One of the great benefits of exercising is how good it makes us feel after doing it. However, nobody ever really has looked into it in great depth, to find out why. So in this post, we are going to look at some of the mechanisms and the how’s and why’s of why it makes us feel so good after doing it.
A typical example of this is a study that was put together in Norway, where participants were compared side-by-side one group exercised. However, although there is beautiful scenery in Norway, and plenty of places to explore those that didn’t exercise had poorer mental health. Compared to those who did exercise.
Another study which was put together by theAmericanSportsCollege, found that a group of women. When they exercised on a bicycle or did resistance training felt less anxious than they did previously having been diagnosed with anxiety disorder. Even now, in this day and age, scientists still don’t know the reasons why and how exercise affects our brains on a basic cellular level. However, another study has managed to unlock some of the mysteries surrounding this.
This study was put together by the National Institute Of Mental Health, which did various experiments with mice to see how it affected them. If they were in a stressful situation, they used two types of mice with different personalities. One was very aggressive and dominating the others were introverted and quiet. The more dominant alpha mice had their own cages.
They put the two mice together within the cage, which had a clear partition the aggressive mouse tried every territorial tactic to make the other mouse feel bullied and intimidated. The reason they tend to behave like this is because in the wild male mice tend to be loners.
When the researchers removed the clear partition, they had to restrain the more aggressive mouse to stop it from hurting the other quieter one. Because the other mouse had been exposed to so much aggression it started to twitch and behaved submissively.
They kept the mice together in the partitioned cage for two weeks, the scientists then tried putting them in stressful situations to monitor their behavior in each instance. They ran for cover and exhibited what the scientists called anxiety type behaviors.
One of the scientists said that they didn’t actually become depressed, but showed symptoms of being so. However a second group of mice, which had been exercising and generally more active on mouse wheels as well as exploring plastic tubes.
Behaved very differently when they were put together with the aggressive mouse, when confronted by it. They just moved away and carried on as normal as though nothing had happened. When they were put in unfamiliar situations similar to the other mice. They didn’t run into corners to hide and didn’t twitch either.
The scientists concluded that the mouse which exercised had become stress free, one of the scientists said that people exposed to anxiety over a long period of time can cause depression. Something the researchers struggled to understand for a long time now is how some people are more resilient to it than others. So after the study was over, they decided to look a bit more deeply at what was going on in the mouse’s brains.
They had a look at their brain cells, particularly the ones whom had been exercising. And this is what they found, in the part of the brain that is called the medial prefrontal cortex which handles our emotions. And has connections to the amygdala, which handles feelings of anxiety and fear, in the mice who had been exercising, these neurons had been firing more often during the weeks. When they had been exercising, compared to the mice who hadn’t their brain shows cells showed hardly any firing at all.
One of the scientists involved in the study Dr Lehman, said that even though the research was done on mice. He believes there could be some links with people as well. In human relations. He also went on to say that in order to get the same benefit you do not need to spend hours exercising all the time.
Even if it is 10 minutes here and 10 minutes there. You will still gain some benefits, both from a physical and mental point of view. Yet another positive reinforcement of how beneficial exercise is to us from a mental health point of view. If you have any thoughts and opinions about this. Please leave a comment in the relevant section.
Sources and references: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com
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