Mental Health Awareness Week 2022- How activity and adventure can improve your mental health

Keeping active can be so detrimental to maintaining your mental health. For me personally, physical activity is such a big factor on my mood and metal health so I thought this would be a great second post for mental health awareness week. I hope that I will be able to convince a couple of you to get out and get adventurous… in the hopes that you might find it somewhat useful as well!

Ways physical activity can help you

There are so many studies which have shown how physical activity can improve your mental health. Here is a list of some of them and how they could help you:

• Better mood- Physical activity release ‘feel-good’ hormones which can boost your mood and give you more energy

• Managing stress and anxiety- physical activity decreases stress hormones like cortisol, which helps you to manage stress. Physical activity can also help focus you brain so can help to manage intrusive or racing thoughts. It can be a great healthy coping strategy if you are going through a difficult time. 

•  Improve your self-esteem- being active can make you feel so much better about yourself as you are improving and meet your goals and pushing yourself outside your comfort zone. Thus helping to better your self-esteem.

• You can connect with people- doing group/team sports or group adventure activities can help you to meet new/ like-minded people and make new friends. This can help you to feel less alone, part of a community and build a support system. 

• Reduce the risk of depression- studies have shown that doing regular exercise can reduce the likelihood of experiencing a period of depression.

• Better sleep- the more exercise you do, the more energy you expel so hopefully you will feel more tired at the end of the day so you can get more zzzzzzz’s.

• Exercise can act as a buffer towards stress- it has been shown that physical activity is linked to lower psychological reactivity to stress so that it is easier for you to handle some of the stress and difficult situations  you may face. 

It is important to note that physical activity is not always helpful for everyone’s mental health. It is about learning when it’s helpful for you and giving things a go :)

How active do I need to be?

Any amount of physical activity is better than none. You will see some form of benefits from doing all forms of physical activity whether you are climbing 4 times a week or heading down the road for a 10-minute walk! Finding activities which you enjoy and are able to do regularly is more important than forcing yourself to do large quantities of exercise. If you love to climb (like I do), then climb… if you love to swim then that should be your activity of choice. Just anything to get that body moving!

The government suggests that we should do 150 minutes of moderate activity a week or 75 minutes of vigorous activity in a week. Although this may sounds like a lot, I promise you it’s easier to do than you might think! Plus if it’s a big too much for now, slowly work up to that. Think about your current fitness levels and how much time you have to do the exercise and what feels realistic to you! Anything you can do to get active and reduce the amount of time you spend sitting/lying down is great! It is also so important to remember that this is all about improving your mental health, not on loosing weight/changing your body shape!

What if I am feeling unwell?

If you are feeling unwell it ca be super hard to get up and do physical activity. I also understand that it can be super annoying and frustrating for people to tell you the benefits of being more active when you are struggling. If you are in a really bad place, do not be hard on yourself if you cannot exercise- do not start to feel guilty or beat yourself up about it. Priorities other things for a while and build physical activity back into your routine when you feel up for it. The key is to finding balance and workout what is best for you!

How to get active 

There are 1000’s of ways to get active and there is no right or wrong answer to this. I promise you it will be so much easier for yourself if you choose activity that you enjoy. I find climbing and weight lifting incredibly fun and rewarding which is why it is easier for me to makethem into a habit- if you find something you love it will be easier to go out and do it.

Another great way to try getting active is to keep it in mind when planning things with your friends and loved ones. For example, say you always watch movies with your boyfriend at the weekend- suggest going out for a walk instead; if you were planning to go out to dinner with a friend- why not suggest trying climbing or swimming for a change instead. Still super fun activities but they are just a bit more active! Physical activity can me incredibly social if you keep it in mind when making plans… it doesn’t just have to be dragging yourself for a boring run on a treadmill (unless you love that… then you do you!)

How adventure helps with your mental health

Now I’ve listed all the ways in which physical activity can help maintain your mental health. It is also important to show how adventure can help improve your mental health too. I regularly try to push myself out of my comfort zone and try things that would be considered ‘adventurous’ to help with my personal mental health conditions and it truly really helps me! I hope that it will inspire some of you to give adventure a go and see if it helps you! Here is some of the ways it can help:

• Change comes more easily: those who do thrill seeking activities can have a higher tolerance for uncertainty. Enjoying the unfamiliar in adventurous activities can help you to adapt to change instead of being fearful of it.

• Your confidence evolves: Adrenaline pumping physical activity can lead to higher levels of self-efficiency. You are pushed out of your comfort zone doing these activities which when completed, will make you feel proud and thus you’ll become more confident. 

• It can change your perspective- if you are finding life too overwhelming being able to distance yourself from your problems for a while by doing an adventurous activity can allow for some new perspective which can help make our problems easier to handle.

There are so many benefits to your mental health of getting active and getting adventurous! I hope I have demonstrated a large portion of them here. I 100% recommend trying to get as active as possible, it has changed my life and I hope it will do the same for you!! To encourage you to get adventurous, I have teamed up with Blue ocean activities to run a giveaway over on my Instagram. Head over there to see how you can enter!!!