EXERCISE AND MENTAL HEALTH
*Disclaimer: While we advocate for exercise as an adjunct treatment to mental health issues, we are not licensed mental health professionals and recommend anyone struggling with mental health issues to seek treatment from a licensed mental health professional first.
It’s been about 7 weeks since Governor Kate Brown officially gave the “Stay Home, Save Lives” order, causing the vast majority of Oregonians to begin working from home, students to begin online learning, and businesses to begin closing their doors. While initially most folks were having fun doing impromptu home workouts with, as the weeks went on people started wondering just how many more pushups and burpees they could really stomach before they started to feel a little cabin fever. Now that the weather is getting warmer and the days are getting longer many of us are starting to get really antsy about not being able to meet friends on the tennis courts or socialize with our usual gym buddies after work hours. Suffice it to say that a lot of us are realizing that exercise has a greater impact on our lives than just the physical health factor. Since May is Mental Health Awareness Month we wanted to talk about an important aspect of exercise that often gets overlooked which is its role in our psychological and emotional well-being.
What we do know
The evidence suggests that exercise, performed at moderate levels of intensity, can have mood boosting effects. Studies have shown improved emotional outlook, reduced anxiety, and reduction in depressive episodes are all positively correlated with exercise. Historically, most of these studies have used aerobic exercise as an intervention but recent studies have found that resistance training, particularly in the elderly, can also be a helpful means of improving not only mental health but also mental cognition.
In addition to improving mood and relieving stress, regular participation in exercise has also been shown to have positive impacts on the following:
Sleep
Libido
Endurance
Mental alertness
Weight management
Heart health
All-cause mortality
From where we sit there really are no downsides to having a regular exercise routine. Further, we would even argue that eliminating exercise when facing an injury or other health related issue is the wrong approach to take despite what other advice you may receive from other health care providers.
What we don’t know
Mental health is not only a multi faceted issue, but a completely individual one. In other words, one person’s experience with depression is not going to be fully representative of another person’s although there may be many similarities. It’s because of these complexities and layers to mental health make it so difficult to identify why exercise is so beneficial for mental health.
Is it exercise’s benefits to your physical health that help you develop a stronger sense of self? Is it the changes in neurotransmitters and brain function that make exercise so powerful to your mood? Or maybe it’s developing a routine and that sense of control that gives you a boost in your self-efficacy in all aspects of life. The truth is that all of these effects are playing a role to some degree.
Another variable with exercise and mental health that we don’t fully understand yet is dosage. In other words, we don’t know exactly how much exercise is beneficial. We do know that too little exercise may just feel like a waste of time after a while and will have a reduced potency on any physiological benefits as well, but “too much” exercise can also have negative implications. We see this in those who struggle with dysmorphia and eating disorders. The overconsumption of exercise to the point that the body is unable to fully recover from all the physical stress. While the changes may be subtle at first, they are no less harmful and certainly nothing to turn a blind eye to. The conversation of dosage brings us back to the notion of individuality - just how much exercise is necessary for you to achieve positive results is going to be unique and specific to you and you alone. Similarly, how much and what type of exercise you participate in is going to vary within yourself depending on the goals you are pursuing. Exercising for endurance, exercising for strength, and exercising for stress reduction are different goals and ought to be pursued through different lenses. We’ve written about this in a previous blog called “How To Maintain Your Fitness At Home”.
So what are we supposed to do about it?
Now that we’ve identified that exercise should be an important part of our mental wellness, we need to discuss what practical steps we can take to use exercise as a tool to improve our emotional status.
1. Start with what you know
Are you intimidated by strength training exercises but enjoy going for walks or bike rides? Start with activities you enjoy and play around with increasing intensity (speed walks, for example) or increasing duration.
2. Set easy to attain goals at first
Creating a list of 10 goals that include a complete body composition overhaul, practicing meditation for 2 hours per day (if you don’t currently meditate at all), and becoming independently wealthy all before stay-at-home orders are officially lifted is likely to be too lofty of a list and could possibly result in burnout and a worsened emotional state. However, committing to 60 minutes of exercise where you have an elevated heart rate and some degree of perspiration 4 times a week is a great place to start. Or perhaps you could choose 1 exercise you find intimidating and try it just twice per week for a few reps (if it’s a resistance training exercise) or 15 minutes (if it’s an endurance exercise). The point is, setting micro goals that are within arms reach is a great way to develop the momentum needed to achieve harder to reach goals.
3. Be honest
Sometimes it is difficult to express what it is we are feeling or why we are even feeling a certain way. Especially in a situation like quarantine where things feel so out of reach and the idea of returning life “back to normal” seems unrealistic. It can be helpful in this instance to talk to a friend, a family member, or even a professional to get a different perspective on our status and to help craft a plan to move forward.
4. Get help
After a few days or weeks into your new exercise routine you will likely find that your program needs a bit more sophistication and outside perspective. One of the many benefits of our physical therapy program at Headquarters is our perspective on the individual as a whole. What has long been a profession centered around “healing” people from their aches and pains (which is a bit of a stretch in our opinion), our program is truly designed to help identify and address whatever issues the client is experiencing and find ways that education and exercise can help them overcome roadblocks to their physical and emotional wellness.
So while we realize that everyone needs a little help sometimes, our sole purpose as healthcare providers is to help patients need us less.
Our commitment to mental health
We recognize that the COVID-19 crisis is creating an increase in mental health challenges for many folks in Portland, OR. Whether due to unemployment issues, housing insecurity, domestic abuse, isolation, and/or PTSD for those working in the front lines of hospitals and essential services our commitment to the greater good of our community remains unchanged. Because of this we are offering a discount through the entire month of May on all physical therapy visits with an additional discount for those who work in hospitals and grocery stores. In addition, we are pledging 5% of all sales in May to be donated to Northwest Family Services to assist them in their mission to “support family stability, child well-being, and victims of crime by focusing on the social determinants of health.” More information on our May Stock Up and Save program can be found by clicking the link below.
If you, or anyone you know, could benefit from some guidance on exercise as a means to address mental health please reach out to us via the links below.