Non-drugged mood shape-up

There is a very good perk that comes with an exercise routine whether it’s for shape-up, strengthening, athletics, or mobility, this perk is a release of endorphins that simply make us feel good and help us get rid of brain stress that can put stress on our body and its functions.

Doing intense periods of activity/exercise regularly helps keep us strong in mind, body, and spirit and besides the euphoric feeling exercise gives, it can also help lessen the perception of pain, and even works as a sedative. These endorphins bind to some of the same neuron receptors that pain medicine binds to, to block pain signals. Exercise is simply one of the best ways to ease anxiety and stress, but unlike pain pills, antidepressants, and anxiety drugs it has awesome side effects!

Now for the interesting part: this is a list some of the things that happen with continued use of exercise and then a list of what can happen with continued use of pain medicine and medications for depression…

Exercise: reduces stress, wards off anxiety and feelings of depression, boosts self-esteem, improves sleep, improves energy levels, increases physiological functions such as regularity, water and temperature control, better cardiopulmonary circulation, strengthens heart, lowers blood pressure, increased libido, improves muscle tone, shape and strength, builds bone density, builds tendon, ligament and joint strength as well as joint lubrication, helps reduce body fat, helps build an increased metabolism, okay I’ll stop now…

Pain medicine benefits and side effects: blocks pain signals but oft times gives a drugged feeling of euphoria, cognitive effects on the brain, nausea, constipation, drug tolerance and dependence, stress on kidneys causing urinary difficulty, skin itchiness and dryness, slows down central nervous system, and can have horrible effects on our liver, (the organ that is responsible for over 500 functions in our body) and after all the above listed side effects, it is not a cure for what’s actually causing the pain!

Note: many of the pain medicines when combined with alcohol are like drinking poison to the liver.

Antidepressant benefits and side effects: helps reduce depression, helps create a more positive feeling, can balance brain chemistry, but can increase a feeling of security in things one would’ve and possibly should’ve felt insecure with before, and can oft times cause an increased acceptance of how things are instead of a desire to create positive change for oneself and in the lives of others, can cause nausea, insomnia, drowsiness, lack of concentration, sweating, vomiting, dry mouth, diarrhea or constipation, dizziness, irritability, weight gain, sexual disturbances, and if suddenly discontinued can cause deep dark depression, explosive dangerous behavior either to one’s self or others, suicidal thought and suicide, cause dependence on a drug for how we feel and view life, as well as adapting us to a lifestyle of medicating unhappiness and depression instead of getting off our rear ends and doing something about what is causing our unhappiness and depression!

When we look at the above listed pros and cons, it’s not hard to figure out what we should be making a continuing part of our life and what we should not. I am not completely anti-drug use, but after using a drug (if needed) to intervene between us and the symptoms, but we should immediately start looking for the cause of the symptom and what lifestyle changes we can make to cure the problem instead of continuing to medicate the problem’s symptoms!

Exercise and a good diet are like a lake with good inflows and out flows, and if this activity stops the water stagnates, good things die and bad things grow…

Exercise helps to release the body’s natural pain inhibitors and the good feeling endorphins that God designed our body to produce naturally… the pharmaceutical industry simply formulates and intensifies synthetic products that attempt to duplicate what our body does naturally.

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