The Connection Between Physical Exercise and Emotional Well-Being

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the United States is experiencing a mental health crisis. Although the trend began before COVID, it worsened during lockdown and its aftermath. The burden falls especially hard on adolescents, who are at increased risk for drug overdose and death by suicide. 

Simultaneously, women, men, and youth in the United States have become increasingly sedentary and increasingly obese. A sedentary lifestyle in adolescents and mental health issues such as depression and anxiety are linked in a study across 68 different countries. 

But it isn’t only young people who suffer when they don’t actively engage with life and exercise daily. The bad news is countered by good news: Increase your exercise and activity level, and your mood rises, too. 

At The Soho Center for Mental Health Counseling, our expert counselors are devoted to optimizing mental health. In addition to offering a variety of evidence-based therapies in our offices in Greenwich Village, New York City, and via HIPAA-compliant teletherapy, we also recommend lifestyle changes to help your brain work at its best.

We often recommend exercise routines to our clients to naturally boost mood and support the new coping techniques you learn in therapy. How are physical exercise and emotional well-being connected? Here are a few ways they influence one another.

Exercise raises endorphins

Your body is like a pharmaceutical factory that manufactures and distributes chemicals that influence your health and well-being. For instance, your hypothalamus and pituitary gland produce chemicals called endorphins that act as natural pain relievers and mood lifters.

One of the most potent of the 20 or so endorphins you produce is called beta-endorphin (BE). It’s BE that’s responsible for the high that runners get. You also produce BE while engaged in other exercise, including sex, laughing, and falling in love.

Exercise turns down hunger

If you exercise regularly, you need to supply your body with plenty of high-quality protein to build muscle. But one of the benefits of regular exercise, especially high-intensity exercise, is that it can make you feel less hungry over time.

Exercise tends to balance your hunger hormones, leptin and ghrelin. Ghrelin tells you when to eat, and leptin lets you know when you’ve had enough. Instead of turning to comfort food to boost your mood — and your weight — exercise gives you a natural high that lets you feel more in control of your eating. 

Exercise distracts you

When you’re fully engaged in a physical activity, it can quiet the negative chatter in your head. The challenge of high-intensity exercise is particularly good at breaking the loop of ruminative thoughts that keep you in a state of depression or anxiety.

Exercise in nature to receive an added boost. A stroll through a park or a run on the beach takes advantage of the sun’s ability to boost mood and produce vitamin D. Exposure to both green spaces (i.e., parks and forests) and blue spaces (oceans, rivers, etc.) improves mood, memory, and cognition. 

Even a little goes a long way

You don’t have to run marathons or become a professional bodybuilder to reap the benefits of exercise on your mood. Every little bit counts.

Just 15 minutes a day of high-intensity exercise, such as running or cycling hard, has been shown to prevent depression. So does an hour-long stroll.

If that still sounds too demanding, try high-intensity interval training (HIIT). With HIIT, you engage at full capacity for just 10-30 seconds, then rest and repeat for a total of 5-15 minutes.

Even housework counts. So does walking to the store, climbing the stairs, and gardening. Basically, any excuse you can find to get off the couch or out of a chair will help your body and brain function better so you feel better, too. 

Find out how easy changes, such as moving and exercising more, can be part of your mental health treatment. Call us or use our online appointment form to book mental health therapy at our Greenwich Village, New York City office or via HIPAA-compliant teletherapy sessions today.