Research Calls Combining Sports With Mindfulness Exercises Proven Good For Mental Health

Illustration (Daniel To tepilov/Pexels)

JAKARTA - The body and human thoughts influence each other. That means, maintaining physical and mental health is very important for your overall well-being. And currently, researchers are still trying to find out the relationship between physical and mental health to help people optimize the two.

A systematic review recently published by Mental Health and Physical analyzed 35 research results to see the combined effects of mindfulness and exercise practices. The results show that when combined it turns out that these two activities offer considerable benefits to mental health.

Exercise can help prevent mental illness and help you manage certain mental health conditions. For example, exercise offers certain benefits for people who experience anxiety or depression.

Practice mindfulness also has special benefits for mental well-being. Well-known meditation expert Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, defines mindfulness as a awareness that arises by deliberately paying attention, at this time and not judging the disclosure of experiences at the moment after time.

You can train mindfulness by using several methods, such as meditation or seeking certain times to focus on increasing awareness.

Evidence also supports the benefits of mindfulness for mental health. For example, awareness-based interventions can help overcome mental health conditions such as:

However, this does not mean that training mindfulness will always be beneficial for all individuals. Some evidence even supports that mindfulness can actually increase stress in some people, especially those who are prone to anxiety.

Returning to research, after conducting 35 studies on adults, the results found, namely a combination of physical activity and training awareness can help reduce depression, anxiety, and stress.

Both physical activity and mindfulness exercise have strong psychological benefits, said study author Masha Remskar, a behavioral scientist based at the University of Bath in the UK, quoted from Medical News Today, Thursday, January 11.

However, by reviewing existing research, our study is one of the first studies to show how positive effects can be improved if the two are combined. The findings show that mindfulness can help unlock the benefits of exercise by 'training' the psychological forces needed to exercise regularly (for example, helping to motivate people to start while overcoming mild pain, discomfort, or a sense of failure when exercise is done is difficult).

After knowing the promising benefits of combining mindfulness and exercise. You must be curious about how to practice both of them. Non-study writer Dr. Alex Dimitriu, certified double boards in the field of Psychiatry and Sleep Treatment and founder of Menlo Park Psychiatry & Sleep Medicine, said:

Sports and mindfulness separately have proven to improve mental well-being, so it's no surprise that the combination of the two is effective. I often tell patients especially those who suffer from depression, to remember and care for their basic needs. These include maintaining a sleep pattern, diet, exercise, meditation or mindfulness, time in the open, and time with friends and family.

Dr. Dimitriu said that combining one of the positive behaviors mentioned above could further improve mental health outcomes.

"For sports, personal trainers or coaches can help. While mindfulness, it is necessary to talk to therapists, attend seminars that are relevant to meditation, or use the application can provide additional guidance so that later it will benefit," concluded Dr. Dimitriu.