While exercise has the potential to transform your body, increase feel good chemicals and keep you feeling confident and healthy, it also does wonders for your mind to be distracted from your worries and negative ruminating. In the very depths of depression I would spend most of my waking hours trying to reason with my unreasonable thinking. Much like a dog chasing his tail, I never caught up with reason. My real turning point was when I put on my running shoes and ran out along an old dirt road to visit some brown cows.

Exercise is much more than getting fit; rather, it’s meditation in motion.

I love to run with the sun on my skin, birds chirping, smells of the countryside, focused breathing and on the lookout for the odd brown snake on my path. With all my senses being stimulated it is hard to think about anything else. Often on days when I am feeling flat or just unbearably grumpy with my loved ones, my husband will point to my shoes and “suggest,” “You need to go for a run!” From experience, he knows all too well that I am a better wife and mother when I have been out for a run, having left my worries behind and fully engaged in the moment, distracted from whatever had been weighing me down. This works for me, and it will work for you also. After a 30 minute jog, a brisk walk, several laps in the pool or whatever exercise you choose, you’ll often find by the end of a session that you’ve forgotten the negative ponderings whilst being focused only on your body’s movements and the surrounding environment! Now go ahead and leave the screen time, get out and move that amazing body 🙂