Even if your world is upside down, how can exercise help ease your stress levels?

Even if your world is upside down, how can exercise help ease your stress levels?

Exercise increases your overall health and your sense of well-being, which puts more pep in your step every day. But exercise also has some direct stress-busting benefits. It pumps up your endorphins. Physical activity helps bump up the production of your brain's feel-good neurotransmitters, called endorphins.

Exercise is meditation in motion. After a fast-paced game of racquetball or several laps in the pool, you'll often find that you've forgotten the day's irritations and concentrated only on your body's movements.

As you begin to regularly shed your daily tensions through movement and physical activity, you may find that this focus on a single task, and the resulting energy and optimism, can help you remain calm and clear in everything you do.

Exercise improves your mood. Regular exercise can increase self-confidence, it can relax you, and it can lower the symptoms associated with mild depression and anxiety. Exercise can also improve your sleep, which is often disrupted by stress, depression and anxiety. All of these exercise benefits can ease your stress levels and give you a sense of command over your body and your life.

Let the Niles Family Fitness Center (987 Civic Center Dr. Niles Illinois 60714) give you some ideas to exercise that stress away. You need not be a member to participate in our group fitness classes. From Zumba, Yoga, Boot Camp, to Barre Fusion Classes we have one to fit your fitness level and your time constraints. Give our Fitness Coordinator Danielle a call at 847-588-8400 for some ideas