Men’s Health provides yet another great article, Lift Your Mood explains how your state of mind affects your workout, and how to best take advantage of your mood.
What you’re feeling can make you put less into your workout–or cause you to skip it altogether. But those same moods can be used to help your lifting session. How? Most strong emotions–anger, anxiety, frustration–cause your adrenal glands to release adrenaline and more than 30 other hormones into your system. “This hormonal surge causes your heart to beat faster, relaxes your bronchial tubes to improve breathing, converts fat and protein into extra blood sugar, and even slows down your digestion to improve muscular energy,” says Richard Marsella, Ph.D., author of Welcome to Stress Management. “Whether you feel like exercising or not, your body is already getting a temporary boost that could enhance your workouts.”