Exercise to Exorcise Your Demons

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Exercise has many beneficial health effects. Aerobic exercise, in particular, increases the volume of oxygen and glucose delivered to the brain, helping nourish brain cells. It also helps keep the weight off, improves muscle performance and improves digestion.

But, perhaps even more important, aerobic exercise has a profound effect on your mental outlook. Studies have shown that daily aerobic exercise fosters a positive mental outlook. It increases positivity, optimism, confidence, cheerfulness and has a calming effect on the amygdala.

The amygdala is the seat of the negative emotions. Those negative emotions, worry, anger, fear and anxiety, have served humans so well.

Negative emotions have been around since the dawn of man. They act like a radar system, looking out for environmental dangers that could imperil our very existence. They are part of our fight or flight response system, alerting us to threats from our environment. 

In our modern world, however, those threats – tigers, lions and bears – are practically nonexistent. These triggers, however, have been replaced by modern day threats to our survival: supervisors, monthly bills, upcoming college costs for our kids and that reckless driver on the road. There are actually far more fight or flight triggers in modern society than there were when humans were hunting and foraging in the cave man days.

As a result, our amygdala is constantly turned on. We call this stress. When our amygdala is perpetually turned on, our brains are consumed with negative thoughts. We become negative about everything – our job, our families, our friends and our lives.

Aerobic exercise reduces stress by calming the amygdala down. This opens the door to positivity, or a positive mental outlook. Aerobic exercise induces positivity by turning the amygdala off. Since positivity is a hallmark of every successful person, this is important. You simply cannot succeed in realizing a dream or achieving goals if your actions are dictated by negativity.

Negativity shuts down the prefrontal cortex, the command and control center of the brain and also the place where solutions to problems are found. When you are negative, you are literally shutting down half of your brain, making you unable to find solutions to the problems you will encounter while pursuing a dream and the goals behind those dreams. Daily aerobic exercise, therefore, is critical to success. Exercise helps you exorcise your demons.

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Thomas C. Corley About Thomas C. Corley

Tom Corley is a bestselling author, speaker, and media contributor for Business Insider, CNBC and a few other national media outlets.

His Rich Habits research has been read, viewed or heard by over 50 million people in 25 countries around the world.

Besides being an author, Tom is also a CPA, CFP, holds a master’s degree in taxation and is President of Cerefice and Company, a CPA firm in New Jersey.
 
Phone Number: 732-382-3800 Ext. 103.
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Comments

  1. I’m so much less stressed since I started doing more aerobic exercise so I definitely think you’re on to something here! Just makes me feel good too and that’s not a bad thing. Enjoyed the post!

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