The evidence is in. Physical exercise is a medication free activity that you can do on your own. The media continues to tout its powers. A recent Newsweek article discusses how exercise can make you smarter. A current Yahoo.com article claims that exercise can grow new brain cells that alleviate depression. There is ample research that indicates exercise helps reduce anxiety and improves self esteem. It also helps you look and feel better.

Exercise can also help you discover your soul and utilize it to heal emotional pain.

A recent Newsweek article describes how exercise increases brainpower. I feel that I have certainly experienced this phenomenon by running five days a week, five miles a day for many years. I have recently added two days of cycling and subtracted two running days from my weekly workout.

I feel that physical exercise has improved the clarity of my thoughts and has opened pathways that have greatly increased my capacity for knowledge.

Perhaps the greatest discovery of my life is that exercise heals emotional pain. When I workout, the endorphins kick in and this creates a calm state that allows me to bravely face issues that are troubling. Dealing with this trauma doesn’t seem possible while sedentary. This discovery has been crucial during several points in my life, like now.

I will be fifty-six years old this Friday. As I began my first run of last week, I wondered why I wasn't feeling excited. After all I have a lot to celebrate. My new book will be published in August and I have obtained accolades for my writing. My marriage is almost thirty-five years strong and my psychotherapy practice is booming. What reasons would I have to feel less than ecstatic?

Have you ever wondered if you are a workaholic or if you just really love your job? Contemplating this question and others related to it while physically exercising will help you discover the answers to these inquiries. When you are working out, the brain chemistry changes and the endorphins kick in. This increases your sense of self-confidence and your willingness to face extremely difficult and highly important life issues.

Let's check out the different facets of workaholics:

Have you ever wondered if you are a workaholic or if you just really love your job? Contemplating this question and others related to it while physically exercising will help you discover the answers to these inquiries. When you are working out, the brain chemistry changes and the endorphins kick in. This increases your sense of self-confidence and your willingness to face extremely difficult and highly important life issues.

Let's check out the different facets of workaholics:

The economic crisis is affecting millions of Americans today. Banks are failing, houses are being foreclosed upon and jobs are fading away. We are reminded of this downfall continuously by the media. It seems that the American Dream is disappearing. These events are creating emotional upheaval for many of us. Others feel totally immobilized. It is important to seek strategies to cope with this uncertainty and find areas that promote hope.

Here are some activities you can do to reduce the stress you feel from our country’s financial catastrophe:

• Take a twenty minute walk and allow the endorphins to kick in and you will discover a sense of tranquility.
• Read a book that will distract you from screaming headlines.
• Listen to music that will lift your mood.
• List the positives that are going on in your life.
• Focus on the dreams you have for your life and make a plan to attain them.
• Think about the personal crisis’s you have endured and realize that you have the strength to deal with financial suffering.

You may be feeling despondent, angry or hopeless. You may want to look inside to discover why you are suffering from these intense states of being.

Walking: Going for a walk at moderate speed and asking yourself why you feel despondent will be a way to address this kind of emotional pain.

You ask yourself, "Why do I feel so despondent?" It doesn't take very long to understand that you feel very sad because your mother, who you were very close to, died two weeks ago.

You begin to have vivid memories of her final days as you reach the mid point of your walk. Suddenly you feel a gut wrenching pain beginning in your stomach that gets caught in your throat. You begin to cry for the first time since her death. It feels exhausting and relieving at the same time.

Crying seems to unlock the sullen grief that you have been carrying around. For the first time in ages you feel like things are going to be alright.

We will all encounter tragedy in our lives. Crises can be abrupt or take place over a lengthy period of time. We will all experience the death of a loved one. Many of us have faced the turmoil of divorce.; You may have suddenly been laid off from a job you treasure. There are those of us who have lost long term friendships due to a misunderstanding.

All of these tragedies dramatically change lives. Finding yourself alternating between a state of shock, hopelessness and abject fear are common experiences for all these crises.

It is also common to have no other desires but to lay on the couch and be swallowed up by the cushions. It is part of the normal grief process to feel numb, depressed and frightened during the initial stages of loss. Eventually you feel that it is time to move on to the next stage, what ever it is.

The question is: What is the next step and how do you get to it?

The answer to the first part of the question is: Moving Your Body

There are a lot of us that spend too much time worrying. According to The National Institute on Mental Health, approximately 40 million American adults ages 18 and older, or about 18.1 percent of people in this age group in a given year, have an anxiety disorder. Anxiety prevents us from being happy, can cause physical ailments, and keeps us from taking healthy risks that may improve the quality of our lives.

Worry may be a trait that is passed on genetically from your family or it may be an outcome of your environment. One or both of your parents may suffer from intense anxiety and you learn to be anxious because it is modeled for you as a way of living. The worry is usually driven by a need to have a guaranteed outcome. Of course there are very few situations that result in a sure-fire conclusion. Therefore the worrying does not seem to have any purpose or any positive effects in one’s life.

Take a look at present-day suburbia—what do you see? Neighborhoods filled with children, most of them playing indoors, usually by themselves. When they do engage in activities outside the home—soccer, baseball, martial arts, music lessons—today’s suburban children get shuttled from the house to the playing field or studio by their moms or dads in the family car. They return home the same way, once they have finished their structured activities, and after eating dinner with their parents, they do their homework, often in front of a computer, and then go to bed. They mingle very little on a daily basis with their neighbors’ children, and their tight after-school schedules set aside no time for spontaneous play.

Free time remains at a premium for parents, too, in modern suburban families, although they may ordinarily take a moment before or after dinner to catch a glimpse of the TV evening news. And the broadcast will routinely lead with another disturbing story of a missing child or headline the latest release of a sexual predator from state prison: Is he in your neighborhood?

We all experience emotional pain in our lives. Someone close to us will eventually die. A friend or lover will betray us. We will lose our jobs or not get the one we really wanted. Many of us have been victims of physical, emotional and/sexual abuse. We experience racism, sexism and other forms of hatred. Many of us have difficulties with processing these issues.