boiMAG.com "Fitness Article"

Hitting the gym releases moodregulating neurotransmitters and chemicals including dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins, which can help chill out those feelings of anxiety and stress. It’s not a moreis-more situation, though. Exercise has been shown to help “restore” balance in the brain in terms of neurotransmitters, rather than creating more. In anxious brains, neurotransmitters are not being transmitted from one cell to the next very efficiently, so it doesn’t get around the brain as effectively as it should. So, exercise is one of the practices that can help regulate this.

Working out can also help distract you from going down a rabbit hole of worries and what-ifs, since it forces you to focus on the movement itself. What’s more is that from a more psychological perspective, some people think it contributes to this idea of self-efficacy, meaning that if you can exercise and get better at it over time, that gives you a sense that you’re accomplishing something. This is especially true when you combine exercise with a social component, like exercising with a friend or group, which can help boost mood and reduce anxiety.

Unsurprisingly, this means that group fitness classes are in higher demand than ever because people are craving companionship and togetherness after the previous year of isolation.

Sometimes exercise can make anxiety worse, however, exercise is a perfect example of how you can have too much of a good thing, literally and figuratively. Consuming fitness content (which is basically everywhere these days) can illustrate the downside of workout culture and create body image pressure. Much of that is fueled by social media apps like Instagram and TikTok, where people are flaunting ‘perfect’ and often filtered bodies, not to mention perfectly posed and angled bodies. The purpose of working out, which is to be healthy, can get lost and replaced with an end goal of body idealism.

Not only is this obsession counterintuitive to improving anxiety, it can be physically dangerous, too. Over-exercising to meet your goals, for example, exercising six to seven days per week and/or more than 90 minutes per session can lead to physical and mental burnout. Although we all know and love the athleisure craze, it also creates pressure to look cute while working out.

Long gone are the days of throwing on whatever workout clothes you grab first out of the drawer and breaking a sweat.

Plus, most social media posts tend to show a reflection of getting in shape quickly, and people post pictures of meals and workouts that are not necessarily the truth. Keep in mind that others’ online fitness journeys often are a carefully curated highlight reel. This goes for not only fitness posts, but posts that promote a sense of idealism around body positivity itself. While it’s great that some people tout the idea of selflove on Instagram and TikTok, not feeling that way 24/7 can become another reason to feel like you’re not stacking up.

Beyond how you look, being a committed gym-goer has the potential to turn into an obsession, feeding into the anxiety spiral. Perfection becomes more important than the journey, and nothing becomes good enough, what once was a stress relief becomes a stressor and it’s really tough not to compare oneself with another who may perform a certain way. The most important thing is to stay true to your own goals and understand that being “in shape” is anything but a one-size-fits-all definition and that everyone is different.

One of the first steps here is to identify social media content that can put you into that anxiety and perfection spiral. Try to follow accounts that align more with the realistic journey you face toward achieving your body goals, and limit how much time you spend looking at images online.

Physically, some types of exercise (like hardcore cardio) can also spur feelings of anxiety in people who already struggle with it. For example, sprinting it out on a treadmill can feel a lot like experiencing the shortness of breath, increased heart rate, and sweating of a panic attack, and that scary feeling doesn’t always deliver the endorphin-boosting “high” of exercise we’re looking for.

This doesn’t have to be a forever challenge, though. People can overcome the fear of the physical response, you associate increased heart rate with anxiety, but you can relearn that this response can actually be a positive thing.

To help get there, try a grounding exercise when you’re feeling anxious during a workout. Notice five things you can see (like a plant in the corner or your water bottle), four that you can handle (like your hands or your phone), three you can smell (like gym cleaning solution or someone’s perfume), two you can hear (like birds chirping or cars passing outside the studio), and one you can taste (like your gum or coffee). This exercise, also known as the 5-4-3-2-1 coping technique, is touted in the behavioral health space for its ability to keep the mind focused on the present and stay in the moment (similar to meditation and breathing exercises). Ultimately you can retrain your brain and body to react to workouts more calmly.

It can also be helpful to time workouts around other parts of your week that put you on-edge. If you know the things that typically make you anxious, you can plan workouts that fit into those days ahead of time. When you start feeling anxious, carve out time in your day to replace any other habit that doesn’t serve you with working out.

Ultimately, the best time and type of workout is the one you can stick with. Little and often will help you make positive changes to your handle on anxiety through an exercise routine.

If you’re new to exercise altogether, start slow and steady to avoid getting overwhelmed, after all, trying new things can be scary, so be kind to yourself.

Changes in the brain take time. If you exercise once and not again, you’ll probably see an immediate benefit, and then it’ll go away because you have to maintain those activities to keep those neurotransmitters balanced. If you take medicines for anxiety or depression it may take weeks to really kick in and show a benefit, and the same can be said for the longer term benefits of exercise.

On that note, it’s very important to remember that anxiety is a serious condition, and sometimes, self-care practices like exercise and sleep are not enough, and that’s on the brain, not on you. So, think of exercise as a tool for combatting anxiety, not the end-all miracle cure, but, it’s a pretty powerful tool at that.

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