Mental Health Awareness Week is taking place during 15th– 21st May and this years theme is anxiety, Mental Health Foundation shares “Anxiety is something we can all experience from time-to time. There are lots of reasons why we get this feeling. It can be connected to a job, school, a relationship, social situations, how we feel about ourselves, or a change in our life.”
Victoria, Fitness Experience Manager at Everybody Health and Leisure
Mental Health Foundation have shared a range of suggestions and tips to help manage these feeling, helping people to find what might work for them, such as focusing on your breathing, exercise, spending time in nature and many more. Find out more here.
Our Fitness Experience Manager, Victoria shares how exercise can help to manage anxiety, as well as sharing 4 mindfulness sessions on our Facebook page during this week, designed to help you take a moment out of your day to manage how you are feeling:
Exercise and Anxiety
Exercise has been proven to be a powerful tool in managing anxiety, for many reasons. A simple bike ride, dance or gym workout can provide mental relief from the feeling of anxiety – maybe even a distraction from a subject that you are particularly worried about.
This, in conjunction with the decrease in muscle tension that exercise contributes to, lowers your body’s contribution to feeling anxious.
The science behind this tells us that raising your heart rate changes the brain’s chemistry- increasing the availability of important anti-anxiety neurochemicals. It also activates the frontal regions of the brain and helps control our reaction to what may be a real, or imagined, threat.
And the even better news is, the more you exercise, the better your resilience to stormy emotions.
Many of our members find that working out carves out some alone time for them to think, be and distract themselves from work or home. Others prefer to work out in a community of like-minded people, creating a diversion from loneliness or simply a friendship and someone to talk to. Lots of our centres have lovely cafe areas where our members often congregate and chat at the end of a class.
Mindfulness & Anxiety
Mindfulness is simply slowing down and allowing ourselves – body and mind – to be in the moment.
It is far too easy to rush around and stop paying attention to what is going on around you, and even inside you. This can cause us to get tied up with our thoughts, with little attention to how they affect our emotions and behaviour.
We will be sharing 4 mindfulness sessions on our Facebook page this week which you can view here, each designed to help you take a moment out of your day to manage how you are feeling.
By becoming more aware of how we are reacting to certain events and feelings we can divert ourselves from starting to go down a destructive route. This helps neutralise any feelings of anxiety.
If you would like to find out more about our services please visit our website. Our Everybody Healthy team work with a range of partners who refer people to our dedicated team of Specialist Health Instructors, our team will work with you to help manage your health condition/s through the design of a tailored exercise programme. You can find out more about our Everybody Exercise Referral programme here or contact the team on: [email protected], phone: 01270 685589 and a member of the health team will be in touch.