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We are all aware of the benefits of proper exercise on the health of our body. We know it tones our muscles, burns fat, helps circulation, and reduces our disease risk. But what about the benefits exercise has on our mental health?

While the majority of fitness research efforts focus on the physical and health benefits of exercise, there is a growing body of work demonstrating that exercise promotes mental and emotional health as well.

Firstly exercise makes you feel good. When you exercise (with some effort of course) there are a cocktail of hormones released that stay in your system for some time after you finish lifting your mood and banishing any trace of any negative feelings.

Some of the exercise benefits that can make life so much better are:

By reducing stress hormones (cortisol), which are linked to depression
By restoring sleeping and eating patterns, raising energy levels
By releasing endorphins, the ‘feel good’ hormones
Getting in better physical shape improves self-esteem
Manage feelings of anxiety, sadness, tension and anger
Improves blood flow to brain, cut Alzheimer’s risk by 40 percent
Great alternative treatment for depression

Our mental health is important and its health does not lie with taking antidepressants. Prescriptions for antidepressants have increased by 33 per cent in the last six years with a third of the adult population taking a mood altering drug. Yet research shows that physical activity has the same effect as chemically addictive antidepressants and unlike these drugs has no negative side effects.

It is so much better for your health to avoid using drugs if possible as they can interfere with brain biochemistry. Our knowledge of how drugs affect the brain is in its infancy. Proper exercise will give you an instant feel good boost, unlike drugs that can take weeks to kick in.

It gives cause for concern when doctors are so freely writing out prescriptions for these unnecessary drugs. The same prescription pad could be used for a much healthier alternative – exercise. But then there would not be any money to be made with a recommendation like that.

Attitudes need to change so that people take some responsibility for their own health and wellbeing and stop being doctor and drug dependent. There are much healthier options available that address the cause of the problem not just mask it, and that is exercise.

Take some time out for a proper exercise program and discover how you can feel joy and pleasure just being in your own body. Don’t say no to exercise say no to something else.
Exercise is not a task or punishment and vigorous movement is something the human body needs to maintain wellness and can be viewed as a preventative that can help prevent physical, mental and emotional conditions.

You don’t have to spend hours to gain these benefits; just a couple of sessions each week of strength training exercise will make you feel fantastic. Just make sure you get some help from a fitness professional so you can be reaping the most benefits from your program and enjoy life to the fullest.

Mental illness is quite common these days. Some of the symptoms can be cured with the help of traditional medication while others require community help and support aside from the medication. Regardless of the severity of mental illness, importance of community support cannot be undermined.

It is a good thing that people have made studies and because of this and the fast developments in the field of psychological research, people have learned that people suffering from mental illness should be cured and not be treated with contempt. This paved the way for the expansion of the field of mental health. Because of the growing concern of individuals regarding people with mental disorders, more and more people continued to be interested in the field. This further helped experts and current students to understand the field of psychology and psychiatry a lot better.

Today, the causes of certain psychological conditions are still not concretely defined but there are already various forms of treatment for specific disorders. There are already studies being made that could explain the reasons for the development of certain conditions such as anxiety disorders. It is largely possible that this mental illness is hereditary because of the positive relation in its occurrence in families. Studies have shown that those who belong in families with previous cases of anxiety disorders are more likely to develop this kind of psychological condition if faced with a traumatic encounter.

It is a fact that some people are stronger mentally and could handle stressful situations better. Those people are lucky for their chances of experiencing periods of anxiety are low. For those on the other side of the rope, however, they are more likely to have anxiety attacks once they encounter shocking and traumatic situations such as abuse and accidents. These unfortunate events can lead to development of anxiety disorders and especially so if psychological disorders already run in the family.

Maturity also plays an important role in mental disorders. Those who are younger or those who have delays in their moral development are more prone to have psychological disorders because their mental health is still not that strong. Children who suffer from abuse from adults should be paid closer attention to because if they do not recover from the shock of the abuse immediately, the damage could become permanent. Since this could lead to a serious disorder, it is absolutely necessary for those children to undergo counseling from professionals. Psychotherapy is done by trained psychologists and psychiatrists and is common in mental health support facilities. Some of these sessions are done individually but there are also some who do it in groups. Sometimes, doing psychotherapy in groups can also help because the victims can interact with people who faced the same situations as they did.