Physical Vs Mental Fitness
There is but one way to live life to its fullest- being fit. Understanding the benefits of all-round fitness and knowing how active you should make it easier to improve the overall quality of your life. To help you live better, here’s how you can benefit from mental and physical exercise regardless of your age, sex or physical ability.
When talking about fitness, both mental and physical fitness come into play. More often than not, physical fitness gets plenty of attention, and for a good reason. A healthy body can counter conditions such as heart disease and diabetes, and help you maintain confidence as you age.
However, mental fitness is just as important as physical fitness, and should not be neglected in your self-betterment plans.
Mental fitness means having a brain and emotional health in tip-top shape. It may not necessarily mean training to ace an IQ test, but a series of exercise that helps slow down, decompress and boost a flagging memory.
Aerobics (cardio)
Aerobics involves maintaining an increased heart rate for an extended period of time. Types of cardio exercises include running, swimming, biking, rowing, dancing, and jumping rope.
Strength
Also called Resistance Training. It’s a physical activity with the purpose of increasing muscle strength and mass. Examples include weightlifting, dumbbell and bodyweight exercises.
Balance
This is where you activate your abdominal muscles for stability and control of your body. Balance exercises can include yoga, tai chi and stability ball exercises.
Flexibility
Bragging about how much you can bench is no fun if you have trouble tying your shoes. Flexibility saves you from tight hips, hamstrings, hip flexors and makes you as strong as you can be.
Why you need to be fit and importance of physical fitness
Weight control leads you towards fitness
Along with diet, exercise plays an essential role in managing your weight and preventing obesity. To maintain your weight, the calories you are taking must equal the energy you burn. To lose weight, you must utilize more calories than you eat and drink.
Manage your sugar and insulin levels
Exercise can reduce your blood sugar level and help your insulin work effectively. This can lower your risk for metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes. And if you already have one of those diseases, exercise can help you to maintain it.
Feel Happier through fitness
Exercise has been shown to improve your mood and reduce feelings of depression, anxiety, and stress. It produces variations in the parts of the brain that control stress and anxiety. It can also boost brain sensitivity for the hormones serotonin and norepinephrine, which relieve feelings of depression.
Better Mental Health and fitness
Regular exercise can have an extremely positive influence on depression, anxiety, ADHD, and more. It also relieves stress, increases memory, helps you sleep better, and boosts your overall mood. You don’t have to be a fitness fanatic to reap the benefits – browse through our site and discover how to reap these benefits.
How to Achieve Mental Fitness
Be positive with yourself and improve your fitness
Affirmation, or positively talking to yourself, involves strengthening neural pathways to bring your self-confidence, well-being, and satisfaction to a higher level. To start, make a list of your good qualities. Remind yourself that you don’t have to be perfect. Set goals for what you want to make better and start small to avoid becoming confused.
Stop Multitasking
Many think that multitasking enables you to get more things done at once, but it creates more problems than it solves. Focusing on one task at a time will improve your concentration and help you to be more productive.
Try Something Different
New practices can also set you on the way to mental fitness. You can fit new approaches into your daily life by trying new foods, new ways to accomplish routine tasks, traveling to new places or trying a new route to the grocery store.
Read More
Reading is great for your brain. Your brain processes every word you read, including this one. Beyond the mechanics, reading helps you visualize the subject matter on the pages before you, and imagine what voices sound like in the written dialogue.
This can also be a great relaxation technique
Top Fitness Tips for Mental and Physical Exercise.
General physical fitness and targeted exercises to improve stability can prevent falls. But so can staying mentally ready to maintain brain health. A sharp mind helps you to think — and stay — on your feet. Join us and learn to strike a balance.
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Control Your Appetite for Better Living
With that said, overeating has been linked to excess weight problems like obesity that have eventually led to high blood pressure, respiratory issues, asthma, and even stroke! Studies have shown that obesity has caused a significant increase in mortality and morbidity.
For this reason, it is essential to find out the underlying condition of an uncontrollable appetite and learn how to control it.
What Controls Your Appetite?
he environment surrounding us, the genetic makeup within us, and other factors control our appetite. Early humans had to fight to survive. They would run around in search of food, and when they get it, they will eat to fill themselves because they don’t know when they will eat the next.
Fast forward to today, we have the same genetic makeover, but the food is available everywhere. So, to survive, we keep eating and eating, eventually developing an uncontrollable appetite.
The theory, as mentioned above, is a hypothetical one. However, biologically, if you want to know who controls our eating desires, then you have to travel further north of your body where you hold the least amount of fat – your brain.
This thinking machine has something called a vital command center – the hypothalamus. This part of your brain receives all the signals from your stomach and immediately reminds you that you need to eat.
And what happens to your body when your brain gives the signal? Three hunger-controlling hormones are affected in various ways that cause you to think that you have not had enough food – insulin, ghrelin, and leptin.
Insulin
That is a hormone secreted by the pancreas and is responsible for influencing your body to take up sugar from your blood and utilize it to derive energy.
When you eat food that is rich with simple carbohydrates, like white bread or pasta, your pancreas secretes more insulin. This process will allow more sugar to enter your cells. In this case, although your stomach is full, you will have the urge to eat something.
Ghrelin and Leptin
These two hormones work hand in hand. While ghrelin can make you famished, leptin will make you feel full. As long as your diet and sleeping patterns are going great, both ghrelin and leptin work fantastically good.
However, the day you stop having adequate amounts of sleep, and your diet goes wrong, these hormones will work to your detriment.
In a study, Shahrad Taheri and others proved that sleep deprivation could quickly increase your hunger pangs and, at the same time, lower your metabolism rate and increase your body mass index. This combination is never a good sign for your health and weight loss regimen.
How to Control Your Appetite?
Curb Your Hunger Pangs With Fiber
There are times when, after having first servings, you go for a second and even a third because of your always-hungry appetite. To avoid this from happening, fill your plate with only foods that are rich in fiber. This compound found in vegetables is sure to fill you up real fast. So, the next time you are out for a meal, have vegetables as your pre-meal appetizer and observe the magic!
Snack Slowly
Did you know that your brain takes about 20 minutes to figure out that your stomach is full? So, that means the more time you take to eat your snack, the less you are going to eat. The moment you grab another bite to eat, your brain will signal that you are full.
Some slow snacks that could help you curb your hunger could be baby carrots, whole-grain crackers, baked tortilla chips, microwaved apples along with cinnamon topping, air-popped popcorns.
Don’t Eat When Distracted
Eating while watching TV or a hilarious series can give you a great time at the moment, but you will only end up regretting it. Distractions will not let you catch the signal that your brain is sending, saying you are full. So, the next time you sit down to eat, keep distractions at bay and concentrate on your plate.
Is There a Cure for Uncontrollable Appetite?
Whether you exercise regularly or drink more water, no matter what you do, you will find it hard to lose those stubborn pounds when you have no appetite control. As mentioned earlier, your brain tempts you into eating more ice creams, chips, cheesy burgers, and other food items that end up giving you more calories than you wish.
Research has termed this behavior as food addiction, which is as good as being addicted to drugs. This can be cured using cognitive behavioral therapy, where your brain will be tricked into not surrendering to the desires of overeating.
- Imagine how it would feel not to have any food cravings
- Think of the long-term benefits of not overeating food
- Think of the long-term side effects of eating way too much
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