Exercising Our Mental Health

Regular exercise plays an important part in sustaining good physical and mental health. Most people are aware that activity leads to a decreased risk of diabetes, obesity, cancer, and heart disease. However, regular exercise also plays a pivotal role in sustaining good mental health. It can relieve stress, improve your memory, boost your overall mood, as well as positively impacting anxiety and ADHD. 

While you are exercising, your brain produces chemicals that improve your mood and it also stimulates brain areas that are responsible for memory and learning. People who exercise regularly tend to be motivated to continue to exercise due to the overall sense of well-being that exercise provides them. They sleep better, have sharper memories, and feel more positive about their lives. Plus, there is the added benefit of increasing levels of self-esteem from knowing you are doing something good for yourself and perhaps gaining a slimmer waistline in the process! 

Regular exercise has been shown to treat clinical depression as effectively as antidepressant medication. It releases chemicals called endorphins, serotonin, and dopamine which create feelings of happiness and euphoria. These same ‘feel good’ chemicals also help alleviate the symptoms of anxiety by improving your mood, and relieving tension and tight muscles that stress tends to bring on. The endorphins released during physical activity also improve your natural ability to sleep, which helps to reduce the impact of stress on our bodies. 

Norepinephrine is another chemical released when exercising and this is thought to assist our bodies deal with stress more efficiently. Increased levels of serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine, produced during physical activity, are thought to improve attention and concentration. Not only is this good news for alleviating that “foggy” brain that people with depression and anxiety tend to experience, but it’s also good for those with attention disorders such as ADHD. Learning and memory functions are also improved, and new brain cells are created. This is great news for slowing age-related decline in memory and thinking.

Exercise is also a great way to practice mindfulness. Instead of replaying that terrible presentation over and over in your head while you are walking or jogging in the park, tune in to the here and now by focusing on what you can see and hear. Or take the time to notice your feet hitting the ground, the way your arms move in front and behind you, the movement of your torso, or your breath as you inhale and exhale.  Focusing on the present moment while you exercise is associated with better mental health benefits.  

The Australian government recommends 30 minutes of moderate exercise most days of the week. The 30 minutes can be made up over the day in smaller blocks. If you’re tired aim for five or ten minutes and build your way up from there. If you haven’t exercised for a long time or you have any pre-existing health conditions it’s a good idea to visit your GP for a check-up prior to commencing any exercise program.

Helping Your Child Overcome Anxiety

Anxiety is one of the most common presentations we see in children. Other terms
used to describe anxiety are fear, nervousness and worries. Your child may be
scared of the dark or strange noises at night. They may be fearful of storms, spiders,
dogs or heights. They may be shy and feel anxious in social situations. They may be
worried about something bad happening and have a need to check things like the
locks on windows or doors. They may feel embarrassed when performing in front of
people, like delivering a speech or being on stage. Whatever the reason for your
child’s worries, there are several ways you can help them.

1. Help Them Stay Calm

When children are anxious, they may experience a number of physical symptoms.
These can include:
- Rapid heart rate
- Fast or shallow breathing
- Butterflies in the stomach
- nausea
- Feeling hot or sweaty
- blushing
- Feeling shaky
- Dizziness
- headaches
- Needing to go to the toilet
You can help your child by encouraging them to take slow, deep breaths. Counting
to 4 or 5 as they breathe in slowly through their nose and the same again as they
breathe out slowly through their mouths can help them calm down and reduce the
physical symptoms they are experiencing. Your child may need to do this for several
minutes until they begin to feel calm.
A relaxation exercise such as laying down and alternately tensing and relaxing their
muscles whilst imagining feeling relaxed and taking slow, deep breaths can also help
them feel calmer.
“Smiling Mind” is a free mindfulness meditation app that can be used with children to
help them relax and feel calm.

2. Encourage Them to Develop More Helpful Ways of Thinking

People who worry often make two thinking errors:
1. They overestimate the chance of something bad happening, and
2. They believe that if what they are worried about does happen, they will not be
able to cope with it. It will be ‘the end of the world’.

These thinking errors can affect how your child is feeling and what they do.
For example: your child hears a strange noise at night and thinks someone might be
trying to break into the house. They feel scared and may hide under their covers,
shaking, or come into your bedroom.

Thoughts ------->  Feelings -------->  Behaviour

You can assist your child to develop more helpful or realistic ways of thinking by
exploring alternative explanations.

For example: your child hears a strange noise at night. It might be a possum walking
on the roof, the neighbour’s cat or a tree branch brushing against the house on a
windy night. These more helpful thoughts can help your child feel calmer and they
may go back to sleep.

There are often plenty of alternative explanations that are likely to be more realistic.
Helping your child develop more helpful or realistic thoughts can help them stay
calm.

Helping them feel able to cope in certain situations is also important in managing
anxiety. For example, your child may worry about being late to school or making
mistakes in their schoolwork. They might worry about being in trouble with their
teacher. The belief is that they won’t be able to cope if they get in trouble. The reality
is often very different. Their teacher may be very understanding of the reason why
they were late to school and assist them in understanding mistakes made in their
schoolwork. Even if the teacher does comment about your child being late to school
or making a mistake in their schoolwork, it is not ‘the end of the world’ that your child
worries it will be.

3. Help Your Child Face Their Fear

Children who worry often avoid situations that they worry about. This may reduce
their anxiety in the short term, however, it strengthens their worry over the longer
term. Being able to face their fears gives them the opportunity to learn that the
situation isn’t as bad as they worry it will be, and that they can cope with it.

For example: your child may worry so much about giving a speech in class that they
avoid doing so. Encouraging them to experience giving speeches can help them feel
more confident and learn that nothing bad will happen to them. Often they worry that
the other children will laugh at them, the children won’t like their speech, or that they
will forget their words. The reality is often very different. No-one might laugh at them,
the other children might really like their speech and find it interesting, and they might
not forget their words. Even if someone does laugh or snigger, or they do forget
some of their words, it is not ‘the end of the world’. They can and do cope.
It is often helpful for children to learn to face their fears in a gradual way. An example
might be:

Step 1: Deliver the speech to Mum or Dad
Step 2: Deliver the speech to Mum, Dad and siblings
Step 3: Deliver the speech to grandparents
Step 4: Deliver the speech to a friend
Step 5: Deliver the speech to a small group of friends
Step 6: Deliver the speech to the teacher
Step 7: Deliver the speech to the class

The steps may be swapped around, depending on how difficult each step may be.
The idea is to start with the easiest step and build up to the hardest step. It can often
be helpful to repeat each step, until your child no longer feels anxious about doing
that step, and then move up to the next step. This step-by-step approach can be
used to help children face many of their fears. Depending on the steps and the goal
they are working towards, it is often helpful for children to stay in the step long
enough to experience their anxiety reduce, or vary the amount of time they stay in
each step to progressively longer amounts of time.

4. Reduce Attention to Worries

Focussing attention on worries often maintains the worry and can increase anxiety.
Helping children focus their attention on something else can assist in reducing their
anxiety. Imagine their worry is a plant and attention is like water. When we give
water to a plant, it grows and gets bigger. When we don’t water the plant, it shrivels
up and dies. When we give attention to worries, they get bigger. When we don’t give
attention to worries, they get smaller and, in some cases, they can disappear.
Encourage your child to think about happy or relaxing things. They might like to
recall a memory of a time when they felt really happy, like on their birthday or on a
family holiday. Help them recall that time in as much detail as they can by using their senses – What can they see? What can they hear? What can they smell? What can
they touch? What can they taste? This can help them focus their attention away from
their worries.

Doing an activity they enjoy can also take their attention away from their worries.
They might like to read a book, draw a picture, play their favourite game, jump on the
trampoline, or ride their bike. It is important that they think about the activity they are
doing, and not think about their worry whilst they are doing the activity.

5. Reward Your Child

It is often hard for children to overcome their worries and face their fears. Rewarding
examples of brave behaviour and their attempts to manage their worries can often
help with motivating them to try harder. These are some examples of rewards:
- Verbal praise
- using stickers or a point system that they can exchange for a tangible reward
- time spent together doing a fun activity

Children can also say positive words to themselves. For example: ‘That was hard,
but I did it!’ or ‘I did a great job’.

Breathing For Anxiety

Often when a person experiences anxiety they notice changes in their breathing.

These changes can include breathing faster, feeling a tightening or pain in the

chest area and feeling dizzy or light-headed.

When we breathe, we breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide.

Typically the average person takes about 10-12 breaths a minute. How many

breaths per minute do you take? Set a timer on your phone or laptop, try not to

change your breathing from normal and then count your breaths. One breath is

counted as breathing in and out.

If you’re breathing more than 10-12 breaths per minute you may be subtly

hyperventilating. When we breathe too much air in, the balance between oxygen

and carbon dioxide becomes disturbed. We end up with too much oxygen and

too little carbon dioxide.

If you’re breathing more than 10-14 breaths per minute you may be subtly hyperventilating.

This reduction in carbon dioxide signals to our blood vessels that they are

getting more oxygen then they need. The blood vessels try to help us by

constricting and narrowing so that we don’t get too much oxygen in our brain. A

side effect of this narrowing of the blood vesicles in the brain is that we feel

dizziness or light headed. You may feel like you cannot get enough air in. In fact,

the problem is you have too much oxygen. Although this feeling is unpleasant

and intense, it is completely harmless.

Although for the most part breathing is automatic, the good news is we can also

control it consciously. For instance, think about the fact that you can hold your

breath whilst underwater. The unpleasant (but harmless reaction) will go away

once the levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide are rebalanced.

The following strategies can be useful for reducing hyperventilation: