What is Mental Fitness?
For many years, fitness and exercise have been associated with weight loss and looking good. While this isn’t incorrect, as you can achieve your desired physique through consistent exercise and a healthy diet, many people tend to focus on the weight loss portion over everything else. Fitness is so much more than just losing a few pounds—it’s mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual for some.
For many years, fitness and exercise have been associated with weight loss and looking good. While this isn’t incorrect, as you can achieve your desired physique through consistent exercise and a healthy diet, many people tend to focus on the weight loss portion over everything else. Fitness is so much more than just losing a few pounds—it’s mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual for some.
How is fitness mental and emotional, though? Well, fitness can be a holistic practice that benefits the entire body. As a therapist, I help people improve their symptoms of depression, anxiety, distractibility, and impulsivity by incorporating movement. Hence, where I melted the words “mental” and “fitness” together.
Physical fitness blends together with mental health, and it can have more of an effect than you may think. Think about what type of movement you enjoy best. It doesn’t even have to be just running and weight training at the gym. While these are great, movement can include dance, hiking, swimming, or simply taking a walk around the block.
Studies show that movement produces chemicals in our brains that help elevate mood, improve sleep, think with clarity, and gain a greater degree of control over our thinking. Mental fitness is taking care of your brain to achieve optimal mental performance, and this can be done with both physical movement and mindfulness practices.
Healthy Brain Chemistry is Key
To achieve optimal mental performance, it’s important to understand and maintain healthy brain chemistry. You may have heard of them (even if back in high school), but there are four main brain chemicals that contribute to healthy brain chemistry. Let’s take a look.
Serotonin
Think of serotonin as the positive mood and happy feelings chemical. It differs from dopamine in that it creates a more relaxed, satisfied feeling that contributes to your overall mood. It also helps regulate your sleep, appetite, and mood.
Dopamine
It’s the chemical we know and love. Dopamine is released when you do things that feel pleasurable or when you complete a task. This chemical is important because it helps with movement and motivation.
Endorphins
These chemicals trigger positive feelings when you engage in activities such as movement (dancing or exercise), sex, or laughing. They’re also released to relieve pain, reduce stress, and improve your overall sense of well-being.
Oxytocin
You may recognize the word oxy. Think back to the time you had your wisdom teeth removed. This hormone is produced by the body to trigger feelings of love and connection. It can be activated by an intimate connection such as sex or maternal behavior.
Without good brain chemistry, you may experience the following challenges:
Low and/or irritable mood
Depression
Anxiety
Poor sleep or fatigue
Increase or decrease in appetite
Food cravings
Distractibility
Poor memory
Low motivation
Foggy thinking
Impulsivity
How to Improve Your Mental Fitness
If you’re ready to improve your life by improving your mental fitness, it’s important to know how to do so. It’s really not as difficult or stressful as you may think. Follow these tips to improve your mental fitness—we promise you’ll be thanking yourself later.
Food is Fuel for the Brain
You’ve probably heard it a million times, but we’ll say it again. Food plays a huge role in mental fitness because it’s what’s fueling you. Take a look at your food intake and ask yourself what you’re eating and how much. Do you eat enough greens and protein? How much sugar and caffeine do you consume?
Many people who report high anxiety are also consuming large amounts of caffeine and sugar, and this correlation makes sense when we look at the effects of caffeine and sugar. Stop at 1 cup of coffee, because those 3 cups aren’t doing anything but fueling your anxiety. High amounts of sugar and minimal movement are also a recipe for foggy thinking and sluggishness.
Try shopping in the perimeter of the store. The chip section can wait another day.
Practice Movement and Mindfulness
When people hear the word mindfulness, it’s often associated with spiritual meditation and yoga. While mindfulness can definitely be spiritual and include meditation and yoga, mindfulness also encompasses journaling, practicing gratitude, and learning or reading. Try incorporating 5 minutes of meditation into your daily routine. The Balance App is offering a full year of free guided meditation, which is great for relaxation and grounding yourself.
Movement is the other side of the coin, and this includes everything we mentioned earlier from running and walking to dancing and swimming. Try to add 15-20 minutes of cardio movement 2-3 times a week. You can even make it a game with yourself. Try to beat your steps per day or the flights of stairs you go up.
The First Step is Getting Started
Sometimes getting started is the most difficult part and people find themselves in what therapists refer to as a “negative feedback loop”. My suggestion is to take it one moment at a time. Connect to that moment as you open the refrigerator and ask yourself how that piece of food will make you feel. The choice is yours. If you have 10 minutes between meetings, stand up and do some jumping jacks. It doesn’t have to be anything intense or timely.
Mental fitness is about feeling good!
Disclaimer- As a therapist, I support psychotropic medication, as movement and food might not be enough to support chemical imbalances. You should always follow the recommendations of your medical provider. Also, consult with your physician before making any dietary changes or increased movement should you have any concerns.
Resources & Facts
https://integrisok.com/Resources/On-Your-Health/2022/July/Happy-Chemicals
https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/all-about-inflammation
ADHD By Design
It seems since COVID, ADHD in adults has become more visible. It's no surprise as people were forced to live and work under the same roof, which can become a mess, literally!
How is it that people who have been in their careers for 10, 20, or 30 years are all of a sudden struggling with symptoms and challenges of anxiety, staying on task, being distracted, and experiencing that afternoon fatigue?
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
– Douglas Adams
It seems since COVID, ADHD in adults has become more visible. It's no surprise as people were forced to live and work under the same roof, which can become a mess, literally!
How is it that people who have been in their careers for 10, 20, or 30 years are all of a sudden struggling with symptoms and challenges of anxiety, staying on task, being distracted, and experiencing that afternoon fatigue?
I'm going to be transparent here I was one of those people who one day felt their life had become pure chaos. My paint brushes were found on my work desk…forks from the kitchen were found in the bathroom sink… and for the love of God, I couldn't seem to make it down the road without forgetting something. I seriously thought I might be in the early stages of dementia. Seriously, I was so frustrated and agitated.
I needed to take control of my life. So one day I went out to my shed and grabbed one of those gigantic paper leaf bags. I brought it back into the house starting to clean out each room. There was just too much stuff. I felt the only way to declutter my mind was to declutter my house. And when I finished, it felt like a huge weight had been lifted.
This got me thinking…how can decluttering my environment allow me the bandwidth to think clearly and not feel overwhelmed. I need to understand this, so I met with my therapist who diagnosed me with ADHD.
What?? I’m 50-something, how is it I had come this far in my life and not known I was ADHD? I was 25-plus years into my profession and completed a few degrees.
As I started to reflect on my years of schooling and career, there were similarities in accountability, structure, and time management.
Without knowing I had designed my life to keep me focused and on task. The financial investment of school held me accountable. Work deadlines provided structure, but more importantly, working against the clock as a first responder fueled my dopamine tank.
To be successful at my work I developed systems to keep me organized and these systems were and continue to be always evolving.
In my personal life, my home is another area I have unknowingly designed around my ADHD. I have glass cabinets, no dressers, and everything is in open view to see. Do you know why? Because if I put it it is put away in a drawer it is gone forever until one day I decide to open those drawers out of curiosity and surprise iit will feel like my birthday!
Did I mention time management? Well, there isn’t a room in my house that doesn’t have a clock. My interest in clocks started years ago. It is what keeps me on time and on task!
People with ADHD design systems that work for them. No two people are the same and that goes for people with ADHD too. ADHD looks different for everyone. What works for me might not work for you. Take the time to reflect as to what has worked well in your life and what has not.
Additudemag.com