The Sparkle Coach: Exercise is great form of medication

The problem was I had been struggling with my mental health since childhood trauma, so I was already on an ever-increasing spiral of medication, it was yet another plaster which for me were necessary to help me manage but after a certain point it didn’t help me heal, until I discovered the power of exercise to complement my treatment.

Mental illness tends to stem from a mixture of genetic, environmental and behavioural factors. Whilst we cannot always control genetics, we have made great strides in transforming some environmental influences through vaccinations and health and safety measures, yet there is still too little emphasis on the power of making behavioural changes such as improving physical activity to help our mental wellbeing.

And whilst scientists, philosophers and ‘healers’ have proved the importance of prescribing ‘exercise,’ as a society we still lean towards the tangible results of medicines and ‘quick fixes’ to help us feel more in control of our wellbeing.

But after years of trialling every medical intervention going in an attempt to ‘feel better,’ I discovered the most powerful of all treatments; daily exercise.

As annoying as it sounds, it can transform your life, health, home and even work by taking time to move more. Yes I still have talking therapies, medication and support, but it is taking a multi-disciplinary approach to look at our own mental health, creatively and where possible through specialist fitness programmes.

By supporting someone to be more active, it not only helps improve our physical health, it boosts our endorphins, it makes us feel stronger and more able to make healthier choices for ourselves.

It doesn’t have to be complex either, just small daily steps with a purpose to positively coping with our lives can give us a sense of achievement, confidence and help to motivate us to be more productive and do more.

Yesterday, I felt overwhelmed with work, family issues and feeling frustrated at constant changes to my schedule and unreliable technology.

The old me would have allowed myself to be consumed by this emotion, these feelings of ‘overwhelm,’ which would lead me to an unhelpful action such as to avoid food due to the knots in my stomach, sit at my computer all night trying to work until I fell asleep at my desk through exhaustion and to feel paralysed by my thoughts.

But whilst I recognised what I had started to feel, instead of thinking ‘well I need to be consumed by this stress to show myself that I really am struggling with a stressful trigger,’ instead I knew that I couldn’t fully control my broken laptop, the pandemic or anything else.

I needed to work out. So I lifted weights with my partner Mike Green who is a personal trainer. He too turns to resistance training to boost his mind and body and it is something I have discovered with him, as I can’t worry about anything else whilst I am trying to pull my body weight over a bar or thrust a heavy dumbbell with my hips and an exercise band for good measure.

This simple 30 minute session helped me to escape from feeling overwhelmed, it gave me my appetite back and it even meant that I had an early night. And it also meant we didn’t have any unnecessary ‘discussions’ as we both felt less stressed! We turned our negative feelings of stress into something positive, using our stress vibes to push us harder.

A shifting focus on mind and body fitness is so much so that I have just consulted with a top UK university and assist them to devise a module on prescribing exercise for emotional wellbeing. They will be training mental health professionals on my passion, improving mind and body fitness.

It’s not just my exercise-loving social bubble who champions movement as medicine either.

I am seeing an increasing number of women I coach in mind and body fitness turn to weights or power Yoga to help them feel strong and sensual.