How Exercise Can Improve Your Mental Health- (February) Brianna Burns

As we are practically halfway through the school year, an overload of assignments, and nearing deadlines, you may be feeling the mid-year stress and pressure. This is something that everyone faces at one point or another. Highschool can be quite a challenge. To complete schoolwork with everyone's busy schedules, and maintaining some kind of social life. Honestly, I think some teachers forget we have lives outside of this place.
But before you just decide to give up and nearly drown into your books, have you ever considered exercise as a form of mental relief? For those who play sports and or workout every day like myself, I'm sure that they can agree that physical exercise is actually quite in fact, meditative for you and your brain.
Now, if you don't play sports, that's totally ok! simply just taking the time out of the day and devoting it to yourself and your physical well being is one of the healthiest, most beneficial things you can do for your body.  Not saying you need to exercise for 5 hours every day, but even just a half-hour is all you need. Exercising has shown to not only reduce stress, but to boost self-esteem, decrease anxiety, and my personal favorite... Improve sleep!! So there you have it if you want to sleep better at night and feel more refreshed for the next workday, do some physical activity.
According to the Mayo Health Clinic, Physical activity helps bump up the production of your brain's feel-good neurotransmitters, called endorphins. Also, virtually any form of exercise from sprinting to even yoga or meditation is beneficial. A little bit goes a long way.
At the end of the day, finding what form of exercise works for you, is the way to go. Don't follow other people, just do what you enjoy. If your a meditater or a cross country star, it's your health and well being, do what you want.