This week marks Mental Health Awareness week, and in this blog, we share insight and expertise surrounding the benefits of exercise on mental health, to help people be more informed and aware of how exercise can positively impact this.
A study published in JAMA Psychiatry by ISEH’s Dr Snehal Pinto Pereira, Associate Professor in Population Health and Applied Statistics along with other researchers, found a two-way relationship between depression and physical activity. They found that people who increased their weekly activity reported fewer depressive symptoms, while those with more depressive symptoms were less active, particularly at younger ages.
The authors followed 11,135 people born in 1958 up until the age of 50, recording depressive symptoms and levels of physical activity at regular intervals in adulthood.
Some key findings:
• The study suggests that activity could significantly improve the mental as well as physical health of inactive individuals.
• Leisure time physical activity has a protective effect against depression assuming the association is causal.
• If an adult between their twenties and forties who isn't physically active became active 3 times per week, they would reduce their risk of depression by approximately 16%.
• The effect of physical activity on depression was seen across the whole population, not just in those at high risk of clinical depression.
• The more physically active people were, the fewer depressive symptoms they reported.
• Each additional activity session per week reduced the odds of depression by 6%.
Dr Snehal Pinto Pereira shares: "This finding is important for policies designed to get people more active, because it suggests that depressive symptoms could be considered a barrier to activity in young adulthood.
"By contrast, increasing the frequency of activity consistently reduced depressive symptoms across the entire age range. Previous studies investigating activity as a treatment for depression have produced mixed results, but this large longitudinal study suggests that exercise has an important role to play for mental health."
Additionally, Dr Snehal Pinto Pereira talks further about the importance of participating in activities such as resistance and strength training in older age and said: “I think the fundamental point about resistance training and mental health in the context of an ageing population is that resistance training will help you remain independent for as long as possible. It will help you continue doing the physical tasks of daily living (e.g., carrying groceries, climbing stairs etc) on your own. This will massively contribute to your quality of life and therefore mental health.”
As we continue the conversation on this important topic, Dr Devan Thanki, ISEH Sports Medicine, Exercise and Health MSc student and London based doctor who has an Interest in preventive medicine, physical activity and public health, spoke to us to share insight about the benefits of exercise in depression.
Dr Thanki reveals his top tips to help improve mood and boost mental health:
1. Exercise acts as a distraction from what is causing depression, making you more focused on the activity than what is causing the symptoms. Improve on this by finding something you like doing - win win!
2. Sleep! There is evidence to say that exercise improves our sleep which in turn has a positive effect on depression.
3. Exercise has been shown to have a similar effect to medication at improving outcomes for those with depression.
4. Exercising or doing physical activity in a group has not only shown to improve symptoms of depression but also acts to protect against it. There is also the added bonus of having social contact with friends and family or even meeting new people!
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