FIND INNER STRENGTH
Learn to out-train stress and anxiety with our feel-good workouts for your brain
Stressed out? Then the body part you need to target in your next workout is the one between your ears. With a little neurological know-how, your training sessions can expel anxiety and add muscle to flagging motivation. If life is weighing heavy, try these mood boosters for a lift
Ten years ago, if you asked someone why they trained, they would have given you a range of answers. Some would have told you about their aesthetic goals; others would have been focused on improving their performance, or spoken of more holistic ambitions, such as longevity. But mental health? Unlikely. We’ve always known that exercise makes us feel good, but a tendency to see the mind and body as separate meant that it was strictly considered the domain of body transformations, not psychological fix-ups.
Today, most of us know that, just as your heart, lungs, muscles and bones can be strengthened by exercise, so, too, can your brain. Regular exercise is a proven strategy for enhancing your mental well-being, second only to connecting with other people – which you can do in your gym class, anyway.
In one analysis, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, those who trained for just two and a half hours each week had a risk of depression 31% lower than those who didn’t. It has been shown to rival antidepressant medications in its efficacy. And, according to one Bristol University study, people score higher for both focus and motivation on days when they exercise.
The pandemic might not have kick-started this awakening, but it accelerated it. Research by University College London found that more than half of us exercised daily during lockdown, up from just a third beforehand.
Our main motivations? Assuaging anxiety, lifting our energy levels and clearing our minds.
“Exercise is overlooked as a medicine for mental health, largely because we put so much focus on its aesthetic effects,” says Hendrick Famutimi (@supermanhf ), a two-time British powerlifting champion and instructor at gyms Rowbots and Equinox. “It helped me beat a decade-long gambling addiction and manage my low self-esteem.
If more of us promoted the mental health benefits of exercise, more people would place it higher on their priorities list.”
Dan Hancock is a personal trainer based in Forth Valley, Scotland. He offers free “Body & Mind” fitness classes to people needing to improve their mental well-being. “I started it when I realised that many of the clients who came to me to change their bodies were, deep down, struggling with their mental health,” he says. “Most people put fat loss first, but I prefer to focus on mental stability, mental stamina and mental strength.”
To give you a booster shot when your reserves run low, we asked Famutimi and Hancock to share their favourite feel-good workouts. On these pages, you won’t find targets for calories burned or muscles worked – though these exercises will, incidentally, tick both boxes. Instead, we’ve spelled out exactly how each can help you feel your best, as well as look it.