Importance of Exercise on your Mental Health

Exercise is the best investment I have ever made, and the returns I have received from the decision to exercise are immeasurable. Exercise continues to make my life richer in ways I could have never imagined. It’s difficult to believe that my decision at such a young age profoundly impacted my life. I would not be the person I am with the opportunities afforded to me. 

Like the start of many other exercise journeys, mine began with the urging of my father. It was the middle of wrestling season, and I was losing muscle due to a lack of strength. My father had seen enough. He challenged me to do two sets of pushups daily for the rest of the reason. The most I could do at the time was ten, and he told me to add two pushups to my maximum every week. By the end of the season, I could do twenty. 

My new routine challenged me in unfamiliar ways. I was used to academic and personal stressors: tests, homework, and social anxiety. These stressors would make me tense, constricted, and short of breath. I would physically shrivel up. Exercise forced out a different version of me. Unlike my other stressors, my daily workouts had a clear goal. There was no excuse I could use to run away from the task at hand. I was forced to confront the pain that I knew was patiently waiting for me. Since the difficulty scaled with my strength, the next week will always be as hard as the present. The workouts were never fun. However, I felt a unique sense of pride when I met my goals week after week. I learned what I was capable of in those moments of pain. For the first time in years, I was finally awake.

It was around this time when I fell in love with running. If strength training is like honing your mind into a sharp blade, running is the equivalent of running that blade through a diamond saw. Running forces you to be uncomfortable for a long duration of time. The difficulty comes from winning each step. Every step that I take in a run is an opportunity for me to quit. In a thirty-minute run, there are more than five thousand chances to stop and succumb to my inner voice. I rarely give in. The confidence boost I receive whenever I finish a difficult run is bigger than any compliment, award, or clap on the back. I know in my heart that I voluntarily faced adversity and won. This feeling is why I started to run and continue to run almost every day. 

Now, I challenge you to evaluate your life. Do you feel stuck, unmotivated, or unproductive? Next, I ask that you assess your level of fitness. Have you been stuck in the same monotonous workout routine that fails to challenge you? Or have you been neglecting your physical health? If the answer to either is yes, I want you to pick a physical activity that you don’t enjoy. This can be calisthenics, weight lifting, running, etc. I want you to make it a part of your morning routine. If you don’t have time, go to sleep thirty minutes earlier and wake up thirty minutes earlier. Use the weekends as your rest days. After thirty days, re-evaluate your attitude. If the workout is becoming easier, add more weights or switch up the activity. I promise you that this simple change could help transform your life and your outlook on everything!