How Exercise Gives You Endorphins and Helps Boost Your Mood

It has been said many times that if you want to live a long and happy life, you need to exercise regularly. Exercise doesn't just improve your health and your sense of well-being; it also has some explicit stress-busting advantages. Exercise gives you endorphins, which is a natural mood booster and is also responsible for triggering a positive feeling in your body.

Besides the fact that exercises give you endorphins, it improves your physical and mental well-being, and it is considered as some sort of feel-good medication by some individuals. In fact, it has been said that regular exercises can have similar effects such as those of multivitamins for athletes.

Exercise can have a tremendous influence on your mood. In fact, not only does exercise help in dealing with depression, but it can also hinder people from getting depressed all over again. So it is very important to keep up an exercise regimen after getting better.

A lot of studies has been carried out to understand the link between exercise, production of endorphins, and mood, and we really do not know why exercise is the best way to boost mood, but one thing we know for sure is that it works, and it can probably be due to several reasons including;

- Exercise gives you endorphins, which are said to be natural mood lifters

- Exercise gives you a more focused activity, which makes you feel or have a sense of achievement.

- While exercise is not a cure for clinical depression, research indicates that walking and engaging in a few exercise routines results in favorable changes in brain chemicals and can enhance your mood. Weeks of intense exercise are said to be as effective as taking antidepressant medicine. Therefore it can be used to treat older people who haven't been exercising over the years or people that don't respond to antidepressant medications. Imagine being cured of depression just by exercising, amazing right? This way, it is safe to say that to a large extent, exercise is a mood enhancer.

- Almost everyone has an irregular sleep pattern. Continuous exercise assists you in getting your sleep patterns back to how they used to be. We know that getting good sleep can protect the brain from damage.

Exercise is the best medicine

Research indicates that vitamin D helps us in battling diseases. Vitamin D can be called the sunlight vitamin because our daily dose can be gotten from just spending a little time in the sunlight. Although we are still learning more about what vitamin D can do to our bodies, studies propose that it can protect us from several conditions, ranging from osteoporosis, cancer, depression, and even heart attacks. The good part is that your body can make all the vitamin D it requires if you expose your arms and legs to sunlight for about 10 to 15 minutes a few times a week. For extra advantages, why not include this in your workout routine?

How does exercise give you endorphins?

Improvement in your self-esteem is a fundamental psychological advantage of periodic physical activity. During the period of your exercise, your body discharges chemicals that are called endorphins. These endorphins communicate with the receptors in your brain that decrease your feeling of pain. Just like morphine, endorphins also give a good feeling to your body. For instance, the feeling that comes after a run or workout is most times best portrayed as "euphoric." That feeling, which is known as a "runner's high," is often followed by an optimistic and energizing outlook on life.

Endorphins act as anesthetics, which means that they reduce the perception you have about exercise being painful, and they also act as sedatives. Endorphins are produced in your brain, spinal cord, and other different parts of your body, and are thereafter released in reaction to brain chemicals that we now know as neurotransmitters. The neuron receptors' endorphins attached to the body are the same ones that are attached to most pain medicines. Nonetheless, unlike morphine, the activation of these receptors by the body's natural endorphins doesn't lead to obsession or reliance.

Mood-boosting activities

Do you often feel down or sad? Have you tried other activities and they seem to not be working for you? Then you should try exercising. Both aerobic exercise, such as walking, running or cycling, and strength training which includes weight lifting, can help boost your mood. For better benefits, you can also try outdoor exercise. Recent studies have shown that most people report an increased level of stability, enthusiasm, and self-esteem, and a decreased level of anxiety, depression, and exhaustion after they have exercised outdoors.

Conclusion

Just a reasonable amount of exercise can cause a major difference in your life. So irrespective of your age or fitness level, you should always remember that exercise gives you endorphins, so it is only wise to learn to make use of exercise as a powerful tool to battle depression, diseases, boost your mood, energy and your general body outlook.