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When you work out your body releases chemicals called endorphines that improves your mood. And excercising regularly limits chance of depression and anxiety.

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Exercise has many benefits, not only for your physical health but also your mental health. In your brain, exercise stimulates chemicals that improve your mood and the parts of the brain responsible for memory and learning.

Exercise can also assist in mental health recovery. You can start slowly, and work on overcoming obstacles like motivation, cost and time.

What are the benefits of exercise?

Physical activity and exercise has many benefits. It can:

What are the mental health benefits of exercise?

Exercise releases chemicals like endorphins and serotonin that improve your mood. It can also get you out in the world, help to reduce any feelings of loneliness and isolation, and put you in touch with other people.

If you exercise regularly, it can reduce your stress and symptoms of mental health conditions like depression, anxiety or schizophrenia, and help with recovery from mental health issues.

It can also improve your sleep, which is important in many different ways.

Exercise and the mind

Exercise pumps blood to the brain, which can help you to think more clearly.

It increases the size of the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for memory.

It also increases the connections between the nerve cells in the brain. This improves your memory and helps protect your brain against injury and disease.

How much exercise do I need?

Australian guidelines recommend adults do at least 30 minutes of moderate to intensive physical activity on most or all days of the week. You can make up 30 minutes over the day by combining shorter 10 to 15 minute sessions.

Practising mindfulness while doing exercise also reduces your stress and improves your mental health.

If money is a worry, think about local community centres, which often have affordable exercise groups. And if you have private health insurance, you might get help for gym membership as part of a mental health treatment plan.

You may struggle finding motivation, or staying motivated for exercise. Think about ways you can make exercise part of your daily routine and lifestyle. Choose something you enjoy, and ask your friends or family to help motivate you and to keep you on track.

If you own a dog, take them for walks in your local area.

Combine your exercise routine with a healthy diet to boost your motivation and energy for exercise.

How do I start exercising?

You don't need to visit a gym to exercise. Consider ways you can incorporate exercise into your daily routine and lifestyle. Pick something you enjoy, and use your friends or family as motivators to keep you on track.

Enjoy the benefits of owning a pet - if you own a dog, make the most of your local area for their walks. You could walk in a park or by a beach if they are nearby.

If you enjoy dancing, try a creative dance movement class.

If you can't move around easily, swimming might work for you.

Seated exercise is an option for people with a disability.

For walking, a pedometer helps you set goals by monitoring your steps, aiming for 8,000 to 10,000 steps per day. Exercise is also a good time to try mindfulness self-awareness training.

Jean Hailes for Women's Health has a list of activities for men and women to give you some ideas on where to start.

Overcoming obstacles to exercising

Motivation: You may struggle with motivation for exercise. Start slow, set small goals, and use a mood monitor to keep track of any change in your mood.

Cost: Local community centres often have affordable exercise groups. And if you have private health insurance. you might get financial assistance for gym membership.

Anxiety or feeling intimidated: You might feel uncomfortable joining a group exercise class. This is perfectly normal. Take a friend with you for the first time, or download an app to exercise in your own home.

Time: If you are short on time, break exercise into small chunks. Instead of doing 30 minutes in one go, do three lots of 10 minutes in a day.

Physical: if physical obstacles such as injuries are making it difficult to exercise, you may benefit from seeing a health professional such as a physiotherapist to help you recover.

Resources and support

If you need more information and support, visit Mental Illness Fellowship of Australia (MIFA) for resources, helplines, apps, online programs and forums.

Last reviewed: November 2020

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Exercise has many benefits, not only for your physical health but also your mental health. In your brain, exercise stimulates chemicals that improve your mood and the parts of the brain responsible for memory and learning. Exercise can also assist in mental health recovery.

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Social health is how you interact with others like your family, friends,and coworkers. When you work out you build self confidence, which could strengthen your relationships with people. You also have many opportunities to meet people who run the same trail or work out at the same gym.

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You already know the physical benefits of exercise: better health, reduced risk of potentially serious disease, lower blood pressure and a well-toned body. Exercise carries emotional and social benefits as well. According to KidsHealth, people that exercise regularly are more likely to classify themselves as happy than those that don't. Reap all of the benefits of exercise by getting in 30 to 60 minutes daily.

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Social & Emotional Benefits of Regular Exercise | Livestrong.com

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You already know the physical benefits of exercise: better health, reduced risk of potentially serious disease, lower blood pressure and a well-toned body. Exercise carries emotional and social benefits as well. According to KidsHealth, people that exercise regularly are more likely to classify themselves as happy than those that don't.

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Exercise can avoid things like, heart disease, diabetes, asthma, and back pain. Keeping you moving and improving your stamina can improve you're heath.

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Physical exercise is proven to boost your mood. It produces changes in the parts of the brain that deal with Stress and Anxiety. "Furthermore, exercise has been shown to reduce symptoms in people suffering from anxiety".

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Exercise and chronic disease: Get the facts

If you have a chronic condition, you might have questions about exercising. How often can you exercise? Which exercises are safe? Understand the basics about exercise and chronic disease.
By Mayo Clinic Staff
If you have a chronic disease - such as heart disease, diabetes, asthma, or back or joint pain - exercise can have important health benefits. However, it's important to talk to your doctor before starting an exercise routine. He or she might have advice on what exercises are safe and any precautions you might need to take while exercising.

Find out what you need to know about exercise and chronic disease.

How can exercise improve a chronic condition?

If you have a chronic condition, regular exercise can help you manage symptoms and improve your health.

Aerobic exercise can help improve your heart health and endurance and aid in weight loss. High-intensity interval training is generally safe and effective for most people and can take less time. In high-intensity interval training, you alternate exercising at high levels of intensity and exercising at a less intense level for short periods of time. Even activities such as walking at higher intensities count.

Strength training can improve muscle strength and endurance, make it easier to do daily activities, slow disease-related declines in muscle strength, and provide stability to joints.

Flexibility exercises may help you to have optimal range of motion about your joints, so they can function best, and stability exercises may help reduce the risk of falls.

For example:

Heart disease. Regular exercise can help improve your heart health. Recent studies have shown that interval training is often tolerated well in people with heart disease, and it can produce significant benefits.

For people with high blood pressure, exercise can lower your risk of dying of heart disease and lower the risk of heart disease progressing.

Diabetes. Regular exercise can help insulin more effectively lower your blood sugar level. Physical activity can also help you control your weight and boost your energy. If you have type 2 diabetes, exercise can lower your risk of dying of heart disease.

Asthma. Often, exercise can help control the frequency and severity of asthma attacks.

Back pain. Regular low-impact aerobic activities can increase strength and endurance in your back and improve muscle function. Abdominal and back muscle exercises (core-strengthening exercises) may help reduce symptoms by strengthening the muscles around your spine.

Arthritis. Exercise can reduce pain, help maintain muscle strength in affected joints and reduce joint stiffness. It can also improve physical function and quality of life for people who have arthritis.

Cancer. Exercise can improve the quality of life for people who've had cancer, and it can also improve their fitness. Exercise can also lower the risk of dying from breast, colorectal and prostate cancer.

Dementia. Exercise can improve cognition in people with dementia, and people who are active on a regular basis are at less risk of dementia and cognitive impairment.

What exercises are safe?

Your doctor might recommend specific exercises to reduce pain or build strength. Depending on your condition, you might also need to avoid certain exercises altogether or during flare-ups. In some cases, you might need to consult a physical or occupational therapist before starting to exercise.

If you have low back pain, for example, you might choose low-impact aerobic activities, such as walking and swimming. These types of activities won't strain or jolt your back.

If you have exercise-induced asthma, be sure to keep an inhaler handy while you exercise.

If you have arthritis, the exercises that are best for you will depend on the type of arthritis and which joints are involved. Work with your doctor or a physical therapist to create an exercise plan that will give you the most benefit with the least aggravation on your joints.

How often, how much and at what intensity can I safely exercise?

Before starting an exercise routine, it's important to talk to your doctor about how long your exercise sessions can be and what level of intensity is safe for you.

In general, try to accumulate about 30 minutes of physical activity a day at least five days a week. For example, try walking briskly for about 30 minutes most days of the week. You can even break physical activity up into short chunks of time spread out through the day. Any activity is better than none at all.

If you're not able to do this much activity, do as much as you can. Even an hour a week of physical activity can have health benefits. Start with moving more and sitting less, and work your way up to moving more each day.

If you haven't been active for a while, start slowly and build up gradually. Ask your doctor what kind of exercise goals you can safely set for yourself as you progress.

Do I need to take special steps before getting started?

Depending on your condition, your doctor might recommend certain precautions before exercising.

If you have diabetes, for example, keep in mind that physical activity lowers blood sugar. Check your blood sugar level before any activity. If you take insulin or diabetes medications that lower blood sugar, you might need to eat a snack before exercising to help prevent low blood sugar.

If you have arthritis, consider taking a warm shower before you exercise. Heat can relax your joints and muscles and relieve any pain you might have before you begin. Also, be sure to choose shoes that provide shock absorption and stability during exercise.

What kind of discomfort can I expect?

Talk to your doctor about what kind of discomfort you might expect during or after exercise, as well as any tips for minimizing your pain. Find out what type or degree of pain might be normal and what might be a sign of something more serious.

If you have heart disease, for example, signs or symptoms that you should stop exercising include dizziness, unusual shortness of breath, chest pain or an irregular heartbeat.

What else do I need to know?

Starting a regular exercise routine can be tough.

To help you stick with your routine, consider exercising with a friend. You might also ask your doctor to recommend an exercise program for people who have your condition, perhaps through a local hospital, clinic or health club.

To stay motivated, choose activities that are fun, set realistic goals and celebrate your progress.

Share any concerns you might have about your exercise program - from getting started to keeping it up - with your doctor.

Show references

See more In-depth

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What you need to know about exercise and chronic disease

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If you have a chronic condition, you might have questions about exercising. How often can you exercise? Which exercises are safe? Understand the basics about exercise and chronic disease. By Mayo Clinic Staff If you have a chronic disease - such as heart disease, diabetes, asthma, or back or joint pain - exercise can have important health benefits.

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Regular exercise has been shown to help boost energy levels and enhance your mood. It may also be associated with many other health benefits, including a reduced risk of chronic disease.

Exercise is defined as any movement that makes your muscles work and requires your body to burn calories.

There are many types of physical activity, including swimming, running, and walking, to name a few.

Being active has been shown to have many health benefits, both physically and mentally. It may even help you live longer.

Here are the top 10 ways regular exercise benefits your body and brain.

Exercise has been shown to improve your mood and decrease feelings of depression, anxiety, and stress.

The authors of a 2019 review found that 10-30 minutes of exercise is enough to improve your mood.

Exercise may increase brain sensitivity to serotonin and norepinephrine. These hormones relieve feelings of depression. It may also increase the production of endorphins, which help produce positive feelings and reduce the perception of pain.

Stopping to exercise may also affect your mood. A 2017 review found that active people who stopped exercising regularly experienced significant increases in symptoms of depression and anxiety, even after only a few weeks.

Inactivity may play a major factor in weight gain and obesity, which may lead to health complications. Exercise can help you manage your weight by helping with energy expenditure, also known as spending.

Your body spends energy in three ways:

digesting food

exercising

maintaining body functions, like your heartbeat and breathing

A reduced calorie intake may lower your metabolic rate, which can temporarily delay weight loss. However, regular exercise may your metabolic rate. This can burn more calories and help you manage your weight.

Combining aerobic exercise with resistance training may also maximize fat loss and muscle mass maintenance. This could help you manage weight, maintain lean muscle, and reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease.

Exercise plays a vital role in building and maintaining strong muscles and bones.

As people age, they tend to lose muscle mass, strength, and function. This leads to an increased risk of injury. Practicing regular physical activity is essential to reducing muscle loss and maintaining strength as you age.

Exercise also helps build bone density. The authors of a 2022 review found that regular exercise significantly improved bone density in the lumbar spine, neck, and hip bones. This may help prevent osteoporosis later in life.

Impact exercises like gymnastics, running, or soccer may help higher bone density than no-impact sports like swimming and cycling.

Exercise can help boost your energy levels while helping to reduce fatigue. This may help as a treatment method if you have certain health conditions, such as cancer.

Aerobic exercise boosts your cardiovascular system and improves lung health, which may help with energy levels.

Your heart pumps more blood as you move, delivering more oxygen to your working muscles. With regular exercise, your heart becomes more efficient at moving oxygen into your blood.

Over time, exercise results in less demand on your lungs. This is one of the reasons why you may find yourself getting less and less out of breath during exercise, according to the American Lung Association.

Regular physical activity is a in reducing your risk of chronic diseases, such as:

Your skin can be affected by the amount of oxidative stress in your body.

Oxidative stress occurs when your body's antioxidant defenses cannot completely repair the cell damage caused by compounds known as free radicals. This can damage the structure of the cells and negatively impact your skin.

Intense and exhaustive physical activity may contribute to oxidative damage. However, a 2018 review suggests that regular moderate exercise may actually help alleviate the stress caused by free radicals.

The authors of a 2021 review concluded that regular exercise may help delay the appearance of skin aging, prevent psoriasis, and improve venous leg ulcers.

Exercise can improve brain function and protect your memory and thinking skills.

To begin with, exercise increases your heart rate. This promotes the flow of blood and oxygen to your brain. It can also stimulate the production of hormones that enhance the growth of brain cells.

For example, exercise has to cause the hippocampus to grow in size, which may help improve mental function. This is part of the brain that's vital for memory and learning.

Regular physical activity is important in older adults because it can help the physiological effects of aging in your brain. It may also help reduce changes in the brain that can contribute to conditions like Alzheimer's disease and dementia.

Regular exercise can relax and sleep better.

It may help improve your sleep quality because the energy loss that occurs during exercise stimulates restorative processes during sleep.

Also, the increase in your body temperature during exercise may help it during sleep, which could promote better sleep.

A conducted over 4 months in people with chronic insomnia found that both stretching and resistance exercise helped improve sleep quality and duration while decreasing the amount of time it takes to fall asleep.

Chronic pain can be debilitating. For many years, the recommendation for treating chronic pain was rest and inactivity.

However, the authors of a 2021 review suggest that aerobic exercise may serve as a natural treatment option to provide pain relief and improve quality of life.

One way that exercise may help prevent or reduce chronic pain is because it increases your pain tolerance over time.

Exercise may also help you control pain associated with various health conditions, including:

chronic low back pain

fibromyalgia

chronic soft tissue shoulder disorder

Regular exercise may help improve your sex life.

For example, engaging in regular exercise can strengthen your heart, improve blood circulation, tone muscles, and enhance flexibility, all of which may help improve your sex life.

A 2018 review of 10 studies found that exercising for at least 160 minutes per week over a 6-month period could help improve erectile function in males.

Another 2018 review suggests that regular exercise may help improve sexual satisfaction, arousal, and well-being in females. Regular resistance training may also help increase sex drive.

Which exercise can you do every day?

It's important to let your body recover between intense resistance and cardiovascular exercise sessions. That said, there are some less intense exercises you can do every day to help you get to 300 minutes per week. These may include walking, cycling, dancing, and skateboarding.

What exercises are good for belly fat?

According to the British Heart Foundation, you can't target one specific area of fat to burn off. But, a consistent mixture of aerobic exercise, resistance training, and eating a well-balanced diet can help you burn fat all over your body. Some exercises include swimming, yoga, running, strength training, and rock climbing.

Exercise offers incredible benefits that can improve nearly every aspect of your health. Regular physical activity can increase the production of hormones that make you feel happier and help you sleep better.

The Department of Health and Human Services recommends you aim for 150-300 minutes of moderate-intensity activity or 75 minutes of vigorous physical activity throughout the week.

Moderate-intensity aerobic activity is anything that gets your heart beating faster, like walking, cycling, or swimming. Activities like running or participating in a fitness class count for vigorous intensity.

You can use weights, resistance bands, or your body weight to perform muscle-strengthening exercises.

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Exercise: The Top 10 Benefits of Regular Physical Activity

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Exercising regularly has many benefits for your body and brain. This article explores the top 10 benefits of regular exercise, all based on science.

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Benefits of Mental Health - Abby Doherty

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Benefits of Mental Health - Abby Doherty