, fantastic side effects.

So if you’ve given up on the idea that mindfulness could be for you, or if you’ve tried practicing mindfulness and thought it was ineffective, I urge you to reconsider.

Try starting with the sole aim of paying attention to the present moment, without judgment. It sounds simple but this goal is plenty lofty.

unResolve

January is here again, bringing with it the season of resolutions to change your life and be the best you you’ve always wanted to be! Sadly, these resolutions will likely unravel unceremoniously around February.

It’s not an optimistic outlook but statistically, most of our New Year’s resolutions are doomed before they begin. As a counselor, I of course have hope and faith that people really can change themselves and their lives for the better--in fact, I’ve helped many in that process! So why do I have such a dreary outlook at this so-called fresh start?

The problem with New Year’s resolutions is mostly about how we approach them and what the word resolution implies. Resolution is a firm decision to do or not do something and often it is seen as a way of solving a problem. This means that when we make a resolution, we are essentially planning to here-and-now completely change a large set of behaviors in our lives to solve a core issue. That’s quite a tall order! No wonder we fail year after year. That’s simply not how behavior change works.

In order to change behavior, there not only has to be knowledge or awareness that there is a problem, but there has to be a plan for how to approach the change. There must be an intense motivation internally as well as externally to follow that plan (meaning drive and accountability, respectively). A large part of behavior change is altering the way you think, creating new neural pathways, and minimizing a desire to cheat or quit.

So how do you set yourself up for success when you have that serious intention to make a big change in your life?

Change Wording

Words are important and more powerful than we can imagine. Consider revamping your typical “resolution” to be a theme for the year. Create a simple mantra-like word or short phrase you can repeat to yourself frequently. Maybe this will be your year of “Yes!” (taking chances and trying new things), the year of “No” (setting firm, new boundaries that will be healthy for you), or the year of “Healthy Decisions” (focusing on exercising, hydrating, and eating well in addition to losing weight). Whatever it is, make it meaningful to you and descriptive of the change you’re working on!

Goldilocks Specificality

You always hear about the importance of setting specific, measurable goals in order to achieve success. Being vague can set you up for failure but being too specific can as well! Your focus can become too narrow on severely specific goals that either guide you toward finding ways of getting out of it or encourage you to achieve at an unreasonably high cost. Work instead of having an area of focus, like the aforementioned theme, with some specific parameters. So create a map for change but leave yourself room to re-route when you encounter roadblocks.

Take Steps, Not Leaps

Many of us are aware that small steps toward a larger goal is a better way to approach change, but what does that actually look like? It’s thinking about the thing you want to change on a daily basis and refraining from getting ahead of yourself. Break your big goal down into smaller ones, and then smaller still, until you get down to a step you can take today. Each day, keep your focus on the efforts you can make now that will put you in more alignment with your chosen theme.

Set Rewards in Theme

Rewards are vital to success of a goal and should be celebrated at small and big milestones alike! Yay!

But here’s the catch. The reward you set should be appropriate for the amount of progress made and should not just be in alignment with your theme but be encouraging you to continue living your change.

For instance, if your goal is for better physical health, it will not be productive to set a reward of a cupcake. That’s allowing you to continue treating food as reward, celebration, or entertainment when you’re trying to retrain your brain to consider it sustenance. A more appropriate reward might be some new exercise gear that makes you excited about your next workout or a healthy cookbook that gets you jazzed about quinoa and kale!

If better money management is your aim, maybe treat yourself to a day of enjoying free entertainment in your city, like a walking tour, city-sponsored events, or an afternoon at the library with a thermos of coffee you made at home.

This is an opportunity to get creative and have fun exploring the fruits of behavior change and will help drive that inner motivation to keep up the hard work!

Accountability

Find a friend or several people with whom you can share your progress, regresses, or stagnation. Choose people you can be open with and invite them to call you out if you’re making excuses and looking for ways to quit or cheat.

Overall, one of the best ways to help you make the change you want in your life is to really, actually want it--not just because January 1st came around again! If you think of your goal on December 28th, then that’s a perfect day to get started and start living your change. If on March 5th you realize you haven’t been living your theme for a couple weeks, get back on the horse right away while you ponder how to better navigate whatever roadblock you encountered in the future!