Many guides who seek to help improve our lives, both physically and psychologically, advocate a series of key guidelines. Strategies and ideas that are easy to expose, even to argue their value, but are not so easy to implement in our daily lives. They demand that we change our routines, the ones we tend to follow because of the inertia that we put in place and which, by force of repetition, has gained a lot of weight.

That said, it is advisable to play sports. But what can it bring us on the mental plane? Why does it deserve a place in our agendas? What is so precious that when we go home, instead of tidying up, making food, resting or learning another language, we decide to play sports ? It does not look like anything, outside it's raining and windy, at the gym there are too many people and there's an artificial heat that you never get used to.

Well, in this article we will try to answer all these questions ... and some others.

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Sport cares for the cells of our body

Sometimes our mind seems somewhat abstract, this driver who often, conceptually, we separate from the body, as if its support was not the same biological substrate. We even talk about physical fatigue and mental fatigue, as if each existed on its side. When ... it's not true.

When you do exercise comes a very curious phenomenon, the cells of our body are oxygenated. The metaphor is simple: when we play sports, it is as if we are breaking down the body, as we do every morning with our house. In truth, ventilating during the summer is natural. However, in winter, it's another song. Usually, we do not appreciate it too much as cold currents flow freely from room to room. However, once the air has passed, how do we feel after? Much better, right?

Well, something similar happens with physical exercise. There are days when our body seems to like that sensation where the revolutions of our engine (heart) increase - it's like airing in summer - and others in which it is very very lazy (we worked more than During the day, we did not get enough rest or we did too much exercise during the week: it would be like airing in winter). However, how do we feel after? Much better, right?

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Sport connects the body to the spirit

We have already said that the cells of our nervous system in general, exaggerating, appreciate that we put a little bit our body in motion, and that we let slip some calories jump, pedaling or walking a long time. Sport in fact also brings another benefit to us in this binomial mind-body. This advantage has to do with communication. It's odd, but when we talk to a regular sportsman who is momentarily injured, and we ask him what he misses most, he is likely to respond to us. this is his communication with his body.

If he stays a week or two without training, he may feel that his body is no longer talking to him or only in the language of pain. The information he receives from his body has become impoverished, and of many. Thus, what we get in sports is that communication with our body improves, it is useless that anything hurts us to know that we have more or less energy. On the other hand, it is a difficult feeling to explain for those who lead for years a sedentary life, without sport. They do not remember what it feels like when you feel in touch with your body, so they do not notice it.
However, enriching this communication is worth it ...

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Improve our social life and we have saved time for ourselves

Other mental benefits that sport brings us have two aspects. One of them is the social side. Whether it's an individual sport or a team sport, it's easy for us to meet people in a situation similar to ours. People of flesh and blood who are not behind a screen, who can motivate us, with sport or with other goals in life and who will no doubt expand our circle of social support.

The other side of this advantage is defined by one fact: to play sports is to spend time with ourselves. A moment to think or simply to escape our concerns. Meanwhile, we do not think of going somewhere, that dinner is burning or that some of our actions may displease someone or harm our image. In this sense, sport often involves an exercise of freedom, an update of our mental resources and a meeting with ourselves.

On the other hand, it is an act that will hardly cause mental discomfort. It is very difficult when we play sports that we feel dissonance between who we are or what we would like to be and what we do. There are no threats, only challenges. The one to score a basket or run a little faster. The question is simplified and our mind appreciates this release.

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port, discipline, faith and emotions

An indirect benefit of sport is order and discipline. Regular practice generates a sense of perseverance that makes us feel good. That of: "Well, well, in fact, I am able to go after my goal." These types of messages will enhance our self-esteem and will also help us on other topics for other purposes.

We see it in many people who have given up, we translate it with their words. They do not make plans because they do not have faith in what they can accomplish. In fact, they live in a kind of critical anarchy because many of the decisions they make are random and the balances they build are very small. So, you see, few activities are as good as sports to gain confidence.

What advantages, is not it? Well, it's not over. In addition, one of the most important is the emotional regulation. Sport helps us to positively spend that extra energy that we almost all have by eating more calories than we spend. Thus, a body with a lesser need for activity, will give us a greater margin to work on our emotions. For example, if we get angry, this control will make it harder to "blow out" or explode.

Sport, for example, decreases our heartbeat and our tension; it will require a greater stimulus to annoy us as before. This greatly expands our room for maneuver, intelligently uses the information of the emotion we feel and lets it dissipate without its energy leading us to behaviors that we would regret later. In children, for example, sports greatly promote self-control and contribute, well-organized in their schedule, to regulate their rest.

With all these arguments, it makes you want to get started, does not it?