You Can be Great If You Really Want To

Parents reading this may not be surprised by the latest findings from a team of researchers at the Georgia School of Medicine. The first-of-its-kind study published in the November issue of Pediatric Exercise Science, a professional journal dedicated to increasing our understanding of exercise during childhood, finds that aerobic activity seems to have a significant impact on anger management for kids.

In fact, aerobic exercise may be an effective strategy to help overweight kids (maybe even children at any weight) to burn off anger or aggression in a safe, healthy, and rather effective way. Earlier research has shown that exercise helps to reduce depression or anxiety in children. Most of us have long since come to recognize that exercise can also help older folks manage stress and burn off bad moods.

The latest research focused on a structured aerobic exercise program as it related to anger expression in healthy overweight kids. The scientists looked at 208 usually sedentary 7- to 11-year-olds who took part in a 10-15 week after-school aerobic exercise program.

The subjects, overweight but otherwise healthy, were randomly assigned to an aerobic exercise program or instructed to maintain their normal inactive routine. Surveys were also taken on anger expression at the start and end of the testing using the Pediatric Anger Expression Scale that gauges common expressions of anger like slamming doors and hitting.

The researchers found that the Anger Out and Anger Expression scores were lower for the aerobic exercise group at the end of the testing period.

”Exercise had a significant impact on anger expression in children,” said Dr. Catherine Davis, a clinical health psychologist in the Medical College of Georgia School of Medicine. “This finding indicates that aerobic exercise may be an effective strategy to help overweight kids reduce anger expression and aggressive behavior.”

The finding applies across the board – without regard for gender, race, socioeconomic status and even fitness level. This serves as yet another reason for parents, caregivers and teachers to get kids up and moving. Regular exercise seems not only to help with weight and anger issues, but it also may improve cognition and reduce insulin resistance.

This latest research supports earlier work by Dr. Davis that suggested aerobic exercise also helps thinking skills and reduces insulin resistance, a condition known to be a precursor to diabetes. And while the increase in activity did help the subjects of the study lose some weight, all of them continued to be classified as overwight at the end of the research.

Supported by a five year $3.6 million grant by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, Dr. Davis is looking to see if this exercise finding holds for a similar group of kids who are being studied for the impact of exercise on cognition.

Scientists want to be sure the exercise, and not other things like participation in a special after-school problem, caused the improvement in the anger scores. Changes in their routine, time with parents and away from fight-provoking siblings, violent TV and video games could also have had a positive impact on anger management for kids.

Related Blogs

• Anger Management for Men « Health Articles Library
• Two Kinds of Anger « Kenny Pittman's Blog
• Move Your Money » Blog Archive » Turning A Profit From Big Bank Anger

Managing Stress is as much a physical issue as it is a psychological concern. To boost the benefits of counseling, experts of stress management and therapists keep advising their clients to get busy in any exercise training program. People who are suffering from extreme stress mostly complain of weakness, sluggishness in going about daily work and also feel that they are unable to perform to the fullest.

Let us assume that you are determined to go through a stress management exercise program, how do we begin then? If you have not been active for a long time and have been leading a sedentic life, the best way to start is by walking. It can become quite enjoyable for sure when you take pleasure in small things like noticing surroundings – the green plants around, the chirping birds, the different types of buildings, the people around etc.Walking briskly can be a good exercise and eventually you will start to feel better and less stressed.

While starting on a stress management exercising program, keep in mind that exercise trains but too much of it can strain. This means that you should work at a comfortable pace and level. If you overburden yourself, there are chances that you will get more stressed than before. You should exercise at a level and frequency that you enjoy and become healthier rather than causing harm to yourself. Have fun while running and enjoy every movement of your body without any strain .

You don’t need to be a professional runner to achieve the beneficial effects of stress management program. In fact, researchers have proved that any physical exercise of moderate nature 30-40 minutes daily gives many health benefits. By moderate, we mean exercises like cycling, gardening, brisk walking and performing household chores.

Since physical exercise requires good concentration, you will have no time to think about your problems. This will slowly rid you off the stress eventually. This is called a type of selective awareness.

Strenuous exercise can provide even better results and benefits. To obtain cardiovascular benefits from strenuous exercises, the heart rate should be raised to 60%-80% level.

For example, if your age is 30 years, your target heart rate should be 190 beats/minute. You should adapt your self to your training program so that heart rate during exercise is between 60%-80% of 190 beats/minute or in other words between 114-152 beats/minute.

For the desired results of the training program, you should exercise 20-30 minutes for 3-4 days every week. Since cardio respiratory endurance decreases after 48 hrs, you must ensure that you exercise at least three days in a week. You can schedule your exercise in your daily routine in a manner comfortable to you. This way, you will approach it like a commitment that has to be kept and will be more than ready to exercise rather than finding excuses to exercise when you get time and putting it off continuously for a later date.

Managing stress through training can benefit everyone. People who go through such program are able to relieve stress through exercise even if they have problems like physical disability, shortage of time or low level of fitness. To assess and properly find out how your body is responding to specific types of exercises, learn to listen to the body. The following are the signs of over exhaustion and give you signals to cut down on your exercise routine.

- Muscle and joint Soreness

- Feeling of heavy in arms and legs

- Not able to relax

- Continuously feeling tired

- Bad appetite

- Under weight

- Problem such as Constipation and diarrhea

- Repeatedly getting injured

American College for Sports Medicine advices that testing should be done before starting any exercise program. They suggest that for healthy people below 45 years, and people below 35 years with some health risk factors but negligible symptoms of disease, a stress test is not mandatory. However, those over 45 years and showing some symptoms of diseases (cardiac, metabolic, pulmonary) and those actually having one of these types of diseases must be given a stress test before they start managing stress through training program.