Oooops

I fell off the rails a bit this weekend and did nothing.

It’s tough when you have a couple of days that don’t go to plan to get yourself back into a positive mindset and moving again.

However, I’ve got one week until I go away again and I want to feel good going into my holiday, so I’m planning on getting back to training and eating well this week.

Almost immediately it made me feel better (albeit a bit hungry1) and I went to the gym at lunch time for 30 minutes of weights with a BlokFit class tonight (something new again, which i believe is circuit based, but I’ve done the strength class and enjoyed it so hoping I’ll like this one too).

Just a reminder to myself that a bad day is only an issue if you let it affect all the subsequent days too!

Mental Health Day

Where is the fine line between using exercise to assist your mental health and it starting to affect your mental health?

I know many people (myself included) who at some point found that exercise helped improve mood, anxiety symptoms, depression and just general sense of well being. A common thing you will hear amongst regular exercisers after a session is ‘I needed that’.

And it’s proven that exercise is very beneficial for people’s mental health and well as physical.

It can become the opposite though. A bit like an effective drug, it can in cases become addictive, where the idea of not training has a negative effect on how a person feels.

I know myself I often feel worse about myself in general if I have a spell of inactivity and I’ve known people fearful of taking a break because it’s the thing that helps them.

The issue when this becomes the case is that it makes it hard to cope if you get ill, injured or have something that truly prevents you from training.

Tuesday was World Mental Health Day. As part of days where we look at how we can improve our mental health it’s also useful to understand the wider picture and how some things (like advice about exercise) aren’t always black and white. If you do struggle with not being able to train, to the point where that affects you negatively, as opposed to being able to train helps you, it’s worth taking a moment to consider how you can tackle this.

80%

I wrote yesterday about how I felt better for eating more sensibly and cooking more from scratch, even though I wasn’t really tracking my calories or weight. I also mentioned how I’ve not been cutting anything out so I’ve eaten plenty of chocolate and had a few things like McDonalds.

One thing I’ve noticed is that I’ve not felt guilty about this. Generally I’ve felt better after days where I’ve made food from scratch and had plenty of fruit and veg but the days where it’s not been as good as that or evenings where I’ve had chocolate before bed I’ve still gone to sleep feeling good. Previously I’d feel guilty about these kind of things even if I knew I wasn’t over my calories, like mentally, foods like takeaways made me feel a bit bleugh, and I really do mean in my brain not just that I felt a bit sluggish.

I think that kind of mindset shift, where the 80/20 rule really does feel like it’s ok, rather than being ok in theory but still feeling a bit like a failure (if we’re honest) has done wonders for me, because now those meals that weren’t planned aren’t derailing the rest of my day of week.

Mental Health Awareness Week

This week is Mental Health Awareness Week so I felt like I should blog at least once on the topic this week.

I always enjoy writing about how our mental health affects our fitness and diet because I think the two are so interlinked that I’m just not sure any training routine or diet will help you much if your mind isn’t in the right place.

One thing I think often gets missed from fitness posts about mental health however is when exercise won’t help.

Because, it’s true, exercise has proven benefits for peoples mental health. It helps reduce stress, has shown to help alleviate depression and anxiety and helps increase confidence. Moving more and eating a bit better is overall good for you.

It isn’t a fix all though and I think sometimes that can get lost. Whilst exercise can be therapeutic in many cases of depression, anxiety and so on it doesn’t get to the route of the issue itself. In a lot of cases what we need to do if we are suffering from a mental health condition (as opposed to feeling a bit down for a short period of time which is natural and happens to us all at some point in life) is speak to a doctor, who might prescribe medication or refer you for a suitable type of therapy where you can work through the causes and look to deal with them. Most doctors in my experience will also encourage you to be active and eat well but it’s rarely the only thing they prescribe.

The other thing to remember about training and mental health is that whilst it can be a real benefit, in some situations it can also become a problem. Overtraining is a real risk when people use exercise as a way to feel better, and without having other coping mechanisms away from the gym to help self soothe exercise can be as problematic s it is beneficial.

I think we need to remember that when we talk about exercise and mental health. That training alone often isn’t enough and there’s no shame in also getting medical help.

The Second Half

I’m supposed to be ruining another half marathon on Sunday. I really don’t know if i can do it. I mean I guess I always have this worry but there’s a little bit of me that kind of knows I’ll get round one way or another. This time I genuinely do not think that’s the case.

My legs actually recovered within a couple of days, although for some reason known only to my small little brain I decided to incorporate a lot of calf work into classes this week to the extent i now have DOMs and so now my legs are not ok.

My body really hasn’t recovered in terms of fatigue yet. I’d normally if nothing else make sure I go into something like this relatively well rested if underprepared and I’m not. I can also still vividly remember the feeling at miles 5 and 10 and how depleted I felt, pushing through that once is one thing, doing it again so soon feels like one step too many for me.

Equally though, I set myself the challenge of doing to in one month back in January because it would be hard and so part of me wants to see it through and ignore the low level anxiety I’m feeling about it right now.

Someone said today if it took 6 hours to just get round they wouldn’t tell anyone, but I kind of think even if it took a really really long time, if I did it, it would be an achievement and prove to myself that I can do things even when they’re hard. After recent months I feel like that’s something i need to remind myself in terms o fitness.

So for now I’m going to eat plenty, try to get lots of sleep, rest up and then see if I can do it. Might change my mind before Sunday!

Therapy or Therapeutic?

Ask a lot of people who are into fitness why they train and you’ll get an answer that refers to mental health. There’s been a massive shift in recent years from people training purely for aesthetics to people training for how it makes them feel.

Exercise is a great stress relief, moving more literally releases endorphins, it can improve confidence, possibly get you outdoors and getting fresh air. So yes training can be incredibly beneficial to your mental health.

Viewing training as what your body can do and something that makes you feel better makes exercise a positive action rather than a form of punishment, where you train to eat more or change your appearance and size.

What exercise isn’t though, is therapy. It can be therapeutic of course it can. If I’m a bit stressed or anxious going to the gym or for a run can help alleviate the symptoms. If i don’t train for a few days I can feel the difference to my mood, largely because I actually enjoy the time I’m running or lifting, it makes me feel good, is a break from whatever is going on and a chance to blast some music and focus on me.

But exercise can’t replace therapy or solve actual problems. If training is literally the only thing keeping you sane or making you feel better it’s time to look at the issues exercise is acting as a sticking plaster for. The issue when you get to this point, is if you can’t train for whatever reason, you end up feeling terrible. When you feel like training through an injury because that would be better than how you’d feel if you took some time off, or rest days sound like a terrible idea because even though you’re knackered and burnt out a day off would make you feel guilty.

The benefits of training for mental health can’t be denied but we always need to remember that for it to be a benefit it needs to complement our life rather than dominate it, which means knowing when to rest even if you really want to train, when to pull back, when to take it easy and then appreciate what you are still able to do when you can train.

Anxiety and the Gym

When people think about anxiety and the gym we normally think about how anxiety can make it hard for people to get started, go to the gym or a class for the first time or start something new. That’s a valid topic to discuss because the unknown and uncertainty can be anxiety inducing to many of us at the best of times.

Another impact anxiety can have on your training that maybe gets overlooked though is how it affects your concentration. Now it can be argued that people with anxiety are incredibly good at concentrating, it’s just it tends to be on whatever is causing anxiety which isn’t a great thing to be hyper concentrated on.

This has two effects, firstly, it reduces the ability to concentrate on what you actually want to concentrate on at that moment. For instance in the gym, whilst some people might find working out a good distraction from whatever is causing anxiety, others might find that they are too affected by the anxiety to fully focus on their workout.

This might often be the case when the second effect of anxiety comes in play, the physical effects; a racing heart, increase in body temperature, headaches for instance. These symptoms can make it very difficult to focus on what you should be focused on or to settle down into your training.

I often find that if I’m doing something such as teaching a class, exercise can reduce my anxiety, probably because I’m having to think about what I’m doing. If I’m just training in the gym for me though, and I’m anxious about something, particularly if it’s just happened or is ongoing, I often find it much harder to fully get into a workout and my intensity reduces. Of course there’s an argument that just getting into the gym and doing something, even if it wasn’t exactly what you wanted, is still a positive and probably still has many benefits. If you find yourself thinking this sounds familiar to you though, maybe consider having little strategies to work around this up your sleeve, attending a class, training with a friend, a play list that always calms you down perhaps.

Ultimately, we are never going to be able to avoid having bad days, so understanding how your own mind and emotions work and how you can best work with them rather than against them is the best way of managing your training when these things hit.

What should you look for in a PT?

There’s lots of ways you can work with a PT now: one on one, small group, online programming, apps. Beyond cost, what do you look for when deciding who to go to?

Maybe it’s location, if you want to train in person that will be a big factor; but it could also be their specialisms, experience, how fit they look, how comfortable they make you feel, the recommendation from people you trust or their client testimonials.

All of these things are valid reasons, ultimately you’re picking someone to work with based on things that are important and relevant to you is key, and here’s where I think the most important factor in looking for someone to work with comes in.

Do they get ‘you’. Specifically can they understand your pain points, identify how they affect your fitness and help you work around them?

We all have some sort of pain points, whether you think it or not, Some may be more obvious than others.

If you deal with depression or anxiety, that’s going to have an effect on how you train. Shift worker, busy mum, student; all these things can affect your training and diet.

Whether your issue is with fitting in gym sessions in the first place, struggling to focus during sessions, struggling to pluck up the courage to go to the gym or anything else in between; what you want is a PT who can understand that issue and help you with that.

Because in reality getting a gym plan is useful. Having someone tell you what to do in the gym gives you focus. A good PT will programme your sessions to incorporate progression and work specifically towards your goals.

All of that is useless though if it doesn’t work around your pain points. A good coach doesn’t just give you the right exercises for you, they understand the obstacles you face and look at how you can overcome them. That has an effect on what they have you do.

That doesn’t mean they have to have lived your experience, of course that can help but it’s not essential, but they need to be willing to listen, pin point the issues their clients faced and think about how to incorporate solutions into workouts.

If you struggle to stick to workouts or get results, a plan and a coach who can help you work around yourself and the things that keep tripping you up might make a difference. It might not make fitness feel easy but it might make a difference to your results.

Mental Health Awareness and Loneliness

You may have seen already that this week of Mental Health Awareness Week and there will be plenty of people sharing their own experiences with their mental health struggles, raising awareness of the struggles many people face on a daily basis, as well as lots of practical advice.

As ever, however, there is a specific theme to the week and this year it’s loneliness and how this can affect people’s Mental Health, so, to keep with the theme, I wanted to focus this blog on this particular topic in the fitness arena.

Exercise is accepted as being good for our mental health, but if you don’t currently do much in the way of exercise it may seem like exercise is often a pretty solitary pursuit. The first instinct for most of us when we think exercise is going to the gym or maybe for a run, things where it’s going to be you doing something alone. The idea of training with other people if your new to exercise can also seem pretty intimidating, even just going to the gym when it’s busy can feel like a lot. So it’s not surprising that for many people struggling with their mental health and feeling isolated and lonely, the idea that exercise could help not only with their mood but also with meeting people, seems a bit of a stretch.

When I first started exercising I persuaded a friend to come to a Zumba class with me because quite frankly I was overweight, unfit and no way was I going alone. I loved it, she hated it. As much as it made me feel unreasonably nervous I went back for class two by myself and then class three, class four and so on. Over time I tried more classes: Body Jam (ironically now the first Les Mills class I tried and one now I couldn’t do well if my life depended on it), Circuits, Street Dance, Body Combat, HIIT and Body Pump. I started seeing the same faces each week, started saying hi (always having a spot helps here!) and over time met people, many of whom are still friends to this day. In fact some of my best friends I met through classes. As much as attending classes involves only me and I don’t need anyone with me to attend it’s certainly led to me meeting a lot of people and realising gyms can be very much a community.

So if you are feeling isolated, maybe you’re in a new area or life has changed recently and you’ve found yourself with time on your hands and fewer people you feel connected with, exercise can be something that provides more than just an endorphin boost.

Now, granted training in the gym isn’t always the easiest way of meeting people. If you’re lifting or on a piece of cardio kit you won’t naturally meet new people (although you might start to see the same faces if you go at regular times and again get to know those people, but there are plenty of other options which lend themselves a little more to widening your social circle.

– Group exercise classes allow you to keep to yourself but you will see the same faces every week so getting to know people organically is much easier

– Group PT / Small group training, much like classes will mean you end up training with the same people each week, and will involved more interaction, making it easier to get to know new people. This can also be a more cost effective way of trying PT sessions.

– Lessons. Do you want to learn to swim better or dance or try another skill. Signing up for lessons in something active is another way of meeting people who you have an interest in common with, which is great if your nervous about small talk!

– Joining a sports team can be a great way of enjoying training whilst also getting to know new people, there will often be team socials to help you get to know your team mates away from the pitch.

– Running clubs, much like sports teams, often have social events planned as well as runs, meaning you can run at your pace then meet people after.

-Cross Fit, a bit like group exercise, if you join a box you’ll often find you see the same people each week, making it easier to get to know new people.

– Online apps, as much as these seem a bit anti social, you will often find online PTs also have a social media group for their clients. Whilst not immediately a face to face option for meeting people these can allow you to connect with similar people and many people find people they connect with and can chat with even if they are miles away in groups such as this.

These are just a few ideas of ways you can help your Mental Health with exercise whilst also connecting with new people, which in itself can also benefit your Mental Health.

You can read more about the official campaign, including downloading some resources for specific populations below.

https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/campaigns/mental-health-awareness-week

Ways to help your mental health

Some of my favourite things to do relating to fitness and nutrition to help improve my mental health and help manage depression and anxiety that might also help you:

1) Drink water

Most of us don’t drink enough water at the best of time and if you feel low the chances are you will drink even less. Fill a water bottle and sip throughout the day. Dehyration causes fatigue and has been linked to feelings of depression so drinking water is a cheap, low effort way of helping you feel a bit better.

2) Vitamin D

This can help make you feel better natutally. You can buy supplements, a light box, possibly use a sunbed (with caution) or even better get outside and get some fresh air at the same time. Little effort required for a potential improvement in your mood.

3) Fish Oil

Omega 3 has been linked to improving symptons of mild depression. Make the effort to take a supplement each day – you can buy it in liquid form if you can’t swallow tablets (and are brave!). This was one simple habit that has worked well for me.

4) Eat regular meals

When you feel low eating proper meals at regular times can go out the window. Set an alarm for regular intervals and eat a small simple meal when it goes off. This will help stabilise your mood and create a feeling of routine and normality which can help when life feels like it’s crumblig around you.

5) Eat colourful food

Go to the shop and buy lots of different colourerd food. If you don’t feel like cooking buy prepared veg and fruit. Eating a variety of colours will mean your getting a variety of nutrients and will help improve your mood as well as your health.

6) Eat simple healthy meals

Eating healthy foods can have a dramatic affect on how well your mind feels. If I’ve had a bad week a simple healthy meal can help me feel more positive and in control of my own mind and body. It may sound stupid but when I eat well I feel like my body feels better and I’m looking after myself which in turn makes me feel brighter within myself. On days like this I won’t have the energy to cook a fancy meal so I go for a simple piece of salmon I can microwave or grill and a pack of microwave veg. 10 minutes to prepare a good quality meal.

7) Try some alternative meal prep

The holy grail of fitness freaks! Cooking is the last thing you want to do when you feel depressed. So if you find yourself having a good day make the most of it and prepare so batches of food that you can freeze. Then on days you just can’t face cooking you can defrost one of these meals and still eat something homemade.

8) Buy a slow cooker

Slow cookers allow you to make healthy tasty meals with little effort -and a casserole is brilliant comfort food. They are great for preparing a comforting meal without much effort and will make you feel better than turning to chocolate and other quick food sources that we often crave when we feel low.

9) Drink less coffee

Hardest one on this list for me! Adrenal Fatigue and depression / anxiety are linked. Too much coffee puts you at risk of developing adrenal fatigue – drinking less will help reduce stress levels. You could try a herbal tea instead which many people find helps then relax.

10) Walk

Getting outside helps you move more -that will help your mental health. Fresh air will help lift your mood. Being outside will help increase vitamin D intake. Walking can help clear your head. Walking is free. In short one of the best and most simple things you can do to help yourself fell more positive.

11) Exercise

As I said moving has been shown to help manage many mental health issues. You may not feel much like it but it can be in any form and doesn’t need to be for long periods of time to help. Start small and build up as you start to feel like you can.

12) Dance

Stick music on and just move to the music. Music can improve mood as can moving which makes thos fun activity a win win mood boosting activity.

13) Try group exercise

Nerve wracking and requires motivation. Sounds awful if you aren’t having the best day. But if you can push yourself to walk into the room you can find exercise, motivation, good music and social interaction in one place. It’s hard to leave a class not feeling at least a little bit more positive than when you walked in.

14) Join a team or club

Another nervewracking idea. Another idea which will allow you to exercise which will help your mental health and get to meet new people, another great mood booster. It can also help boose confidence which will help your mental health dramatically.

15) Try yoga

A chance to challenge your body and stretch along with a focus on breathing and mental wellbeing. You could try a class or find a free video on You tube. You could do an hour or even 5 minutes. Whatever you feel like at the start there is an option you could try out and you may feel more relaxed by the end of it.

Do you have any other tips for improving your mental health?