Your Brain on Exercise

Photo by Danielle Sarracino

Have you ever had one of those day where you are just feeling down in the dumps and feel like there is no way to boost your mood? Well do I have the perfect boost that you need...EXERCISE!
It may sound like a crazy idea, I mean who feels great after exercising it is so tiresome, but the truth is that it is proven to boost your mood. When doing any kind of physical activity from playing a sport to even just walking, you are releasing dopamine, a hormone that gives that warm and fuzzy feeling, into your system because it binds to receptors that help to diminish the feeling of pain. It is very similar to the effects that people get when on morphine without any of the adverse effects of being on a drug. Over the winter and summer breaks I was suffering, and still am, from anxiety and the one things that helped me every day were my walks. I would just go and walk for about an hour or more a day, every single day, with a bouncy ball, to rid all of my anxious tendencies. Even though this only helped a slight bit, it was something that made me feel good about myself and turned into something that I can do whenever I have an anxious thought or feeling. With that in mind, exercising daily is proven to make you feel good about yourself, get rid of anxious thoughts, rid you of feelings of depression, even distress you from a long dayAll I can say is that I endorse exercising to get rid of things that are stressful and get the endorphins flowing because it not only boosts your mood, but boosts how you feel about yourself.

Photo by Danielle Sarracino

These pictures might seem a bit random in this entry, but these are some pictures that I took over the winter break when I would go on my walks.









Reference
http://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/exercise-depression