Longford mental health recovery advocate lifts lid on how exercise can improve our mental health

Exercise can improve a person’s mental health I’m no Ray Flynn and I am not about to be challenging Darragh Greene to a few lengths in the pool anytime soon. But I believe that being regularly active can have a profoundly positive effect on my mental health. Let’s face it a lot of us see physical activity as something we ‘have to do’, or ‘ought to do’ for our physical health. It’s good for our bones, our joints, and our heart. But exercise is also something with enormous positive benefits for our mental wellbeing. Increasing numbers of studies will tell you that exercise can have a positive impact on many mental health disorders like depression and anxiety. It is also a great stress reliever, improves memory, helps us sleep, and boosts our overall mood. To view this media, you need an HTML5 capable device or download the Adobe Flash player. www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer And friends I’ll let you in on a secret: no matter what your age or fitness level, you can learn to use exercise as a powerful tool to feel mentally better. Remember Jennifer Aniston from that old TV shampoo ad? Well as she used to say: “Here comes the science bit— Concentrate!” Exercise affects the brain in many ways. It releases natural anti depressant chemicals. It increases our heart rate, which pumps more oxygen to our brain. It helps with the release of hormones which provide an excellent environment for the growth of brain cells. Exercise also promotes brain plasticity by stimulating growth of new connections between cells in many important areas of the brain. It has also been said that exercise can treat moderate depression as effectively as antidepressant medication—but without the side-effects. Now I’m not dismissing medication. It has helped me a lot. But I also […]

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