THE INFLUENCE OF EXERCISE ON MENTAL HEALTH

THE INFLUENCE OF EXERCISE ON MENTAL HEALTH

HIGHLIGHT

“We now have evidence to support the claim that exercise is related to positive mental health as indicated by relief in symptoms of depression and anxiety.”

Mental health as discussed in this paper by Dr. Daniel Landers, a leading authority on this topic, focuses on conditions sometimes considered to be illness states (i.e., pathological depression as well as conditions that limit wellness or quality of life (i.c., anxiety, low self-esteem). To aid the reader, some basic terms used in this paper are outlined in the boxes below.

Definitions

Anxiety. Anxiety is a form of negative self-appraisal characterized by worry, self-doubt, and apprehension.

Chronic. Chronic refers to something that persists for a relatively long period of time.

Depression. Depression is a state of being associated with feelings of hopelessness or a sense of defeat.

Clinical Depression. This is depression (see definition) that persists for a relatively long period of time or becomes so severe that a person needs special help to cope with day-to-day affairs.

Positive mood. Positive self-assessments associated with feelings of vigor, hapipiness, and/or other positive feelings of well-being.

State anxiety. State anxiety is anxiety present in very specific conditions. For example, state sports anxiety is present when a person is anxious in a specific sports situation even if the person is not generally anxious.

Trait anxiety. Trait anxiety is the level of anxiety present in a person on a regular basis.

The research on exercise and depression has a long history of investigators (Franz & Haamlltion, 1905; Vaux, 1926) suggesting a relationship between exercise and decreased depression. The findings indicate that the antidepressant effect of exercise begins as early as the fist session of exercise and persists beyond the end of the exercise program (Craft 1997; North et al., 1990). These effects are also consistent across age, gender, exercise group size, and type of depression inventory.

Exercise was shown to produce larger antidepressant effects when: (a) the exercise training program was longer than nine weeks and involved more sessions (Craft 1997; North et al., 1990); (b) exercise was of longer duration, higher intensity, and performed a greater number of days per week (Craft, 1997); and (c) subjects were classified as medical rehabilitation patients (North et al.,1991) and, based on questionnaire instruments, were classified as moderately/severely depressed compared to mildly/moderately depressed (Craft 1997).

Exercise used in combination with individual psychotherapy or exercise together with drug therapy produced the largest effects; however, these effects were not significantly different from the effect produced by exercise alone (Craft, 1997).

SUMMARY

The research literature suggests that for many variables there is now ample evidence that a definite relationship exists between exercise and improved mental health. This is particularly evident in the case of a reduction of anxiety and depression. For these topics, there is now considerable evidence derived from over hundreds of studies with thousands of subjects to support the claim that “exercise is related to a relief in symptoms of depression and anxiety.” Obviously, more research is needed to determine if this overall relationship is “causal,” and there is also a need to examine further some of the variables that are believed to moderate the overall relationship.”