Missing link

A bit of a quieter day today, and perhaps a bit of a brighter one.

As I mentioned last night, yesterday was a fairly frustrating day, not a great day at work and some frustrating news at home. Not a fun 24 hours.

Today many of those frustrations are still in place, however, as I type this tonight my general outlook on life is a lot more positive. As I said, not a lot has changed, however, today I got to spend a fair bit of time doing exercise where as yesterday I did none.

It is pretty well understood that exercise helps with general mental well being. There is the chemical side, the feel good chemicals that get released during exercise giving you that post exercise 'high'. That certainly helps a lot. On the psychological side there is the confidence that comes with feeling fit and strong, which in turn helps build resilience to set backs. On top of that, I have always found exercise to provide a sort of mediation, a chance to clear my head. No matter what stresses are going on in life, exercise provides a break from it all, I might be stressed at the start of a session, but then I get into the session and those worries take a back seat for a while.

It feels like a cliche and an over simplification, but on the days where I exercise I always feel better. On the days where I don't exercise, I often feel worse and have a fairly average time. There may not be a direct link, but I am willing to take the odds that there is.

Link or not, one thing is for sure, I will be exercising again tomorrow.