With a new year comes many other new things like; new goals, new challenges, and new events. Another prominent aspect that tends to come with a new year is new stress. Stress can take form in countless ways, but a great way to channel this is through routine fitness and exercise.

Reducing Stress Through Fitness and Exercise as a Whole

Not only is routine exercise great for your body, but it also has been proven to do wonders for your mental health for a number of reasons. While exercising, your body releases endorphins. Endorphins are like little positivity triggers that run through your brain. This helps to improve your mood and attitude in a near-instant way. Additionally, regular fitness and exercise can also improve your sleeping schedule. Although there is no ‘one size fits all’ for suggested sleeping lengths, but between 7 to 8 hours per night is a good rule of thumb. Daily exercise is a great way for your body to utilize its energy and help wind down come bedtime. Lastly, fitness is also a key driver in improving one’s confidence. Confidence to do better, look better, and of course, feel better.

An effective way to both stay motivated and ensure a proper workout is by registering for fitness classes. Classes are led by experienced fitness professionals that will help you maintain proper form and learn new techniques- but will also keep you focused on the task at hand. In turn, near-assuring a full and genuine workout each time.

Managing Stress Through Routine

Stress can oftentimes occur when you feel as though that you have too much on your plate. This can form from your workload increasing or you taking on additional tasks in a day. The feeling of overload is commonly coupled with stress, but the key to managing this is by finding balance and routine.

One of the most effective ways to begin developing a routine is to take all of your tasks in a week and write them down on a piece of paper. Oftentimes stress can occur because you feel as though you have a million things to do at once. Itemizing your tasks gives a true visual of your feelings of overload. From there, aim to schedule these tasks into your week like an appointment. For example, instead of making a mental note to workout whenever you have time, attend a regularly scheduled fitness class once or twice per week.

Registering for routine fitness programs like karate or total-body training classes also holds you accountable to attend and incorporate exercise into your life on a regular basis. We’ve all had that stare-down with our gym membership while we try to muster the motivation to go. With classes, the precedent of attendance is set for you. You can view some of our weekly classes here.

Relieving Stress by Setting Realistic Expectations and Goals

With fitness comes change. Change in your body, your mindset, and your overall mental health. The feeling of accomplishment and the will to obtain more is ultra-common after a good workout. A great way to keep that motivation flowing is by setting realistic goals and expectations for yourself. Not only does this help you want to strive for more, but it also really keeps your exercise train on the tracks.

What Are Realistic Goals and Expectations?

What’s most important with goal-setting, is ensuring that there is a way that you can physically obtain them. Some can certainly be more difficult than others, but it needs to be possible. Here are some types of achievable goals and expectations that you can set for yourself.

• Within six months from now, I will incorporate an additional fitness class into my week.
• I will stretch before and after every class until I can touch my toes.
• I will take small breaks when needed, but will attend my fitness classes in full each week.
• Within 9 months from now, I will be capable of attending the intermediate level of classes.

Of course, no two persons’ goals and expectations are sure to look alike, but they should be realistic for themselves.

Final Notes

Channeling stress into fitness is one thing, but doing so with the intention of developing a routine, establishing personal goals, and improving upon your mental health is the heartbeat of success. Our team of teachers have been cultivating exercise for fitness beginners to intermediates since 1984. You can view our list of classes for ages 4 to 99+ here.

Please note this article is based on our own thoughts and have not been formally approved by a healthcare or fitness professional.