Most people understand that exercise can be vital for building physical strength, recovering from injuries, or simply maintaining a healthy body. But many unfortunately don’t realize that exercises for mental health can also be essential for their well-being and overall quality of life.
Why Is Practicing Mental Health Exercises Important?
Mental health exercises can have a profound impact on how you think, feel, and interact with other people. They can also help you develop resilience against certain age-related challenges.
Examples of the importance of these exercises include:
- Improving memory, increasing learning capacity, and enhancing other cognitive functions
- Easing the symptoms of various mental health disorders, or acting as a protective factor to prevent their onset
- Boosting self-confidence and self-esteem
- Delaying or counteracting age-related brain changes that have been associated with cognitive and mental health problems in older adults
10 Exercises for Improving Mental Health
Our list of 10 exercises that can improve your mental health includes options for virtually everyone, regardless of physical capabilities. If you enjoy physically challenging endeavors, you will find some here – but you’ll also discover activities that require little to no physical exertion.
- Mindfulness and meditation: As exercises for mental health, mindfulness and meditation have been linked with lower levels of anxiety, stress, and depression; improved sleep quality, and reductions in both acute and chronic pain. These exercises have also proved to be effective at helping people who have been living with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
- Breathwork: The term “breathwork” encompasses a variety of techniques for taking conscious control of your breath, with the goal of improving your mood and establishing a sense of inner peace. Breathwork, which can be done alone or within a group, shares some features with meditation, such as encouraging practitioners to focus their full attention on the present moment.
- Journaling: Taking a few minutes on a regular basis to record your experiences, opinions, or whatever else is important to you at that moment offers a wealth of mental health benefits. The simple act of describing what you’ve been doing forces you to view your thoughts and actions from a slightly different perspective, which can help you identify unhealthy patterns or maladaptive responses to triggers. Journaling can also help you process difficult emotions before they have a negative impact on your life.
- Walking: One of the simplest physical exercises for mental health can make a world of difference to your mood and mindset. For example, the American Psychological Society has reported that walking 30 minutes per day can reduce a person’s risk of depression by 25%. Other reputable sources have also linked walking with better stress management, reduced anxiety, and an improved sense of personal well-being.
- Hiking: Hiking combines the benefits of walking with the restorative power of spending time in nature. Depending on where you choose to hike, this exercise may require much more exertion than a typical stroll around your neighborhood – but for many people, the opportunity to view plants, trees, and occasionally even animals makes the effort more than worth it.
- Gardening: This low-impact form of physical activity can have a significant positive impact on your mental health. According to an August 2022 study in the journal Preventive Medicine Reports, the psychological benefits of gardening include better sleep, increased sense of hope and happiness, and decreases in anxiety, stress, and depression.
- Being creative: This is a catch-all category for a range of activities, including (but by no means limited to) drawing, painting, singing, dancing, and playing an instrument. The goal with these creative exercises isn’t to become proficient or develop a money-making side hustle – it’s simply to engage the creative part of your personality while devoting your full attention to the present moment. Creative exercises can also be ideal ways to process experiences or emotions that you can’t quite put into words.
- Strength training: Using free weights, machines, or resistance bands can be an excellent way to improve your physical strength while also building psychological resilience. Strength training promotes mindfulness, emphasizes the mind-body connection, and can improve your confidence and self-esteem. A July 2014 report in the journal Frontiers in Psychology linked low-to-moderate strength training with diminished anxiety, improved cognition, elevated mood, and better quality of life.
- Yoga: The mental health benefits of yoga include reduced stress and an easing of both anxiety and depression. Also, studies involving brain scans have found that regular yoga practitioners have a thicker cerebral cortex and hippocampus than non-practitioners. These two brain regions play key roles in functions such as learning, memory, and information processing.
- Sleeping: Sleep may be one of the most overlooked exercises for mental health. Getting an appropriate amount of healthy sleep on a regular basis can enhance problem-solving skills, creativity, attention, and decision-making capabilities. Viewed from another perspective, deficient sleep can increase a person’s risk of several psychological concerns, including mood swings, poor impulse control, depression, and suicidal ideation.
Mental Health Exercises at Conscious Health
Conscious Health regularly hosts classes, seminars, and other activities that can help people take better care of their mental health. Examples of exercises we’ve hosted in the past include:
- Meditation sessions
- Breathwork classes
- Sound baths
- Workforce Wellbeing lecture
- Emerging Themes conference
To stay informed about upcoming opportunities like these, bookmark our Events page and check back often.
Contact Us to Learn More About Our Upcoming Mental Health Events
Conscious Health offers a dynamic array of innovative outpatient services for adults whose lives have been disrupted by mental health challenges.
Our treatment center in Los Angeles, CA, is a safe and highly supportive place where you can receive customized care from a small team of compassionate professionals. We’ll take the time to identify and address the root causes of your symptoms, so that we can help you make transformational changes and achieve true healing in mind, body, and spirit.
To learn more about our programs and services, or to schedule a free consultation, please visit our Contact page or call us today.
Published: 2/21/2025
