Green Exercise

Thesis: It’s hard being a student and working at the same time, and find energy for both. I will show you why starting an exercise program can boost your energy and your mental health.

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

Heladóttír, Hallgren, Ekblom, Forsell (2016) sought to find an optimal dosage of exercise to elicit positive responses in those diagnosed with depression using three varying intensities. With frequency and duration kept consistent, 620 participants, including ages 18 to 67, were randomly assigned different treatment groups. These included (1) continuing their usual treatment, (2) light exercise like yoga, (3) moderate aerobic exercise, and (4) vigorous aerobic exercise. The training program lasted for 12 weeks, requiring subjects to exercise 55 minutes 3 times a week. The researchers measured depression severity at baseline and post-treatment while monitoring heart rate during every session using a monitor. Following the conclusion of the study, the results indicated that depression severity decreased in al exercise groups. However, the optimal dosage for exercise prescription remains uncertain. These findings suggest that light exercise, such as yoga, were more beneficial than the other intensities

Thirdly, physical exercise itself could re-shape our body, make body stronger and looks healthier. It hence can improve individual’s attractiveness and confidence and hence can enable a positive life attitude. Fourthly, since the physical exercise normally would enable individual to interact with others, socialising with participants and friends in a such low-stress way might meet human’s belonging needs. It therefore could make people have a good mood and recharge themselves to fight against stress (Elizabeth, 2011).

In the book, Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and The Brain by Dr. John J. Ratey, MD (2008), Ratey discuses how exercise can help treat many mood disorders and how it can help strengthen our brains. This book is divided into ten chapters all with five to ten subsections in them. The chapters include: Welcome to the revolution: A Case Study on Exercise and the brain, Learning, Stress, Anxiety, Depression, Attention Deficit, Addiction, Hormonal Changers, Aging, and the Regimen.

This paper perpetuates to expand fortifying major health benefits of conventional physical activity and exercise. However, there is withal a growing body of erudition that substantiates that physical activity withal amends psychological salubrity. The following literature attempts to review the various effects of physical activity and the mental health variables. It will especially focus on the psychological effects of exercise

The article describes different types of green exercise and the impact on human mental and physical wellbeing. The article reinforces the importance for exercise and how nature is an important correlation between health and nature education.

These researches are however mostly dedicated to single exercise types. It is therefore necessary to examine these research literatures and data collected from the work of previous scholars with the aims of synthesizing all the available exercise types, and determining their roles in improving the moods of people with depression. Results from the current study will also serve as a tool for the psychoeducation of counselors, and clients with

Physical activity has been proven to stimulate various brain chemicals that can leave us feeling happy and relaxed. Dr. Mary de Groot of Indiana University ran a study on the link of depression and diabetes with exercise. With the diabetes patients, she had them perform a 12-week exercise and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) intervention program. The group that exercised showed improvements both in depression and in blood sugar levels. (Weir) Working out consistently can also help tremendously with our self-esteem and confidence. Exercise can boost our energy by improving our endurance and muscle strength that can benefit us in daily life situations such as at work or school. It may seem counter intuitive to say, but expending energy can help us gain more energy. It can help your cardiovascular system work more effectively by delivering oxygen and nutrients to your tissues. More than 90% of studies indicate that exercise increases energy for nearly every group, ranging from sedentary to healthy adults to cancer patients. Exercise can also make us sleep more efficiently by being able to fall asleep faster and reach an even deeper sleep. This effect happens over time the more consistent we exercise. Research has shown that exercise has a long term effect on sleep, but having quality sleep has a short term effect on our

Another study discovered, “exercising in natural environments was associated with greater feelings of revitalisation, increased energy and positive engagement, together with decreases in tension, confusion, anger and depression,” (The Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry). Overall, exercising outside is highly beneficial. If locations for outdoor exercise are not available or are dangerous, like the preserve before the weeds were disposed of, people will be unable to reap the benefits of outdoor exercise.

For most individuals, happiness is the main objective. What if there was a natural way to increase happiness? As it turns out, there is. Exercise not only makes people healthier physically, but it also improves mental health. In the article “Can Exercise Cure Depression and Anxiety?" written by Amanda Loudin, Loudin makes a statement that validates the mental values of exercise. According to Loudin, “Jennifer Carter, a clinical assistant professor of family medicine and the director of sport psychology at Ohio State University, said she has been pushing exercise therapy since the early 2000s. ‘I view balanced exercise as an important component in treating anxiety, depression and other mental-health disorders,’ she said” (3). Loudin’s point is that physical activity is a proven asset in treating mental disorders. Moreover, exercise leads to a more positive outlook on

General recommendations are now widely accepted as to the general advantages of exercise in terms of physical health, such as its ability to prevent weight gain, coronary heart disease, hypertension, diabetes and osteoporosis.14 It appears that health promotion schemes have shied away from extolling exercise’s psychological benefits. After all, there is no government campaign, no public policy initiative, which pontificates exercise on account of a concern for mental wellbeing. Although many people would identify that exercise has a positive influence on mood state, it appears that, generally speaking, this is regarded as a positive correlation, rather than a causal relationship. The ‘healthy body, healthy mind’ concept is thus, for many, a heuristic utopia, rather than a scientifically proven

While the research of Blumenthal et al. (2007) focused on exercise being effective in reducing self-reported depressive symptoms, Diaz and Motta (2008) and Motta, Kuligowski, and Marino (2010) looked at the positive effects of exercise on depression, anxiety and PTSD. The theory of exercise’s positive effect on mental health has heavily been focused on

They found that an exercise training programme could be an alternative treatment for MDD. Although antidepressants had a more rapid response than exercise, after 16 weeks of exercise the effectiveness in reducing depression was equal to the anti-depressants. A study also found that a single bout of exercise could result in substantial improvements in mood, which shows that it’s not just duration and frequency. However, it may be that the improvement in mood is only temporary (Dimeo et al., 2001). Lawler and Hopker (2001) stated that effectiveness of exercise on depression couldn’t be determined due to lack of quality research based on clinical populations. They also wrote that the explanations of the results may have been that depressed patients who did regular exercise could have got positive feedback from other people and a sense of self worth, which may act as a diversion from negative thoughts. Physical activity was found to be linked with less coexisting depression, which remains the same after controlling for gender, age, and race. The results of the study showed that physical activity is helpful with medical problems, life stressors and quality of sleep (Harris et al., 2006).

Exercise may be one of the most important influences on your overall health to date. While the only benefits that are mainly focused on are the physical benefits, significant psychological impacts can also be linked to exercise. Although some of these benefits aren’t viewed with much enthusiasm, studies have proven that exercise can actually improve one’s quality of life greatly by increasing not only their physical health but their mental health as well. It is because of this that exercise is a