By Emily Hincks
I have always been moderately active. As a busy mom with a young family, I often take 7,000 plus steps a day just by going through the motions of our routine. In addition, I love to road bike, so every January I sign up for a 50 mile road bike race that will take place in June, and when March rolls around, I start training. I ride 45-60 miles a week in training and love every minute of it. I feel great, eat well, and am more focused. When race day comes, I ride 50 miles with my girlfriends and thousands of other women, and I feel on top of the world. Then I burn out. Consequently, I cut down on the miles I’m riding and by the time September hits, I’m hardly riding at all. When it gets cold, I put my bike away and don’t ride or exercise much at all until the following March. This was basically the extent of my annual exercise routine. Why was I exclusively a fair-weather exerciser? There’s a million reasons why, but none of them are very convincing. The better question to ask is why, after doing research on the effects of exercise on well-being, do I now exercise every day? That’s a question worth answering.
A few months ago, I began a 21-day well-being strategy on exercise because I wanted to learn more about how it would affect my well-being and I wanted to make it a consistent part of my daily life. I procrastinated the first two days and then got my rear in gear and, for the next 19 days straight, I exercised! Most of the time I walked on my treadmill for 25-30 mins. Some days I rode my stationary bike, did strength-training exercises, or went for a hike, and a few times I shoveled the snow off my driveway (and had a good attitude about it, for the first time ever…). Every morning after I dropped my kids off at school, it was exercise time. And I stuck with it, never asking myself if I wanted to or not—I just did it. I purposefully chose things I would enjoy but weren’t too strenuous or something that I would get bored with easily.
Tracking my days and minutes on a Google Spreadsheet was a huge motivator for me; I didn’t want to miss a day and got a boost from seeing my streak extend longer and longer! Sometime after the first week, I noticed the way I felt as a result of the exercise was just as much of a motivator as the tracker. My energy level throughout the day was higher, my optimism increased, and gratitude for my strong healthy body grew.
The Exercise Module on MyBestSelf101 states: “When you exercise because you want to increase your well-being, you don’t have to step on a scale to see if it worked. You immediately feel better. You can compare how you felt before and after the workout and know right away that it worked! When you exercise for stress reduction, you are immediately less stressed. When you exercise for self-efficacy, you immediately feel empowered and accomplished. When you exercise for sharper mental function, you immediately think more clearly and creatively. After learning what exercise does not only for your body, but for your brain, mind, and mood, then your reasons for exercising will fall into their rightful places with looking good coming in last.” This is so true!
As I spent time studying exercise and the many ways it improves our health, I stopped focusing on the things that were wrong with the way I looked and felt so blessed to have a body that could do what I wanted it to.
It was especially fascinating to learn about neurogenesis—exercise literally promotes new cell growth! The Exercise Module states: “Not long ago, we thought we were born with a certain number of brain cells and that was it. The discovery that BDNF leads to neurogenesis (the birth of new brain cells) is, well, mind blowing. And exercise is one of the few ways known to increase BDNF in the hippocampus. John Ratey, clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, compares BDNF to ‘Miracle-Gro’ fertilizer for the brain. When researchers sprinkle BDNF on neurons in a petri dish, it causes them to sprout and grow new branches.
“At every level, from the microcellular to the psychological, exercise not only wards off the ill effects of chronic stress; it can also reverse them. Studies show that if researchers exercise rats that have been chronically stressed, that activity makes the hippocampus grow back to its pre-shriveled state. The mechanisms by which exercise changes how we think and feel are so much more effective than donuts, medicines and wine. When you say you feel less stressed out after you go for a swim, or even a fast walk, you are.”
The possibility of waking my brain up and having it grow in healthy ways made me seriously look forward to exercising! Losing a few pounds and having buns of steel fell down the priority totem pole and were replaced by a desire to feel alive, think clearly and be able to articulate my thoughts.
Having several close family members that struggle with anxiety and depression, it was groundbreaking for me to learn that exercise can be just as powerful as taking medication for these health concerns. I knew exercise was generally helpful in dealing with anxiety and depression, but to learn the science behind it while simultaneously feeling its tangible effects on myself, I knew what I was learning would change our lives. In the video below, Tal Ben-Shahar explains a research study done at Duke University with patients suffering from Major Depressive Disorder. The participants were randomly divided into three groups: the first group was assigned to do aerobic exercise for 30 minutes, 3 times a week. The second group was put on psychiatric medication. The third group was asked to exercise and take the medication. Over the next four months, the progress of these three groups was recorded and what they found is incredible: there was no significant difference between the groups. All three groups had improved to the same extent. Exercise had the same effect as medication! Six months later, a follow-up was done and it was discovered that, after all the participants went back to their daily lives, the exercise-only group had the lowest relapse rates of all. Tal Ben-Shahar goes on to conclude that not only is exercise like taking an antidepressant, but NOT exercising is like taking a depressant! And remember, we aren’t talking about running a marathon or climbing Everest, we’re talking about going for a swift walk for 30 mins, 3-5 times a week!
Exercise is the single best thing we can do for our health. I have always sort of known this and sort of tried to exercise when it worked in my schedule or when I was signed up for a race. Now that I’ve learned a little more and have experienced the increased happiness that comes from consistency, I’m telling everyone I know about the powerful benefits of exercise. I’m committed to making it a priority—for myself and for my whole family—because I know it will directly increase our well-being, and that’s an amazing thing.