Why movement feels good - harness the power of your ‘hope’ molecules

One of the biggest things that makes me want to move more and move again, is really connecting to how movement makes me feel. You might imagine I’m talking about how it makes my body feel. As in whether I feel an ease of movement, whether niggling pains are reduced etc. And that’s certainly a big part of it, but actually, just as importantly, I try to really tune in to how it affects my mind. 

Even when I used to only see movement as doing a certain quota of exercise a week, I always said the benefits were half for my body and half for my head; helping me be more positive, seeing the world in a better way and hopefully being a nicer person to be around! 

So, it really was and still is, a sort of natural antidepressant. In life before chronic pain, I thought I had to push myself hard to get this effect, but having learned to really tune in to how moving makes me feel, comparing my mental state before to afterwards, I now notice benefits from even the smallest movements in the day. 

Hope molecules

I’m always interested in whether there’s a physiological reason for a specific outcome. I used to think it was just about increased blood flow to the brain, and therefore increased oxygen, which is of course a factor. Through investigation I’ve learned about wonderful little chemicals called ‘myokines’ that are secreted by muscles, into the bloodstream, when muscles contract. 

It’s these amazing proteins that travel up to the brain and, amongst other things, act as antidepressants. Not only do they improve our mood, they also improve our ability to learn, they help our capacity to move around and even protect our brain from some of the negative effects of ageing. 

‘Muscle-brain cross-talk’

This brilliant relationship between the movement of our muscles and its effect on our brain goes even further. Myokines also help improve metabolism, reduce inflammation and even increase muscle strength. They really are worth tapping in to!

Other things that help us feel good after moving are the production of neurotransmitters such as dopamine, noradrenaline and serotonin that also have a positive impact on our brains.

If anyone ever doubts the ‘body-mind connection’ after become aware of this, I would be very surprised!

Hope molecules - nature’s way of helping us move more

It’s an upward cycle if we can just get started! When you move more, you feel better, you associate the movement with improving your mood, so you choose to move again, to feel better. Obviously the converse is also true. When you move less, you don’t feel as good and often this can make you less likely to get going. 

When our daily movement levels are low. We are living in a suboptimal state and an easy way to help improve our mental state is by getting moving, but that doesn’t just have to be getting out for a 5k run. 

I’m well aware this is not always the case, with clinical depression in my family. I am not so naive as to think that movement solves all, but what I do know it still really can help alleviate symptoms. 

How to harness the power of ‘hope’

For those who see moving more as a challenge and see exercise in a more negative light, my response would be to start small and add slowly, but most importantly just to get started your way!

Set yourself a few mini movement challenges and immediately after you’ve completed them, check in with how you feel, and importantly, celebrate that you did it (smile at yourself, pat yourself on the back, whatever you choose). This act of applauding yourself really helps cement the activity you achieved as a good thing in your brain.

“You do your celebration right after your new tiny behavior. The positive emotion generated by your celebration helps wire the new behavior into your brain, making it more automatic.” BJ Fogg - Tiny Habits 

Compare how you feel at the end of a day sprinkled with movement breaks or challenges, to a day with little movement - I’m fairly sure your mood will be better on the days you move more (and your body is likely to feel better too, but that’s for other blog posts!). 

A few ideas are things like…

• Every time you go upstairs, try to go a bit faster and at the top, turn around and go down on your rear, then go back up again!

• When you boil the kettle, challenge your single leg balancing skill

• Each time you pass through a doorway, grab the door handles and use them to do a few arm supported squats - seeing how deep you can go and still push back up again

You get the idea - being creative with your environment and the daily tasks you do, can lead to lots of brilliant movement whilst adding in little extra time. Follow me on socials for more ideas or in previous blog posts. 

Moving on up

Once you’ve started adding more movement to daily tasks, and feel better for it, then try to carve out 5 minute slots for mini natural movement breaks. Like what I hear you say? That’s where I come in! 

Setting the kitchen timer to ping in half an hour when you’re sitting to work on a laptop or read, and choosing to get up and do a 5 minute movement break using movements like these: ‘4 easy to follow natural exercises to improve mobility’

Or choose from over 100 mini movement break videos in the Reclaim Movement membership, focussing on a wide range of movement from general mixes of natural movements, balancing skills, ground movements, get up tutorials through to shoulder and core specific movement breaks. 

The more you tune in to how you feel afterwards and notice the difference movement makes to your mind, the more you’ll want to move, and who knows where it might take you!

Choose movement and exercise you enjoy 

…otherwise it’s harder to sustain in the long run!

If you’re no stranger to exercise, but when you do, you push through to the end, you’re completely ‘in your head’, you try to avoid the feelings in your body. If you’re really not enjoying the process and just glad when it’s over, it might be worth thinking about finding a form of exercise or movement that brings you a bit more joy. Movement and exercise should never feel like a form of punishment. 

Create a positive cycle 

My aim for you is to move more and enjoy it, so you can become a mover for all your remaining decades with all the incredible benefits it brings.

Applaud yourself when you move, thank those lovely ‘hope’ molecules and tune in to how you feel in body and in mind.

Make movement matter in your life!

Source: NCBI