Actress Zara Noor Abbas believes getting out and doing something physically is one of the keys to better mental health. The star posted a video on Instagram from the gym with a caption asking viewers whether they would choose “familiarity or evolution”.

In the clip, Abbas talked about her own mental health struggles, saying, “For the longest time, I didn’t know how to validate my feelings.” She said therapy works when it comes to that, but there was more that kept her going.

“I was working out at the gym and I realised, what is this thing that makes me feel happy, and that makes me feel validated,” the actress told her fans. She said she was feeling particularly good and wanted to share the “kick” she gets from “moving”.

Abbas was quick to point out that moving did not just mean mundane household chores you would ordinarily be doing in your life like “driving a car [or] cooking food”. Instead, what she meant by “movement” involved going out to a “designated place”. The actress also said, “You never really get out of depression.” Instead, she contended, you learn to “understand it [and] work on it”.

Abbas said the idea was to understand how to “control your anxiety and your triggers” and to keep doing that. She said there were a number of ways to do this, like “watching a good movie” or “talking to a good friend”.