Finding happiness, relieving stress through exercise
There are reports from fitness experts and research saying that the human body is meant to move. From ancient Greek philosophers to modern day exercise physiologists, people have been advocating movement and exercise as a standard for fitness and health and wellbeing. There are reports from fitness experts that relate from personal experiences, as well as talking with individuals that they coach or train, that exercise becomes addictive. If you are going to have an addiction, at least exercise is a healthy addiction.
The problem in modern day society is that many occupations involve sitting down during the job. Truck drivers, office workers, accountants, authors, students in class, and people addicted to computer games are only a sample of individuals sitting down too much for the day. Some reports suggest sitting is one of the worst positions for a person’s back and lack of blood flow to the lower legs. Fitness experts recommend from 45 minutes to 60 minutes of movement for 5 days of the week. A good point to mention is that those 45 -60 minutes do not have to be all at one time. The time can be broken down to many short movements that will add up to those minutes the experts recommend. Simple movements such as standing up and walking around for a few minutes during the day can add up the minutes to help correct the damaging effects of sitting for eight hours, or more, every day.
While moving is good for health benefits there is a not often mentioned side effect of exercise that is a real plus. The side benefit is that most fit individuals are happy people. There is some research that mentions happy people have less stress, handle stress better - (if life hands them lemons, they make lemonade), sleep better, have lower blood pressure, slower pulse rates, get sick less often, have fewer colds, and have fewer aches and pains. The medical doctors and researchers mention that the benefits of being fit also produces less chance of stroke, heart disease and cancer.
Exercise or some form of movement can go a long way to handling stress. When I was young and had a stressful day (low test score or too much homework) my release was to lift weights. My sister played the piano. I could tell when she was having a bad day because she pounded out some Bach. When she was in a good mood the composer was leaning more toward Beethoven. I noticed that she may start out with Bach and after some minutes was playing Irving Berlin. That was her stress release.
Another good example of noticing how fitness and exercise may benefit a person’s mood is observing runners congregating after a race. There are lots of smiles, laughter, and happy conversation with other runners. More than once I have observed when a runner felt bad because of a slow time, or feeling that they didn’t perform well, almost immediately there are five or six other runners talking to them and trying to cheer them up. There was a group of us that ran a marathon together. One of our group finished in just a little over four hours. He was almost to the point of being depressed because he didn’t break the four hours that the rest of us did. He was reminded that the main object was to finish a marathon. We also reminded him that he still beat about 50% of the other runners. It wasn’t too long before he was feeling good about what he had accomplished. Being happy can be contagious.
Of course the experts write that happy people have more serotonin and dopamine and endorphins in their blood stream and less buildup of cortisol as the reason for why people are happier. That is all well and good for researchers, but the average person notices the changes in how well the day went for them and that is what counts.
There is one trend that unhappy people have that often leads to health problems. When they are feeling down they reach for a ‘comfort food’ such as a box of chocolates or a half gallon of ice cream. Not exercising and eating food that has high calories doesn’t take long to add on those extra pounds. Happy and fit people tend to reach for a more beneficial food such as apples, bananas, and nuts. Of course, after a hard race pizza is always a good comfort food for runners. Make it a point to be happy and make for a better day and to make other people’s day a happier one also.
