Stress relief is an increasing need in our daily lives. For example, in an April Gallup poll, the percentage of adults who reported they are “thriving” has dropped to 48 percent—the lowest level since the Great Recession in 2008. The number of adults experiencing significant stress and worry on a daily basis has also risen significantly, to 60 percent, researchers report.
READ MORE 8 Health Benefits Of Cycling That Aren’t Just Physical
There are numerous stress relief techniques that can help you relax, from deep breathing to telehealth therapy sessions, but one major way you can tame the stress dragon is through exercise, research has noted.
Working out has been touted as a tension-busting strategy many times—here’s a look at four evidence-based reasons why hopping on your bike, doing some yoga, or hitting the weights truly may be the ultimate stress hack.
1. Better Sleep
With deeper, uninterrupted sleep, you’re able to reduce levels of cortisol, the hormone most related to the stress response, according to W. Christopher Winter, M.D., president of Charlottesville Neurology and Sleep Medicine and author of The Sleep Solution.
As your cortisol lowers in the evening, that allows melatonin—the hormone that induces drowsiness and keeps you on a solid sleep-wake cycle—to surge. Exercise can help get you on this schedule, Winter says, and with consistency in both workouts and sleep habits, it often leads to more deeper, more quality sleep—which has an impact on your emotional health throughout the day, helping hugely with stress relief .
“Sleep also allows us to react to situations more rationally and with more appropriate emotion,” he tells Bicycling. “It also allows us to understand situations more fully and with better emotional responses.”
2. Regulated Hormones
“High cortisol levels wreak havoc over time, deplete your happy brain chemicals like serotonin, rob your sleep, and make you store fat—especially in your belly,” Sara Gottfried, M.D., author of The Hormone Cure, tells Bicycling. “High cortisol is likewise linked to depression, food addiction, and sugar cravings, as well as lowered resiliency.”
Exercise does tend to temporarily increase circulating levels of cortisol, since the body sees high-intensity activity as a stressor, but balancing that out with adequate recovery time can create better regulation, Gottfried says.
3. Improved Gut Function For Stress Relief?
“A healthy gut makes a healthy body,” she tells Bicycling. “That includes a better stress response, because the gut microbiomehelps regulate central nervous system function and supplies most of the body’s serotonin, the neurotransmitter most responsible for feelings of wellbeing.”
You could see this one coming: A major contributor to a happy gut is exercise. A research review in Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity highlighting the protective and metabolic functions of the gut microbiota found that exercise is beneficial in numerous ways, including energy regulation. Another study, done on rugby players, found that exercise created more diversity in gut bacteria, which has been linked to increased health overall.
4. Lower Inflammation
A study in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience suggested that excessive inflammation plays a critical role in creating a stress response, and the connection goes both ways—high levels of stress can also induce more inflammation.
Regular exercise can break the cycle and aid stress relief by creatinge anti-inflammatory effects, according to a study in Brain, Behavior, and Immunity. Plus, it doesn’t take much, that research noted—just a single session of walking 20 minutes on a treadmill was enough to trigger a cascade of reactions that lowered participant inflammation levels.
In addition to better regulation of cortisol, higher levels of happy chemicals, and lower inflammation, research also suggests exercise can prompt over good-for-you habits, like eating more healthfully and maintaining social connections.
So, if you’re feeling frazzled and overwhelmed—whether that’s being driven by pandemic issues, civil unrest, or simply life—consider upping your daily exercise, either with an easy bike ride or your favorite cross-training options. You’ll be glad you did.