Where there's a Will there's a way!
We live in remarkable times. A pandemic raging throughout the whole world, an increase in unemployment, and a significant reduction in social contact on top of that. 2020 – 2021 has given a blow to everyone with biblical proportions. There is a worldwide consensus that the corona crisis has had a negative impact on, not just our mental health but on our physical health as well.1
There is enough evidence that the mental health and physical health are intertwined in each other. In 2012 a research showed that physical activity, for the sake of being informal let just call it sporting, played an important roll in reducing mild to moderate psychological illnesses.2 If you know someone who suffers from depression, or you yourself may been laying around with depressive feeling and thoughts, then you know like no one else how difficult it can prove to get someone in this state to move.
However there is more than enough evidence proving that sporting helps reducing depressive symptoms significantly. Next to there are signs that sporting has an reducing effect on inflammations as well as a stabilizing effect on mood disorders. 3 The endorphin and monoamine hypothesis might give an explanation to this. 4
Looking all these benefits sporting brings with itself, we would be a torn in our own feet if we didn’t get off our couches and beds to start moving… and that would just be a damn shame y’all. So invite a friend and go train outside with “one and half meters distance” of course. Or sign in for a free trial session of 30 minutes and get some handy exercises. Do at least something!! Your general health needs that from you, gift it to yourself. Because you’re worth it! And even though you’re not in a l’oréal paris commercial, you’re still a beautiful being that deserves to be maintained well. A strong body needs a strong mind: the stronger the body, the stronger the mind!
1. Fiorillo A, Gorwood P. The consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health and implications for clinical practice. European Psychiatry [Internet]. ed 2020 [cited march 15th 2021];63(1).
Paluska SA, Schwenk TL. Physical Activity and Mental Health. Sports Med. 1 march 2000;29(3):167–80.
3. Mikkelsen K, Stojanovska L, Polenakovic M, Bosevski M, Apostolopoulos V. Exercise and mental health. Maturitas. december 2017;106:48–56.
4. Delgado PL. Depression: the case for a monoamine deficiency. J Clin Psychiatry. 2000;61 Suppl 6:7–11.