Another of Jillians Newsletters Endorphins to the Rescue!

JILLIAN'S TIP OF THE DAY

Endorphins to the Rescue!

Feeling blue? Well, get moving! Exercise changes your brain chemistry and positively influences your mood. It also triggers the release of endorphins, which act on the brain as natural pain relievers. On top of that, exercising will boost your confidence.

As you start working out and getting stronger, you'll start to feel like a powerhouse in other aspects of your life. Whatever you do, don't lie around and sulk — it's totally counterproductive. You have the power to change your life, so get up and do it!


Fight Back With Exercise

When your day takes a turn for the worse, it might not always be clear how to remedy it. Luckily, healthy eating and regular exercise can go a long way toward making you feel at least feel a little bit better. Just by getting moving, you can alleviate stress, and the exercise will help you look and feel your best.

So if it's one of those days when NOTHING is going right, think about the healthy lifestyle you're leading right now and how much it's benefiting you in the long run. On the Message Boards, one teammate recently described how she feels so much better when she makes time for her health and fights those negative feelings with a positive outlook:

"I am always full of energy and ideas in the morning. I use that to plan my day, put it on my calendar especially including time to take a 'string cheese break', the 'apple break'. At lunch, I'll walk to Safeway to get a baked chicken breast for lunch. In the afternoon when I'm out of gas mentally and physically, I'll take a coffee break and use my exercise band at work.

I don't care what people think when they see me doing wall push-ups or a few lunges or squats behind my chair, although I often go into my boss's office and shut the door! This works quite well because I keep her booked in all day meetings!

Tonight I play tennis. What I've rediscovered is how much better I feel after getting in some aerobic exercise. Every week I whine a bit about how tired I am and why did I make this commitment. Yet, 10 minutes into playing, I feel so much better!

Moving discharges all the bad stress chemicals and attitude and fatigue from a hard day at work. I now actually expect that result so I am now actually seeking out MORE exercise as the antidote I need. Chips and numbing out in front of the TV don't do it for me anymore like moving the body.

Once I get a taste (no pun intended) of the way my body feels after eating better, the reward of how good it feels to start losing some pounds, and the lovely relaxed fatigue from exercising, I want more of it and it's easier to structure my life around that instead of 'work'!

Everybody, do a little something today, be kind to yourself and expect something good to happen." – deweyswak