Does playing sports relieve mental health issues in people?
People who exercise lowers their duration of mental health issues by 43.2% (Chekroud et al. 744). I am sure that the fact figures from the survey surprise most readers who were initially like me, doubting exercises as an alternative to drug therapy in mental health. Unless one has ever had physical activities with exercise in focus, it is hard to believe their effectiveness. However, even without going back to individual experiences and scientific findings, it is evident that people who work during the day have a quiet night compared to those who rest. If routine daily work can make someone feel relaxed at night, what about a well-focused physical activity aiming at exercise? Since I learned that exercises boost mental health and moods, I always consider my daily work as an exercise even in walking. However, I also have one hour exclusively for practice. Aiming at exercise makes me focus my mind on feeling the effect as my body muscles relax. Far from my experience and all narratives, psychotherapist, and mental health patients are recommending exercises from their experience as evidence in overcoming mental health issues. In this paper, I clear all your doubt concerning the impact of sports as an exercise on mental health.
I one day got surprised that every person has a mental health issue regardless of how well one may feel. Mental health is a state of optimum personal functioning where people develop a fulfilling relationship with others and have productive activities (Elbe et al. 6). However, our productivity and connection with other people are never optimal or the same, meaning that at every time, we have a degree of mental health issue. Every person, as a result, is at risk of developing mental illness at severe levels. I remember my cousin, whom I interviewed, was feeling tired, irritated, and lacked sleep most of the night 15 years back before she was diagnosed with severe anxiety and depression. As she narrates to me the journey with the mental illness, she advises me about the need for exercises even when I thick am healthy. According to my cousin, her feeling of tiredness, anger, and lack of sleep disappears every time she exercises. She regrets a lack of knowledge leading to severe mental illness forms symptoms. Elbe et al. guides in identifying lessons from the I interview by stating that exercises are antidepressants to work on signs and cure depression (6). Regardless of individual wellbeing, practices can make one improve on personal functioning, including relieving anger that blocks effective relationships.
A mind opener to the reader about depression is that it occurs due to changes in brain working. Mijares and Gurucharan explain that negative thoughts and behaviors are risk factors leading to overactive hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal [HPA] (262). Alternative therapies, on the other hand, arouses hormones responsible for correcting the condition of the ones missing leading to the illness (Mercer 1). Excises is one of the alternative therapies which, according to an interview with my cousin, helps her to focus on abilities as opposed to what she cannot achieve. I also feel relieved of stress and disturbing thoughts when at the gym and throughout the night. Following the experience with a scientific base of depression on negative thoughts, exercises restore people from focusing on their abilities. People release off their stressful thoughts as they concentrate all their energies on the actual exercise. It means that activities allow reduced pressure on the mind taking the production of HPA to normal. In my case, sleepless nights occur when my mind is disturbed with issues of work and relationships. However, during the days I attend swimming, I find myself thinking about nothing, and all I want is to sleep. Exercises, as a result, can relax the mind and get off the many staff which pile for processing and which are a risk factor to mental illness.
Exercises bring a new environment that has no adverse pressure on the mind leading to the recovery of proper mental functioning. In a research study, Sklar et al. found that mentally ill clients increased recovery once transferred from a mental health clinic to a patient-centered medical home (PCMH. The study, which was comparing recovery effectiveness between the two environments, concludes that patient-centered care at home is more effective in supporting mental health. You may be wondering how the research relates to exercise and mental health. However, my interest is in the change of environment from a stressful one to one that is calmer with a lot of support from family members are hope. Hospital environments are always stressful for patients since they are not aware of their fate. The study, as a result, informs that a stressful situation is impediments to mental health recovery. Exercises come in to get off the feeling of hopelessness, isolation, anger, suicide, and others, which are a risk factor to depression. During sports, people hardly remember and thins anything negative and outside the game. Even after the game, the mind starts to think about the outcomes and plans f the next event. Sports, therefore, will get you off the stressors and create a conducive environment to make the mind function properly.
Sports, as an example of exercise, allows people to focus on the game and achievement and forget their stressful thoughts. The activity of planning and actual playing is, in this case, a distractor to thoughts, whether negative or positive (Pluhar et al., 492). I challenge you to remember a time you were busy working or on another task, and something happened without notice, for example, the tea poured. The main activity distracted you from thinking, seeing, and even hearing anything around you. Sports and other exercises act, in the same, helps people to forget for some time stressful issues that exert pressure and alter mental processes. It is not easy to remember that one is jobless or has a debt to pay when the mind is so much engaged in planning how to score and oppose the opponent. Most people who exercise forgets about ideas of suicide because they engage the mental energy on other thoughts about physical activity. The mind can think about anything both negative and positive when not busy as the cliché goes by, an idle mind is the devil’s workshop. However, highly engaging physical activities like sports make the mind occupied with one though distracting stressful events, which are a risk to mental illness like depression, as earlier stated. Sports, as a result, reveals the mind off stressful thoughts by directing all the energy and space to the game.
Despite all the supporting information and experience, some people still believe that sports do not address mental illness but are another risk factor. Kuik, comments on the Athletes for Hope organization’s wall that the number of athletes with mental illness is alarming. Colleges that have athletes for leaners have 33% of cases of depression (Kuik Par. 5). One may wonder where the athletes get depression and other mental illnesses, yet they are exercising almost daily. Kuik explains that sportspeople also have challenges such as injury, targets, and losses (Par. 6). All those factors are stressors in mind with varying degrees. Losing a game or a race is similar to other life stresses such as lack of a job hence the risk to mental illness. However, the argument does not make the value of sports in overcoming mental illness irrelevant. Physical activities which overcome depression and other illness are the ones which fit specific individuals, well-coordinated and with only a goal of exercising. Hibbert supports the argument by stating that mid preparation, proper choice of an activity that fits someone, and focuses on mental health are key to effectiveness (23). Adding the element of completion changes the focus of the sportspeople to develop pressure. However, sports without a strict focus on competition, for example, a friendly match, takes away pressures without adding others and, therefore, overcomes mental illness.
In conclusion, you have a responsibility to make the tour mind free. Just like the body, the mind gets tired when overloaded with issues that are pressing hard and comparing it with carrying a bag of nails on the back. Without much science to simplify or complicate the matter, think of how engaging in sports can make you forget the loneliness, anger, job stress, and suicidal thoughts. That is all that sports do, and you get free from mental illnesses. The activities break you from the busy and stressful life, taking you to only an imagined world that has no demands. However, sports directly control brain activities inhibiting the process of mental illnesses. I am a beneficiary, my cousin is also praising exercising, and you can too join us to say no to mental illness.
Works Cited
Chekroud, Sammi R., et al. “Association between physical exercise and mental health in 1· 2 million individuals in the USA between 2011 and 2015: a cross-sectional study.” The Lancet Psychiatry 5.9 (2018): 739-746.
Elbe, Anne-Marie, et al. “Is regular physical activity a key to mental health? Commentary on “association between physical exercise and mental health in 1.2 million individuals in the USA between 2011 and 2015: A cross-sectional study”, by Chekroud et al., published in lancet psychiatry.” Journal of Sport and Health Science 8.1 (2019): 6.
Mercer, Jean. Alternative psychotherapies: Evaluating unconventional mental health treatments. Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.
Mijares, Sharon G., and Gurucharan Singh Khalsa. The psychospiritual clinician’s handbook: Alternative methods for understanding and treating mental disorders. Routledge, 2014.
Pluhar, Emily, et al. “Team sport athletes may be less likely to suffer anxiety or depression than individual sport athletes.” Journal of sports science & medicine 18.3 (2019): 490.
Sklar, Marisa, et al. “Mental health recovery in the patient-centered medical home.” American journal of public health 105.9 (2015): 1926-1934.
Kuik, Robin. “Mental health and athletes.” Athletesforhope.org. 2019. http://www.athletesforhope.org/2019/05/mental-health-and-athletes/ 9 Jul. 2020.
Hibbert, Christina. 8 Keys to Mental Health Through Exercise (8 Keys to Mental Health). WW Norton & Company, 2016.