What Have You Done Today, to Make You Feel Proud?

photo by gio50000

Last night was one of those awful nights where I am dreaming of being rejected all night long. I am not good enough to be around the people I want to be with and no one likes me, I’m a social outcast etc. I woke up feeling exhausted and sad. It’s amazing how much something that isn’t real can affect your attitude so much. As the day continued that “I’m not good enough” feeling lingered and generally had me in a bad mood. So I think to myself, “I need to do something for me, for my self esteem.” So I started to think about what I do that makes me feel good about myself. I thought, I haven’t exercised for about a week, and I always feel better after doing yoga or a cardio workout.

I don’t know why but I really like The Biggest Loser TV show, I guess it motivates me to try to live a healthier lifestyle. The theme song says, “What have you done today, to make you feel proud?” I was thinking about that question and thought, “What a good thing to ask yourself everyday. It could be something little like, eating an apple instead of the chocolate ice cream, or cooking a home cooked meal instead of eating fast food, or exploring your creativity and enhancing your talents. Anytime you feel proud about yourself, you have great self esteem. So I want to do something everyday that will help boost my self esteem. Now although I am not in the race to lose 100 pounds like the people on The Biggest Loser, I don’t like my post baby body and would like to flatten and tone some things out.

So then I started to wonder about anxiety and obesity, and if there was any connection. Sure enough, “the results of an NIMH-funded study show that nearly one out of four cases of obesity is associated with a mood or anxiety disorder , but the causal relationship and complex interplay between the two is still unclear. The study is based on data compiled from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication, a nationally representative, face-to-face household survey of 9,282 U.S. adults, conducted in 2001-2003. It was published in the July 3, 2006, issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.” - MedicineNet.com

When I do a workout with the help of a tivo’d episode on the fitness channel, the instructor’s are always saying, “Don’t give up, you deserve this, you are worth it!”

So to sum up all this babbling, I think it goes to say that exercising isn’t just good for our bodies, but its good for our minds as well. Our self esteem is so important in the role of anxiety and if exercising raises our self esteem I can only assume that would lead to a decrease in anxiety and depression.