Physical Activity AND Mental Resilience
What
Workout regularly to develop both physical and mental resilience, which will help you in all other aspect of your life.
But make sure to set time for recovery, where all the growth actually happens.
WHY
Physical activity is known to have numerous physical health benefits.
But did you know that it can also cultivate mental resilience?
Think about it…
Resilience is the ability to adapt and cope with challenges and adversity.
Physical workouts are by definition, challenging.
Not to mention training in a specific discipline for years (look at you my martial arts comrades).
But it goes deeper than that.
We will dive deeper in a minute, but the bottom line is - participation in physical activity is a significant predictor of resilience [1].
HOW
Mechanism
How does physical activity cultivate mental resilience?
Well… it’s complicated [2].
No, really, it’s probably a combination of biological, psychological and social factors.
Here are a few examples:
Reduces stress response: Human studies have found that fitness and/or exercise training predict regulated cardiovascular activity, which is commonly identified as a marker of physiological resilience, as a response to laboratory stressors (e.g., mental arithmetic, public speaking, and cognitive interference tasks) [3]. The literature also says physical activity reduced self-reported psychological responses to stressors (i.e., people felt less anxious, which is what we want here!) [4]
Accumulates wins: Physical activity can help us develop a sense of accomplishment and confidence in our abilities. This sense of self-efficacy can translate to other areas of our lives, such as work or personal relationships.
Builds discipline and grit: Physical activity requires discipline and commitment. By consistently setting and achieving fitness goals, we can develop grit and a strong work ethic. Exposing ourselves to discomfort, pain, and suffering, in a controlled and positive context, re-educates our nervous system to go easy with the alarm bells.
Improves cognitive function: Physical activity can improve cognitive function, such as memory and attention.
application
How can you incorporate physical activity into your life?
It doesn't have to be complicated or time-consuming.
And ANYTHING is better than nothing.
Even 20 seconds! (we’ll get to that in a minute, I promise).
Some ways you can get started include:
Take the stairs.
Take a walk or jog around your neighborhood.
Try a new fitness class or sport.
Join a fitness community or workout group for accountability and support.
Setup a morning routine of 10 minutes of dynamic stretches and some hear rate raising activity.
But by far, the easiest and most amazing thing you can do, is take workout snacks - up next!
Workout snacks
Taking the time to do micro-workouts, from 20 seconds to a few minutes, throughout the day, is beginning to look more and more like a very flexible, and impactful!, way to improve fitness:
One study [4] found similar aerobic improvement between a session of multiple sprints, and a routine of 1-off sprints spread throughout the day. I don’t know about you, but this means I’m going to run up the stairs a few 3-4 times a day during work!
And this directly connects to the “accumulate wins” point we made above.
It’s much easier to collect wins when they are 20-60 seconds long, spread out through the day.
Takeaways
Physical is mental: physical activity can help cultivate mental resilience by improving self-efficacy, enhancing stress management, building discipline and grit, and improving cognitive function.
Start small: incorporating physical activity into your life doesn't have to be complicated or time-consuming. Not only that, but micro-workouts (aka, workout snacks) have been demonstrated to sometimes be almost as effective as longer workouts!
Recover: one lesson we can take from physical training into other aspects of life is, that growth and improvement happen during recovery, not while your are under stress. So remember to find opportunities to recharge, whatever growth path you are on (physical or otherwise).
References
Ozkara, Abdullah Bora, et al. "The role of physical activity in psychological resilience." Baltic Journal of Sport and Health Sciences 3.102 (2016).
Crone, Diane, Andy Smith, and Brendan Gough. "THE PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND MENTAL HEALTH RELATIONSHIP—A CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVE FROM QUALITATIVE RESEARCH." Acta universitatis palackianae olomucensis. Gymnica 36.3 (2006).
Gerber, Markus, and Uwe Pühse. "Do exercise and fitness protect against stress-induced health complaints? A review of the literature." Scandinavian journal of public health 37.8 (2009): 801-819.
Little, J.P., Langley, J., Lee, M. et al. “Sprint exercise snacks: a novel approach to increase aerobic fitness”. Eur J Appl Physiol 119, 1203–1212 (2019).
