Fitness Savvy
It’s no surprise that exercise acts as the best stress reliever. Doing regular physical activities can help relieve stress, make your mind relax and keep your body energized.
Stress is a normal reaction, nearly everyone feels depressed at some point in their lives. The human body has a natural ability to cope with stressful situations by producing physical and mental responses. Sometimes, stress keeps your mind and body alert to adjust to new situations. For instance, if you are preparing for a medical school exam, a stress response may help your body to work harder and stay awake. But if stress lasts for a long period of time, it leads to physical, emotional, and behavioral changes.
Stress can cause serious mental health issues like anxiety, depression and badly affect the quality of life. If you are starting a new job, preparing for exams, struggling to meet a deadline, managing debt, or experiencing abuse, you might feel depressed. Knowing how to manage stress and promote your overall health can help you keep stress at bay.
Fortunately, there are some stress relieving exercises that can help you deal with the changes in a healthier way. Let’s explore the best exercises to reduce stress and refresh your mind and body.
Exercises and Stress Management – What’s the Connection?
If you are wondering how moving around and doing some exercises can reduce stress, you are not alone. Many people are unaware of the fact that doing regular physical exercise can enable your body to get the stress response system back to normal. Moving around helps your body to release endorphins that plays a key role in reducing stress. Some exercises possess stress busting properties and can improve your overall well-being.
Here are some amazing stress relieving benefits of regular physical activities.
- Staying physically active will increase the production of important neurotransmitters, endorphins. When your body’s endorphins levels are up, you will feel good. These biochemicals produce feelings of satisfaction, contentment, joy, fulfillment and peace.
- Exercise can reduce the symptoms of stress by increasing the flight and fight mechanism and protecting the body from harmful effects of stress.
- By regularly participating in physical activities and concentrating on body movements, your brain will start to shed the tensions, resulting in high levels of motivation and optimism.
- Exercise can boost your self-confidence, improve your mood, and lower symptoms of anxiety. It has a positive effect on your sleep and makes you feel relaxed.
Exploring the Best Exercises to Reduce Stress
Walking
It is one of the easiest and effective stress-relieving exercises that can significantly improve your overall health and reduce stress levels. According to a study, people with regular walking have low stress levels and high self-confidence levels. Set aside time for a 10-20-minute walk and it will improve the breathing pattern, release muscle tension, and maintain your health.
According to several reports, it has been proven that going for a 10-minute walk is beneficial to restore your inner calm. However, a 45-minute walk is more beneficial to reduce anxiety and stress.
Besides stress management, walking is a proven weight loss strategy that can allow you to drop extra pounds and fit in your favorite jeans. So, go for a walk to improve your mood, relax your mind and lose weight.
Gardening
Gardening can improve your mental health and make you feel peaceful. Yes, you have read it right. Planting a garden is undoubtedly an effective stress-relieving exercise. According to a study, gardening allows you to restore your positive mood and minimize stress. Gardening is an effective stress reliever that allows you to concentrate and connect with nature. If you feel overwhelmed, take some time for gardening and you will definitely feel better and positive about yourself.
Dancing
Dancing is one of the most effective physical activities that help relieve stress, frustrations, and anger. It helps you stay physically active, healthy, and fit, while maintaining your mental and emotional wellbeing. Dancing is an interesting physical exercise that can increase your self-esteem and confidence. During dancing our brain releases neurotransmitters, endorphins that are responsible for reducing stress and making you feel happy.
The habit of engaging in regular activity like dancing can improve your mood, ability to concentrate and reduce stress. In addition, dancing can strengthen your muscles and relieve joint aches and pain. It is an effective stress management technique that can boost stamina, improve balance, mental strength, and cognitive performance.
According to several studies conducted by different medical schools and research institutes, it has been proven that dancing improves mood, concentration, and long-term memory. It increases brain power, improves intellectual brain functions, and reduces depression symptoms among students.
Swimming
It is one of the best stress-relieving exercises that is great for your cardiovascular health and reduces stress. Some studies have shown that swimming helps promote the growth of neurons that break down during stressful situations. Swimming is an amazing physical activity that can keep your brain healthy, soothes your mind, and relaxes your body.
So, set aside some time for this fun and exciting physical activity and experience a great sense of happiness and wellbeing. A study conducted by medical school shows that water-based activities like swimming can make students happier, improve focus, concentration and reduce the symptoms of anxiety and depression.
Yoga
Yoga is considered as the best exercise or stress and anxiety relief. In fact, it is a research-backed way to reduce stress and anxiety. Yoga is a great exercise to improve your mood and emotional well-being. It increases your ability to stay calm and relax during stressful situations. Practicing yoga is the healthy approach to improve balance, coordination, muscle strength, and flexibility.
It is the safest way to manage lower back pain, neck pain, and lower the chances of heart diseases, arthritis, and insomnia. Regularly practicing yoga is good for your mental health, controlled breathing, increases spirituality, improves physical postures, and improves sleep.
The best thing about yoga is that it can easily combine with different stress management techniques like meditation, stretching and breathing exercises, and fitness programs. The goal of all these exercises is to boost your mental and physical health.
Stretching
Stress causes mental and physical stiffness. Thanks to stretching exercises that can help improve your flexibility and relax your muscles. With stretching exercises, you can improve body posture, range of motion, and blood circulation. It can effectively reduce muscle and joint stiffness, improve your physical performance, and improve mental health.
After attending back to back lectures, spending a hectic day at work, and doing too many home chores, take a few moments for stretching to find calm, breathe and release mental stress. Stretching can reduce muscle tension, improve mood, lower depression, and anxiety. Stretching improves serotonin levels which makes you feel happy and maintain your emotional wellbeing.
High-Intensity Interval Training
High-Intensity Interval Training or HIIT is a scientifically proven way to manage stress and anxiety. Working out can increase the levels of happy hormones, endorphins that improve your mood and make you feel relaxed? According to fitness experts, intense workouts are good for improving mental strength and increasing your ability to cope with stress and difficult challenges.
HIIT can increase your focus and concentration while making you feel calmer. The high intensity workouts allow you to sense your body’s movements and truly focus on the moment. This practice will improve your cognitive health and produce positive effects on anxiety levels and worry symptoms.
High intensity workouts are good for weight management, reduce stress, improve sleep, and boost your mood. Try to do a 20-minute HIIT workout to increase your brain power, release muscle tension and relieve stress.
Conclusion
All in all, physical activity is an effective way to reduce stress and make you feel good. The above-mentioned exercises are the research backed ways to alleviate all your stress, focus on your physical health and calm your mind.
