BJJ Lifestyle is perhaps the biggest gift of training but regardless of the time you’re spending in bjj as soon as you commit to training seriously you start noticing the following changes about yourself:

You’re overall in a better mood and Handle Stress better

One thing we cannot brag about enough is the impact bjj has on mental health. Studies have shown that bjj can provide a powerful way to combat depression anxiety and PTSD – in some cases better than medication!

New Scientific Study Measuring Positive Influence Of Jiu-Jitsu on PTSD

US Marine Robert Consulmagno was seeking a peace of mind but as it turned out he was struggling from Post traumatic Stress Disorder – PTSD.

The usual practice for someone struggling is to get medication. Consulmagno was treated with medication for both PTSD and bipolar disorder. But he wasn’t all too satisfied with the medication he was given.

“When I was on it I was more depressed, suicidal, and hospitalized,” he said to mycentraljersey. ”Once I got off it, my life began to change.”

Consumagno’s life took a turn in the right direction about 4 years ago – when he took up Brazilian Jiu-jitsu.

There’s also a separate study that found Judo was an effective form of psychotherapy – as a psychotherapy the art of Judo, combined with appropriate group and individual process oriented therapy can be very effective as a form of psychotherapy to assist the patient cope better with, or overcome the symptoms of depression, some anxiety, and to help the person deal with anger issues more effectively.
This study has found that judo in combination with group and individual psychotherapy is successful as a therapy helping people who are suffering from depression, anger, impulse control issues, and anxiety. You can read all about that study here.

Your body Changes For the better

Regardless of the body and shape you start with grappling changes it for the better. For the first 3 to 6 months we all went through this process where it felt like our body was broken down into pieces and then reconstructed in a superior way.

Collection Of Greatest Weight loss Pictures Of BJJ Practitioners

You Gain Mental Strength

BJJ is much too often a battle of will.  Different aspect of this mental toughness is confidence.  We’ve all been in bad situations where it seems like there’s no place to go but tap but somehow we weasel out of it. A lot of the time this is happening because of confidence – the dominant opponent is doubting themselves therefore tinkering allowing enough room to escape a certain situation. But this goes both ways as well. Letting doubt seep into your technique can be a crippling experience.

You also have to learn to read the opponent. The sounds, face, breathing – all these small things could make all the difference. Reading about different coping techniques of the inferior bunch you hear all about those who shrug off, complain about a particular injury post tap or give some sort of an excuse.. but all this tom foolery is taking something that’s quite welcome to an unacceptable level. It’s quite allright to be a trickster just as long as you put your technique to work and not your words during or post festum.

Clark Gracie talked about how trickery was the one thing he was missing in his purple belt days:

On how important it is to be sneaky while rolling:

“Yeah being sneaky is, this is something that comes a little bit from parts of Brazilian culture  you know which is nothing to do with jiu-jitsu but comes from a word malandragem[in portuguese] and it’s like being strategical being sneaky being a little bit like crafty and I think because it came from Brazil it has that characteristic you know and I remember somebody telling me when I was like a purple belt like Clark’s really good but he needs to work a little bit more the malandragem – “

Malandragem typically translates to trickery. Gracie continued:

“And then I remember that I’m thinking like okay I’m gonna think about that and you know I first something is like, how am I supposed to work that? It’s something that only really comes fromt he time, you know, being sneaky being crafty being like you know setting things up in that way but I know with time it comes you start to feel like oh this position connects to this…”