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Greetings, everyone! I have successfully managed to crawl out of the gym after leg day, and I now have the mobility of a seventy-five-year-old female.

Which is basically the equivalent of a frozen Snickers bar.

Normally, my gym routine consists of waking up at the ungodly hour of 5:30 a.m., hauling myself to the while bearing what seems to be the worst winds Connecticut has to offer, lifting heavy things until I’m profusely sweating, stretching, and walking (through the wind 2.0) back home.

Granted, not every day looks like this, but I’ve been making a consistent effort to show up and move my body. Lately, I’ve definitely been feeling a bit more down and, in an attempt to better my mental health, I started going to the gym again. It’s been a delicate, but steady process. Keeping my workouts to about an hour, I’ve seen a definite improvement in my thought processes and self-confidence.

However, there was no real “backbone” to this theory. Why do we feel better after exercising? Why is moving around important? Cracking open the ancient scrolls of Google Scholar, my quest for knowledge began:

Why did my brain like to do hard things?

It’s a commonly known fact that exercise is supposed to make you feel good. Namely, it’s aerobic exercises such as jogging, swimming, and walking that have been proved to reduce anxiety and depression in individuals (Sharma et al.). These actions, involving the cardiovascular system, call for the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine. Dopamine is a ‘reward’ chemical, so as you’re struggling to breathe on the Stairmaster, your brain releases these happy chemicals in an attempt to mask the pain; a natural high, of sorts.

Author, Stairmastering: “I’m going to-” wheeze “-�徱��-” wheeze “-here. This is horrible. Why does anyone do this?” Wheeeezzeeee.

Dopamine: “Hold my Kool-Aid.”

Regular exercise is also able to improve the functioning of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPAA). While researching for this article, I’d bumped into this word soup so many times that I needed to know what it was. The hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal-axis is the key hormonal pathway that regulates stress response, metabolism, and immune function in human beings. For some more bio-background, here are some key terms and their definitions:

• Hypothalamus → area of the brain that namely controls bodily functions, i.e. sleep signals, temperature regulation, blood pressure, etc. These are autonomic (automatic) functions of the nervous system
• Pituitary (gland) → part of the endocrine system below the hypothalamus, releases the adrenocorticotropic (ACTH) hormone, which stimulates cortisol, the stress hormone. These hormones, in conjunction, control metabolism, blood pressure maintenance, blood glucose levels, etc.
• Adrenal (gland) → another part of the endocrine system, controls hormones responsible for controlling blood pressure, metabolism, and stress

So: exercise + improved function of the word soup = better hormonal regulation = better bodily functions = happy(ier) human.

Hormones act as the squires and messengers of the human body. Without them, nothing — and I mean nothing — would work. As exercise allows us to release stress, our cognition regarding the world and her many parts is smoothed, providing improved attention, focus, memory, cognition, language fluency, and decision-making (Mahindru et al.). That being said, exercise is one of my more “physical” study methods — the increased blood flow to my brain does help me stay on task.

Or I’m completely derailed because of the dopamine. Whichever my body decides on for the day, lol.

Outside of mental health, keeping up with a regular exercise routine that one enjoys also helps maintain the body as a whole. Items such as heart health, digestion, lymphatic flow — these are all aided by the process of exercise. Our population has been “reported to have higher rates of morbidity and healthcare expenditures.”

I think it’s important to note that not everyone who doesn’t exercise is in a place to exercise. Because of the increased need of calories, exercise may be an impossible feat for those recovering from surgery, in eating disorder recovery, cancer patients, etc. Exercise should very much be a celebration of being able to move one’s body, and not a punishment.

Capische? Capache.

I know this article was definitely a bit more science-y, but I hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it. With finals season on the way, perhaps make some time to get a walk or run in or invite some friends to go lift some heavy circles for fun. Whatever you end up doing, make sure it’s fun, safe, and something that will benefit your mental and physical health 🙂

Let’s finish this year strong.
Sending lots of hugs, love, and peanut butter to everyone,

Beatrice ❤️

Beatrice Glaviano ’26 is a nutrition sciences major at the University of New Haven.

Works Cited

Mahindru, Aditya, et al. “Role of Physical Activity on Mental Health and Well-Being: A Review.” Cureus, vol. 15, no. 1, 7 Jan. 2023,
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9902068/,
https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.33475. Accessed 14 Nov. 2024.
Mikkelsen, Kathleen, et al. “Exercise and Mental Health.” Maturitas, vol. 106, no. 106, 2017, pp. 48–56, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378512217308563, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.maturitas.2017.09.003. Accessed 13 Nov. 2024.
Sharma, Ashish, et al. “Exercise for Mental Health.” Primary Care Companion to the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, vol. 8, no. 2, 2016, p. 106, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1470658/, https://doi.org/10.4088/pcc.v08n0208a. Accessed 13 Nov. 2024.