Exercise for Mood and Anxiety

Exercise for Mood and Anxiety is a self-help book that falls into the sub-genre of wellness books focused on the body. Body books tend to highlight the benefits of exercise across various aspects of life, often encouraging the readers to adopt physical activity in their routines. These books may provide anecdotes, advice, and scientific research to convey their points. Accordingly, Exercise for Mood and Anxiety aims to guide the reader to achieve a consistent exercise plan. However, it does so by focusing on the emotional and mental effects of exercise rather than the physical ones. So, anecdotes and personal advice from the authors are much more prevalent than scientific studies, resulting in a more casual feeling similar to a direct conversation with the authors. Additionally, in many parts of the book, the authors prompt the reader to take action by providing strategies and even worksheets for them to complete. This allows the book to feel like a general self-help book on top of a body book.

Despite its self-help-like nature, Exercise for Mood and Anxiety rarely uses metaphors to describe its ideas. Instead, the authors place the reader in hypothetical scenarios by frequently using the word “you.” This allows the authors to speak directly to the reader and question them or spark ideas in their brain, perhaps making it more likely for the reader to take action. Additionally, compared to other body books, emotional words are more prevalent, especially positive emotional words. This creates a generally positive tone that directs the reader towards the hopeful achievement of their exercise goals.

Due to its casual language and easy-to-follow storytelling, Exercise for Mood and Anxiety is very beginner friendly. In fact, its whole aim is to take people who don’t exercise much, convince them of the emotional/mental benefits, and then guide them through the process of establishing a new exercise routine. So, this book will be very helpful for people who are seeking a new method to improve their well-being. Despite the focus on beginners, this book can also benefit those with more experience by providing an emotionally-focused perspective on exercise and loads of advice for strengthening daily routines.