We understand that poker professionals can spend quite a bit of time seated and grinding away. Lack of exercise can get in the way of good performance and we are here to help you understand the rejuvenating effects that physical activity has on the mind. Exercising even once a week reduces the risk of developing common conditions, such as anxiety and depression and boosting your training sessions to three times a week completely eliminates the risks thereof.
Therefore, people who engage in mentally challenging endeavors, or even games such as poker, tend to try and take a better care of their bodies, as this has a direct link to how well their perform in tasks that require better cognition and reasoning skills. Poker, it turns out, is one of the ultimate tests, and we have put together a list of physical exercises to stay mentally healthy.
Walk More to Be of Sound Body and Mind
Not everyone is into exercising and that is perfectly fine, but being a little more active throughout the day would have great mental benefits as well. A study published in The Lancet Psychiatry, a professional journal, revealed that walking can indeed lead to better mental health as well as reduce the incidence of cases where people report feeling anxious or depressed.
In fact, there is nothing surprising about this and the effects of walking are two-fold. First, you reduce body mass and second you guarantee yourself a small mental restart. Any sedentary profession would have you stare at a screen for hours on end, but alternating work or even a poker session with walking would give you the sort of mental reboot you need to continue.
There is an ultimate threshold in terms of how long you exercise and based on the study a work out sessions lasting 45 minutes has the optimal mental and physical health results.
How Swimming Will Help You with Depression and Anxiety
Swimming is one of the best physical exercises you can be doing. It builds muscle and can help with serious back injuries like no other sport. Swimming, a new study has claimed, is capable of helping cope with feelings of anxiety, depression and stress.
All scientific evidence aside, swimming enthusiasts have spoken to the Huffington Post, sharing how swimming helps them. For starters, one Nathaniel Cole argued that whenever he felt anxious or depressive, a good swimming bout did the world of good to his inner self-confidence.
BMJ Journal, a high volume journal targeting healthcare professionals as its main audience, has reported the case of a woman suffering from a major depressive disorder who started exhibiting improvement when she took up swimming, with the symptoms toning down gradually. Plus, Las Vegas and Atlantic City have quite a few excellent places where you can swim.
Why High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)?
This is a specific way of approaching exercise. You can run or swim and do HIIT. Put simply, HIIT alternates period of intense exercise with slightly slower bouts, but throughout your entire working session, your pulse shouldn’t drop below a certain level. This is not a rookie-friendly training session and it often requires at least a month of considerate training to carry out successfully.
However, the effects derived from this kind of work out are quite significant. For starters, HIIT will be a very efficient way to exercise as it will slash your training time. Then, the intensity of the training would drive greater weight loss results, as HIIT is also recommended for men in particular who are overweight or obese.
Spending too much time grinding poker games certainly can lead to a little more in the way of girth. A study published in the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health has reliably concluded that mental and physical improvement occurred in men who have undergone HIIT, although the exact mechanisms that lead to this effect are still the subject of study and observation.
Cycling and Beating Mental Worry
We all want to stay in shape and one way to do this is to find the physical exercise that we can have fun with. We don’t need to do HIIT or swimming if that’s not our thing and something as simple as cycling seems like a great idea. Personal accounts of people who love to cycle also reinforce the opinion that this kind of exercise helps boost mental health.
Plus, riding a bike can give you an extra mental boost that anyone from the person looking to start their day on a good foot to the scientist appreciate. This is why many people exercise and try to stay in shape – as it turns out, it’s not necessarily about looking great, but rather improving upon one’s cognitive abilities as well.
Cycling has a big plus over other exercise methods, because it’s not necessarily a self-serving exercise, but rather can be means of transport. Put simply, you can replace your car rides with bike rides, and get up to 30 or 60 minutes’ worth of exercise in your daily routine.
Stretch Often for a Worry-free Lifestyle
Is stretching a good thing to do? Certainly. If you ask Ayla Tse from Pure Yoga stretching is a great way to break anyone into some form of exercise – even those people who don’t exercise. This is Tse’s main line of reasoning.
She is a little more specific about how exercise can build up your muscles, explaining that anaerobic exercise helps muscle build up lactic acid, and that stretching delivers oxygen to the muscles and blood. Stretching can be used both as a way to ease into an exercise or speed up recovery after an intense work out session.
Just like any other sort of exercise, the mental benefits are immediate even if you only stretch a couple of times a week. Looking for a quick way to boost your awareness ahead of an important game? Stretching should do.
