The Major Impact Of Exercise On Happiness
Recent discoveries
Everyone wishes to be content. Of fact, depending on who you ask the word ‘happy’ can mean different things to different people: some associate happiness with a high-paying job, while others associate happiness with family or creative fulfillment.
However, one common pleasure motif is that most of us are always kicking it down the road. ‘I’ll be happy when I acquire my dream job,’ or ‘I’ll be ecstatic when we find a bigger apartment.’ This rarely happens in the way we expect it to. Happiness, like so many other aspects of life is more about the journey than the end result.
So, what’s the most effective strategy to increase your happiness? You’ve undoubtedly heard that exercise can help more times than you can count. Exercise’s mood-boosting effects are well-documented, and doctors are increasingly prescribing greater activity to patients who report feeling down or downright melancholy. Working out can increase your mood in as short as five minutes, according to Michael Otto, Ph.D., a psychology professor at Boston University, who told The American Psychological Association.
However, a brief improved mood isn’t the same as ‘happy,’ since many people feel just as stressed or depressed after their workout in a matter of hours. To better understand the long-term impacts of frequent exercise — and a healthy diet — a recent study published in the Journal of Happiness Studies defined happiness as ‘life satisfaction in general.’
Continue reading to find out more about the study’s findings
Happiness rises with an active, healthy lifestyle
The new study, led by experts from the University of Kent and the University of Reading, looked at nearly 14,000 people’s food and exercise habits, as well as their reported life satisfaction and delayed gratification or self-control. The authors of the study discovered that regular exercise can lead to an increase in happiness.
Furthermore, they discovered that routinely consuming fruits and vegetables appears to be a vital component of the ‘happy recipe.’ With these two findings in mind, the researchers concluded that a healthy lifestyle is linked to increased life satisfaction and well-being.
Exercise causes happiness, not the other way around
To eliminate any effect of happiness on lifestyle choices, the researchers employed a method termed ‘instrumental variable approach’ on the data. This is an important component of the study since it allowed the researchers to concentrate only on the impact of lifestyle on happiness. This study is the first to prove that exercise and a healthy lifestyle lead to increased life satisfaction and happiness, rather than the other way around.
In other words, keeping active and eating well makes people happy, whereas naturally optimistic people are more likely to exercise. Although many previous studies have indicated a link between exercise and happiness, the study authors claim that ‘the present results permit us to make a causal assertion about the relationship between lifestyle and life satisfaction.’
Self-control is an important aspect
Self-control and the ability to resist pleasure are other important factors in happiness, according to the researchers. The ability — or lack thereof — to put off leisure time or dinner in order to fit in an exercise has a significant impact on lifestyle choices, which can have a favorable or negative impact on life satisfaction.
First, our estimation results show that the ability to delay gratification has a large impact on lifestyle, which in turn has a significant impact on well-being, the researchers write. The capacity to defer gratification allows people to place more emphasis on the investment aspect of decisions rather than just the emotive aspect. As a result, we should all think of healthy lifestyle choices like regular exercise and clean eating as ‘money in the bank’ for our personal pleasure. Making the proper lifestyle choices is equivalent to making an investment in a brighter future.
A gentle prod is all it needs
It’s no news that more people than ever are living mostly sedentary lives. Aside from the numerous reasons to exercise more for one’s physical health, the study’s authors hope that their work will inspire many people to begin living better lives for another reason: happiness.
‘It’s a clear win-win situation if a better lifestyle not only makes us healthier but also happier,’ says Dr. Adelina Gschwandtner of the University of Kent’s School of Economics.
Professor Uma Kambhampati of the School of Economics at the University of Reading adds: ‘It’s a huge step forward to prove that eating more fruits and vegetables and exercising can boost happiness while also providing health advantages. This could also be valuable for environmental and sustainability policy efforts.’
