The Evidence for Exercise

Written By Jacob Brightwell

Exercise is an everyday activity that can be used to not only improve physical health, but mental health as well.

Exercise can take many forms

What is Exercise?

Exercise is something most people have heard of and know its something that helps to keep people healthy, but what exactly is exercise? It is perhaps helpful and necessary to distinguish between exercise and physical activity as the two terms are often used interchangeably.

According to the World Health Organisation physical activity is any bodily movement produced by skeletal muscles that requires energy expenditure and can include movements during leisure time, when getting to and from places, or as part of any work or domestic activities1. Basically anytime you move your body to undertake an activity no matter how big or how small that can be classed as physical activity. Excercise on the other hand is a form of structured physical activity with the specific objective of improving or maintaining physical fitness or health2. Exercise can be further classified into aerobic (e.g., running, cycling, or playing a sport like soccer) and anaerobic (e.g., lifting weights). The major differences between the two is that aerobic exercise uses oxygen as its main fuel and is sustained over a period of time while anaerobic does not primlary use oxygen for fuel, is more intense and cannot be sustained for long periods3.

Exercise and Physical Health

The idea that physical activity is good for human health has been around for a long time. The ancient Greek physician Hippocrates who is often considered the "father of medicine" exclaimed in the 5th Century BC “All parts of the body, if used in moderation and exercised in labors to which each is accustomed, become thereby healthy and well developed and age slowly; but if they are unused and left idle, they become liable to disease, defective in growth and age quickly"4. This perspective is often stated rather more bluntly in today's saying of "use it or lose it" - but the underlying principle is the same. One of the first modern studies that suggested Hippocates viewpoint was true found that coronary heart disease (CHD) rates were increased in physically inactive bus drivers compared to active conductors5. A vast amount of research undertaken since then has confirmed the positive health effects of exercise which include reduced blood pressure, greater cardiovascular fitness, weight loss, and the prevention of strokes and diseases such as cancer, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and osteoporosis6, 7, 8, 9. With the benefits of exercise on physical health confirmed; there has been a substantial increase in studies in recent decades to see if exercise has the same effect on mental health10.

Exercise can help with mental health

Exercise and Mental Health

One of the first notable studies exploring the link between exercise and mental health was when Greist and colleagues in 1979 examined whether running could an effective treatment for depression10. In this study individuals were assigned randomly to either psychotherapy treatment or a structured running program. The outcomes of this study suggested running could be just as effective as psychotherapy for moderate depression. Subsequent research not only confirms the positive effects of exercise on depression and low mood, but also suggests beneficial effects for diverse conditions like anxiety, alzheimers disease, stress, post-traumatic stress disorder (PSTD), and insomnia11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. While research has suggested exercise allievates symptoms in a range of mental health issues; the exact reasons why this happens is not known; although a range of possible explanations exist including increased endorphin levels, distraction from negative feelings and increased positive feelings through self-efficacy, lowering inflammation, and reduction of the hypothalamic pituitary-adrenal stress response17.

The Bottom Line?

Exercise has clear benefits for both your physical and mental health. While the reasons why exercise improves mental health are not overly clear, with the greater focus now shown on this topic our understanding of why and what works for whom will only get better. If you want to try an experiment go for a walk around the block now and see if your mood improves, after all you have nothing to lose.....but your health.

J. B Therapy can help individuals engage with exercise. Often There are a number of strategies and techniques that can be implemented that can not only induce sleep easier but also produce more restful sleep. Sleep is an essential activity we all undertake on a daily basis within our lives, it is important that we all get the best sleep possible, both our physical and mental health depend on it.


References

  1. W.H.O. (2024, June 26). Physical activity. World Health Organization. Retrieved December 6, 2024, from https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/physical-activity

  2. Acevedo, A. (2012). Exercise psychology: Understanding the mental health benefits of physical activity and the public health challenges of inactivity. In Edmund O. Acevedo (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Exercise Psychology, (pxx) Pages 3–8. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195394313.001.0001

  3. Patel, H., Alkhawam, H., Madanieh, R., Shah, N., Kosmas, C. E., & Vittorio, T. J. (2017). Aerobic vs anaerobic exercise training effects on the cardiovascular system. World Journal of Cardiology, 9(2), 134–138. https://doi.org/10.4330/wjc.v9.i2.134

  4. Ruegsegger, G. N., & Booth, F. W. (2018). Health benefits of exercise. Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Medicine, 8(7), a029694. https://doi.org/10.1101/cshperspect.a029694

  5. Morris, J. N., Heady, J. A., Raffle, P. A. B., Roberts, C. G., & Parks, J. W. (1953). Coronary heart-diease and physical activity of work. The Lancet, 262(6796), 1111–1120. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(53)91495-0

  6. Mikkelsen, K., Stojanovska, L., Polenakovic, M., Bosevski, M., & Apostolopoulos, V. (2017). Exercise and mental health. Maturitas, 106, 48–56. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.maturitas.2017.09.003

  7. Chekroud, S. R., Gueorguieva, R., Zheutlin, A. B., Paulus, M., Krumholz, H. M., Krystal, J. H., & Chekroud, A. M. (2018). Association between physical exercise and mental health in 1·2 million individuals in the USA between 2011 and 2015: A cross-sectional study. The Lancet. Psychiatry, 5(9), 739–746. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(18)30227-X

  8. Fentem, P. H. (1994). ABC of sports medicine: Benefits of exercise in health and disease. BMJ, 308(6939), 1291–1295. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.308.6939.1291

  9. Anderson, E., & Durstine, J. L. (2019). Physical activity, exercise, and chronic diseases: A brief review. Sports Medicine and Health Science, 1(1), 3–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smhs.2019.08.006

  10. Faulkner, G., & Biddle, S. (2001). Exercise and mental health: It’s just not psychology. Journal of Sports Sciences, 19(6), 433–444. https://doi.org/10.1080/026404101300149384

  11. Greist, J. H., Klein, M. H., Eischens, R. R., Faris, J., Gurman, A. S., & Morgan, W. P. (1979). Running as treatment for depression. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 20(1), 41–54. https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-440X(79)90058-0

  12. Noetel, M., Sanders, T., Gallardo-Gómez, D., Taylor, P., del Pozo Cruz, B., van den Hoek, D., Smith, J. J., Mahoney, J., Spathis, J., Moresi, M., Pagano, R., Pagano, L., Vasconcellos, R., Arnott, H., Varley, B., Parker, P., Biddle, S., & Lonsdale, C. (2024). Effect of exercise for depression: Systematic review and network meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. BMJ (Online), 384, e075847. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2023-075847

  13. Asmundson, G. J. G., Fetzner, M. G., DeBoer, L. B., Powers, M. B., Otto, M. W., & Smits, J. A. J. (2013). Let’s get physical: A contemporary review of the anxiolytic effects of exercise for anxiety and its disorders. Review: Exercise and anxiety reduction. Depression and Anxiety, 30(4), 362–373. https://doi.org/10.1002/da.22043

  14. Meng, Q., Lin, M. S., & Tzeng, I. S. (2020). Relationship between exercise and Alzheimer's Disease: A narrative literature review. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 14, 131. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2020.00131

  15. Childs, E., & de Wit, H. (2014). Regular exercise is associated with emotional resilience to acute stress in healthy adults. Frontiers in Physiology, 5, 161. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2014.00161

  16. Jadhakhan, F., Lambert, N., Middlebrook, N., Evans, D. W., & Falla, D. (2022). Is exercise/physical activity effective at reducing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in adults — A systematic review. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 943479–943479. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.943479

  17. Lowe, H., Haddock, G., Mulligan, L. D., Gregg, L., Fuzellier-Hart, A., Carter, L.-A., & Kyle, S. D. (2019). Does exercise improve sleep for adults with insomnia? A systematic review with quality appraisal. Clinical Psychology Review, 68, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2018.11.002

Jacob Brightwell
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