A lively social life

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 897.

Getting moving

Some things that can make you feel better ...

Are you on top of the world?

Keeping Fit. Promoting Healthy Way of Life.

& 1. Read the article and do the exercises, which follow it.

These days most doctors and scientists agree that our physical health is closely related to our psychological well-being. But just what have the experts discovered about what makes us feel good?

As well as being important to your health, regular exercise is now believed to improve your psychological state by releasing endorphins or ‘happy chemicals' into the brain. Some researchers consider it can be just as valuable as psychotherapyin helping depression, and engendering a more positive outlook.

Even a brisk ten-minute walk every day can help according to researchers. In one project, unemployed urban youths who undertook intensive sports training for several months, not only became involved in that sport, but also in other activities such as study, politics, and voluntary work.

According to experts, companionship and social support are vital to both our psychological and physical well-being - one reason, perhaps, why married people tend to live longer than unmarried ones. Modern researchers emphasise the value of group social activities in this respect. 'Relationships we form at church or in clubs tend to be more supportive and uncritical than those we form at work or in the family,1 says Professor Michael Argyle, of Oxford Brookes University, 'and these positive relationships improve our self-esteem, which is vital to our physical and mental health. This is backed up by recent research which shows, perhaps surprisingly, that people who spend more time with others actually get fewer colds and viruses than those who stay at home on their own. In fact social support is so important to our mental and physical well-being that it may even increase our life expectancy! Another piece of research found that people who belong to strong church groups, not only claim to be happier than those who don't, they suffer from less than half the number of heart attacks than the rest of the population, and live up to four years longer!