When in a bad mood, it will be much better to go out for a walk; When you feel sad, go to the gym, sweat, and feel comfortable physically and mentally.
We may all know that exercise is good for our health. Exercise can bring us better cardiopulmonary function, maintain a healthy weight and improve immunity.
However, do you know the benefits of exercise for mental health?
I came across a book recently, Psychological Gym. Through the detailed research of neuroscience and psychology, I tell us that exercise is very beneficial to our brains. Regular exercise can help us eliminate negative emotions, relieve mild depression and make our brains healthier.
The author of this book, Christina hibbert, is a clinical psychologist who studies women's mental health, self-esteem and self-worth. She is a mother of six children, deeply troubled by postpartum depression, and later came out because of exercise. For many years, exercise has been the main force to keep her mental health.
So, what kind of influence does exercise have on our mental health? We know the importance of exercise, why can't we keep it up? This book will give you the answer.
In modern society, with fast pace and great pressure, many people are in a sub-health state. However, due to social prejudice, cognitive limitations, the cost of psychotherapy and other reasons, many people will be deeply troubled by psychological problems.
In fact, exercise can help us solve many minor mental health problems.
★ Exercise can improve serotonin, dopamine and adrenaline in the brain. It is found that most people with anxiety, depression and other mental diseases have low levels of these neurotransmitters. Therefore, when exercise increases these neurotransmitters, people can avoid these psychological problems more.
★ Exercise can increase endorphins. Endorphin is a hormone secreted by pituitary gland, which can produce analgesic effect and make people feel happy. Aerobic exercise can make the brain produce endorphins and make us feel carefree.
★ Exercise can improve your mood. Research shows that exercise can play a better role than other relaxation techniques and methods that can create happiness and divert attention when you are in a bad mood.
★ Exercise can relieve stress, reduce the incidence of depression, slow down the symptoms of depression, and reduce our anxiety and anxiety. Exercise can help us stay calm and relaxed.
In addition, exercise has other advantages that psychotherapy does not have.
For example, we can exercise anytime and anywhere. We can exercise in the living room at home, take a walk on the way to work, or do some simple exercises in the office.
Most of the exercises are free. There are many exercise apps and videos now, and we can all use them to study and exercise.
Exercise is an economical and effective way to improve mental health.
We already know the benefits that sports can bring, but I believe many people still can't stick to it.
Why can't you keep exercising? The author talks about three possibilities in the book.
First of all, the reason why we can't persist may be because our motives are not clear.
Second, the expectation of exercise is unreasonable.
Third, unreasonable goal setting will also make it difficult for us to keep exercising.
Next, let's look at the reasons why we can't persist.
(1) The motive is not clear.
Motivation is our motivation to do something. Many times, things can't be done, and the big probability is that there is something wrong with the motivation.
Generally speaking, motivation is divided into intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation.
External motivation refers to the external reward we get for doing something. For example, if exercise makes us in better shape, others will praise us and we may be more popular.
Intrinsic motivation means that when we do something, we will feel like, excited, challenged and satisfied.
Although external motivation is the best motivation for us to start action and achieve short-term goals, in the long run, having internal motivation is the key to persistence.
For example, I used to work out and lose weight. In order to look better, I briefly performed this exercise for a few days. In case of difficulties, I will retreat quickly.
But then I gradually realized that exercise is not to lose weight, but to exercise my heart and lung ability and make myself healthier, and I found that my mentality became more positive after exercise, and I went to exercise when I had time.
Therefore, if you want to keep exercising for a long time, the first thing you need to change is your own cognition. We should really agree with the benefits that exercise brings to our physical and mental health, and experience the changes brought to our physical and mental health bit by bit in the process of practice, so as to motivate ourselves to go on.
② Unreasonable expectations
Many people around me, including myself, have high expectations for sports.
We hope that when we lose weight through exercise, we expect ourselves to reach a nearly perfect figure in a month or even less, but in fact, it is almost impossible.
In this mood, we may seek some extreme ways, such as taking diet pills and dieting. But in fact, these methods are not only useless but also harmful to our health.
Therefore, we should have a reasonable expectation for ourselves and exercise.
You can ask yourself what your inner expectations are for sports first, then compare with the reality, recognize your current state, and then make expected adjustments in combination with the current reality.
③? Unreasonable goal setting
The exercise that we can't persist in is often because our goals are set unreasonably.
Research shows that when a goal has the following four characteristics, our motivation and performance will remain at the best level:
First, the goal should be specific.
When our goals are clear and specific, it is easier for us to achieve them. For example, the goal of "I want to exercise more" is not as clear as the goal of "I want to swim for half an hour three times a week", and it will be more difficult to implement.
Second, the goal should be challenged.
If we want to make changes, we must do something challenging.
For example, if you never exercise, you can set yourself a goal and walk downstairs in the community three times a day after work; And if you have a certain training foundation, this goal is not challenging, so you need to adjust your goal.
Third, make a commitment.
Commitment is to let yourself know what kind of exercise goals you have set. For example, "I will swim for half an hour three times a week" is a promise.
Fourth, there must be feedback.
In the process of carrying out the goal, we need to check our progress from time to time, or we can send promises to our relatives and friends, asking them to monitor themselves and give them some feedback.
After setting the goal, we need to make a plan, that is, if we can't complete the original goal because of the change of environment or body, do we have an alternative plan?
For example, your original goal was to exercise in the gym three times a week 1 hour, but recently the gym could not be opened because of the epidemic. So, do you have a plan here? Do you exercise at home? Or running in the community?
After solving the problems of motivation, expectation and goal setting, it is no longer difficult to persist in exercise.
The book Psychological Gym is not a book about losing weight, nor is it a book about fitness. It tells us from the cognitive level what exercise means to us and how to do it better.
In addition, there are some specific exercise suggestions in the book, such as the frequency and intensity of exercise. Every suggestion in the book is basically supported by a lot of detailed experiments and data, which is very worth reading.
If you feel sad, I strongly recommend that you open this book, follow this book, and let's start exercising together!