Exercise to improve your grades
Getting exercise might not only improve mental health, but it might be able to help improve grades too.
Students deal with stresses from their daily life, as well as stresses from school, and Brad Corcoran, the program coordinator for fitness and health promotion and Guelph-Humber kinesiology professor said hitting the gym could help to alleviate those stresses.
“Exercise is widely known as the number one stress reliever. It has positive hormonal responses, it gets those feel good hormones flowing that allow us to have that positive responses as opposed to the negative stressors we deal with every day of our lives,” he said.
The positive mental effects of exercise were the main idea at the Get Up and Move event on January 27th at the Guelph-Humber atrium.
Second-year kinesiology students to helped to teach people about the connection between mental health, and getting enough exercise.
Marilyn Markis, a second-year kinesiology student hosting the event, said the effects exercise have on your brain can help you to get more work done. “Exercise releases endorphins in your brain, so you feel more energized, it’s similar to a caffeine rush, so you feel like you’re more productive after.”
Laura Darakjian is another second-year kinesiology student at the University of Guelph-Humber, and she said her grades have actually improved since she started going to the gym.
“I was just stressed out about school, and one thing that helped lower my anxiety and helped me cope with the different stresses was going to the gym,” Darakjian said.
She said simply doing half an hour on the elliptical helped her feel better, and helped her marks make a substantial improvement. “I was low 70s, mid 70s then all of a sudden I was 80s to mid-80s.”
Markis said that fitness is a fairly new concept to her, but she’s been working hard to get to the gym more often.
“I found with me and my anxiety it kind of made that if I went to the gym and I exercised I would feel better the day after, but just like me going to the gym is really difficult for me,” she said.
Corcoran said he promotes exercise and living a healthy lifestyle to help students feel better. He said if this is something students want to try and do, to start with small changes.
“Start small, be realistic, that’s one of the main things we talk about and try to promote. Don’t go too hard too fast too soon,” he said.
He also encouraged students to use the resources they’re given at the school, such as seeing a personal trainer if they need support at the gym, or to see a councillor if they need help in other areas of their life.
“The support is here on campus, don’t be afraid to reach out and talk to somebody,” Corcoran said.
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