Perhaps you have too many projects at work and too little time to accomplish them. Maybe you are worrying over heavy financial debt. Stress seems an unavoidable part of life. The good news is that moderate regular exercise can reduce the effects of stress on the body.
How Does the Body React to Stress?
When you are faced with a stressful situation, your body reacts by producing hormones. Adrenaline and thyroxine give you energy to either run away from the stress-producing event or stay and fight. Adrenaline, or epinephrine, is produced by the adrenal glands located on top of each kidney.
Thyroxine is produced by the thyroid glands located in your throat area and increases your metabolism so you can deal with a stressful situation. Stress creates problems when it becomes chronic and causes the body to be in a continual state of emergency. Unrelieved stress can weaken the adrenal glands over time and cause other health problems like excessive weight gain and heart disease.
What are the Mental Benefits of Exercise?
The general recommendations by the American Heart Association are for everyone to fit moderate aerobic exercise into their routine for five days out of the week and for 30 minutes each of those days. Exercise sessions can be in 10 minute increments but must be strenuous enough to raise the heart rate.
An increased heart rate means that more oxygen, natural sugars, and blood will be circulating throughout the body, including to the brain. Oxygen and sugars help your brain to think more clearly and be alert. At the same time, increased blood flow carries waste products away from the brain cells. These accumulated waste products are produced by expended energy from the thinking process.
An exercise session can redirect your focus to controlling the movements of your body, or, in the case of a competitive sport like tennis, to winning the game. The brain cells have an opportunity to be rested and restored during exercise.
Exercise can also raise your confidence in your abilities.
Exercise gives the thyroxine and adrenaline produced by your body a mechanism by which to expend themselves. Rather than unleashing the negative emotions of anger, frustration and irritability, the stress hormones deplete themselves and are replaced with increasing levels of the exercise chemicals serotonin and endorphins.
How Does Serotonin Reduce Stress?
This important neurotransmitter aids in the transference of signals from one neuron to another. Studies have found that people who suffer from depression have low levels of serotonin.
Serotonin, or 5-HT, is produced in the body’s pineal gland by an amino acid called tryptophan when you engage in exercise. Moderate or high levels of serotonin elevates your mood. Increased levels of serotonin allow the body to get the deep sleep at night that allows the brain cells to be refreshed and restored.How Do Endorphins Reduce Stress?
Endorphins are released by the body’s pituitary gland during exercise to produce what is called a “runner’s high”. The neurotransmitters elevate your mood and reduce the body’s awareness of pain.
The greatest amount of endorphins are created after the first 20 to 30 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise. If you were to increase the intensity of your exercise, the pituitary gland would decrease production of endorphins. Your body would sense that your intensified activity meant it was in danger, and it would prepare to fight or flee.
The medical experts agree. Your body can avoid the harmful effects of stress when you make time to exercise 20 to 30 minutes a day, five days a week.