Physical Activities and Stress

Physical Activities and Stress

          One great way to get rid of stress is by getting some kind of physical activity. Exercising gets the blood flowing, the breathing becomes rhythmic, and the body almost becomes a music hall. It is both quite and loud, and quite peaceful.  Every release of breath also releases stress. Some sports, some physical activities, and some exercises are better than others for this. In the following blog, I’ll focus on one good one, and one bad one for each of those categories. 

Sports

Good

         


Football is a great reliever of stress because of the inherent physicality. Tackling a friend is a great reliever because it lets you get rid of some pent up emotions in a safe way. The feeling of success that comes from scoring and succeeding releases dopamine, which causes good emotions, allowing moments where the world is free of problems, which lowers stress in the long run. Football is a good stress reliever because it allows you to escape, where you only have to focus on the game, and it never lets up except for a moment. Other good ones include Boxing, and basketball. 


Bad

       Golf is a game that a lot of the enjoyment is the result of connecting with the people who you play with. While a feeling of zen can be achieved during your shots, in between them there is nothing but conversation and observation, neither of which gets your mind off of the stressful material. Golf can also give the dopamine that football gives, but lots of time the success will be success only after several tries. 

Physical Activities

Good

           Gardening is an activity allowing you to take in the beauty of the world while never having a moment of free time. The constant activity allows the mind to focus on what you are doing, which is making something. Creating something is a great way to get rid of stress. Gardening is a wonderful activity partially because it is so hard to create nature that is ugly. It, however, also takes creativity, and so it engages the mind, as well as the body. Another example could be painting artwork.

Bad

       Painting requires little to no thought, and so it is something you can do while zoning off, and if something is on your mind while you work, something negative, something stress related, could actually be accentuated while you work. Other similar activities like this could be copying files by hand. 

Exercise

Good

         Jogging provides lots and lots of  physical benefits, but the emotion benefits and very good as well. Jogging allows you to focus on the motion of your body, and get away. If you focus on running, and putting as much energy into going as far as you can, your mind will get away. It allows and tremendous opportunity to wind down. A good breathing pattern is established, which allows the body and mind to wind down. Jogging is a very good way of reducing stress. Bicycling is also effective. Exercising in general is. 

Bad


Well that's just it. Exercise is always good for your stress. Exercise when you have stress, and it'll go away.


Just remember, that stress is never good, and so you should use one of the above options to remove your stress when you can.