Exercise: The Ultimate Stress Reliever
A look at how exercising can relieve stress and land you your dream job.
Have you ever noticed how great you feel after working out? What if I told that the same chemicals involved when exercising can help you get a job or make your confidence skyrocket? Well they can and here’s how.
Cortisol levels
Cortisol is a chemical that is considered a stress hormone and is released when our bodies are exposed to high pressure situations or threats. When cortisol is released an excess of glucose is injected into our bloodstream causing an increase in energy. Temporary high cortisol levels are perfectly normal but “Constant elevations in cortisol can increase your risk of several serious health disorders, including obesity and heart disease” according to the University of New Mexico. When we exercise it is proven that our body’s cortisol levels are lowered. At the time of exercise though, our body’s cortisol levels are greatly increased according to the level of intensity of exercise. Instead of absorbing the excess glucose we burn the energy and cortisol in our bodies.
Body Language
So how does exercise and getting a job connecting? A woman named Amy Cuddy helps to explain through one of her TED talks about body language. She believes that by acting dominant and using body language characteristics related to dominance an individual becomes more confident and less stressed out. She did an experiment and found that the individuals that had dominant body language had higher testosterone levels and lower cortisol levels.
Getting the Job
So saying that having better low cortisol levels can get you a job sounds a little farfetched right? Actually it’s quite possible that low cortisol which has an effect on your body language can have a greater effect on your ability to land a job than you think. Cuddy also did an experiment on this. She brings the dominant and non-dominant individuals into a “very stressful job interview” where they are heckled for five minutes straight. This is meant to spike their cortisol levels and it does. She then asks various “coders” to determine which people they want to hire. Sure enough these coders wanted to hire every single dominant, confident figure. Whether we know it or not we all judge each other and in the ultimate judgment, the interview, everyone knows who will be picked. Ultimately don’t employers look for the strongest individuals to better their business?
There’s no question which type of people anyone would choose for the job-the individuals with the lowest cortisol levels. So just by de-stressing yourself out, particularly with exercise, you can lower your cortisol levels and land the job of your career!
http://livewell.jillianmichaels.com/regular-exercise-lower-cortisol-levels-4248.html
Cuddy, Amy. Your body language shapes who you are. 2012. Video. TEDWeb. 15 Sep 2014.
