Your Exercise Routine Might not be Helping You as Much as You Think

Most of us have been told that regular exercise helps to relieve stress.  Intuitively, that makes perfect sense.  However, research as far back as three decades shows that ones state of mind can affect the effectiveness of our exercise routine.

A study at Yale University, published in Psychosomatic Medicine in August, 1981, detailed the relationship between exercise and stress.  The researchers used actors because of their ability to access emotional states.  The actors were divided into two groups.  The first group was asked to make themselves angry.  The second group was asked to remain as calm and peaceful as possible.  Both groups were monitored for physiological functions, including heart rate, blood pressure and respiration.

The subjects were asked to perform light exercise, such as climbing a set of stairs.  The "angry group" showed a marked difference in physiological functions (increased heart rate and blood pressure that was significantly greater than expected for both light exercise and their baseline data) from the "peaceful" group.  Only in the "peaceful" group did the exercise prove advantageous.  

Commonly held beliefs that exercise reduces stress have been proven incorrect when the subjects performing the exercise are emotionally stressed.  Our state of mind when exercising is just as important as the type and duration of the exercise, itself.  One has to wonder why this information is not more forthcoming from the exercise-focused community, including our medical community.

Perhaps, yoga or meditation before exercise would be beneficial for all of us, on many levels.

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