Sports

Exercise: the natural high

Mental and emotional benefits of cardio often overlooked

Published

15 years ago

March 10, 2011

While the majority of fitness research efforts focus on the physical and health benefits of exercise, there is a growing body of work demonstrating that exercise promotes wellness and mental health.

The physical benefits of exercise are vast and varied from improved cardiovascular function and immune system boosting to disease prevention such as diabetes and obesity. The physical benefits of exercise also tend to focus on looking better: leaner waists, greater muscularity, trim thighs, etc. And often the less-visible-more-mental health benefits of exercise are taken for granted or overlooked. We become more focused on how we look and forget observing how we feel.

Nonetheless, the mental health benefits of exercise are as equally profound and in some instances are more noticeable. Exercise improves mental health by curtailing depression, promoting a positive self image and body image, which is linked to a higher self esteem.

Judith Easton, personal training director at Galter Life Center in Chicago notes, “Exercise leads to an increase in energy and to better sleep patterns, which may also explain why it is so helpful to people with depression. Low energy and poor sleep are common symptoms of depression.”

Through exercise we feel better. You don’t have to be suffering from a diagnosed mental illness to get significant mental health benefits from exercise. Well being is part of the exercise payoff.

“Physical exercise whether it is at the gym with my personal trainer or out in my garden, provides me with a certain peace of mind and tranquility like nothing else,” says Michael Faubion, one of my clients. “The act of doing something that improves your physical and mental health is tremendously rewarding.”

Another client, Kevin Nicholson, says, “I derive numerous mental health benefits from exercise. The endorphins make you feel good, the exertion relieves built-up stress, and when I am done I have a sense of accomplishment.”

The Mayo Clinic is clear to point out that the links to mental health benefits of exercise are not as clear as physical results. Particularly, imprecise are the links between anxiety, depression and exercise.

However, according to Mayo, exercise helps mental health in many ways, which may include releasing feel-good brain chemicals like endorphins that may ease depression and curtail anxiety. Exercise can also reduce immune system chemicals that can worsen depression and increase body temperature, which may have a calming effect.

Researchers at Duke University demonstrated several years ago that exercise has anti-depressant qualities by improving brain function and stimulating the production of endorphins, the feel-good chemicals produced in the brain. Endorphins are natural opiates that are chemically similar to morphine and also act as natural pain relievers.

In addition to the physiological benefits of exercise there may be noticeable psychological and emotional benefits as well. In particular the stress-release properties to exercise can be profound and exercise can boost your self-esteem and self-confidence and allow you to feel better about your appearance.

Exercise can also be used as a positive coping mechanism toward warding off or thwarting depression and anxiety and is a healthier alternative to dwelling on how badly you feel or resorting to substances such as alcohol to make you feel better.

Other mental health benefits to exercise are better sleep habits, a higher sex drive and a more positive upbeat attitude. And while these benefits are not readily measurable, it is clear that just about everyone will feel better after exercise.

It is important to note that exercise should not be a substitute for medical advice and that before engaging in any form of exercise a physician’s permission and guidance is recommended.

So just how much exercise is enough to reap the mental health benefits of exercise? Every little bit of exertion will help. And doing 30 minutes or more of exercise a day, three to five days a week can significantly improve one’s mental health and state of being.

Be sure to include some form of cardiovascular activity and consider including mindful exercise like yoga and meditation. Both according to Easton “answer the need to have down time along with the need to quiet down and look within.”

Yoga participants often say they feel more centered and calm, along with the physical benefits of stretching and building strength.

Sports

US wins Olympic gold medal in women’s hockey

Team captain Hilary Knight proposed to girlfriend on Wednesday

Published

8 hours ago

February 19, 2026

Staff reports

(Public domain photo)

The U.S. women’s hockey team on Thursday won a gold medal at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.

Team USA defeated Canada 2-1 in overtime. The game took place a day after Team USA captain Hilary Knight proposed to her girlfriend, Brittany Bowe, an Olympic speed skater.

Cayla Barnes and Alex Carpenter — Knight’s teammates — are also LGBTQ. They are among the more than 40 openly LGBTQ athletes who are competing in the games.

The Olympics will end on Sunday.

Sports

Attitude! French ice dancers nail ‘Vogue’ routine

Cizeron and Fournier Beaudry strike a pose in memorable Olympics performance

Published

1 week ago

February 10, 2026

Staff reports

Team France's Guillaume Cizeron and Laurence Fournier Beaudry compete in the Winter Olympics. (Screen capture via NBC Sports and NBC News/YouTube)

Madonna’s presence is being felt at the Olympic Games in Italy.

Guillaume Cizeron and his rhythm ice dancing partner Laurence Fournier Beaudry of France performed a flawless skate to Madonna’s “Vogue” and “Rescue Me” on Monday.

The duo scored an impressive 90.18 for their effort, the best score of the night.

“We’ve been working hard the whole season to get over 90, so it was nice to see the score on the screen,” Fournier Beaudry told Olympics.com. “But first of all, just coming out off the ice, we were very happy about what we delivered and the pleasure we had out there. With the energy of the crowd, it was really amazing.”

Watch the routine on YouTube here.

Italy

Olympics Pride House ‘really important for the community’

Italy lags behind other European countries in terms of LGBTQ rights

Published

1 week ago

February 9, 2026

Michael K. Lavers

Joseph Naklé, the project manager for Pride House at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, carries the Olympic torch in Milan, Italy, on Feb. 5, 2026. (Photo courtesy of Joseph Naklé)

The four Italian advocacy groups behind the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics’ Pride House hope to use the games to highlight the lack of LGBTQ rights in their country.

Arcigay, CIG Arcigay Milano, Milano Pride, and Pride Sport Milano organized the Pride House that is located in Milan’s MEET Digital Culture Center. The Washington Blade on Feb. 5 interviewed Pride House Project Manager Joseph Naklé.

Naklé in 2020 founded Peacox Basket Milano, Italy’s only LGBTQ basketball team. He also carried the Olympic torch through Milan shortly before he spoke with the Blade. (“Heated Rivalry” stars Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie last month participated in the torch relay in Feltre, a town in Italy’s Veneto region.)

Naklé said the promotion of LGBTQ rights in Italy is “actually our main objective.”

ILGA-Europe in its Rainbow Map 2025 notes same-sex couples lack full marriage rights in Italy, and the country’s hate crimes law does not include sexual orientation or gender identity. Italy does ban discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, but the country’s nondiscrimination laws do not include gender identity.

ILGA-Europe has made the following recommendations “in order to improve the legal and policy situation of LGBTI people in Italy.”

• Marriage equality for same-sex couples

• Depathologization of trans identities

• Automatic co-parent recognition available for all couples

“We are not really known to be the most openly LGBT-friendly country,” Naklé told the Blade. “That’s why it (Pride House) was really important for the community.”

“We want to use the Olympic games — because there is a big media attention — and we want to use this media attention to raise the voice,” he added.

*The Coliseum in Rome on July 12, 2025. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)*

Naklé noted Pride House will host “talks and roundtables every night” during the games that will focus on a variety of topics that include transgender and nonbinary people in sports and AI. Another will focus on what Naklé described to the Blade as “the importance of political movements now to fight for our rights, especially in places such as Italy or the U.S. where we are going backwards, and not forwards.”

Seven LGBTQ Olympians — Italian swimmer Alex Di Giorgio, Canadian ice dancers Paul Poirier and Kaitlyn Weaver, Canadian figure skater Eric Radford, Spanish figure skater Javier Raya, Scottish ice dancer Lewis Gibson, and Irish field hockey and cricket player Nikki Symmons — are scheduled to participate in Pride House’s Out and Proud event on Feb. 14.

Pride House Los Angeles – West Hollywood representatives are expected to speak at Pride House on Feb. 21.

The event will include a screening of Mariano Furlani’s documentary about Pride House and LGBTQ inclusion in sports. The MiX International LGBTQ+ Film and Queer Culture Festival will screen later this year in Milan. Pride House Los Angeles – West Hollywood is also planning to show the film during the 2028 Summer Olympics.

Naklé also noted Pride House has launched an initiative that allows LGBTQ sports teams to partner with teams whose members are either migrants from African and Islamic countries or people with disabilities.

“The objective is to show that sports is the bridge between these communities,” he said.

Bisexual US skier wins gold

Naklé spoke with the Blade a day before the games opened. The Milan Cortina Winter Olympics will close on Feb. 22.

More than 40 openly LGBTQ athletes are competing in the games.

Breezy Johnson, an American alpine skier who identifies as bisexual, on Sunday won a gold medal in the women’s downhill. Amber Glenn, who identifies as bisexual and pansexual, on the same day helped the U.S. win a gold medal in team figure skating.

Glenn said she received threats on social media after she told reporters during a pre-Olympics press conference that LGBTQ Americans are having a “hard time” with the Trump-Vance administration in the White House. The Associated Press notes Glenn wore a Pride pin on her jacket during Sunday’s medal ceremony.

“I was disappointed because I’ve never had so many people wish me harm before, just for being me and speaking ‍about being decent — human rights and decency,” said Glenn, according to the AP. “So that was really disappointing, and I do think it kind of lowered that excitement for this.”