Dallas CBT’s unique exercise program combines cognitive behavioral therapy and exercise to help you improve stress, anxiety, and mood, as well as meet your fitness goals. Undoubtedly, most of us know that exercise is good for us and that we should, ideally, make exercise a part of our daily routine for the physical and mental health benefits. Every New Year, countless people join gyms, start new exercise routines, or make the resolution to exercise more. However, turning that initial resolve into consistent and repeated action with a workout routine can be hard, especially when the physical results we want aren’t going to happen quickly.
This program will help you identify, plan, and effectively implement exercise goals while working with your therapist to maintain the motivation necessary to follow through with these behaviors and trouble-shoot the obstacles that might get in the way. At the top of this list of obstacles are our patterns of thinking about ourselves and exercise; your therapist will utilize tools derived from CBT to help you approach exercise in a different way.
This program is especially effective for people struggling with stress, anxiety, and/or mood symptoms, especially if these seem to get in the way of regular exercise. We will help you focus on and take advantage of the substantial benefits (comparable to antidepressant and anti-anxiety medications!) regular exercise can have on improving these symptoms. Our exercise program is also ideal for those already undergoing treatment for mood or anxiety who are interested in incorporating exercise to enhance your treatment progress.
Ours is intended to be a short-term and flexible program tailored to your needs. This program helps you build towards and maintain the recommended “dose” of exercise by shifting your focus to the cognitive and emotional benefits of exercise. The positive effect that regular exercise has on stress, mood, and anxiety symptoms is reliable, happens more quickly than the more long-term health benefits, and can be harnessed to make an exercise routine more sustainable.
Consider this program if you:
- Want to exercise regularly but have been unsuccessful in the past
- Want to improve your mood, anxiety, or stress level though exercise
- Feel that stress, anxiety, or mood symptoms get in the way of exercise for you
- Have spent hundreds of dollars (if not more!) on gym memberships but rarely go
- Fall victim to some of the common obstacles to exercise:
- Focusing solely on how unpleasant exercise might feel
- Get discouraged by the amount of time it takes to achieve physical results
- Want to get active, but get very anxious about the physical sensations that come with exercise