The Mental Health Blog- Give Me 2 Mins Of Your Time To Lead You To A Happier YOU
The purpose of this blog is to help encourage you to improve your mental health through exercise.
Let’s begin with some facts. Some hard truths. In 2018, there were 6859 suicides in the UK and deaths by suicide rose by 11.8% [Samaritans.Org]. Furthermore, approximately 1 in 4 people will experience mental health issues each year [McManus et al, 2009]. Mental health is gaining more and more exposure and people are being encouraged to speak about mental health issues. This is great! But, it is all very reactive solutions to a problem. Instead of being reactive about mental health, we need to be proactive in dealing with mental health issues, before they become a bigger issue. Let's discuss this further, with scientific based research findings.
Exercise has been found to lead to mental health benefits. These are listed below. EXERCISE: MENTAL HEALTH BENEFITS:
Exercise improves mental health by reducing anxiety, depression, and negative mood and by improving self-esteem and cognitive function [Callaghan et al, 2004].
Checkroud et al, 2015 found that regular exercise led to fewer days that participants mental health wasn’t good. He had a sample size of MORE THAN 1 MILLION!
Subjects who participated in a two-week exercise program showed significant improvements in anxiety sensitivity compared with a control group (Depression and Anxiety, 2008). "Exercise in many ways is like exposure treatment," says Smits. "People learn to associate the symptoms with safety instead of danger”.
Improved mood [ Penedo, F.J& Dahn, J.R (2005).
Improved sleep due to reduction in stress.
HOW LONG TO EXERCISE FOR TO REAP THE BENEFITS?
Okay so you are ready to start using exercise to improve your mental health, but how much should you do?
A study found that even just 30 mins of walking, 3 times a week had mental health benefits. This could even be broken into 3*10 min bouts of walking. [Sharma et al, 2006].
Durations of 45 min and frequencies of three to five times per week [Chekroud et al, 2018].
Be your own experiment with this. See how many times a week of exercising you do to improve your mental health! SummaryOf course, mental health issues can be so deep and multifactorial that it can’t just be resolved by exercise. Therefore, if you are struggling with mental health, I want you to ask yourself these questions. Where does it derive from? At what point do I get these negative feelings? Is there a trend with when I am feeling upset? Only then can you begin to tackle the issue, because if you can’t pinpoint the problem, how can you expect yourself to find a solution?
Concluding remarks
Either way, it is down to yourself to work out how many times a week helps with your mental state. Implement exercise into your life and in a few weeks, consider this….. Has exercise helped you gain more sleep? Are you less stressed? Are you happier? If you answer yes to these questions, then you are another number to these studies in proving that exercise is beneficial for mental health! If you found this article useful, please let me know!
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References [1] McManus, S., Meltzer, H., Brugha, T. S., Bebbington, P. E., & Jenkins, R. (2009). Adult psychiatric morbidity in England, 2007: results of a household survey. The NHS Information Centre for health and social care. [2] Chekroud et al, Association between physical exercise and mental health in 1.2 million individuals in the USA between 2011 and 2015: a cross- sectional study [3] Exercise: a neglected intervention in mental health care?, Callaghan P, J Psychiatr Ment Health Nurs. 2004 Aug; 11(4):476-83. [4] Penedo, F.J. & Dahn, J.R. (2005). Exercise and well-being: a review of mental and physical health benefits associated with physical activity. Current Opinion in Psychiatry. 18 (2), 189–193