Skip to main content

Surprising Benefits of Exercise: Confidence and Creativity

It’s no secret that sitting for long periods negatively affects our physical health. We spend more and more time being inactive during our leisure time, staring at screens and working jobs that encourage sedentary behaviour. This routine can quickly become monotonous, leading us to feel uninspired and bored with our day to day lives. 

Exercise helps us keep our hearts and our bones strong, fight illness and disease. Exercise also positively affects our mental health, memory, learning alertness. There is even research suggesting improving our fitness can have very positive effects on our confidence and creativity. 

Just a little bit of exercise each day can have a significant improvement on how we feel. Aerobic exercise and exercises that incorporate mindfulness are very effective. However, if you enjoy higher intensity exercise, like HIT, you’re more than welcome to do that also. 

Neuroplasticity means the brain has ‘the ability to change and improve throughout a person’s lifetime, particularly when exposed to consistent, targeted exercise and engaging stimuli.’ Physical exercise is a great way to exercise your brain. So, if you want to increase confidence or creativity, consider getting active. 

Regular exercise can drastically improve your mood!

Confidence

 

Many people struggle with self-esteem and confidence issues. Sometimes, these issues are tied to your appearance and how you perceive your body. Social media is often linked to the rise in body image issues and society’s increasing obsession with appearance

Exercise is a great way to improve your confidence. This may seem unusual but working out can really change the way we feel and think. We know that it can positively affect our mental health and even increase workplace productivity

Over time, exercise allows you to strengthen and tone your body. Regular exercise gives you an improved physique. Seeing a noticeable difference in your physical appearance is a great way to raise your self-image. 

When you exercise, you are doing something good for yourself. This is something to be proud of! The simple act of creating an exercise routine and sticking to it can provide you with a sense of achievement. 

Physical activity has an almost immediate effect on your mood and lasting positive effects on your mental health. Consistent exercise can help reduce long-term feelings of anxiety and depression. Feeling good promotes feelings of self-confidence! 

Self-growth plays an important part in your happiness!

Creativity

There are many examples of creative people using exercise to boost their imagination. Philosopher Henry David Thoreau stated, “the moment my legs begin to move my thoughts begin to flow – as if I had given vent to the stream at the lower end and consequently new fountains flowed into it at the upper”. Similarly, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche advised, “Sit as little as possible”.  
 

In 2013, the Frontiers in Human Neuroscience published a study looking at the impact of physical exercise on convergent and divergent thinking. In the study, researchers found that regular exercisers are more creative than their sedentary peers. 
 

Convergent thinking and divergent thinking are the two components of creative thought. Convergent thinking refers to being able to provide a single answer to a problem. Whereas, divergent thinking involves exploring many possible solutions for a problem. 

To determine whether there was an association between regular exercise and creative thought, researchers had 48 athletes (those who exercise 3 or more times a week) and 48 non-athletes (exercise less than 1 time per week) perform a test. The first task measured convergent thinking. Participants were asked to find an association between three unrelated words. For example, “time,” “hair,” and “stretch” are connected to the word “long”. 

The second task measured divergent thinking. Participants were asked to list as many possible uses for six common household items (for example, “pen,” “towel,” “bottle”). Researchers scored participants on flexibility, originality, fluency and elaboration. Researchers found that the regular exercisers did better on both tasks compared to those who didn’t regularly exercise. Overall, the study revealed that there was an association between exercise and creative thinking. 

Take time to evaluate who you are and how you can improve your mindset!

Our Conclusion 

Exercise has a surprising impact on our confidence and creativity. Moving around changes the way we think and in turn, promotes positive feelings. Positive feelings such as confidence, self-esteem and happiness can significantly improve our quality of life.  

If you want to boost your confidence and imagination, staying active is a healthy and fun way to do it. The best thing about regular exercise is you are not only strengthening your muscles, but also your mind! 

Ceed can help you understand the importance of healthy habits such as exercise. Feel free to explore our range of services here. 

Three Tips to Nurture your Confidence in the Workplace

Confidence is a key factor in nurturing success in the workplace – it can make or break your colleague’s perception of you. Not only that, but many workplace skills derive from confidence. 

According to a survey ran by indeed.com, an extraordinary 98% of workers say they perform better at work when they feel confident. Nearly all workers recognise the value of confidence and what it can bring to your success. 

Without confidence, it’s difficult to become a trusted colleague or be relied upon as a teammate. But confidence doesn’t just come from anywhere – it has to be nurtured and grown from within yourself. 

So, where do you begin? 

Let’s start by trying to understand what confidence is.  

Simply put, confidence is the driving factor of self-belief. Having confidence means feeling assured in your value as an individual and knowing that you’re good at what you do. This doesn’t have to be entirely internal – external factors of confidence do exist. When colleagues or superiors have confidence in your ability, it can help perpetuate a positive working attitude. 

External confidence, however, often comes as a consequence of nurturing confidence in yourself. By being confident, you can excel in three key areas: assertivenessproductivity, and communication

By believing in your ability and speaking with conviction, colleagues take your word more seriously. Being assertive will result in greater success in the workplace as people will be more likely to listen to your opinion.  

If you exude confidence, it is much more likely that you’ll push and challenge yourself to excel. Your productivity rates will increase as your confidence does. You’ll begin to feel more assured that what you’re doing is right – that you can take on and face challenges you previously may have been intimidated by. Consequently, colleagues will respect and have faith in your ability – they may feel reassured that you’re the right person to manage a project or lead a team. 

Communication in the workplace is probably one of your most important assets. Being able to speak clearly and concisely to your colleague and supervisors can really shape your position in the workplace. Speaking effectively and with confidence helps you become a more active member of your workplace. This can help in the long-run with career advancement.  

So, how do you improve your confidence in the first place? 

Three key changes you make today can completely revitalise your attitude and start you on a path of growing confidence. 

Confidence breeds Confidence  

The first change might seem counterintuitive, but it really does work. Acting like you’re confident will eventually make you feel confident. Let’s say you start slowly – pitching that idea you’ve been too afraid to pitch. If you suggest it with confidence behind your voice, you’re simultaneously being communicative and assertive – even if you don’t really feel it! Once that first barrier is broken, it becomes so much easier to grow that feeling into something more sustainable. 

So, the first step here is a small one – but one that can revolutionise your position at work. When you act confident, you portray a certain image of yourself to your colleagues. That image is one of reassurance. Your colleagues are much more likely to come back to you with trust and faith in your position if you exude some confidence. Whether the confidence is fake or not, your colleagues won’t know and eventually that false confidence will breed real confidence. Before you know it, that assertiveness and effective communication will just be a natural skill.  

Assessing your impact 

This is true for all walks of life: those who lack confidence are often concerned with how others perceive them and the impact this will have on their mindset. Instead, try considering the reverse. Starting with small instances, think about how your actions and decisions at work affect your colleagues. 

By reversing your mindset in this way, you start to think more critically about how to be an efficient colleague. Your actions feel more impactful when you consider how it affects others instead of how others affect you. This puts you in the driver’s seat.  

When you start to appreciate the impact of your voice, it’s easy to see why having a confident attitude is so important. 

Self-recognition  

As we said earlier, gaining internal confidence comes from a place of self-belief. The only way to do this is to recognise the value you bring to your team. It’s really helpful to take some time to think about your position in the workplace. You have the skills to be a successful employee – that’s why you were hired in the first place! All that’s missing is the confidence to drive those skills. 

Putting them into practice and showing your value to your colleagues is a good way of reassuring your confidence in your own ability. If you’re struggling to do that right now, then think about those little moments of confidence: speaking your mind; pitching an idea; or even just talking to your fellow colleagues.  

Our Final Word 

The benefits of confidence in the workplace are clear – it’s a seemingly small quality that can seriously advance your career aspirations.  

Confidence is not an easy thing to come by. Hopefully these tips are a good starting point for nurturing and developing a sense of confidence in yourself and your abilities. Maybe take a look at some of our other informative guides for more tips on productivity, motivation and mindfulness. 

We at Ceed started our business to help nurture and encourage your personal development. 

If you need a helping hand in growing you or your employee’s confidence, take a look at our services for more information. 

Learn More About Ceed

We’re on a mission to help every individual achieve their potential