Here at South Burnett Podiatry, it’s our pleasure to help you look after your body. From helping you recover from pain and injury, to helping you feel more steady, comfortable and confident on your feet. The work we do enables our patients to get back to enjoying walks, sports, hikes - whatever you desire. And as a result of looking after your physical health? Your mind and heart, via your mental health, get a massive boost too.
Yes - there’s a deep and complex relationship between your physical and mental health. From stress reduction at home to fewer instances of burnout at work, the true power of moving our bodies is massive, yet often overlooked. Moving your body doesn’t have to look like running a marathon, either. It can be as simple as a golf game, or a stroll with your loved ones.
For something a bit different and eye opening - here’s just a few benefits to your mind and heart you gain by moving your body.
Better Sleep
It only takes a moderate level of cardio exercise, like walking, swimming, running or cycling, to help adults get better quality sleep. Sleep is important because it’s our time to recharge and recover. During the day, we naturally incur neurological damage, and as we sleep, our body repairs this most effectively. When we sleep, our mind also solidifies what we’ve learnt that day, filing the information away, while our muscles relax. Having a good sleep may see you performing more productively during the day and maintaining a better mood - and just 20 minutes of exercise can have up to 12 hours of mood-boosting benefits, according to studies.
More Energy
When we move our bodies, helpful hormones are released, our circulation that brings with it oxygen and nutrients is improved, and our cells are generally stimulated to create more energy. This is why you often feel more energised after physical activity than before. Feeling energised helps us feel good about ourselves, helps us stay motivated and productive, and helps us to respond better to challenges that the day throws at us.
Lower Anxiety & Stress
When we exercise, our levels of stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol are reduced, our muscles are relaxed, and our endorphin levels are boosted. As endorphins are the chemicals in our brain that act as natural pain killers, assist our sleep and help manage our mood, the result, alongside reduced stress hormone levels, is lower levels of stress and anxiety.
Better Relationships
Exercise has been shown to help improve a person’s sense of belonging, help them develop a social identity, and help them build meaningful connections. In daily life, this means better trust and cooperation, teamwork, better job satisfaction - and meaningful relationships that help us get through whatever life throws our way.
Getting More Creative
Even walking has proven to boost creativity - up to twice as much - in people who exercised compared to those that didn’t. Creative and fresh thinking can help you both at home and work - helping you dive deeper into recreational activities like writing and painting, to improving your problem-solving and out-of-the-box thinking at work.
Better Memory
As it turns out, the best brain food may not be food at all, but exercise - working to support our cognitive function and mental sharpness. Research has shown that exercise boosts blood flow into two key regions of the brain associated with memory. This isn’t just helpful for our learning and memory in our younger years, but has also been shown to help older adults with memory issues, with studies backing exercise as assisting with the symptoms, severity and progression of conditions like dementia and Alzheimer’s.
Heart Health
We know that regular exercise is deeply linked with good heart health, with it helping promote strong and healthy vessels. Well, according to research, it has similar effects on brain health, too. Just like the heart and its vessels, your brain also contains hundreds of blood vessels, and so just like the heart, the brain can also be negatively affected by diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity and high cholesterol. Exercise can help improve all of these conditions, further deepening the body-heart-mind relationship.
So, What’s Holding You Back From Reaping The Benefits Of Exercise?
If it’s pain, injury, or problems with balance or steadiness on your feet, then our experienced podiatry team is here to help. We have innovative solutions for a range of foot and leg problems ranging from the world’s only brace proven to prevent ankle sprains, to shockwave treatment to treat longstanding injuries like plantar fasciitis heel pain, Achilles problems and much more.
Book your appointment with our team in South Burnett by calling us on 07 4162 7633.