Fitness

Health and Wellness: Five reasons to ditch the pills and embrace exercise as medicine

Published

2 years ago

August 16, 2024

Health and Wellness: Five reasons to ditch the pills and embrace exercise as medicine

Carrie Jose
| Portsmouth Herald

Our bodies are built for movement, yet modern life has us sitting far more than we should. Compared to our ancestors, we’re moving less and sitting more – sometimes for over half the day. While fitness trackers and smartwatches encourage us to stand and get more steps in, it still doesn’t seem to be enough to counteract the effects of a sedentary lifestyle.

Physical inactivity has now become a major health issue, and the consequences are clear: less movement leads to more musculoskeletal issues and chronic pain (among other things). And the unfortunate reality is that most folks turn to pain medication for relief, despite research increasingly pointing to regular exercise being just as effective and far healthier.

Here are five reasons to ditch the pills – and embrace exercise instead – as a powerful form of medicine to manage musculoskeletal pain naturally.

Exercise mediates pain

The way we perceive pain is complex. Many assume it’s a direct response to physical damage or injury – but it’s not that simple. The perception of pain involves numerous physiological and psychological factors that the brain must interpret. Depending on your general health, past experiences, and mental health condition, this can vary quite drastically from person to person. In other words – it’s your brain that decides how much or how little pain you experience.

Because of this complexity, external factors like exercise (and also pain medication) can alter how we perceive these signals. When we exercise, our bodies exhibit an increased tolerance towards pain, and a lower perception of pain intensity. This phenomenon is called “exercise-induced hypoalgesia” – and it works by closing down the gateways that allow pain signals to enter the brain. Certain medications can do this too, but when you exercise, you’re doing it naturally.

Exercise helps inflammation

Inflammation is a normal part of your body’s healing process, and it occurs when inflammatory cells travel to a place of injury. However, if inflammatory cells stick around too long, it can result in chronic pain and irritation. This is where exercise can really help.

When you exercise, your body experiences minor physiological stress, which triggers your body’s natural inflammatory reaction. During the inflammatory process, certain proteins called anti-inflammatory cytokines are produced. These protein chemicals help to modulate the body’s inflammatory response – ultimately reducing the level of inflammation associated with your pain. Inflammation can be both good and bad. When you exercise, you are creating “good” inflammation, which will naturally help to ease your pain.

Exercise stimulates endorphins

Ever wonder why a quick walk outside or a strenuous gym workout magically makes you feel better? It’s not your imagination. It’s something called endorphins – neurotransmitters released by your brain to alleviate pain and promote pleasure.

Endorphins are considered your body’s natural “opioids” because they interact with the same pain-inhibiting receptors in your brain that drugs like morphine do. But unlike morphine, endorphins are triggered naturally and don’t come with harmful side effects like addiction, drowsiness, or mental fog. Exercise stimulates the production of endorphins, boosting your mood, reducing stress, and giving you access to your very own stash of natural, healthy painkillers.

Exercise improves your mental health

Exercise and mental health share a powerful connection. It’s virtually impossible to influence one without the other.

Regular exercise stimulates the production of various mood-boosting chemicals, including endorphins (that we just spoke about) along with serotonin and norepinephrine. Aside from helping to control pain, endorphins are also considered a “feel-good hormone”.

They trigger feelings of positivity that, once again, are similar to morphine. Serotonin and norepinephrine are instrumental in alleviating symptoms of depression and anxiety. Therefore – when you exercise – it’s virtually impossible not to feel better. And since we know that pain is controlled by your brian – anything that improves mental health is going to contribute positively to your relationship with pain.

Exercise as a prescription

OK – so we’ve discussed the multitude of positive effects that exercise has on pain perception, inflammation, and mental health. But what if you’re currently suffering from an injury? Is it possible to still use exercise as a pain reliever? The short answer is yes. But it’s challenging to do on your own. You can’t just google “best exercises for back pain” and expect good results.

When it comes to using movement or exercise to rehab an already existing injury – it needs to be carefully prescribed.

For all the reasons already discussed, physical activity will still help you modulate pain – but you must consider the role exercise is going to have on any potential tissue damage. With weakened or damaged tissue, exercise is still an effective pain reliever, but it has to be prescribed or you risk worsening your injury.

For these reasons, I always recommend working with a movement expert who truly understands the nature of musculoskeletal pain and tissue healing. If you start a general exercise routine because you want to feel better – I applaud you – just make sure you’re getting your desired result.

But if you start exercising to help with pain and don’t experience any noticeable improvement – or you catch yourself modifying to work around your pain – then it’s time to enlist the help of an expert. Otherwise, you risk ending up on pain pills, which is exactly what we want to avoid.

Dr. Carrie Jose, Physical Therapist and Mechanical Pain Expert, owns CJ Physical Therapy & Pilates in Portsmouth and writes for Seacoast Media Group. To get in touch – or to request a free Discovery Visit to explore a solution for your pain or injury with a mechanical pain expert – visit www.cjphysicaltherapy.com or call 603-380-7902.

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Fitness

Vernon seniors personal trainer is moving to Anytime Fitness

Published

1 hour ago

April 3, 2026

Press Room

Vernon seniors personal trainer is moving to Anytime Fitness

New gym, same exercises

Photo: File photo

Vernon’s favourite senior’s personal trainer is on the move. For more than 25 years, Don MacLeod has been leading weight-resistance exercise classes for seniors.

Vernon’s favourite senior’s personal trainer is on the move.

For more than 25 years, Don MacLeod has been leading weight-resistance exercise classes for seniors.

And for the past eight years, MacLeod had taught classes five days a week at Snap Fitness in the Landing Plaza, but on March 31 that gym closed its doors, so MacLeod needed a new venue for his popular classes.

Enter Anytime Fitness in the Anderson Subdivision.

MacLeod said he is grateful to have reached a deal with the fitness club to carry on his morning exercise classes, and many seniors have already signed up.

While there are other gyms in Vernon that have seniors exercise classes, the certified personal trainer uses weight-resistance training to target all major muscle groups.

He will lead seven classes from Monday to Friday.

“It’s basic strength training,” MacLeod said of the exercises that geared towards the older crowd.

“We do everything that the bodybuilders and powerlifters do, but in a reasonable manner where we are just going to get our bones, our muscles, our tendons and ligaments stronger.”

MacLeod, 71, has also taken special courses geared specifically towards working with seniors.

Some seniors may feel too intimidated to go to a gym on their own, but MacLeod said seniors can find a common bond when they exercise in a group.

MacLeod said he has heard a few people say “what a waste of space” to hold senior’s classes.

“They really make life difficult for us. They think old people shouldn’t be in the gym, why are they lifting weights: to stay strong and to stay healthy,” MacLeod said. “One day, these guys are going to be old too.”

MacLeod said he started lifting weights in 1972 and continues to reap the benefits of regular exercise as he enters his 70s.

For more information, contact MacLeod at 250-260-1001.

Fitness

Hawaii fitness center combats Parkinson’s with exercise

Published

13 hours ago

April 3, 2026

Press Room

Hawaii fitness center combats Parkinson’s with exercise

HONOLULU (KHON2) — A local fitness center specializes in preventative training programs targeting a disease that impacts our kupuna.

Fitness Therapy Hawaii specializes in step-by-step preventative training programs targeting Parkinson’s symptoms.

In the program, patients get a clearance with doctors, work with physical therapists and prescribed medication.

“Science shows that once you get diagnosed as soon as possible, right? What exercise will do is help you keep those neurons firing, because Parkinson’s is a neurodegenerative disease. The longer you wait for these patterns of movement, you will die,” George Ma, Fitness Therapy Hawaii owner, said.

According to Yale Medicine, exercise is an essential component of Parkinson’s disease management, saying “high-intensity exercise induces brain-protective effects that have the potential to not just slow down but possibly reverse the neurodegeneration associated with Parkinson’s Disease.”

“When you get diagnosed with Parkinson’s, in the beginning, you have no hope. And then you come here, you do your tour, there’s hope. And then as they start moving through our exercise programs, they find purpose. And we have clients who have been with us for seven years at stage one,” Ma said.

Fighting the disease thats way might be intimidating to some… that’s why Fitness Therapy Hawaii lets caretakers work out with their loved ones.

Group classes are also available, which encourage socialization for what can be an isolating disease.

“In Hawaii, there is a stigma for Parkinson’s, and I think having a place and having that purpose and understanding that your fellow member has been fighting it with you,” Ma said.

Visit the Fitness Therapy Hawaii website for more information.

Fitness

The Gwyneth-approved exercise trend about to take over Australia

Published

1 day ago

April 2, 2026

Press Room

The Gwyneth-approved exercise trend about to take over Australia

March 31, 2026 — 7:00pm

Anyone who has ever done a HIIT class walks in with a certain set of expectations: loud music, burpees and muscles that will hurt a little afterwards.

What people might not anticipate is being encouraged to make as much noise as they can while doing sets of squats or told it’s OK to cry. But these are just a couple of things someone may be invited to try during a somatic exercise class, in which each workout is designed to help you look inward and release any pent-up emotions. (And yes, your thighs will still burn afterwards.)

Haven’t heard of somatic movement? According to some of Australia’s most popular fitness influencers and entrepreneurs, you’re about to start seeing it everywhere.

Laura Henshaw, co-founder of KIC, an Australian wellness brand opening its first fitness studio in Cremorne.Eddie Jim

What is somatic movement?

“Somative movement, in its broadest term, is movement that brings your attention and awareness towards the internal landscape,” says Imogen Sist, physiotherapist and head trainer at KICStudio, the first bricks and mortar space from Australian wellness brand KIC.

To explain the difference between internal and external outcomes in exercise, Sist uses running as an example. “Running can be very external, if you’re only looking at your pace or distance,” she says. “Or if we run as a somatic experience, we ask how it feels while we’re running, what sensations come up in our body, physical and emotional.”

By this definition, Sist says all exercise can incorporate somatic movement.

Actions such as rubbing your temples during moments of rest, paying attention to tension in your face and asking yourself how you feel while doing typical exercise moves, like star jumps and leg pulses, are what Sist believes make her classes unique.

“In a general Pilates class, you might disassociate and think, ‘Oh just get through this’, but this [somatic exercise] is very focused on how you feel while you’re doing each movement,” she says.

How it differs to somatic therapy

The term “somatic” comes from the ancient Greek word soma, which roughly translates to “the living body and its wholeness”, says Jennifer Lalor, Byron Bay-based psychotherapist, EMDR practitioner and somatic therapist.

According to Lalor, somatic therapy differs from traditional talk therapies because it takes a body and mind approach to healing.

“Whether it’s somatic exercise or somatic therapy, we’re trying to help people bring their attention to the life of their body in a way that can be self-healing and self-educating,” says Lalor, citing a theoretical example of someone who has been in a car accident and is now holding trauma in their mind but also in their body.

While somatic therapy is often associated with trauma recovery, in which a mind-body approach can be uniquely healing, Lalor says it can also be very effective for high-performance people, such as executives and athletes, who need to show up mentally and physically in high-stress environments.

And though somatic movement is not to be confused with somatic therapy, Sist says elements of the mental health practice are sprinkled into the classes she and other trainers lead. “We take learnings from those kinds of practices.”

The next big fitness trend

Few workout classes have a celebrity following quite like The Class, a “music-driven somatic exercise method” combining body weight movements with cardiovascular training founded in New York by Taryn Toomey in 2011.

In a 2020 interview with Toomey for Goop, Gwyneth Paltrow referred to the workout as “pretty incredible and pretty unique”, admitting she felt embarrassed the first time she did it, making so much noise. Emma Stone, Naomi Watts and Alicia Keys are also fans.

KIC head trainer Imogen Sist outside KICStudio, which will open its doors on April 18.Eddie Jim

While not the first studio to offer somatic movement classes in Australia, the April 18 opening of KICStudio in Melbourne’s Cremorne signals the trend’s move into the mainstream.

KIC co-founders Steph Claire Smith and Laura Henshaw are known for their holistic and inclusive approach to fitness, and this ethos will be reflected in the studio’s offering of four class types – all grounded in somatic movement – including HIIT, strength, yoga and breathwork.

According to Henshaw, the opening is the start of a national rollout program for KICStudio.

Trying it yourself

For visitors to KICStudio, classes may include using vocals during exercises (being loud is encouraged in the studio, which is mirror-free to help remove any feelings of self-consciousness), self-touch, breathwork and shaking – a movement Sist compares to birds resetting their feathers.

Once someone is familiar with the practice, Sist says, it’s easy for people to introduce these additions into their regular exercise routine, whether it’s while doing weights at home or on a walk.

“We’re always told as women we’re too loud and take up too much space, so we wanted to create a space where people can come and take up as much space as they want, be as loud as they want,” says Henshaw. “To find a practice that enables you to unlock that within yourself is electric.”

The writer travelled to Melbourne as a guest of KIC.

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