We all know exercise is good for our mental health, but do we know *why* that is?
While sometimes those mind-focused strategies can work well on their own, Hornthal says, she sees them as taking a “top-down” approach, instead of the body-first, “bottom-up” approach that she’s found more helpful. “When our nervous system is stuck in a, we can’t reason our way out of it—we have to feel our way,” she says. “To really change our thoughts, we have to look at how our bodies contribute to and support those thoughts, because, believe it or not, that’s actually where they originate.
The first step in this “bottom-up” approach, Hornthal says, is noticing how your body is responding when you feel a certain way: “Am I tense? Am I rigid? How much space am I taking up? What’s the rhythm of how I’m moving through the day? If we can start to notice that,” she says, “and then start to challenge it, or expand the way we’re moving in that moment, we can circumvent the mind patterns.
How do you know if your current fitness routine is detrimental to your mental health? Hornthal suggests doing a pre- and post-workout test, taking notice of how you feel before and after your workout. While exercise may leave you physically exhausted, she says, it should make you feel emotionally energized and recharged, or like you’ve been able to release something.
The same logic applies on an emotional level, she says. “It’s about trying new movement, or expanding the reach or the range of the movement you currently do,” she says, which could mean identifying if you are only using your lower body, or noticing that you’re often moving forward and backward but never twisting or moving side to side. She also suggests “expanding your definition of movement,” byin everyday life—like dancing while you do chores, or kicking a ball around the park.
“We do these movements as kids, and then as we get older, we don’t have time for play when we need it most,” she says. “We don’t have movement at our disposal, or we’re like ‘I’m not free anymore—I can’t do that.’ So having a robust movement vocabulary is literally building the embodied dictionary we carry with us.”
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