Exercise to manage your mental health

How to manage my mental health?

This is one of the most searched question in todays fast paced world, where every person is struggling to manage their mental health. A research published by the University of South Australia, are calling for exercise to be a mainstay approach for managing depression as a new study shows that physical activity is 1.5 times more effective than counselling or the leading medications.

The British Journal of Sports Medicine has published a review that has encompassed 97 reviews, 1039 trials and 128,119 participants that has shown how physical activity has been extremely beneficial in improving symptoms of anxiety, distress and depression.

Specifically, the review showed that exercise interventions that were 12 weeks or shorter were most the effective at reducing mental health symptoms, highlighting the speed at which physical activity can make a change.

What are the benefits of exercise?

The largest benefits were seen among people with depression, pregnant and postpartum women, healthy individuals, and people diagnosed with HIV or kidney disease.

According to the World Health Organization, one in every eight people worldwide (970 million people) live with a mental disorder. Poor mental health costs the world economy approximately $2.5 trillion each year, a cost projected to rise to $6 trillion by 2030. In Australia, an estimated one in five people (aged 16-85) have experienced a mental disorder in the past 12 months.

Lead UniSA researcher, Dr Ben Singh, says physical activity must be prioritised to better manage the growing cases of mental health conditions. “Physical activity is known to help improve mental health. Yet despite the evidence, it has not been widely adopted as a first-choice treatment,” Dr Singh says.

“Our review shows that physical activity interventions can significantly reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety in all clinical populations, with some groups showing even greater signs of improvement.

What for of exercise helps managing mental health?

Even though, higher intensity exercise had greater improvements are suggested for depression and anxiety, while longer durations had smaller effects when compared to short and mid-duration bursts. It was also found that all types of physical activity and exercise were beneficial, including aerobic exercise such as walking, resistance training, Pilates, and yoga.

“Importantly, the research shows that it doesn’t take much for exercise to make a positive change to your mental health.”

Senior researcher, UniSA’s Prof Carol Maher, says the study is the first to evaluate the effects of all types of physical activity on depression, anxiety, and psychological distress in all adult populations.”Examining these studies as a whole is an effective way to for clinicians to easily understand the body of evidence that supports physical activity in managing mental health disorders.

“We hope this review will underscore the need for physical activity, including structured exercise interventions, as a mainstay approach for managing depression and anxiety.”

Read more on how you can have a healthy relationship with exercise.

Read more on how you can add yoga to your exercise routine to reduce hypertension.

Materials provided by University of South Australia. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference:

1. Ben Singh, Timothy Olds, Rachel Curtis, Dorothea Dumuid, Rosa Virgara, Amanda Watson, Kimberley Szeto, Edward O’Connor, Ty Ferguson, Emily Eglitis, Aaron Miatke, Catherine EM Simpson, Carol Maher. Effectiveness of physical activity interventions for improving depression, anxiety and distress: an overview of systematic reviews. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2023; bjsports-2022-106195 DOI: 10.1136/bjsports-2022-106195

Page Citation

University of South Australia. “Exercise more effective than medicines to manage mental health, study shows.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 23 February 2023. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/02/230223193417.htm>.