How I Use Fitness To Control My Emotions

I’m sure you will have heard by now that fitness makes you healthy. I’ve spent the majority of my life trying to be fit and healthy through sport and fitness but I have realised that one thing I have gained by taking part in fitness activities is the ability to control my emotions.

A humans emotions can make even the most amazing moments in life seem like a dull, gloomy and miserable experience. Even something as simple as reading those three negative words can create pessimistic thoughts and feelings so learning to overcome your negative emotions is a powerful life tool and great for your personal well-being.

Well-being benefits of exercise

Other than the obvious benefits to your physical health, there have been many studies that show how exercise can have a beneficial impact on your mental health with some cases studying depression and how exercise can help treat mild to moderate cases. One of the reasons for this is the release of endorphins. I guess the easiest way to explain what endorphins are, if you don’t already know, is by saying it’s a happy drug released naturally into the body by the body and one way of releasing these endorphins is through exercise. These endorphins can last anywhere from 3 minutes up to 24 hours during and after exercise.

Again it has been proven by studies that you will feel more energetic, have an increased appetite, sleep better and relieve stress through exercise.

In other words you should be able to sense your own well-being improving through exercise and with the release of the endorphins you can try to use this moment of fitness to control your emotions in a positive manner.

Creating positive habits

After all the scientific studies as well as reports, news articles and government recommendations about how exercise and fitness activities benefit your well-being, I have tried to create positive habits in life that incorporate exercise and fitness and believe this has helped me immensely to overcome my emotions and think positively.

Commuting is now a part of my exercise routine and is one of my healthy habits. It’s easy, I cycle five days a week to and from work come rain or shine, and it adds in an additional hour of low level fitness and it is also one of the easiest ways I have found to really engage with my own emotions. I can turn a bad day into a great day in just a simple cycle journey. Looking for and finding positives and overcoming any negatives as well as spending the time to problem solve any issues that may have recently arisen.

Walking the dog seems to make the speed of life slow down, it may feel like a chore, but again, with a positive attitude I have turned the daily dog walk into a healthy fitness habit, an extra bit of low impact walking, but also adding in the extra bit of fun and excitement of small random fitness challenges, thus raising my heart rate and using the time to practice controlling my emotions.

If you live too far to commute by bike or run or you don’t own a dog then I also have added some really simple examples of habits I have created into my own routines that incorporate exercise and fitness into everyday situations such as performing handstands/headstands at the beach instead of sunbathing, practicing yoga while waiting for my food to cook or while watching tv and also I always take my running shoes and go for jogs whilst on holidays to take in the new sites instead of going on a local organised tours.

All these fitness habits really help me to control my emotions as I’m usually “high” on endorphins and consciously think positively about situations which transforms even the most upsetting of moods.

Getting a high from exercise

So, after understanding how exercise works in a healthy way for my mind, I have tried to make my daily habits exercise focused as this way fitness can have a beneficial control of my emotions. The more fitness activities I perform alongside my normal sport and fitness training, the more I release endorphins, and I can use these moments of personal highs to consciously positively effect my thoughts, feelings and emotions. Fitness therefore, to me has not only given me a healthy body but a healthy mind and healthy well-being.