As part of Mental Health Awareness Week 2024 we have been focusing on the theme of ‘movement’. Most of us know that movement and physical exercise is important for our physical health but it’s also massively important for our mental health!
Movement can involve a whole range of activities, ranging from getting ourselves out of our bed and into the shower… to going for a run… to dancing to our favourite tunes… to walking to the local shop… to playing with our children… to doing gentle stretching… to doing housework… to breathing deeply. The fact is we move all of the time and don’t really even notice it, so bringing more movement into our life doesn’t have to mean taking up a new sport. It’s mainly about increasing our awareness of movement and considering how we can connect with this more.
Why is movement so important?
There is numerous research to show that exercise and movement can help our physical and mental health.
Movement is great for our physical health:
🏃♀️ It can help manage our weight
🏋🏽 It can strengthen our bones and muscles
⛳️ It can aid our circulation, metabolism, digestion & immunity
💃🏻 It can help our brain health and memory
⛹️♀️ It can give us more energy
⚽️ It can reduce our risk of long term health conditions
🏓 It can improve our skin health
🛼 It can help reduce levels of pain
And it’s also great for our mental health!
🏂 It can improve our self esteem
🤸🏻♀️ It can give us a sense of control and autonomy
🧘♂️ It can relieve stress
🛝 It can release endorphins (our ‘feel good’ hormones)
🏊🏻♀️ It can help manage low mood and anxiety
👨🏼🦼 It can help us get better quality sleep
🧗🏼♂️ It can give us a sense of focus and achievement
There are guidelines for how much exercise can help keep us healthy, with some sort of physical activity being recommended every day. Many people think that doing more exercise and movement is too hard to incorporate into their day to day life, but there are so many easily accessible ways to increase your movement. This could involve taking the stairs instead of the lift, walking to a local shop instead of driving, doing housework (taking things up and down the stairs several times a day is a great workout!), parking further away in a car park, going for a walk with friends, or even dancing to your favourite songs around your kitchen! After all there’s good reason why Sophie Ellis-Bextors ‘Kitchen Disco’ was a big hit during Covid 19 when everyone was isolated at home and couldn’t meet up with people outside of their homes. Kitchen Disco’s really helped peoples mood and physical health through dancing and singing to their favourite songs in their own homes. Our bodies often naturally want to move when we feel a rhythm, music makes us tap our feet and sing along and then all those feel good hormones are released!
In order to give you an idea of where to start with music and movement we have made up a ‘Wellbeing Rooms’ playlist for you to listen to and move (and groove) to! We asked the practitioners at The Wellbeing Rooms what their favourite songs are to get them up and moving and one of them very kindly made them into a playlist on Spotify. So please feel free to download this fantastic list of tunes and we hope it gets you moving!
Thanks for reading!
Jo, Jan & Catherine
@thewellbeingrooms
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