Movement isn’t neutral. It’s shaped by culture, systems, and history. While it’s often promoted as a tool for mental and physical health, that framing doesn’t reflect the full picture—especially for people living with disability, chronic illness, weight stigma, trauma, or neurodivergence.

For many, movement isn’t a source of relief. It’s another place where the body is judged. Another space where rest is shamed, pain is glamourized, and ability is assumed.

Exercise culture often strips movement of meaning. It becomes about discipline, control, or aesthetics, not connection, rehabilitation, or care. That framing can make joy feel out of reach.

But movement doesn’t have to be a punishment. And it doesn’t have to be earned.

Movement and the Nervous System

Movement can support the nervous system—but not just any movement, and not for everyone in the same way. Aerobic exercise can support heart rate variability (HRV) — a key indicator of how well your body handles stress. HRV refers to the small variations in time between each heartbeat; higher HRV is generally associated with greater flexibility in the nervous system and better stress resilience. Studies have also found that movement can:

• Decrease cortisol, the body’s stress hormone
• Improve mood via endorphins (mood-lifting chemicals the brain releases), which may play a role in improving symptoms of depression and anxiety
• Support executive function and working memory
• Help improve body awareness or proprioception 
• Reduce symptoms of anxiety by giving your mind something else to focus on in the moment and taking attention away from the anxious thoughts. 

But what matters most isn’t intensity or duration—it’s consistency, flexibility, and meaning. Movement that supports regulation doesn’t push the body past its limits. It meets the body where it is.

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Why Movement Feels Complicated

Even the word “exercise” can activate shame for people who’ve been harmed by fitness culture, diet culture, ableism, or medical gaslighting. Common barriers include:

• Weight stigma: People in larger bodies are often excluded from movement spaces unless their efforts are framed around weight loss. Their movement is erased, dismissed, or pathologized.
• Disability and chronic illness: Most fitness models don’t account for pacing, flare-ups, mobility aids, or pain. Access is treated as an afterthought, not a baseline.
• Neurodivergence: Traditional exercise can be inaccessible for people with ADHD, autism, or sensory processing differences. Overstimulation, boredom, temperature sensitivity, and executive dysfunction can all create barriers.
• Trauma: For many survivors, being in the body doesn’t feel safe. Breathlessness, physical strain, or even increased heart rate can trigger the body’s stress response.
• Moral pressure: Mainstream fitness often frames movement as a matter of character. “No days off” messaging turns rest into failure. Burnout is reframed as commitment.

Naming these dynamics matters. It helps separate movement from systems that create shame and makes room for movement that’s supportive of individual needs. 

Joyful Movement Is Not a Trend

Movement that feels good isn’t about performance. It doesn’t need gear, big goals, or a gym unless you want it to. Whether it’s slow, sweaty, silly, or structured—what counts is that it meets you where you are.

Some people find joy and wellness through strength-based or high-intensity movement. Others through repetition or stillness. Some need music or sunlight. Others need quiet and solitude. There’s no one right way.

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Joyful movement might mean moving slowly and gently on your own—or training to compete. All are valid. What matters is that it’s chosen, not forced.

Joy doesn’t have to mean fun. It can mean ease. Release. Relief.

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A Gentle Framework: Let Movement Meet You

This isn’t a prescription. It’s an invitation to reconnect with your body on your terms.

1. Check for capacity. Is there any energy or space for movement today? If not, that’s okay. Movement is one wellness tool, not the only one.
2. Name the purpose. Some days, movement is for grounding. Other days, it’s to discharge stress or reconnect with sensation. It may be to achieve a goal. Naming the “why” helps keep movement out of the shame spiral.
3. Choose a style, not a rule. What does your body need? Stillness or rhythm? Solo or social? Indoors or outdoors? Options might include: stretching, swimming, dancing, walking.
4. Keep it flexible. Five minutes counts. One song counts. Moving from bed to window counts. Diverse needs mean diverse routines. 
5. Track how it feels, not how it looks. ​​Did anything shift? Your energy, your mood, your headspace? If not, that’s just data. Not failure.

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Bodies Aren’t Projects

Movement isn’t a moral obligation. It’s not a cure. And it’s not always accessible. But it can be reclaimed from systems that treat the body like a problem to solve.

When movement is rooted in shame, the body becomes a battleground. When it’s rooted in choice, it can become a place to return to.

If movement feels complicated, you're not alone. At VOX Mental Health, we offer therapy that can support this process—whether you’re rebuilding trust with your body, unpacking shame, or figuring out what movement can look like on your terms.

To learn more about exercise and mental health, visit: 

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/can-exercise-help-treat-anxiety-2019102418096

https://cpa.ca/psychology-works-fact-sheet-physical-activity-mental-health-and-motivation/

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