Cycling helps you de-stress! Don’t just take my word for it. Studies have proven that cycling is an effective way to de-stress. I read Neil Shah, the founder and director of Stress Management Society comment: “Cycling is one of the most effective treatments for stress and in many cases has been proven to be as effective as medication – if not more so”
Cycling is now being prescribed by doctors too! Did this get you intrigued about how cycling can help you de-stress? Well, I am glad it did. Because I am going to be discussing just that!
How Cycling Helps De-Stress Better Than Medication
There are many physical health benefits of regular exercise like biking to work every day. One thing you should always keep in mind is that when you have a sound body, you will also have a sound mind. This is very true, for many reasons.
1. It Works As A Brain Fertilizer
This may sound strange to you, but how cycling helps you out is a little like fertilizing a field. When you turn your pedals for hours and hours all day every day, on your way to work and back, and when you are in the mood for some leisure activities, you begin to get your blood pumping.
This allows for capillary beds to be created in your muscles, as well as in your brain. The better the quality of the capillary beds in your brain and in your muscles, the more oxygen that can be transferred between your blood vessels and your cells. This is simple physics as a greater surface area allows for a higher rate of diffusion.
This higher rate of oxygen transfer allows for more nutrients to be created and absorbed into the gray matter of your brain. This helps them to work better and allows them to concentrate more on the tasks at hand without getting distracted.
If you’re looking to improve your physical and mental health, cycling is a great way to do so. Check out our blog post on the benefits of cycling to learn more about how it can help you
2. It Helps In Rebuilding Your Brain From The Spine Up
As you pedal on your daily cycling routine, your nerves begin to work a lot harder than they usually do. As this happens, new brain cells are created faster and more efficiently by the centers of your brain that deal with these matters. This is because as your nerves work harder, they increase the production of certain proteins with hard-to-pronounce names that assist in the creation of new brain cells.
This means that the more you cycle, the more brain cells are built within your brain, thereby literally increasing your capacity to think and focus on just about anything. In addition to this, you also release increased amounts of chemicals that cause the messages that are shooting through your neurons to deliver much faster than they used to.
3. Cycling Helps You Become A Faster, More Focused Worker
As you grow older, these new cells are going to come in handy, as your organs slowly begin to deteriorate. This means that cycling to work turns you into a fine wine. You get better with age. By creating new neurons inside your brain, you are allowing it to work far faster and more efficiently.
This change will become very obvious when you look at your performance over a month of exercise, and compare it to your work a month before, when all you did was drive to work instead of cycle. You will see a marked change in the quality of your work as well as the amount that you put out.
Since biking is what is classed as an aerobic activity (at least for the casual biker; racing and other hardcore cycling usually turn anaerobic at some point), there is going to be a major workout for your heart, lungs, and brain. All of this will help increase your level of physical and mental fitness like never before.
4. Getting In Touch With Nature Leaves You Feeling Relaxed
One of the best things about biking is the pace. Unlike the usual methods of coming to work which are public transport and driving, cycling is free. You can go at your own slow pace and not worry about all the rushing commuters tooting their horns angrily at you as you go at your own leisurely pace.
When you bike to work you even have the option of stopping now and then to appreciate something beautiful that you see on your way there. This is not something you have the freedom to do when driving to work, and not something you can even think about on public transport when all you can see is the gray wall of the tunnels in the subway.
Getting in touch with nature on your way to work and taking deep breaths of the fresh morning air is the best way to reduce stress. Try going to a field near your house on your bike today and just breathing deeply while enjoying the serenity of your surroundings. You are going to notice an almost instant change in your mental state.
5. Cycling Is A Mood Booster
While improving your capacity to think and work better is an amazing way to help reduce your workload and therefore your levels of stress, you are also going to realize that it isn’t just work that contributes to your rising stress. It is not even close. One of the biggest things that help you become more stressed out is anxiety.
Anxiety is a condition that affects a lot of people the world over. You can be anxious about many different things. It is associated with the amount of responsibility you have. For example, if you have a family to support you are going to be passively worrying about possible threats to their livelihood as well.
All of this is going to help to increase your stress levels. However, when you do a physical activity, such as biking, jogging, and walking, your body is going to start producing higher amounts of certain chemicals such as dopamine, which is known to increase a positive mood.
In addition to this, high amounts of cycling means that your body is going to start producing other chemicals as well. These include cannabinoids which are the same type of chemicals that can be found in marijuana. So if it is not legal in your location, cycle a lot and you should be able to get just as high.
All of these chemicals have been proven to reduce stress and lift up moods time and time again, which means that regular cycling is going to allow you to overcome serious conditions like depression in the long run.
Are you curious about the psychological benefits of cycling? Our blog post on the psychology of cycling explores how cycling can help reduce stress, improve mood, and more.
6. It Works As Natural Meditation
You may not think it, but cycling is a form of meditation. As we all know meditation is one of the best ways to calm a troubled mind. It induces a state of passive hypnosis in you. This is brought on because the act of pedaling is very repetitive. Focusing on the rhythm at which you pedal is going to help you block out factors that bring on anxiety.
This could be better for you than yoga because the mental meditation that cycling brings to you is in addition to the countless health and fitness benefits to your body.
7. Cycling Can Help Build Confidence
When you master an art, you gain a lot of confidence. Doing it right over and over again is going to make you feel much better about yourself. When cycling, conquering new goals that you have set for yourself is going to leave you feeling far more motivated.
You will go about your daily activities with twice the zest that you do right now because you have just beat your daily speed goal or time limit and it has you feeling on top of the world. Since cycling is one of the best sports to challenge yourself in, you are going to be feeling confident in yourself a lot more often than you ever were before.
8. Group Riding Leaves You Feeling Happy
Whether it is on a website like this one or while you are riding the trails one summer, you are always sure to find a pack of like-minded cyclists whom you can bond with. Riding with your friends and people that you can enjoy yourself around is going to help you reduce stress. After all, laughter is the best medicine, and who doesn’t laugh when they are with their friends?
9. It Helps Keep Yourself In Control
While cycling does help you greatly reduce stress levels when done regularly, overdoing it is going to cause you to increase your stress levels. After all, cycling is a form of exercise, and exercise places stress on your muscles and your organs.
As long as you keep your cycling in the aerobic region, you should be able to see a very distinct difference in the way you concentrate, as well as your general outlook on life. You will see things in a far more positive light than you ever used to. You will experience bursts of bliss instead of anxiety, and you will find more things in your surroundings for you to take pride in and to love looking at.
Cycling is going to help you to become a happier, calmer, more focused person who isn’t affected by things like depression and anxiety, because you have molded your body into being a tool that actively fights stress in all its forms through cycling.
Want to make a positive impact on the environment? Our blog post on the environmental benefits of cycling explains how cycling can help reduce carbon emissions, air pollution, and more.
Why Prescription Drugs Are All The Rage
So what is how people usually get away from stress in their lives? Well, it looks like the world has swept its way toward prescription drugs. Everyone is hopped up on some drug or the other. These artificial means of de-stressing are rarely a permanent option and can lead to things like addiction and other medical side effects.
Stress Is The Cause Of Massive Expenses On A National Level
This is true for men more than women. According to the study, men are likely to have 50% more stress than women (bad luck, guys.). Although medication is still one of the most popular methods of fighting stress and depression in people, a lot of doctors have also begun to prescribe exercise therapy instead.
In the UK, one of the main reasons why people don’t show up for work is that they are under stress. This is made more common because people are constantly on their mobile phones, which means that they will be more likely to be exposed to stress-causing factors. This can cost the country up to 4 billion pounds a year!
A lot of people say that cycling is the best way to de-stress, along with walking and other physical forms of commuting. How does cycling help boost your wellbeing? The scientific reasoning behind the common saying is very sound.
FAQs
What are some destress activities?
Destress activities include exercising, meditation, reading, getting in touch with nature, and also going to group activities.
Can cycling reduce anxiety?
Yes, cycling can reduce anxiety. Cycling helps release endorphins- the feel-good hormones.
What are common signs of stress?
Conclusion
Going for a ride on your bicycle can help you de-stress better than medication ever could help you out. Studies have proven this over and over again.
How you get to work in the mornings can contribute to your stress levels more than you know. It is a known fact that active commuting to work can reduce your stress levels by up to 40%. This is in direct opposition to the classic methods of getting to work, which is public transit like the Underground or the bus.
Active commuting can mean any form of exercise when getting to work. This includes things like biking and walking. Any form of physical exertion when going to work and coming back as well will help you become far less tense than you are right now.
Also Read
- How Cycling Makes You Smarter!
- 13 Reasons Why Big Business Should Love Cyclists
- 17 Reasons Why You Should Ride A Bike
