There are many reasons students come to martial arts classes, but one of the lesser-known benefits is that of improved mental health. Martial arts classes can help people with how to reduce anxiety in a few different ways. Read on to find out more!
How to Reduce Anxiety with Martial Arts
Adult martial arts classes can be hugely helpful to help adults with how to reduce anxiety, and kids too, but that’s a blog for another time. Not only is it a highly physical sport, which means you’re doing something with all the adrenaline that the anxiety produces, but it’s also an effective tool we can use to combat symptoms of anxiety.
One symptom of anxiety is racing thoughts. If you struggle with anxiety, you may feel like you’re just your thoughts, not feeling present or even feeling sensations in your body. Martial arts can be an amazing solution for this. First of all, when you’re feeling anxious, your brain can pump out adrenaline and turn on your fight-or-flight system. All that adrenaline usually just courses through your body as you think, think, and overthink, but martial arts push you in a different direction.
Kicking, punching, and channeling that energy effectively is healthy and can even be necessary for your body, as it’s getting the adrenaline and anxiety out in an intentional way. Secondly, the full-body workout you get when learning self-defense, in general, is going to melt that stress away and help you get all of those feelings out. Stress at work, stress with your kids, your partner, your life.
Everything you’re ruminating on or worrying about flushes out on the mat. You channel it all into movement and it makes you a focused, clear-headed person off the mat, and an excellent martial artist on the mat, with real power and energy behind your moves.
Concentration and Motivation through Martial Arts
Another symptom of anxiety is difficulty concentrating or feeling motivated. Sometimes you feel hyper-alert and hyperactive, other times you’re pretty sluggish and don’t want to do anything. You’re either frozen in panic or spinning your wheels with stress. If this sounds like you, show up to class. That’s all we ask you to do.
The only time we can help you beyond the words of a blog post is when you’re standing right in front of us, ready for class. Our world-class instructors will show you how to reduce anxiety, stress, and tension and take those “help, my shoulders are stuck to my ears” feelings and channel them into your moves. You concentrate on one minute of each class at a time and soon you’re having a lot of fun and the time is flying by.
For this one martial arts class, you don’t have to be anything other than exactly who you are, anxiety or not. Doing what you’re doing, exporting your thought process to your instructor, and getting it all out through physical movement.
Martial arts cannot cure or get rid of anxiety, only a medical professional can show you how to do that. But moving your body, getting into a community and engaging in positive social interactions, refining your mindset and slowly looking towards new horizons and accomplishments? These are huge pieces of your whole mental health picture that martial arts can help with.
Creating a Better Mindset through Martial Arts
We say it all the time, but it’s true. Martial arts is about way more than just punches and kicks. Martial arts is an amazing tool that people have been using for centuries to improve their lives and mindsets dramatically. How to reduce anxiety? With the help of martial arts classes and the martial arts philosophy, you build confidence and physical and mental strength.
You develop perseverance while achieving your goals and getting your belts. And you learn so much about how to get your mind on your side from such a physically demanding sport. Look, martial arts is hard. It is a difficult sport. There’s a lot of complicated coordination between your brain, your body, your muscle memory, and your discipline skills required to be a successful martial artist.
It’s not all peaches and roses in our class, but neither is life. Especially life with anxiety. We’re going to help you get through it. Whether it’s just anxious feelings or full-on generalized anxiety disorder, we know the difficulty of life with mental health issues cannot be understated. We also know it can be helped through the power of martial arts classes and the development of your mindset.
How to Reduce Anxiety with the Right Mindset
In our classes at Infinity Martial Arts, we are huge believers in the power of mindset because we’ve seen it work time and time again. One of our favorite quotes is, “A black belt is a white belt who never gave up.” The only difference between the two belts, or any two belts, is the commitment to show up and keep at it, even when times are tough.
When you’re by yourself in a gym, for example, it’s you, the machinery or weights, and your brain telling you what to do. If you’ve ever been to the gym when you’re anxious, you’ll know that your brain is not your most reliable workout buddy. It’s easily distracted, it can say some pretty mean things to you and hype you up for “emergencies” in the worst way possible. But when you’re in our martial arts classes, it’s not your brain telling you what to do. It’s our instructors.
One more thing about the instructors. Sometimes when you’re really in the thick of it with anxiety, you can’t see anything other than your shortcomings and failures. But believe this, our instructors and the community here are going to support and show you how to reduce anxiety with Taekwondo. We are going to show you just how much butt you can kick, despite your mental health struggles. The best part is that over time, you start to internalize that positive mindset, and can carry yourself through tough moments with compassion and understanding. The whole self-defense piece of it, then, becomes just the icing on the cake.
Martial Arts and Mental Health
The benefits of martial arts for mental health, in general, are endless. For anxiety specifically, staying active, focusing those racing thoughts into something positive through kicks and punches, and mindset/community support are martial arts benefits that are critical to staying well. With martial arts classes, your mood and health can improve tremendously right alongside your mindset, which gives you the proper tools on how to reduce anxiety with Karate and push through those tough times. Ready to see what martial arts can do for you? Give Infinity Martial Arts in Lodi a try with our risk-free adult martial arts school trial and see for yourself how it can change your life. You’ll love it!