National Fitness Day 2023 takes place on Wednesday 20 September and is a chance to highlight the role physical activity plays in assisting us to lead healthier lifestyles. Men’s health charity, Movember, are the mental health partner of this year’s National Fitness Day campaign and together they are highlighting the importance of looking after our wellbeing and celebrating the role of physical activity in building good mental health.
Getting out and doing some exercise is not only good for our physical health but it also supports our mental and emotional health and helps us to stay connected if we are doing activities with other people.
Trying something new can also boost our self-confidence and makes us feel good. Exercise should always be fun!
To find out what is available in your area, why not visit the Active Surrey website?
Exercise has so many health benefits, both physically and emotionally, do you know what they are?
Do you know what exercise you need to do to get these benefits?
Physical Benefits:
- Develop healthy musculoskeletal tissues ( bones, muscles and joints);
- Develop a healthy cardiovascular system ( heart and lungs);
- Develop coordination and movement control
- Maintain a healthy body weight. For more information visit the healthy lifestyle pages .
Mental Health Benefits:
- Helps you control symptoms of anxiety and depression. For more information visit our emotional health pages
- Helps you to be sociable by providing opportunities for self-expression, building self-confidence and social interaction by joining clubs and groups.
- It has also been suggested that physically active young people are more likely to lead a healthy lifestyle and not take up things like smoking and alcohol.
- It can also help you to achieve more at school by helping you focus and concentrate. The picture below shows the brain scan of students that had 20 minutes exercise before an exam compared to those that didn’t. You can see that the brain of the people that moved around is working better than the others that didn’t move
With all the physical and emotional benefits that exercise can bring now is a great time to start. It gives you some time away from everything that is going on. Whatever sport you chose, have fun, enjoy and be kind to yourself.
You can always speak to your school nurse if you want to know how to get more active. To find out how to contact your school nurse visit the Chat Health page
Written by: Natasha Dawe School Nurse
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