Let Exercise Reduce Your Stress
A BRIEF INTRODUCTION
There is an article about the positive effect of exercising on reducing stress published on the Harvard Health publishing. The article first pointed out how regular physical activity especially aerobic exercise can bring good physical and psychological changes. The article mentioned that exercising “reduces levels of the body’s stress hormones, such as adrenaline and cortisol and “stimulates the production of endorphins, chemicals in the brain that are the body’s natural painkillers and mood elevators”. (Exercising to relax — Harvard Health.,2011)In the other words, exercising can relieve stress by decreasing the hormones that generate negative feelings such as stressful, anxious and depressing and also increasing the hormones that will lead to positive feelings such as relaxing, calm and energetic.
PAST EXPERIENCE
Indeed, based on my past experiences, I always felt great and relaxing after I did some degree of exercises, even though I also felt so tired physically. I used to go to a gym located on the second floor in my dorm when I lived on campus. I went to the gym in the morning and then went for a shower. After that, I went to school with full of energy. I even did not feel really tired when I had five exams within a weak in that semester. Once, after an exam of economics, I felt kind of upset about my performance in the test. I went to the gym and jogged for about 20 minutes. When I was doing the cooling down postures, I felt so much better and relief after I did the exercises. I believe that exercising can actually reduce the stress and lead to a peaceful and delighted feeling.
NEXT STEP
The article also mentioned several other exercises can also help relieve the stress, for example, the breathing exercises, the mental exercises, the autoregulation exercises as well as the progressive muscular relaxation. I have already tried one of the mental exercises in my last blog post, which is known as meditation. I did believe that mental exercises and breathing exercises may contribute to the stress relief. In the next blog post, I will try to figure out a suitable exercise for a workplace environment.
Exercising to relax — Harvard Health. (2011). Harvard Health Publishing. Retrieved 28 February 2018, from https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/exercising-to-relax
