Energize Your Next Workout

If you’re getting bored on the treadmill, tired of spinning to nowhere on an exercise bike and ennui has enervated your weight routine, your exercise program might be missing the one element that can meld an energized mind to a buff body.

Next workout, bypass the gym and head to the great outdoors to shed fatigue and boost your brain cells as well as your muscle cells. Researchers at Glasgow University have found that exercising outside can improve mood, relieve mild depression, galvanize your outlook and defuse stress.

You don’t get the same benefits indoors.

After polling nearly 2000 people, researchers determined that being physically active outside may increase mental health by 50 percent.

“Being in areas that have lots of trees and grassy areas help to calm us down, and obviously a forest has this. I wasn’t surprised by the findings that exercise in natural environments is good for your mental health, but I was surprised by just how much better it is for your mental health to exercise in a green place like a forest, than in other places like the gym,” says researcher Richard Mitchell.