Author Archives: Musa Baloyi

We all know how powerful exercise is. Physically it strengthens your body and also gives you a fire-ass body, you will be looking all sexy and confident about yourself if you focus for just six months. It’s also strengthens your mental and spiritual state/health by improving your memory and brain function. The younger you start, the better your health state improves.

THE MENTAL BENEFITS OF EXERCISE:

– HELP FOR DEPRESSION AND ANXIETY

Exercise is a mood booster, and it is clinically proven to decrease symptoms of depression and anxiety and exercise increases endorphin levels ( The feel good chemical) which is produced by the brain and the spinal cord and produces feelings of happiness and euphoria.

– DECREASED STRESS

We all know that exercise can decrease stress levels, if you feel stressed and overwhelmed, try to calm down and exercise even for a few minutes then drink enough water and as the day goes by, you will feel good about yourself. Exercise forces the body’s central an sympathetic nervous systems to communicate with one another, improving the body’s overall ability to respond to stress.”

– INCREASED SELF-ESTEEM AND SELF-CONFIDENCE

It improves endurance and muscle tone and cause a loss in body fat weight and more, there is literally no shortage of physical achievements that come from regular exercise.

– BETTER SLEEP

I used to have trouble sleeping, I would sleep at 6 a.m. and in just one night my sleep schedule changed and I’d be up at night and asleep during the day or I’d be struggling at school because I didn’t get enough sleep and when I started exercising, my sleep schedule changed for the better. Exercise increases your body’s temperature, which will have calm your mind. Exercise helps to regulate your circadian rhythm (the body’s alarm clock that controls when we feel tired and alert.)

– BRAIN BOOST

If you start exercising and build a schedule around exercising, you will notice a boost in your brain especially if you had days when you felt like sleeping at work, at school or during important business meetings. You will notice a boost in energy levels and you will be happier. Your productivity levels will increase.

It also prevents a cognitive decline and memory loss by strengthening the hippocampus which is the part of the brain responsible for memory and learning.

These are one of the few points that exercise can do if you start and develop a habit of doing it.

Personally, I am a lazy person, I don’t have the strength to wake up early in the morning to exercise but when I do find the time to exercise, I will put in the work and after every exercise I do, I feel so good, my mood increases, my confidence also increases.

There are so many types of mental disorders and how it affects people and their loved ones negatively. Some are curable and some are not but for those that are not, there are some actions that can help reduce the impact of what a mental disorder can cause you to do.

There are some exercises that I do sometimes that can help reduce the negative impact of what a mental disorder can do, which are:

Jogging

I jog in the mornings around 08h00 a.m. before I go to school. I don’t do it every morning, but evrytime after I’ve done it, I feel good and I become optimistic about the day ahead. I know that I will have a great day. Also when my exams are about to begin, I begin a habit of jogging every morning so that my mood can improve.

Walking

If jogging proves to be too much for me, then I walk and take in the fresh air on Saturday mornings and I always come back fresh and ready for the day ahead. It always feels refreshing.

Cardio.

Cardio improves sleep, it gets your blood pumping, it lowers your blood pressure, Improves your sleep.

Exercise is always a good thing for your body.

Every now and then there will be unexpected changes in your life and according to how the world works, you’re forced to adjust, move on and try to live your life. 

I didn’t know how to cope with the changes in my life and I was only eleven years old. I had a happy life, I was living with both my parents, I had anything I wanted and more. My life was the best thing ever. 

Until the year 2011. My parents marriage was over and I noticed when my dad packed his clothes and left, they tried to be as discreet as possible. At first I though he was off to work as he would work at night sometimes, but I remembered that my dad never packed anything whenever he went to work at night, so what the heck is happening here. 

The next day my dad never came home and the environment in the house was very different something was wrong but I couldn’t tell what it was. Nobody sat down with us to explain what was going to happen, how it was going to affect us, or the changes we will see. I had questions I was too afraid to ask. I was just lost. 

A few days after my dad left, I was outside playing with my friends and I told them that I was hungry and I would come back, I had a lot of friends. I came home and found my other friends looking at my house. There was a huge moving truck, and my friends asked me if I was moving out, “No, not that I know.” I ran inside the house and I saw my mom just sitting at the kitchen table and my dad helping the other people out. Just by seeing my mom sitting down and calm, I knew right there that we were not moving out. But what the heck was happening, why are the sofas getting out of the house. 

I remembered my dad leaving a few days prior and I put two and two together. My dad was moving out and he was trying to embarrass us at the same time. It was working because everyone was watching and gossiping and all that. I cried and my friends cheered me up and my dad was trying to cheer me up by smiling at me from a distance. 

Life literally changed the day after. I woke up to an empty house everyday and my mom was having financial problems already, my uncle would bring us snacks, you would hear the echoes of an empty house. It was not easy.  I started failing at school, I was 11 and in 5th grade. I didn’t tell anybody about my situation and my mom kept telling me that everything would be okay. So now, I had peer pressure, there is no TV, I don’t have a phone or a laptop. Everyone keeps asking me if I watched my daily soapies and what happened. I had to pretend as if I was not interested anymore. This happened until I got to grade 8 in high school. In that time all we did was play soccer in an empty house. I had to adjust to everything as soon as possible. I have trouble adjusting to life’s changes. I feel like I’m being rushed and I end up crashing. After the separation I had to continue with school, my problems never end, I went straight to dealing with academics and bullying in 7th grade. 

I went to high school in a totally different town. I had a very serious culture shock. I had to adjust to how they speak, teach, walk and to get to know the town. In every stage of my life, I am forced to adjust to something new, there is always a culture shock, it never stops. I am still learning how to cope with changes in my life. It is never easy.