{"id":33025,"date":"2013-07-08T22:15:53","date_gmt":"2013-07-08T22:15:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?p=33025"},"modified":"2017-04-27T08:15:31","modified_gmt":"2017-04-27T13:15:31","slug":"the-stress-exercise-connection-how-does-this-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/health\/the-stress-exercise-connection-how-does-this-work\/","title":{"rendered":"The Stress-Exercise Connection: How Does This Work?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Pressure<\/a>There is no shortage of stressors in our daily lives.\u00a0 Between health, chinuch, shalom bayis, finances, and more it can be tough to stay at a relaxed level.\u00a0 Sometimes when things are stressful, we go for a walk, jog or swim and come back feeling calm and better equipped to deal with the issues at hand.\u00a0 Did the stress go away?\u00a0 It\u2019s probably still there but something happened in your brain to be able to handle the information better in a less stressful way.\u00a0 What happened?<\/p>\n

75% of the general population experiences at least “some stress” every two weeks according to the National Health\u00a0Interview survey.\u00a0 Since psychological stress begins in the brain when we perceive a threat, let us first understand how the body handles that stress with something called the \u201cfight or flight response.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 The fight-or-flight response, also known as the \u201cacute stress response,\u201d refers to a physiological reaction that occurs in the presence of something that is terrifying, either mentally or physically. This response was first described in the 1920s by American physiologist, Walter Cannon. Cannon realized that a chain of rapidly occurring reactions inside the body help mobilize the body’s resources to deal with threatening circumstances.<\/p>\n

In response to acute stress, the body’s sympathetic nervous system is activated due to the sudden release of\u00a0hormones. The sympathetic nervous system stimulates the adrenal glands,\u00a0triggering the release of adrenaline and noradrenaline. This results in an increase in heart rate, blood pressure and breathing rate. After the threat is gone, it takes between 20 and 60 minutes for the body to return to its pre-arousal levels. The fight-or-flight response is also known as the acute stress response. Essentially, the response prepares the body to either fight or flee the threat. It is also important to note that the response can be triggered due to both real and imaginary threats. Imagine yourself driving along a road near your house. Suddenly a car zooms out of nowhere. You slam on the brakes just in time to avoid an accident. That\u2019s the stress response at its best.<\/p>\n

There are three regions of the brain that control the stress response:\u00a0 The Amygdala, which detects, treats and triggers the fight-or-flight response; the Prefrontal Cortex, which helps us deal calmly with stress, and can shut down the fight-or-flight response; and the hippocampus, which supports our stress recovery.\u00a0 Neroscientists now know that chronic stress can change these brain regions in a way that makes us more sensitive and less resilient to stress.\u00a0 When we have stress all the time, these areas weaken and the brain gets worse at managing stress.\u00a0 When this goes on for a prolonged period of time, these changes in the brain can lead to depression, cardiovascular disease and accelerated aging.\u00a0 But as we mentioned at the beginning of this article, exercise can be a way to manage or even cure stress.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s see how that works:<\/p>\n

Numerous studies in 2011 and 2012 have shown that exercise has shown tremendous promise as a neuroprotective intervention.\u00a0 Exercise protects our brains from stress in several ways.\u00a0 When we exercise (and the more intense we can exercise the better the result) we increase something called Brain-Dirived Neurotphic Factor (BDNF), which maintains brain health.\u00a0 Not only does exercise give us more BDNF, it also triggers the brain\u2019s self-repair processes.\u00a0 And last, exercise also activates the brain\u2019s self calming system by releasing a neurotransmitter called GABA (gamma<\/i>–<\/b>Aminobutyric acid) in order to restore balance in the autonomic nervous system.\u00a0 Perhaps the most encouraging research is that for someone who makes exercise a part of his or her life, exercise can create a STRESS RESISTANT BRAIN! <\/b>(Fleshner et. al. 2011).<\/p>\n

The question is how much does one need to exercise and at what intensity?\u00a0 As previously stated, intense exercise is good, but intense exercise for a prolonged period of time is not good for our cardiovascular system, our immune system or our brains.\u00a0 So it seems that moderate exercise for less than an hour at a time brings the best results.\u00a0 Overtraining, meaning intense exercise for a prolonged period of time can have the opposite effect of what we are trying to achieve.\u00a0 An over-trained athlete can actually develop exaggerated stress response and fail to recover between his workouts.\u00a0 That results in elevated stress hormones, and instead of exercise giving us long-term protection against stress, it amplifies our stress.<\/p>\n

Remember that exercise in all of its forms, aerobic and resistance training does help us manufacture more of the feel-good neurotransmitters in our brains, serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine.\u00a0 These are the same hormones that anti depressant medications work on.\u00a0 The now famous SMILE (Standard Medical Intervention and Long-term Exercise) study at Duke University in 1999 the researchers followed 156 patients between the ages of 50 and 77 who had been diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD). They were randomly assigned to one of three groups: exercise, medication or a combination of medication and exercise.<\/p>\n

The exercise group spent 30 minutes either riding a stationary bicycle or walking or jogging three times a week. The anti-depressant used by the medication group was sertraline (trade name Zoloft), which is a member of a class of commonly used anti-depressants known as selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors.\u00a0 To the surprise of the researchers, after 16 weeks, all three groups showed statistically significant and identical improvement in standard measurements of depression, implying that exercise is just as effective as medication in treating major depression and it doesn\u2019t have the negative side effects of the various medications.<\/p>\n

We are all familiar with the wonderful physiological advantages of exercising, helping to prevent heart disease, cancer, diabetes and a host of other diseases.\u00a0 But we now know that exercise can help us in our battle against all types of daily stress.\u00a0 Reducing stress through exercise will \u201cadd hours to your day, days to your year, and years to your life.\u201d<\/i><\/b> \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\"image\"<\/p>\n

Alan Freishtat<\/strong> is an A.C.E. CERTIFIED PERSONAL TRAINER and a BEHAVIORAL CHANGE and WELLNESS COACH with over 19 years of professional experience. Alan is the creator and director of the \u201c10 Weeks to Health\u201d program for weight loss. He is available for private coaching sessions, consultations, assessments and personalized workout programs both in his office and by telephone and skype. Alan also lectures and gives seminars and workshops. He can be reached at\u00a002-651-8502<\/a> or 050-555-7175<\/a>, or by email at\u00a0alan@alanfitness.com<\/a> Check out the his web site \u2013www.alanfitness.com<\/a> US Line: 516-568-5027<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is no shortage of stressors in our daily lives.\u00a0 Between health, chinuch, shalom bayis, finances, and more it can be tough to stay at a relaxed level.\u00a0 Sometimes when things are stressful, we go for a walk, jog or swim and come back feeling calm and better equipped to deal with the issues at<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":469,"featured_media":33027,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,15,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-mental-health","category-physical-health"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Stress-Exercise Connection: How Does This Work? - OU Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/health\/the-stress-exercise-connection-how-does-this-work\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Stress-Exercise Connection: How Does This Work? 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