Our bodies are designed to eat right and engage in meaningful movement. Being fit on the inside and the outside makes it easier to cope during difficult times. Eating healthy foods provides the building blocks for a healthy lifestyle which includes physical fitness.
Exercise reduces fear and increases bravery by building strength inside and out. Physical fitness is more than ripped abs and great glutes. Physical fitness includes a fit mind that can process difficulties and create a bulletproof mindset. What’s more being physically fit makes it easier to be brave when challenges call for stamina or physical strength.
Exercise helps burn calories and creates a healthy body that is flexible, strong, and capable. Each of these things alone is reason enough to make exercise a part of your daily routine, but exercise serves a great purpose during difficult times and helps increase bravery. Here’s how:
- Exercise is an outlet for fear and anger
- Exercise clears your head
- Exercise is self-care
The act of getting your heart rate up and exerting yourself does much more than create muscles. Physical fitness provides added benefits to your mind, mood, and skills.
Work out fear and anxiety with exercise – Getting your heart rate up floods your mind with the feel-good chemical dopamine. This release helps overcome feelings of depression, anxiety, fear and more. Cardio activity can help override fear and anger and give you an outlet to express your feelings and move through them.
Clear your mind with exercise – Activities like running can help clear your mind. Running and other cardio activities help release the chemical norepinephrine which helps regulate the body’s response to stress. This helps with managing your heart rate, sleep/wake cycle, and other physical needs under stress.
Take care of yourself with exercise – Self-care is important all the time but even more so when you are facing something difficult. Exercise is self-care. From taking a yoga class to learning something new like fencing, exercise is quality time that allows you to unplug from everything else and do something great for your mind and your body.
Bravery may not seem directly related to exercise but it is. Being physically fit does more than give you a slender physique; it comes with an outlet for fear and anxiety and the mechanism to help your mind function at a higher level during difficult times.
