How do you respond to your stress?
Stress comes in forms. We all have and will continue to deal with stress in our lives. It can be acute, chronic, physical and metabolic stress, mental stress and social stress. As far as your brains knows, stress is stress BUT the difference lies in the degree. For example, standing up or going for a run puts physical stress on the body and losing your job or a loved one can cause extreme amounts of mental stress.
It is how you choose to cope with the stress that can help change the way you feel. It can be easy to let stress make you feel trapped with no way out, and this is when it can become harmful (chronic stress: brain gets stuck in the same pattern, marked by fear, negativity and withdrawal). It is important to keep in mind that not all stress is bad, and that it can even be helpful such as giving you more motivation or help keep you more focused.
The good news is that you actually do have some control over how stress affects you. Although there are many ways you can choose to help cope with your stress, I am focusing on the benefits of exercise:
- Exercise controls the emotional and physical feelings of stress and works at a cellular level.
- Increases the production of your brain’s “feel-good” neurotransmitters, also known as endorphins. You may have heard of the saying, “runners high,” which is essentially these endorphins increases during exercise.
- Exercise helps repair brain cells damaged by stress and leaves them hardier for future challenges. Neurons get broken down and built up just like muscles. Stressing them makes them more resilient
- Throughout the body, exercise increases blood flow and the availability of glucose (the essentials for cell life).
- Overtime regular exercise increases the efficiency of the cardiovascular system and lower blood pressure.
- Can help improve your quality of sleep, which is often disrupted by stress.
- Exercise helps you to gain a sense of mastery and self-confidence.
The fact is that we are much less active than our ancestors means that we have to be more intentional about getting more exercise. Just keep in mind that the more stress you have, the more your body needs to move to keep your brain running smoothly.
“Its not stress that kills us, it is our reaction to it.”
Hans Selye
