Health & Fitness by Bill Bromeland
I’m not going to make a long rant about how exercise improves mental health because I think we all already know that. If you need proof, the top three links on Google when you search the heading are Links to Scientific Articles Linking Exercise and Mental Health. What I’m going to do is give you my personal experience of how connected the two are to me.
Bill Bromeland
For me, the following is cited as evidence that exercise improves my mental health:
1. My wife gets along much better after I’ve trained. Some of you know me and you know this is true.
2. Decisions I made the day before training are repeated (if possible) after training.
3. I went to college and there is still no better high than a runner’s high.
4. I was at a point in my life before I rediscovered exercise that “fun was no longer fun”.
5. Fun is now fun.
6. I keep training. Why?
7. Friends!
8. The training gives me orientation when it doesn’t seem to be anywhere else.
9. My dog likes me better when I’m active, and so does yours.
10. I may not always feel good about my parenting skills, but I can feel good about leading by example.
Feeling good is really the most important thing, isn’t it? I can tell you one thing with absolute certainty: For me, sport has long ceased to be part of looking in a certain direction. Exercise for me is a coping mechanism that I would almost certainly find difficult to survive without, and the people in my life no doubt agree with that feeling.
In a world full of uncertainty, it is relatively certain that I will train tomorrow and probably that I will feel good doing it – as my experience tends to do. The cycle of better decisions, nicer people, and better feelings continues. For me, training was never about perfection, it was always about improvement, and that improvement is lodged between my ears today.
