How does exercise help with stress?

Something that I often notice is that when people get super busy or stressed, their exercise moves further down their list of priorities. This is understandable, but it’s also a shame.  Exercise and fitness really help us to manage our stress levels.

Doing some exercise today will help to reduce symptoms of stress and getting fit in the long term can help boost your resilience for future stressful or busy times.

How does exercise do this?

-When you experience stress, your body prepares to fight or flee from the stressful situation (fight or flight response), so getting some exercise helps the body to get the physical release it has been preparing for.

-We breathe more deeply, which helps us to feel calmer than we otherwise would.

-Processes during exercise encourage the building of new brain cells which are calmer and more robust against stressful events.

-Keeping fit causes our body to produce more of the powerhouse cells in our muscles which convert food into energy (we need more energy when we’ve got more to do!).  

-Exercise helps to reduce muscular tension caused by stress.

-Exercising gives us an outlet and time for ourselves.

-Workouts and exercise boosts feelings of self-esteem.

Because of this it can be useful to find ways to keep exercising and training through busy times.

You might be thinking, “well it’s easy for you, you’re a Personal Trainer”, but nothing could be further from the truth! Personal trainers have challenges fitting their exercise in too. We have busy jobs and home and family lives just like anyone else. In fact, one of the reasons I’m able to empathise with and help people with exercise when they’re struggling-is because I have to do it too!

Here are 5 tips to keep exercising through challenging times:

1) Have a menu of workouts. Exercise is a form of stress-positive stress, but your regular workouts might overstress you when you’re experiencing outside pressures too.

2) Keep stretching. Stress makes muscles tense, tense muscles trap lactic acid in them which makes them feel achy. Stretching reverses this process.

3) Take a walk. Walking has been shown to improve creativity and problem solving-just what you need during times of stress.

4) Remember how you want to feel. Exercise releases tension and makes our body produce feel good hormones. How you feel after you’ve done it is more important than how you’re feeling before you start!

5) Be realistic. Do too much and you’ll burn out, do too little and you’ll miss out on the stress busting benefits. Creating a realistic schedule will help you get the best of both worlds.

Here are a few do’s and don’t of exercise and stress:

Do-keep going! Exercise is one of the biggest stress busters we have. Keeping going when times are tough helps us to manage those tough times.

Don’t-overdo it. It might not be realistic for you to do your normal routine when your time and energy are in demand. Do enough to get the benefits, but no more than that.

Do-be flexible. An all or nothing approach never works. Do too much and you’ll burn out, do nothing and you’ll feel rubbish.

Don’t-Give up. You may need to exercise at times that differ from your preference, or ask for help to make things work, but the benefits will outweigh the work it takes to get them.

I recently did a Facebook live with an interactive Q&A all about exercise and stress. It’s just 36 minutes long, but packed full of info. If you’d like to watch it, you can do so here.

To your health,

Steve.