There isn’t just physical benefits to working out regularly.
Everyone talks about the physical benefits of exercise. They seldom mention the mental benefits. Although they exist, it’s more about how working out changes your physique, not your brain chemistry.
What if you could have both? A stronger, healthier body and a stronger, healthier mind? Would that be enough to get you up in the morning and motivated?
To better understand how exercise helps your brain, it’s important to know why that is so. Below, you’ll find compelling reasons for sticking to a workout routine as a way of increasing your physical health and as a method from strengthening your mental health, too.
Become Mentally Stronger with Every Workout You Complete
Every time that you conscientiously choose to work out, you’re telling your brain that your health matters. It’s one of the most empowering ways to keep yourself up and moving. If you haven’t yet explored the benefits of exercise on your brain, now is the time to do so.
Here are some of the ways that exercise makes you mentally stronger:
- Exercise forces you to see the big picture. You’re not going to reach your fitness goals in a day. That’s why you need the mental fortitude to continue putting in the work until you see results. When you’re able to see the big picture and understand that what you do today affects your tomorrow, you’re able to get past procrastination and self-sabotage to achieve everything you’ve set out to do. There is a reason for your sacrifices. You know that without hard work, you’ll never accomplish anything you hoped to in your life.
- It makes you step outside your comfort zone. People get complacent. They get stuck in a rut and seldom find a way out of it. Working out regularly presents you with challenges. It’s not always easy or even feasible to exercise. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t attempt to. Getting you to think outside the box and in the direction of greater health helps you stop your stinking thinking. It shows you the value of persistence even if you have to quit and start over again dozens of times. Each failure strengthens your resolve and pushes you to try harder.
- You stay motivated to work towards your goals. It takes mad skills to remain resilient in the face of adversity. Even then, you’ll wake up one day and realize that it’s a year later or ten years later and you’ve still not reached your goals. Knowing that you are in control of making your dreams come true is a powerful feeling. It’s what keeps you striving to meet your goals whenever they feel very out of reach. You have a reason to push through even when the going is tough.
- It gives you a reason to continue even when you feel like quitting. When you feel your goal is just within your reach, your brain pushes you to keep going. Even if your body thinks that it can’t handle more, your mind knows that it can. Mental conditioning is just as important as physical conditioning. Helping your brain come up with solutions to challenges is yet another way you become mentally stronger. Rather than throw in the towel when things get difficult, you go into beast mode by finding new ways to work around the challenge. It provides you with concrete proof that you’re stronger than you ever even knew you were.
- It changes your appearance which boosts your self-confidence. When you see the physical results of your efforts, you feel very proud of yourself. In fact, there isn’t anything you can’t do in your mind. You now have the self-confidence to tackle bigger and better goals. You feel incredibly inspired and motivated to try things that you didn’t think were within your reach and that feels amazing. You know that it’s only going to get better from here on out. You look and feel incredible and it’s all because you chose to become healthier.
- Exercise helps you get over stress productively. When you’re able to have an outlet for dealing with tough things, you’re able to get over them quicker. When you’re angry or sad, you can run until you’ve come up with a clear solution. You’re less likely to catastrophize things. You’re able to benefit from adrenaline and endorphins which help you understand that the situation doesn’t mark the end of the world. It simply requires a more creative solution to overcome it. Stress no longer controls you because you know how to control it. Things that once set you back can’t anymore due to your ability to quickly resolve the issue.
There is something that happens to the brain when you give up on your goals prematurely. The same can be said when you continue to persist even when the odds aren’t in your favor. You get a glimpse into just how strong you really are.
You build resiliency which helps carry you through the most difficult times in your life. Working out then becomes a tool that allows you to deal with stress in a healthy way and stay on top of your fitness goals which help improve your strength, stamina, and balance. You’re less likely to overeat or engage in unhealthy habits when you make exercise a priority.
Challenge Your Brain While Strengthening Your Body
Give your brain a healthy challenge. It’s not just your body that benefits from exercise. Your mind does, too. With each workout, you become physically and mentally stronger. You’re better equipped to handle what life has to throw at you with ease and grace.
You have the ability to step outside your comfort zone, overcome the biggest challenges your body and mind have faced, and persist even after others have quit. The effort you put into your workouts helps you in other areas of your life, too, because of the creative problem solving you’ve exercised throughout your routine. It makes you a stronger, better person overall because you don’t let life get the best of you during tough times.