Also known as the art of eight limbs, Muay Thai is one of the most fun martial arts that you can take on. Originated from ancient times, developed and fine-turned in battlefields, Muay Thai has proven to be arguably the most effective striking martial art ever developed. Muay Thai specialists often emerge victorious when matched up against equally skilled opponents from other striking-based combat styles like Karate, Boxing, and Taekwondo.
Muay Thai teaches you how to use your hands, elbows, knees, and chin as offensive weapons and shows you how to defend against similar attacks. It often involves working out of a clinch position with strikes, trips, and throws. It’s a significant advantage that separates Muay Thai from many other striking arts since clinch work is typically discouraged.
Muay Thai gets you in the best shape of your life, makes you more confident, and teaches practical self-defense techniques. Muay Thai also happens to be the ultimate stress buster that does wonders for your mental and physical health.
Here are 5 reasons why training Muay Thai is the ultimate stress buster that helps improve your academic and work performance:
Destructive therapy has been around for almost two decades, and it has been proven to help manage stress and frustration effectively. It’s gained a lot of traction over the years as “rage rooms” become more popular worldwide. Pent-up anger, frustration, and stress have been linked to various health issues like anxiety, depression, insomnia, headaches, and strokes.
Negative feelings like anger trigger your body’s flight or fight response, prompting a dump of chemicals like adrenaline all over. Regularly experiencing such emotions puts a toll on your body. It can also lead to harmful behaviors that affect you and those around you. Training Muay Thai gives you a chance to release all of your pent-up anger and frustration in a safe and controlled environment. You get to punch, kick, elbow, and knee all your problems away as you learn new techniques in class.
The intense exercise you get from training leads to feel-good hormones like dopamine released in your brain, elevating your mood. After each session, you’ll probably not remember your source of stress, since everything has been released and vented out. It’s a lot better than expressing your frustration at the wrong place and time since that can have legal, academic, and professional ramifications.
2) Improves Your Sleep
Training Muay Thai gives you an intense workout that gets rid of excess energy. These days, most of us spend most of our time slumped over a desk. By the time our day is over, our minds are exhausted, but our bodies still have a lot of pent-up energy since they have been resting most of the day.
Muay Thai provides a good mix of aerobic and anaerobic exercises that uses up any energy you have left in your body. When it’s bedtime, your body is ready, just as tired as your brain, leading to improved sleep quality. Getting a night of quality sleep is one of the most effective ways to manage stress levels.
3) Improves Your Social Network
One of the benefits of learning Muay Thai that might not be apparent at first glance is the many remarkable people you get to meet. You all have a similar passion – Muay Thai, which serves as a foundation for friendships and more. Your training partners become part of your support system that helps you to power through challenging training sessions.
As the bond with your training partners grows, some of them might become trusted confidants who can help you work through challenges you’re facing outside the dojo. Having the opportunity to socialize with people from all walks of life during your training sessions also helps you to improve your social skills.
You might find yourself becoming better at conversing with new acquaintances and interacting with those you know better. People who have strong social skills can better manage situations that often end up causing them stress. They tend to have less pent-up frustration since they are more adept, allowing them to communicate their concerns or emotions.
4) Trains Psychological Resilience
Learning Muay Thai requires you to focus and stay calm as you learn and execute techniques. It also requires you to make intelligent decisions while paying attention to all the chaos around you. Combat arts like Muay Thai have a lot in common with logical games like chess.
A sparring match or contest involves two participants imposing their will on the other. You have to pay attention to everything your opponent is doing and react appropriately to everything thrown at you while setting up your attacks. You have to be able to concentrate even when fatigue creeps in to increase the odds of winning.
Training Muay Thai improves your ability to multitask and make intelligent decisions in uncomfortable situations. As a result, your ability to perform under stress improves, increasing your overall threshold and lowering the chances of making rash decisions in a pinch. With an increase in your psychological resilience, you’re able to handle stress way better than before, not succumbing to the overwhelming pressure of work and study easily.
5) Reduces Muscle Tension
Stress not only affects your mind; it also affects you physically, as a result, your muscles start becoming tense because of the mental tension. That is why your arms and legs often quiver when you’re angry, anxious, or scared. Being in a constant state of stress often results in your muscles tensing regularly. In the long run, this could lead to effects such as regular tightness and muscle cramps.
Stretching exercises are a great way to lower stress levels. Learning martial arts such as Muay Thai helps release these tensions, through warm-ups and various techniques. Many moves and techniques you perform during training often stretch your muscles, while the intense exercise improves the flow of your blood, nutrient, and oxygen towards your muscle tissues.
Experience The Art Of Muay Thai
Wondering what a Muay Thai class looks like? Attend one of Evolve MMA’s complimentary introductory Muay Thai classes to find out.
Book your complimentary trial class with our World Champions below!
If you have any other questions regarding Evolve MMA and the programs we offer, you can get in touch with our membership executives at the following locations:
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