The Secret Release Valve for Anxiety

Anxiety can feel this ball of nervous energy that sits in the bottom of your stomach that sends uncomfortable sensations throughout your body. But there’s a simple, natural way to release some of that energy and calm those sensations down a bit. So today, we're going to explore how you release some of the built-up energy and also put feel-good chemicals into your brain so you can push your recovery forward.

Before we jump in, if you are looking to recover, I have the 5-Step Cure to Anxiety and Panic Attacks in the Link below. It’s going to provide you with the step-by-step guide that I teach my clients to overcome anxiety. It’s completely free and I’m giving it to you so can jumpstart your recovery.

Today we’re going to talk about the effect that movement and exercise can have on our anxiety. Here’s the bottom line: the human body was meant to move and, for the longest time, movement was required for survival. Our ancient ancestors had to move to hunt-and-gather their food, collect water, and avoid dangerous animals. Their entire lives required movement. Even as recent as the year 1900, our daily lives required a ton of movement. Think about it:

• Home Life: Almost none of the technologies and advancements that we now consider basic necessities were available. Hardly any families had electricity, which meant no refrigerators, washing machines, or dishwashers. That meant food had to be freshly prepared, clothes scrubbed, and dishes washed by hand.
  
• Travel: Henry Ford hadn’t made vehicles affordable yet, so getting around meant you often left home on foot or, if you were lucky, on a horse. 
• Jobs: 70% of all jobs involved physical labor, with farmers making up 43% of the entire workforce. That means if you had lived back then, there was a good chance you spent most of your days under the hot sun planting, tending to crops, or plowing fields. 

So, not very long ago, daily life involved a ton of physical labor. This meant movement and exercise was naturally integrated into everyday life. But fast forward to today, our lifestyles have dramatically changed. In the last 100 years, we’ve escaped into this new era of convenience and efficiency. We turn the faucet on to obtain clean water, push a button and our clothes are clean, and we climb into a car that effortlessly takes us wherever we want to go. Oh, and not only that, but a small percentage of jobs today require significant manual labor. 

The upsides of these advancements are, of course, tremendous. Most time-consuming and laborious activities have been removed, leaving us with the time and energy to focus on more productive or enjoyable tasks.  

But, there are also drawbacks. One of the most noticeable drawbacks is that these advancements have stripped away most of the movement and exercise that was required of us in our everyday lives. 

That’s a problem. See, physical movement plays a crucial role in not only maintaining our physical health, but also our maintaining our mental health. That’s because when we exercise, the physical activity causes our brain to release endorphins and other neurochemicals that elevate our mood, reduce anxiety and depression, and boost our cognitive functions. 

But since now most of us live in a world where movement and exercise are optional, this decrease in physical activity has meant a reduction in these natural mood enhancers and contributed to a rise in mental health issues, including anxiety. 

The reality is that we need to reincorporate movement back into our lives. This physical exercise is going to increase the production of endorphins and other feel-good chemicals, which is going to help our anxiety. It’s going to help you feel a bit better. 

Also, as I talked about at the start of this episode, I know that you have this abundance of nervous, anxious energy inside of you and it’s creating a lot of discomfort on a day-to-day basis. So, the second reason we need to introduce movement back into our lives is that movement and exercise can act as a bit of a release valve to get rid of some of that pent-up energy. In other words, it’s a natural and effective way to help reduce the intensity of some of your sensations - it’s going to take a bit of fuel out of the fire of your anxiety.

Now here’s the important part - we need to be very careful with the kind of exercise you are doing. My rule with clients is that when you are in the early stages of recovery, the only exercise you should be doing is walking. That's right, just walking. Aim for a 1-mile walk, five days a week. The reason I only want you to walk is because, for most anxiety sufferers, their anxiety has put them in a perpetual state of exhaustion. We do not want to create more exhaustion by doing intense exercise - that can actually do more harm than good. By walking, we do three things:

1. We add feel-good chemicals to our brains;
2. We burn off some of that excess nervous energy;
3. We don’t put much physical strain on our body, or significantly add to our exhaustion.

Alright, as you recover though, and you feel your energy levels improve, you can try other forms of exercise and even increase the intensity. During my recovery, my favorite exercise became swimming. Swimming is a unique exercise because it’s low impact, it exercises nearly every part of your body, and it has a meditative breathing component. As a result, every time I got out of the pool, it felt like my anxiety had gone down a couple of notches on the anxiety scale. I started doing it 4-5 times per week and it became a really important part of my recovery process.  

Now, this goes without saying, but I want you to approach exercise with reasonable expectations for what it is – another tool in your toolbox that can help take the edge off your anxiety and propel your forward recovery. It’s not a magic pill, but it going to help you recover.