Join a Sport Today!
Christina Lin (G10)
Imagine it’s December 31st, one day before the new year, and you tell yourself that your new year’s resolution is to be healthy. The next day, you wake up at 6 am in the morning and follow a workout video onYouTube, and you tell yourself that it is easy. You will do it the next day and the day after that. Flash forward to February 1st, a month in your alarm wakes you up at 6 am. Instead of getting up and doing a workout, you lay in bed, rewatching your favorite show.
(Courtesy of WorldeRunners)
Has that ever happened to you before? Because it has to me. But fear not, I’ve found a way to follow my new years resolution. ‘How?’ you may ask? By joining a sport, and I think that anyone with the same new year’s resolution should do it as well.
Now you might be thinking, why should I join a sport? First off, sports can increase your physical health.
According to Manhattan Medical Arts, sports can increase your heart function, help keep away many diseases, increase muscle strength and coordination, and provide many other benefits. Most sports will work your abdominals,shoulders,arms,legsand so many more places in your body, which means that you would be meeting your new years resolution of being physically healthy.
Secondly, it will improve not only your physical health, but also your mental health. By playing a sport, you can significantly increase your levels of serotonin and dopamine. Serotonin makes us feel happier and more focused,whiledopaminemakesyou motivated, therefore boosting your mood (and maybe helping you with your procrastination problems).
When you are angry or stressed, a few hits at a baseball or a few spikes at a volleyball will likely make you feel happier. Additionally, having a volleyball being spiked at you at more than 50 miles per hour or a baseball being pitched at you at 100 miles per hour is difficult and may make you stay awake at night. But as you learn the sport and improve, your self confidence and self esteem will improve as well.
(Courtesy of NBC News)
Lastly, it isn’t the type of sport that matters. You could play basketball, volleyball, baseball or even something like curling! The support and encouragement that you receive are the most important part of playing sports. After joining the volleyball team, I made new friends, who made me feel happier and excited about playing volleyball. They gave me an incentive to keep playing and show up to each and every practice instead of lying in bed and bingeing a show.
When you make a new years resolution, especially on the topic of exercise, do not think of it as a number. How many pounds you lost or how many calories you burnt or how much your thighs measured do not matter. Instead, exercise should be something that makes you healthier, not just physically, but also mentally and socially.
This is my fourth year playing volleyball, and I have seen many improvements. I try not to focus on the numbers, such as how much weight I lost or how much I weigh (even though sometimes I feel pressured to). Instead, I try to notice how I feel. (Was I happy? Am I less stressed? Do I feel connected to other people?) I saw improvements on my volleyball playing skills, but I didn't focus on how much weight I lost and rather focused on the fact that I was happier and less stressed. I felt healthier, both physically and socially, which is why it is a better goal than just working out and focusing on how much weight I lost. In our world, as soon as we turn on our phones and go on our favorite social media app, we’re exposed to diet culture. We’re exposed to the idea that thinness and attractiveness are needed or are the definition of physical and mental health. We see the fitness videos on YouTube. We see the “That Girl” videos on TikTok and the thin models on Instagram that become the definition of “beautiful” in our minds even though that is not the case.
By revising your new years resolution from exercising or dieting to be healthy by joining a sport, you’re able to connect with people facing the same problems as you. This can help you feel happier and less stressed and it can help you change your perspective of what “healthy” actually means.
