Exercise for Optimal Emotional Health

Over the course of this assignment, I began to greatly enjoy deep breathing meditation. Continuing my regime of deep breathing meditation, I regularly practice this style of meditation. Initially choosing this modification for my body, it had positive effects on both body and mind. Centering concentration on my body, quieted my thoughts allocating my mind time to rest for a period during the day. Pausing my mind to focus on breathing made me mindful to my breath aiding my body when I became breathless, in need of a deep breath while navigating

Meditative breathing is specific form of meditative that has been found effective in treating symptoms of anxiety (Vukovic, 2003). Meditative breathing is essentially taking a few minutes to stop and focus on the rising and falling on your breath. A person will do the activity for a specified time limit or number of breaths. The goal is for the person to clear his or her mind of all thoughts unrelated to their breathing. Through this process the person is said to be 'centering' themselves and disengaging from stressful distractions such as racing and/or obsessive thoughts (Murphy, 2006).

Some hypothesize that moderate levels of exercise will decrease the symptoms of mental health conditions (Blumenthal et al., 2007; Diaz & Motta, 2008; Motta, Kuligowski, & Marino, 2010; Rosenbaum, Nguyen, Lenehan, Tiedemann, van der Ploeg, & Sherrington, 2011) and therefore be used as an alternative or complimentary treatment option for mental health (Libby, Pilver, & Desai, 2012).

For example, when I get really worried about an upcoming exam or test, it often upsets me. Therefore, I would approach a friend or an adult that I don’t mind talking to and make them listen to my concerns. A strategy that I use when I talk to a friend or an adult is that I would try to pinpoint the most important concerns that I have and I would look at their reactions so that I know when to stop when they begin to lose focus on listening to my problem. Another way that I use to handle my uncomfortable emotions is to do exercise, especially yoga because the soothing music allows my mind to relax. In addition, the yoga routines allows me to focus on them instead of my emotions because if I lose focus, then I wouldn’t be able to hold a position for the anticipated time as it wouldn’t be as effective. The strategy I use during yoga is to choose soothing music that I like, for example it could be violin or piano covers of pop songs that I like. Another technique that I use is to find a place where I can fully relax without having people interrupt me during my session, for example, this could be at a park, or in my own

Many people have different things that they do for relaxation. As I became an adult, I felt that I needed to take what I enjoyed to do as a child, and make a technique that I could do to relax. Many times I found myself doing the following steps to calm myself and let go of my emotions.

Since 1990s, many scientists agree that exercise has positive impacts on people’s physical health and mental health (SIME WE, 1987). From Morgan and O’Connor’s research, people can reduce stress and state anxiety by doing physical activities; also gain emotional pleasure from the process (Morgan and O’Connor, 1988). Later in 1997, Landers states that physical activities can reduce people depression after weeks of regular and routine exercise. In addition, people can benefit from more

An example of this routine is shown in stress management book and is as follows “Phase 1: Heaviness-My arms and legs feel heavy, Phase 2 Warmth: My arms and legs feel warm (the phrases in phase 1and 2 are repeated 3 times) Phase 3 Heart: My heart is calm and relaxed. The segment goes into 3 more phases which involved breath, the solar plexus and forehead and continues to have one repeat brief calming phrases while breathing very deeply and slowly. (Seaward). The practice can become more detailed and have the person focus on the movement of blood through the

I also learned the method can be used to treat real medical conditions like high blood pressure and insomnia. The article talked about using the techniques of measured breathing and imagining calming surroundings. Telling you to completely immerse yourself in this scene, and stay there for at least five minutes. The article claims that doing this exercise will improve stress management, confidence, communication skills, performance anxiety, focussing, and clear thinking (SMS).

Critically Analyse the Research Findings on the Acute and Chronic Effects of Exercise on Anxiety and Depression

Before exploring this topic, a few key words must be clearly understood. The definition of emotional health, provided by the Mental Health Foundation, is “A positive sense of wellbeing which enables an individual to be able to function in society and meet the demands of everyday life…” (BelongTo). This has a great deal to do with positivity and a person’s view of the world surrounding them. Without proper emotional health, a person’s world can fall apart, similarly to if one has poor mental health. Mental health is described as “…a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the

How ironic is it that simply breathing is a great exercise to remove a lot of stress and fear from your life. Have you ever noticed that when you are stressed out and scared that your breathing begins to slow down and your breaths become shorter? Your brain is not taking in enough oxygen and it is causing even more bodily functions that build up the anxiety inside of us. Breathing is considered to be one of the best and most useful exercises overall to promote wellness within your body. By breathing and becoming aware of your beating heart, you begin to listen more to what your body is telling you. Many times it will tell you that there is something more that is going on that’s causing your anxiety than just your psychological struggles for untangling the knot of fear and anxiety.

Another way one can manage stress is through breathing control and meditation. Breathing control includes the “take ten deep breaths” attempt to managing stress. Breathing helps one to calm themselves, and to think more

This is a subject that is not always discussed when it comes to stress reduction, and yet if you do wish to control your stress and anxiety levels, you will need to learn it.

- Relaxed breathing - a technique that involves deep, even breathing by straining the diaphragm to expand the lungs. The purpose is to slow down breathing, inhale more oxygen and relax your shoulders, neck and upper chest while breathing, so practically more efficient breathing.

The goal of this paper was to show the benefits of exercise on emotional health and to show how it can effectively be used to help people with mental issues. Through various studies data was collected and while the results may have varied slightly they all told the same general story: exercise is good for your emotional health. This paper explored the impact of exercise on people with various physical issues that had negative consequences on patients mental health. This made for a great analysis of the various ways that exercise can help improve your quality of life. Not only was the impact of exercise examined but the proper amount was also investigated in order to provide as much information as possible to help make the process as easy as possible for the people that are trying to use physical activity to help them.