Yoga practices are helpful to exercise mindfulness and mental stability.
Specific types of exercise recommended for stress relief include yoga, walking, moderate jogs, swimming, weight lifting, and yoga.
However, all forms of exercise can effectively reduce stress. Exercising pumps up your endorphins, or ”feel-good” hormones, which can boost your overall mood. Exercise also has other positive effects on other factors of your life such as improved quality of sleep, increased ability to focus, higher energy levels, better weight management, and more. All of those factors can also contribute to stress reduction.
However, vigorous exercises, especially intense cardio, can increase cortisol, the stress hormone. In turn, this can have a negative effect because it adds additional stress to your body. If you have an underlying health condition, such as Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) for example, it would be best to avoid high-intensity exercise unless otherwise noted by a physician. Individuals with PCOS, or diseases which impact hormones, already have irregular hormone levels, which makes them more susceptible to negative effects from changing hormone levels. The same goes for those with other health conditions because introducing additional stress to the body can cause illness. Suddenly introducing vigorous exercise can even cause illnesses, such as colds, in healthy individuals.
However, in general, exercise as a whole has a positive impact on stress reduction. Regardless of what type of exercise is chosen, it should be slowly introduced based on previous activity levels. As previously mentioned, stress is dependent on many other factors as well. As such, just because yoga is scientifically one of the best stress-reducing exercises doesn’t mean that it is the exercise that should be performed if the individual absolutely hate it. They may then begin to dread exercise or attending classes, which also creates stress.
In general, almost any form of exercise can help relieve stress. It is important, however, to consider one's present level of physical health before beginning and to start at a low or mild level so that the exercise does not become another source of stress in and of itself.
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