Cognitive Therapy

“Walking is man’s best medicine”, Hippocrates (Greek physician 470 – 377 b.C.) once said. Your mental health is influenced by many factors: personal circumstances, social relationships, work-life balance, up-bringing, sleep, diet, personal experiences, family history and exercise.

To function optimally we should strive for good mental and physical health. So, what is good mental health? Good mental health might be characterised by having the ability to learn, the ability to feel and express a range of positive and negative emotions. With good mental health we can develop and maintain healthy positive relationships with others as well as ourselves.

We see an increase of mental health difficulties because of our sedentary lifestyle. Exercise can help to reduce tension held in the body caused by stress or reset shallow breathing which is often symptomatic of anxiety. We release stress hormones called cortisol and adrenaline when we exercise. Experiencing anxiety or stress regularly, means we might have high levels of cortisol and adrenaline in our systems. Although exercising causes more stress hormones, after a workout or exercise these levels drop back down to a healthy level often lower than when we experience chronic stress or anxiety. Exercise therefore helps to mitigate anxiety and stress symptoms.