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Psychological Benefits Of Regular Exercise

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Regular exercise has a massive amount of physical benefits; it reduces a person’s likelihood of heart disease, strokes, diabetes, and high blood pressure, as well as many other conditions caused by obesity and an unhealthy lifestyle. However, there is also many psychological benefits to exercise, particularly in terms of mental health. Deslandes et al (2009) found that regular exercise can decrease the severity of many mental health disorders, including, but not limited to, anxiety, depression, and stress. They also identified physical activity as being linked to an increased self-esteem, confidence levels, and body image. Barlow (2007) discovered that many of their participants found exercise as a mental ‘time out’, which is to say that exercising temporarily relived them of their stressors, many of which finding solutions to their stressful situations during this time period. Hughes (1984) suggested that the control found when exercising helps increase a person’s stress management; when exercising you control your body in order to become stronger and fitter, and these levels of control can be translated into stress management techniques, just simply identifying this aspect of life that is controlled can help the understanding that most areas of life can be controlled too, even stress.

Exercise is evidently extremely important to maintaining a healthy body and lifestyle, however Ebben et al 2008 suggest that one of the main reasons people tend not to exercise is because

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