I am currently enjoying a book named The Happy Pill, written by the Swedish author named Anders Hansen. He is a psychiatrist, but he has also written lots of books, he is leading a TV program in Sweden about the science of the brain, and so much more. And yes, I truly enjoy reading his book called The Happy Pill.
If you continue to exercise regularly, your level of cortisol will increase less and less, even when you are under stress from reasons other than training.
We are living stressful days, at least some of us. We have work to do, families to take care of, dogs to take for a walk (even though that is actually decreasing stress), and we need to pay back our loans, earn enough money, and also have fun, get enough sleep, eat healthily, and the list can go on.
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With all this pressure, it is easy to get stressed. In itself, stress isn't dangerous, but if you live a stressed life over a longer period of time, it will impact your brain due to increased cortisol levels in your body. The increased cortisol level will make the hippocampus and your frontal lobe weaker (and they are the main parts blocking stressful signals coming from your amygdala). In other words, the hippocampus and your frontal lobe is kind of your brains defense line whenever stressful signals are sent from the amygdala.
But, if you are stressed a lot and don't fix it, your defense line is getting weaker and weaker, and thus, you will be more and more stressed. This is an evil circle of events. And that leads us to the quote from Anders Hansen once again.
If you continue to exercise regularly, the cortisol levels will increase while exercising (as it is kind of stressful), but once you are finished, they will drop to lower levels than before you started your exercising. That is a good thing.
This leads to the following.
Your body’s stress response, whether it be exercise or work-related, will improve as you become more physically fit. In a nutshell, training teaches the body to not overreact to stress.
This is yet another quote from the book. Yes, when you exercise, your body will become more fit, and you will teach your body not to overreact to stress. And with time, your cortisol level will increase less during exercising as well, as your body learns that it doesn't have to stress because of what is going on!
Do you get it? Are you stressed? Go for a longer walk, jump on the bicycle, or go and run for 20-30 minutes (if you can manage). Don't just do it once, but do it regularly... it will for sure have a positive effect on your body and your brain!