It is well documented that Cycling can help to improve your physical health, strengthen bones, increase your heart health, build muscle and assist in weight loss. However, it is a lesser known fact that Cycling can be massively beneficial for your mental health and wellbeing!

There are many types of activity that may be beneficial to mental health and studies have shown that as little at 10 minutes of ‘brisk’ exercise could help you to improve your general mood and mental alertness. Therefore taking the bike down the shops instead of the car could really brighten up your day.

Participation in regular physical exercise such as cycling could also increase your self-esteem and help to lift stress and feelings of anxiety - potentially improving quality of life and risk of developing mental health problems in the future.

There is further good news for commuters, as cyclists have been found to be more likely to report their journey to work as being, pleasant, interesting and exciting when compared to divers or public transport users. In addition ‘Green Exercise’ has recently been shown to help improve self-esteem and mood over exercising in doors.

The benefits of physical activity on mental health could be potentially life changing. Admittedly, we may be slightly bias toward two wheels, so if you feel like you may benefit from more information around #WorldMentalHealthDay and mental health in Wales please visit http://www.mentalhealthwales.net/ or http://www.hafal.org/.