Most people understand exercise to be an activity with physical benefits only. When they hear exercise, they immediately think weightloss or fitness. Rarely do people connect exercise with mental and emotional well being.

That’s actually shocking because most times when you feel good outside, it also affects my how you feel inside and vice versa. So while exercise does make you look and feel great outside, it’s also very useful for internal care.

The world we live in is increasingly becoming more stressful and fast-paced, so there’s a need to define and practice self-care, so you don’t burn out.

There’s no better than time than now, to take care of ourselves, be in our best mental and emotional states, as well as explore the different ways to get there.

This post is for you if; you’re just getting started on finding ways to practice self-care, or you want to add new activities to your list. So here’s why you should strongly consider making exercise a form of self-care.

You can have some alone time

While you can join a gym or exercise in a group setting, your workout time gives you the opportunity to do something for yourself. We spend most of our time serving others and while that’s great, it’s super important to pause and dedicate some time to ourselves alone.

Whether you’re running, taking a long brisk walk or sweating out during a HIIT session, you get that alone time to reconnect with, or care for yourself.

You feel happy

When you exercise, your body releases hormones called endorphins. These chemicals basically act with the pain receptors in your body, to reduce the perception of pain, as well as trigger positive feelings.

As you continue to exercise every day, then more endorphins get released and you get an increased dose of positive feelings. This in turn, keeps you in a great state of mind and is an excellent form of self-care.

You feel energized

A big part of self-care is doing activities that make you feel refreshed, rejuvenated and energized. Those are feelings you get when you workout and the sweat is pouring from your body.

So if you needed another reason to work out, then getting the much needed energy is one reason why you should work out.

You’re able to do something for you

Ultimately, exercise is necessary for our health and well-being, and inherently, most of us know that. So when we do exercise, we’re usually proud of ourselves because we did something for us, something to improve us.

Part of self-care, is doing things that are necessary for our overall development and wellbeing. So in that sense, exercise provides us with an opportunity to develop ourselves.

If you were looking for reasons why you should practice exercise as a form of self-care, I just gave you three reasons plus one why you should 😉.

You’re welcome!