Impact of Mental issues on Components of Fitness

Whether you are a fitness enthusiast or fitness ignorant there is too much going around you that influences your components of fitness. According to you, everything happening in your life is under firm control. However, knowingly or unknowingly they leave a huge impact on your mental health as well as the components of fitness. Are you aware of the five pillars of components of fitness? They are cardiovascular endurance, muscle strength, muscle endurance, flexibility, and body composition. The point to ponder over is how mental health issue of any kind has an impact on these five components. You will be surprised to learn how bad we are at calculating math which connects physical health to our mental health.

Cardiovascular endurance

Cardiovascular endurance is one of the components of fitness which is the ability of your body to take oxygen from the atmosphere and circulate it throughout the system to fulfill the requirements of the organs. During depression and anxiety, the body releases cortisol which happens to increase heart rate and blood pressure. This often happens in panic attacks but if the depression stays for longer duration it becomes a routine. High blood pressure and heart rate make it difficult to breathe and think straight.

Muscular endurance

Muscular endurance is another component of fitness which is the ability of your muscles to work for longer time durations. In anxiety disorders, individuals suffer from dizziness, perspiration, trembling, and apprehension. In such cases, it becomes nearly impossible for someone to continue using their muscles. All of a sudden they feel stiff and immovable. The same is associated with mood disorders such as Major Depressive Disorder in which a person experiences fatigue and loss of interest in doing anything they liked before. In states of mental diseases, a person feels like not getting up and using any of their muscle. Even a slight workload gives them a feeling of fainting any minute.

Muscular strength

Muscle strength is one of the most prominent components of fitness which is the energy and power you utilize when lifting objects. You must have come across news in which athletes give up or take a break from their careers because of mental issues. In a state of anxiety and depression, no matter how much an individual weighs the physical strength vanishes with the mental strength. On the other hand, mental disorders like anorexia nervosa also harm muscle strength. In this condition, a person denies eating anything due to the fear of weight gain. They believe eating food might ruin their physical appearance. This ultimately leads to the weakness of muscles.

Flexibility

Flexibility is one of the most neglected components of fitness. When psychological flexibility is gone the physical flexibility exits through the same door. To understand this you don’t need a study or research trial. We know very well depression and anxiety are common in the elderly. They are too stressed to leave their room or do a chore. This contributes to providing a favorable environment for the muscles and joints to become stiff.

Body composition

The mental state is deeply linked with the body or fat composition. Under stress, there are two types of people; those who stop eating and Secondly those who eat a lot. The latter type often reflects bulimia nervosa in which depressed individual binge eats. The results are quite expected as they are seen depositing in the body in the form of fat.

So you see how physical health and mental health go hand-in-hand. It is necessary to take care of mental health which in turn will keep a check on physical health.