Fitness and Mental Health! Exercise can improve mental health as well as physical health. If you’re feeling stressed or overwhelmed, CrossFit could be a perfect solution to help you out of that rut.
What’s CrossFit all about?
CrossFit is a combination of metabolic conditioning, gymnastics and weightlifting. Rather than just targeting one part of your body, CrossFit focuses on building overall strength and fitness.
One of its major draw cards is that you don’t get bored as the workouts are constantly varied. The structure of the workouts are designed to help you lose weight, increase muscle tone and improve your overall fitness and wellbeing. An added bonus to joining CrossFit, is the amazing support network and community. You’re surrounded by like minded people who encourage and help you achieve your goals, they also help keep you accountable.
CrossFit and Mental health.
Firstly, exercise is great for stress relief. Vigorous exercise releases a bucket load of endorphins! Endorphins are your brains feel good chemical, which can’t help but make you de-stress. Combined with the fact you get to walk into the gym and switch off from the outside world for an hour.
Then we have the social aspect. Humans are social beings designed to live and work in groups. The very reason we dominant the food chain is because we were able to work and communicate in larger groups than other animals. CrossFit enables you get to train with friends and within a supportive community which makes exercise so much more fun. They help keep you accountable, you automatically feel more motivated and it’s just as rewarding getting to cheer other people on.
Exercise a Stress Release.
One of the best ways to release stress is to exercise. As well as getting your mind away from life’s stresses for a while, you’re also creating positive thought patterns. You’ve made it to the gym, you’re exercising, you’re doing something positive for your body and your mind. When you’re in a great mood, nothing seems insurmountable, which will make work or home stress more manageable.
Exercise has also been shown to improve our self-esteem which in turn will make us feel better mentally. CrossFit keeps you focusing on reaching your next goal, your fitness, health and strength will naturally improve and before you know it, you’ll see the physical changes and in turn you’ll have a huge confidence boost. Regular exercise will make us feel better about our self-image and appearance and achieving success in the gym, be it a PB lift or learning a new skill, will give us a sense of achievement.
When you’re in a good frame of mind and, you’re kinder to yourself, changing bad habits such as minimising alcohol and caffeine and setting up better routines including sleep. Falling into bed after a long productive day including getting into the gym and getting a good restful nights sleep, waking up feeling refreshed makes all the difference.
And for many CrossFitters, the biggest way in which CrossFit in particular can help our fitness and mental health is to make you feel part of something. It’s very easy in modern life to feel alone and segregated. Being part of a box will make you feel valued, accountable and supported
Want to feel better, inside and out?
The first step is to book yourself in for a FREE trial session or checkout our CrossFit Beginners 4 week On-Ramp program. All you need to do is CLICK HERE to find out more.
