Does Training Martial Arts Make You Happier? Scientific Reasons

The primary purpose of doing martial arts training for most people is to get physically stronger to improve their appearance or just to be able to defend against criminal attacks or street fighting. This is a fact that they can get these benefits if they do training. But they don’t know that they can get many more benefits from training. The martial arts can improve your mental health to a major extent. So, ideally, you should also be focused on mental aspects or benefits. When your mental health improves, your stress levels decrease, and you become happier. So the final result is that you start living a happy and peaceful life. But how does that occur? And is it really true or just an imaginary belief? Let’s dive into the details.

• When you read this sentence, “martial arts training makes you happy,” for the very first time, you will immediately be in disbelief. You may take this sentence as a joke or just an imaginary story or fiction.

• But it is a fact and you have to believe it, that when you are training in martial arts, there are a lot of positive effects that you will experience later on. One of these effects, or you can say side effects, is happiness.

• On the other side, we can also see it as that if you are stressed in your life, or you are having a lot of work burden or responsibilities, then training in martial arts will boost your happiness.

• The logic behind this is that the training increases happy hormones, which ultimately makes you happy.

You may still be confused about this great fact that shakes many people. Your confusion must be solved. Let’s dive into this a little bit deeper. The following are some of the reasons with logic and facts that explain why martial arts are known as the true source of happiness for everyone, especially for stressed adults:

• It is a common logic that when you are stressed about something, the best way is to distract yourself from that. For some time, you will be happy because you will not be worrying about this anymore. With this being said, if you are truly present and your mind is fully active and focusing on the thing you are doing, then you will not experience stress. This is because you only take stress when you think about that particular thing of worry. This state of being present and completely active is known as flow.

• So now you know that you should be in a state of flow so that you can manage your stress and become happy. The best way to induce flow is by training in martial arts. No matter which one you train, all will induce the state of flow in you. You can train in BJJ, boxing, or MMA; all will give you the same benefit.

• Now, another thing you will wonder is how these martial arts can induce flow in you. The reason behind this is that when you are training in martial arts, you need to be in a fully active state. You should be focusing completely on the training. If you don’t, you will get yourself trapped or submitted. So this builds the habit of staying always active, and this reflects in your daily life as well. So you manage stress and start staying happy.

• Another thing you need to know about training in martial arts is that it reduces cortisol. It is a stress hormone that is released only when you are stressed. Therefore, it manages your stress. Very high cortisol levels indicate that a person is under a lot of stress, and very low cortisol levels indicate that a person is stressed but not that much. So getting your cortisol levels low is an effective way to manage and decrease your stress levels.

• The best way to reduce your cortisol level is by doing martial arts training. This statement has a basis of much research that all prove that when you are doing an intense physical activity such as martial arts, the cortisol levels of your body become low. With cortisol getting low, the stress levels also become low.

• Another link found by much extensive research is between your mood and movement or physical activity. This statement means that when you are doing any physical activity, your mood improves and stabilizes. This also means that more movement means better mood stabilization.

• The science behind this is that when you do physical activity, your body releases a lot of endorphins. These chemicals improve your mood by reducing your pain and making you euphoric.

• When you first start martial arts training, there are a lot of people you meet who are new to you and totally strangers. Most of these will have the same thoughts as you because all of them have the same basic purpose of training in martial arts. This common goal of many people makes them close to each other. They start liking each other, their vibes start matching, and they eventually start becoming friends with each other.

• So, just due to martial arts training, you start having a lot of friends, and all these friends are very good people. So you can get help from them in difficult times. This includes both emotional and moral support.

• Your social connections increase, and many people start knowing you. This can improve you as a person overall because you cannot be alone. Loneliness is the true enemy of a person. When you are alone, you become stressed, even if your life is going perfectly fine. So martial arts is the true means of overcoming your loneliness and removing your stress.

• Another source or reason behind your stress is the lack of confidence. When you do not have enough confidence, you start believing that you cannot do anything good and feel like a loser. This is very bad for both you as a person and your career.

• Confidence is a root cause of your success in anything. This is often said, and you must also have heard it a lot of times. But you should also look at it from the opposite side, and that is, if you do not have confidence, then it can also be the root cause of your failure, and therefore the stress.

• So you need to develop confidence in yourself as part of stress management. When you are able to be confident in all your life matters, that is when you become stress free.

• The best way to improve your confidence is by training in martial arts. With this, you are able to experience a lot of different situations. These involve pressure, tough, challenging, and easy situations. With time, you know how you can pass yourself through these situations, and the same thing replicates in your real life. You know how you can pass yourself through tough situations, and this improves your confidence, and therefore you start living a stress free life.

After the detailed discussion given above, you know that martial arts can be a source of your happiness in life by reducing your stress levels. This is the only benefit that we have just discussed out of a lot of benefits that you can get from training in martial arts. All these benefits translate to your real life as well, and you start improving your life day by day. So, for managing your stress levels and keeping yourself happy, start martial arts training.

• It is a fact and you have to believe it, that when you are training in martial arts, there are a lot of positive effects that you will experience later on. One of these effects, or you can say side effects, is happiness.

• On the other side, we can also see it as that if you are stressed in your life, or you are having a lot of work burden or responsibilities, then training in martial arts will boost your happiness.

• The logic behind this is that the training increases happy hormones, which ultimately makes you happy.

Martial arts make you happy in the following ways:

• You are fully active mentally and always present

• Getting physical reduces cortisol

• Movement stabilizes your mood

• Belonging and social connection

• Confidence