Of all the things you can do to boost your mindset, exercise is near the top of the list. It not only improves your mindset but does so with relatively little mental “work” compared to most of the other methods you can employ. Here are the top 5 ways exercise improves your mindset.
- Exercise Makes You Feel Good Exercising causes your body to produce feel-good hormones such as oxytocin. These hormones lift your mood, make you feel better physically, and make you more optimistic. It also reduces depression, improves self-esteem, and increases your confidence.
- Exercise Clears Your Mind One of the greatest benefits of exercise is that it helps you clear your mind of distractions. It gives you something to think about other than your problems and your to-do list. This “blank slate” effect both boosts your mood and temporarily improves your mindset.
- Exercise Reduces Stress Levels Are you feeling stressed? Go out and exercise. Working out physically burns stress chemicals out of your body, making you feel better and improving your mood and mindset. You don’t need a lot of exercise to get this effect either; a brisk ten-minute walk is enough to do it.
- Exercise Improves Your Ability to Concentrate The benefits of working out also extend to what you do afterward. Getting in a good workout improves your ability to concentrate on other tasks for several hours after you finish. This makes you more productive, puts you in a better mood, and again, boosts your mindset.
- Exercise Results in Better Sleep All of the other benefits of exercise combine to create one more: better sleep. Exercising results in improved sleep, both in quality and quantity. Getting enough good-quality sleep is one of the most important parts of improving your mindset. Good sleep makes everything better and lack of it makes everyone grumpy.
Exercise has many other important benefits other than its effects on mindset and personal development, of course. It improves your health and longevity, just for starters. But its effects on mindset shouldn’t be understated.
If you want to improve your mindset, one of the best ways to do so is to start an exercise program. You don’t need to hire a personal trainer or join a gym to get these benefits. Start by walking a few days a week. Ten minutes is enough to start. Gradually increase your walks to 20 or 30 minutes and you’ll feel better in every possible way.