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Mood: How Exercise Impacts Your Brain

There’s something powerful about the way physical exercise affects the brain. No matter the busy day, implementing exercise into your daily routine has amazing benefits to your mental health and overall well-being. Check out how exercise and the brain work together to support your well-being with ideas from this ACE Fitness article.

Neurotransmitters: Endorphins and Serotonin

Endorphins

There are two types of neurotransmitters in the brain that help you feel good from exercising: serotonin and endorphins. Any type of endurance-based exercise will release endorphins into the brain. These brain chemicals are your body’s natural painkiller. Rather than focusing on pain, your body instead feels pleasure and calm. This is the feeling that is often referred to as a “runner’s high.”

Serotonin

Exercise also promotes the release of serotonin in the brain. Serotonin is the brain’s “happy chemical.” While endorphins block pain, serotonin simply produces a sensation of pleasure for the brain. A lack of serotonin can lead to depressive symptoms and behaviors. Therefore, exercise is one of the ways you can boost serotonin production to combat depression.

Strength Training

While aerobic training has often been credited with releasing the “feel good” chemicals in the brain, recent studies have also linked strength training with weights to positive impacts in the brain. All levels of resistance training—bodyweight work, resistance bands, free weights, and heavy weights—have been linked to better mental health and the reduction of depression-related illnesses.

Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF)

Exercise has also been shown to improve BDNF which relates to the health and survival of neurons. Exercise boosts BDNF, resulting in more neural strength, combatting depression, and helping memory and learning as well.

At Coastal Fitness and Correction, we encourage you to remember the full benefits of exercise in how it impacts you in a holistic sense. Whether it be in your corrective exercise journey or other exercise, keep in mind that you are bringing health not only to your body physically but to your mind as well when you commit to your exercise routine.

For a full look at this article, find it at: Your Brain on Exercise | The Neuroscience of Working Out

Coastal Fitness and Correction focuses on each client individually by designing unique programs based on:

  • Orthopedic Considerations
  • Post-rehab Injuries
  • Prehab & Post-rehab of Surgical Repairs
  • Neurological Conditions
  • Cancer Diagnosis

Through measured progress of strength, range of motion, stability, and mobility, we are here to empower clients to live each day at their highest and healthiest ability. To connect with your Orthopedic or Cancer Exercise Specialist in Sarasota, Florida click here.