7 Ways Exercise Leads to Happiness

7 Ways Exercise Leads to Happiness
By Bob Livingstone, LCSW
eDiets Contributor

There are periods of time in all our lives when we feel despondent, lethargic, depressed and hopeless. These feeling states can last from a few minutes to many years. The length of time feeling down depends on what loss, trauma or hurt you maybe suffering from. Examples of personal traumas are: One of your parents may have died when you were a child. You may be suffering from a breakup with a partner you still are very much in love with. You may have been a victim of a violent crime or you may be recovering from substance abuse.

The amount of time feeling in dismay is contingent on what coping and recovery skills you learned. Many of us don’t know how to face, experience, work through and let go of emotional pain. Many of us are afraid to face it because we are fearful that this path will lead to infinite agony. Some of us are ashamed to admit that we have problems that have become unsolvable.

There is a way to resolve these problems and this method of resolving emotional pain is not something the big pharmaceutical companies want you to know. They prefer that you went to your physician and signed on for a prescription of the latest anti-depressant or anti-anxiety.

The way to not only heal emotional pain, but to achieve true happiness is through physical exercise. Now medication can be effective, but exercise has been proven to be at least if not more effective for folks who are depressed without the side effects of sexual dysfunction, difficulty sleeping and suicidal thinking.

Psychotherapy can also be helpful in exploring the reasons why you are not living a fulfilling life. A skilled therapist will ask you questions that can lead to new insights. A good therapist can also help guide you through the pain and teach you how to love yourself.

Perhaps before you try the psychotherapist or medication routes, you can delve into exercise. If you have never exercised before or haven’t for a long time, obtain your physician’s clearance to work out.

Here are seven ways you can increase your sense of happiness through exercise:

1. Exercise will bring you into a totally new world and can forever positively transform your life.

2. Exercise will tone your body. Therefore you will begin to feel better about the way you look.

3. The brain chemistry changes while you are working out; leading to feeling calm.

4. You will feel a sense of accomplishment after each time you exercise leading to improved self-esteem.

5. Exercise can be a healthy means of distracting yourself from your emotional pain. Exercise can also be a means to face your emotional pain because the increased confidence will allow you to deal with internal traumas in a bold, self-assured manner.

6. Exercise by itself is known to improve depression and anxiety.

7. Exercise has been proven to make you smarter. Therefore you will develop the skills you need to let go of your emotional pain and discover genuine happiness.

Psychotherapist Bob Livingstone has helped millions heal their emotional pain during the past twenty years. He has been instrumental in assisting victims of emotional and/or physical violence recover from trauma and no longer be victims. He is a featured contributor to DrLaura.com, Beliefnet.com, eDiets.com, Selfgrowth.com and SheKnows.com. He is the author of the critically acclaimed book The Body-Mind-Soul Solution: Healing Emotional Pain through Exercise (Pegasus Books, Second Printing 2008). For more emotional healing visit www.boblivingstone.com.

Not even gonna try

LOL..I'm not even going to try and catch up with what's been going on since November 4th.Coz I probably won't remember half of it. My guy didn't win in the election.. Had the grandkids this past week end.. Dang I love those little stinkers. I'm just amazed that they've finally gotten to the age where they can carry on conversations. Not that I always understand everything they say but most of the time I can. Like Ian constantly reminding me we need goldfish..the crackers...not the real wiggly little thing. LOL. Kayla is getting to be such a little lady. And Colin...he's the silly eye rolling one. I had a hard time getting a picture of the 3 of them to send Shaun coz he was always rolling his eyes everytime I tried to take the picture. But I finally got a half way decent one. It snowed hard enough this morning that we had snow on the ground but its gone already. Nicole and I saw each other 5 days in a row last week.. Usually we see each other Wednesday , Friday and Sunday,..but last week we snuck in Thursday and Saturday too. This morning I did the laundry and vaccumed and picked up some of the clutter on the floor..I feel very accomplished. Guess that's it....off to upload a couple of pics.....or not....it won't let me upload pics for some reason... ok yes it will but only one at a time...Are you as confused as me yet??



Colin, Ian and Kayla

James and Kayla

Colin and Ian

The snow that temporarily visited this morning

Here we go again.....

with the catch up thing...Gee Whiz. Wednesday...went to my Mom's Dr appointment with her. They didn't find anything..they suspected Barettes Disease but found nothing. She said she'd been feeling pretty good until the day before when she'd had kool aid and nuts...the PA said it was probably the kool aid because of the sugar and now they're suspecting Irritable bowel syndrome...though I didn't know that caused nausea and vomiting. Oh well...that and they changed her from nexium to prilosec so maybe that helped. I didn't go to my Mom's this week. There wasn't really anything to do so I may cut down to every other week. Not sure what I did do Thursday...not much I don't think...I do believe that was the day I got an e-mail from Heather telling me she and Shaun had gotten their boxes...so about 17 days from here to there this time. Friday I waited anxiously for Nicole to get here..She took the day off and was going to spend the afternoon with me. We did lunch at Red Robin and then spent the rest of the afternoon walking around in stores. Saturday hubby cleaned out the gutters and I cleaned up dog poop. Yeah!!! We could walk out in the yard for 20 minutes or so. Then Ken and I raked up some leaves onto a tarp and dragged them to the road. Grocery shopping and watching a movie rounded out the day..oh and my homemade Ham and Bean soup...Mmmm Mmmmm Good. Sunday was kind of a weird day at church. We had a fellowship Sunday...the evening service was at 9:20 AM..Sunday School at 10:10 AM and morning service at 11:00 AM. Then we had a free lunch and time to fellowship. Choir practice was at 1:10 PM and we were outta there by 2:30 for the day. It was weird not to have night service at night...It really messed me up. LOL. I am SO a creature of habit. Monday was laundry...done in the dryer coz it looked cloudy out and I didn't want to chance my laundry getting a second natural rinse. I didn't sleep good last night...in fact I haven't been sleeping good for a while now. Not sure if its the new meds the doc has me on or what. Anyways...about 5:50 AM I'm kinda half in and half out of sleep and I think to myself," Was that my cell phone?" I fumble in the dark for it on my bedside table and open it up. 1 New Message...ok.....Nick Cell/ Ok...off I go. or something to that effect. I laughed right out loud.. This is Nicole's first presidential election and she's been waiting for this ever since she turned 18. She'll be 21 in April. Yesterday we didn't know if she'd be able to vote because in trying to find out where her polling place was we discovered she was registered under her maiden name not her married name though the address was right. A call to the Board of Elections and all she had to do was cross out her maiden name and write in her married name..She still had her old licence with her maiden name as well as her new license with her married name..I told her to take her marriage license too. So ...back to the story...when I laughed Ken said, "What?" I said, "Nicole is on her way to vote" He said, "Oh yeah the polls open at 6:00" and he starts getting out of bed..."Ummm, are we going now? ". "Yes". Oh brother...so sleepy eyed me had to find my clothes, get dressed and get out the door. Fast forward 15 minutes...the polling place is only a few places own the road...Ken do you remember what district we are? 20 something I think...guy at the door...address...oh...district 40. Lines weren't to bad..about 8 people in front of us...walk up to the table...we're not on their list....oh Lord. Apparently you don't have to be smart to be a volunteer at an election polling place. He sent us to the wrong table...we're district 27...LOL..I got the I told you so snicker. So the voting is all over but the results which we'll be watching. Because our church is one of the polling places this year they cancelled school today....Our kids are precious and there were going to be to many strangers around. So Jen and I went shopping for a bridal gift..though now I don't know how to wrap it...I'm not to smart some times...I didn't get the clothes baskets coz they'd be to hard to wrap so I bought a mop instead ( slapping self on forehead) doh! Then Jen and I went to Red Robin for lunch. Yummy Yummy. So I'm still working out on the treadmill almost daily. I found a shorter work out for days when I don't have alot of time...or for an extra little I ate to may calories and carbs today so I need to burn an extra 100 calores. Guess that's it for now...