Mental health and exercise in the Covid- 19 era

Kicking off our weekly pysch post series, it's the turn of our welfare officer, Nishi Acharya. COVID-19 has impacted every single aspect of our lives, the collective trauma we’ve all been experiencing has led to moral fatigue and allostatic overload causing both mental and physical exhaustion. How can we begin to counteract these negative impacts of COVID-19 on our mental health?

Exercise! There is a relationship between physical activity, mental health, and cardiovascular fitness amongst university students. A 2020 study in Canada revealed that people who exercised outdoors self-reported better mental health than those who did not. Exercising outdoors is linked to improvements in mood, depression, and anxiety. If you have a garden or park near you make use of it and spend 30 minutes of your day engaging in moderate-level exercise, as recommended by WHO. If you can’t exercise outdoors don’t worry, the percentages of men and women aged 20+ years who reported better mental health did not vary according to whether they exercised indoors or outdoors.

Collective trauma is also amplified by social disconnection so make plans to work out with friends/family! Whether it’s an online yoga course or simply texting each other updates on how your workout challenge is going, reach out! Remember, it’s very normal to be exhausted at a time like this even if your daily routine doesn’t include much. You don’t have to be productive or do something amazing every day during a global pandemic, it’s enough to just get by!

Nishi