Â
There are certain memes that when you see make sense just immediately. That’s what I felt when I saw the meme on “lift heavy sone make sad head voice quiet”
You can make things extremely complicated with mental health and other aspects of your life. But when you simplify it to “lift heavy stone make sad head voice quiet” — there’s nothing else that wins out.
For the longest time, at least since 2014-15, I’ve known that exercise is key for me. A few days without exercise and I am as good as useless.
Doesn’t mean that I always follow what I preach, but I try to.
I’ve usually gone to gyms in spurts, it’s not that I’ve been consistent at gym for a year+.
But since the pandemic, I have weights at home — a pair of adjustable dumbbells and a barbell. They aren’t enough to allow me to build serious muscle, unless I buy more weights. But they’re more than enough for the mental benefits of weight lifting.
Whenever I feel low, I lift weights and usually within seconds my mood improves.
The only time when I didn’t have access to weights was when I was staying in a foreign country for a few months. All I had access to was resistance bands, and that wasn’t enough to help me out of a slump. And I was acutely made aware of how much a difference strength training made to my mental health
I tell people that I exercise more for the mental health benefits more than the physical and aesthetic benefits.