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Why Outdoor Exercise Boosts Mood More Than Indoor Exercise
Sticking to a workout plan is never easy. However, if you come up with a way to make your workout sessions more interesting, you’ll find it easier to exercise on a regular basis. One sure way of making exercise more enjoyable is taking your routines outside.
Research suggests that exercising in the great outdoors delivers some distinct and measurable psychological and physiological benefits over exercising indoors. In this article, we’ll explore why outdoor exercise boosts mood more than indoor exercise. Keep reading to learn more.
Nature Relaxes the Body and Mind
It’s believed that the simple act of looking at pictures of nature (especially nature scenes that include water) can help lower stress, blood pressure, and mental fatigue. That’s just how powerful nature can be for the body and mind. So, actually stepping out and including some form of physical activity to the mix tends to amplify these benefits. Exposure to nature will help to decrease blood pressure, levels of the stress hormone cortisol, and your resting heart rate. Yes, exercise also provides the same effect… but the results often tend to be slightly amplified in a serene, outdoor setting. Consequently, you get double the benefits by simply taking your workouts outdoors. It’s no wonder why individuals who exercise outdoors tend to stick to their exercise programs more consistently and longer that those who train indoors. Statistics show that about half of the people who join a gym do not make it beyond their first year of exercising.
Outdoor Exercise Is Proven To Improve Mood and Self-Esteem Another surprising benefit of taking your workouts outside is an overall sense of well-being and increased confidence. Research shows that outdoor training improves measures of self-esteem, revitalization, pleasure, and energy. This also decreases feelings of frustration, anger, depression, confusion, tension, worry, and tiredness far more than any indoor activity does. And not that much time is needed to reap these psychological benefits. Just 20-30 minutes of outdoor exercise is enough to deliver measurable benefit to your mind.
Outdoor Training Is Distracting In A Good Way The beauties of nature (clear skies, chirping birds, running water, colorful leaves, etc.) tend to take your mind off the effort you are expending while exercising. As a result, you get to exercise harder without feeling exhausted. This can help increase your endurance and motivation thus making it easier for you to improve performance and stick to your workout plan. Staying in high spirits can do wonders for your exercise regimen. So, if you’re having trouble sticking to your fitness goals, you should try taking it outside. The best part is that you don’t have to spend hours on end exercising outdoors. Simply adding an outdoor routine to your workout sessions is enough to deliver the benefits explained above.
