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Benefits of Regular Exercise

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No one would argue that regular exercise yields physiological benefits. But, the benefits of exercise go far beyond its effects on the body. Regular exercisers have an outlook on life that is generally more positive and they are able to confront the daily hassles of life more positively than sedentary folk. Not only are there direct psychological benefits of exercise, the physical benefits create indirect psychological benefits as well.

Activity Type and Well Being

The American College of Sports Medicine recommends that all people regularly do activities that address each component of overall fitness: cardiovascular endurance (achieved through aerobic activity), strength (achieved through weight-lifting) and flexibility (achieved through stretching). Each of these types of exercise can improve one's sense of psychological well-being. However, because the most profound effects on mental health are derived through aerobic exercise, it is the major focus of this brochure. Nonetheless, it should be noted that regular strength training and stretching reduces the potential for injury from the strenuous and repetitive nature of aerobic activity. Thus, even though your primary motive in pursuing a fitness program may be to improve psychological well-being, it is important that you also pay attention to strength and flexibility to reduce the chances that your aerobic workouts will be disrupted by injury. Some helpful guidelines on what to do, how and when to do it are provided.

The Physical Payoffs

Exercise is an investment in your physical and psychological health. The benefits of exercise are both short- and long-term. The short-term effects of aerobic exercise last up to 36 hours. Significant training effects accrue with just a few weeks of regular aerobic activity. But in order to maintain these fitness gains, activity must continue on a regular basis. Studies show that ten percent of cardiovascular gains can be lost after two weeks of inactivity and up to 40 percent after a month of inactivity. Following is a (non-exhaustive) list of physical benefits one can expect from regular aerobic exercise:

Decreased resting heart rate

Improved recovery time (heart rate returns to its resting level faster)

Decreased resting blood pressure

Increased efficiency of heart (heart pumps more blood with each stroke)

Decreased muscle tension

Weight management

Increased endurance

Better quality of sleep/Reduced fatigue

Better appetite regulation

More efficient use of food energy

Increased resistance to colds & other illnesses

Decreased cholesterol and triglycerides

Decreased body fat/increased muscle bulk & tone

Decreased bone demineralization

Increased tolerance to heat and cold

The Psychological Payoffs

It is clear to see how these physical benefits of exercise would indirectly influence mental health: physical health cannot help but influence one's sense of psychological well being. But exercise has many direct influences on psychological wellbeing as well. For example, exercise is the most profound and immediate stress reducer. This is true not only because exercise dissipates "nervous energy," but it directly influences the relaxation response. A single aerobic workout "burns off" stress hormones by directing them toward their intended metabolic functions rather than allowing them to linger in the body to undermine the integrity of vital organs and the immune system. Regular aerobic exercise actually decreases the level of stress hormones released during stressful responses such as anger and fear. Thus, exercise can effectively be used as a preventive measure since it minimizes or neutralizes physical arousal to nonphysical threats.

As previously sedentary people initiate regular exercise programs, they begin to discover that exercise-related concerns like muscle soreness, weather conditions and rude drivers have little importance. They discover that their workouts become a valued time during which they can sort out problems, resolve issues and reflect about relationships or life in general. Some experts believe that the rhythmic, repetitive motion of aerobic activities offers a meditative quality to exercise. Such activities may actually shift dominant brain activity from the left to the right side, resulting in greater mental receptivity, greater imagination and creativity to apply to problem solving.

In the early 1980s, a neuropeptide (a brain chemical) was discovered which showed remarkable morphine-like qualities. In very small amounts, beta-endorphin was found to significantly reduce sensations of pain and seemed to promote feelings of euphoria and exhilaration while reducing feelings of depression and anxiety. Because beta-endorphin is synthesized during aerobic activity, exercise has become a major part of stress reduction programs, pain management programs, and self-care for depression, anxiety and other mood disorders.* Following are additional psychological benefits that result from regular aerobic exercise:

Improved self-esteem

Improved sense of self-reliance, self-confidence and self-efficacy

Improved mental alertness, perception and infomation processing

Increased perceptions of acceptance by others

Decreased overall feelings of stress and tension

Reduced frustration with daily "hassles"

More constructive responses to disappointments and failures

If this makes you want to go out and start exercising today, read on!

Exercise is an important adjunct to medication and therapy in the treatment of mood disorders. Please speak to your clinician and/or psychotherapist about the roles of medication and therapy in your treatment program before you decide without advice to replace them with exercise alone.

Getting Started

If you are currently sedentary, it is advisable to start slowly so that you don't get discouraged with your new exercise routine and quit before you've experienced any benefits. Choose an activity that you would enjoy and stick with -- walking is as good as any activity that requires expensive equipment.

Start with 15 minutes every other day and gradually increase the amount of time and number of days. Thirty minutes five or six days a week is ideal, but if you are willing to do only 20 minutes four days a week, it's better than nothing at all!

Intensity of exercise -- how hard you do it -- is important. If you are not working out in your "training zone" you will not experience most of the benefits of exercise noted herein. If you are not exercising strenuously enough, you will not experience most of the physical benefits of exercise, nor will you experience maximum psychological benefits. If your exercise is too strenuous, you risk injury or it will be so uncomfortable that you may get discouraged and quit. Excessively strenuous exercise also negates all of the physical benefits related to metabolism.

So, how strenuous is enough but not too much? The best guideline is to keep your heart rate within its training zone for the entire duration of each workout. To do this, compute your maximum heart rate by subtracting your age from 220. Multiply this number first by 65% and then by 80%. This will give you a lower and upper limit for your heart rate during exercise. For people who have been sedentary for a long time or who want to maximize fat loss, keep your heart rate at the lower end of that range, around 65% to 70% of maximum.

If you don't want to mess around with heart rates, all is not lost, use your judgment. If you can't speak an intelligible sentence while exercising because you are too breathless, the activity is too strenuous. Conversely, if you are not breaking out in a light overall sweat and breathing faster than you do at rest, it's not strenuous enough. Try to find a pace that you believe you could keep up for 20 to 30 consecutive minutes when you are healthy. If you don't think you can keep up the pace you've chosen, it's probably too strenuous.