exercise

It doesn’t matter if you are a Brittany Spears fan or not. It doesn’t matter if you feel that the main stream media focuses too much on her and not enough on real news. Brittany is an archetype of the fallen star; where we love to build her up and then relish in her downfall. We focus on her because she mirrors our own fears of failing. It is time to look at our own lives and focus on ourselves. We are all wounded in some way and exercising while looking inward can help heal emotional pain.

When you reach age forty, your needs for companionship may change drastically from when you were younger. You may require more honesty and dependability or you may be uncertain about what you need in a friend.

Exercising while focusing on your friendship issues can help you clarify confusion that you are experiencing. There is research indicating that one can obtain a sense of calmness after only fifteen minutes of exercise.

There are several traumatic events that severely affect the soul of our nation. These terrible events cause many of us to live in a state of fear, uncertainty and hopelessness.

The Iraq war, the Virginia Tech massacre and the Imus incident are examples of these traumas.

How are we to deal with the intense feelings we have about these devastating events?

The warmer weather is here and it gives us more opportunity to go outside and move our bodies. In addition to looking better and feeling better, here are five benefits of exercising that you may not have thought about.

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.

Everyone experiences loneliness at some point in their lives. It comes after a breakup, moving to a new location where you don’t know anyone, when you have a falling out with a friend or when you wish there was someone around to confide in.

The state of feeling all alone can cause you to feel hopeless, isolated and unlovable. You feel disconnected from others and spend much of your time being sedentary.

Being in touch with your body can help you face loneliness in a positive, productive manner. But first, you have to learn to overcome the barriers to exercising.

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.