I was joking around with a friend at work the other day, saying that exercise is better than any pill for me when it comes to managing my stress and anxiety well.  Forget Xanax and other anti-anxiety and antidepressant meds, exercise is where it’s at for me -100%.  I believe that this is probably true for a lot of people.

Unfortunately, many people still stick to their couch potato ways instead of getting up and exercising, and wonder why their anxiety is off the charts or they feel constantly depressed or drained of energy.  People who regularly work out notice this change when they have a period of time when they haven’t been working out.

The difference for me is profound.  Because I have been working out for about two decades of my life now (I started in my teens actually), I can truly attest to how working out changes your life. It lowers stress levels, allows you to cope with stress better by lowering cortisol levels and increasing endorphins.

This has a domino effect on your life. Because you have increased energy and a better outlook, you tend to “attract” better things to you and into your life. This can include everything from your career or business, to your financial abundance, to your love and personal life. That’s how powerful I believe exercise is.

It’s a sort of pivoting point for so many other “positive attractors” that it can be a very powerful tool to launching your life into the one you desire and you DESERVE.

I have found that a week without enough exercise usually amounts to a week that isn’t much fun for me or doesn’t add much enrichment to my life.  I’ve often correlated the two, and it makes sense from a pure common sense standpoint that when your body feels better, your mind feels better, and so on and so forth.

I know there are a lot of people on these anti anxiety medications, but I often wonder are they also doing natural things like exercising to lessen their anxiety?  Pent up aggression, feelings of inadequacy and other things that lead to grumpy moods and adverse mental effects are often attributed to lack of physical activity.  It has a way of really “letting the poison” out that I don’t think any pill could ever replicate.

It’s so funny because every time I read one of these “top 10″ or “top 5″ lists of ways to either relieve stress, reduce depression or lift mood and reduce anxiety, the one thing that is ALWAYS on the list is EXERCISE.  So, I always beg the question, why isn’t everyone and their brother on the exercise bandwagon?

I mean, why don’t we require that kids go through an appreciation course for exercise and what it does for the human body?  It should be a requirement, instead of all these useless gym classes that don’t really teach kids an appreciation or understanding of how exercise will benefit them throughout life.

Instead, they learn to loathe gym like I did as a child, because you are constantly fearing making an idiot of yourself or being picked last on the team.  It is so ridiculously apparent that the human body and mind is reliant on regular exercise in order to function optimally that it’s almost unthinkable that not a lot of Americans take part in a regular exercise program.

We’ve all become entrenched in such easy, high tech lifestyles, that we don’t get up and out of the house nearly as much as we should, and we don’t naturally get a lot of exercise thanks to cushy office jobs and lifestyle habits.  Since our world is so high tech these days, it has benefitted us in some ways, but in others, it has made us more stagnant, more likely to not move around as much as we should.

This has resulted in skyrocketing reports of anxiety and stress to doctors. We live in high stress times now with the questionable economy and other factors just waiting to eat away at every second we have with worry.  We need exercise now more than ever.

In order to maintain a stress-free (at least relatively) life, you simply have to engage in organized workouts. This is the only way you can really work the stress out. It is amazing how lifted people report feeling after engaging in activities that really help the mind to stay focused and calm.

It may almost seem against intuition that doing something vigorous and “not relaxing” in and of itself could induce such calm, anxiety killing properites. However, it is absolutely true because it lets out bottled up tensions and allows you to wipe your mind clean for those moments you are doing it, allowing for greater clarity and calmness in the aftermath.

I can feel the power of stress busting and exercise even as I sit here and write this. What am I talking about exactly? Well, I just got done with a workout after a stressful first half of the day. I can feel my endorphins going, my blood pressure rate has gone down and even my breathing has slowed from frenzied quickness and hurries rapidity to a nice, slow tempo again.

In short, I’ve experienced the wonderful, healing, calming and stress busting effects of getting up, moving, and sweating. There is something to be said about how exercise makes your brain work. I feel much smarter, more confident and generally more mentally “quick” and capable when I’ve been working out regularly.

Exercise definitely has a calming effect on the brain and other important organs and bodily functions.  It has a definitive physiological effect on the body and mind that is utterly undisputed.

I look to my own experience as proof.  When I think about the periods I go through where I tend to be a vegetable and a couch potato, I also realize that, although parts of that type of lifestyle can be fun at times, I’m also sometimes a mental mess.

Lack of exercise, for me, also correlates to a general apathy toward life.  If I’m not up and moving around, it sort of translates to where I am in life and how I feel about my life – stagnant!

Stress fractures are actually easier to get than you think from physically exerting yourself for longer periods of time, or simply holding too much weight – whether it’s your own body weight – or carrying something that is simply too heavy for your bones to bear the weight of.

Stress fractures are quite common if you are a runner, do not wear the right kinds of running shoes, or have a good treadmill for running, which has a comfortable padding on it that eliminates or greatly reduce the bouncing and pressure that occur on the joints and the bones in the feet and the legs when you run.

High impact sports such as basketball, gymnastics, and wrestling can cause stress fractures.  Usually stress fractures result in a dull pain that seems fairly persistent in the area where you have hurt something.  They generally will heal on their own, but it’s important to know you have one so that you can know not to favor that side of your body, and to be careful and not make it worse.

They will heal on their own, but you have to make sure you stay off of them for a while, or at the very least, take it easy on that part of your body.  It is of vital importance that you replace your athletic shoes often if you do high impact workouts or sports on a regular basis.

This is because the soles and cushioning that absorbs shock breaks down fairly quickly. If you experience high impact on a frequent basis, this is especially true. You may even want to consider replacing your running shoes every  three to four months rather than the standard 6-12 months that most people follow who work out moderately.

It’s easy to go without even knowing you have a stress fracture. Many people may ignore it and think it’s just a temporary sore spot. We all get sore in certain places, but it always goes away.

If the symptoms are persistent or causing you a lot of discomfort though, you should really go get it x-rayed so you know whether you should continue with your high impact activity or not, and to consult with your doctor about any new treatment options.